Movies that make you eerie/ creepy

Movies can definitely affect emotion. Some movies make you happy, some make you sad, some make you…. creepy. It’s unique how movies can get you creepy… I’m not sure if everybody experience that, but having that feeling is very strange. It can’t be expressed in words. Everybody has his own personal experience. A movie that gets me creepy might not cause the same to you, and otherwise.

Having that feeling is different from having goose bump. Again, I can’t express the difference in words. One thing I could say about goose bump is that such sensation disappears once the movie scene is over. It is very short term. But creepy.... or eerie feeling does not necessarily give you goose bump, the feeling creeps on you during the show, and sometimes even after the movie is finished. It stays on you longer, and even if you see the movie poster months after you saw the movie, it gets you uneasy.

Below are some movies that actually got me that eerie feeling while watching. That feeling stays until now, even in a lighter scale.

NO. 1

Interview with Vampire.

Watched this movie with my family when I was on the fifth or sixth grade. We watched it in Pluit Plaza cinema on Saturday night (well, that cinema does no longer exist). I was under age to watch this movie at that time. However, I watched many horror films anyway, so I thought it’d be pretty much the same.

This movie turned out very very dark. I’d say it’s quite scary, but more than that, it was depressing and frustrating at the same time.

From when Brad Pitt was turned into vampire, to when Kirsten Dunst cut her hair but kept growing, and Tom Cruise’s wrist was cut with his blood streaming down to the floor, I thought this movie had given enough.

(This is Kirsten Dunst, she cut her hair but kept growing instantly)
Creepy level: Moderate










But the creepiness went even deeper when the young Kirsten Dunst brought a lady and asked Brad Pitt to turn that lady into vampire for her companion. The way Kirsten asked Brad Pitt was as if she’s asking Pitt to buy her a doll to play with! If that’s not creepy, I don’t know what term to use to describe it.

There's a single scene which can’t get erased from my memory, it was when Kirsten Dunst and a young lady were imprisoned in a chamber with an open roof. When morning came, sunshine burned and turned them to ashes, it was shown literally and visually. It’s so depressing. Everytime I see the movie poster in DVD stores, that scene reappears on my mind.

The ladies are burned by sun and turned to ash while holding each other. Look at the lady's expression... she still got it
Creepy level: Very high

I left home with a lot of thoughts on that movie. I was still thinking how people (vampires) can be burned to ash like that. I was thinking the immortality of the characters. I was thinking what the vampires were doing if they’re still alive. I was thinking how lucky they were to experience the modernization, to see the civilization changed over hundreds of years, but how unfortunate they were that they lost their loved ones behind… and outlived them…

Those thoughts were circling in mind until I went asleep that Saturday night.

By the way, Antonio Banderas was in the movie too...















Pitt was not so famous back then. If today we have a movie where Cruise and Pitt are starring together, it would be a super box office...
These are them preying for fresh blood.

















NO. 2

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Robert de Niro and Kenneth Branagh)

















I even forgot how I ended up watching this movie in cinema. I suppose I read the review in Kompas newspaper, then I was attracted to the story line. I had no idea who Robert de Niro was, not to mention Kenneth Branagh. I didn’t even know Mary Shelley was the author of the novel. In fact, I didn’t even know it was based on the novel at all. I thought that Marry Shelley was a character played by Kenneth Branagh, and he/she created Frankenstein (yes, I thought the creature’s name was Frankenstein, only later than I learned that it’s the name of the creator)

Initially, I only had image of this Frankenstein’ creature mind:
Creepy level: Very very low

This Frankenstein’ creature is often mocked in cartoon films. It’s far from scary.

This is Robert De Niro... on his normal days.. off course.
Creepy level: None

This De Niro as the creature....

Creepy level: Very high (you should watch the movie yourself to feel it)

De Niro’s creature brings a lot of emotion into the film. You’ll hate the creature for disturbing Frankenstein, the supposedly protagonist of the movie. You’ll hate him for chasing Frankenstein’s wife and killed her (the creature shows her ripped heart to Frankenstein after the killing). You’ll think what he did was totally inhuman and insane. But at one point, you’ll understand that he is not a human being after all. He is created. He has no moral standard, no conscience and we can’t blame him for not having them. Then you’ll think reversely, that Frankenstein is actually the antagonist, he’s the immoral man who created such creature and gave it a life and that Frankenstein deserves to be punished. A turning point occurred when you actually felt empathy toward the creature, it happened when it learned to speak like human.

This movie will mix your feeling and it will leave you wondering who’s actually good and bad and will even question yourself if we can judge wisely.

This movie got a heavy eerie atmosphere. The music, the colour and the look of the movie were as if it’s in dark ages. When Frankenstein created the creature, he assembled many body parts from dead bodies, stitched them one by one. It was shown on screen. It’s not something that you’ll forget once you finished watching.


NO. 3

Tales from The Crypt: Demon Knight


















Two things that make this movie creepy:

1. Billy Zane
When I watched Titanic (Leonardo's version), I recognized Billy Zane from Tales from The Crypt.
He has that psychotic look that you makes you aware that there's something wrong with this guy's personality, only you that you can't tell which.

Look at this picture below. From that look on his eyes, you'll realize something is wrong with this guy...
If you still think he's just fine, buy the DVD and watch it yourself...













2. The background story.
This movie elaborated its story back to when Jesus was crucified.
It was disturbing for me imagining a fact that blood of Jesus was kept and handed down from one generation to the next for 2,000 years.

3. The Crypt Keeper
In the movie, this creature is actually alive and tried a career as a film director...
He even attended his movie premier...

This is him walking on red carpet attending a premiere... the fiction character suddenly jumped into real life... ergggh....








4. Location.
It's about a group of people staying in a motel. Out of nowhere, a group of monsters comes to devour them all. The motel is in a remote location surrounded by nothing.
It simply adds up the level of desperate and hopelessness... really makes me uneasy..
Not a movie you'll want to watch again...

Col. Miles Quadritch

Who's Col. Quaritch anyway?

When I finished saw Avatar (2009), I did not even remember the name of the character. But for sure I was impressed by the great determination of the character to accomplish his duty and how dedicated he is to his job.
Col. Quaritch is the main antagonist in the movie, I'm sure you'll remember actually this figure















A thought came on my mind after I watched Avatar. Col. Quaritch is not a pure bad guy at all. He's two dimensional. He could be a hero if he's on a right side. He could be a great protagonist. The fact that he's on the marine side, which in this movie is the bad guy, made him then a super antagonist.

I am left more impressed with Col. Quaricth character than Jake Sully's (Sam Worthington). The colonel's character seems so well embedded in this movie that Stephen Lang (only know this name after I watched Avatar) seems to be born for this role.

The colonel is so committed and dedicated that there are two scenes I still clearly remember. First is when he shoots at the stolen helicopter, he kicks the door, gets out of the room with no oxygen mask on, focused on shooting the helicopter until one of his men gives him a mask. Even after he wears it and breathes, his eyes are still locked on his target!!

Second scene is at the final battle when his ship is shot down, he runs to his robot suit with a fire still burning on his left arm. He simply scrubs his left burning arm with his right palm, putting off the fire, and he did it without even looking! He is only focused on wearing his robot suit.

The movie was played on HBO recently and near those scenes, I purposedly waited just to see the scenes again. The similar determination is shown by Robert Patrick in Terminator 2. When Robert was running chasing Arnold, Edward and Linda Hamilton, he was so focused that he did not look anywhere else when he ran. Not sure if this is a coincidence, but both Terminator and Avatar are directed by James Cameron.

The above Avatar scenes did left impression not only on me, but also to other viewers out there. I once read on internet that someone was so greatly inspired by these scenes that the determination of Col. Quaritch helped him overcome obstacles in his life...! He wrote in his post that he learned to focus on resolving his problems and when he feels down, he keeps his determination like the Colonel did.

What a strong a character it is that it can inspire people.
There's even a fan creating a facebook account dedicated to his character.

This is the colonel having a sip of morning coffee with his eyes locked on his target

Scent of a Woman

Scent of a Woman (1992) is probably the best drama movie I’ve seen so far. I never liked a drama movie until I saw this film in 1997, 5 years after the movie was released. I used to think drama movie is a waste of time and really boring especially those in the Oscar list….. and Al Pacino got an Oscar for this movie! So I thought this movie fulfill all the criteria of being a boring one….

I was never aware of the existence of this movie until it was aired on a local TV channel, RCTI, in 1997. It was a Friday night movie, played on 9:30 pm. I was about to go to bed after preparing my books for school on the following day (yes, students still go to school on Saturday that time), and this movie suddenly appeared on TV. I saw Chris O’ Donnell in the opening credit. I saw him before playing Robin in Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, so I thought I’d just see his older movies for a few minutes. I was never attracted to any Al Pacino’s movies, so I did not care that he was in it.

Planning on watching it for just 15 minutes, I was dragged by the story and watched it for 2 hours! The point that I decided to stay on watching was the scene when Chris O’Donnell met Al Pacino for the first time. Al Pacino, as a visually impaired retired lieutenant colonel, has a very unusual personality and character that I’ve never seen in any other movies. His character has negative aura that make me dislike him, very rude, without manner. On the other hand, Chris O’Donnell, who was a high-ego superhero as Robin, is the other way around. Chris is very low profile, subtle, well mannered, and as the temporary caretaker for Al Pacino, he seems awkward and confused dealing with this retired colonel who always screams out loud when he speaks.

I never watched Al Pacino in his other movies at that time, I never watched Godfather. So, seeing him for the first time in this role was something refreshing for me. I kept watching this movie because I was interested in how the two characters deal and communicate with each other. The story got more interesting when Pacino took O’Donnell to New York without any preparation and he just followed the lieutenant not knowing what was going to happen. Interestingly, what is supposed to be O’Donnell taking care of Al Pacino became otherwise, Al Pacino is actually the one guiding O’Donnell, his caretaker, in a philosophical way.

O’ Donnell character is interesting; he had to overcome two problems. First, dealing with this “don’t know how to handle” lieutenant, and he has his own problem with friends in his school, whether to report them to principal for their misbehaved conduct or being expelled from school. As he accompanies the lieutenant, he’s also struggling with his own personal problem. As the story goes, the lieutenant, who’s been giving O’Donnell nothing but trouble, somehow becomes a father figure to O’Donnell. The lieutenant has this hidden wisdom that he sees O’Donnell personal problem from a different view.

The film ends greatly in an unexpected way, Al Pacino delivered great speech, this is one of the best speeches I’ve ever seen. Speeches are usually delivered in sport movies as the coach motivates his men, somehow it has become generic. The speech given here is even more powerful than those. Later after I saw the movie, I searched on internet to know exactly the word by word in English.

This is one of great lines in the film during Al Pacino’s court speech:

“There was a time I could see. And I have seen, boys like these, younger than these, their arms torn out, their legs ripped off. But there is nothing like the sight of an amputated spirit. There is no prosthetic for that!!”

Scene of Al Pacino's speech:

In addition, there's a scene where Al Pacino wanted to tango with a young lady. His visually impaired condition did not stop him from dancing!

The scene where Al Pacino does Tango with Gabrielle Anwar is one of the most memorable scene I’ve ever seen.

Soul Surfer

I saw a DVD of Soul Surfer being placed on a drawer at my house. I suppose my sister bought it and put it there. Having seen Blue Crush before, a breathtaking movie about surfing, I became curious on this one and decided to watch it a few days later.

In the beginning, I had no expectation on this movie at all. Having seen Blue Crush years ago, I simply think it'd be difficult for other surfing movies to compete. When I saw Blue Crush, I was really stunned by the photography, surfing scenes were beautifully captured that I still wonder how the cameramen could do that.

Blue Crush poster

Back to Soul Surfer, what made this movie good is very different from Blue Crush, it's not the photography scenes, but the story. When the movie begins, there seems no clue where the movie is heading. It only tells viewers a family that enjoy surfing, a family with strong bound and care for each other. It takes about 20 minutes to take us to a point when we suddenly realize what this movie will be about.

What makes this movie good is the characters. While I thought this movie to be full of boys and girls showing off their surfing skill, muscular shaped figures, and slow motion beach running scenes like Baywatch series, it turns out really far from that. All characters seem to be naturally human, caring for each other as a family and friend. I'm glad that Kevin Sorbo (the guy who played Hercules in the series) is in the movie. I've only seen him kicking people and fighting gods, but he's so much more milder in this role.

The movie focuses on overcoming difficulties together, not about showing off their strength and power. There are some encouraging words delivered by the characters, they could sound a bit cliche at times, but I can still take them, and actually, some words are in fact quite inspiring.

All in all, it's a good family film, don't expect too much, just let the movie flows. It's not a world class surfing movie, but a decent and entertaining one.

Con Air

Con Air is without a doubt the no.1 action movie on my list. The moment the movie ended, I knew that I just watched a top-notch action movie that any others would hard to match.

I'm a fan of many Bruce Willis', Arnold's and Stallone's movies. I've watched Die Hard, Speed, Air Force One, for I don't know how many times but there's something different about Con Air. First time I saw the trailer, I associated this movie with Van Damme's Universal Soldier or Dolph Lundgren's Joshua Tree. They are all action movies located in desert. Con Air's trailer looks like just another one of those which didn't impress me in the past.

It was a Monday afternoon that after I went home from school, my sister asked if I wanted to watch Con Air in cinema. I was reluctant, but I thought at least spending hours in mall and cinema would be better than spending it at home . So there I was in cinema, expecting a so-so action movie just to kill time.

Con Air started with a fast pace, it described Nicolas Cage as a ranger going home from war and after being situated at a difficult condition, he was sent to jail. The story played during opening credit efficiently tells the background that would propel the story forward. The story is simply about a man trying to go home after being released from jail.

What makes Con Air so great is Nicolas Cage's acting. Movies usually show people going out of jail acting cool as a tough guy, but in Con Air, just look at Cage's scene when he got off the prison bus, he looked above, closed his eyes and absorbing sunshine and fresh air. It was a very short scene but this kind of scenes make this movie different.



The character that Nicolas Cage plays, Cameron Poe, does not need tattoos to show he's tough, does not need a pair of killer-eyes look to look fierce. The character is tough in a subtle way by nature and shows confidence. In a hangar scene in the mid of the film, in mid of chaos that the situation could only get worse, I particularly like a scene when John Cusack asks him "What are you going to do?" Cage replies "I'm going to save the f***ing day". Then he turns around and leave. It was an awesome scene, a simple answer with a great determination.

After the scene in which the airplance landed in Vegas, I thought the movie's over and I prepared to go. Unexpectedly, there are additional minutes that left me totally stunned, minutes that I won't forget for the next 14 years. (at least that's how long it's been since when I write this). It's going to change my lifestyle. What lifestyle?? We'll go into that next.

I was overwhelmed by the motorcycle chasing scene. Cage climbed up the ladder of a firefighter's truck, he dangled on it with one arm... he was hanging with one arm!!! Before the chase is over, Cage jumped onto the road leaving the firefighter's truck explode behind. I was truly in awe.That scene was so powerful that a man sitting in front of me in cinema murmured "ck ck ck".

One of the best action scene ever...

The movie ends with a heartwarming family reunion scene. I felt the emotion of the film. I read on internet that some people actually cried watching this scene (you can google it).

The music of this film is also powerful, it adds the adrenalin to the scenes, the electric guitar tones are so firm and escalating the tension. Great soundtrack that when actually I saw the movie, I enjoyed the music so much.

I left home that afternoon with the scenes still in my head. Now, back to that lifestyle.... the following year, I joined a gym. I actually went to gym when I was in junior high, then stopped after a year. But I went back in 1998, I was 16 years old, a year after Con Air was released. I challenged myself to do the what's so called "pull up" workout in fitness. It means hanging on a bar with two arms then raising your arms to carry your body up, like in the army. I got to do it after joining gym for a few months.

That's when I realized how strong it already affected me. I watched Stallone's movie "Cliffhanger" in 1993, there was many scenes of Stallone doing pull ups with one arm, but those scene never actually inspired me to do one.
Like I said, something's different about Con Air.

This is one of the scenes that challenged me to do pull ups!!