Movies | Fear

The Exorcist (1973)

This movie has often been called the scariest movie of all time. After watching this movie in theaters, there are cases of people being hospitalized due to the horrors of the movie. In one case, the case of Mr. Lyle H., a viewer of this movie took three trips to the hospital after watching this movie and was eventually sent to get psychiatric help. He believed his 5 year-old daughter was possessed and that the devil would be angry with him for leaving the movie theater early due to his fear. He lost 15 pounds in the month since the movie, became an insomniac, and could not look people in the eyes because he was afraid that he would imagine them as the devil.

Before this movie, many people never considered the possibility of possession. This movie altered our paradigms greatly which affected our reasoning skills. People were instantly terrified of anything relating to The Exorcist, altering their behaviors.

Arachnophobia (1990)

As deduced from the name of the film, this movie caused prolonged cases of arachnophobia or the fear of spiders. The plot surrounds a small, incredibly poisonous Venezuelan spider which makes its way to California in a coffin from its first victim. Once in the US, the spider breeds with house spiders creating a hearty population of deadly spiders, previously unknown, which cause near-instantaneous death to their bite victims.

After watching this movie, many new cases of arachnophobia sprouted up throughout the country. Because the deadly spiders were so small, people began to obsessively check crevasses to ensure that there were no spiders. Although a fear of spiders is acceptable, the degree to which these viewers became paranoid caused this movie to be another emotion-altering film. It put the reasoning abilities of those who watched Arachnophobia into overdrive.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Even incredibly low-budget films have the ability to terrify its viewers. The Blair Witch Project was advertised as if it were pieced together footage from the found camera of three student backpackers which had gone missing in the woods. This independently filmed movie which cost only $35,000 was improvisational and the actors were unaware of the events that the crew were going to do to them. In interviews with some non-actors and some planted actors, the crew was told stories of the Blair Witch. Each morning for eight days, the director would tell the three actors to go to their next location and film. The crew would harass the actors in the night causing authentic fear and set up wooden cross-like figures to frighten them.

The authenticity of the actors' fear rippled throughout viewers. Our ability to relate to the emotions of the actors caused us to feel like we were walking in their shoes with them. This phenomenon prohibited our ability to understand the fact that they were all merely actors in a film. Because the Blair Witch was never actually caught on film, just strange actions by the characters and static on the camera in a cabin found in the woods, the viewers were left to their imaginations in the creation or disregarding of the terrifying Blair Witch.