Remember that time Unsolved Mysteries filmed and aired a real-life exorcism? Join me, and let’s get weird with Robert Stack!
I don’t think I’m alone here when I claim there was nothing scarier on Prime-time TV than the glorious sounds and visuals of Unsolved Mysteries. Tuesday nights were always reserved for Robert Stack with me and my grandmother and it was around the age of 7 when I had first laid my peelers on the majestic stance of the Stack and felt such excitement along with being scared shitless. Upon each week’s new episode of thrills, murder, and the paranormal after a fresh viewing, I would feel a sense of paranoia thinking escaped murderers were lurking in my backyard bushes. But, that was the magic of Unsolved Mysteries, and watching it again with adult eyes thanks to the likes of FilmRise and other streaming apps, only validates it’s just as creepy now as it was over 30 years ago.
Each featured case was substantially creepy on its own, however, one, in particular, stood out to me in memory apart from the 1987 Kurt Sova segment that literally gave me nightmares for a week; And that was the time UnsolvedMysteries scratched the infamous re-enactments regarding a supposedly possessed 29-year-old woman only known to the world as “Kathie”. Running almost like a mini-documentary, the crew filmed an actual exorcism performed on the woman, who claims to have been taunted by demons since her teenage years.
Kathie- “MYAHHHH!! I HATE YOUR PRAYERSSS!!”
Exorcist- “Shut up, Devil!”
I can totally laugh at the absurdity of it now but back then when it aired that shit was wildly weird and slightly terrifying.
The episode that first aired on June 11th, 1999, had Unsolved Mysteries pairing up with HOPE, (Hartford Office of Paranormal Exploration), who were initially contacted by Kathie herself. After years of both medical and psychological treatments failing her, her last hope (ironically) for relief was the seven-member group of HOPE. With over 100 prior cases of exorcisms performed under the team that includes a social worker, a psychic, a registered nurse, and the director of Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, the group visited Kathie’s home and conducted an interview with the woman before a decision was made that would warrant an exorcism. During the group consultation with Kathie, she seemed to slip into one of her possessive spells and began to curl and cringe her hands along with jolting her head violently. After the very strange interview, the group seemed to believe Kathie’s story and felt an exorcism was the right way to go. And Unsolved Mysteries was there to film the very controversial ritual.
Bless this damn program. Pun intended.
According to the officialUnsolved Mysteries fandom page, Kathie provided an update after filming that she did not require any further exorcisms and was able to find a job for the first time in several years.
I can only hope she’s a waitress somewhere, serving someone some pea soup right about now.
It’s one of the oldest horror movie tropes played in the genre-the jump scare. Some film snobs think it’s cheap, tacky, and just plain overused. I can agree to some extent that it can be used as a lazy way to scare the viewer without putting a lot of effort behind it, however, when done properly, it can elevate the movie to an entirely different level of heightened emotions that leaves us remembering that movie for pretty much the rest of our damn lives. As someone who lives with a debilitating anxiety disorder, the PTSD after a well-executed jump scare is one that I welcome, since I’m just an anxiety cucumber anyway.
You know, mostly made of water and anxiety. Actual photo of me in the wild.
Anyway, the jump scare is a fine art that shouldn’t be used lightly or in a cheap manner that attempts to compensate for poor storytelling in a shit-horror movie. It all comes down to proper timing and set-up for it to actually be a memorable that we, as the viewer, will take home with us thinking about it for days on end. Audio, for example, plays a big part in pulling off a successful startle. An auditory stimulus can be processed faster than a visual one. You can close your eyes or look away from a nasty image, but you sure as shit can’t close off your ears. Sound plays a crucial role in both parts of a scene that end with a jump scare—in both the buildup and the climax. Without sound, establishing an atmosphere of dread or apprehension is crucial for fulfillment, and can make the execution a little more difficult, but the pay-off is unremarkable and, truly, some of the best ones are silent. As stated, for someone like me who dreads the unknown, this is the way to really mess with us.
If you’re like me and jump out of your seat and start air-swimming away like a zany-cartoon character, I see you. And we’re going to honor those moments in horror movies where the jump scare goes from a bargain-basement scare tactic, to a fine art that acknowledges what a filmmaker can do with something simple as a noise or a sudden reveal. Remember-These are just my personal opinions and what has scared the crap out of me.
That being said, I want to start off with an honorary mention that is NOT a horror movie, but a recent series that literally had me throwing a chair because of this startle.
The Haunting of Hill House
I’m usually pretty damn good at predicting when a cinematic rush of adrenaline will happen, but this REALLY caught me off guard and fucked my whole night up. That being said, shout out to Mike Flanagan for killing me dead on my couch for this one.
Imagine going out into the night and seeing a figure coming towards you out of the darkness, and you learn that it’s your own bloated corpse staring right at you. This startled the ever-loving shit out of me, and I’m willing to bet I’m not alone here.
A perfect example of something so simple as a head-turn being effective and making you want to straight jump out of a window. This scene just elevated that whole movie and was worth the watch just for this alone.
The oldest on this list and one that still haunts me is Ben Gardener’s severed head discovered by Hooper. Paired with John Williams score, it’s just classic. I can also appreciate that this same audio was used in JAWS 2 in the infamous unrated helicopter attack scene.
The music set this scene up for perfection and had us thinking it was all over upon a first-time viewing. A tried and true classic that’s been both copied and parodied countless times because of its perfect execution.
One of the best things about this scene is when the blood reacts, it’s someone MacReady was not expecting, so he’s barely paying attention. It just comes out of nowhere for the audience, too. Fantastic work by Carpenter here, conditioning us into thinking nothing is going to happen and then BOOM.
The lawnmower scene got me REAL good, and it is pure magic my friends. The foreboding atmosphere that surrounds the set-up to this is one of horror’s finest pieces of cinematic art.
The appearance of what we all like to refer to as “Derpy Darth Maul” behind the head of Patrick Wilson has become one of the most infamous horror movie shots of modern times and with good reason. This scared the bejeezus out of nearly everyone who saw it for the first time. Now, it’s just hilarious to me, but that first go-around… OOOF.
I will forever champion this scene as one of the greatest, most tension-building set-ups of all time. The range of emotions you feel alongside Joaquin Phoenix as you stare in disbelief of what is unfolding right in front of you is an emotion I never forgot and sticks with me every time I see this.
Listen. I nearly melted into my seat when I saw this in the movie theater as a teenager and is a prime example of how a jump scare can be done brilliantly. Of course, for added effect, none of the actors in this scene knew Vincent (Sloth) was going to move, so those reactions are genuine and ripple down towards us the viewer because that shit was terrifying. Also, I just love how they draw their weapons like he’s a zombie or something like that.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, the nurse and hospital hallway scene from The Exorcist IIIis the Mona Lisa of all horror movie jump scares. I saw this in the theater when I was eight-years-old, folks. My dad took me to see this along with my uncle and cousin, not giving two shits that he was supposed to be taking me to see Three Men and a Little Lady, I mean that’s what he told my mom anyway. While I was too young to understand a lot of what was going on, I understood one thing quite perfectly- that William Peter Blatty could successfully make me squirt lemonade in my pants.
Nothing has ever, and possibly will ever, top the tension-driven slow-build of the climatic fate of Nurse Keating. The silence of nothing but the rustling of papers and doors closing per a normal night shift desk job, with the security guards milling in and out of the scene, times it up so well. We are lulled into almost boredom until it happens, and it then knocks us right out of our chairs. But perhaps one of the biggest payoffs, is the fake-out jump scare that happens right before the big reveal, tricking us viewers into thinking the danger is gone. PERFECTION.
Growing up in a horror household, there wasn’t a lot that scared me as a kid, being as how I was watching things like Halloween and Jaws in my diapers. However, and I still can’t explain why, Stephen King’s Silver Bullet scared the ever-loving piss outta me. And particularly speaking, this scene in general where Joe Haller is poking around in Reverend Lowe’s garage. The music really helped set this one up and I KNEW something was coming. In the end it scared the crap out of me anyway and gave me nightmares for 2 weeks straight. That being said, Silver Bullet became one of my comfort movies after the trauma subsided and went to sleep with it almost everynight a few years later when I was a little older. Some kids go to bed with some Disney shit on the TV, I went to bed with Gary Busey wrasslin’ a werewolf.
Comment below with some of your favorite jump scare stories and scenes!
Why yes, Freddy you are, just like this batch of horror movie sequels I’m about to slash my way through.
In most cases regarding film franchises and sequels to blockbuster films, a trilogy is usually the answer and the most notable way to wrap up a movie series. It’s pretty damn rare for a movie to break that trilogy trope, entering into a fourth film and beyond that. Well, the 80s slasher movies era, I’d say, are solely responsible for a pitfall of sequels that broke all the rules that came before it. Friday the 13th was the first of the slasher films to stick its impervious middle finger to the rule of three and laid out the groundwork for a brigade of horror movies to follow. Of course, they weren’t the first film property to ever do this, as the Universal Monster films along with the Abbott and Costello crossovers offered a myriad of sequels and continuities to their previous installments. Jason was just the one to resurrect the flow of sequels beyond just three.
And he’s really good at resurrecting shit. Including himself.
Myers tho… I never want to hear Halloween and Resurrection in the same sentence ever again.
Anyway, some of these part-fours are better than others, and in some horror franchises like The Omen and Psycho, Part IV was their downfall and a rather unsatisfying ending to their retrospective counterparts. However, as the slasher genre ran dug a rabbit hole of sequels that continues on to this very day with movies like SCREAM and SAW, they created a shift in the horror movie game saying that more is never enough and really changed the way things had happened up to that point, whether they continued in a positive way or not. That being said, let’s forego the bad and take a look at the five best Part Fours of the horror game that not only satisfied our craving for our beloved franchises’, but had us clamoring for MORE.
If you’re new here, I’m just gonna start with the goddamn obvious.
Holy Blonde-Haired Michael Myers, how I love thee. Let me count the ways. After the commercial failure of Halloween III: The Season of the Witch, Moustapha Akkad, took control of John Carpenter’s immortal classic and gave fans what they wanted six years after the third movie bombed with viewers- The return of Michael Myers as well, the title so boldly states so audiences KNEW they were coming to see Myers come back from what was certain death to fuck up the lives of everyone in Haddonfield. A disfigured Dr. Loomis is back and on the trail of pure and simple evil as he hunts down his only heir left-niece Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris), daughter of Laurie, who had died eleven months earlier.
Halloween 4 has no damn business being as great as it was, but it is, perhaps, the best of all these part fours’ mentioned. We have a beautiful aesthetic that puts the viewer right there in the film with you, not to mention one of the best openers to any horror movie- ever. Rachel (Ellie Cornell), a final girl who is terribly underrated and probably the most relatable and likable character of the whole film series. And a highly satisfying ending that WOULD have been the absolute tits had the franchise decided to move forward with Jamie taking Michael’s place, like an heir to the boogeyman throne. But ya’ know, Revenge fucked all that up, and gave us the Thorn storyline instead. If I wanted to watch a Thorn timeline, I’d watch The Omen movies, thank you very much.
Ahh, well at least we have this one, and I’ll die on the hill of stating that Halloween 4 is the absolute GOAT for sequels and nostalgia as a whole, what with all the 80s’ feel to it that just brings you back to your childhood on Halloween day and night. ERM, without being chased up on a roof by your crazy uncle, that is. Or maybe you had a weirdo uncle like that? I don’t know. Either way. It’s the best and you can’t tell me any different.
In that same year, the highly anticipated follow-up to Dream Warriors, which was a damn masterpiece all on its own, was delivered to our eyeballs at the peak of Freddy-Mania. Dream Master, which follows the last of the Elm Street/Westin Hills teens and their group of friends into a whole new nightmare, was the biggest audience draw of the NOES franchise, ranking in a box-office gross of almost 50 million-only to be surpassed by Freddy Vs Jason sixteen years later. Those numbers backed up the greatness that is Dream Master, giving us a fresh new spin on the Springwood Slasher by mixing in a bit of light humor with sheer terror.
Freddy’s sick sense of humor first appeared slightly in Dream Warriors, but he really took it to another level in part 4 with those one-liners.
Alice (Lisa Wilcox), the film’s new heroine, is much like Rachel Carruthers. She’s incredibly relatable, especially for us introverts, and a total badass who finds her strength within herself, and well, with the help of her deceased friends. Also, incredibly underrated and hell she shouldn’t be. Not many people escape the claws of Freddy and managed to do so not once, but twice. Alice rules and can stand shoulder to shoulder with Nancy any damn day of the week.
Plus, Dream Master has a Dramarama song in it. Automatic win.
This might be a hot take for some Jason fans out there, but The Final Chapter for me, is by far superior to part 2 and 3. I know many might not share my sentiment, but whether you agree or not, I think we can all unanimously be of the same mind that part 4 of the Friday the 13th films, rules, and it rules HARD.
I can’t really explain why I seem to favor this one over the previous two, not counting the original of course, but maybe it’s because since this was supposed to be the final Friday film, hence the title, they ramped up the gore, the kills, and the nudity along with some actual likeable characters you want to root for. The previous Friday films, did have some decent characters of course, but you weren’t crazy invested in them like perhaps Tommy (Corey Feldman) and his sister Trish (Kimberly Beck), who offered some light-hearted moments and even some character development throughout the movie. We also have Crispin Glover, who does a whacky dance that I think all of us horror fans have tried to replicate at least once, and the cool as hell Ted White as Jason, who, like others mentioned in this article, doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his contribution to the franchise.
The film also opens up with what I think is, right behind Jason Lives of course, as the coolest intro to ANY of the Friday films of the series. Nostalgic recapping of the first three movies in a homicidal instrumental montage? Yes please. We need more of these.
Saw IV, or The Continuing Adventures of Jigsaw, The Guy Who Really Loves Messing With This One Extremely Incompetent Police Department Who Can Never Catch Him, Even After He’s Already Dead. Whichever you prefer.
I think if you’re going to try and pass the torch from one homicidal maniac to another, SAW IV is a good example of how to do it and do it well. Part 4 of Jigsaw’s torturous tale is even more violent, if at all possible, than the previous three, and that says a lot when the third film has one of the most fucked up traps Jigsaw ever concocted-The Rack. Seriously, fuck that scene.
With John Kramer (Tobin Bell) and Amanda (Shawnee Smith) now dead, that doesn’t mean the punishments are over. Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) is still alive in the clutches of someone ELSE carrying on the work of Jigsaw and Agent Lindsey Perez (Athena Karkanis) and Agent Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) are brought in on the case. Lieutenant Daniel Rigg (Lyriq Bent) is being framed as Kramer’s helper so he goes on the run and finds himself in the middle of Jigsaw’s shenanigans in a game of his own. The movie ends with one of the most WTF twists not seen since the first movie and a violent death you’ll not soon ever forget. Really incredible writing and they went to such painstaking lengths to sort of sew everything together to provide us with an amazing degree of continuity.
Some people think theSAW movies are nothing more than torture porn. I say those people fail to realize the deeper messages sprinkled throughout the series. With SAW IV, it’s a clear criticism of health insurance in the United States and the logic healthcare uses to determine whether someone is fit to live. Inserting these sorts of commentaries within a film like SAW is not only ballsy, but brilliant.
Speaking of ballsy, truly, the most horrific scene in that film is John Kramer’s dick. That’s something no one wanted to see, you bastards.
While I’m not TOO keen on changing an entire formula of what made a movie works in the first place, I guess there’s only so far you can go with the premise of a killer doll and how many times his soul is going to get stuck in a pseudo My Buddy plastic body. So what do we do? Bring in his female counterpart who is definitely more crazy than he is, all the while worshiping Martha Stewart and making Swedish meatballs in between murders.
Chucky (Brad Dourif) is back thanks to his old girlfriend Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) and some voodoo for dummies. But the rekindled courtship doesn’t last long, and Chucky gives Tiffany a taste of his own medicine by killing her and transferring her soul into a doll, pretty much to spite her. The now fate-intertwined pair must both find human counterparts to finally free themselves, and the pair pretty much fall in love all over again while doing it.
I mean, it’s totally a toxic love, but hey, I’m here for the shit show.
Bride of Chucky is a far cry from the first film, as the original 1988 horror flick served to scare the shit out of people, and scare the shit out of us it did. But, I gotta say, adding Jennifer Tilly to the franchise and turning it into a campfest actually worked and it worked well. We laughed our asses off at the theater when this came out and I still do 25 years after the fact. I’ll never get over the fact this movie had the straight BALLS to have a doll sex scene. Well, shadow humping but still. It was goddamn weird and wild.
Bride of Chucky ushered in a whole new era for the killer doll without making it stale and it really was the smartest way to do it. Also paving the way for the Chucky series we have now.
Tiffany said it best, “Barbie, eat your heart out.”
As you can see, the power of four is not to be fucked with in the horror genre friends. Some other notable nods are The Final Destination and I’m gonna go there- Puppet Master 4 (hey it’s a fun movie, don’t judge me). Thoughts on my assessment here, nuggets? Or feel free to tell me I’ve lost my fuckin’ mind. Either way it’ll be fun time for both of us!
