"Part of the fun of asking someone what movies scare them is that the answers tend to be unpredictable. Fear is individual, specific, and deeply felt: A person made anxious by the ocean may not be able to bear watching but be totally fine with the monsters-loose-on-an-island premise of Jurassic Park. Sometimes, a frightened reaction is inexplicable. But the most terrifying films are the ones that force us to question why we're so afraid at all-and what makes the image or moment on-screen so effective."
"Unlike Cesar Romero's Joker from the child-friendly TV Batman, cheery and inane,Jack Nicholson's version is fully monstrous-sneering and sadistic, his dead eyes obscene next to his rictus grin. But the quality that terrified me the most in the Joker was his unpredictability. He's an unexploded bomb, a hyena with a machine gun. His art form is chaos, and the unrestrained fear that chaos can provoke."
Fear is individual, specific, and deeply felt, with people reacting differently to the same cinematic images. Nine films illuminate unease by forcing confrontation with why certain images or moments provoke fear, using tactics from creeping dread to blunt provocation, dark comedy, and pathos. Common quality across selections is their genuine ability to terrify. A childhood memory recounts Tim Burton's 1989 Batman as indelibly frightening because Jack Nicholson's Joker embodies monstrous unpredictability and sadistic chaos. The Joker functions as an unexploded bomb—volatile, unrestrained, and capable of provoking fear through random, tumultuous acts such as the supermarket stunt.
Read at The Atlantic
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