which I saw at a mates house when I was about 8 and couldn't sleep for days, because I was expecting Freddy to come into my dreams.
Second to that is a BBC play called "Ghostwatch". It was presented as a 90-minute studio based show investigating the paranormal. A kids-TV presenter (whom I adored) was in a house that was allegedly haunted by a guy called "Mr Pipes" who had terrorised the mother and her two daughters. About 40-minutes in weird stuff started happening (banging, objects flung about, etc) which got everyone excited until it was revealed that it was all being done by the eldest daughter. Re-lax. Back to the studio & they took a call from someone claiming to have seen "Mr Pipes" in some of the early footage from the show. They located the footage, played it back, & sure enough there was a ghostly figure of a man hovering by the door. At this point I absolutely pooed my pants! Then things started going really crazy in the house. Things were flying everywhere, the youngest daugher got a series of cuts up her arm and the picture kept cutting out. This built up to a massive crescendo which ended with the kids TV host screaming like mad before everything went black. Back to the studio and a terrible wind tore down the set leaving the host (a very respected TV-interviewer called Michael Parkinson) alone with a camera. He stared into it for a while before reciting a nursery rhyme then everything faded to black. TO say I was scared would be an understatement. I was completely suckered in by the show - convinced it was real & convinced I had just seen a lot of people killed for real. It haunted me for weeks.
Anyway, it came out on DVD about 2 years ago & I picked up a copy. I watched it with a group of people who hadn't seen it before & they all thought it was cheesy pap. I, however, despite the wooden acting, despite the fact I knew it was fake, still clammed up & got totally suckered into it again.
Since then I've seen a LOT of horror movies & nothing has touched me like those two. Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers" affected me on a certain level & I don't feel up to revisiting it anytime soon, despite being a huge fan of the guy. In recent years, it's more revulsion at what I'm seeing, than fear that I experience -- "Scrapbook" & "August Underground" / "Mordum" being examples.
I'm currently reading a book about Takashi Miike - the guy who directed Audion. He's incredibly prolific -- directing around 60 movies in the past 15 years of which I've seen about 15. He's returning to horror next year for a v. cool series on Showtime called "Masters of Horror" where everybody who's anybody is directing/writing a show. I only hope it comes to DVD over here. (
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448190/fullcredits)