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besmellah — 16 years ago(July 28, 2009 10:36 PM)
There are so many creepy parts in this film that it's still pretty difficult for me to watch it at the house alone at night. I'll agree with the most common replies: the man in the window, the foot/handprints that just stop in the sand. Those were definitely creepy parts.
There's one part when it's a stormy night and Mary gets out of bed to look out the window. The zoom-shots onto the pavilion, and especially the zoom-shot from the pavilion out toward the sky and terrain in distance, were just downright chilling to me. Beautifully done.
Another small part that's creepy is during the scene when Mary's watching all the souls dancing together in the pavilion. It's just after the couple (of Mary and the man) dances toward Mary and the organ-music stops abruptly: that very last shot of them, which leads to Mary screaming and the souls chasing her, is just freaky beyond all hell. Just the way that single shot was filmed and timed is awesome -
jokeco68 — 16 years ago(January 17, 2010 11:13 AM)
I agree. For me it was the shots of the Saltair pavillion as well, I read in the trivia section that the real pavillion outside of Salt Lake City was seen by the director and inspired him to make this movie. I can believe that, for some reason the place just struck me as really eerie and creepy. Fantastic movie, sometimes I think being in B&W adds to the creepiness just like Blair Witch Project.
Everyone gets everything he wants. -
besmellah — 12 years ago(October 31, 2013 03:07 AM)
A few years ago I passed through Salt Lake City with some friends on a trip to Oregon, and I was finally able to see Saltair in person. I knew it wouldn't be like it was in its glory days but, holy hell, the place looks horrible. Seriously it's like a Home Depot with onion domes now.
But the whole experience was eerie in its own way: the lake stretched out desolately, very few visitors and very little life, there was this incredible stench of decomposition and a few bird carcasses on the shore, and the weirdest thing was the literal clouds of thousands of tiny flies, so many that you could hear the collective hum as they moved across the sand. -
jt-hix2112 — 16 years ago(December 15, 2009 12:01 PM)
Movies don't usually scare me, but this one came close. I was watching it in the daytime, but I would have been more creeped out if I were alone in the dark.
The creepiest part for me is when they show all the ghosts dancing and the film has been sped up. The the Man walks up to the camera and his face fills the screen.
Nothing bothers some peoplenot even flying saucers -
MeekerBeeker14 — 16 years ago(February 16, 2010 01:46 AM)
There were two quick parts that made me jump:
- When she looks down the stairwell and The Man is just staring up at her with that creepy smile.
- When zombie Mary and The Man dance toward herthe way that last, single frame was filmed, how they looked like these puppetsthat was just too eerie.
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MrBook_ — 15 years ago(November 01, 2010 10:22 PM)
Definitely the freakout while she was playing the church organ. The cutaway near the end of it when her hands were moving in little circles on the keyboard of the organ gah! It's creeping me out just thinking about it. Just seeing someone in such an out of control state, doing something in the external world while so wrapped up in those awful visions It really gets under my skin.
Also the very first vision, in the car window, as many others have mentioned. Something about the impossible kid-logic of something that can't be there but is there anyway really pushes the old creep button. And the Man coming up behind her and kissing her neck, that was unnerving as hell especially when she turns around and goofball from across the hall is still ten feet away; he was never even near her! That's the sort of little touch that really pushes this film over the edge.
This is my new sig. Do you like it? -
BIOSphereopts — 15 years ago(December 13, 2010 08:43 PM)
As I was reading everyone else's comments, I kept thinking"yeah yeahthat one too" But for me, when I first saw the movie, it was the "Ball" in the pavilion. The part where it sped up.
Also, just those lonely long shots of the abandoned pavilion. It really gives your imagination something to run with.
I may not have a big tricked out name tag, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night. -
Echo_in_big_sky — 14 years ago(October 25, 2011 02:50 PM)
I think when she climbs out of the water after several hours is pretty creepy. It's also creepy to think that she interacted with all those people while
she herself was already dead.
The organ music was creepy and everything about the quality of the film, low budget in nature, lent itself well in actually working for the picture.
Always the officiant, never the bride.
http://www.withthiskissitheewed.com -
babssherman — 14 years ago(October 29, 2011 11:09 PM)
For me, it was the neighbor from across the hall.
He really wanted to date her HARD and REPEATEDLY.
LoL! Yeah he totally gave me the creeps. Btw, was he played by the same actor who played the zombie "Man" throughout the film? Looked as if it could have been the same guy only with a lot of zombie make-up on.
EDIT: I'm seeing on here and elsewhere that Zombie Man was played by the director, and unless the director also played creepy neighbor guy, I'm guessing it's not the same actor. Is weird how they kinda look similar though.
Really any scene with that zombie dude were freakybut the ones that really affected me were (1) where you see the zombie guy in the Pavilion, looking out the window at her, just waiting, cause he knows she'll be backand (2) (especially!) where she and creepy neighbor guy come home from their date and she looks in the mirror and sees Zombie Man nuzzling her neck. Mehhhhhh! I mean, Zombie dude is clearly a threat to her, but those scenes just added a whole possessive/sexual element to it that made it really intensely creepy/uncomfortable. -
tmjsykes — 14 years ago(November 16, 2011 02:09 AM)
Lots of great comments on this thread.
For me, the most creepy things in the film - and the things that make it special - are the subtle ways it sets the atmosphere, rather than the scary moments that make the heroine gasp or shriek. Generally, it is when she is icy that she is at her best.
The organ music is incredibly effective, putting the mood of the film at a strange pitch between the solemnity of church music, the wildness of possession and the whimsy of the fairground. Above all it is the music that makes this film so haunting and I love that scene where she begins practising and then the music of the dead takes over.
COS is eerily dreamlike in its sound and visual effects and the old pavilion is a wonderfully evocative setting. The first shot of its silhouette is a powerfully ominous image. And I love the way its sinister secrets are only implied when it is visited the first two times: we see it bathed in sunlight, the music doesn't instruct us to expect someone to jump out on her, not much happens (she doesn't see The Man leering out of the water - actually, I'd rather not have seen him either). A matress comes down the slide: it's strange but not necessarily supernatural.