I can not emphasize this enough: see The Testament of Doctor Mabuse.
The film has haunted me for the last two days – while watching it I thought, “oh yeah, nice, early Fritz Lang picture, some good shots, nice editing ideas, oh there’s something I haven’t seen before, oh look at that – that’s impressive, oh clever, hey that’s pretty creepy, holy crap, god in heaven, oh, oh, oh, that’s the scariest image I’ve seen in cinema, hey what’s that, is there someone else in the house?, what’s that noise?, I wish I wasn’t watching this at 1am in the morning, there’s someone here I know it, hello, hello, hello, oh god, oh.”
Some good insight into the visual and sound stragegies of the film can be found here.
See the Testament of Doctor Mabuse. You won’t forget it. Ever.
The Germans certainly have a knack for the creepy picture. “Nosferatu” remains one of the eerie-est of pictures I've seen.
In fact, I think horror / scary films were much better done years ago than they are today – is it because today's films primarily rely on “shock” scares instead of crafting a truly frightening image? “Freaks”, and films like the one you just suggested, seem to go far above visually than what most scary films of today are capable of. Maybe the black & white adds something to it…
For some reason 'Seesmic' seized-up when recording – here's what I had to say, (odd that it's on their website but not posted here: http://seesmic.com/video/IprwoiunKu
Finally watched 'Testement of Dr M' last night and thought it was great – made me want to watch M again. Only critcism – a little too much police/crime thriller and not enough scary Dr M. Prompted me tonight to go back another 5 years and watch 'Passion of Joan of Arc' (sat in my DVD cupboard for over a year and never watched). I can't believe how good it was – it completely lived up to its reputation.
Dr. Mabuse
Dr. Mabuse
[...] all, your great subject was crime – and by extension the evil that men do. Your ‘The Testament of Dr. Mabuse’ is the most frightening portrait of a criminal I’ve ever seen, (Dr. Mabuse would eat Anthony [...]