• Nov. 1, 2006 | 12:40 p.m. PT

Readers' scariest moments

Sure, Halloween's over now, but I still wanted to publish a selection of your nominations for scariest things in the world, reacting to this Test Pattern entry. Spooky!

MOVIE VISUAL
“Scariest movie visual: Definitely when the girl crawls out of the TV set in “The Ring.”  --Laura

“The scene that creeps me out after 30 plus years is in “The Haunting”. The young girl is laying in bed when she hears terrible noises. You “hear” her thoughts. She is saying, “oh I am so scared, thank God I can hold your hand” the noises stop and she turns to thank her roommate for the support and there is no one there! ok...I gotta go turn on all the lights now.”    --Robyn

“I think you need to add “Wait Until Dark” as Scariest Movie Moment - when Audrey Hepburn had knocked out all the lights, but didn’t consider the light from the fridge & the killer jumped out of nowhere at her - I (and many others) jumped right up out of my seat.”    --Sheila

MOVIE DILEMMA
“Scariest movie dilemma: I would say “The Blair Witch Project”, knowing your being followed by something you cant see, AND being totally lost.”    --Laura

FUNNIEST TWISTS
Funniest twist on a horror-movie staple: “Scary Movie 2”, the beginning the spoof on “The Exorcist”, she starts throwing up, then the priest starts throwing up back on her.”    --Laura

“For funniest twist on a horror movie, I have to go with The Simpsons “The Shinning” which was the spoof on The Shining. Best part: “No tv and no beer make Homer go crazy”…”    --Andrea

SHORT STORY
“I heard a twist on the scariest short story: The last man on earth sat in a room. There was a lock on the door. I have not seen the entire movie but scenes from the Grudge are definitely creepy.”    --Bill

“Scariest short story: Again, by Stephen King, his short story “The Mist”. The military tear a hole into another dimension (hell?) and all kinds of awful creatures come through and trap a man and his son in a grocery store. They escape with another person, but is unable to get back home to his wife, so they drive trying to find an end to the mist. They never do.”    --Laura

“Scariest short story, I’m thinking “The Raven”.....although probably technically considered a poem.”    --Andrea

MOVIES
“Movie: Nosferatu, the original silent version starring Max Schreck. With no sound, that was creepy as hell! Runner Up: The Birds. I still look at a flock of pigeons with a leery gaze.   –G.M.

“Scariest movie: When A Stranger Calls Back. This not very well known sequel gives me chills whenever I think about. The plot is similar to the first one, a babysitter is alone watching kids and they get stolen. But this guy really screws with her mind, the kids-stealing is only the first fifteen minutes. The rest of the film is my nightmare. He breaks into her apartment and moves things around. He sets her alarm for 3 in the morning. I don’t want to give the end away, but it’s so horrifyingly amazing. Not gory - but a thriller - I highly recommend it! But don’t blame me for the nightmares!”    --Emily

“How about the old black and white classic “The Uninvited.” No one actually dies during the whole movie and no blood at all but it can still make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.”    --Terry

“The scariest movie ever is The Exorcist! I am 34 yrs old and I still have nightmares of that levitating bed and head rotating. I was so traumatized that I slept in my parent’s room for a month after. I was convinced that my little brother would become possessed that I would stand over him while he was sleeping with a cross. No movie has come close to scaring me like that since.”    --Anonymous

TV
“Night Gallery. That was a scary TV show. The early episodes. Got weak later on.”   –G.M.

BOOKS:
“For creepy and scary, there’s nothing better than Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The entire novel is written as entries to various character’s diaries. Very unusual because the reader may know what’s going on, but the characters usually do not. Stoker must have had a terrific imagination to come up with it.”    --Phil

“Scariest book: for me it was “It” by Stephen King. Forget the silly TV movie, the book totally creeped me out, but I couldn’t put it down. I still look at sink drains and storm drains funny. THe creepiest part, for me, was at the beginning where the brother of the main character is sailing a parrifin coated paper boat in the rain swollen gutters. You know something bad is going to happen, and then a balloon appears. My best friend dressed as Pennywise (she made the costume based on the description in the book and made a button that says “we all float back here”) for Halloween when we worked at McDonald’s and one of the drive thru customers saw her and looked a little freaked out. The book “It” was on her passenger seat.”    --Toni

MISC
“The scariest thing about Halloween this year are the female costumes. My daughter is very conservative and was dismayed at the over abundance of “scanky” female costumes this year.”    --Tina

• Oct. 31, 2006 | 6 a.m. PT

Scariest things in the world, according to me

I've long been a fan of the scary and the creepy. In honor of Halloween, here's my own personal "Fear Factor," a very subjective list of the scariest pop-culture choices in the land.

Scariest TV show: Showtime's "Masters of Horror," featuring one-hour movies by some of the genre's most famed directors — John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, and Dario Argento among them. The stories feature a creepy ice-cream man, a cursed black cat, the dancing undead and more. One of the episodes, Japanese director Takashi Miike's "Imprint," was judged too disturbing to air, and so will be released only on DVD.

Scariest movie visual: Everyone has his or her favorite (here are 10), but for me it comes in the Japanese version of "The Grudge," where the main character is riding in an elevator with a partially see-through door. She's oblivious, but the audience can see that the famed creepy little boy who meows like a cat is huddled outside the elevator on every single floor.

Scariest movie dilemma: In "Evil Dead 2," a super-creepy demon (who's taken over the body of a character's mother) is finally trapped in the cellar of a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Then and only then do the characters discover that the book they need to recite the spells to put things back to normal is down in the cellar with the demon.

Scariest book (recent): This summer's "The Ruins," by Scott Smith, had me almost wanting to abandon plans for a vacation. Smith's characters think they're going to relax and have fun in Cancun but once things start to go wrong, they go wrong stunningly, horribly fast. As in Smith's first book "A Simple Plan," the characters face a problem by trying to do A, which seems perfectly understandable at the time. But A somehow leads to B, which runs face-first into C, and all hell's broken loose by D. A wonderfully creepy read.

Scariest book (classic): If you've seen the movie version of "The Shining" but haven't read the Stephen King book it was based on, you're in for a keep-the-lights-on-for-weeks treat.

Scariest short story: It's an oldie, but a goodie: "The last man on earth sat in a room. There came a knock on the door."

Funniest twist on a horror-movie staple: In a recent "South Park" episode, the boys test the old urban legend in which saying "Bloody Mary" three times into a mirror summons a face-scratching demon. But instead, they say "Biggie Smalls," and the dead rapper shows up looking to pop a cap in the kids for preventing him from going to Satan's big "My Super Sweet 16"-style Halloween party. As Butters would say: "Aw, hamburgers!"

Have your own favorite scares? Send them in.

MORE ENTERTAINMENT LINKS
• The late Steve Irwin is such a hot costume this Halloween that at least one zoo gift shop has been selling out of stuffed sting rays. (Via Deadspin.)
• Paul Stanley of KISS has a new solo album out, and its title track, "Live to Win," was memorably used in the montage scene of the "World of Warcraft" episode on "South Park."
• Best Halloween line on a TV show goes to "NCIS," for a scene in which an investigator is told "Nice Halloween costume, but you spelled 'CSI' wrong on your hats."
• How did I miss this for Multi-link Monday? Carve your pumpkin online. (Thanks to Molly for the link!)

Last month's Test Pattern