Daniel Radcliffe Notes: MSN Movies

Daniel Radcliffe talked to MSN about his favorite quintet of scary movies and also about the chilling The Woman in Black.

Axe to grind
The film: "The Shining" (1980)
The plot: Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) brings along his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and telepathic young son Danny to take care of a massive Colorado hotel that is sealed up for the winter. The resident spooks terrorize Danny and take hold of Jack's mind, encouraging him to pull a Lizzy Borden on his family.
Radcliffe's notes: "'The Shining' is one of my favorite movies. It's the best example of absolutely being forced inside the head of somebody going crazy. There's really nothing scarier than feeling like you're inside the mind of a dangerous person. There's something really terrifying and claustrophobic about that."

Stay away from the light
The film: "The Others" (2001)
The plot: Nicole Kidman and her light-sensitive children shutter up with their servants in a big old house as they await her husband's return from war. Then they are besieged by unseen specters.
Radcliffe's notes: "'The Others' was a big film for us when we made this movie. It was something that we all kind of felt tonally and in the atmosphere that we aspired to. It's a beautiful, sad, very scary, atmospheric film. I watched it a couple of years ago before we did 'Woman in Black,' and I loved Nicole Kidman in it.

Spanish spirits
The film: "The Orphanage" (2007)
The plot: After returning to her childhood orphanage home to reopen it as a facility for disabled children, a mother finds that her young adopted son Simon is communicating with the spirit of a dead child named Tomás. Then Simon mysteriously disappears.
Radcliffe's notes: "Like 'The Others,' 'The Orphanage' has a Spanish director. There does seem to be a connection between the Gothic style of horror and Spanish filmmaking. In terms of what we're talking about with 'Woman in Black,' this is linked into themes of loss and family and dealing with a really effective scary story with a huge amount of heart. I think that's why 'The Others' and 'The Orphanage' were both picked out [for viewing] because that's what set them apart. They're what me and James started referring to as character-driven horror films."

Dancing bones
The film: "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963)
The plot: The legendary tale of the Greek hero and his quest for the Golden Fleece is told with the aid of the striking stop-motion effects of cinematic great Ray Harryhausen.
Radcliffe's notes: "One of the scenes that I remember scaring me more than any other scenes growing up as a kid was the scene in 'Jason and the Argonauts' where the skeletons come to life. I know it doesn't really qualify as a horror movie, but I remember that scene absolutely terrified me as a boy. I think skeletons in general [scared me], but particularly the Ray Harryhausen skeletons coming out of the ground were particularly terrifying."

From slithering to Slytherin
The film: "Anaconda" (1997)
The plot: A National Geographic film crew are kidnapped by a crazed hunter, who is obsessed with capturing the world's largest Anaconda in the Amazon Rainforest. Mayhem and death ensue.
Radcliffe's notes: "It's probably not up there with 'The Shining' in terms of the level of horror movie that we're talking about, but for sentimental reasons [I'll pick] 'Anaconda' with Ice Cube, J.Lo and all those guys. That was the first out-and-out creature horror movie I ever saw. It was at my friend's birthday party when we were all 10 or 11 -- way too young to be watching that film -- and I remember we all picked a character that would be our avatar in the film. Then whenever our character died, we would have to leave the room and not see the rest of the film. That was this weird party game that we started playing. I was Ice Cube, so I made it to the end."

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