With Halloween approaching I thought it would be good to do a listing of some of my favorite scary movies that get everyone into the Halloween spirit. No pun intended. Now it should be noted that these are scary movies generally on a psychological level and do not generally contain a lot of gore. These should not be confused with horror films whose purpose is to shock and provide lots of gore. In most of these films the body count is in the single digits usually one or two and they do not generally follow the pick people off one at a time sort of horror plot. These are some of the most frightening movies ever made because of the tension that they build around their characters. Stay tuned and maybe I will get up a list of horror movies too.
1. The Exorcist (1973)
For my money the scariest and most disturbing movie ever made. I watched this in a fully lit room with my roommate and neither of us wanted the other to get up and go to the bathroom and leave us alone to watch. The Exorcism is the story of a little girl possessed by the devil and the priests who come to help her by performing an exorcism. (By the way the Catholic Church still recognizes exorcism as a viable activity.) The 2000 reissue adds some truly horrifying effects and is worth seeing. Ignore this year’s prequel.
2. Psycho (1960)
After this movie the late Janet Leigh would never take another shower, she wasn’t the only one. Landmark for its time this film started the slasher genre and changed many of the rules of filmmaking. If you don’t know the story, Norman Bates runs the Bates Motel where people check in and they don’t check out. Combine that and a twisted oedipal complex and you have one of the most terrifying movies of all time.
3. The Shining (1980)
Certainly some of the scariest acting in Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. The only problem with this original is that it is hard to believe that Jack was ever sane. Purveyor of ‘Jack’s back!’ and ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’, this horror fest from Stanley Kubrick is both unnerving and beautiful.
4. Alien (1979)
As if giant murderous Aliens aboard a spaceship weren’t scary enough, these acid dripping aliens want your innards to nest in. Just ask poor John Hurt’s Kane in one of the most gut wrenching, literally, scenes in Hollywood horror. True this is one of the picked off one by one sort of films, but it introduced the captive group fighting the big bad evil later seen in Predator and other horror films as well as one of the toughest kick-ass woman heroes in Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley.
5. Halloween (1978)
John Carpenter started the 80s fascination with slasher films with this high anxiety story of a homicidal maniac on the loose. Jamie Lee Curtis became the queen of scream off of this film and for good reason. Don’t be surprised when you watch this movie, the body count is quite low compared to the sequels and focused more on tension than gore.
6. Poltergeist (1982)
If there is one lesson to take from this it is that no place in suburbia is safe enough, especially when that new tract home is built on a cemetary. Poltergeist has a number of nightmare inducing scenes using ever household device from chairs, to televisions, to toys. If you what more horror check out the string of incredibly bad luck following the cast and crew of these movies that lends itself to great paranoid conspiracies.
7. Jaws (1975)
Jaws is proof that a blockbuster can scare the pants off you too. An awesome movie from all angles it is also tremendously scary. The film is also proof that less is more as the giant shark appears for less than 15 minutes of the film. If only they had continued that trend for the other films. Jaws features great acting and a story that kept people out of the ocean for years.
8. The Others (2001)
A dark atmospheric almost Gothic tale of a woman and her two children who suffer from a strange disease that keeps them from going in the sun. Thus the family members are virtual captives in a large house that seems to be inhabited by spirits. The house is overlarge and foreboding and the house staff are unnerving at best. Nicole Kidman’s Grace holds this film together with the fierceness of a tigress defending her cubs and makes the whole story, twist ending and all, work.
9. Diabolique (1955)
A truly suspenseful and scary movie this one may not appeal to the modern horror fan as it is in black and white, and entirely in French. But those who know the appeal of The Ring in its original Japanese form Ringu can grasp the appeal of a true original classic. Remade hideously in 1996 as a Sharon Stone vehicle the original casts one of the biggest French stars Simone Signoret as the buxom other woman. The story is simple a man is killed by his wife and his mistress at a boarding school where they are all teachers. But murder is never so simple as the body goes missing and clues point that the man might not be dead after all.
10. Carrie (1976)
High school angst the Stephen King way. Not your ordinary adolescent coming of age story, though this one does involve the prom, it also includes telekinesis, pig’s blood, and religious fanatics. Spacek’s Carrie is a weird girl who you can’t help feeling sorry for, especially when you meet her mother.
Runners Up:
Scream (1996) - plays with the slasher flick conventions
The Ring (2002) - a video that invites death sound stupid, but turns out to be a pretty cool gimmick
Seven (1995) - by far some of the most disturbing corpses on film
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - great acting. Fava beans anyone?
Night of the Living Dead (1968) - classic, the granddaddy of all zombie movies
Rosemary’s Baby (1968) - rather dated for today’s audience
Related posts:
- Halloween Party Movies
- Scary Movie 4
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