There have been great horror movies from every decade, but if you get brutal and start hacking
away, eventually each decade will have just one classic horror film left standing.
Directed by Jennifer Kent, The Babadook deals with one of the most serious and studied topics
in all of horror: grief.
Whether the title's top-hat wearing demon is real, metaphorical, or a weird combo of
both, he's one of the most powerful symbols of death and anguish in cinema history.
Then there's Essie Davis, whose performance as a mother on the verge of collapse is both
heartbreaking and horrific.
And even looking past the symbolism, The Babadook is just straight-up terrifying.
Everything here drips with dread, from that creepy pop-up book to Noah Wiseman's devilish
performance as a troubled little kid.
In a decade filled with remarkable films, The Babadook that will haunt horror fans for
years to come.
"See him in your room at night…"
"Mom, does it hurt the boy?
Mom!"
Set in a desolate Stockholm, Let the Right One In follows a 12-year-old boy named Oskar
who befriends a seemingly young girl named Eli.
Both look innocent, but they harbor disturbing secrets.
Oskar is regularly bullied at school and spends his nights plotting gruesome revenge.
And Eli is a centuries-old vampire who drinks the life force of human beings.
Bleak and snowy on the surface, the movie's heart is bloody and red.
It isn't easy being a monster, and Let the Right One In takes a look at these twisted
creatures in all their messy, murderous complexity.
The Silence of the Lambs is the only horror movie so far to win the Best Picture Oscar,
and only a fool would argue that it wasn't deserved.
While the movie is anchored by Jodie Foster's tough-as-nails performance as Clarice Starling,
its legend has lasted so long thanks to Anthony Hopkins.
As Hannibal Lecter, Hopkins created one of the greatest movie monsters of all time.
Calm, creepy, and charismatic, he can discuss literature one minute, devour your liver the
next.
"A census taker once tried to test me.
I ate his liver with some fava beans a nice chianti."
Directed by the legendary Stanley Kubrick, The Shining is a big, cold, labyrinth of a
movie.
Kubrick's use of the steadicam — following little Danny Torrance around the Overlook
— is groundbreaking, and both Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall give heightened performances
that perfectly match the overwhelming presence of the hotel.
While it's a technical masterpiece, it's also one of the scariest films ever made.
The Shining is a nightmare that never stops, and just like a bad dream, we'll be trying
to decipher its meaning for years to come.
"Stay away from me."
"Wendy.
Darling.
Light of my life.
I'm not gonna hurt you.
You didn't let me finish my sentence."
William Friedkin's The Exorcist is a film so iconic that it's become the standard for
every scary movie ever since.
Nearly 50 years later, we've seen this possession story a million times, so it might be hard
for modern audiences to appreciate The Exorcist as the world-shattering, nausea-inducing game-changer
that it was.
At the time, the special effects were out of this world, and audiences were repelled
by the puking and the head-twisting.
But under all the slimy green goo, this movie works so well because it's got such beautifully
well-written characters.
The acting is Oscar-worthy, and the final confrontation between good and evil still
resonates.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho was a game-changing film that's buried its way deep
into the pop culture consciousness.
Bernard Herrmann's violent score is just as iconic as Anthony Perkins' performance as
the quietly creepy Norman Bates.
He's both sympathetic and psychotic, and that infamous shower scene is still one of the
scariest horror moments of all time.
“ahh”
Sure, it's been parodied to death, but in 1960, it was an absolute shock.
With that brutal knife attack, Psycho became the granddaddy of the slasher genre.
While it's not as bloody as modern horror, Psycho is still an unsettling film that will
make you think twice about checking into a hotel.
In Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dr. Miles Bennell is a clean-cut doctor living in a
wholesome American neighborhood.
However, the good doctor soon realizes that all his friends are being replaced by alien
doppelgängers.
These replacements are cold, calculating, and planning to take over the world, using
plant pods that grow clones to replace human beings.
Sure, the idea of pod people might sound a little corny, and some of the effects are
a bit hokey, but the movie is still effective because it's completely soaked in suspicion
and dread.
The idea of being replaced — consumed and changed by some malevolent force — is truly
chilling.
Cat People follows a young woman named Irene who's got a bit of trouble in the intimacy
department.
She's worried about getting intimate with her new husband because she thinks if she
gets aroused, she'll turn into a black panther and rip his head off.
It's a pretty strong case for abstinence, although we're not sure if Irene is just troubled
or if there's actually some evil magic running through her family tree.
And that's why Cat People is such a masterpiece.
It plays on the fear of the unknown by keeping the killer cat-woman offscreen.
In the film's most famous sequence, a woman is walking down a deserted street late at
night, becoming more and more sure that she's being pursued by something inhuman.
It's a powerfully paced sequence and proof enough that Cat People holds up.
Released in 1931, Dracula wasn't the first vampire movie, or even the first movie inspired
by Bram Stoker's novel.
But it did establish the undead ideal, all thanks to actor Bela Lugosi.
With his hypnotic hands and Hungarian accent, Lugosi set the mold for every vampire film
to come, and every line he delivers is both creepy and charming, aristocratic and eerie.
Thanks to this seductive bloodsucker, horror became one of Hollywood's most popular genres.
"It's delicious."
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