Scary movies allow us to confront our fears from the safety of the couch but some of them
hit a truly terrifying nerve. We're here to dig deep into the ones that stand head and
shoulders above the rest. Spoilers ahead.
Laurie Strode is a typical teenager who spends her time babysitting when she's not in school.
Then the deadly Michael Myers breaks out of his institution and burns Laurie's normal
life to the ground. John Carpenter's Halloween provides a master class in suspense as Myers
weaves his way in and out of Laurie's orbit, slowly shredding her sanity. When the horrifying
and prolonged showdown that ends the film arrives, it's with a sickening inevitability.
Still, it somehow manages to thrill and surprise, more than four decades after the film's release.
Michael Myers is unique among slasher villains in that he remains inexplicable. We really
never gain any insight into why he is the way he is - at least in this movie. Even the
first sequel offers little in the way of understanding. This makes Myers uniquely frightening: There
is no secret memory, explanation, or phrase that might disable him, or even just render
him more comprehensible. He is terror personified, and that gives viewers plenty to fear.
"You know it's Halloween. I guess everyone is entitled to one good scare, huh?"
Stanley Kubrick's cinematic adaptation of Stephen King's novel, The Shining, might not
be the most faithful adaptation of the book, but it is one of the scariest films of all
time. Set in the remote Overlook Hotel during the height of a winter, the isolation of the
setting is terrifying on its own. But when you throw malignant ghosts, tidal waves of
blood, and a madman with an axe into the mix, well the stakes don't get much higher than
that. The Shining is a whirl of terrifying imagery, strange behavior, and family drama
that builds to one of the most unforgettable climaxes in horror history.
"Heeere's Johnny."
The fact that it's unclear whether the ghosts are real or figments of the Torrance family's
imagination only adds to the unsettling nature of this truly chilling masterpiece.
The tagline for Ridley Scott's nightmarish Alien is "In space no one can hear you scream"
and this classic film certainly delivers on that creepy premise. The crew of the Nostromo
find out way too late that a distress signal from an unknown planet is actually a warning
to stay away. By that point, a crew member has already been attacked by a mysterious
alien creature, whose implanted egg bursts from him in a famously gruesome scene.
"What's the matter? The food ain't that bad, baby."
Things only get worse when the crew overrides Ripley's command and breaks quarantine procedures,
which leads to the alien creature wreaking havoc on the ship.
Visually masterminded by artist H.R. Giger, Alien is simultaneously terrifying and gorgeous.
The "chestburster" scene is as harrowing now as it was decades ago, while Ripley's confrontation
with the creature is equal parts exhilarating and horrifying. Alien is a suspenseful, strange,
and exciting journey into a deeply terrifying space.
Gerald's Game was once considered Stephen King's most unfilmable novel. However, director
Mike Flanagan's 2017 adaptation beat the odds and delivered a classic horror film that has
multiple levels of fear going on at the same time.
After attempting to spice up their marriage, Jessie's husband, Gerald, dies from a heart
attack while she's handcuffed to a bed in a remote cottage. The front door is open,
allowing a wild dog to get in and begin eating Gerald's corpse. Things go from bad to worse
as Jessie relives childhood abuse and begins to suffer the effects of dehydration. Then,
a monstrous man begins visiting her at night one who may or may not be a hallucination.
Gerald's Game hits hard and fast with moments of emotional agony, shocking gore, and sickening
cruelty. In the hands of its capable director, it all works together to create a truly disturbing
work of horror. While Jessie survives her ordeal, no viewer will ever forget how.
It's one thing to be isolated in Antarctica. It's another thing entirely to be isolated
along with a shape-shifting alien entity that wants to destroy you and every other living
creature.
"I don't know what the hell is in there but it's weird and pissed off, whatever it is."
It's worse still when said alien turns out to be capable of mimicking humans perfectly,
making it impossible to know who to trust. Chronicling the horrific experiences of helicopter
pilot MacReady and his crew, John Carpenter's The Thing is a work of uniquely potent psychological
horror.
The creature itself is a grotesque amalgam of all kinds of creepiness, from arachnids
to disembodied human parts. But what might be scarier than the monster is the way the
humans turn on each other in an instant. Their senses of trust and community are casualties
of the monster right alongside their lives. The Thing's ambiguous ending only adds to
the terror inherent in this classic story.
Neil Marshall's claustrophobic masterwork The Descent has a terrifying premise: A group
of best friends get trapped in an undiscovered cave system with no apparent way out. That
alone warrants inclusion on a list of scary movies. But the horror increases exponentially
when the women discover they're trapped with a horde of cannibalistic monsters who have
evolved to live underground.
Our heroines are forced to become their most primal selves in order to survive. The version
of the movie that aired in the UK has a far bleaker ending than the one eventually released
in America: The women never actually make it out of the cave. Sarah hallucinates escaping,
only for the closing shot to reveal just how deep down she is, and how slim her chances
of escape truly are especially given the monsters are closing in on her.
The Conjuring spawned an entire universe of movies, some much better than others, so it's
easy to forget how bone-chillingly scary the first installment is. Featuring paranormal
investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren as they help a family with a possible poltergeist,
The Conjuring masterfully balances short-term scares with slow-burn narrative energy. Only
a movie at the top of its game could weave together possessed dolls, secret passages,
and centuries-old curses into a coherent and terrifying ending.
Director James Wan draws some extraordinary performances from the film's child actors
who do so well, they improve everything around them. You'd think kids in peril might be a
well-worn horror trope, but The Conjuring reminds you why it's a cliche in the first
place: Kids make horror visceral. The child-killing ghost working her dark magic from well beyond
the grave is all the more terrifying for menacing these particular kids. The Conjuring is a
triumph of modern horror that should definitely be applauded.
[screams]
Both the original Japanese horror film, simply titled Ring, and its American remake, The
Ring, are top contenders for scariest movie of all time. While the original may be more
understated when it comes to imagery and production, The Ring doesn't ever feel over the top.They're
two variations on a great story both of which will scare you beyond your limits.
Both films follow a haunted videotape. After watching the tape, viewers receive a mysterious
phone call and then they die seven days later. If that's not a spooky enough premise for
you, the story of the demonic ghost girl who haunts the tape is the stuff of nightmares
all by itself. The moment that Samara crawls through the television has become iconic for
good reason: It's a shocking defiance of the natural order of things which is, basically,
horror in a nutshell.
We all know the twist in M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense by now, yet decades after
its release, the little boy at the center of the story continues to give viewers a good
scare.
"I scare me too sometimes."
Young Cole is brought to child psychologist Malcolm Crowe for help in handling what appears
to be delusions: Cole claims he sees and hears dead people. Nobody believes him at first,
not even Crowe. But as time goes on, the truth of Cole's gift becomes clear and so does the
truth about Crowe.
The Sixth Sense's ominous tone, perfectly placed jump scares, and clever staging keep
it tense, while its strong performances make it a story worth watching again and again.
Though it's often considered a thriller, rather than a horror movie, it doesn't skimp on darkness:
One subplot memorably features a step-mother poisoning her new children for attention.
The Sixth Sense is a story about the murky complexities of the human heart, and the way
they linger even after death.
In Jennifer Kent's The Babadook, the monster seems to be a figure from a mysterious children's
book found by Samuel, a young boy being brought up by his widowed mother, Amelia. But the
actual villain of The Babadook is grief. Amelia and Samuel's pain at the tragic and unexpected
loss of their husband and father has curdled into something utterly devastating something
they need to face head-on, before it destroys them both.
Amelia and Samuel are driven to the edge of madness by their bereavement, to the point
that Amelia attempts to strangle her own son. When their salvation arrives, it's surprisingly
gentle and all the more heart-wrenching for it. From its story to its performances, The
Babadook is as powerful as it is scary.
The story of a wealthy and well-connected family who begin to suspect their son is the
Antichrist, The Omen features one of the scariest children ever put to screen. Damien Thorn
is a strange boy to whom strange things happen. For example, a mysterious Rottweiler shows
up to protect him. Then there's the creepy nanny who takes her job as Damien's caretaker
far too seriously.
"Have no fear, little one. I am here to protect thee."
The plot thickens dramatically when Damien's father Robert discovers that his real child
was killed and switched with Damien, who was birthed by an actual jackal.
The Omen's haunting film score, tremendous performances, and strong script add up to
a harrowing journey into evil one that still manages to shock. Even today, the final scene
of the film, where Damien smiles during his parents' funeral, remains profoundly unsettling.
In the 1992 film Candyman, Daniel Robitaille is tortured, mutilated, and killed for the
crime of falling in love with a white woman. He returns from the dead as the ghostly killer
Candyman, with a hook jammed into the raw flesh of his wrist. His terrifying presence
is invoked by looking into the mirror and saying "Candyman" five times. Then it's only
a matter of time before some unfortunate soul hears his signature phrase.
"Be my victim."
Daniel Robitaille's tragic backstory remains a relevant indictment of American racism,
while Tony Todd's commanding performance as the killer forms the rock-solid foundation
that the rest of the movie builds upon. Candyman is one of the most complicated slasher movies
around, weaving a web of violence, history, sorrow, and rage. It's a pained, frustrated
howl of a movie, as cathartic and sorrowful as it is genuinely entertaining.
Like home invasion stories, tales of demonic possession are a uniquely terrifying sub-genre
of horror: Both explore the breach of a person's physical and spiritual autonomy by malignant
outside forces. No film encapsulates this horror more potently than The Exorcist.
Young Regan's possession by a demon is viscerally horrible: The entity absolutely trashes her
body with sadistic glee. The exorcism itself is equally grotesque possession is a bloody,
brutal business in this film, and all the more frightening for it. But The Exorcist
is also a terrifying look into medicine's long history of disbelieving women and children.
Ellen Burstyn's performance as Regan's struggling single mom, Chris, grounds this movie in firm
reality in this regard. She is helpless to save her child as she begins cursing and spewing
bile at anyone within striking distance. The horror might be fantastical, but the experience
is all too real.
In the 1981 film An American Werewolf in London, tourists Jack and David are given two pieces
of advice by Yorkshire locals…
"Stay on the road. Keep clear of the moors."
Of course, the two don't follow these basic instructions. As a result, Jack gets mauled
to death by a mysterious creature and David gets badly scratched. David begins to suspect
something is seriously amiss when he starts having horrific nightmares and then he wakes
up in the wolf enclosure of the London Zoo.
David's first transformation into a werewolf remains one of the most painful and terrifying
scenes in movie history. Jack's appearances as an ever-deteriorating corpse are just as
horrifying to say nothing of David slaughtering multiple innocent Brits. Add in some astonishing
special effects work and brilliant moments of black humor, and you've got one of the
scariest backpacking stories ever told.
Featuring demonic clown dolls, a skeleton-filled swimming pool, and sentient trees, Poltergeist
set the bar high for stories of supernatural horror. The Freeling family is perfectly normal
and happily ensconced within their home in a planned California community. Unfortunately,
everything falls apart when their youngest child, Carol Anne, begins acting very strange.
"They're here."
When the girl is pulled through a mysterious portal, the situation only gets worse. The
entire community, as it turns out, is built on a graveyard: Developers only moved the
headstones. Now, the dead are out to assert themselves.
As if that's not bad enough, the film itself was plagued with tragedy, both during filming
and after. Plus, remember that horrific pool scene? The production team used actual human
bones from a medical supply company because they were cheaper than making props.
When The Blair Witch Project first came out, the film was marketed as a true story, which
made watching it a truly harrowing experience. Today, most viewers know it's not actually
real but the creepiness persists regardless.
Watching Heather, Mike, and Josh lose themselves in the Maryland woods, on the hunt for the
Blair Witch, remains a long and terrifying journey into dread. As the hunters become
the hunted, Heather reflects on the various mistakes they made which got them into this
awful predicament. This scene has been parodied to death, and yet it retains its power: Heather's
desperation is undeniable, making Blair Witch equal parts sad and scary. Plus, the ending
never fails to shock, as it leaves so much to the imagination. We never fully learn what
actually happens to the three documentarians, but we can certainly imagine and that makes
it worse.
Dario Argento's moody classic Suspiria is as much an arthouse movie as it is a gory
descent into the supernatural. Suzy Bannion is new to her fancy German dance school, but
it's not long before she notices the school has a body count.
As Suzy uncovers the demonic coven of witches at the heart of her academy, things go from
bad to worse in increasingly bizarre ways. Scored by celebrated prog-rock band Goblin,
the creepy music that wallpapers Suspiria adds to Suzy's mounting dread. Grotesque imagery
abounds: Once you see a woman trapped in a huge ball of barbed wire, you won't soon forget
it.
Add in Argento's close-up camera work along with the film's vibrant use of color, and
you've got a symphony of horror. Sight and sound harmonize to take the viewer to new
heights of fear in Suspiria – one marvels at its beauty, even at its most shocking.
Being stalked by a serial killer is bad enough, but being stalked by one who kills people
through their dreams is next-level scary. Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street mines
that simple premise brilliantly with an iconic and terrifying lead character.
"Come to Freddy"
Before he existed in dreams, Freddy Krueger was a mortal man who preyed on children. Eventually
he was killed by a group of locals when his activities came to light. After they burned
him up, they vowed never to speak of him again.
Years go by, in which Krueger's spirit devises the ultimate revenge: He will torment the
children of the people who set him ablaze. Although, some of these parents are in denial
about his return.
"But he can't get you now. He's dead, honey, because mommy killed him."
The use of dreams makes Nightmare a movie still capable of invoking actual nightmares:
Their lack of logic throws all the normal rules of horror out the window. What do you
do when the only way to avoid your monster not sleeping is physically impossible? Freddy
Krueger is a movie villain unlike any other, and that's what makes this film a spine-tingling
classic.
In Get Out, photographer Chris and his girlfriend Rose have traveled to her family's estate
in upstate New York. Chris thinks he is Rose's first black boyfriend, but he's dreadfully
wrong: The Armitage family are actually murderous racists who transplant the brains of aging
white people into the bodies of the young, healthy black people they kidnap.
The Armitages' perfect country home, their mannerly demeanor, and even their liberal
politics are the cornerstone of director Jordan Peele's scathing critique of race in America.
But even after Chris manages to escape their clutches, he is confronted with the flashing
lights of a police car. Audiences hold their breath, wondering if Chris will ever make
it home alive. This haunting end makes Get Out one of the scariest movies ever, and a
devastating exploration of systemic bigotry.
David Fincher's crime-horror film Seven follows Detectives Mills and Somerset during Somerset's
last week of work. The partners are investigating a serial killer who is using the seven deadly
sins as his guidebook. Fincher's chilly aesthetic understates the horror of each homicide, which
actually makes them scarier: A world in which these grotesque deaths are treated as normal
is a frightening prospect.
Most of the violence takes place off screen, which is both blessing and curse. This is
a movie that wants viewers' imaginations to go wild, to fill in the blanks, and to leave
them with some serious questions.
"What's in the box?"
Seven's ending is also one of the bleakest of all time, and one of the most unique: In
being caught, the killer wins. The villain's plan is a masterstroke of horror as is the
movie that features him.
Jaws may be a classic, but it has nothing on the authentic terror of Chris Kentis' Open
Water. Hard-working couple Daniel and Susan go on a tropical vacation to reconnect, but
end up getting left behind in the ocean after their scuba leader miscounts the people on
board the ship. The couple spends hours out in the sea. It's not long before the sharks
begin circling and the two feel their strength begin to wane.
If this premise doesn't scare you on its own, consider this: It's based on a true story.
Watching Daniel and Susan struggle to survive as the sharks get bolder and they grow more
dehydrated is terrifying enough, but to know that two people actually went through this?
That's another level of horror entirely. The ending is as chilling and hopeless as it is
quiet, which makes it unforgettably tragic.
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