Top 20 Scares

I have trouble remembering all of the various movies I've seen over the years, but here is what I'm thinking is a good approximation of the scariest movies I've ever watched:

Honorable mentions: Halloween 3 and The Tingler.

I think both of these get a bad rap because they contain elements that are ridiculous. The titular Tingler, or robot druids. But they also contain a lot of really good frights, mystery, and creepy scenes despite what they're known for.

20. Evil Dead 2:A horror comedy, but I think the scare scenes are still really solid. Ash's descent into the basement of the cabin is pretty tense, especially since your wondering when he's going to be attacked or why an old cabin has such an enormous basement.

19. Pan's Laybrinth: I think it helps when you go into a movie and don't realize its even supposed to be a horror movie. The fantastic world seen in the visions of the young girl protagonist is pretty gruesome, but unfortunately no more so than the real world whether today's or in the fascist Spain where the movie is set.

18. The Blair Witch Project: I remember checking the time on the VCR while watching, trying to determine how much longer it would go on. This movie alternated between annoying people, and genuine fright. The woods have seldom looked so frightening, but being so far from civilization, not knowing whats watching you, and then finding that freaking house... pretty scary.

17. Night of the Living Dead: The very concept is horrifying, and this is the purest representation of it. The monsters here look less like a make up tour de force and more like drugged out messed up humans. There beating down the walls and stumbling towards you, faster than you'd like, like wide eyed animals.

16. 1408:This haunted hotel room story isn't quite scary in the last twenty minutes, but it manages to use a lot of jump scares, nightmares, creepy people, and claustrophobia to make a terrifying movie. The bit with the lamp is unforgettable for its ability to play with the audiences expectations.

16. The Sixth Sense: The end is not really scary, but the first parts of this movie are really tense. This little kid seeing all these chilling ghosts makes it seem much more dangerous.

15. Psycho: I shouldn't need to describe this to you.

14. The Mouth of Madness: Lovecraftian or Stephen King? This movie features a Sam Neil as the agent of a book publisher trying to hunt down a missing writer. They find a town that shouldn't exist filled with dozens of creepy scenes and monsters. This search is a nightmare, and finding out that truth is exactly as strange as fiction is the most terrifying thing for Sam Neil. (Though I suspect he viewer may find that not as scary as country roads frequented by people riding bikes at night, or old ladies that are secretly axe wielding demons)

13. The Fog: Like Night of the Living Dead, but with a touch of ghosts. There's the kind of fear from oncoming violence and the kind fo fear you get from unnatural forces.

12. Messiah of Evil: An eminently creepy public domain movie. A young woman searches for her missing father, while a cursed town goes to hell. Very tense and creepy. We can see that everything's closing in on the characters, but they don't know when to get the hell out of dodge.

10. The Amityville Horror: Admittedly, I'm probably as much afraid of the creepy Unsolved Mysteries episode. But this movie has a lot going for it like the way it seems to avoid resolution, that its more like just a series crazy unexplained but malevolent events that drives a family nuts, ...or the weird guy who appears at the screen door.

9. Halloween: Excellent stalking movie. A very simple concept directed and filmed very elegantly in a way that most copycats don't understand.

8. Meshes of the Afternoon: An experimental film I saw in film class. Very dreamlike and repetitive. But you never knew what was going to happen. A key could turn into a knife, gravity could fail as you run up some stairs, that mirror faced person, a corpse.



7. The Thing: The Thing manages to combine a whodunnit with jump scares, and even manages to get worse when you can see what's been hiding from you. I wouldn't have wanted to be in the first audience to see this.

6. The Shining: I don't think I need to explain this one. The hotel is creepy enough, but the ghosts whether it be the twins, or the way they start showing up the end seemingly to mock the desperate Shelly Duvall, or the bathing lady scene. Yikes.

5. Evil Dead: Sam Raimi shows how good he is at creating jumps scares with his breakthrough cult hit. Much like its sequel mentioned above, this movie showcases a shrinking cast of desperate crybabies trapped in an old cabin by violent demon possessed persons. Kind of like The Exorcist meets Night of the Living Dead and Halloween. Really well directed and violent; winces and shocks abound.

4. The Changeling: George C. Scott stays in a creepy old mansion with a dark secret. Who is this ghost? What do they want? This movie uses a lot of the old creepy noises and sounds to great effect. Some scenes are extremely creepy or startling. The Japanese movie The Ring took a bit of inspiration from this movie.

3. The Haunting: Classic old scary house. Noises, darkness are scary, but crazy voice-overs and great camera work can be the most frightening.

2. Off Season: This is the story of drunk drifter who robs vacation cabins in the off-season. Then he comes across one cabin which seems more like a getaway for Jigsaw from SAW. I got a clip, though its not of one the scary moments. This movie introduces isolation and creepy homes and takes them to an extreme. The mystery of the whole thing helps to put the audience in the position of the victim.



1. The Lady in Black: Gah! This was actually a Brit TV movie that is out of print. I had to get a copy the old fashioned way...the internet. A young man is sent to arrange the sale of home outside of the small town. Unfortunately its haunted by a black clad old woman who curses those that come into contact with her. This is the story of a hateful ghost that appears more and more frightening with every appearance. Learning the secrets don't help, and the biggest single scare manages to do the near impossible. Even knowing when it was coming didn't prevent a state of shock of nearly 30 seconds. But when you think its over...it ain't over.