The October Ten (scariest movies)
The ten scariest movies of all time, according to me, listed in reverse chronological order.
Feel free to disagree, but these are the only ones ever to disturb MY sleep.
1) The Ring(2002) If this one doesn’t scare you, you must already be dead. More twists than a licorice whip and a truly corrupt, truly evil villain, plus some really unforgettable imagery. Definitely a must-see. Some say the Japanese-language original, Ringu, is better, but I can’t see how it could be.
2) The Woman in Black (1989) An extremely atmospheric, spine-tingling story of a malevolent ghost who haunts a small English seaside town. This British TV movie is extremely difficult for Americans or Australians to get ahold of, but well worth the trouble; some scenes are literally terrifying.
3) Prince of Darkness (1987) Would have been a better film without the gratuitous gore and a few silly moments, but still ultra-scary, especially on an intellectual level. A seeming throwaway bit of atmosphere eventually gives birth to a revelation that will likely poison your sleep for days.
4) The Shining (1980) Kubrick’s masterful manipulation of the spinal nerves yields some of the scariest moments ever committed to film. An intensely claustrophobic film whose scariest moments are not the most obvious ones.
5) Phantasm(1979) is a very strange, very disconcerting look at a young teenage boy’s psyche using fairly conventional horror-movie elements in an original and truly frightening fashion. The existence of inane sequels does nothing to rob the original of any of its power to scare.
6) Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark(1973) A made-for-TV (!!!) creepfest which expertly plays with childhood fears of nasty, dark little places and nasty, dark little creatures that GET you. Slowly turns the screws on you until you are about to scream.
7) The Exorcist(1973) Floating beds and floating images, horrific implications, heads turning completely around and especially the spider walk; try to forget about the satires and see it as though for the first time. Often imitated but never equalled.
8) Let’s Scare Jessica to Death(1971) This film dares to begin with the last scene, and guess what? It doesn’t remove one iota of the suspense. Moving pictures and wallpaper, a creepy old town, a maybe-crazy woman and a maybe-vampire keep the viewer’s skin crawling throughout and mind guessing long after it’s over.
9) The Haunting(1963) Forget the idiotic special-effect-laden remake. The original does a better job with NO special effects whatsoever, proving that scary is not about money; it’s about atmosphere, and the atmosphere in this is tangible. The knocking scene almost made me jump out of my skin!
10) Curse of the Demon(1957) Very subdued, very atmospheric and very, very scary. Even the eventual on-screen appearance of the demon does not ruin this film’s understated creepiness.
Note that a movie had to be scary THROUGHOUT to make the list. For instance, even though Psycho has some genuinely scary moments, it is predominantly a suspense/mystery and not a horror movie and so misses. The Blair Witch Project, though very frightening in the middle third, wastes its energy in the final third of the film and so loses out. Slasher films are also not included because they are primarily designed to shock rather than frighten (not at ALL the same thing, though the original A Nightmare on Elm Street comes close).