It's getting closer to Halloween and what better way to celebrate than to compile a list of what we consider to be the 10 scariest movies of all time. Now, of course, there are likely to be many of who disagree with our picks but then again, there were a lot of people who actually watched
Rosanne and
Saved by the Bell, so there's no accounting for taste. We will complement this post by adding another post tonight with the Least Scary Horror films of all time. Please keep in mind that some of what we found scary in years past may not seem so frightening now given the advances in special effects and the fact that many novel techniques in the horror genre back then are considered standard gimmicks today.
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| The only thing scarier than John Carradine alive was John Carradine dead in the Sentinel |
- Number 1 - Scariest Movie Ever - The Sentinel: This movie gave us nightmares for years. Moral of the story, don't buy an apartment that has a two bedrooms and a gateway to Hell. Burgess Meredith was particularly creepy in this picture - that and dead bodies and the gateway to Hell is mostly what we remember. We blocked the rest out.
- Number 2 - The Shining: Without a doubt Jack Nicholson's best performance after One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Stephen Kings best novel and Stanley Kubrick's best film after 2001 a Space Odyssey. The kid was intensely creepy - the entire premise was great and the location perfect. This was not only one of the scariest films ever made it is one of the best movies ever.
- Number 3 Scariest Movie Ever - The Exorcist: So, we don't know why our parents thought it was OK to take us to see this when we were little kids - perhaps they wanted to make a point to tell us never to use a Ouija board. After this movie, we never ate pea soup again. Ok, we'll admit it, we never ate pea soup before either but after this movie we resolved that we'd never try it. Linda Blair was the original Blair witch and lot's scarier than that other one.
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| This kid ate way too many pop tarts |
- Number 4 Scariest Movie Ever - Halloween: Before the 500 or 5,000 or teen slasher movies that we tend to dismiss nowadays were made we had Halloween. It was almost entirely original at the time, kind of a newer version of Psycho but much scarier. The use of the mask was pure genius - it was like the Mummy and Frankenstein all rolled into one. Jamie Lee Curtis did a great job as the heroine, more or less setting a standard for Sigourney Weaver in Alien and Linda Hamilton in the Terminator.
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| That Face-Cast must have been itchy |
- Number 5 Scariest Movie Ever - John Carpenters, The Thing: John Carpenter had made Halloween in 1978 and a few years later he remade an old 50's sci-fi horror film called the Thing. Oddly enough, in the original The Thing, the monster looked a lot like Jason from Halloween. Anyway, the Thing remains one of our favorite movies of all-time. The atmosphere, the characters and the groundbreaking special effects all add to the impact. He took a not so scary 50's plot and built enormous tension and suspense around it. We think this may have been Kurt Russel's best performance of his career.
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| "The Thing" introduced what we believe is the first Spiderhead in American Cinema |
- Number 6 Scariest Movie Ever - Dawn of the Dead (2004): Before the walkers of the Walking Dead desensitized us to extreme Zombie killing action in prime-time, Dawn of the Dead riveted us with a horrific gore fest that at the time set new boundaries for gore fests. The magic behind this movie which unlike many other Zombie flick was in fact pretty scary was the complete realism of the plot. We got to know the characters as they first tried to hide out in that mall and then make a dash for freedom. It seems clear that this movie more than anything provided the real model for the Walking Dead (comic books can't capture the medium, just the plot-line). This show freaked us out, gave us headaches and made us contemplate our mortality.
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| Get out of the Bathroom! (from Ghost Story) |
- Number 7 Scariest Movie Ever - Ghost Story: What made this film so scary was the absolute spookiness of the actress playing the ghost. She was very credible as the sexy spirit that steals the heart of the young professor. Later, this same actress played queen of the Borg and was equally spooky in that role.
- Number 8 Scariest Movie Ever - Carrie: Talk about peer pressure! This movie takes a whole new approach to bullying, sex education and the Religious Right. Oddly enough all of that fits together as the same actress from Coal Miners Daughter gets her Spook on.
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| This year's prom theme is "Fire & Brimstone" |
- Number 9 Scariest Movie Ever - The Ring: This film takes an urban legend and our general distaste for mass medium and milks for it for everything its worth. What happens when you watch a really, really bad video - well you'll find out. Anyway - technology question - what happens you upload that video onto Youtube?
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| Well diving is one of the few sports not yet been sanctioned by Olympic committee |
- Number 10 Scariest Movie Ever - Nightmare on Elm Street: Despite the many sequels that more or less ruined the franchise, the initial film was clever, well-made and scary. The idea of the creepy janitor stalking hot kids at the high school was too good to pass up - the fact that he could do it in their dreams - well heck that is Inception 30 years ahead of time! BTW - it's ironic that Johnny Depp starred in this and just a few years later came out with his own scissor-hands movie.
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| DO NOT call me Freddy Scissor Hands ! |
