My Top Five Scariest Movies
5. Jeepers Creepers (2001) The idea of winged, indestructible demon that can not be stopped until its mission is complete is pretty scary to me. There is no running from this beast and no place safe you can go.
Once you are marked, your painful death is inevitable. Also, the scene with all the people stitched together in the basement of that church was remarkable.
4. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) I saw this movie on television when I was ten or eleven. I couldn't sleep for a month. The slow building terror of knowing that those you love aren't who they are and knowing that if you give in to sleep (my favorite pass time) you'll never wake up haunted me for years.
3. Hellraiser: I was scared by both the movie and the book, The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker. The book and the movie is about the evil that lurks in people and the darkness it summons. The cenobites will always scare me and that thing that comes down the hall with its crazy hands bothers me.
2. The Thing (1982): Isolation and paranoia work together to make the plot of this movie a living nightmare. Imagine you are trapped in Antarctica with a handful of men and any of them could be monsters waiting to kill you or worse. This is the plot of The Thing.
1. The Exorcist: This movie has always terrified me and apparently I am not alone, because after looking at 20 scariest movies of all time lists this is the only movie that made every single list.
Comments
These are just off the top of my head. I haven't seen most of them for years; impossible to say if they stand the test of time (probably not for most). But I remember being entertained and sometimes disturbed or creeped out by them or by a part of them or by the premise. Most horror movies disappoint.
The Mothman Prophecies (Interesting. True?)
Seven
Fallen
Hide And Seek
The Prophecy (good devil scene, Christopher Walken is fun)
Constantine (another good devil scene)
The Omen
The Exorcist
Rosemary's Baby
The Others (I don't always enjoy Nicole Kidman's movies, but I didn't mind her in this one ... classic ? ghost story)
The Orphanage
The Seventh Sign (more angels)
White Noise (This one bothered me, for some reason)
Sixth Sense
The Skeleton Key
Salem's Lot (I thought it was a good book at the time I read it, but I was just a kid. Not sure how it holds up today. The movie is surely dated and sufferes a lot for that. Didn't see the remake with Rob Lowe. Pet Sematary was also a scary read at the time that I read it ... but I remember disliking the movie very much.)
What Lies Beneath (entertaining)
Ha! Touche. I recently caught that scene and
I was amazed because the last time I'd seen The Prophecy (pre-Lord Of The Rings), of course I had no idea who Viggo Mortensen was. I remembered that scene but I was surprised to discover who'd played the devil.
When I looked that clip up on You Tube just now, I also recognized Virginia Madsen in retrospect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0whnAYgGLA
One of my favorite movies is an old one - The Changeling. It's a classic ghost story, and I love the way they did it.
The Exorcist is one of my favorites, too. But I agree with PaleMother: most horror movies do disappoint terribly. I remember being psyched to see The Evil Dead and Pet Sematary, then laughing my azz off instead of being scared. For more recent movies, I'd also have to go with The Sixth Sense and The Others - at least they weren't as cheesy as most horror movies are!