Top 10 Scariest Movies of all Time

Rahtree: Flower of the Night (2003)
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Jaws (1975)
The Shining (1980)
The Thing (1982)
Suspiria (1977)
Halloween (1978)
High Tension (2003)
A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)
The Exorcist (1973)

I'm sick of the Exorcist being named scariest ever. Seriously, nodoby has been able to come up with a better/scarier movie in 35 years?? Pretty sad.

Children of the Corn..I was about 12 when I watched, don't know how scary it is now..But growing up in the Corn fields in Ohio..scared me enough back then to still think its one of the scariest ever.

Uni

The Grudge was pretty scary.
All time scariest though...hmmmmmm that's a tough one.
The first Friday The 13th...not of all time.

Haven't seen The Thing yet but got it coming as one of my 5 free HD DVDs.


-JS

[Post edited by Jedi_Soljah on Mar 27, 2008]

As a life long lover of Horror movies here is my top ten.
SOme of these may seem tame today but I took in account how much these movies impacted
the audience when they first came out.


The Shining ......Still a master peace of horror to this date
Jaws .........May be tame today but back in the day it made people afraid any body of water
Halloween .....Master peace of suspence made everyone afraid of the boggy man
Alien.........Played on peoples fears of being trapped in small places, great monster and creepy soundtrack
Night of the Living Dead (original) Zombies, zombies and more zombies!!
Friday the 13th part 1 Made everyone afraid of being alone in the woods
Nightmare on Elm St...........You were not safe in your own dreams
The Ring ......Best use of VHS ever!
Audition.........Took psycho girl friend to the next level
Frankensien....... Okay this may not scare anyone today but back then killing a little girl was pure horror



Honorable mentions

When a stranger calls (1979) .....(1st 20 mins of this movie may be the scariest of any movie ever)
Blair Witch Project.......its use of the internet made for the longest movie trailer ever.
The Howling and American Werewolf in London...... great special effect and a ton of Jump moments

Top 10 Scariest...

Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Suspiria
Carrie
Omen
Rosemary's Baby
Halloween (1978)
The Thing
Poltergeist (Freaked me out at age 12)
Psycho
A Nightmare on Elm Street

I will give an honorable too... The Exorcist, even though it deserves to be in a top 10 list, any top ten list... I am sick of seeing called the scariest of all time. It is far from the scariest film ever made... definitely the creepiest.

I agree with some of the ones mentioned:
When A Stranger Calls (original only!)
Halloween
The Ring (ghost movies affect me the most) & Ringu
Silence of the Lambs
The Shining
The Exorcist

I strongly disagree with:
Suspiria (hate that movie!)
Nightmare On Elm St. (never understood the fuss)

And have to add:
The Others (pretty scary for a movie with no offensive content whatsoever)
Ju-On
and an odd addition... Gothika creeps me out for some reason, despite the fact that it's not very good.

[Post edited by interplanetaryspy on Mar 28, 2008]

Night of the Living Dead
The Haunting (1963)
Dawn of the Dead (old & new)
Alien
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 & 1978)
Jaws
The Thing
Silence of the Lambs
The Evil Dead
United 93
The Birds
The Ring

I also get tired of seeing The Exorcist on these lists. It freaked me out when I was, say, 10 but now I see it as a comedy. The Shining is another that gets a worthy nod but it just didn't scare me. It's a good movie on character study but it did very little to frighten me. Other films that do nothing to scare me are any films with teenagers getting hacked to bits. You may notice the only film in my selection that does this is "The Evil Dead", otherwise I find teenage horror utterly stupid. Oh well, everyone has their opinion.

[Post edited by Tim Raynor on Mar 28, 2008]

I agree with many of the others too, but come on guys... there's more to movies than "billion dollar" mainstream Hollywood blockbusters!

I would urge those with zip or netflix accounts to consider the following horror masterpieces:

1. Eyes Without a Face (the Criterion edition rocks).
2. The Virgin Spring (arguably Ingmar Bergman's greatest movie)
3. Diabolique (the most haunting French movie EVER!)
4, Open Your Eyes (Ok, not exactly a "horror" but close? - anyway, avoid seeing the American remake "Vanilla Sky" with Tom Cruise if possible).

For 2007/2008 horror movies, I'm really looking forward to watching "The Orphanage". It unfortunately has a limited theatrical release in America, but was entered as Spain's contender for Best Foreign Film category at the Oscars. A friend of mine whose tastes I trust said it was a must-see. Hopefully a DVD/Blu-ray will be available later this year.

Actually, most films in the horror genre are low budget Hollywood. Of all the genres, horror struggles the most with ticket sales and has been declining over the past +decade. I'd say your teenage horror is pretty mainstream but most of the films many have mentioned did very well on a small budget -- much like your low budget indi films. By no means would I call a lot of the films mention "mainstream", I'd say most of them are classic horror and many of them hold up very well today.

Yes I know Tim, Evil Dead is a good example. And I did say that I agreed with many mentioned here. I was just a little surprised that nearly all the movies named so far were modern mainstream, widely recognized popular titles, which doesn't necessarily make them the greatest. Although none of the movies I mentioned were "indie" and certainly not low budget for their time and place, other countries do make movies too. This is what zip and netflix (and discussions like this) are good for - expanding the horizons of movie lovers. Falcon had the most interesting list so far in my opinion

Another movie I'd give special mention to because it personally "moved" me when I first saw it was Cronenberg's "Videodrome".

[Post edited by Skyhawk on Mar 28, 2008]