Top 20 Best Scary Movies

Fright, fear, terror, disgust or horror. These are the emotions scary movies are meant for. Early horror films often drew inspiration from characters and stories from classic literature, such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Phantom of the Opera and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Later horror films, in contrast, often drew inspiration from the insecurities of life since World War Two, giving rise to the three distinct, but related, subgenres of the horror-of-personality film, the horror-of-Armageddon film, and the horror-of-the-demonic film. Ever wondered what the best movies of this genre are? Here is the list, based on the viewers’ votes.

#20. Evil Dead II (1987)
Long before he began to direct box office hits like the “Spiderman” films (2002 and 2004), Sam Raimi wrote and directed a trilogy of films known as “The Evil Dead”. With a first film in 1981, and the conclusion in 1993, it was this middle section which, whilst slightly dated, remains the better part of the three. In “Evil Dead II”, Raimi has roped in friend Bruce Campbell to continue his role as Ash.J.Williams. Continuing on from the end of the original piece, the film continues with Ash being roped into fighting the forces of evil once more.
read full story …

#19. The Others (2001)
The Others comes from Chilean-born, Spanish-based director Alejandro Amenabar, who previously obtained attention in the West with the striking Virtual Reality film Open Your Eyes (1997). (Alejandro Amenabar and Tom Cruise probably met during the making of Vanilla Sky (2001), the English-language remake of Open Your Eyes that Cruise appeared several months later in the same year).
read full story …

#18. Halloween (1978)
‘Halloween’ was made in twenty days on a budget of just three hundred thousand dollars, and went on to gross over $50 million in the US alone back in its premiere theatrical run in 1978 (that’s about $150 million to today’s terms). The film not only started the careers of many of the cast and crew, but led the revolution of horror films through the 1980’s and was a clear influence on the serge of teen horror flicks in the late 1990’s.
read full story …

 #17. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Dawn of the Dead is concrete proof that extreme gore and violence doesn’t always equal a dumb movie and that the two can make very nice bedfellows indeed. This film is a rare thing in that it will please both gorehounds and fans of art cinema, and there isn’t a vast amount of films that do that. Aside from doing what I’ve just mentioned, this follow up to Night of the Living Dead established George Romero as a household name in many a gore fan’s home and his trilogy of zombie films will ensure for ever more that the name ‘Romero’ and the zombie film will always go hand in hand.
read full story …

#16.  Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Before “Night of the Living Dead”, zombie movies were mostly movies that relied on its atmosphere and not necessarily its horror or gore and were mostly set at exotic, far off, locations. Zombies weren’t flesh eating monsters, they’re were slaves that were controlled by a master, as showed in classic zombie movies such as “White Zombie” and “I Walked with a Zombie”. George A. Romero completely threw this existing genre elements overboard and almost completely reinvented the genre.
read full story …

#15.  The Birds (1963)
The Birds (1963) is a modern Hitchcock thriller/masterpiece, his first film with Universal Studios. It is the apocalyptic story of a northern California coastal town filled with an onslaught of seemingly unexplained, arbitrary and chaotic attacks of ordinary birds - not birds of prey. Ungrammatical advertising campaigns emphasized: “The Birds Is Coming.” This Technicolor feature came after Psycho (1960) - another film loaded with ‘bird’ references.
read full story …

#14.  Shaun of the Dead (2004)
A sleeper hit in the UK earlier this year that is now being released stateside, “Shaun of the Dead” is a spoof of the zombie genre as only the British could make. Unlike American parodies, which are usually filled with obvious puns and broad slapstick, the comedy found in “Shaun of the Dead” is as bitingly dry as a straight shot of gin but without the bitter aftertaste.
read full story …

#13.  The Thing (1982)
The Thing  is a film that has developed a sizable cult subsequent to its release. Although the surprise about it is that the film was not at all a success when it came out. The Thing ’s problem was really its timing – it came out three weeks after Spielberg’s E.T– The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). E.T.  and its warm-fuzzy view of intergalactic relations was well and truly on its way to becoming the then No. 1 box-office film of all-time and The Thing  ended up being forgotten in all the excitement.
read full story …

#12.  Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
“Rosemary’s Baby” is one of the best horror films ever made. This isn’t because it’s going to scare the pants off you with a series of sensational jolts. This isn’t the shallow, gimmicky kind of horror movie we mostly get these days, and it isn’t the traditional old-fashioned horror film of an earlier era. This is a movie that came out during a period of transition in Hollywood.
read full story …

#11.  Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), a classic masterpiece of 1930s horror films, appeared as a superior sequel to the original prototype Frankenstein (1931). [There are so few sequels that are superior to their predecessors - another example would be The Godfather, Part II (1974).] While the film was in production, it was titled The Return of Frankenstein until it was released.
read full story …

#10.  Frankenstein (1931)
The classic and definitive monster/horror film of all time, director James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) is the screen version of Mary Shelley’s Gothic 1818 nightmarish novel of the same name (Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus). The film, with Victorian undertones, was produced by Carl Laemmle Jr. for Universal Pictures, the same year that Dracula (1931), another classic horror film, was produced within the same studio - both films helped to save the beleaguered studio.
read full story …

#9.  King Kong (1933)
The greatest and most famous classic adventure-fantasy (and part-horror) film of all time is King Kong (1933). Co-producers and directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack (both real-life adventurers and film documentarians) conceived of the low-budget story of a beautiful, plucky blonde woman (Fay Wray) and a frightening, gigantic, 50 foot ape-monster as a metaphoric re-telling of the archetypal Beauty and the Beast fable.
read full story …

#8.  Nosferatu (1922)
In 1921, director F.W. Murnau set out to make a horror film based on Bram Stoker’s novel, `Dracula,’ but was denied the rights to the property by Stoker’s estate. Undeterred, however, Murnau merely changed the title to `Nosferatu,’ the name of the title character to `Count Orlok,’ then proceeded to make what has come to be considered nothing less than a classic of the silent film era.
read full story …

#7.  Les Diaboliques (1955)
“Les Diaboliques” has one of the best plots you will ever find in any mystery or suspense thriller. The excellent directing, acting, and writing combine with the story itself to make it a memorable experience. If you enjoy quality mysteries or thrillers, you will almost certainly enjoy this one - and if you have not seen it yet, you might just want to buy or rent it now, before you read any more reviews.
read full story …

#6.  The Exorcist (1973)
The Exorcist (1973) is the sensational, shocking horror story about devil possession and the subsequent exorcism of the demonic spirits from a young, innocent girl (of a divorced family). The Exorcist was notable for being one of the biggest box-office successes (and one of the first ‘blockbusters’ in film history, predating Jaws (1975)), and surpassed The Godfather (1972) as the biggest money-maker of its time.
read full story …

#5. Jaws (1975)
Jaws (1975) is a masterful, visceral and realistic science-fiction suspense/horror-disaster film that taps into the most primal of human fears - what unseen creature lurks below the dark surface of the water beyond the beach? The tagline for the tensely-paced film, “Don’t go in the water,” kept a lot of shark-hysterical ocean-swimmers and 1975 summer beachgoers wary (similar to the effect that Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) had on shower-taking).
read full article …

#4.  Aliens (1986)
James Cameron is an extremely talented action director because not only does he know great action, but he always backs the action up with a great story and interesting characters. Aliens is his finest achievement, as far as I’m concerned. Of course, I should specify: Aliens Special Edition is his finest achievement.
read full story …

#3.  The Shinning (1980)
The Shining is, without doubt, one of Stanley Kubrick’s undisputed masterpieces and a true classic in horror cinema. It is a film that, over the course of the years, has managed to scare the living hell out of its audiences (and still does). The film is an adaptation of Stepehen King’s original novel, written in the late ’70s, and although the film is not very loyal to the book, it still stands as a thing of its own.
read full story …

#2. Alien (1979)
Alien (1979) is 20th Century Fox’s extremely suspenseful, space science-fiction horror film about a menacing, unstoppable, carnivorous, stowaway, hermaphroditic Demon beast. The grisly, claustrophobic, action-oriented film without a lot of dialogue contains some very suspenseful, tension-filled moments (deliberately drawn out with slow pacing), visceral thrills and shocks, and special effects and visual effects techniques.
read full story …

#1.  Psycho (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock’s powerful, complex psychological thriller, Psycho (1960) is the “mother” of all modern horror suspense films - it single-handedly ushered in an era of inferior screen ’slashers’ with blood-letting and graphic, shocking killings (e.g., Homicidal (1961), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974),  Halloween (1978), Motel Hell (1980), and DePalma’s Dressed to Kill (1980) -  with another transvestite killer and shower scene). While this was Hitchcock’s first real horror film, he was mistakenly labeled as a horror film director ever since.
read full story …

Share This

About

Night of the Living Dead 1968

25 Scariest Scenes from Horror Movies (16+)

Don’t scare kids

Scary foods