Scariest movie ever.

in Random Crap, weekly reruns

Today is Monday but it’s Sunday here because I was in Vegas (more on that later) so I missed the Sunday wrap-up so congratulations – it’s Sunday again!  Go home and binge watch something.

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I took H to see The Quiet Place because she doesn’t get scared at scary movies and I thought maybe it would be different if we saw one at the theater instead of at home.   She grabbed my hand once but she totally wasn’t the level of freaked-the-fuck-out that I was when I saw scary movies when I was a kid, which makes me a little sad because I LUUURV horror and she appreciates it but isn’t too impressed over all.  She seen The Shining, Babadook, Ouijia, IT…and she thought they were all okay but none of them scared her.  She doesn’t have nightmares.  WTF.

Is my kid broken?  Or are kids just less scared by stuff now?  I remember watching The Shining when I was her again on a tiny staticky tv through my fingers and I still get freaked out at the “Danny’s not here anymore” part.  At this point I’m thinking of getting out The Ring because that’s the scariest movie I ever saw but I’m open for suggestions.

What’s the scariest movie you ever saw in your life?

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And on an entirely different subject…

Shit I made in my shop (Named “EIGHT POUNDS OF UNCUT COCAINE” so that your credit card bill will be more interesting.):

  • Mugs are half off today if you use the ZSPRINGDEALS code.  Get yourself a Beyonce to drink with, y’all.  Possibly it would be better as a shot glass but technically a mug holds more vodka and is less obvious during business meetings.  

Shit-you-may-or-may-not-want-to-see:

This week’s wrap-up is brought to you by Leslie Handler’s new book, Rats, Mice and Other Things You Can’t Take to the Bank. You should check it out, partly because Leslie was incredibly understanding about Monday being Sunday but also because it’s a great book.  AND because all author profits are being donated to the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI) so by buying the book or donating here you’ll be helping end the stigma against mental illness.  It is clever and kooky and you should check her out right now because she’s good people.  

386 thoughts on “Scariest movie ever.”

Read comments below or add one.

  1. Halloween – also watched on a small staticky black and white tv at too young of an age!

  2. The Exorcist. I was a teenager and it gave me nightmares. I’m no longer Catholic, but it still creeps me out.

  3. I lost my shit at Poltergeist and haven’t watched a scary movie since. No really. And still can’t count between thunder and lightning.

  5. I think I may be like your daughter. Classical horror movies are not particularly scary to me. The Deer Hunter, on the other hand, was terrifying. I saw it once, approximately 35 years ago, and am just a bit traumatized by it still.

  7. Session 9. A movie I genuinely wish I hadn’t seen because it totally ruined deserted gothic mental hospitals for me.

  8. The first Insidious is the only horror movie I’ve felt really creeped out by. I love all the films you mentioned but they don’t usually get to me like that one did.

  9. I don’t really get scared at movies either, but I was totally freaked out by the book about Amityville when I was younger. I think The Ring is the movie that has come closest to scaring me.

  10. I was just in Vegas too!!! But the scariest movie I remember seeing is Nightmare on Elm Street. I was 7 at the time and it definitely made an impression. Probably not the scariest ever but to a 7 year old it was. 🙂

  11. Children of the Corn.

    The end of my love of scary movies. I refuse to watch any of them since then.

  13. I actually just had this conversation with some friends this weekend, and it turns out we all had REALLY different answers for “scariest movie ever.” For me, I love a lot of horror (films and books) and have even found some of them funny, but for “nope, never watching that again you can’t make me” it’s Amityville Horror—the Ryan Reynolds one. It’s not a perfect movie by far, and the original family ruined the franchise by admitting they made it all up, but that movie hit a lot of really personal triggers for me and just… nope. I felt deeply unsafe sitting there watching it and don’t ever want to experience that again. One person said the worst for her were psychological thrillers like Silence of the Lambs because that’s real people doing real things that really happen, another said gore really gets her so Saw was tough, and I know some people flip when the devil shows up so Devil is really their worst nightmare (bunch of people trapped in an elevator, only maybe one of them is the actual devil?)

    That should be enough suggestions to get you started 😉

  14. Silent Hill!!! Left me with nightmares for weeks. Still freaks me out to think about it!

  15. Session 9. A movie I really wish I hadn’t see, because it totally ruined deserted gothic mental hospitals for me.

  16. Scariest movie ever was Director’s Cut of The Exorcist….I swear I must have landed in a different room via bursting through the ceiling out of the room and freaked out! Never again! I stopped the movie right there (when I landed of course)! I have not watched a scary movie since……..my bladder can’t handle it!

  17. Martyrs. Not because of jump scares or anything of that sort, but because of the complicity of those involved in the evil. It was very human and driven by (hidden in?) a quest for knowing the unknowable, and the idea that people can go to such lengths for something they will only experience once in their lives was terrifying.

  18. I remember being pretty freaked out by Salem’s Lot when I was a kid. I doubt it would have the same impact now.

  19. Dawn of the dead (2004). I swear I a visual hallucinations of zombies in the parking lot leaving the movie theater. If she’s not freaked by the movies- maybe give her the book versions of The Shining and IT because they are like exponentially scarier than the movie versions.

  22. Wolfen (1981) So creepy! I read the book before I saw the movie so I knew what to expect. I still had to turn on all the lights around the house before I went to bed. Oh, and Salem’s Lot (1979). I think it was made for TV, but holy crap did it scare me! It still does!

  23. The Spanish movie REC is pretty scary and of course the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, although that is more grimy/disgusting than scary

  24. Silence of the Lambs is really scary. I had one kid that wasn’t very frightened at scary movies, and one who was so uncomfortable with scary movies he wouldn’t watch them.

  26. Oh my god, it posted my answer twice because I forgot my name the first time so I did it again, thinking it wasn’t going to show up, and then I left a typo in the second time. The scariest movie I ever saw? Me attempting to post comments. Terrifying, and poorly cast.

  27. I was reading horror by the age of 13 and I turned out (mostly) normal(ish)! I have yet to find a horror movie that actually scared me. Martyrs is a really good, well done horror film. Still not scary to me, but worth a watch!

  28. Oh I second Halloween! Lol. To this day I get nervous when I hear the theme music. My grown brothers refuse to have any conversations about Robert Englund aka Freddy, lol. And another thing, it’s not you Jenny. I totally agree that they knew how to do horror movies when we were kids. Today is all about the jump scare affect.

  29. The Exorcist. My stepsister and I saw this when I was 14 after begging to see it for my birthday. We were so scared, we ended up in the lobby peeking through the swinging lobby doors. I’ve never look at crucifixes quite the same since

    Psycho. A total classic must see if she hasn’t yet. She’ll be looking for shadows through the shower curtain for a long time.

  31. Definitely “The Shining”, which my parents allowed me to watch with them when I was 5 years old, because 80s parenting.

  32. I think she will grow to love it and hunt for the horror movie that actually makes her afraid. Personally, I’m like her. I might have a few jumps, but most horror movies don’t scare me. I still love them. A Quiet Place was one that frightened me the most because I was afraid for the characters. They did amazing character development with so little. I realized I’m afraid when I’m in tears during the movie. Maybe she just needs time to find the movie she connects with most.

  35. Se7en, the Babadook, a Haunting in Connecticut. I don’t scare easily at horror/scary movies, either. I won’t watch Se7en or the Babadook again.

  36. Saw Jaws at age 13 when it came out in 1975 Haven’t stepped foot in the Ocean since that summer.

  37. The conjuring is pretty terrifying, The Descent, the first Insidious, the changling, just to name a few of my favorites. On another note, it’s actually really common for people with anxiety to enjoy horror movies. Something about the sense of control, and emotion you can control while watching them. Or least they help with my anxiety.

  38. Hostel. Original Asian versions of The Ring and The Grudge. The Exorcist

    I lI’ve horror movies and books, too. Books have always tended to scare me more.

  40. Drag me to Hell. It’s scary & disgusting. My horror movie loving teenage daughter scratched up the DVD on purpose so it could never be played in our house again.

  41. The Omen – anything with creepy kids freaks me out, I still haven’t watched it all the way though

  42. The strangers. Holy snot.

    Mostly mental. I mean… People break in to a house, terrorize the family “why are you doing this?”

    “because you were home”

    Wouldn’t answer the door for months.

  44. The most recent movie thats creeped the shit outa me was called The Autopsy of Jane Doe.. loved it!

  45. Not a horror movie really but I saw Donnie Darko some years back (wtf was my now-husband thinking showing me that?!). I am still freaked out by it & have to turn the light on above the stairs if I go up them when it’s dark (yeah, I don’t get it either). FYI I’m 39 🙄

  46. Pan’s Labyrinth wasn’t a horror movie but that fairy eating monster with its eyeballs in it’s hands is super creepy. Devils Rejects or Strange land (Dee Snyder!) for it could be real horror.

  47. No idea what the movie was, but I remember seeing a movie at a friend’s house where they found a decapitated head in the toilet…. For years afterwards I was terrified of lifting a toilet lid in case I found a head looking up at me!

  48. The scariest to me is not horror but more suspense. The one that always makes me scan is “Wait Until Dark” I know exactly what is going to happen, but my heart puns and I scream every time.

  49. I’m a big scaredy-cat and don’t watch horror very much. I remember being completely freaked out when I was younger by Nosferatu. So yeah, I haven’t been able to buy into the suave sexy vampire mythos (although Frank Langella was pretty darn compelling, dang….).

  51. The original The Haunting by Robert Wise (1963), not the Liam Neeson remake.

    My daughter and I loved Insidious.

    I would also second REC. The English language remake (pretty much shot-for-shot) Quarantine wasn’t bad either.

  52. Horror fan myself. Wasn’t until I saw Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity that I got really scared. Why? Beacause it was my own imagination working hardest to scare me! Definitely watch alone in totaly dark room for best effect! 😁

  53. The Shining terrified me. The original Alien scared the hell out of me. Showed it to my nephews when they were around 12 and 7 and they LAUGHED. Nothing scares kids anymore.

  54. Oh how I LOVE the scary movies! Some recent standouts are The Wailing (foreign), Train to Busan (foreign) and Funny Games (the first one 1997). See if Hailey can sit through those without getting creeped out. Cant wait to see the quiet place.

  55. Not technically a horror movie, I suppose, but Alien (the original) is hands down the scariest movie I ever saw.

  56. The movie that traumatized me the most was Woman in Black, entirely due to the fact that I saw it in the movie theater. I think The Ring has really lost its scary-factor with the loss of VHS culture, so that might not work on your girl.

  61. Supernatural stuff doesn’t scare me, because I don’t honestly think it can really happen. What’s frightening to me are things that happen in real life, then the moviemaker just pushes them a little farther. So the scariest movie to me? Fatal Attraction. Another one that freaks me out is “A Clockwork Orange”.

  62. IDK, I wasn’t really moved by horror movies that much but I had nightmares after Jurrasic Park and a few of the catastrophic movies scarred me for life (80/90’s was a period for those). Different things scare different ppl.

  63. Saw the Sixth Sense in my 40’s. Wouldn’t get up to use the bathroom for two nights in a row because of the mad mother in the kitchen.

  64. Scariest movies would be, Chucky (first one only), Rose Red, the Devil’s Backbone, Lights Out, The Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare on Elm Street, Ghost Ship, Hellraiser, Misery, Critters, Cat’s Eye I think that’s it for now.

  66. Poltergeist scarred me forever. I can’t watch and don’t like scary movies at all. My daughter is the same way.

  69. Sometimes its just not someone’s thing. The scariest movie I ever saw is Fire In The Sky, couldn’t sleep for weeks after that.

  70. Alex AAAAAADOOOOOORES horror movies. She’ll go with you to see any/all of it.

    I’m that not into scary movies — I find most of them ridiculous, especially if they rely on startling for scaring (although Get Out was pretty damned good). But dearie me, I LOVE a scary book. The scariest BOOK I ever read? IT, by Stephen King.

    I’ve hated clowns ever since.

  71. Psychological thrillers scare me—anything from Alfred Hitchcock, the Exorcist, Wait Until Dark, Silence of the Lambs. And of course, the all time-favorite, Wizard of Oz, lol. Those witch’s feet sticking out from under the house scared me for years. I would jump into bed so I didn’t have to stand next to the dust ruffle where the witch who was hiding under the bed could grab me. Of course, the whole thing was in black and white when I saw it, and it was way too surreal for a 5 year old.

  73. I can’t remember the name of the movie, but there were really creepy vampires that scratched on people’s windows. I watched it on TV as a teenager in the late 70s. I had to sleep with the light on for days and the bedroom curtains closed. Alien was also pretty scary. I saw it in the theatre with a friend but probably kept my hands over my eyes for most of the movie. I tend to stay away from horror movies, though. I know some people love them, but they affect me too much. Although I was able to watch Silence of the Lambs and Seven – somehow I am not as afraid of serial killers as I should be.

  74. The Descent. Which, actually, I haven’t technically seen as I refuse to voluntarily watch someone live my deepest, darkest fears. I’ve seen enough little bits of it to be scared shitless and immediately remove myself.

  77. Psychological thrillers scare me, too. Gore and violence don’t scare me – I just don’t like it and don’t want to watch. As a young child who didn’t go to many movies, the two ones that scared me the most were “The Nun’s Story” (the scene where the woman mental patient who thinks she’s the archangel attacks the young nun) and “Lawrence of Arabia” where they slaughter the horses. I did go to see “Cabin in the Woods” because Joss Whedon. It was scary and gory but clever and I’ve actually watched it twice and have the DVD.

  79. My entire family LOVES horror movies. I grew up with Chiller Theater and Creature Feature, and I just don’t think they make scary movies like they used to. Gross yes, scary no. House on Haunted Hill scared the snot out of me as a kid – especially that floaty lady that you could never tell if she was a ghost or not. For more modern horror, I love The Shinking and Silence of the Lambs. The Ring just made me sad because it was shortly after my horse had died and that whole scene with the horse jumping off the boat did me in. The Quiet Place was good, but had too many holes to make it very scary – corn DOES NOT grow year around in NY State.

  80. Carrie, the original with Sissy Spassik scared the fuck out of me & I was 26 at the time it came out.

  81. ‘Salem’s Lot wrecked me. I slept with Popsicle stick crosses in each hand for MONTHS. Blair Witch was pretty scary, too.

    Kids are so jaded these days. They’ve been exposed to Trump, which is the most terrifying ever, so everything else pales by comparison.

  83. I’m a big fan of scary movies. And it’s hard to find genuinely scary stuff! These are a few of my faves. :
    – The Exorcist
    – The Strangers
    – The Conjuring
    – Insidious
    – When A Stranger Calls (the original from 1979)

  84. My kid stopped getting scared around 11 and she’s soon to be 15. I think because they see scary stuff on the internet they are immune. Plus they make satirical scary movies now. It’s very sad. My daughter will never feel the level of horror that I felt watching The Amityville Horror. When I was 9, I walked into the living room and my parents were watching something and as I looked at the TV screen all of a sudden a hand came up out of the ground. I slept with one eye open until high school.

  85. Horror movies are my genre. I haven’t seen anything scary and many years. I’m hoping this movie fits the bill.

  86. The Skeleton Key was the one that scared me the most.

    I totally get why she wouldn’t have been all that scared in A Quiet Place, though — I saw it as a fairly new parent and was wracked with terrible anxiety the whole time, but for a kid I think most of the true horror of that movie is inaccessible.

  87. Fire in the Sky. Whether or not you believe it really happened the way the guys said it did, the movie freaks me out to this day. There’s a scene with the aliens (spoiler, but not really), and it still gives me the heebie jeebies.

  88. Killer Clowns from Outer Space.

    No, I’m not even a little joking. Fucked. Me. Up.

  89. I don’t get nightmares either, even on the rare occasions that I see a scary movie.

  90. Both of my kids refuse to watch horror because it is too scary. Definitely not a generational thing. My 14 year old son can barely watch Lemony Snickett without grabbing my hand.

    A babysitter forced me to watch the Exorcist when I was about 9. Scariest thing I’d ever seen. Did not make me a fan of the genre, as you can imagine.

  91. Full disclosure… I am a sissy. But because I love my husband I have watched a few scary movies. I can think of three that still creep me out: 13 Ghosts, Jeepers Creepers, and In the Mouth of Madness.

  92. I absolutely LOVE scary movies and I’ve found the ones I don’t want to watch over and over are the ones that freaked me out the most. Definitely hard to re-watch the Ring, Session 9, Saw, and
    Hostel

  93. Scariest movie ever = The Haunting of Hill House – the original movie, The remake is crap. All psychological terror. Saw it as a kid, seen it since, and it still scares the bejeezus out of me.

  94. Anything with Dolls. My daughter and I LOVE scary movies, but refuse to see anything with dolls as the primary characters. (some of your posts we have to skip too, but c’est la vie!) Annabelle – nope, no freaking way. The Puppet Master ruined them for me. Child’s Play series, nuh-uh.

  96. We had a #parentingfail when we took my daughter to see The Ring – she loved all the scary kid-shows when she was little (goosebumps, are you afraid of the dark) and was never scared by movies, so we figured The Ring would be OK (plus, like any responsible parents, we went to see it 2 weeks before we took her so we could guarantee that we were OK 7 days later). She was 10. When it was over, she was pale and shaking – it definitely scared her! Oops. Now she doesn’t love horror, even though her dad and I still do. Although I did make her watch Don’t Breathe, which we thought was awesome.

  97. Paranormal Activities is still my all time favorite. I watch horror movies all the time, but this is still just incredibly unnerving. If she’s not scared of what’s in the dark, might not work.

    Grave Encounters (ending is a little lame) is absolutely excellent.

    Don’t be Afraid of the Dark is also great if she knows (or doesn’t know) the toothfairy isn’t real.

    (I’m a huge horror fan so these are just two of the many I could recommend)

  98. I so love this, Jenny. My daughter is 21. When she was about 2 we took her to see whatever the Star Wars one with Darth Maul in it in the theater. I was horrified when my husband suggested it. I said “she’ll have nightmares!” and he pointed out it was at the dollar movies, so it wasn’t like we’d lose big money. I grudgingly said okay. Not only was she fine, she calmly munched on popcorn and didn’t bat an eye when Darth Maul came onscreen. TOTALLY the opposite of me as a kid. I got scared at any point in a move when it was just hinting something scary was about to happen.

  99. It was something on Chiller Theater…radioactive something made trees turn into vicious -and mobile – monsters. Our house was in the woods – I wouldn’t go outside alone for days.

  100. It was Blair Witch for me. I watched the entire thing with my thumbs in my ears and peaking through the fingers of my hands over my eyes. I didn’t even hear the kids laughing in the woods.

  101. Jaws scared me but is totally not scary by today’s standards. After watching it as a kid, I couldn’t even put my hand in our above ground pool to connect the vacuum!! My little guy is really easily scared and he’s 13- so I can’t share anything too scary with him yet. But I LOVE scary stuff!!

  102. Oh man, are you trying to give her nightmares? :o, there are so many scary movies! But then again, I get scared by everything even slightly having to do with ghosts.

    The most mindfucking movie I ever saw was ‘a cure for wellness’, but do NOT watch that with your kid unless you have seen it first and know for sure she can handle it (it really is freaking awful, would not recommend for her age even for kids that do like horror). I am not sure about the most scary movie I have ever seen, but that is because I usually try to avoid any scary things. I am way more into the whole mind fuck thing. The shining is awesome, so is ‘the others’ and all that kind of things. The series Medium and Ghost whisperer gave me the absolute nightmares… so did insidious, but mostly because of the freaky song.

  104. Those rapture movies that came out in the 70s early 80’s…the first was A Thief in the Night I think…they terrified me hard core and we saw them at church! 😯

  105. I’m with ^^^ Anonymous: the original movie, The Haunting of Hill House. Back in the days when we all had three channels, they’d show the movie once a year.
    On the other hand, if you want to laugh and poke fun at a truly tacky film, rent tne more recent The Haunting of Hill House.

  106. I remember being scared of The Mist (70s version) I have no idea why now. It’s completely silly. My husband is still scared by 1408.

  107. I remember watching The Ring with the guy I was living with. We rented it on VHS of course. OUT FREAKING PHONE RANG!
    It was my mom wanting to know if we wanted to come over for dinner.
    But it scared the crap out of us. And I made him answer it. Because fuck that noise.

  108. Scariest movie I have EVER seen is The Grudge…nightmares afterwards. My now husband, then boyfriend snuck up on me one early morning after watching it and I screamed so loudly I’m still surprised the police didn’t show up. He ended up apologizing about a million times and buying me flowers. I don’t recommend watching unless you want nightmares.

  109. My son doesn’t get scared either. When I asked him why he said it’s not real mom. It’s just a movie.

  110. Well when I saw The Shining when I was 8 it was freaky/scary as heck. however, seeing it again at an older age minus the Room 237 bathroom part wasn’t as bad. Although that lady in the bathroom made me phobic about going to the bathroom alone in my house until I was 20.

    I’m not sure if she’ll get The Ring with the copying the movie onto VHS bit ,but The Ring is good. Also joining the chorus on Alien,The Strangers, The Descent,Rec (foreign film) and the original Nightmare On Elm Street which I think I saw at the wrong time in my life because anytime I’ve rewatched it I have to dose myself with cute animal videos so I can sleep.
    BTW my daughter, 20 is the same way as your daughter in that she likes horror movies but doesn’t find them uber scary. She loves The Shining but didn’t find it super scary etc. It made watching scary movies fun though, because she isn’t bored and enjoys them but she isn’t hiding behind her fingers scared.

  111. The Thing by John Carpenter. I don’t really like scary movies any more, so there might be scarier ones nowadays…

  112. The Blair Witch Project – especially if she doesn’t know it’s not real (like me when I first watched it)

  113. The Grudge. I’m nearly 26 and still cannot watch more than 30 minutes of that movie without turning it off and even then I will have nightmares.

  114. I think the bar has been raised for scary movies through the years. Reputedly, some women fainted at showings of the original “Dracula” (1931), which seems very tame to us today, because most of the horror is suggested rather than shown, and the climatic stake-driving scene is off-camera.

    I am not a fan of the slasher type horror movies, so I can’t comment on them, but one movie that I found pretty scary was “Fright Night” (1985) where Roddy McDowall is a television horror movie host who encounters a real vampire (Chris Sarandon).

  115. For me, it’s The Audition by Miike… I still get squicked out thinking about it. Not appropriate material for a little ‘un, but yowza.

  116. Ghost movies freak me out the most. Try The Conjuring, The Haunting In Connecticut, Insidious, and call me in the morning.

  117. I’m not a fan of scary movies. I got dragged to the movie with the evil doll (Chucky? Sounds right) and ALLL the frigging Nightmare on Elm Street movies and I HATED every one of them. I only saw Blair Witch Project because I wasn’t sure what it was and didn’t realize it was a horror movie but by that point, I was too scared to get up out of my seat and my husband had already ran out of the theater because the “found footage” style made him queasy. I didn’t sleep for three days after I watched that movie, either.

  118. I’m with you– The Ring. It gave me the heebeejeebees for WEEKS. When she comes out of the TV? I couldn’t stop seeing it in my mind. Poltergeist made me worry every time there was a storm because I had a giant pine tree outside my window and I thought it was going to come alive and come threw the window and get me. When I was 14 I saw the Exorcist and had to go to the bathroom to throw up. Anything with possession is the absolute worst. But I love Sixth Sense and Signs; love scary movies with heart so looking forward to A Quiet Place. Have fun trying to scare H!

  119. The Ring was hella scary. but prior to that, the original Manchurian Candidate. went around saying, “sweet old lady, my ass!” about one Jessica Fletcher.

  121. I never see scary movies. Ever. Saw “Scared Stiff” with Martin and Lewis when I was about 10. I could not watch any more after the chair arms came up and wrapped around Jerry Lewis! I waited in the ladies bathroom until it was over. Am I seriously flawed for life today?

  122. Don’t be Afraid of the Dark. I was probably 10ish, and I could never watch another horror movie. I can still see those little things crawling out of the fireplace. Eeeeekkkk

  123. I tend not to get scared of horror movies, but I will raise my hand and admit in public that I watched Serpent and the Rainbow when I was 17, alone, at night, and it gave me nightmares for weeks. It still gives me the heebee jeebies.

  124. Darkness Falls is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. I watched it when it first came out in 2003. I’m 30 now and still get a bit creeped out walking from a lit to an unlit room.

  126. I’m soooo glad someone else said Strangers because I was starting to feel weird that I was the only one who had the bejesus scared out of me by it. I mean, the whole because you were home thing? Made me never want to be home again. And I refused to look out the window after dark for a looooong time. And this was an adult. 😳 I’m sure it didn’t help that I watched it at home when I lived outside of town in a tiny neighborhood that pretty much rolled up the sidewalks when it got dark and was pitch freaking black… I’m creeped out just thinking about it…..

  127. I am not a horror fan, so haven’t seen too many. I was frightened by Friday the 13th, and Alien, but the movie that scared me the most was Red Dragon. I slept with my children in their bed for a week afterward. I refused to watch Silence of the Lambs for years because of Red Dragon, and when I finally did see it, I didn’t find it particularly frightening after all. My final horror movie that I found to be disturbing as well as scary is The Human Centipede. Probably not appropriate for an adolescent anyway. In fact, probably not appropriate for anyone. If you have seen South Park episode “Humancentipad”, they didn’t create that idea from scratch.

  128. 28 days later and Quarantine and The Most. This three freaked me out so badly I can never watch them ever again.

  129. I HATE horror movies, not generally because they scare me but because I think they’re so ridiculously over the top. But then there are the ones that get under my skin. My husband likes to force those on me. He made me watch the Babadook, which was intense, and the remake of The Evil Dead, which was awful, but the scariest one was The Descent. From the get-go that one ripped me apart and then scared the crap out of me. Actually, way back when, I was freaked out by What Lies Beneath with Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford, probably the only mainstream suspense/horror type film make in the past few decades that has really scared me.

  130. My Bloody Valentine
    I saw it in the theater and saw it 3D which was extra $hi! my pants terrifying! If that doesn’t work, take her to one of the Breakout Rooms that are horror rooms. We have one that’s like a Saw room, a Silence of the Lambs Room, or a Misery Room that you have 60 minutes to get out of.

  131. Prince of Darkness (1987) – my husband is really into horror films and so I’ve seen MANY of them but for some reason this one just freaks me out.

  133. Poltergeist is a great one. The Thing, the old one with Kurt Russell. The Conjuring is pretty good. 30 Days of Night. I absolutely LOVE horror movies, but I am rarely actually frightened by them. At least now that is. When I was a kid I was FTFO over Maximum Overdrive. And Tales from the Dark Side. Now those are both completely cheesy to me.

  135. I never get scared… many times I find them boring.. I fell asleep twice while watching horror movies..

  137. It would be a tie between “The Haunting” (1963) & “The Changeling” (1980). “Session 9” would be a close third.

  140. The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock still scares me. But anew movie The Circle with Tom Hanksis scarier on a different level

  141. The Grudge was the last scary movie I willingly watched and I did not sleep for 72 hours afterwards. No where was safe, especially not between the sheets in my bed and that noise, ugh! Can barely handle even remembering it this many years later. What even was the ghost’s motivation? It made no sense! I’ve avoided horror ever since except I just unwittingly saw a sci-fi movie a few weeks ago that also had some horror aspects. It’s called Annihilation and the bear scene freaked me out so much that I’m currently going commando due to an inability to go into our basement to do laundry. I’m just going to have to keep buying underwear until we move somewhere with NO dark or scary places.

  143. The only movie that ever made me actually scream was Wait until Dark with Audrey Hepburn. Before that movie, I really believed that nothing could make me scream like women in the movies. I was very, very wrong.

  144. The Ring for modern movies. Saw it in the theater and people got up to leave. Like, LOTS of people. For classics, you can’t beat The Exorcist.

    On May 4th (be with you), there is a pyschological thriller coming out called Bad Samaritan that freaked me out worst than any horror movie ever. Because it seems like something that could actually happen (vs. supernatural woo woo stuff). It’s David Tennant as a nightmare serial killer and he makes Kilgrave seem like Barney the dinosaur.

    I say all of this as someone who can watch Paranormal Activity by myself in the dark and yawn.

    Ooh, a good one is The Ghost of Blackwell, free on Amazon right now. It sucked me in until I found out it’s fake (it’s listed as a documentary).

  145. The Prince of Darkness is my favorite. I think I was desensitized to scary movies young since it was a Saturday pastime of mine and my Dad to watch Creature Feature on TV. I think it was on in the 70s since I was in grade school at the time. They played all the classics. That’s where I saw The Birds, Swamp Thing, The Fog etc etc…

  146. We’ve been watching the MCU movies with my almost four year old and I just took her to see Black Panther. Friends ask if she gets scared, and she never has. However, we just watched Coco and she didn’t like it when Miguel got skull face paint, so there’s that.

  147. Though it’s not a classic horror movie, 28 Days was the scariest I’ve seen. The Shining would be, but I can’t bear to watch the whole thing.

  148. I remember Candyman really freaked me out. Hellraiser did too, but I don’t know if it would anymore. Reading Clive Barkers books were always scarier than the movies though, same for Stephen King. Oh! When A Stranger Calls, I was fucked for weeks after that…. but I watched it when I was 8… so.

  149. Mausoleum, movie from 1982. I was 7 when my mom took me to the drive in to see it. Bees come out of a women’s neck….I’ve never forgotten it!

  151. Love horror if it’s campy as opposed to just gory. Psych thrillers are scarier. Two from Simone
    Signoret; the original ‘Diabolique’ and Simone and Katherine Ross and James Caan in a ‘60’s
    film called ‘Games’. Both are two parts of a triangle trying to scare the third to death plot done
    well enough to make me jump and pitch my popcorn ‘til it bounces off the ceiling. ‘When a
    Stranger Calls’ caused the 6’4”” guy next to me to jump up and run up the aisle in a mad panic.
    He came slinking back to his seat after reaching the light in the lobby.

  152. The Wizard of Oz terrified me when I was little. I hid behind the couch.

  153. The only movie that scared the crap out of me was the first horror movie when I was 11 years old and watched it alone, late, everyone else was in bed. “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056687/

    Oh wait, Psycho had me checking doors before showers, but the original – not the remakes. The secret ingredient for kids is being alone when they watch a horror movie.

    Jaws didn’t freak me out at first but, LOW, these many years later I still am not happy swimming in dark ocean. I recently found out a good friend has the same problem. I don’t know if it would have the same effect on kids now since it’s special effects are cheesy compared to CGI.

    The Last House on the Left (1972) was banned in several countries and was horrific, but it’s definitely not a kid movie…

  155. I hate horror movies. Therefore, when I see one it has to be for a very important reason. “The Lady in Black” (thank you Daniel Radcliffe – the things I do for you) kept me up all night with the lights on. There was some movie on cable called “Session 8” that my ex watched several times and he suckered me into watching it – still have flashbacks about that mess too. “Silence of the Lambs” got me when I was in high school – nearly broke my date’s hand during that flick. I guess you need to see what scares her more – paranormal & ghosts and such; suspenseful & creepy flicks; or the outright gore fests. As for me, I much prefer some classic Mel Brooks films, or Monte Python.

  157. For a good day of non-scary horror movies: The Others, Crimson Peak, Interview with a Vampire, Queen of the Damned, The Underworld series, The Woman in Black, Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula to name a few.

  158. For some reason my comment got eaten. I said any Hughes movie (16 candles, Pretty in Pink), because of the akward socual situations. But you could go with The Beyond or Susperia. If all else fails, Rabid Grannies.

  159. The Ring made me sleep with the lights on for 5 nights. There was also a made-for-tv movie back in the 70’s called “Night of the Scarecrow” which freaked me TF out. And if you like theater, “Sweeney Todd” onstage (different from the movie) also had me sleep with the lights on for a few nights. But I think I’ve made peace with that one.

  160. Nightmare on Elm Street. I was pregnant and for months I was convinced there was someone in the back seat of my car for months.

  161. I’ve seen the usual scary movies; Friday the 13th series, Nightmare on Elm Street, Aliens, Witchboard, Psycho, etc…etc. They scared me a little as a kid but the scariest thing I have ever seen in a movie is the freaking banshee in Darby O’Gill and the Little People. Holy..f’n..shit. Here we have a happy carefree Disney musical with merriment of all sorts…tralalala. Then it takes a 180 into HOLYSHITWTFISTHAT?!?!? The wailing gives me the creeps just thinking about it. Watching those scenes scares me as an adult!

  163. I’m just like your daughter. I’m more scared by things that could actually happen. So, the most terrifying scene of any movie for me is the night-vision goggle moment in the basement during Silence of the Lambs.

  164. Rosemary’s Baby, which I saw in the lounge at college when I was a brand new freshman and didn’t know anyone yet, and it was on TV. I knew nothing about it or wouldn’t have watched it, and by the time I knew where it was going I was already sucked into the story. I think what makes it so horrifying is it’s understatedness, everything is so normal and the neighbors are so nice and caring. Except they aren’t. And it’s not.

    The Birds, which I saw in college also freaked me out. Forty years ago and I still look at large flocks wheeling about occasionally and think about it, wondering what’s on their minds. I also saw at least part of what I think must have been Gaslight on TV when I was in high school and for years was always weirded out if the lights seemed to unexpectedly dim for a moment.

    I don’t watch scary movies because everything creeps me out, even things that aren’t supposed to be horror, like Gremlins. On the other hand I can deal with eeriness, so have gone through most of the seasons of X-Files and can watch old Twilight Zone reruns. One of the cable stations ran a weekend marathon of Twilight Zone episodes a couple years ago, and my son, who was in high school at the time, was freaked out by a few of them I think, and we had a discussion about how scripts could make or break a show, no matter how primitive the special effects.

    My son told me recently that when I started watching Dr. Who when he was about Haley’s age that the one that scared him was the one with the 10th Doctor where the teachers are actually giant bat-like things in the school. He said that he thinks it because it was in a school and he says at that age you always wonder what you teachers are doing when you’re not there, you could see them turning into these bats behind your back and hiding in the school, waiting to attack. I think horror is based partly on how something relates to your own life and partly on what your imagination does with it afterwords.

  165. I’d suggest Battle Royale. It’s a Japanese film about high school students, and similar to Hunger Games (though technically it came out over a decade before hunger games) It’s a great combo of psychological and gore, but I’d definitely suggest pre-watching it yourself if she might be sensitive to too much gore.

  167. I like the “creep factor” of a lot of the oldies. I’m a big Hitchcock fan — especially the TV show, Rear Window, Vertigo, and Psycho. I also really enjoy the Twilight Zone and Outer Limits TV reruns.

    As far as scared shitless goes, I STILL have the occasional Silence of the Lambs nightmare. I’ve only seen it once shortly after it came out and I’m still having flashbacks. runs to hide under the bed

  168. The Serpent and the Rainbow. I only saw it once and that was years ago. It still stands out in my mind. Followed closely by The Ring.

  169. I saw The Ring during a sleep over and it was dark out, an the room had a big window and towards the end someone walked by on the sidewalk and then the phone rang and I screamed.

  170. Well, being Catholic scared me a lot anyway, but watching the Exorcist by myself in the dark was a pretty stupid thing to do. I slept with the lights on for weeks.

  171. Videodrome, starring James Woods. Just the mention of the title puts the image of one particularly graphic scene in my head. <>
    The original theatrical trailer, which looks so cheesy.

  172. First off, 1408 for SURE is the scariest movie ever, and I’m so sad that you were in Vegas and I didn’t get to tell you how much better the world is because you’re in it. Your posts always make me grateful that you’re, well, you.

  173. An American Werewolf in London gave me nightmares as a kid, but it’s one of my favorites now. Many horror movies are like comfort food to me, especially the classics like The Shining and Rosemary’s Baby (and AAWL I just mentioned). The Exorcist is another classic that can still creep me out. Has she seen that one yet?

    Newer movies… Insidious and The Conjuring top my list for ones that FREAKED ME OUT after leaving the theater and made me feel like things might come get me in my sleep and I probably should stop and get some holy water, JUST TO BE SURE. The Last Exorcism did that to me too the very first time I saw it in the theater, but that’s just me :).

    What about Asian horror? Have y’all given that a go? I’ve always found that genre to be the most unnerving along with anything involving demons :D. Like Ringu, Phone, The Eye, Ju-On, Dark Water, Shutter, One Missed Call… all the pre-terrible-American-remake versions, lol. Thirst and Samaritan Girl are both good too, but I don’t think they would be age appropriate yet :).

  174. I saw Children of the Corn at a youth CHURCH LOCK IN. I no longer do scary movies. Or church. Nightmares forever!

  175. Event Horizon and The Descent. I think those are both awesome as well as scary. If she isn’t jaded on special effects, I will always suggest The Thing.

  176. Try The Woman in Black. The original is the best, but there is one with Daniel Ratcliffe (that I haven’t seen because ….. reasons!!! 😨😨😨). As a kid i had night terrors from ET. Still can’t even look at the outline of …. lalalalalalala nope nope nope too scary!!!!! 🙈🙉🙈🙉🙈🙉🙉

  177. Psycho. The original with Anthony Perkins. Not the kind of scary that startles you, but the psychological mind game that never leaves you. I still think about it every time I get in the shower. I will only have shower doors, never curtains…never curtains

  178. Wag the Dog . . . just watched it with my family… no one slept a wink afterwards.

  179. I’m a huge fan of horror movies, and I don’t get nightmares either. Hailey’s fine. She’s going to have a twisted sense of humour that normies won’t understand, but she’s fine.

    One of the movies that did creep me out so much that I had trouble sleeping after was The Grudge (SMG version, haven’t seen the original) . The scene of the girl crawling up from the darkness under the sheets made me scared of sleeping in my bed. I think I ended up sleeping on the couch that night 🙂

  180. I’m not allowed to watch scary movies. The last one I saw (which wasn’t a movie, but an episode of Criminal Minds) burrowed into my brain and now I can’t get into bed at night without taking a flying leap from across the room. For some reason my someone is unimpressed by this ability.

  181. My hubby TOTALLY agrees with your assessment of The Ring. I mention watching and can see his pupils start to dilate. He won’t watch at night. A good one, but not really scary is Ghost Story, with Fred Astaire, Douglas Fairbanks jr, Melvyn Douglas… it is one of the ones we just love.

  182. Hands down: Hideaway. Not sure why, but I WAS a new mom of 2 small kids at the time. My husband and I walked out of the theater; a first! Had to go back with a friend who was a true Stephen King fan & she laughed with me through the whole thing.

  183. I’m mostly like your daughter when it comes to scary movies. I prefer psychological thrillers. However, Poltergeist freaked the hell out of me as a kid and I still cannot watch it without freaking out. Between the clown doll, closet, and the damn kid eating tree I am a mess during that movie.

  184. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Really freaked me out when I was a kid. Still have problems with large flocks of birds !! There was also a movie my sister’s used to watch called “the screaming Skull” scared the bejesus out of my 7 year old self! I found it on DVD a few years ago. Still haven’t got the nerve up to watch it again Lol

  186. I love horror movies but it was, and still is, hard to scare me. As a kid, the original Carrie freaked me out. As an adult, I’ve seen a few movies that disturbed me – none of which are probably appropriate for your daughter.
    I will say that Paranormal Activity- the first one, which I saw in the theatre – left me a little freaked and I had to sleep with the light on.

  187. Night of the living dead. The original. Although to be totally honest, I was7. My mom was out so my dad let my sister and me watch it with him. But 40 years later I watched about the first 10 minutes and it still freaked me out!!!

  188. SESSION 9. Others have mentioned it, but OMFG. That’s one to learn that kiddo about SCARY.

  189. Anything about robots is waaaaaaay majorly scary as hell! Like with that one called “Virus” with Jamie Lee Curtis…. Or anything that happens on a space craft, like with that one called “Event Horizon” with Sam Neill…. OMG

  191. Blair witch. Made my husband return it directly after watching cause I did not want that shit in my house. Also I think candyman. The one with the bees. Bees. Need I say more?

  192. It’s not classified as a “scary movie” but should be. It’s called “We have to talk about Kevin” Scariest movie I ever watched in my life yikes Check it out.

  193. I agree about The Ring. That movie scared the CRAP out of me. After I watched it, I went to the bathroom, and for some strange reason my dog was hiding in the bathtub, the ONE TIME that I didn’t check behind the shower curtain for the boogeyman after watching a horror movie. So he jumped out while I was mid-pee, and all I have to say is thank God I was already on the toilet.

    Halloween also scares the crap out of me every single time.

  194. Dumbo. I was about 7 or 8 and my folks made this huge big deal about taking me to see Dumbo. wow. So I got to watch a movie about an elephant get picked on for being different, and then I got to see his mother tied to stakes in a tent, while the circus caught fire all around her…you do not do that to kids. I had nightmares for days.
    “Did you like the movie honey?” “s”.
    “Wasn’t Dumbo funny?” “s.”

  195. Epigenetics inheritance is a thing. Perhaps the medication you’ve taken for anxiety have expressed genes in H that make her less susceptible to fear?

    I may be misunderstanding epigenetics

  196. The VHS movies freaked me the hell out, but they’re just super twisted. I’m with H, those other movies don’t scare me either. I laughed through It. But I honestly wouldn’t let her watch VHS. It’s damn disturbing.

  198. As a kid, The Exorcist scarred me, but now I’m desensitized. More recently, The Fourth Kind bothered me a LOT. After that, the Annabelle movies sorta creeped me out because I grew up with a huge doll collection, and I always felt dolls are creepy. The Taking of Deborah Logan was a bit weird, but otherwise, not much else bothers me in the film industry within the past decade.

  199. Scariest vampire movie: 30 Days of Night. These are not your romantic vampire types. Plus, romance, an actual plot, touching ending.

  200. I was kind of like Hailey when I was a teenager – I enjoyed scary stuff but it didn’t really scare me at all. But it does NOW. Shirley Jackson stories can leave me feeling unsettled for weeks, even though I read them 20 years ago. The Shining and The Exorcist are a lot more haunting to me now. And I think it’s maybe a life experience/perspective thing. I was watching/reading on a very surface level back then because all I wanted was the cheap thrills and jump scares, and now I’m taking in subtext and underlying themes that deepen the horror of it, and that resonate with experiences I’ve actually had. I re-read Pet Sematary in my mid-30s, and I love it and it’s almost too much to bear at the same time.

    (Disclaimer: this comment may not make much sense. I’m recovering from shingles and I’m on a lot of medications right now.)

  202. The Conjuring and The Woman in Black and The Descent. Only movies I ever had to hide my eyes from, and oh how I love them so! ❤️💕

  206. I don’t scare easily. But Sinister left me feeling very unsettled and a little unnerved.

  208. It’s my understanding that if a child is extremely, incredibly well adjusted they can have the ability to completely compartmentalize fictional fear, label it as ‘not real’ in their heads and then move blissfully on. It’s also my understanding that a complete psychopath would be entirely unaffected by fictional horror…. so take your pick there.

  210. For me, life is scary enough all by itself, without adding to it by watching horror movies. I haven’t seen any of the “classics” other than Frankenstein and Dracula movies, and I think I sleep better at night for it. If your daughter is interested in them, she’ll seek them out. She might not find them scary because she’s well grounded in reality and knows they’re just movies and stories. There might be some other genre that she just enjoys more, right now.

  211. I hate horror movies, but I enjoy a good psychological thriller. My kid (few years older than H) likes the horror. This weekend she watched Friday the 13th with friends. I understand what you mean about being disappointed. It’s disconcerting when someone who can’t even drive doesn’t find serial murder scary.

  212. “Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” with Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman & Lana Turner. (And many years later, “The Serpent & the Rainbow.”) Catch “Dr. Jekyll” on TCM some time; Tracy is EVIL personified!
    Claire

  213. I have seen a lot of scary ones but Dead Snow is one of the ones I recommend. It’s creepy yet quirky. Then watch the sequel and prepare to laugh.

  214. Last night I was watching Pee-wee’s Big Adventure with my kids. The nine year old thought Large Marge was funny, but I covered the seven year old’s eyes and the rest of the movie scared her enough anyways.

    I haven’t seen the new version of It, but the miniseries is fairly terrifying. Helps to watch it in the middle of the night though.

  215. “Paranormal” almost gave me a heart attack. I watched it one afternoon and thought I was fine, but that night, I kept thinking “What if there’s something in MY closet too?! It scared me as much as reading Stephen King’s short story ‘The Boogeyman’ did when I was a kid.

  216. Nosferatu. A silent film. Max Schrek was way scarier than other Dracula’s.

    For a more realistic horror, you can’t beat Psycho. After my folks saw it, my mom wouldn’t go upstairs in the dark. And as she always punted out, “There really ARE people that crazy.”

  217. Exorcism of Emily Rose. I love scary movies but I can’t watch this anymore. Way too intense

  218. I second When A Stranger Calls from 1979 and Creepshow the one with the cockroaches

  219. I absolutely refuse to watch scary movies, but my hubby made me watch a REALLY bad “B” movie called ‘Rubber’ because he thought it would be FINE…and it was friggin’ terrifying. Also, SO bad, but creepy A.F. Maybe since it’s so bad, it will scare her, since the higher quality ones don’t seem to be working. Besides – the main character is a murderous TIRE that blows things up with it’s…well…”mind”, I guess?? So, there’s that.

  220. Hellraiser. It was a one of my first dates and I was trying to be brave but ended up running out of the theatre. I was mortified and cried. There wasn’t a second date.

  221. It is not a very gory movie or a traditional “horror” movie.
    But Primal Fear (book was better than the movie), scared the crap out of me.
    I was up the whole night after reading the book. Maybe a psychological thriller will scare your daughter more than the blood and guts type of horror movie?

  222. girl, what you talkin’ ’bout? i can’t even watch The Wizard of Oz. you got to be kidding me.

  223. I don’t generally do scary movies. They stick with me too long. In the dark.
    But The Exorcism of Emily Rose preview alone gave me horrors.
    and I do like me a psychological thriller. they don’t scare me enough I can’t walk through the house alone, but I do find them hauntingly good: Dead Again was one that made a big impression…and Burnt Offerings took me FOREVER to track down (thanks, Google!) 20 years after I first saw it, but I’m so glad I did.

  224. I watched the Birds when I was 11 or 12. My cousin and I had biked to a friend’s house, and her TV was in front of a huge glass window. It was the middle of the day, but raining and windy. Toward the end of the movie a bird flew right into the plate glass window. Scared us so bad that my Aunt had to come pick us up because we were afraid to go outside.

  225. For me, Alien when I was 11. As an adult, I got creeped out by an afternoon rerun of Arachnaphobia on cable badly enough I had to call someone to talk for a few minutes.

  227. Scariest film I’ve ever seen? The documentary Inside Job, about the 2008 financial collapse. All the more so because we’re in line for a sequel.

    Incidentally, maybe that’s why H isn’t impressed by horror films – look at the major news events of her short lifetime. After all that stuff, what’s supposed to be frightening about some Bozo the Clown wannabe living in the sewers?

  228. I was scared shitless of 1970’s hulk as a toddler, and Hell Raiser as a kid

  229. The movie that scared me the most when I was a kid was The Ghost and the Darkness… all the horror movies I knew were just pretend, but the thought that actual people actually got ripped to shreds by real lions……

  231. Horror of Dracula – starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and I was 5. I was terrified for one night. Then my precociously logical 5-year-old mind determined that if vampires existed, why didn’t they come after me any night before I watched the movie? Must have been because they weren’t that interested in me. It’s still one of my favorite movies.

    Now, nothing is scarier to me than that one split second in Twin Peaks when the mom remembers seeing Bob at the foot of Laura’s bed.

  232. I love scary movies, and the one that scared me the most was Poltergeist. I was watching it in the middle of the day in my own room and it terrified me.
    The original Dawn of the Dead is danged creepy, and quite apart from the idiotic legacy it spawned, the original “Friday the 13th.”

  233. Do not ask yourself what it might say about your Momming that you are polling the internet for ways to scare the shit out of your daughter. You’re either failing or succeeding, one.

  234. I really liked “The Descent” (2005). I think it’s done really well. And thank, you thank you! I’m sooo happy you liked it!

  235. Oh, man, I love horror movies. I saw one recently that creeped me out more than any other. It’s called Hell House LLC. The ending is a little eh, but the movie as a whole gave me the jibblies.

  236. Ironically, both movies that have scared me the absolute most starred Sam Neill. In The Mouth of Madness and Event Horizon. Do NOT watch either in a basement at night alone. You have been warned.

  240. At the time, The Exorcist scared me; but these days it’s Crucible of Horror (a British movie) and Identity.

  242. Ugh, just reading the comments scares me!!!!! I’m a wuss. Candyman still freaks me out and now I’ve read that name more than three times so I’m probably f*cked.

  243. Silver Bullet scared me as a child – but to this day I don’t go I sheds or greenhouses of any kind.

  244. I must have been about 15, babysitting the girls next door (8, 9, and 11). Their mom said “Just take them to the movies, there’s something called ‘The Changeling’ playing.” OHMIGOD. When we got home I had to check the bathroom for ghosts in the bathtub, they jumped every time the house creaked, and they weren’t going to bed any time this week. It’s still one of my favourite movies but that was a terrible choice for girls!

  245. Lake Mungo is horrifying! It’s a slow burn too, and the horror comes from psychological stuff and not jump scares.

  246. My girls and I used to watch scary movies for fun, and they never seemed scared by them…and seem relatively well adjusted. There is a difference between just plain stupid slasher gore and psychological terror. A few of those got to me, like watching The Birds alone in the dark while babysitting. A bad idea. And Psycho…yes slasher, but far from stupid. They need an intelligent script to scare me. The Exorcist, now that one I saw in the theater, and before it was halfway done I had my hands over my eyes and my fingers in my ears, and every time I hear Tubular Bells my heart still beats a bit harder.

  247. “I Spit on your Grave,” but trigger warning for a truly brutal rape scene.

    If you like supernatural, I liked “The Grudge” or “The Shrine”.

    But for truly bone chilling horror: read news about the latest presidential tweet, and the comments section.

  248. Texas Chainsaw Murders, left the theater in tears, gagging. Haven’t seen a scary movie since and I’m 60 now!

  249. I don’t actually like most common horror movies, I get too scared to the point where it’s not fun to watch… But there have been some that scared me in just the right ways. ‘Play Misty For Me’ is old and a bit dated but that didn’t stop it from scaring me. I’ll echo the recommendations for ‘The Omen’ and ‘The Exorcist’. ‘Cujo’ was an interesting watch, actually watched it for the first time while sleeping over at a friend’s house, a friend who just happened to own five really big dogs. Also, while not considered horror, ‘The Hand That Rocks the Cradle’ scared the crap out of me the first time I watched it.

  251. The Haunting of Hill House (the original, not the remake), book by Shirley Jackson. My husband and I watched it on TV late at night and then fought over who was going to have to turn out the lights and get into bed in the dark!

  252. Candyman.
    Mirrors, saying things three times, psychologists – it has everything to make you never watch it again. Your welcome.

  256. Yep. German doors have ‘lever’ type handles. Our one cat opened the front door all the time. Had to throw the lock to keep the door shut. Had student teachers staying with us and told them to lock the door when they went out (from the outside there is only a stationary handle). Yep, Halloween night that student teacher came home after being out to find the front door wide open because she had not thrown the ‘deadbolt’ lock. Better yet, our cat wasn’t in the house, but a stranger’s cat was. My husband and I slept through it all as she chased the stray cat out of the house.

  257. Duel. The power of that truck just waiting there. Thank you, Mr Spielberg! And when I had my first panic attack 29 years ago guess what set me off. A freakin 18 wheeler, that’s what. Aaargh. Also, I saw Wait Until Dark as a play in a very small theatre space, seating for 20 or 25, and all of us were crammed together practically onstage with the actors. Absolutely terrifying.

  259. I know a few others have mentioned it, but The Changeling still scares me to this day. The wheelchair scene traumatized me as a child and the creepy shots looking up towards the dark attic taps into a primordial fear I just can’t shake. And the scene with the ball coming down the stairs is just…damn.

  260. I think the real world may just need too scary for kids so they’re just desensitized. I mean I grew up during the Iraq “war” and horror movies don’t really bother me. Just a thought

  261. The most horrible movies that cause me to say “NEVER watching THAT SHIT EVER AGAIN” are in fact not horror movies or ‘scary movies’ at all, though I love to READ horror/scary books. I think, like Hailey, I know in the movie crazy shit is gonna happen and I’m SUPPOSED to be scared by it so in fact they don’t scare me at all. And then of course YOU, the Haunted Dollhouse creating, taxidermy-loving Mother makes it all look mad and kooky everyday so there’s that. Reading on the other hand will get me every time due to the suspense. But as for MOVIES that haunt me – The Pursuit Of Happyness, Collateral Beauty, and What Dreams May Come. All awesome movies but due to my own mental health (and my brother’s suicide) I could only watch them each once. Never ever again. Try that and see if Hailey is unmoved by tragedy, angst, death, suicide. If those don’t move something in her, yes, your child may be broken. But I doubt it. She’s just too smart for Hollywood. (Thank God!!)

  262. The most terrifying movie I ever saw was the original 1963 version of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. After I’d seen the movie, I read the book and it scared me all over again.

    “Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

  263. “It Follows” as recommended by my 24 year old baby son.
    Not suggesting Jaws but, just thought I’d share that after I saw Jaws on my 11” black and white tv that lived under our baby grand piano (best place to cozy up for some staticky tiny tv watching) I had to pee in the kitchen sink all night. I was afraid to go into the bathroom. Cause you know, toilet sharks and all…

  264. Stephen King’s Silver Bullet. I put my head under a blanket every time the Werewolf was on the screen. To be fair, I was 6 or 7, but it was terrifying at the time.

  265. High Tension. I don’t find many movies to be scary because the characters, more often than not, do something ridiculously inappropriate given the situation, and of course wind up dead. In this movie, the main character does everything right….most realistic and freaky horror movie that I have ever seen

  266. The Descent is really scary if you’re slightly claustrophobic like I am. Also a great one to watch with H would be When Animals Dream. I feel like it’s a good feminist film and I love it when a movie ends in an unconventional way.

  267. the original 70’s version of planet of the apes… those talking monkeys still give me nightmares

  268. The Haunting (the 1963 version, with Claire Bloom and Julie Harris). Followed by When A Stranger Calls (1979 version, Carol Kane, Charles Durning).

  269. It may seem silly, but Gremlins scared me. I swear I felt one of them bite me and saw their shadows on my bedroom wall. The bad ones, not Gizmo. I It scared me, but The original Ammityville Horror. The red eyes of Jodi the evil pig/demon, still scares me! I also can’t watch The Hills Have Eyes

  270. The Exorcism of Emily Rose stayed with me for YEARS. As far as non-paranormal films go, The Strangers chilled me to the bone. Both based on true stories, too. That makes them even scarier to me.

  271. Ommmmgggg, that movie looks scary as HELL, man.
    The movie that really gets to me, I mean, terrifies me to the bone is “Silence of the Lambs.” The way Lector or whatever his name is (Just stands there) when Jodi walks in. (((CHILLS))))

  272. My daughter was never scared by horror movies. Her favorite show at 3 years old was the X-files and she wanted to be like Scully when she grew up. What scared her was the movie “Twister”! She said it’s because tornadoes are real, movies are just pretend.

  273. I’m dying to see The Quiet Place! Speaking of daughters, mine just saw that and said it was good. She loves horror movies but they don’t really “scare” her. TRUE STORY: A couple years ago she was watching a movie on her phone and giggling occasionally. I asked what she was watching and she said “Saw III.” #Freak
    For me, The Exorcist – which I saw at the drive-in movies when I was a little kid, scared the cheezits out of me because I totally believe in demon possession. Well, at least I’m open minded to the actual possibility. 😀

  274. I’m deaf myself, so I’m really looking forward seeing Quiet Place! The scariest movie ever for me? The goddamn Ring. We have text phones here (we write, the “interpreter” in the other side relays our message in speech to the hearing person we’re calling and vice versa). After seeing the Ring, my fucking text phone blinked with a red light exactly seven days after seeing the movie. I checked if there was any messages left to me (deaf people can leave written messages, hearing people can’t, so the messages from them will be “empty”). Well.. my phone suddenly started to glitch and onscreen appeared text: ‘This phone is doomed’. Afterwards it shut down and never worked again. Moved it into a trash bin very quickly. And yes, I have witnesses + a photo of that creepy ‘doomed’ message.

    And still I keep watching horror movies…. sigh.

  275. Dude. I was traumatized by Gremlins at 8yo and I haven’t watched a scary movie since. Well I was peer pressured into Pet Cemetery in high school, but I actively tried not to pay attention…last thing I needed to was to imagine my family dog freaking the fuck out on me.

    I would submit that H has had a higher exposure to creep and odd than other kids so maybe that a bit why she is more immune.

  276. “Amelia” from Trilogy of Terror scared the bejesus out of me when I was a teen. It stars Karen Black and a Zuni hunter fetish doll that comes to life and terrorizes her. I watched it recently and while it’s more campy to me now, it’s still kinda scary.

  277. I’d agree about the ring, though the original Japanese version not the rubbish US remake. Also ‘the eye’, ditto, original not US. The scene in the elevator still freaks me the fuck out.

    My kids are similar, I think they’ve just seen a lot more shit than we did as kids thanks to the internet.

    This amateur short film I found did get a reaction from them though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNbJE0y29_c

    If you’re looking for a more literary freak out, then the scariest story I ever read (and consider I’m a fan of horror writing generally), was by Gerald Durrell, he of my family and other animals fame, so totally incongruous and unexpected. It was a story at the back of a book of short stories, most of them just his usual hilarious nonsense, then suddenly this bloody story which I read and couldn’t put down and basically stopped me from sleeping for about 3 days. It’s called the entrance, not sure if you can get it or not, I found a review here:
    https://virtualborderland.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/short-story-review-the-entrance-gerald-durrell/

    BTW I came across this blog randomly not so long back, and enjoyed it so much I bought the books for my daughter who suffers from anxiety and depression. She’s also enjoying reading them and the blog now, mainly just because she now appreciates there are plenty of people just as fucked up if not more so than the rest of us quietly feel! So thanks for sharing.

    Happy trails!

  278. I’ve loved horror since I was little. I prefer reading my horror, (and if you’d asked about books, I could tell you about a few that that scared me way back when and still creep me out today) but I’m not going to turn down watching a scary movie if it’s offered. Anyway, “Jaws” scared me when I was a little girl. My parents took me and my brother to the drive-in, expecting us to be asleep during the second movie, which was “Jaws”. I wasn’t asleep, and for years after that, I couldn’t swim in our in-ground pool unless someone else was out there with me. I was scared to death that a shark would somehow be in the deep end of the pool.
    Then when I was 19, my parents were trying to sell our house and my Dad and brother had already moved to Tennessee from Michigan so Dad could work and brother could start school. My Mom and I stayed in Michigan to get the house sold. My Mom would periodically go visit my Dad, and I’d be in the house alone. My boyfriend took me to see “My Deadly Friend” during one of those times, and I had to go back home to a totally empty house afterward. I was so scared! Our house was already a bit creepy (both my Mom and myself described the same “creature” we saw to my Dad unbeknownst to the other) and I couldn’t bear to turn out the lights until my Mom came home 3 days later. I have no idea what the electric bill looked like, but there was no way I was going to have any darkness in the house for anything to hide in.
    I still love horror movies and my husband and I actively seek them out when we go to yard sales and thrift stores,

  279. Hey. The scariest movie I ever saw was a short film within a film. I’m leaving the link from youtube here in case you want to check it out. Basically, VH2 is a movie about private investigators going through found footage. Each of the tapes they find is an actual short film. The one that scares me is called Ritual.

    It’s about a documentary crew exploring the lives of a group of pagans. You should watch it, but I think THIS might be too scary for Haley.

  281. Toss between Halloween and the Salems lot mini series from the 70’s or 80s. I also like paranormal activity. Steel Magnolias is also kind of terrifying but in a completely different way.

  282. Another vote for Poltergeist and Nightmare on Elm Street. My brother was terrified by Alien as well, and my college-aged son wouldn’t watch past the part where they start searching the ship and the guy is in the big room with dripping water and chains hanging from the ceiling.

  283. Try her on creepy instead of horror. The first time a movie really made me scared was “Wait Until Dark”…..I screamed out loud in my junior high school auditorium. And I was upstairs with the projectionist. Happily many people thought I’d done on purpose it to jolt THEM. 😀

  284. I agree with The Ring. I legit cried in the theater because I was so scared.

    Also, The Grudge and Paranormal Activity. I still get shivers thinking about those movies.

  286. I am also not easily scared. I find most horror movies to be silly or gross. I loved Poltergeist but I always found it more intriguing than scary. However, The Exorcism of Emily Rose really creeped me out.

  287. I am easily scared but I didn’t think Babadook or The Shining were scary at all, and I intentionally watched them alone in the dark.

  288. The soundtrack to Jaws used to scare the shit out of me as a kid.I’d have to plug my ears and hum loudly.

    I think moves like the Devil’s Rejects and Hostel are scary and I won’t watch them because it is too true that there ARE people that evil out here in the world that take pleasure in causing pain and death in people and animals. and I can’t deal with that.

    Perhaps you can trace those movies back (the ring and others) to their original Korean beginnings. sometimes the Asian original version is much scarier than the Americanized version. Maybe those will freak your daughter out.

  289. The absolute scariest movie I’ve ever seen is “it follows”. It stays with you in all the ways you don’t want it to. It may not be as scary as you watch it but then, after, it will not leave you. It horrified me. It took me a LONG time to get it out of my head. Even now, I can only think of it obliquely.

  290. Blair Witch Project. I just gave myself the willies by thinking of that movie again.

  291. The bad seed. Not the newer version but the 1956 one with Patty McCormack. Sheesh. You know it’s bad when you’re rooting for the mom to just get those sleeping pills down the kid already!

  292. The scariest movie I ever saw was The Village BUT before you judge me because I realize that’s totally not a scary movie, understand that I had about a 103º fever at the time and was also hallucinating. So I guess my suggestion is have her watch something while also mentally unwell. OR a lot of Korean horror movies tend to be a bit more psychologically terrifying than American horror which is mostly gore.

  294. FULL DISCLOSURE NO ONE UNDER 18 SHOULD EVER SEE THIS MOVIE. Last House on The Left. The original 60’s version not the remake. Most messed up, never let a stranger in your house messed up horror movie ever. Seriously I have yet to recover from this movie and may never do so. This is trauma level horror. It was banned in most theaters when it was released and for good reason. I am not promoting this film, nor even saying it is any good. It sucked.

  295. The Shining. I was in my 20’s & I had nightmares for a week. I do not watch horror movies anymore.

  296. While my favorite horror movie to date has to be the Conjuring, it didn’t freak me out to the level of having nightmares. What did get me was an anime series: Ghost Hunt. There were many episodes that had me running about the house turning ALL the lights on, and a few that made me cry (because it was sad, not because I was scared) while still being completely freaked out. I know anime isn’t for everyone, but I really do recommend it.

    If you want a book I’d go for I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells. It’s kinda Dexter meets Supernatural in concept. The second book in the series freaked me out so much I had to put it down for a few months.

  297. ughh, I typed this up but I think the silly internet froze and didn’t let me post. So HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CORPSES (or any movie by Rob Zombie, really) freaked me the fuck out when I was 15/16, and still haunts me to this day (I am 30).

  298. I think some part of it is that kids today are just more inured to the things that make horror movies scary. Squeals, heavy bass you feel but cant hear, incomplete/unresolved stories, close-ups and color changes (aka selfies and filters), reflections, irregular movements/ personality changes – all the things directors use to make a film scary – are so commonplace in the background of daily life that they’ve mostly lost their ability to surprise.

    Even the stuff kids worry about today is a lot more serious than the stuff I worried about as a kid. Theres a school shooting or incident almost daily, which makes life in general pretty scary for kids growing up now. The bar to make things scary enough for horror movies is higher.

  299. Nomads. I didn’t sleep for weeks and I just remembered it after reading some other comments. Scary because the premise is that the supernatural is around you all the time and that bad things happen when you start to pay attention and notice it. Would love to find it and see if it still terrifies me the same way.

  300. The Other. It’s a hard to find 1970’s movie starring Uta Hagen, John Ritter and Victor French. Scary AF.

  301. Frozen – 2010 – about 3 people stuck on a ski lift. Not scream out loud scary, but you’re going to freak out waiting for these people to die kind of scary.

  302. Halloween for me, but I saw it by myself and then walked home in the dark! I swear Michael Myers was behind every bush. The Conjouring is pretty darn creepy. I thought Paranormal Activity was scary; so did my husband, but the teenagers behind us thought it was stupid. Maybe it is generational!

  304. When a Stranger Calls- Older movie, watched couple years ago, still freaks me out.

  305. Return to Oz. The heads OMG the heads. And the wheeled monkeys. And did I mention the heads?

  306. As a child, the movie that freaked me out more than anything was actually “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”. A group of kids go on what’s supposed to be an incredible adventure, and then immediately start dropping like flies. Getting sucked into the factory works, being turned into fruit. I fled the room in terror after Violet Beauregarde’s transformation. The worst part for me was that none of the adults in the film would do anything to stop it. “Tough luck, kids. You’re on your own!”. Very disturbing to a young mind.

    Scariest film as an adult has to have been the original “Blair Witch Project”. It probably didn’t help that I watched it on a dark and stormy night in a completely empty house. DID NOT want to go to sleep that night.

    While we’re on the topic, is anyone other than me bothered by the fact that “A Haunting In Connecticut 2” takes place entirely in Georgia? Makes no sense.

  307. “The Day After” is easily the scariest movie I have ever seen. I still have nightmares about it.

  308. For some reason The Ring was one of the few movies to actually scare me. My husband had to stick by my side (even in the bathroom) for 3 days before I was better. Horror movies usually don’t bother me.

  309. OMGosh! Hostel gave me nightmares for months after and I was in my 30’s when I saw it!!! I didn’t even try to watch the second one!

  311. The Descent scared the ever living shit out of me, as did Insidious and the Conjuring. If she can sit through those and not jump she is my new hero lol.

  312. It totally depends on what scares each person. My Girl terrified me – I didn’t know my friends could actually die. Movies with home invasions are scary, movies with aliens are silly. So, your daughter isn’t broken at all, she may just be scared of real things?

  313. Hi Jenny, The Exorcist. When I was a kid I laughed at scary movies and that one freaked me the hell out. 😉
    Cristin

  314. The Birds. But, I do have a phobia about flappy wingy feathery things attacking my face, so…..

  315. The Craft!! Especially the scene at the very end with every creature anyone could possibly be afraid of comes out!

  317. I am such a chicken about horror movies that I can’t even bring myself to recall what movie scared me the most because I don’t want it bouncing around in my head even seven hours before bed. =P

    When I was little, even the Brady Bunch episode where Billy The Kid shoots Bobby’s family scared me.

  318. Also, older scary movies are usually more scary/creepy-I think it’s because they’re less glossy/overdone and more gritty.
    I watched the netflix series about the two ppl that go and investigate old crimes that spawn urban legends, and they show clips from the original chainsaw massacre movie that was inspired by unsolved murders in Texas, and it looked pretty creepy-the guys got this dirty white sheet over his head etc., idk I guess you have to see it.
    Cristin

  319. The Exorcist. After Pet Cemetery I couldn’t walk in the woods. But hands down Original Jaws scarred me for life. I now have a water phobia. No lakes, hate cruises, even swimming pools are suspect.

  320. While I like The Shining the movie, the book was BEYOND terrifying and my favorite SK novel. I highly recommend the read as it is very different from Kubrick’s take. As for the scariest movie? I have to give it up to Paranormal Activity. That shissh had me awake at night for weeks! I couldn’t even watch the last two minutes!

  321. Jaws. Saw it when I was like 10 and it literally left me with an anxiety attack (the first of many throughout life). The Shining, When a Stranger Calls. All the Saw movies (it’s the psychological stuff that freaks me out). People here are saying the Babadook, but I watched it and thought it was stupid!

  322. Anthony Hopkins in “Magic” – creepy as fuck. I hate all things doll or ventriloquist now. Seriously jacked up movie.

  323. Love the tribe…Since everyone already offered up some fantastic horror movies suggestions I will contribute some goosebump worthy tv shows. “Paranormal Witness” is a SyFy channel show that is binge worthy nightmare fuel based on paranormal related eyewitness accounts, and also “Mind Hunter” which creepily examines the minds of serial killers and why they do what they do.. Based on true events btw…on Netflix. Enjoy getting your scare on everyone!

  324. Silence of the Lambs! Real monsters scare me more than anything I could imagine.

  325. When I was young large flocks of birds left me anxious since I vaguely remembered seeing something about birds attacking people on TV–apparently I had been exposed to the movie but didn’t remember it. Loved the hack and slash horror movies of the early 80s for the tension and suspense. They scared/tittalted me while watching them but that didn’t linger. Later in life I tried to watch them but couldn’t stand the tension and suspense (turns out adult life has plenty of both already, thank you very much).

    I am more of a reader and scary books have more of an effect than moveis on me. I think because reading engages your imagination and you’ll always imagine up the worst for you, which varies per person and a movie can’t be one size fits all and usually has no imagination left in it. There are some exceptions life Blair Witch and Paranormal, where you don’t really know.

    I cannot watch war movies, they freak out my psyche something awful. I tell people they give me flashbacks to a past life. War movies and what humans will do to each other in the name of dick swinging…. so scary!

  326. I LOVE LOVE LOVE horror movies even though if I really really like it I get scared and regret watching it the whole time it’s on. I never found most of the classics like The Shining or The Exorcist scary, but I still loved them.
    My top scary movies are probably:
    The Conjuring
    The Grudge ( Sarah Michelle Gellar version & Ju-On the original)
    and because I have a special interest in alien movies I’d include
    Dark Skies and
    The Fourth Kind which was marketed as based on a true story, but that turned out to be bullshit.

  327. BTW, want to add that Jaws was terrifying and many have echoed that. Like somehow sharks will be in the toilet pool or the public swimming pool…. oh and in tornadoes. We can’t forget that sharks will show up there too.

  328. The Blair Witch Project scared the crap out of me as a kid. Other horror movies didn’t bother me at all then, but my dumb fourteen-year-old self thought that was actual movie footage being released to theaters (did I mention dumb?), so I slept with the lights on for a week.

  329. The Grudge… either version but I honestly still get the heebie jeebies just thinking about the S.M. Gellar one and
    The Howling. Been traumatized by that movie since I was 9 (should totally not have been watching it at that age)

  330. 100% The Ring. I am not a fan of horror, and when I was in grade 6 at a slumber party, all the other girls wanted to watch The Ring. As a self-aware 11-year-old, I told them to enjoy, and said I would be upstairs reading a book until they were done. They all insisted I stayed with them, even after I explained I would keep them up all night since I’d be too scared (they insisted no on wants to sleep at a slumber party) and I gave in to the peer pressure.

    Needless to say, I was the least liked party-goer at 2 in the morning when I didn’t let them turn the lights out for bed.

  331. The Changeling, starring George C. Scott (not the movie by the same name starring Angelina Jolie). It’s a good old fashioned haunted house story—doesn’t rely on gore and jump scares like so many modern horror movies do.

  332. The Exorcist was the scariest movie I ever saw. I drove home from my friend’s house, constantly looking in my back seat to make sure no demons were hiding there. I think I related to it somehow, because I totally think there’s a possibility of being possessed. That’s why I always say “God bless you,” when someone sneezes. The saying comes from the days when Puritans believed your soul temporarily left your body during a sneeze, allowing access for a demonic presence to fill the spot left vacated during the sneeze.

  333. The Changeling… the one with George C Scott… not the one with Angelina Jolie (though… on second thought…)

    If Changeling doesn’t do it then, yes, your kid is broken… please take her in to the shop.

  334. The Entity. My god…..I haven’t seen it in 20 years but the thought of it freaks me the hell out. Mainly because it’s supposed to be true, but even if it’s not, it still has me hiding under the covers at night just waiting….waiting….waiting…

  335. I used to love horror movies. Watched them from about the age of 9 or 10 when my cousin and I would binge watch them over summer vacation. We got some strange looks at first from the guy at the video store and he wouldn’t rent to Nightmare on Elm Street to us until my uncle came in and said it was ok. Anyway fastforward 20 years or so, we would still get together and watch horror movies whenever we could. Then we watched the first Insidious movie. I haven’t watched a horror movie since. Movies never bothered me before. Didn’t cause nightmares or anything. Watched hundreds of horror movies and read all kinds of books. But watched Insidious once and I haven’t gone near the genre since. It’s been a few years now. I don’t know if other people would react to it the way I did, I used to suffer from sleep paralysis quite a bit and I have lucid dreams so maybe it just hit too close to home. I had a hard time sleeping for months afterwards. Actually… if you haven’t seen it and you tend to suffer from sleep paralysis or intense dreaming you probably shouldn’t watch this movie.

  336. Dark Water and the Devil’s Backbone freaked me out, but I tend to find more “ghost story” style movies more scary and upsetting than your standard slasher. Dark Water made me cry. Devil’s Backbone the horror came from how nasty some of the people were, that human evil I found more frightening than the ghost.

    The Grudge had a lot of us clinging to one another in a cinema hahaha, but that’s I think because we were the only people in the theater which made it spookier. The japanese grudge movies are a very confusing mess with time travel and a non linear narrative which makes it quite hard to follow what’s going on. Doesn’t help that everyone’s dressed the same so it’s really hard to tell who’s who. The english language remake was directed by the same guy and is a bit of a greatest hits compilation. It also skips out the dead baby bits which i’m grateful for, that whole subplot was just really upsetting.

    I admit that a lot of the older ones don’t hold up so much now. Some are still mildly interesting or engaging, but the horror element has been so over done in other media/movies that it’s sort of just.. meh.
    To be perfectly honest, I actually found thrillers more scary than a lot of horror movies. Watching Red Dragon had me seriously creeped out. The mirrors in the eyes thing, eugh… What Lies Beneath too, I like that movie. I mean it’s pretty upsetting in parts but the murder mystery element is really interesting and the scares do make it pretty creepy in parts.

    I was a huge horror buff as a kid, looooved horror. Horror movies, horror books. I devoured all things scary and wasn’t really freaked by most stuff, more bemused.
    However, I have to admit, having grown up a bit, i’m more scared by horror movies nowadays and I don’t enjoy the feeling of fear nearly so much. I think age changes how we handle horror. Things that scare adults are different to what scares kids, a lot of writers have mentioned this, and that may be what’s going on here. Kids are way braver than adults.

    Now of course, if anywhere near you ever puts on a production of the play of The Lady in Black, go! It creeped 14 year old me right the hell out. The sound production is excellent and the big dark theater and most of the time just one person on a stage really pulls in the atmosphere.
    The movie was okay but the play is way creepier and more effectively scary.

  337. Poltergeist, The Exorcist, and The Ring all creeped me out. But by far, The Changeling and Event Horizon actually scared me.

  338. Jaws, not particularly scary by today’s standards except I was 6 (year 1)when I saw it at school. School you say yep it was at school a beach school to be exact. The school was five minutes from the ocean and we held our swimming carnivals at the beach. This was in Western Australia as well (look up sharks and Western Australia if you want) the teachers either had a wicked sense of humour or were fuckin fucks considering it was the 80’s it was probably both.

  339. The is this real life post had me cracking up! A big wtf to him. The scariest movie I saw was The Amityville horror movie, it was the remake. I haven’t watched a scary movie since then and don’t plan to. Good luck finding a scary movie.

  340. ‘Let’s Scare Jessica To Death’ super campy and really bad but has THE best scary music during the canoe scene. Not a fan of the gore movies but love the Shining, those little twin girls are creeptastic. Practically cried at the beginning of Jaws because she was so human saying ‘it hurts’. I was expecting scary but not sad and pathos inducing! Say what you want about M Knight, the Sixth Sense is still the perfect blend of scare and intelligence.

    But then all the fun ones like Evil Dead 2 and Shaun of the Dead and the first Scream, oh I could go on.

  341. For me, toss up between Wizard of Oz, Hellraiser, and Blood Simple (Coen brothers). And no, I am not willing to watch them again to make a decision. Although reading the comment at #339, makes me remember that Amityville Horror was also in the same league, but I saw the original.

  342. I don’t watch horror films because nothing compares to my imagination sometimes; however, Minority Report – yes, the one with Tom Cruise – still creeps me out to this day because I see that stuff making an appearance already in our lives, and I see how paranoid people are becoming in general. How long before we’re walking through a mall and the advertising screen changes based on facial recognition to something Google has specifically “picked out for us” based on our recent purchases through Amazon? Oh wait… that already happens! UGH. When someone shows up at my door claiming to be from the future saying they want to kill me to avoid some crime in the future, I will not be surprised. And I will run. Not looking forward to the bathtub of ice to avoid the bots. 🙁 Humans are the scariest animals on the planet. I’ll take a pack of wolves over humans ANY DAY.

  343. For completely different reasons: An Andalusian Dog, Pink Flamingos, and Alien. But the first two are wildly inappropriate for a child. Images from them are still burned into my memory almost 50 years later, and I saw them as a college student.

  344. I went back and read other people’s comments and wanted to add: Nosferatu (Max Schreck silent movie)-IS THE CREEPIEST movie I have ever seen-agreeing with another commenter above. And even though I LOVE LOVE LOVE Gregory Peck and all his work, I couldn’t make myself watch The Omen in it’s entirety. And speaking of Gregory Peck-whom I LOVE!!!! He was in a movie with Polly Bergen and Robert Mitchum titled Cape Fear in early 60’s . I could not watch the ultra handsome and talented Mr. Mitchum in any other movie for a long (years!) time-because his character (and his talent for getting into the role! )Scared the bejabbers out of me. Gregory Peck was also in a movie titled On the Beach-set post-thermo-nuclear war-with Anthony Perkins -of Psycho fame-which-the more I watched, the more horrified I was. Anthony Perkins was so young, sweet, heroic and handsome. Can you tell I am a Gregory Peck fan? He also made the BEST war movie ever- 12 O’Clock High. Talk about psychological thrillers. And BTW- I also think that Disney’s WALL-E is pretty horrifying in the way it’s speculated that humans evolved as time went by-and what happened to the Earth to make all the humans migrate to space stations in the first place…..

  345. The Silence of the Lambs scared the crap out of me, particularly the end scene with the night vision goggles (no spoilers, although c’mon, people, it’s been out for a million years at this point). And the scene in Cape Fear when DeNiro is hiding under the car?! Made me incapable of getting into my car without taking a quick peek for what must’ve been years! I’m not sure either of those count as horror movies but those scared me more than any type of supernatural or beastie movie.

  347. Sinister and the Conjuring are the movies that scared me the most! Try those.

  348. Sinister and the Conjuring are the movies that scared me the most! Try those.

  349. The scariest movie I ever saw was the first Nightmare on Elm Street but that’s probably because I was young at the time. I don’t even know how long it was before I wasn’t afraid to fall asleep.

  350. Fire In The Sky—about an alien abduction in Arizona—something about it spooks me to this very day. I love it!

  351. The Strangers or the orginal Last House on the Left. Both based on true stories, both gave me nightmares for weeks. And I’m someone who doesn’t get scared easily either.

  354. I don’t think that any has mentioned The Witch. Truly terrifying. Watch with subtitles because the 1630s New England dialogue is difficult to understand.

  355. The scariest movie I ever saw as a kid was Creepshow 2. I still cannot watch it as an adult. Second scariest The Thing. The original and the new version are both good.

  356. So like “The Grudge” isn’t the scariest movie in the world, but it was my first scary movie, so that left an impression on me.

    But I personally thought “Legion” was terrifying because the concept of monsters being sent by God to wipe out humanity fucked me up for weeks.

    “Daybreakers” is good, but it’s hardly scary for two minor facts: 1) the main vampire in the story is named Edward, 2) all the vampires had pretty yellow eyes. It was like someone tweaked a Twilight fanfic just enough to produce a movie. However, if you’re looking for a buckets of Blood movie, this is a good one.

  358. I like scary movies but most of them I just find cheesy and they don’t really scare me. My favorite scary movie ever is Scream. I don’t know that it actually “scares” me but I do jump on one part every time I watch it. lol And I like it has humor mixed in. But the movie that actually gave me nightmares was Hollow Man.

    As for kids – my oldest son watched Jeepers Creepers once when he was a kid and had nightmares for the longest and never wanted to watch a scary movie again. He doesn’t like them. I have another son who loves scary movies and watches them often and it doesn’t seem to phase him. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with H. Everybody’s different.

  359. P.S. So I asked my son (the one who loves scary movies) what’s the scariest movie he’s ever seen and he said the newest Insidious movie (The Last Key)

  360. I freak out over scary movies so I usually just read the plot on moviespoilers.com. But I did watch the ring and was so scared I slept in my moms bed even though I was 20.

  361. Ok, someone wrote about “Return to Oz” and yes, I get you…that movie will haunt your dreams forever….(the wheelers burn it w/fire and the acid trip that was the gnome king) but in a Tim Burton-ish/Jim Henson endearing way though! I can’t help but love that movie.. So much! In regards to inadvertently horrifying children’s movies… This one… Takes the cake. .”Unico and the Island of Magic.” My husband bought it for me and I actually HID behind my blanket at 33 years old while watching it again 25 plus years later. The sorcerer in that movie is so disturbing…his voice sounds like if “The Exorcist” were auto tuned. He flies around his island made of puppets that he cursed (used to be people) like a deranged red tennis ball and its up to Unico a cute little unicorn to save all his friends. My husband was even freaked out by this movie..a 37 year old man! A must watch..,of course lol.

  362. In no particular order – Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, Psycho, The Birds, Wait Until Dark, 13 Ghosts, Haunting of Hill House (original), Being Old Enough To Have Seen The Originals of Everything I’ve Listed, Duel – the one where the 18-wheeler chases Dennis Weaver – I wasn’t that scared, but I did enjoy the Ring, the Conjuring, and the Shining (multiple times). I love a good horror movie or book – but don’t like all the blood and gore stuff (although I’m binge watching Dexter right now) – go figure. The Exorcist didn’t bother me that much until 3 months after I saw it – my 5-year-old sister got into the bed with me AFTER I had gone to sleep – and I woke up to this creepy sounding Exorcist-ishy noise. After I got the courage to open one eye, moving ever-so-slightly so I could jump out of the bed and run screaming out of my room – I felt a body next to me and completely freaked out! My sister still scares me.

  363. Congratulations on your Nom(nation) for an award that I join others in hoping that you WIN!

  364. I saw THE FOG (original, not the remake) as a child and it terrified me. I found it in a video store as an adult and brought it home telling my kids how scary this movie was.

    I over-hyped it. It sucked. I have no idea what was so scary about it.

  365. “Wait Until Dark”, a 60s movie with beautiful, fragile Audrey Hepburn as a lovely blind woman who is targeted by drug-smuggling thugs who think she has one of their smuggled items filled with baggies of drugs in her apartment in NYC. I was eight when my mom took me to see it because “let’s go see an Audrey Hepburn film!!!11!!” (my mom loved her and probably thought it was a light-hearted romp.)

    When Alan Arkin, The Creepiest Drug Smuggling Thug Ever ™, comes after her, blind Audrey busts all the lightbulbs in the apartment so the odds will be even, BUT SHE FORGOT THE FRIDGE LIGHT!!!! OMIFREAKIN’ GOD, SHE FORGOT THE LIGHT IN THE FRIDGE!!! I still have nightmares about this.

  366. the brood. made me terrified of children for a few years which was kind of weird since my mom worked at a daycare.

  368. Love me some scary movies. Particularly cheesy horror. However…one movie that never fails to give me the creeps? The Changeling. Not the Angelina Jolie that’s-not-my-kid one, the George C. Scott one with the creepy haunted mansion and the bouncy ball and oh dear god, that fucking wheelchair. I hate that wheelchair.

  370. By the time you get way down here (you are very popular Jenny Lawson) my picks are used up, however at risk of talking to myself (which I do anyway..although I’m told it’s ok as long as I agree with me) I agree (see 🙂 ) with number 3 or 4 posterer above, Session 9 and also The Ring, too. I saw Exorcist in the movie theater when the uncut version was released in 2000. It was super scary because Regan after vomiting pea soup, she crab crawls up the stairs backwards!! Crazy stuff. Plus it supposed to be true, which always adds to the scare factor for me.

  371. I love horror movies! Unfortunately, there aren’t any relatively new ones that have stuck with me.
    When I was younger, I remember being creeped out by Black Christmas (the original), Halloween (the original, which is now one of my favorites), and The Gate (which looks absolutely ridiculous after confirming the title on IMDB).

  372. The Descent. If you watch that shit in the dark, so scary. Recently some good ones were “You’re Next” and “Don’t Breathe”. Highly recommend both.

  374. If you love horror, a great movie to watch with your daughter is The Final Girls! Campy, slasher and has a heart. Very unrated and should be a cult favorite. The mother-daughter storyline is actually really touching.

  375. The Ring 2 actually was scary enough that we stopped watching it at night and finished in the day, and I MAINLINE horror movies. Like, that’s literally all I watch if I can get away with it. That said, The Cube is kind of terrifying and You’re Next and if you have a stomach for the gore (if it has a point) Martyrs. BUT ONLY THE FRENCH ONE. Not the remake.

  376. AMITYVILLE HORROR!😱! Saw it when I was like 12–scared the living shit outa me! I STILL see beady red eyes when I look out a window at night. And when I wake up at 3:15am…FUUUUUUHHHHHCK!!!!!

  377. Honestly, Harry Potter #2 might be the scariest of scary movies for me. Ron’s fear of the spiders equals my fear of the spiders so I canNOT watch that movie without someone nearby to hold my hand through those parts.

    Oddly, I am fine with the giant spiders in The Hobbit movie #2. Why? Because NO ONE IS AFRAID OF THEM! Their lack of fear helps me to remain calm . . . and detached. 😉

    But believe you me, the FIRST time I watched The Hobbit #2? I closed my eyes during those scenes. It was only on my second watch-through that I was able to actually watch the scenes. 🙂

  378. I watched The Ring at my sort of ex-boyfriend’s house (that’s a l-o-n-g story) and it was like 1:30 a.m. when we finished watching it and my mom called my phone wanting to know when I was coming home about 3 minutes after the movie was over!!

  379. The Ruins. It isn’t exactly THAT scary as you’re watching it, but I promise you that idea keeps with you after the movie is over and that still freaks me out.

  380. I can’t believe no one has mentioned Freaks! It doesn’t seem like it will be that scary up until the end. I sometimes have to check under my bed when I think of that movie.

  381. Ju-On (original “The Grudge” movie)…scared me so bad I kept all the lights on and refused to sleep.

  384. The Strangers, The Grudge and The Ring still give me nightmares and I haven’t even watched them in years

  385. Requiem for a Dream and Mulholland Drive. I’ve seen a lot of horror movies but those were scarier.

  386. My first was John Carpenter’s The Thing. I saw it in high school and tried to crawl under a reclining chair to hide. I still can’t watch the defibrillator scene.

    Most recently was Under the Shadow. The feelings of isolation and helplessness is palpable.

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