Looking for some scary movies to watch for Halloween.
Here’s a list I’ve compiled with the help of some friends and readers.
As tastes always vary for movies, especially in the horror genre, these are listed in order of release.
This will also help you avoid any remakes that for the most part really don’t capture the frights and chills of the originals.
The Tingler (1959)
Marc “Qwyjibo” Troast keeps telling me I need to see The Tingler. Here’s his reason why:
The Tinger is a classic Vincent Price thriller. William Castle introduces the film ala Alfred Hitchcock, with a few warnings to movie goers.
Although The Tingler can be a bit campy, there are some thrilling surprises throughout the movie. A cult classic for sure.
It appears this movie was originally shown in “Feel Around.”
Psycho (1960)
You knew Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho had to be on this list, didn’t you?
I saw it a few years back on the big screen. It definitely holds up.
The shower scene remains frightening and Anthony Perkin’s performance as Norman Bates unnerved me more than it had before.
I mean, check him out here.
The Exorcist (1973)
I had to put The Exorcist on this list not because it’s my favorite scary movie, but because I have a hard time watching it.
It freaked me out when I first rented it and watched and I am more disturbed by this movie after becoming a Bible believing Christian in my adult years.
Two items worthy of note about The Exorcist.
One, it is the first horror movie to have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Two, parts of William Peter Blatty’s novel from which the movie was adapted were based on an exorcism of a young boy in Cottage City, Maryland in 1949.
Yeah, I may have to continue passing on watching this one for a bit still…especially after watching this trailer.
But I may revisit it as Jason Blum, David Gordon Green, and the team that revitalized the Halloween franchise are working on at least one Exorcist sequel to the original frightening masterpiece.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
My good friend and horror movie buff, Brandon Plantz, as well as Eugene Tracey both put Tobe Hooper’s movie on their list of favorite scary movies.
This may be the movie that is responsible for the proliferation of slasher films in the coming years, though many credit Halloween for that.
According to Wikipedia:
(The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) follows a group of friends who fall victim to a family of cannibals while on their way to visit an old homestead.
The film was marketed as being based on true events to attract a wider audience…although the character of Leatherface and minor story details were inspired by the crimes of murderer Ed Gein, the plot is largely fictional.
Good to know. As a kid I thought it was true. Hence why I avoided watching it and still haven’t
That said, this trailer still trips me out.
Halloween (1978)
John Carpenter’s movie is the quintessential scary movie to watch at Halloween, with a synthesizer score than will give you goose pimples just hearing it.
Michael Myers is a great villain as the Boogeyman known as the Shape.
Yes, the Shape is human (even if seemingly immortal) and simply driven by a dark evil that only Donald Pleasence’s Dr. Loomis seems to recognize – as show in the clip below.
The town of Haddonfield, Illinois and the characters inhabiting it – especially Jamie Lee Curtis’s heroine Laurie Strode feel very real.
That’s the true horror of this movie. It seems like it could really happen in the place you live and to the people you know.
Besides the original Halloween, I have to recommend 2018’s Halloween which ignores all of the sequels and is a follow up to the 1978 classic.
I wish they would have come up with a title to differentiate the two movies as the new one makes no sense without watching the first one.
On that note, here is my list of The Essential Halloween Movies explaining which of the 12 in the Halloween franchise are worth your viewing time.
Here’s a clip of Dr. Loomis returning to the Myers house after Michael Myers escaped his “hospitalization.” Gotta love the music!
Friday the 13th (1980)
Yes, there’s something not quite right with me.
I have a special affinity for Jason Voorhees for some bizarre reason or another.
I even dressed up as Jason for Halloween back in high school.
The original Friday the 13th is a great scary movie but I also recommend Part II, Part III (where Jason first dons a hockey mask), Part IV: The Final Chapter (the most misleading movie title other than The Neverending Story).
Every Friday movie after that really isn’t worth your time, but those four tell a complete story.
This is a great scene in the first Friday that explains how the whole thing started.
Poltergeist (1982)
I first saw this movie on TV with my cousins. Fortunately, we watched it during the day.
It intrigued and scared me then, and still does today.
For some reason, I hadn’t watched Poltergeist since then, but went attended a 40th anniversary screening.
This movie still unnerves me.
Maybe its the notion that there are things that we hear and see in our houses that we can’t explain.
Perhaps its the part of my brain that says supernaturally something like this could happen, as in the case with trepidation with watching The Exorcist.
Poltergeist is easily one of the best haunted house movies ever made.
With the likes of Tobe Hopper and Steven Spielberg behind this movies, there’s little doubt as to why.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
If you know the name Wes Craven, it’s a good bet it’s because of this movie.
Freddy Kruger is definitely scarier than either Michael Meyers or Jason because he can show up in your dreams.
And a nightmare of Freddy laughing and chasing you will still care you hell out of you.
Trust me, I had one not too long ago.
That’s probably because Brandon Plantz talked me into seeing the original on the big screen in Hollywood.
This first Elm Street movie holds up and is probably the only one you need to see, though I will give A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors a recommendation.
And yes this scene from the original Elm Street where we meet Freddy up close and personal for the first time still disturbs me.
Chopping Mall (1986)
Andrew Hall recommends Chopping Mall (which was originally released as Killbots), saying “is a great take down of runaway technology and mid-80’s shopping mall culture.”
IMDB provides the following synopsis:
A group of young shopping mall employees stay behind for a late night party in one of the stores. When the mall goes on lock-down before they can get out, the robot security system malfunctions, and goes on a killing spree.
This concept definitely seems well ahead of its time.
And if the mall looks familiar, it’s the Sherman Oaks Galleria where Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Commando were also filmed.
Child’s Play (1988)
The original Child’s Play is going on this list for three reasons.
First, Brandon Plantz points out that it “still holds up.”
Secondly, a doll possessed by an evil spirit killing people and trying to move into the body of a young boy is far different and spookier than the regular slasher movies of the decade or so that preceded its release.
Thirdly (and perhaps most personally important), I’d just gotten my drivers license and this was the first horror movie that I took a date too. Scary movies really got to her and she jumped into my lap early and often.
Thanks for the memories, Lisa – oh and for my first kiss 😉
Scream (1996)
I must admit this is a late addition to the list.
One night I pulled Scream up on Netflix and was immediately pulled into it.
That opening scene between the killer and Drew Barrymore may be the best opening of a horror movie ever.
Directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, Scream is the movie that revitalized the horror genre in the 1990s.
Given the anomaly that Craven directed all three of the Scream sequels and that Neve Campbell plays Sidney Prescott in them all, is reason alone to watch all four Scream movies.
There’s a fifth Scream movie schedule for release in 2022 that will be titled Scream and not Scream 5. The first not to be directed by Wes Craven since he passed in 2015.
Like Halloween from 2018, it will be a sequel and a reboot of the movie franchise.
Even if you don’t watch Scream, this scene that explains the rules of how to surviving a horror movie is great.
Saw (2004)
This is another movie that freaked me out when I saw it.
It opens with two men chained to pipes in a filthy bathroom as prisoners of the sadistic Jigsaw.
Flashbacks tells the story of the “puzzles” Jigsaw puts his victims through.
It is truly a chilling film with one of the best twists ever put into any movie that’s not revealed until the very very end.
Paranormal Activity (2007)
My neighbor growing up, Mike Prisco, watched most of the Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Elm Street movies with me and gave a hearty recommendation for Paranormal Activity.
To be honest, I haven’t seen it.
Somewhere in the last ten years I stopped getting the kind of “enjoyment” out of horror movies that I once did. I wouldn’t say it’s because I’ve outgrown them.
It’s probably more due to that there’s enough bad stuff going on in the world that I look for more hopeful fare to watch.
But this movie definitely has some serious fans, which means its probably worth both you and me giving it a view.
The Conjuring (2013)
Mike Prisco also wanted The Conjuring added to this list.
I wasn’t so sure about that as again I have not seen this movie, but its synopsis and success has made me add it to the original ten movies listed above.
According to Wikipedia:
Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga star as Ed and Lorraine Warren, paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent cases of haunting.
Their purportedly real-life reports inspired The Amityville Horror story and film franchise.
The Warrens come to the assistance of the Perron family, who experienced increasingly disturbing events in their farmhouse in Rhode Island in 1971.
These based on real life experience horror movies freak me out a bit as you probably have noticed.
But they seem to captivate horror audiences, hence why there are currently eight movies in The Conjuring movie universe.
And I won’t lie…this trailer for The Conjuring definitely intrigues as well as frightens me at the same time.
Let me know what you think of my list and if there’s anything you would add or remove from it.
And if you’re looking for a good spooky story to read, tap here to read my short storyThe Intruder.