I found Poltergeist and the original Amityville Horror to be quite scary, but I was a kid when I saw them. As an adult, I’ve been freaked out by Communion and The Ring. Like, fear that runs past the movie going experience into the next week of real life and disturbing dreams… 
No, no bear. Owls.
Oh, and BOB’s behind the couch right now. Don’t look.
An Owlbear.
And as I mentioned earlier, the hoot of an owl still scares me. And I had a frickin’ nightmare back then of BOB relentlessly climbing over the furniture toward the camera.
I always imagined the poor actor playing BOB would go into public places like supermarkets and people would go running out screaming, leaving poor Frank Silva saying, “I was only trying to buy a cantelope!”
The Exorcist. When it first came out, I was too scared to see it. On the Oscars, they showed a 20-second clip or something and THAT scared the crap out of me. Finally I watched it in the daytime on a 10-inch black and white TV. It was everything I feared. The atmosphere is sooo sinister.
Ditto what was said about not being safe in your bed and Poltergeist.
[quote=“blondebear, post:5, topic:558789”]
When I was a kid, the movie that scared the pants off me was Caltiki, The Immortal Monster. It’s pretty tame by today’s standards, but one scene in particular gave me nightmares for years:
Speak for yourself. 
**Caltiki **scared the utter hell out of me as a kid. Spent years looking for a copy of it, of which I am now finally the proud owner of a VHS tape version. The acting, etc. is patently execrable, but without a doubt, the monster itself stands up to the test of time. Better than the original Blob by far.
While I’m on the subject of remakes the original X the Unknown is still king of creepy-scary and second only to the original version of The Haunting. X STILL creeps me out. I was lucky enough to catch the Brit remake with David Tennant and company a couple of years ago that someone uploaded to YouTube. Meh. Even with Tennant and Jason Flemyng to look at, it was dull, dull and more dull.
The Haunting stands as my favorite scare flick of all time. The scene where something in the house is pushing the library door inward still raises goose bumps on me even as I’m typing this! There is nothing better than the imagination when it comes to scary things. The remake, which I’m sorry to say I spent good money on to go see, was a crashing disappointment. Even Liam Neeson couldn’t save that piece of crap. Horrible, horrible, horrible
The Exorcist is still scary – especially the scene which has been discussed upthread. I never saw the movie until years later when I purchased it on DVD. And yes I screamed like a girly girl when I saw that scene. 
American Werewolf in London and **Poltergeist ** still have some majorly scary moments, too. I saw **Poltergeist **in the theater and during the scene where JoBeth Williams is going down the hallway to open the door to the kids’ room, a guy down front of me leaps up and yells, ‘Don’t do it, lady!!’ Funniest moment ever in a movie theater.
[quote=“BrotherCadfael, post:28, topic:558789”]
Two nominees:
- The Zuni fetish doll segment from Trilogy of Terror. Everyone cites that one, so I will add…
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That doll is referred to in my house as 'The Little Yibbledy Guy". He was way scary.
Ugh. At least I suffered through it for free. 
It’s out on DVD!
I could make a long list of scary movies, but the first one I thought of that I didn’t see here was Sunshine. I hated the third act, where it got all metaphysical and ridiculous, but the scene where the 2 guys have to go out and re-align part of the heat shield especially scared the crap outta me.
Okay, maybe I’m awake enough to list a few more 
I thought The Exorcism Of Emily Rose was pretty damn scary and disturbing.
People have already mention The Devil’s Backbone, The Thing and Prince Of Darkness but I wanted to give a shout out as well. TDB is early del Toro, but I think it’s his best film so far. And I’m a huge John Carpenter fan, love both of these movies, and especially like the endings of both of them. The man doesn’t need a huge budget to scare the crap outta ya, and he doesn’t stop scaring the crap outta ya even tho the movie is over. (In fact, Carpenter is prolly the best director of movie endings of all time, IMO.)
I thought π was creepy and scary and disturbing. Highly recommend it as a double feature with Tetsuo: The Iron Man for an all B&W high tension scarefest.
Videodrome is a sick, freaky freak-out of a movie. Imagery that simply will not dislodge itself.
Okay, I know that these next ones are prolly more “thriller” than “horror”, but the end result is pretty much the same for me: nail-biting on the edge of my seat freaking out about what might be about to happen.
Frailty is just twisted, worrisome and down-right distressing.
Sexy Beast made me afraid of Gandhi, ffs. I mean like knots in my stomach afraid. Awesome movie.
Sling Blade did the same thing, except now I’m afraid of Dwight Yoakam and what he may or may not do at any given moment, given any random input: the very definition of clinically insane.
Speaking of clinically insane, I don’t know anyone who’s watched Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer and not been scared to go outside immediately afterward. Or the next day. Or for weeks later.
Movies that scare me to death are usually the lame ones. It’s sad but true, I don’t scare easy, that being said, the moive Signs, With Mel…oh christ, I cried forever because I was so scared. I hate the thought of the being other life forms out there.
Also what really gets my goat is when things are standing there and you don’t seem till the move, then you rewind and notice that it was there the whole time, I scream.
Blair Witch project made me scream at the end, and good ghost movies get me pumped and keep me up at night. Paranormal Activity kept me intrested but the never showed the actual thing so I was dissapointed.
Thirded. FYI, Quarantine is an “interesting” film in that it almost slavishly copies [REC] scene by scene, and yet manages to suck anything remotely suspenseful out of the movie. [REC 2] is nearly as good as its predecessor, except that it really plays up the supernatural aspect that was severely (and, IMHO, rightly) downplayed in the original. If you can forgive the shift in tone from biological to religious horror, it’s quite the ride.
Blair Witch Project was the only movie to give me a nightmare.
Exorcist was scary too, but it didn’t give me bad dreams.
I saw Paranormal Activity on Netflix streaming the other night and it was pretty creepy.
My wife is terrified of the zombie genre (except for Shaun) and watching Walking Dead with me the other night apparently kept her up to 2 in the morning, 3 hours after we turned in (Central time here).
I agree that The Changeling is perhaps the best scary movie of all time (in the “old fashioned Ghost story” sense - I don’t much like modern slasher-type horror).
My favorite scene was the nightmare about the boy floating out of the well - that scared the living crap out of me as a kid.
I forgot all about Jacob’s Ladder. As well I might, for my own sanity. Because I watched it. At night. Alone in the house. For the weekend. Silly, silly me. Every light in every room of the house was blazing day and night until Mr. Sali got his ass home.
I can’t think of any other movie that contained so many deeply disturbing scenes. Even The Haunting is easier to watch than Jacob’s Ladder, because there aren’t so MANY disturbing scenes in The Haunting.
I must have been tired last night. I forgot to mention Pandorum.
Movies that are based loosely on true events are the scary ones for me. Like Hostel.
Among others already mentioned here, The Omen pretty much did it for me.
BINGO! Just watched PA over the weekend. Terrifying! I actually screamed out loud twice (four times if you count a second viewing!)
John Carpenter’s The Thing- Besides a few very well done jump out moments, there’s a wonderful sense of paranoia and impending doom.
Killer Klowns From Outer Space Seriously. Most of the acting is bad. The writing is poor. But there is something primal and terrifying about giant clowns.