I watch it every first snow on the winter.
The Haunting
The Old Dark House
The Shining
Prince of Darkness - John Carpenter classic.
The Devil’s Rejects - I like that it flips the script and the killers are the protagonists.
Hellraiser - iconic imagery throughout.
The Black Cat (1934)
Curse of the Demon (1957)
Dawn of the Dead (1978) or Evil Dead II (1987)
Anthology - Black Sabbath (1963)
I’m a big fan of The Old Dark House, and have always enjoyed your screen name.
“My sister was on the point of arranging these…” (drops huge bouquet of wildflowers into the blazing fireplace)
“Have a POTATO.”
I’ve been racking my brain for a more recent film to cite, so here’s a call out to Pulse, a J horror flick from 2001, where dead people are getting back into our world through the Internet. One of the creepiest damn things I’ve ever seen, especially the last 15 minutes, where people in backgrounds are spontaneously suiciding and airplanes just decide to crash.
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The Attic for the creepiest sleepy sneaks-up-on-you mood movie
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Miracle Mile, the genre-bending romantic-comedy apocalyptic flick
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Get Out, which shoulda come home with a Best Picture Oscar.
My all-time favorite horror movie; in fact, one of my all-time favorite movies of any genre is A Tale of Two Sisters (2003). Chilling and creepy psychological horror with a real emotional core. And makes you pay attention and think.
Also vote for The Thing (1982) and the original A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), before it became a self-parody franchise. (And I love that Biotop mentioned Re-Animator; what a fun horror movie!)
My 3 favorite the have no paranormal or science fiction aspects
The Nanny
The Hills Have Eyes
Silence of the Lambs
The Ring
*Session 9 *
A Tale of Two Sisters
I’m calling these my top three because I rewatch all of them more often then the other films in my collection. But there are so many good horror films(even if they’re far outnumbered by bad ones)that it’s hard to pick a favorite.
Angel Heart deserves a mention. I could watch it over and over but I have sadly misplaced my dvd.
*Hereditary * is outstanding but it’s not one I can rewatch often. it really takes an emotional toll.
The Grudgeis fascinating, once you understand the mixed up presentation of the time line.
The Skeleton Key didn’t get much attention, IIRC, and it is a great, truly interesting and engaging story.
Burnt Offeringsis a 1970s masterpiece.
Going further back, Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte is a creepy little gem with Bette Davis at her neurotic, delusional best.
Sorry to ramble, I know the OP only asked for three :o
The Fly (1958)
“Help me!! HELP ME!!!”
Am I the first to say “Poltergeist”? Love that movie!
From Dusk till Dawn
Cabin in the Woods. I’ve only seen it once but loved it. For repeated viewings…sure, I’ll watch The Shining anytime it’s on.
I guess I need to watch “The Thing” - never seen it but it seems to be the most popular one listed.
My top 3:
It Follows : not the norm, loved the unique story line.
Angel Heart : saw it in the theater back in the day and it left quite an impression on me.
Nightmare on Elm Street : I was 14 (I think) and watched this alone while babysitting…shudder
Honorable mention : The Shining, Poltergeist, Blair Witch Project
I sure don’t mind more than 3. I just thought asking for “a top 10 horror” list might yield limited results.
I’m checking all these out.
It’s not a movie, though the episodes are kind of long…the just-out Creepshow series seems promising after the first pair of stories.
Each episode is two 45 minute long stories (so we’re getting into movie-level run-time between the two). The animated intro looks really great–kind of like a VR drawing type thing.
The first episode is free on Prime. The others are available on Shudder.
The opening episode, Grey Matter is not bad, starring Gus Fring from Breaking Bad. But the second story, about a little girl’s dollhouse, is rather clever. Using a dollhouse as the point of intrigue is a unique and interesting plot vehicle. And there are tons of little throw-backs to the original Creepshow, as well as an appearance of the cigar store carved Indian from Creepshow 2.
And these aren’t even the best reviewed episodes from the series, so I’m going to have to watch the rest.
You mean the part played by the actor in drag?
Rosemary’s Baby
The Exorcist
Wait Until Dark (though technically not a horror movie, one of the scariest movies ever made)
Tale of Two Sisters will snap yer stix. J horror is da creepiest.
It’s not a movie, but my current favorite horror ANYTHING is Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House”, which came out last year.
As for actual movies, my favorites would have to be, in no particular order:
The Ring
Paranormal Activity (hate me all you want - I found it FAR scarier than Blair Witch)
I dunno…Silent Hill? Actually a pretty good adaptation of a video game
I also loved a particular scene in Fourth Kind where the main character, a psychologist, is listening to a dictation she recorded the night before. As she listens, she hears herself start to doze. Then the door creaking open. Steps taken. And her start in with a series of loud, guttural screams. It gives me chills just thinking back to it.
Okay, while I’m here I also want to recommend the Crypt TV channel on YouTube. Excellent horror short films (like, 6-14 minutes most of the time), with originally designed monsters. I’ve been binge-watching episodes for the past two days.
I watched it for the first time while I was at home sick, a couple of years ago. It was a dark, rainy dismal day.
It took me all the rest of the day to stop shuddering and calm down enough to go to sleep.
“Favorite” is an interesting concept when it comes to horror movies. With one exception, I don’t feel very motivated to watch these over and over again.
But on the basis of which movies scared me the most:
- Night of the Living Dead
- The Exorcist
- Jaws