I might feel different about horror movies than some people. I don’t find any of them particularly scary, and I think for the most part most are “bad” movies. In fact, some of the entries on this list have really negative Rotten Tomato and IMDB scores. I’ve heard almost any horror flick can turn a profit at the box office, but hardly any are positively reviewed.
I just think they are in particularly interesting. I love the idea of trying to scare someone. Make them aware of something they never thought of. I love dark stuff. I love cerebral tension.
I am not a horror fan by any means but I have enjoyed:
The Cabin in the Woods - as it is courtesy of one of Joss Whedon’s proteges it’s not much more scary and/or gory (well, except one part in particular) than an episode of Buffy. Great humor, fun cast. Hadley and Sitterson trying to avoid Mordecai’s phone call was comedy gold.
The Prophecy - strange but compelling movie about angels battling it out on Earth.
Tusk - yes, I will be that guy. Kevin Smith’s Canadian body-horror project that came out of a podcast. I loved the scene where Michael Parks is explaining what happened to him in his youth. He’s basically Batman but a realistic version who turned into a total psychopath.
Evil Dead II. Not the first (that was an effects demonstration). Not Army of Darkness (they took the comedy too far).
Cabin in the Woods. Classic. Went straight into my top 5 movies. Along with Evil Dead II.
Train to Busan. South Korean zombie movie, but so well executed inside the confines of a high speed train as the zombie outbreak takes. Possibly the best zombie movie of recent times.
(* special mentions: Zombieland, Us, Hereditary, Better Watch Out, Unsane, Cargo, Occulus, Tragedy girls, just a few I can think of).
My favorite horror movie is The Frighteners with Michael J Fox!
The rest, well, I can take them or leave them.
I like Nightmare on Elm Street because my late wife went to high school with Heather Langenkamp, and that’s pretty cool in its own 2-degrees-of-separation way.
Old favorites I’ve seen a zillion times, and will probably see another zillion times:
[ul]Alien
Nightmare on Elm Street
American Werewolf in London[/ul]
The above three probably count as my “favorites”.
These films really shook me up, and I re-watch them much less often, as they still have the potential to disturb me:
[ul]***Halloween ***(1978)
***28 Days Later
Se7en
***[/ul]
New contenders which made a big impression on me. Remains to be seen if they’ll hold up to repeat viewings over time:
[ul]Hereditary
Get Out
It Follows[/ul]
I tend to… “enjoy” the horror films in which there is a hint of the supernatural or extraordinary creeping in here and there, but the horror, the real horror, is that it practically doesn’t matter in terms of how things play out with the characters. The horror is there whether the supernatural/extraordinary element is all inside their heads or not.
ETA: Oh, and so I guess I ought to throw in an honorable mention for the original The Wicker Man.
Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil
The Thing (1982)
Cabin in the Woods
Shaun of the Dead
Ju-On
Ringu
In the Mouth of Madness
Event Horizon
Alien
[del]Herbert West, [/del]Re-Animator
Glad tp see I’m not the only one to think Silence of the Lambs is one of the scariest. I mean, it’s only a movie, and even if it WAS real he’s behind thick glass. Hopkins was so good at being so scary inm that film.
So for me it’s
Silence of the Lambs
Them!
\and tied
Alien
Jaws
The effects in Them! may be dated, but they were great for the time. Except for #1, the last three have something in common, you don’t see the creature until well into the film, creating an eery suspense.