Scene to watch with the lights on: The scene when the mother discovers her little daughter, Karen, down in the basement, eating her own father for lunch. That's right. Brains might be on the menu, but the way to a man's heart is through his actual heart.
In 1968, director George Romero took the frightening idea of "zombification," which up until that point had been relegated to creepy voodoo tales and extra-dimensional Lovecraft-ian lore, and created the single most terrifying genre of horror – the Zombie Apocalypse. "They're coming to get you Barbara" became the first official "I'll be right back" of horror, as poor Judith O'Dea has to flee a cemetery because the dead have inexplicably come back to life and started walking the Earth in search of human flesh.
Hitchcock discovered, with 1963's The Birds, that the sheer terror of "not knowing" the reasons behind the sweeping global outbreak of evil is the most horrifying part of the entire story. The "Zombocalypse" genre is so enduring that it's still running strong today. Sure, some films have made their zombies run fast and tried to explain the whole dead-alive deal with a virus, and that's all fine. But nothing will ever beat the basics.
With this one film, Romero was able to tap into everything we're afraid of: death, desecration of the flesh, cannibalism, brainwashing, disease and hopelessness. There's also a stinging underlying social message about racism, media and paranoia where viewers got to learn, for the first time, that they could be just as dangerous and cruel as the mindless hordes of undead they were hiding from.
Scene to watch with the lights on: It might not be the moment you immediately think of, but the two-minute-long scene where poor Sally is forced to "dine" with Leatherface's family – where she's tied to a chair made out of human parts and they all just laugh at her screaming – is pretty damn disturbing!
Like your films bleak, bloody and full of brutality? Toby Hooper's gruesome indie 1974 flick took the nefarious inbred mountain folk that we all cringed at in 1972's Deliverance and turned them into an aggressively insane backwoods clan of cannibals. Take a van full of "young adults" on their way to, I dunno, smoke weed and go to a cemetery and let them run out of gas in the wrong part of Texas. Then throw in the skin-suited Leatherface and some meat-hooks and you've got yourself a film that barely found a distributor because of its extreme levels of graphic violence.
Psycho might have been the first "slasher" film per se, but Chainsaw simultaneously elevated and de-elevated the genre with its disturbing levels of sadism. One could also say that the film acted as a pre-cursor to both the "slasher" and "torture porn" genres.
Also, before Leatherface became a squealing cross-dresser in the unfortunate Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, he stood tall as a hideous and raw horror icon.
Scene to watch with the lights on: When Rosemary realizes who her husband really is, and what he and his "friends" have planned for her baby.
Get over Mia Farrow's bird haircut and watch this movie. You'll be surprised how much this unsettling creepshow from 1968 gets away with for, you know, being in 1968. Roman Polanski's most "conventional" film outside of Chinatown is one of his best, telling the slow-burn story of a young New York couple who move into an apartment building home to several Satan worshipers who want to use Rosemary's spawn as a means for Mr. Devil McBrimstone to return to our mortal realm.
Farrow is perfect in the role of Rosemary, as she slowly unravels the more she discovers what shady cult dealings are happening all around her. The entire world seems to be conspiring against the most innocent of people here, as the Devil watches from the wings and Rosemary breaks down.
Polanski's "less is more" approach to delivering chills further support the storytelling rule that the more kept off screen, the more the audience has to imagine, the scarier.
Scene to watch with the lights on: The finale, when the Bride is finally created… only to spurn the Monster, which is a very bad thing to do for anyone who values not getting blown up in an exploding mountainside laboratory.
Certainly there were those of us on the IGN staff who argued that this James Whale classic should've been higher on our list… perhaps even number one. But compromise being what it is, Whale and Colin Clive, Karloff and the rest have had to settle for slot seven.
The film is the apex of the Universal cycle of classic monster pictures in terms of quality. Rather than simply regurgitating a cheap variation on the first Frankenstein (which is basically what many of the Universal sequels would go on to do), Whale opted to, ahem, flesh out the story and characters of the original (which he also directed). Karloff, in his second turn as the Monster, granted his most famous creation the gift of speech, and of friendship, and even love. Also, of humor – Bride of Frankenstein is a comedy as much as it is a horror film.
Brimming with wonderful side characters (oh, Doctor Pretorius, how we miss you) and often unsettling imagery (Jesus H. Christ, did they just crucify the Monster?), the film is 75 years old and we're still talking about it – and loving it. To paraphrase Doctor Pretorius, "It is our only weakness…"
Scene to watch with the lights on: "The blood usually gets off on the third floor." May we also suggest the Room 237 scene. Beware of hot chicks in bathtubs that are really Overlook corpses with saggy zombie boobs!
The Shining might just be Stephen King's most popular horror novel. Stanley Kubrick's movie adaptation is almost certainly the most popular Stephen King film. The project was an unusually commercially-focused one for Kubrick, but the same stylistic elements that defined his earlier films were on full display in The Shining. The film remains a haunting and unsettling chronicle of a family man's psychological breakdown.
Jack Nicholson plays Jack Torrance in this adaptation. Torrance is a struggling writer who accepts a job as winter caretaker for the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Mountains. The knowledge that the previous caretaker had gone insane and murdered his family fails to scare Jack away.
But when both Jack and his psychically attuned son begin communing with the many spirits haunting the Overlook, things quickly take a turn for the worse. Deadly hedge mazes, elevators full of blood and the terrifying Room 237 are only some of the horrors that await viewers.
Aside from being a genuinely scary film, The Shining has left its mark on modern pop culture. Who doesn't recognize the image of Nicholson poking his head through a doorway and shouting "Here's Johnny!"? The Shining served as fodder for one of the best "Treehouse of Horror" segments in the history of The Simpsons. The Shining is required viewing for any horror aficionado. Just don't expect to sleep easily the following night.
Scene to watch with the lights on: Lecter's first encounter with Clarice, his crazy and her virtue separated only by safety glass.
Using a serial killer – a cannibal with a doctorate, actually – to help catch another serial killer is as bare bones as you can get with this Best Picture Oscar winner. But the movie is much more than that. It's the scariest movie ever made built around psychology and deduction used as both crime-solving tools and murder weapons. Yes, blame this movie all you want for your friend's bad Hannibal Lecter impersonation that never seems to get better, but it gave us one of the screen's all-time iconic villains and Anthony Hopkins the role of his career.
Jodie Foster is also exceptional in the role of FBI Agent Clarice Starling, on the trail of Buffalo "It Puts The Lotion In The Basket" Bill. Director Jonathan Demme is effortless and relentless with his tension here, succeeding where Ridley Scott failed in his 2001 sequel, Hannibal by keeping Lecter more of a believable monster and less of a monstrous caricature.
1991's best film, according to the Academy, is worthy of multiple viewings if you can get through a first. We suggest watching it with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
Scene to watch with the lights on: Dinner with Kane and the crew of the Nostromo, fresh after Kane wakes up from his facehugger coma, ends with Kane disagreeing with something that ate its way out of his chest. They don't get much better than this, movie fans.
Alien movies are generally thought of as being planted in the science fiction realm. However, with the original at least, Alien was as much a horror film as a sci-fi one. With a small cast being hunted by a lone, terrifying creature, Alien was a long way removed from the Star Treks of Hollywood.
Alien is set several centuries in the future when humanity has ventured into the stars. The crew of the mining vessel Nostromo become unwitting hosts to a bloodthirsty alien lifeform. One by one, the crew members fall to an enemy that hides in the shadows and springs from above. Only Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is savvy enough to survive the alien's onslaught. Too bad for her it was only the first round.
Alien doesn't resemble many sci-fi movies of the time. Artist H.R. Giger designed a world full of twisted tubes, cold hallways, and pervasive darkness. Before Alien, pop culture never warned us how dark, dirty and scary the cold depths of space were. Director Ridley Scott adopted a "less is more" approach that later sequels sadly abandoned. Modern directors can cram all the Aliens and Predators they want into their films, but none can match the sheer claustrophobic terror generated in the original Alien.
Scene to watch with the lights on: It's a tie! When the shark turns Alex Kintner into a human chew toy and when Bad Hat Harry stands before Brody, wearing a bathing suit and shaking his saggy gym-sock moobs.
The first blockbuster ever and the scariest movie (maybe even the best one?) Spielberg's ever made, Jaws is equal parts monster movie and character piece, centered on an island called Amity that's preyed upon by something that leaves teeth the size of shot glasses in the hulls of boats and turns their owners into decapitated flotsam. The late Roy Scheider gives a career-defining performance as Chief Brody, the local sheriff with a fear of water, who is put in charge of taking down the murder fish.
Joining him on the Orca for the hunt are Richard Dreyfuss' Hooper and Robert "Find 'im for 3, Catch 'im and Kill 'im for 10" Shaw as Quint, the number one cause of death for just about any marine life.
But you already know that. You should have seen this movie at least 10 times by now, thanks to cable and VHS and DVD. You've probably contemplated making John Williams' theme your ring tone. It's made out of the type of movie magic that warrants repeat viewings, that warrants lots of praise using words like "perfect" and "instant classic."
And if you haven't seen it yet, remedy that soon. So you can walk amongst normal society as a non-wrong person.
Scene to watch with the lights on: What scene could we pick but the quintessential shower slaying? Coupled with the iconic music cue, this scene remains a horror classic 50 years later.
Psycho is both one of the greatest thrillers of all time and one of the greatest entries in Alfred Hitchcock's legendary resume. A true master of suspense and tension, Hitchcock crafted a memorable horror experience with a limited cast and even more limited budget. Like so many great horror movies, Psycho's scares far exceed its limited scale.
Psycho is the story of crazy old Norman Bates and his even crazier mother. When a young woman on the run from the law arrives at the remote Bates Motel, she falls victim to a knife-wielding killer. Several more victims are claimed before the killer is brought to justice and the true secret of the Bates family stands revealed.
The content of Psycho isn't as shocking as it was way back in 1960. After all, girls get stabbed in the shower all the time in modern horror cinema. However, it's a testament to Hitchcock's skill as a director that Psycho remains a tense and nerve-wracking experience. The killing of Janet Leigh's character and the accompanying musical key is one of the most iconic scenes in Hollywood history.
Psycho is such a classic of the genre that it inspired a shot-for-shot remake in 1998. We wouldn't recommend wasting time with that film, but we would urge any horror lover who hasn't seen Psycho to move it to the top of their priority list.
Scene to watch with the lights on: All of it. No no no, trust us. Watch it at mid-day, with the blinds open and the lights on. And then get used to the fact that you may never, ever sleep again.
"Tubular Bells" is the scariest music arrangement ever made. We hear it and we're the scaredy cat equivalent of Pavlov's Dog – the Satan bells ring, and we tense up, scream and piss our everythings. More than once. And then cry ourselves to sleep with one eye open.
The movie's premise, a little girl possessed by a demon, is scary enough as words on paper. But what director William Friedkin does with it, aside from prove that he has a seriously strong (or frightfully off) constitution for this sort of stuff, is treat the extraordinary of it all as if it were really happening next door to us.
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