My Top Ten Scary Movies

If you ever wondered how you could scare the crap out of me, then I have news for you. The following is a list of the top ten scariest movies I have ever seen. These are movies that caused an actual fear response, cause me to scream, cry out, run out of the house to find safety, or just stay up trembling. What you won't find on this list are some movies that seem to always top these lists. No SHINING, OMEN, or EXORCIST here. (I agree with Beetlejuice about the Exorcist. It does get funnier every time I see it!) So here it is, my top ten:

10. 1408 - I spend a lot of time letting my mind wonder/fixate on things, so watching John Cusack slowly lose his mind while being terrified by a malevolent force realy got to me. I remember walking out of the theatre and feeling like I'd been awake during a really messed up dream I had. The rest of that day was spent trying to shake the feeling that I was still living in some kind of weird nightmare.

9. POLTERGEIST - One scene. The guy who goes into th bathroom to peel a bit of something off his face, if you've seen it, you know what happens next. You ever try to have a screaming match with your brain? I did, and my brain won. *shudders*

8. SE7EN - I hate David Fincher. Apart from a brief stint in my late teens when I though Fight Club was awesome, I can safely say I've loathed every single thing he has made. Mostly because I don't understand people heaping praise on boring, stupid movies, but Se7en I hate for a different reason. It's the kind of movie that is so dark, and still has a sense of reality about it, that by the end, I have lost all faith in humanity. This movie makes me not want to live in a world that bleak. It's a horror equivalent of watching Requiem for a Dream: After it's over, I just want to hold my loved ones and cry, and then put on Super Troopers to chase the sadness away.

7. PSYCHO - This is a movie I thought I knew all there was to know about. I've watched Bravo count down the 100 scariest movie moments about a dozen times, and they always talk about the shower scene, Norman sinking the car, and the guy falling down the stairs. What they leave out is the ending. Oh God, the ending. When you finally see the face of the killer, it's so unsettling and bizare, your brain can't quite process it. Anthony Perkins gives the best serial killer performance I have ever seen. He is so captivating, balancing pitiful and creepy perfectly. And the final shot of the film is creepier than anything in Silence of the Lambs, which is also based on the life of Ed Gein.

6. JAWS - I have an almost crippling fear of being in a deep body of water, and I blame Jaws. Even swimming in the lakes back home, If the water goes over my head, I know, I KNOW, I am about to die. I've gotten better about suppressing that feeling, but it's always, always there. Stupid shark movie.

5. SAW III - Sometimes the context you see a movie in changes everything. I'm actually a fan of the Saw franchise, which is surprising because the first time I saw the original, I thought it was the worst movie I'd ever seen. But the makeup and prop designer inside of me grew to love the inventive traps as the series went on. But I watched Saw III for the first time in a hotel room with a bunch of my theatre friends in college, and I was the only one in the room who liked scary movies. When you have that many people around you losing their minds, you get infected by it, and you start to feel very unsafe. The movie has turned on you and you may not make it. Also, this one has the two most upsetting traps in the whole series: the pig trap, and the torture rack. I still can't keep my eyes open in those scenes.

4. DRAG ME TO HELL - Of all the movies on this list, this is the only one with happy memories. I saw this at the Rivoli Theatre in La Crosse, WI. A group of us from the theatre I was working at drove over there and ordered pizza, beer, & hot wings and sat in the front row and had an absolute blast. This movie balanced the scares about 2 seconds after you have started laughing at the punchline of a joke, causing you to shift from laugh to scream on a dime, followed by another laugh of apreciation. If you love the thrills and scares of the best rollercoasters, this movie is for you.

3. THE DESCENT - I love visiting caves, but I always have that moment where I think of just how many tons of rock I'm standing under, and how dead I'd be if there was a cave in. This movie answers that question, then makes it worse, by adding monsters down there as well. It also features a cast of strong female characters who mostly try to do exactly what I'd do in the same situation. And they're still screwed. If you watch this movie, stick with the unrated ending. It's way better.

2. TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE - This movie makes me just want to shower. It's just so relentlessly horrifying. It was also the first slasher movie I saw that starred average looking, sympathetic victims. The movie starts creepy, quickly moves to F'ed up when they pick up a hitch-hiker, and it only goes downhill from there. The final sequence with the whole family around the dinner table is the most disturbing thing I've seen in a movie. This is not a movie to watch alone.

1. THE INNKEEPERS - Ti West is my new favorite horror director, and this movie caught me totally off guard. I'd already seen his first movie, HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, which is a pretty great throwback horror movie. I liked it, but I wasn't too scared by it. His second film though, caused me to flee my house in terror. To say anything about the INNKEEPERS is to spoil the surprise, so I'll just give my inner monologue as I watched it: "la la la, lovable losers, closing hotel, blah blah blah.......ha, that was cute.....blah blah blah, oooh, that's kind a creepy, la la la, oh good, it's almost over, what a disapointme- wait...what? no, oh no, ohnonononononono, Get out of there! OH SH*T! OH! OH MY GOD!!!! AAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!.............. I'm going to hide somewhere bright and happy, like the mall." By lulling you into a near stupor, your brain isn't prepared when the movie gets scary, and you feel like you do when a dream you're having takes a wrong turn: you're helpless and terrified and you just want to make it stop. This movie is the reason for this post, mainly because I had a dream last night where my wife and I were in the final scary scene. Not cool, subconscious, not cool at all.


HONORABLE MENTIONS:

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK: as a small child I walked into the room at my grandparents house right when Toht's face was melting off. Nightmares for weeks. Also, I hate spiders.

JURASSIC PARK: Went to see this movie for a friend's birthday party in 3rd Grade. I hid under the candy counter from the moment the guy gets pulled into the raptor cage in the opening until the T-rex fought the raptors at the end. Basically, Steven Spielberg was the root of all my childhood trauma.

SPY KIDS: I have two words for you: Thumb Thumbs. ugh! I was so creeped out by this movie, I made my dad take us back to the movie theater to see Josie and the Pussycats just so I could sleep that night.