Anyone know any actually GOOD horror movies?

Shutter, the Thai version.

[Edit: this is a lot easier than going through the horror movies I like.]

Martyrs.

Any of George Romero’s original three “Dead” flicks.

Session 9 is a good movie.

I thought the domestic version of Shutter was pretty darmed scary, too.

Are they evil movies guys? To me there is a difference between a scary movie that’s just scary, and a movie that depends on evil to make it scary…..

I thought The New Daughter was good. It definitely creeped me out, that’s for sure.

Orson Welles’ Ghost Story from 1953

The manster

Originals of: Ring, Ju-On (Grudge), and A Tale Of Two Sisters. Kinda mainstream as Japanese/Korean horror goes, but very good. Course you have probably seen these =) There’s also Ju-On: White Ghost/Black Ghost.. Which is a kinda Grudge spin off dealio. You get two films in one which is always worth it.

The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is the only one that gave me actual goosebumps. All others seem pretty lame by comparison.

Jaws, The Shining, The Ring, Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead, and The Changeling are some of my favorites.

Re-Animator, Evil Dead, and Dead Alive are great if you like campy horror.

Oh and I have heard good things about REC, the Spanish original to Quarantine. Apparently it’s a very decent horror. I liked Mirrors as well, with Kiefer Sutherland, but most people I know have mixed feelings about that. Ok, I will stop now!

High Tension, french subtitles but scared me badd

Babysitter wanted
House of the Devil
Martyrs
drag me to hell
the ring
1408
Dead Snow
Dead Girl

Haha Dead Snow is so funny, I love that movie. Not a scary one though, well.. not to me

The Three Extremes – get the first one. Preferably the 2-disc edition with the full length version of “Dumplings”. My husband still won’t eat dumplings after that movie. ^_^

Oldboy. Best fight scene ever – I still can’t believe it was all done in one take. And the end will make your whole brain shudder.

The Horrors of Malformed Men. It was banned in Japan for over 40 years.

Bloodsucking Freaks. Hilarious gore movie – your boyfriend will probably appreciate it more than you will. Cold cock sandwich, anyone?

The Tale of Two Sisters – the original, not the remake.

One Missed Call – again, the original, not the remake. Get the sequel, too. It’s worth it. God, I want that ringtone.

Suspiria.

Pontypool is good, the best zombie movie I’ve ever seen and defiantly not a typical horror film.

Videodrome is more of a thriller than a horror, but it’s good some good scenes and some very well done examples of practical special effects, rather than CGI that everyone relies on today.

Excellent choices, @Seek_Kolinahr

The Thing From Another World link . You gotta watch the original (1951). This movie still scares the sh-tuff out of me.

OH! The legend of Boogey Creek!! Totally Grade B, but it’s great!

Psycho (1960) is still one of the best.

Alien

Man, I sometimes put The Shining on to go to sleep! So not scary for me anymore… I love it too much.

These are my all time favs: I’ve added year of release and director’s name… Some are thrillers, but all are fantastic flicks to watch at any time!

Misery (1990) Rob Reiner
Se7en (1995) David Fincher
Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
The Shining (1980) Stanley Kubrick
The Exorcist (1973) William Friedkin
Carrie (1976) Brian De Palma
The Lawnmower Man (1992) Brett Leonard

Another movie that I found particularly “spooky” is the rather unknown flick “Burnt Offerings”, starring Bette Davis. It was made in the mid-70s, and I first saw it on t.v. as a made-for-t.v. movie. as a kid. I had trouble sleeping for days after watching it. Lol.

These are the two that I can watch again and still get jumpy:
The Serpent and the Rainbow (One of my favorites)
The Silence of the Lambs

I can’t think of a horror movie that I felt was good enough. They all seem to fall short. I think the trick is to make the story the scariest part of the whole film. Not in any big twist at the end or something. Just make people worry about the plot more than what’s going to jump out at them. Then have something jump out at them. And get them back into the plot, then the jump, and so on.

The Ring made me jump the first couple of times i watched it. There are many horror movies that i like, but this is the only one that comes to mind now.

Event Horizon, In the Mouth of Madness, Ghost Ship and Phantoms are a few of my personal favorites.

@zophu

That’s why the Japanese and Korean horror is the best. They have no shame.

Honestly, anyone that can make you watch a movie completely centered around beautiful people eating aborted human foetuses is a director worthy of respect.

@zophu: That’s why I try to explain to people about Halloween 3, and why it really IS a quality horror movie just because of the storyline. It’s one of the few horror movies of its day that I know of that actually has a bonafide plot, instead of just some slapped together spooky ideas that don’t really gel.

You cannot convince me Halloween 3 is a good film.

@cockswain: First, you need to look past the fact that it’s called “Halloween 3” and has no Mikey. Then you need to look past the typical cheese of 70s/80s horror films. If you can’t do either of those things, then you’re right, you’ll never be convinced.

I have seen it, it’s the one with the masks. I can look past both the things you mentioned, yet remain unconvinced. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree!

@Pied_Pfeffer – Don’t know HOW I could have forgotten
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) Jonathan Demme – it’s a great movie…. and

@MRSHINYSHOES – Bette Davis is one of, if not the best horror actress of all time! You reminded me of her and I want to add this one to my list. Just mentioning this movie gives me creepy chill bumps!!

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) Robert Aldrich

Have you seen any of these?

@cockswain: I PMed you hehe

“What Ever Happened to Baby Jane…...”

Well, now you need to tell us what you chose! Choose-...choosed….chused…HOW DO I WRITE CHOSE CHOOSE????

I second Baby Jane, I love that movie.

“But you are, Blanche! You are in that chair!”

@cockswain – and “Did you know we had rats in the cellar?”
God, I could sit and quote lines forever on that one. What a movie!

@Dutchess_III – “chose” is correct.

@Dutchess_III LOL

The Shining. 1980
The Exorcist 1973
Profondo rosso 1975
Suspiria 1977
Ju-on: The Grudge 2003
old ones are worth a watch.
hope these can give you some ideas

@NaturallyMe shut up!

@Frteach Thank you. I don’t know why but I’m totally tripping over the variations of the word recently. I think I’ve been using them incorrectly in the past and now I’m paranoid!

@Dutchess_III – be brave! You will get it right more times than not, I imagine…

. . . since I read this question I’ve been looking for good horror movies. I’ve been so disappointed, I want to just make one. You don’t need a big budget and brilliant actors to scare the hell out of people. I’ll start working on the script now. I’m thinking a story involving an introverted cubicle worker perceiving the world around him in an over-medicated blur. Strange memories of the day drift in and out of his consciousness. What is mediocrity if not just a thin veneer hiding the infinite void of purposelessness?

How about “What is consciousness if not just a thin veneer hiding the infinite void of purposelessness?” I like that too. Real nihilistic.

@cockswain I’ll make it super pretentious and artsy so people can play adlibs with the deeper meanings and project whatever they want. I just want to fuck with people’s heads.

I concour with some of the suggestions above, like Alien, or Shining, (Though, think it fell short of what it could be) But, I’ll put in Paranormal Activity, if you havent seen it already, it’s a pretty fresh scare.

@Drawkward: You criticized The Shining, but you advocated for Paranormal Activity? You’ve got it backwards, my friend.

@zophu Fuck with their heads so bad they see no purpose in living after watching your film. Now that would be a good movie!

@poofandmook Paranormal Activity is refreshingly scary, given most terrible big time releases today. The Shining is a letdown, at least to me, because jack’s madness was fairly well established before he went to the lodge, which is changed from the novel.

@cockswain – I hope you are kidding. No one should ‘see no purpose in living’ and a movie that intends to cause that response shouldn’t be made (in my humble, not asked for, opinion).

Sure I’m mostly kidding. But as dark as it sounds, there is no question that a horror film that would truly horrify someone to such a depth would be a significant work of art.

@cockswain The problem with most horror films is that they desensitize the audience with disturbing or startling material too soon. You have to starve them, to get them extra sensitive, then give them startlement. They naturally seek comfort after that, and you give it to them. Then immediately you give the disturbing element. You put the character(s) they sympathize with into living hell. Then, with a simple change of perspective you dispel that hell, and show that true horror exists only in the mind, independent of the events that inspire it.

You don’t take away their purpose of living, you show them that they never had one. Almost everyone in these fucked up cultures are just running from their own personal hells. That’s all that drives them: pain, loneliness, poverty, shame, and the less common phobias—their fear is their purpose. It’s the job of the horror film to expose the fear in people and show them how pathetically weak they are to depend upon it.

The scariest unconscious notion for most people, is to no longer have anything to fear. The truth will set you free, or it will kill you.

Those principles, or more like it, are what will make a truly significant horror film.

thanks everyone.
I’ll “Great Answer” You all. <3

@Drawkward: Whatever your feelings about The Shining… Paranormal Activity isn’t scary. The closest it came to scary for me were the footprints in the baby powder. That was about it.

@poofandmook Paranormal Activity is scary as hell if you’re superstitious. I loved the social dynamic between the couple, the perfect example of your generic dysfunctional bible-bred couple. They knew the audience they were targeting.

@zophu: That stuff does scare me in general. I just don’t think PA did a very good job of getting it across. I think it COULD have been really scary. I did remember another part that freaked me out a bit… the Quija board scene.

Here’s what I think, for me, took too much away from the movie: They took too long. The buildup to the “good stuff” was too long and drawn out. By the time the “good stuff” started, it was over too fast.

Maybe my definition of “scary” is different as well. I enjoyed PA. But to me, unless I’m a little spooked going to bed that night, a movie wasn’t really scary. It was freaky, but not scary.

I felt the same way as @poofandmook did about Paranormal Activity. It had a lot of potential, but a really, REALLY bad script. It built up to a lot, and didn’t deliver. Never “dropped the other shoe”, as it were.

I think the best part was when the woman did the staring for hours bit. It would have been better if it was all her violent psychosis that personified the evil and not an actual demon exposed by the resourceful use of baby powder. Ghosts and monsters are just shallow projections of the profound darkness that can only exist in our minds. It’s a cheap move. But it was a cheap movie. That made a lot of cheap money. . .

I watched Session 9, @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard. It was pretty good.