Tis the season.....for horror

[Aruntraveller]

An interesting list from the Guardian of scariest films:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oct/31/halloween-scariest-movies-of-all-time

Hmm..........really not sure about the films I do know on this list. "The Shining" is a very accomplished film, but, like many of Kubrick's films (to me, at least), it focuses more on style than substance. I loved the book, but when I saw the film, I felt very disappointed with it. I found the 1946 version of "Great Expectations" scarier, with the brilliant jump scare at the start of the film.

"The Thing" by Carpenter is good, but not by any stretch, for me a "scariest" film.

"The Innocents" I do like and would have on my list, along with the similar "The Haunting" (1963).

Another film I would put on the list is "The Mist", another King adaptation, which is so unrelentingly bleak and scary that I will never, ever watch it again. The ending was changed with King's approval to make it even more devastating.

As always, the problem with lists of this kind is the very individual nature of our response to horror films. What scares one person leaves another untouched.

So, what scared others so badly that they won't ever watch the film again?
 

[Nearly Sane]

Interesting selection as you say. For me the film that has always scared me the most is The Innocents, in part from seeing it at 8, in part that it plays on the idea of madness which i find scarier than any jump scare or gore. Hence I love the Dead of Night section that you put up a picture of in the Picture This with Michael Redgrave and the ventriloquist's dummy as a scare.


Oddly enough, despite it having a strong element of madness in it, I have never found The Shining at all scary. I find Nicolson's performance way to over the top.

For a film that affected me so much i haven't seen it again - I'll give two, both horrors in the sense of the horror of madness. Shock Corridor which is such a depressing ending, and Repulsion which is way too close in some ways.

[Steve H]

No Psycho? No Carrie? No Alien?

[Maeght]

Don't find films scary. They aren't real.

[Nearly Sane]

Don't find films scary. They aren't real.

in that sense neither do I, but i can feel scared at a film if it outlines the fears I have and triggers thoughts of them, see my comment on Repulsion