Skip to main content

Spooktacular Top Ten List


It's October and the leaves are just beginning to turn various hues of gold and red. The cool, crisp air carries with it the glorious scent of the first fires of the season. Every catalog delivered to our door has pictures of pumpkins or goblins and the pages are filled with the hottest costumes of the season. (My boys started discussing costume possibilities in August--we're still working on it.)

My favorite side effect of the Halloween season is the plethora of scary movies on television. I love to sit in the dark, curled up on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn (and my favorite guy) and get scared.


Here are my Top 10 Favorite Spooktacular movies.

10. The Wizard of Oz: I know...you think I'm crazy. That Wicked Witch of the West and her creepy monkeys gave me nightmares for years and I've never fully recovered. It still creeps me out every time I watch it. Don't judge.

9. Aliens: This is the second in the Alien series and I think it's the scariest. It's good old fashioned edge-of-your-seat fun. The characters are fantastic. Ripley is (in my humble opinion) the best scary movie heroine EVER. She kicks some serious Alien butt.
8. Friday the 13th: It's an oldie but a goodie. I never even thought about going to sleep away camp once I saw that flick.

7. Halloween: Michael Meyers is a slightly bigger bad ass than Jason. He started killing as a little kid. That's creeptastic.

6. The Ring: That girl, crawling out of the television all drippy and gooey gave me the heebie-geebies. I dare you to watch that alone in the dark.

5. 28 Days Later: Zombie movies have always scared the you-know-what out of me. This movie scared me so badly that I had to leave the theater. When it came out on video, and I finally mustered up the courage to watch it, I spent much of the movie with my face hidden under the covers like a twelve year old girl.

4. The Thing: This was the first horror movie that I ever saw and that's probably why it still scares me. The creature can take on the form of any other living thing, so you never really know who's okay and who isn't. When it finally is revealed...it's REALLY gross.

3. Scream: The whole franchise is great. It provides excellent suspense and just enough gore to make it a horror film. It's funny too. I like some humor with my horror. It gives the viewer that much needed respite before the next white-knuckle moment.

2. The Exorcist: That devil voice that comes out of Linda Blair STILL haunts my nightmares.

1. The Shinning: The book was scary enough. I had to stop reading it several times because I couldn't stand it. I'm a total glutton for punishment because I watch the movie too. It does not disappoint and is equally terrifying. Those creepy twins freak me out.

So those are my faves. I've seen them all countless times and it's certain I'll watch them countless more. Even though I know how it all turns out, who the bad guys are and what creeper is waiting around the corner, I still get scared. How about you? What movie keeps you on the edge of your seat and snuggled up with your honey?


Comments

  1. I don't like to be truly, truly scared, but I love a little spook, if that makes sense. The movie that scared me the most was The Ring. I'm telling you, something about that girl crawling out of the well...it was weeks before I could walk down my hallway in the dark without picturing her.

    Another scary one was The Grudge. But I saw it in the theater with my sister-in-law, and everyone else was so scared, I started laughing. I think I had fingernail marks ih my arms from my sister-in-law. She loves being scared. We were on our way to see Paranormal Activity and chickened out. I see there's a second one out now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm a wuss. I cannot do horror. Can't. If I hear the "Miss Gulch" theme music from WOOz, I get the heebs. This is what comes from suspending disbelief and no being able to un-suspend it. I'm scared just commenting about horror.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The only movie on your list that I've ever seen is the Wizard of Oz. And I'm not laughing at you. It's at the very top of my tolerable fear scale. Anything scarier is not for me.

    I think Grace has put her finger on the problem. Once I have identified with the characters and I'm emotionally invested in a movie, I can't make the "It's just a movie" distinction.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Put me in the seat beside Mary Margret ... I watch movies like I read books ... after the first two minutes or two pages, it's all very real. I'd have to buy a bucket of nitro pills at the concession stand to watch a scary movie!
    Carolyn Brown

    ReplyDelete
  5. You are braver than I to watch all of those films! The Shining is really scary!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anita--I almost put The Grudge on my list. That was a very scary movie. The way that ghostly ghoul contorted was sick! I only like to be scared in movies...not in real life.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Mary & Carolyn :) I can remain distanced enough from characters in the movies but not from the books. For example, I only read The Shinning once and I barely got through it. I don't like to read scary books. I think it's because the images my imagination can create are far more frightening than anything I see on the screen.

    ReplyDelete
  8. One of the reasons I, too, love "The Shining" and "Aliens" is because their horror is as much psychological as it is physical.

    My personal #1 would be "Aliens" because - well, aliens! ;-) The series also features a kick-ass, competent heroine, an authentic description of what work might look like in this environment, and OMG Michael Biehn. That man just trips every trigger I have - and then some.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Tamara...You are preachin' to the choir sister! I adore Michael Biehn. He's positively yummy.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hm, so many! Psycho, Homicidal, The Thing, Them, Saw series, the first From Dusk to Dawn. Even more I can't think of offhand. I love anything that's scary!

    ReplyDelete
  11. The scariest movie in THE WORLD is "Candyman". First, I'm allergic to bees, so when he releases the bees, GAH! Second, the call him in the mirror "thing". I've tried it several times and never say the third Candyman, because even though I know it's fiction, I pee in my pants a little. Hook?! Yikes. And that part when he's floating over the bed and she's strapped down because they think she's crazy. *shudders

    Okay, now I'm going to have nightmares.

    Aliens is one of my top three favorite movies of all time. LOVE that movie. My other two favorites are The Terminator and Avatar. Yes, I have a thing for James Cameron flicks.

    Fun post, Sara!

    ReplyDelete
  12. It's fun to read about these, since I know I'll never see them (well, except the Wizard of Oz, of course!). I'm so ridiculously easy to terrify that I couldn't even stand reading Goosebumps books to my kids when they begged for them. Give me HEA every time!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Linda--I loved Dusk 'Til Dawn as well. The Saw series isn't one I've seen...yet.

    ReplyDelete
  14. OMG Olivia! How could I forget Candyman???? I laughed out loud when I read what you wrote. I won't say it the third time either. My husband loves to make fun of me for that.
    I am also a huge James Cameron fan. Avatar and Terminator are on my hit list of all time fave movies.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hi Abigail :) My kids must've gotten my love of scary stuff because all four boys adore all the Goosebumps books. I am a sucker for a HEA though....especially with romance.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I really hate scary movies! I have seen The Shining and is scared the bejesus out of me!

    My daughter, who is 22, still can't watch The Wizard of Oz because the flying monkeys give her nightmares.

    ReplyDelete
  17. The only one I haven't seen is 28th Days Later but I'm going to have to give it a try. As to scary - Fire in the Sky is the only movie to really scare me - it's about alien abduction - true story!!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Good list, Sara. Although too scary for me. :}

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment