Top 10 General Horror
- Silent Hill. This movie has always been (and will always be) my favorite horror movie ever. I love how twisted and creepy it is! I’ve seen it a zillion times and it never gets old. The second movie, however…DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED.
- Oculus. HOLY. CRAP. GUYS. I can’t even BEGIN to tell you how freaktastic this movie is! The first time I ever saw it it made me feel like I was losing my mind. This is, hands down, THE best psychological thriller I’ve ever seen in my life. GO WATCH IT.
- Ghost Ship. This is an old favorite. I lovelovelove this story! I love the nice little twist at the end, it’s epic!
- 13 Ghosts. Another old favorite. Just like Ghost Ship, I love the story behind this one. I love Tony Shaloub’s role in this movie!
- The Nightmare Before Christmas. Okay so it’s kind of a stretch to call this one horror, maybe, but it does have horror aspects! Tim Burton is bloody brilliant, and I love how dark and twisted this is for being a cartoon. And I LOOOOOVE Jack!
- Sleepy Hollow. This is probably my oldest favorite! I love Johnny Depp to pieces, and I love that this movie has kind of a dark humor to it. I just realized it’s been a while since I saw it, I need to watch it again!
- Gremlins. It’s totally cheesy and old as hell, but I love it so much!! GIZMO IS THE CUTEST. (I have a cat named Gizmo!)
- Constantine. Maybe more of sci-fi than actual horror, but I’m still counting it. LOVE Keanu Reeves and love this story!
- I am legend. I absolutely LOVE Will Smith and basically everything he plays! This movie is no different. View Spoiler » That ending though!!!
- The Crow. I didn’t actually see this movie until a few years ago, but I fell in love with it! It’s beautifully tragic. (Also Brandon Lee is fiiiiiine.)
Top 5 Monster Movies
- The entire Jurassic Park franchise. These are some of my all time favorite movies EVER. I’ve seen them all a hundred times (um, I may or may not have seen Jurassic World at least 4 times in theater) and they will never, ever get old. I used to be extremely obsessed with dinosaurs! The Lost World is my favorite of them all. THE TRAILER SCENE.
- The Tremors franchise, except for #5. They are cheesy as hell BUT I LOVE THEM SO MUCH. Especially the first one, that’s my favorite. But they are all very dear to my heart even though they’re kind of awful. Except the newest one, that one actually was awful…
- Alien. I’ll admit I haven’t seen Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection, and I think I saw Aliens but I honestly can’t remember it. I DON’T KNOW WHY. Alien was epic!! I wish there were more movies like it, because it’s actually borderline scary for me, which is super rare. Plus Sigourney Weaver is a badass! (And the cat actually survives, 9183740182374 bonus points)
- Deep Blue Sea. This is another that is totally 100% cheesy but for some reason I love it so much! I was never a fan of Jaws, but this one is for me!
- Komodo. This is an old one, and I don’t even know why I love it so much but I do! I had a love for Komodo dragons there for a while so I found this movie awesome!
Other horror movies I enjoyed:
- The Mist
- Seven
- The Saw franchise
- Final Destination franchise
- 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later
- Jeepers Creepers 1 and 2
- The Resident Evil franchise
- Underworld franchise
- The Happening
- The Crazies
- Predators
- The Others
- The Ring
- Pan’s Labyrinth
- Cujo
- Zombieland
- Fright Night (let’s face it, only because of Colin Farrell)
- The Hills Have Eyes (even though it disturbs the shit out of me)
- Crimson Peak
- The Last House on the Left
- Skyline
- Prometheus
- Wrong Turn (first movie ONLY though)
- Jennifer’s Body
- Pandorum
- The Strangers
- Shutter
- Anaconda
- Van Helsing
- Gothika
Horror movies I did NOT enjoy:
- Paranormal Activity
- The Grudge
- Drag Me to Hell (KITTEN SACRIFICE HELL TO THE NO)
- Evil Dead
- The Omen
- Cabin in the Woods
- Let Me In
- The Wicker Man
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- The Conjuring
- Blair Witch Project
- Donnie Darko
- The Ruins
- The Descent
- Poltergeist
- The Exorcist
- The Babadook (which makes me very sad, since del Toro is my fave director)
- Dracula Untold
- I, Frankenstein
- Haunting in Connecticut
- Silent Hill: Revelation (WORST. SEQUEL. EVER.)
- The Devil Inside
- Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
- The Collector (The acid scene with the cat. I CAN’T.)
- Shark Night
- The Darkest Hour
- My Soul to Take
- 30 Days of Night
- The Uninvited
- Orphan
- My Bloody Valentine
- The Unborn
- Sorority Row
- The Fourth Kind
- Cloverfield
- Hostel
- The Messengers
- The Fog
- Skeleton Key
- Boogeyman
- Darkness Falls
- Willard
Like books, I’m SUPER picky about horror movies. Most of them just make me laugh because they’re so cheesy. Another beef I have with 90% of horror movies: They use cheap jump scare tactics instead of making it actually scary. Plus too many of them feel exactly the same, to the point that I can’t keep them straight. I remember two or three years ago – I’m almost certain it was the remake of Evil Dead – that everyone was talking about how it was the SCARIEST movie they’ve ever seen, blah blah blah….and I didn’t even like it at all. Like I said, most “horror”makes me giggle because it tends to be campy. I was never a big fan of the old franchise movies like Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream; and I didn’t care for The Exorcist or Poltergeist. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never seen The Shining, Psycho, or It (but want to!).
You know what I realized as I was writing this post? Somewhere along the line, I stopped watching horror movies. I had to Google search 2015 horror movies, 2014 horror movies, and so on to recall most of the movies on here, and the further back I went on the timeline, the more of them I’d seen. Actually, I’ve only seen one 2016 horror release (10 Cloverfield Lane – it was meh), one 2015 horror release (Crimson Peak – loved it), and three 2014 horror releases (The Babadook, Dracula Untold, I Frankensten – didn’t like any of them). At some point I lost interest in seeing new ones because I dislike 80% of horror movies I’ve seen in the past 5 years or so. It makes me really sad!
What’s YOUR favorite horror movie?
I love The Crow and Alien too! I didn’t think very much of Aliens because it’s SO different to the first movie since it’s more of a general sci-fi/action movie rather than a horror movie. I tend to watch really old horror movies like ones with Vincent Price in because they’re not that scary and I’m really a total baby, haha. Psycho’s one of my favourite movies ever, and it’s probably because it’s not really scary, it’s just really tense. And I definitely agree with you on Fright Night. I originally watched it for Anton Yelchin, but Colin Farrell made it even better.
I’m posting my favorite horror movies for TTT next week! I like a lot of all cheesy ones that I grew up watching. I don’t watch a lot of horror these days. I looooooved Tremors as a kid! My husband and I still have to watch it any time we catch it on TV lol. The Crow is one of my favorites. That movie! <3
I love this list, Jessi! I’m also super into horror movies and I’m a little sad that there isn’t much quality horror movies nowadays. Although, I came across a Buzzfeed article with a list of good horror movies and found one called “It Follows”. It’s pretty cool and one of the best I’ve seen so far this year. As for favorites, I love 13 GHOSTS! It’s one of my favorites! I also enjoyed Insidious (especially the 2nd one) and The Conjuring movies. Also the first two Final Destination movies were awesome too! And Pan’s Labyrinth, man. That scene with that creature with their eyes on their palms, that was super creeeeeepy.
I’m a huge horror movie fan but I find it so hard to find good ones! I wasn’t too impressed with 10 Cloverfield Lane either which really sucks because I was thinking it was going to be good.
We do have some in common on your general list! There’s also some that I haven’t seen that I’m adding to my ‘to-watch’ list!