Halloween has passed, but it's never a bad time to take in a truly terrifying film. With Hollywood now preferring slick, poorly-scripted, startle-packed horror fare over genuine terror and cinematic craftsmanship, it's essential to mine the past for serious scares. Below are my humble picks for the 11 scariest films readily available on DVD at the local Best Buy or Blockbuster. So darken the room, grab a suitable security blanket, press play, and be afraid... be very afraid.
The List:
1. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)\nA woman steals money from her employer, flees town, and gets a room at the sinister Bates Motel. Hitchcock created the modern horror film with Psycho, and pushed the limits of what cinema could depict. It's a haunting masterpiece that demands multiple screenings.\nKiller scene: The shower murder is iconic, but Norman Bates' meticulous cleaning of the bathroom and disposing of evidence at the bottom of a nearby lake is the movie's crux.
\n2. The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)\nA young girl is possessed by a vengeful demon. Audience members passed out, vomited, and fled the theatre upon the its initial release, and it still has an unsettling effect on viewers.\nKiller scene: A tortured Reagan cries out from beyond by scrawling "help me" on her own stomach from the inside.
\n3. Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)\nDisturbed killer Michael Myers escapes the sanitarium to stalk his old neighborhood on Halloween night. Carpenter's vision would breed every slasher film to come after, but the film would never be surpassed in its own genre.\nKiller scene: After disposing of a teen on a post-coital beer run, Michael Myers dons and ghost-sheet disguise and his victim's glasses in order to stare down his next nubile sacrifice.
\n4. The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)\nDr. Hannibal "the cannibal" Lecter helps an amateur FBI agent find an even more disturbing killer than himself. Countless vignettes get under the skin, while Anthony Hopkins and Ted Levine give career-defining performances as two opposite-minded killers.\nKiller scene: Hannibal wears the face of one of his victims in order to escape via ambulance, then reveals himself to an EMT once they're free of police.
\n5. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)\nA family spends a winter housesitting an isolated hotel in the mountains. Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel is arguably one of the few epic horror films in existence, and is a scary visual treat.\nKiller scene: Wendy discovers "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" repeated infinitely on paper as Jack stares down the mouth of madness.
\n6. Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)\nAn aspiring actor sells the soul of his wife and their unborn baby to the dark side for success. Polanksi hides the quiet terror behind friendly faces and thin walls until all hell breaks loose.\nKiller scene: Rosemary sets eyes on her demon spawn, assured by the partygoers that the baby "has his father's eyes."
\n7. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)\nRoad-tripping teens take a wrong turn and end up in the grasp of a sadistic family. Inspired by real events, the film's grittiness and treatment of humans as raw meat still cuts deep to this day.\nKiller scene: An unfortunate girl is captured and gored on a hook in his butchering room, surrounded by her frozen and bludgeoned companions.
\n8. Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968)\nA group of people are trapped in a farmhouse as the dead rise from their graves craving living flesh. The idea of being eaten alive and returning as a monster blew minds upon the film's release. Romero's brilliant vision would spawn thousands of inferior copycats.\nKiller scene: The hero survives only to be mistaken for a zombie and shot by trigger-happy hunters, then thrown onto body pile.
\n9. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)\nA 25-foot great white shark terrorizes a quaint New England town. Generations still shudder at the thought of swimming in deep water, and Spielberg's choice not to show the shark until the final quarter was a masterstroke.\nKiller scene: Two men bait the beast with a pot roast after sunset, only to end up in the water, swimming for their lives from an unseen menace with dock in tow.
\n10. The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez, 1999)\nThree film students trek deep into the Maryland woods to explore and document a local legend. Audio and video from discovered tapes of the missing students' film will make you think twice about camping.\nKiller scene: Awakened in their tent in the middle of the night, the hapless filmmakers hear devilish cackling and gasping, followed closely by the sound of laughing children.
\n11. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)\nA spaceship's crew are hunted by malevolent extraterrestrials. H.R. Giger's frightening alien design became a template for humans' fears of marauders in outer space.\nKiller scene: The crew's last peaceful dinner, where a newly "recovered" Kane feels a tinge of indigestion, which is actually an alien gestating in his chest, bursting at the seams to break free.
