I was having this discussion with a friend of mine last week about how scary movies are the best thing ever, yet I think there are only five to seven ones that really get under my skin. We had a pretty matched list which not everyone'll agree with (timing and mood has just as much to do with being freaked:

the Shining
Jacob's Ladder
B.Witch Proj.
the Ring
28 Days Later (Ebola + Zombies? it's like they wrote it FOR me)

and a few others that are slipping mind right now (i think from the late 70s early 80's). Any suggestions? I don't count gore as scary, just gory, but like real mindfuck ohgodsleep with the lights on type stuff.

Faiz

The Exorcist

I doubt whether anyone else has seen it, but there is an Italian horror film called "Macabro" (aka "Frozen Terror") that really freaked me out when I was young.

The memory of this movie, particularly its startling final scene, remains with me to this day.

A long time ago I did a C/NC poll on Dario Argento. For me his movies are the top of the scary heap, in terms of what you'd call the traditional horror genre.

The movies that scare me the most are the ones where things start going bad, and then just relentlessly get worse and worse and there's never any let-up to it. I guess those get me because they are so similar to the way things happen in nightmares. "Deliverance" is a classic example.

Any movie starring the Olsen twins is scary enough for me.

The only thing scary about this movie is that somebody financed it. It takes place in a recording studio so it does merit mention here.

I wish I could do further justice to it. You'll just have to check out the clips here:

http://www.badmovies.org/movies/rrnightmare/

-charles

The Sixth Sense scared the shit out of me.

Quite by chance I caught Seconds on TV late one night a few weeks ago. It was an odd, lingering and creepy little film – full of wild fish eye camera angles and an unexpectedly great performance from Rock Hudson – don’t let that put you off. It’s worth seeking out if you fancy an arty but convincing take on a ‘twilight zone’ kind of idea.

I think George Sluizer's original Vanishing 'Spoorloos' is genuinely haunting and shocking in a 'banality of evil' kind of way.

good god, do i ever enjoy horror movies. a few i thought were pretty scary:

ring and ring 2
kairo/pulse
in a glass cage
the exorcist
jacob's ladder
the mothman prophecies
the legend of hell house
romero's 'living dead' movies
a lot of dario argento (deep red, suspiria, inferno, opera, tenebre)

i know there are more that are genuinely scary, but i like "bad" horror movies just as much as "good" ones.

lots of lucio fulci (the beyond, zombie, house by the cemetery, new york ripper, city of the living dead, lizard in a woman's skin)

cannibal ferox
cannibal holocaust
jungle holocaust
eaten alive
house on the edge of the park

man, there's a bunch of stuff i'm forgetting. i could go on and on about horror movies. sorry about that...

A long time ago I did a C/NC poll on Dario Argento. For me his movies are the top of the scary heap, in terms of what you'd call the traditional horror genre.

B/c I believe there must be more interaction between all forms of ‘not crap’ art, I’ll take this opportunity to plug the late K. Acker’s novel “My Mother: Demonology” which pirates a big section from Argento films as well as steals straight from his lips w/ the opening lines: “I am in love with red. I dream in red.”

Once, while drunk, I tried to convince an Eng prof (who played in a good band and had a picture of the Archer’s of Loaf on his office door) that Shellac are the William Carlos Williams of Rock. He agreed they might be the best power-trio alive but remained unconvinced. . .

I’ve never understood how people who like good music could like shit authors and vice versa – a more than frequent occurrence among women I’ve known.

Back to movies: after the first time my friend and I saw the Exorcist we attempted to strange each other to death in order to override our fear. Never forgotten that. Almost died.