Scary movies that are actually scary? (4+ Year Old Topic)

Great question. Yes the answers may subjective but many horrors are well agreed upon. Take it with a grain of salt but these ones truly made me appreciate them for being able to captivate as well as frighten.

1408

THE CONJURING

IDENTITY

THE LAST EXORCISM

THE SACRAMENT

HALLOWEEN (original)

THE SHINING

THE OTHERS

JEEPERS CREEPERS

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

The Strangers

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

The Mothman Prophecies

Oculos

House of a Thousand Corpses

Note: just like the discussion above re Alien & The 4th, the movies above based that are based on the truth wouldn't be there if I didn't believe exactly when watching.

No bad luck, hope some of these are what you're looking for.

I edited the thread title to indicate that this topic is approaching ancient status. Thanks to Giant Bomb's incredible SEO, we're often the top search result for a great number of Google searches for obscure, often weird questions that are often times an exact match for some Off Topic thread titles. Go figure.

Anyway, feel free to keep this topic and others like it going when they get bumped by some fresh signup who will probably never visit the site again. Just be aware that sometimes these threads are five or six years old or older, and many of the members who may have been active in the discussion long ago are no longer around on GB. Plus, these discussions will of course be missing any film releases from the last few years or so.

The Babadook and It Follows are the best horror flicks of the decade so far, no question. If you're into horror, see those.

@Mike: 2nd visit :)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the most dread-inducing films I've ever seen, and it's way more subtle and intelligent than its reputation would probably lead many to believe.

That being said, it's not really a fun movie to watch. I felt pretty uneasy for a while after watching it.

The Babadook is terrific. About a month after seeing it I literally had a nightmare.

House of the Devil, The Others and The Conjuring I found legitimately scary.

Even though The Conjuring has a few jump scares they are all three what I will call "classic" horror movies in the sense that they are more interested in building up tension and keeping that tension for longer periods of time. Instead of just being a collection jump scares.

The Strangers really creeped me out after leaving the theater...

The Babadook is the only horror movies that has given me nightmares in the past 10 years or so of loving horror movies.

Is it too late for a Kazaam joke?

Just out of curiosity, are you talking about the original or the remake with Jessica Biel? I've only seen the remake all the way through, so I can only talk about that one. I'm not normally that effected by movies like this. I just shrug off most of them, but there was something unsettling about how real it felt.

Has anyone mentioned The Autopsy of Jane Doe? That shit freaked me the hell out.

I like good old-fashioned less "meaty" scary movies. What about Rosemary's Baby? Very intense for me.

It's not technically in the horror genre or even a movie, but a lot of the Chernobyl mini-series was deeply unsettling, particularly the first few episodes.

Otherwise, The Lighthouse comes out today in wide release. I was fortunate enough to see it a little early. It's really creepy.

@pickytop: I enjoyed Hereditary enough, but I experienced zero scares. I thought it was a solid psychological piece on a family, and a thriller, but I never felt like it was a horror movie.

I saw the Witch last night, and similarly enjoyed it but didn’t find it remotely scary. Suspenseful, sure, but not scary.

IT Chapter 1 was kinda haunting in a menacing way, but not really scary...

I guess MAYBE the recent Evil Dead reboot was kinda scary (definitely gorey).

It's cool and fascinating to see or hear how people are acutely scared by specific topics/genres. The most recent thing for me is Hereditary because supernatural or alien horror is always more terrifying to me than actual horror stuff like serial killers and gore (fear of the unknown sort of thing).

Martyrs (2008), however, is something I can never watch again. That shit fucked me up.

The Omen never fails to creep me the fuck out. It came out the same decade as The Exorcist.