The best horror movies to watch on Halloween
Michael Myers (aka The Shape) in Halloween Ends, co-written, produced and directed by David Gordon Green.
Halloween is here again and in between putting on your costume and eating some candy, you might want to sit down and watch a scary movie!
Moviefone has compiled a list of the 25 scariest movies of all time to help you celebrate All Saints Day!
Let’s begin!
In the year 2047, a group of astronauts are sent to investigate and rescue the Event Horizon spacecraft, which mysteriously disappeared on its maiden voyage seven years earlier. With their return, the crew of the Lewis and Clark discovers the real truth behind the disappearance of the Event Horizon – and something even more frightening.
A family discovers that dark spirits have invaded their home after their son (Ty Simpkins) inexplicably falls into an endless sleep. When they ask a professional for help, they learn that things are much more personal than they thought.
Set in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982, twelve-year-old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is a lonely outsider who is bullied by his classmates at school. At home, Oskar dreams of revenge against a trio of thugs. He befriends his twelve-year-old neighbor Eli (Lina Leandersson), who only appears at night on the snow-covered playground in front of her building.
“Eli is 12 years old. She’s been 12 for over 200 years and just moved in next door.”
75
1 hour 55 minutesOctober 24, 2008
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Twenty-eight days after a killer virus was accidentally released at a British research facility, a small group of London survivors find themselves in a desperate fight to protect themselves from the infected. Carried by animals and humans, the virus turns those it infects into homicidal maniacs – and it is absolutely impossible to contain.
“His anxiety started when he woke up alone. His fear began when he realized it wasn’t him.”
72
1 hour 53 minutesMay 7, 2003
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21. “Saw” (2004)
Obsessed with teaching his victims the value of life, a deranged, sadistic serial killer kidnaps morally insane people. Once trapped, they must face impossible choices in a terrifying survival game. Victims must fight to reclaim their lives or die trying…
Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) is a journalist investigating a videotape in which four teenagers may have been killed. There is an urban legend about this tape: the viewer will die seven days after watching it. Rachel tracks down the video and watches it. Now she only has seven days to uncover the secret of the ring so she can save herself and her son.
In October 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while filming a documentary. A year later, her footage was found.
18. “Scream” (1996)
A killer known as Ghostface begins killing teenagers, and as the death toll rises, a girl (Neve Campbell) and her friends ponder the “rules” of horror movies while trying to survive a real horror movie.
“Someone took their love of scary movies one step too far.”
74
1 hour 52 minutesDecember 18, 1996
When carefree teenager Jay (Maika Monroe) sleeps with her older boyfriend for the first time, she learns that she is the latest recipient of a deadly curse that is passed from victim to victim through sexual intercourse. Jay learns that death will inexorably approach her, either as a friend or as a stranger. Jay’s friends don’t believe her seemingly paranoid crushes until they too see the phantom assassins and band together to help defend her.
“It doesn’t think, it doesn’t feel, it doesn’t give up.”
66
1 hour 41 minutesSeptember 24, 2014
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After a tragic accident, six friends meet for a cave expedition. Their adventure soon goes horribly wrong when a cave-in traps them deep underground and they are pursued by bloodthirsty creatures. As their friendships deteriorate, they find themselves in a desperate fight for survival against the creatures and each other.
After returning from a wedding reception, a couple (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman) staying in a remote vacation home get a knock on the door in the middle of the night. There is a violent attack by three strangers whose faces are hidden behind masks. The pair find themselves in a fierce battle, going beyond what either thought possible to survive.
“Close the door. Imagine being safe.”
61
1 hour 26 minutesMay 30, 2008
Paranormal investigators Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) work to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in their farmhouse. The Warrens must face a powerful being and find themselves in the most terrible case of their lives.
Steve Freeling (Craig T. Nelson) lives in Southern California with his wife Diane (JoBeth Williams) and their three children Dana (Dominique Dunne), Robbie (Oliver Robins) and Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke). He sells houses for the company, who built the district. It starts with a few strange occurrences, like broken dishes and furniture moving on its own. However, when he realizes that something truly evil is haunting his home, Steve calls in a team of parapsychologists led by Dr. Lesh to help before it’s too late.
When Ellen, matriarch of the Graham family, dies, her daughter’s family begins to uncover cryptic and increasingly frightening secrets about her lineage.
Immediately after her miscarriage, US diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) adopts newborn Damien (Harvey Stephens) without his wife’s (Lee Remick) knowledge. What he doesn’t know, however, is that her new son is the son of the devil.
“It is the greatest mystery of all, for no man will ever solve it.”
74
1 hour 51 minutesJune 25, 1976
10. “Psycho” (1960)
When thieving real estate agent Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) goes on the run with a wad of cash and the hope of starting a new life, she ends up at the infamous Bates Motel, where manager Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) takes care of his housebound property Mother takes care.
“A new – and completely different – tension on the screen!”
84
1 hour 49 minutesJune 16, 1960
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A young couple, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy (John Cassavetes), move into an infamous New York apartment building surrounded by frightening legends and mysterious events with the goal of starting a family.
“It’s not what you expect”
78
2 hours 18 minutesJune 12, 1968
8. “Alien” (1979)
Returning to Earth, the commercial spacecraft Nostromo receives a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-person crew team discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks a researcher. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare that awaits them when the alien parasite implanted in its unfortunate host is born.
Members of an American scientific research outpost in Antarctica battle a parasitic alien organism that can perfectly mimic its victims. They quickly realize that this task will be more difficult than they thought, as they don’t know which members of the team have already been assimilated and their paranoia threatens to tear them apart.
Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is a top student at the FBI training academy. Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) wants Clarice to be Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, is behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may just be bait to lure him out.
“To enter the mind of a murderer, she must challenge the mind of a madman.”
83
1 hour 59 minutesJanuary 30, 1991
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Teenagers in a small town are dying like flies, apparently in the grip of mass hysteria that leads to their suicides. A police officer’s daughter, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp), traces the cause to child molester Fred Krueger (Robert Englund), who was burned alive by angry parents many years earlier. Krueger has now returned to the dreams of his murderers’ children and demands their lives as revenge. Nancy and her friend Glen (Johnny Depp) must hatch a plan to lure the monster from the realm of nightmares into the real world…
“If Nancy doesn’t wake up screaming, she won’t wake up at all!”
73
1 hour 31 minutesNovember 9, 1984
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Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) takes a job as a caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, where he, his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and their son Danny (Danny Lloyd) have to live in isolation from the rest of the world during the winter. But they are unprepared for the madness that lurks within them.
“He came as a caretaker, but this hotel had its own guards – who had been there for a long time.”
82
2 hours 24 minutesMay 23, 1980
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When Sally (Marilyn Burns) learns that her grandfather’s grave may have been destroyed, she and her paraplegic brother Franklin (Paul A. Partain) investigate with their friends. After a trip to her family’s old farmhouse, they discover a group of crazy, murderous outcasts next door. As the group is attacked one by one by the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), who wears a mask made of human skin, the survivors must do everything they can to escape.
“Who will survive and what will be left of them?”
73
1 hour 23 minutesOct. 1, 1974
12-year-old Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) begins to take on a whole new personality when strange events occur in the Georgetown area. Torn between science and superstition in a desperate attempt to save her daughter, her mother (Ellen Burstyn) ultimately turns to her last hope: Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller), a troubled priest who lives with her struggles with his own faith.
“Something almost unimaginable happened to a girl on this street, in this house… and as a last resort a man was called. This man is the exorcist.”
77
2 hours 2 minutesDecember 26, 1973
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Fifteen years after his sister was murdered on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental institution and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois, to kill again.