Suffering from post-Halloween withdrawal? Looking to be scared out of your wits while curled up on the sofa huddles huddled next to your spouse?
You’re in luck!
Newsmax has compiled a list of the 10 all-time scariest movies ever produced, listed in alphabetical order, followed by a bonus selection. Here we go!
"Alien" (1979)
In this, the film that propelled Sigourney Weaver to stardom, the crew of a commercial starship is awakened from hyper-sleep capsules halfway through their journey home to check out a distress transmission coming from an alien vessel.
The crew discovers a nest of eggs inside the alien ship, and a creature leaps from inside one of the egg and attaches itself to one of the crew, causing him to fall into a coma.
The terror is just beginning.
Wrote Philip Strick reviewing for Sight & Sound, "This gorgeous, leisurely horror film expresses a spectacularly British xenophobia, a parenthetical nightmare of invasion envisioned between an awakening (at the start of the film) and a return to sleep (at its close)."
"The Bride of Frankenstein" (1935)
Nearly 90 years old, this film is still both engrossing and terrifying, and stars the legendary Boris Karloff as Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster.
In this sequel to the 1931 Universal film "Frankenstein," the Monster learns rudimentary speech from a blind man, and acquires human emotions such as humor, friendship, empathy and even love.
Reviewed Sean Axmaker for Stream on Demand. "The baroque blast of stylized design, gothic hysteria and black humor teases, terrifies, and raises the drama to operatic levels."
"The Exorcist" (1973)
When a young girl (Linda Blair), living in an upscale Georgetown suburb of Washington, D,C., becomes possessed by a demon, a local Catholic priest makes a request to perform an exorcism, and the church sends in an expert (Max von Sydow) to help with the procedure.
Brian Eggert gave the film a 4 out of 4 in his Deep Focus Review, stating that "The director's horrifyingly maintained assault of the viewer's senses and faith leaves the audience subject to devilish, claustrophobic torment that makes the resultant spiritual awakening all the more powerful."
"Halloween" (1978)
Fifteen years after Michael Myers (first portrayed by Nick Castle) brutally murdered his older sister on a cold Halloween night in 1963, he escapes from a mental institution and returns to his quiet hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, where he looks for his next victims.
Wrote Jake Wilson for The Age, "Carpenter’s 1978 slasher classic has inspired a million imitations as well as sequels, but few that demonstrate so clearly that a disreputable genre movie can also be a pure, rigorous work of art."
"Night of the Living Dead" (1968)
A group of Pennsylvanians of different backgrounds takes refuge in an abandoned house from flesh-eating corpses who left their graves in search of live humans. Most of the group panic as the zombies surround the house, and find various means of entry.
"'Night of the Living Dead' is taut and uncompromising, ending on a note of bitter irony," said Kevin Thomas, reviewing for the Los Angeles Times.
"Performances are adequate and often better, especially in the case of Jones, who clearly has what it takes to go on to bigger things."
"A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984)
This is the first of the Wes Craven classic slasher series in which the spirit of Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), preys on teenagers in their dreams with his long-bladed gloves. One of the targeted teens works out that her parents may hold the key to the mystery.
Wrote Paul Attanasio, reviewing for The Washington Post, "The script is consistently witty, the camera work (by cinematographer Jacques Haitkin) crisp and expressive."
"Psycho" (1960)
In this Alfred Hitchcock classic, a Phoenix secretary is on the run after embezzling $40,000 from her employer’s client. She checks into the broken-down Bates Motel, which is run by Norman Bates, who has an unhealthy interest in taxidermy and a strange relationship with his mother.
The Age’s Jake Wilson wrote, "A brilliant technical exercise, an intimate character study, and the ultimate variant on the premise 'boy meets girl.'"
"Rosemary's Baby" (1968)
In this riveting Roman Polanski film, a young woman and her struggling actor husband move into an old, ornate New York City apartment building populated with an odd assortment of tenants.
When Rosemary (the wife, Mia Farrow) becomes pregnant, she finds herself increasingly isolated, and learns that her Satanist neighbors want to use her child as a means for Satan to enter the world of mortals.
"Right to its bitter end, there is no escaping 'Rosemary's Baby,'" wrote Kathleen Carroll, reviewing for the New York Daily News.
"On film Ira Levin's best selling novel is as horribly frightening as it was on paper."
"The Shining" (1980)
Budding novelist Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) accepts a job as winter caretaker at Colorado’s Overlook Hotel, hoping the quiet and isolation will get his writer's juices flowing.
He moves in with his wife and young son, who is plagued by visions of the hotel’s disturbing past, and premonitions that his father is about to become homicidal.
Brian Eggert wrote for Deep Focus Review, "The terrifying aspect of 'The Shining,' and its most enduring quality, is how [director Stanley] Kubrick has trapped us in his cinematic maze to search without hope of ever discovering an adequate answer outside of our own making."
"The Silence of the Lambs" (1991)
Top FBI academy student Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) interviews Dr. Hannibal (the cannibal) Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a brilliant but violent psychopath, serving a life sentence for murder and cannibalism. One of Starling’s superiors believes that Lecter may hold the key into cracking the case of another psychopath, and that Starling may be able to draw him out.
Wrote Kathy Huffhines for the Detroit Free Press, "Throughout the movie, [director Jonathan] Demme gets across more terror than a dozen Friday the 13ths by showing not the horrifying thing itself but the faces of people looking at horror."
Bonus selection:
"Aliens" (1986)
In this highly successful sequel to "Alien," Sigourney Weaver returned to reprise her role as Officer Ripley, the sole survivor to the alien attack 57 years earlier. She awakens from hyper-sleep and tries to warn anyone who will listen about the predators.
"Scene to scene, encounter to encounter, its tension builds unrelentingly," wrote Rick Kogan for the Chicago Tribune. "So, fasten your seat belts. It`s a blast."
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
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