We used one simple criterion for this list: If you asked someone, “What’s the scariest movie of all time?” could you imagine them saying one of the twenty-five films below? Some difficult decisions followed. Alien is one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time, but is it one of the scariest films of all time?
Paranormal Activity kicked off one of the most profitable horror franchises in film history, but is it still taken as seriously as it was nearly twenty years ago? Does a film like Jaws, once called the scariest movie of all time, leave real and lasting scars? Naturally, there’s no winning on the Internet.
Modern horror heads will say that Psycho isn’t scary anymore. They’ll tell us that Insidious has a terrible ending, or that The Blair Witch Project is only terrifying for a couple of iconic scenes. Let the comments come—we can take it.
But we believe the twenty-five movies below represent the gamut of jump scares, dread, torture, legacy, and everything else you could want in a film deserving of the title of the scariest movie of all time.—Josh Rosenberg A modern slow-burn masterpiece, Na Hong-jin’s acclaimed The Wailing marinates in the eerie and the otherworldly. Set in a remote village, a police officer (Kwak Do-won) investigates a strange illness that causes the afflicted to viciously attack their own families. But when his own daughter falls sick, he begins heeding warnings from a local shaman and a woman in white.
What The Wailing lacks in jump scares, it more than makes up for with abundant psychological dread and eerie atmospherics.—Eric Francisco The jump scare of the clap alone might have been enough to include The Conjuring on this list, but director James Wan didn’t become one of our greatest horror storytellers simply off of gimmicks. The film follows paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), in a supernatural possession story based on the real-life reporting that would inspire The Amityville Horror. Though it contains less thought-provoking material when compared to a classic like The Exorcist, The Conjuring certainly makes up for it in thrills.—J.R.
Insidious may predate The Conjuring, but it’s not any less terrifying. I’ll always remember this film about a family who tries to save their son from becoming a demonic host as one of the first horror movies to break a golden rule: The scares also happen during scenes that take place in the daytime. When that red-faced demon appears behind Patrick Wilson?
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