Best Horror Movies of All Time

[sophotek_bliss]

I'll bite, with some classics from the top of my head first, since I'm late to the party:
Hellraiser (original of course)
The Blair Witch Project
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Alien
Halloween
The Thing

And then one modern, Hereditary.

 

[Gnostic Goblin]

The original or the 2022 reboot?

Original of course with Doug Bradley. And Clive Barkers novel Hellhound Heart.

 

[Clint_L]

I'll bite, with some classics from the top of my head first, since I'm late to the party:
Hellraiser (original of course)
The Blair Witch Project
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Alien
Halloween
The Thing

And then one modern, Hereditary.

The only one on this list that I disagree with is Blair Witch. I was super excited for it because of all the hype and then...it just didn't work for me. The shaky cam made me kind of nauseous, and I found it really tedious. The last five minutes were pretty good, and I liked the final shot quite a lot, but overall I was super underwhelmed.

I consider Nightmare and Hellraiser excellent genre films, but a cut below your final three classics, which are all-timers. Hereditary is very effective and Toni Collette is reliably excellent, but I'm not quite sure where I rank it. I found it a tough watch.

 

[MGibster]

The only one on this list that I disagree with is Blair Witch. I was super excited for it because of all the hype and then...it just didn't work for me. The shaky cam made me kind of nauseous, and I found it really tedious. The last five minutes were pretty good, and I liked the final shot quite a lot, but overall I was super underwhelmed.

It didn't take many years before I heard people saying, "It's unrealistic how none of those kids had a phone." The movie was released in 1999, which was a time when cell phone ownership was rising but it was still fairly uncommon. Especially for graduate students in their 20s. Once more, the conceit of the film was we were watching found footage from 1994, a time when very few people had cell phones. It just goes to show how quickly cell phones became ubiquitous.

Blair Witch isn't on my list of great horror movies either. I will give it an honorable mention given what they accomplished with a shoestring budget of less than a million dollars and their marketing campaign which made use of the internet.

 

[sophotek_bliss]

The only one on this list that I disagree with is Blair Witch. I was super excited for it because of all the hype and then...it just didn't work for me. The shaky cam made me kind of nauseous, and I found it really tedious. The last five minutes were pretty good, and I liked the final shot quite a lot, but overall I was super underwhelmed.

I consider Nightmare and Hellraiser excellent genre films, but a cut below your final three classics, which are all-timers. Hereditary is very effective and Toni Collette is reliably excellent, but I'm not quite sure where I rank it. I found it a tough watch.

I think the Blair Witch opinion largely depends on WHEN you watched the movie. Like if you watched it in the full on craze of 1999/2000 when people thought it was a real documentary your opinion would swing. That's my interpretation of it at least, since I watched it then and it was a wild experience, similar to most other people I talk to.

But yeah, as always, opinion differ.

Hereditary really hit a sweet spot for me and has been on my mind quite often since I saw it. Not many movies manage to do that nowadays.

 

[Deset Gled]

The Blair Witch Project
A Nightmare on Elm Street

Adding to what others have said, there are times when a very original movie sets a gold standard for others that copy it, and there are times when a very original movie plants a seed that is developed and turned into gold later. IMNSHO, both of these movies are the latter. Blair Witch deserves credit for really kicking off the found footage trend. It was innovative (not the absolute first, but close enough) and not bad. But it was also really rough, and not just in a "found footage" way. Later movies like Paranormal Activity, REC, Creep, and Hell House LLC, worked to refine the sub-genre, and are altogether much better movies for it. Likewise, I think Nightmare on Elm Street 3 is the pinnacle of that franchise.

Hereditary really hit a sweet spot for me and has been on my mind quite often since I saw it. Not many movies manage to do that nowadays.

There's a reason this is high on my list in the OP. It's something special.

 

[Tibbs1891]

There's a reason this is high on my list in the OP. It's something special.

This is spot on. My wife and I went to see it in theaters when it came out… and woah…

Definitely stayed on my mind for a long time!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Blair Witch deserves credit for really kicking off the found footage trend

I think “blame” is more appropriate. Shakycam just gives me a headache, and the incredible contrivances they go to to explain how a shot happened to be filmed kills all immersion.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If you allow for the inclusion of not-actually-a-movie, I really enjoyed Netflix House of Usher series.

Also cheating a little, since the movie was based on a TV series, Quatermass and the Pit.

Special mention: Carry on Screaming.

 

[Clint_L]

I think “blame” is more appropriate. Shakycam just gives me a headache, and the incredible contrivances they go to to explain how a shot happened to be filmed kills all immersion.

Agreed. Very few of those films are good.

And the first horror film to use the found footage premise was far, far more effective (and terrifying) than Blair Witch or its successors: Cannibal Holocaust from way back in 1980. That is a seriously disturbing movie.