5 Horror Movies That Will Always Be Classics (& 5 That Aren't Scary Anymore)
Horror movies are a popular pastime for any movie buff, especially around the Halloween season. From living dolls to killer clowns everyone has something that sends a shiver down their spines, and of course Hollywood has turned that phobia into a major cash grab.
Certain films have left audiences fainting in the aisles, but others have found themselves more than a little wanting. What shocks and terrifies an audience in, say, the 1970s might not still have that effect in 2020. On the other side of the terror token, there are movies even older than that that have retained their creep factor and likely always will.
10 Classic: The Universal Monsters
It can be said the horror genre as modern audiences know it would be nothing without Universal's monster movies. From Frankenstein and Dracula to the Wolf Man and the Mummy, audiences everywhere know these famously fearsome faces within moments of screen time.
Although some are not as terrifying as they once were, there is still uneasy eeriness around certain characters. After all, who can resist Dracula's stare, Imhotep's spells, or the Phantom's song?
9 Not Scary: House On Haunted Hill (1959)
The original House on Haunted Hill might not be the scariest on the list, but that doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable. On the contrary, the cheesy gimmicks provided by William Castle and the unforgettable performance by horror legend Vincent Price is more than enough to win any audience over.
That all being said, the film is as cheesy as they come. The effects are loaded with wires, plastic skeletons, and other cheap gimmicks that would have only frightened audiences in the '60s.
8 Classic: Alien
"In space, no one can hear you scream." While many consider this film a staple of the science fiction genre, many of those same viewers forget that Ridley Scott's tale of a crew trapped aboard a spaceship with a hostile alien creature has all the elements of a seriously scary slasher film. It features a group of victims in an enclosed location against a singular but deadly threat that picks them off one by one, one of the most terrifying situations imaginable.
7 Not Scary: Jason X
The Friday the 13th series will always be a pillar of the horror movie genre. However, The Saga of Jason Voorhees and his cavalcade of teenage victims did not always get better with each installment.
Enter Jason X, a sci-fi schlockfest that saw the hockey-masked maniac put aboard a space station. Although his cyborg inspired upgrades were impressive, it wasn't exactly what fans in the franchise would call terrifying. There's a reason why it's considered an obvious joke to ask, "What's next for [movie franchise], to go to space?"
6 Classic: Poltergeist
Although it's one of the milder scares on the list, Poltergeist still never fails to freak people out to this very day. Brought to fans from the director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre— though some say Steven Spielberg was essentially the movie's true director— this freaky film turned the haunted house genre on its head.
Essentially containing all the necessities a ghostly film needs, Poltergeist can be scary from more than a few different angles, whether that be ghosts, clowns, zombies, or the standard-issue portal to the underworld trope.
5 Not Scary: The Blob (1958)
The Blob is iconic, but it begs the question: How many people are going to be terrified of something lacking a brain or nervous system that they can easily outrun and can be destroyed with a large enough freezer? It's the kind of horror movie threat that only works when the antagonists are completely careless and make dimwitted mistakes to put themselves in harm's way.
Monsters from the '50s were always more than a bit far-fetched, but unless one finds themselves in a Final Fantasy game or a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, a gelatinous fiend isn't going to be much of a threat.
4 Classic: Halloween (1978)
Sometimes all a horror movie needs to be scary can be found right in one's own backyard. John Carpenter didn't need zombies, vampires, four creatures from outer space to make his film memorable. All he needed was a white mask, a sharp knife, and an unforgettable score.
Halloween is considered the fountainhead of the modern slasher genre, and rightfully so. It has very little in the way of guts and gore, but instead effectively walks the line between subtle tension and obvious terror.
3 Not Scary: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II
On the subject of slasher films, sometimes the sequels are not the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. For example, the first sequel to what was considered one of the most disturbing horror films of all time, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, did a complete 180 with this campy horror-comedy.
There's only so many times Leatherface can do the iconic chainsaw dance without it being completely silly, to say nothing of Chop Top and a dual-chainsaw-wielding Dennis Hopper at his most scene-chewingly ridiculous.
2 Classic: The Exorcist
If there's one movie that will always be scary, it's The Exorcist. When the film first premiered back in the '70s, it supposedly had audiences fainting in the aisles and was even considered by some to be evil incarnate on celluloid film. To this day, it's not an easy movie to watch and will definitely have some squirming in their chairs or even losing their lunch. Best to not watch this one late at night or on a full stomach.
1 Not Scary: Paranormal Activity
In all honesty, the found footage sub-genre of horror wore its welcome out long before the first entry into this popular series. Paranormal Activity is creepy, but only for a short while. It's hard to be scared of something you can barely make out on dark security camera footage. While it is true sometimes the unseen is scarier than what is, the novelty has officially worn off for the series, especially as the somewhat novel original was quickly diluted by too many sequels and imitators.