What horror movie scared you the most in your life?

I saw "Exorcist" when it first came out and was creeped out, but not totally terrified. I think the worst ones for me were the "Hostel" movies where people were tortured and killed. It was so graphic! I couldn't stand it, but it was like watching a train wreck. One was enough for me, although they made several of them.

Mame.

I have a few based on different reasons. However, as I have gotten older, I don't have any desire to see gore or extreme acts.

Op stop watching horror movies. It’s an open portal to evil shit.

CNN is enough of a horror story for me.

The original Carnival of Souls (1962). I was much too young when I saw it, one Sunday afternoon at my grandmother’s house, way bay in the early ‘70s. It led to nightmares and fever dreams that I thought were real. As an adult it had become a vague, distant, clouded memory, until one day I saw it listed in the TV Guide. Just reading the name and synopsis alone brought on chills. I watched it again, and remembered it was the source of the nightmares I’d had as a little kid (dead people with black rings around their eyes coming out of the water to chase me). I still think it’s one of the best horror movies ever made, because (like Night of the Living Dead), it was made on a shoestring budget, it meanders dreamily, and the black and white photography and unknown actors make it seem more like a documentary.

The Howling, now the special effects etc really are dated but I was seven and terrified, nightmares, sleepwalking, the whole works

None as an adult, but as a little kid The Blob terrified me and kept me up at nights. It didn't help that I had a mean older cousin who told me the Blob lived in our garage.

That was mine too, OP. It freaked me out so much I even asked my annoying sister to stay in the living room with me as I watched it.

THEM!

1950s - giant ants. Saw it as a 6 year-old when my sister was babysitting.

R8. No, that was Harvey Weinstein—easy to get him and the Blib confused

Jaws!

Halloween. I saw it on HBO when I was 7-8? My brother was babysitting.

My brother and his friend then re-enacted the scene where the dead boyfriend hangs upside down from a closet to screw with me. My Mom was not amused when she got home and found me somewhat hysterical.

Even now as an adult, the sight of the Michael Myers mask makes me twitchy.

The Exorcist. Nothing's come close for me. I still cant watch it without being affected.

I generally avoid gore and torture porn subgenres. It's the supernatural/paranormal sub genre that I find scary, but it's VERY rarely done effectively.

The Taking of Deborah Logan and The Exorcism of Emily Rose were also quite scary for me. Despite being lower budget they were done right. Horror is a hard thing to get right.

The original Godzilla gave me nightmares of my childhood neighborhood being trampled

Mame

The Intruder Within, a made-for-TV ripoff of Alien. I hadn't seen Alien yet and was young and impressionable. Then when I saw the real Alien I was blown away!

The 'Outer Limits' TV show freaked me out back in the '60s. I used to sneak behind my Dad's chair when I was suppose to be in bed. Too many weird things going on with that show.

The one that showed op naked

"The Exorcist" and John Carpenter's "The Thing".

As an aged and miserable crank, in my dotage, I now see The Exorcist as a comedy and "The Thing" is about AIDS.

"Attack of the Crab Monsters" (1957)

Roger Ebert’s story of attending a screening of “Night of the Living Dead” when it was released is very effective. The theater was full of young kids thinking they were going to see a movie about as scary as a Roger Corman B movie and…. It did not go well.

I used to love horror movies. I can’t stand them now, but The Exorcist scared the crap out of me—Mercedes’ voice! Night of the Living Dead was super scary too. The daylight ending was as horrifying as the entire movie.

No horror movie has come close to what I've experienced in life.

The Birds. I was really little when I saw it. Maybe 7 or 8. I was afraid of birds for decades.

Carrie. I was freaked out enough by the main story, but the final sequence of Amy Irving's character's dream just terrified me.

Stupidly, De Palma pulled the same trick all over again at the end of Dressed to Kill, and fooled no one who had seen his earlier film.

r25 = Melania, remembering conceiving Barron

Not a horror movie but the Fruma Sarah sequence in the film version of “Fiddler on the Roof” scared my 8-year-old self.

None. I was allowed to watch Faces of Death as a pretty young child (8 or 9) so I was desensitized. The TV movie/miniseries The Day After did scare the shit out of me.

I was scared by The Day After in my 20s. Seen bits of Faces of Death but it mostly grossed me out

Jesus, there are people older than shit I even realized around here. The Blob?

While I don't consider it the scariest film I've seen per se, I can say that "The Strangers" was at least the scariest movie theater experience I've had to this day. It was the first time I'd seen a film on the big screen that had me white-knuckling and holding my breath. There are moments in that movie that are absolutely terrifying. I was a senior in high school when I saw it at a midnight showing. I grew up in a house in the middle of the woods, so needless to say, I had trouble falling asleep that night.

I had a similar experience watching Lars von Trier's "Antichrist", which also freaked the hell out of me—I watched it with my best friend at her mom's cabin in the mountains (similar to where the film is set). We both got so unnerved that we had to turn the movie off and finish it the next day.

The Exorcist, The Omen and Rosemary's Baby have been the horror films that have scared me and had a seriously effect on me in that way. The Silence of the Lambs was like horror film literature which didn't scare me more than just look at terror more intellectually.

I remember whenever they showed the commercial for the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre on TV and how that would scare the fuck out of me. Years later when I was older, they did a special re-release of the film. Being a cinephile and having heard so much about it, I thought I should check it out. Dear God in Heaven! One of the scariest films I’ve ever seen. Truly unsettling. Leatherface is one of the scariest mother fuckers in all of film.

R35 I saw the original TCM on the big screen when they did a restoration some years back and it toured around the US at revival/arthouse theaters. I had always loved it, but seeing it on a big screen with top-notch sound really highlighted just how much of a work of art it is, from the cinematography down to the elaborate sound design. It is incredible what they did given such a meager budget. While the film doesn't frighten me, I agree it is unsettling and very gritty. It is the best horror film ever made in my opinion.

For me the most unsettling part of Texas chainsaw was when the younger guy sliced into his own hand.

I grew up in the 60's when we went to the movie theater every Saturday afternoon for the horror double feature. Dad dumped us off at one and picked us back up at five. Hammer Horror films were all the rage and I loved Christopher Lee as Dracula. Even as a wee boy and knowing nothing about sex, I really wanted Christopher to bite me and turn me into a vampire.

As a kid, Night of the Living Dead (seen at the drive-in) left me with nightmares. Now, The Exorcist still stays with me in its horror.

I can’t watch Sinister or The Strangers except in bits.

Maybe it didn’t scare me the most, but Session 9 from 2001 is criminally underrated. I remember the film affecting me for a long time after watching it. The trailer doesn’t due the film justice.

Crawl. I saw it on 100 mg of edibles and I've never felt more physically overwhelmed by a horror movie. Alligators are capable of extreme violence and deserve our respect.

When I was in college, I got a summer job as the caretaker for one of the local university's dorms. One night I went to the old Hollywood Video in Kenmore Square and saw The Ring in the $1 DVD basket. I had never seen the movie when it was in theaters because I thought that the premise sounded stupid. I bought it and watched that movie for the first time when I was alone in a huge, empty, rumored-to-be-haunted dormitory. I was so scared that I had to mute it in certain parts and look away, and then I barricaded myself in my suite that night. I was terrified. It was a couple of years before I was able to watch that movie the whole way through.

Cries and Whispers

The original I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE & LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, which I saw at midnite screenings in the early 80’s, were awful see that late and then go home to a dark house and try to go to sleep….

I know this is a divisive choice, but THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT scared the shit out of me and I slept with the lights on for a month after seeing it. Now I know many people who found the film awful and NOT scary at all, but I was born and raised in NYC. Just the idea of camping sends a chill down my spine...add everything else from TBWP and I was terrified.

I know....MARY!

Drag Me to Hell.

It's a good one but don't say I didn't warn ya.

LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET isn't scary in the traditional sense, but just feels so evil that it's a frightening experience.

Same with FORCED ENTRY, a porno about a Vietnam vet who rapes and kills women. The problem is that stars Harry Reems and Laura Cannon can actually act quite well, and the rape scenes are extremely real and unsettling. I don't know how sick you'd have to be to jerk off to them.

My mom was a horror buff and she would keep my siblings and me up late to watch them. Don’t remember most of their names, but the ones that could “really happen” always scared the fuck out of me. Extra points if they were set in the 70s. For some reason, in the 80s and 90s, that time period was extra creepy to me.

Japanese horror film, "Matango" often dubbed as "Attack of the Mushroom People".

Black Christmas the og. I was watching it with a friend a long time ago and she had her door open because it was a nice, cool night. Then the creepy, crazy voice came on and I told her to shut the door lol. The voice in it is the thing of nightmares.

Godzilla vs The Smog Monster.

When the Smog Monster oozes down the steps in 1 scene (I think on a boat) really got to me as a kid.

R49 Last House on Dead End Street is wild. I think part of what makes it so menacing is the stock choral music that is featured in a lot of it. It is extremely haunting—a nasty mishmash of the rawest of exploitation fodder and a straight-up art movie. I think it is fantastic, but it's not something I revisit often.

Don't sleep on The Exorcist III. It has some great jump scares and Colleen Dewhurst was the perfect choice for the voice of the demon.

I should've known someone would've put up a Smog Monster death count =

Ordinary People

SAVE THE EARTH!!!

[Quote] Don't sleep on The Exorcist III.

People who say not to “sleep on” something should be tied up and then driven over by a tank

The Omen (the original) gave me nightmares for weeks.

Audition. Slow burn horror at its finest.

"I Saw What You Did" with DL Icon Miss Joan Crawford scared the crap out of me. But it might have just been her statement necklace.

Mame. Still cares the crap out of me when she wears that creepy Santa mask!

Amityville part 2. Saw it when I was six and was scared for about two weeks.

*Spoilers*

Especially the part after Sonny gets possessed and his face is grotesque and is about to kill his little brother. The little kid is in a doorway going to run across the hall to his older sister and lightning flashes and we see Sonny behind him with a shotgun and he raises the gun and shoots the kid. Scared the shit out of me. I kept thinking monster Sonny was in my house.

The original Pet Sematary -- the ghost of the cyclist scared the shit out of me even though he was a friendly ghost. Don't sleep on that one.

As a kid it was Burnt Offerings. As an adult it was Hereditary.

R65 every time I see Stellan Skarsgard, I think of Victor Pascow. Minus the gore, Victor looked like Stellan to me.

R65 every time I see Stellan Skarsgard, I think of Victor Pascow. Minus the gore, Victor looked like Stellan to me.

Oops, double post. Sorry.

Never saw Needful Things but loved the book. Was it any good?

Love Story

Queen Of Blood

A 1940s British black and white film called Dead of Night I saw on tv. Terrifying and even years later as an adult I’d never rewatch it. Basically three nightmares but no gore.

'Night of the Living Dead' terrified me when my brother and I was shown it at a drive-in back not long after it first came out. Then there was 'The Blob' with Steve McQueen. My older brother terrified me by repeating phrases and sounds from both movie as we shared a bedroom. I still get creeped out by the 'blp, blp, blp' from The Blob.

The original Frankenstein with The Bride of Frankenstein a close second. Greatness.

The Glenn Close Filmography Collection. It should come with a warning that it will leave you eligible to receive disability benefits based in the levels of emotional and bowel distress viewing it will cause.

Sinister. The finger tapping on drum.

The Japanese film Ringu, aka Ring. Pure nightmare fuel.

Still have flashbacks.

The Vanishing--not the American remake but the Dutch original. It features the most terrifying ending I have ever seen.