Happy Halloween! Here's my top 10 favorite scary movies of all time

The Exorcist

There are lots of people who won't even go near a scary movie and I used to be one of them. I remember as a kid I didn't even like to walk near the horror section of the video store. Every once and while when heading towards comedy or action-adventure I would take a wrong turn and catch a glimpse of a cover with a gnarled face or a rabid werewolf and I would be terrified beyond belief.

Somehow, between high school and college, I started to overcome my fear. Certain films I'd always been wary of were actually not all that horrifying and in other cases I came to appreciate the unique charge that a good scare can give you.

Now, I call myself a fan of horror movies, with the caveat that most of them are terrible. Hollywood has, for the last twenty years or so, made an enormous number of "scary movies" because they are cheap to produce, usually don't require big name stars and almost always turn a profit.

Teens are rarely discerning and what was true fifty years ago is true now, taking a date to a scary movie will almost always guarantee some quality cuddling.

Still, the genre is wildly inconsistent. This is probably because it's never been considered worthy of prestige. Our more celebrated filmmakers might dip a toe in fantasy, sci-fi or thrillers, but horror has a reputation for cheapness and exploitation. When a truly visionary filmmaker, like say Stanley Kubrick, has attempted to make a scary movie the results have been phenomenal and hopefully that will inspire other unique voices to tackle this unique kind of film. I would be curious to see a Quentin Tarantino horror film or a Christopher Nolan horror film. But as long as terrible teen-centric remakes of good scary movies from the past dominate the market that may never happen.

But I digress. For Halloween I wanted to pick my top 10 favorite scary movies. As usual there are caveats. For instance, I wanted to stick with pure horror -- so there are some movies that I wasn't sure exactly qualified. There are a pair of perfectly creepy Donald Sutherland vehicles from the 1970s that I love -- Don't Look Now and Invasion of the Body Snatchers -- but the first feels more like a mystery-thriller and the second is more sci-fi, so although they are both phenomenal they didn't make the cut.

I also didn't include Misery, even though I think that movie is terrific, because it's almost as much a black comedy as it is a traditional horror film. Still, it's one of the most underrated films of its kind and I wish Rob Reiner had stuck to films like that instead of the aging baby boomer romantic comedies that appear to be his current stock and trade. And as much as I love Evil Dead 2, it's also more of a comedy than a traditional horror movie. But I digress again.

Nightmare on Elm Street

10) Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - The movie's premise is scarier than the film itself (child molester goes free, gets burned alive by neighborhood parents, and now he haunts those adults' kids in their dreams). Still, I have a sentimental attachment to this movie. When I was 5, my brother told me it was based on our home town and I believed him. Whenever the commercials would come on and Freddy Krueger would come creeping around some corner I ran out of the room in terror. I later saw the film for the first time in college and got a real kick out of it. Steer clear of the sequels, they get sillier and more dated. The first, for all its occasional camp, has some truly disturbing sequences and it's Wes Craven at his least ironic best.

9) The Conjuring (2013) - The best horror movie of the last twenty years or so. I'll never forget my experience watching it in the theater. My girlfriend and I saw it in the daytime and I was never more relieved to exit a theater during the light of day. In an era where so many horror films rely on gore it was refreshing to see this well-acted ghost story play out with no grotesque bits of business. It uses it's "based on a true story" conceit well and just has a wonderful sense of dread about it. Let Me In was also terrific for some of the same reasons, two of the only truly great horror films of late.

8) The Thing (1982) - John Carpenter had an incredible hot streak in the late '70s and early '80s. This stark look at a group of men stranded at a snowboard outpost, as a mutant creature starts possessing them one by one. Kurt Russell is a consummate bad ass and it has the kind of bleak ambivalent ending that I love -- but of course the movie was a flop when it was initially released because it was competing with far more audience friendly movies like E.T. Some of the best pre-CGI special effects of its era and a transformation that is still jaw-droppingly insane. This one just keeps growing in stature over the years.

7) Dawn of the Dead (1978) - I'm a big fan of the zombie genre and it's original masterpiece Night of the Living Dead, yet it's the Dawn of the Dead sequel that remains the greatest ever made because of its subtle social commentary and audacious effects. The Walking Dead has now desensitized us to elaborate zombie kills, but the deaths in this cult classic were really shocking for their time. Director George Romero had more on his mind than cheap thrills, he was also making a spoof of crass commercialism (the movie is largely set in a shopping mall) that still holds up today. Call me old fashioned, but I like my zombies slow and relentless.

Suspiria

6) Suspiria (1977) - I first became aware of this hyper-stylized classic by legendary Italian filmmaker Dario Argento in high school and I wasn't sure what to make of its intensely graphic violence mixed with breathtaking visuals. I've come to appreciate it as a brilliant example of style over substance. The story is very thin and arguably incomprehensible. Someone or something is killing off women at an elite dance school, the people who run the place are either in on it or indifferent and the girls who attend are too vapid to really do anything about it. Still, I've never seen sound or color used more affectively in a horror film. Argento elevates the trashy slasher film into a piece of art.

5) Rosemary's Baby (1968) - Perhaps the greatest psychological horror film from a man, Roman Polanski, who made his fair share of terrific ones. Mia Farrow is sensational as a sweet young girl whose self-serving husband essentially sells out her womb to the devil. The brilliance of this film is how banal the evil is at first and how insidious seemingly innocent people become. The film takes its time so that when the truly absurd plot begins to unfold it feels totally plausible and profoundly scary. It's haunting theme music still gives me chills when I think about it. An unsettling movie on many levels.

4) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - One of the few horror movie premises that genuinely freaks me out. A group of youths go on a road trip and get targeted by some cannibalistic hillbillies who hang out with a particularly imposing monster figure called Leatherface. From the opening shot this movie is a grabber and its breakneck pace and intensity never let up. A rare case where mediocre acting works in a film's favor -- it almost feels like a warped documentary at times. It too is supposedly loosely based on a true story -- although I certainly hope not.

3) Halloween (1978) - Boasting the best theme music in horror history, the first Michael Myers movie is the definitive slasher film. John Carpenter's bravura opening one-take shot is just one of the pleasures of this holiday staple. Donald Pleasance is perfect as the hyperbolic Dr. Sam Loomis (whose name is a knowing homage to a character from Alfred Hitchcock's classic Psycho) and Jamie Lee Curtis is adorable as the virginal leading lady (only Sissy Spacek's Carrie is more naive and sweet). Some of the greatest jump scares ever compliment a truly witty script full of visual humor as well as truly creepy moments. This is mainstream horror at its best.

2) The Exorcist (1973) - This blockbuster has been so imitated and parodied that you'd think its power would be diminished by now, but then you view it again and it is still genuinely shocking and terrifying. The film could never have been made the way it was then today -- [SPOILER ALERT] I mean, the masturbation with the crucifix? A wildly inventive and expertly structured film made by a talented filmmaker, William Friedkin, at the peak of his powers. The  movie works because it treats possession seriously and it has a truly committed cast that sells the material as authentic. We have seen a million demon movies in its wake, but nothing can compare to the images this film presents us with. I don't even know where to begin so I just mention two of the scariest: when the words 'help me' appear on the possessed girl's stomach -- written from the inside and that 360 degree head turn -- getting scared just writing about it.

1) The Shining (1980) - One of my favorite movies of all time happens to be this complex, deliriously entertaining, flawlessly photographed masterpiece from Stanley Kubrick. It plays out almost like a dream, with off line readers and even stranger visual cues. It works on so many levels -- as a brain teaser, as a crowd pleaser and as a piece of pure cinema. Jack Nicholson gives one of his greatest performances here, he's never used his physicality better for a role. Kubrick's camera work is unparalleled and he generates fear through stillness and intensity. The movie confuses a lot people who approach it for the first time but I love it because its meaning is open to so much interpretation. It taps into real life fears of how the mind can disintegrate, how the family unit can be a source of terror as much as love and how our past haunts both our present and our future. It is not just the best horror movie ever made, it is one of the greatest movies ever made because it keeps us off balance and raises real eternal questions about good vs. evil.

Boo! I'm done.