I am always down to watch a good comedy movie and I have no issue with sitting and watching
a 3.5 hour long Marvel movie. However, if you were to ask me what my favorite type of
movie is I would say, without hesitation, horror. I’m not sure what it is about horror movies
that make them so enjoyable to watch. Maybe it is the adrenaline pumping through my
veins with every jump scare or the fact that they go where you never expect a movie to go leaving
you shocked, perhaps a little confused, and just plain horrified. Whatever the reason is behind
my love for them, I thought it would be fun to use this love for horror movies and partake in a
little self-assigned challenge. I wanted to find the 10 scariest horror movies out there.
The ones that make me want to watch between my fingers, crawl beneath a blanket, and sleep
with all the lights on in my house. The ones that just might give me nightmares. To do this I
compiled a list of movies deemed either by science, friends/family, or internet lists to be the
scariest movies of all time and then started my marathon, at night, alone, with the TV screen
my only light. Which movies were enough for me to question why I even started this
challenge in the first place? Scroll on down to find out!
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Compiling the List
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So as I mentioned above I included in my list movies deemed to be the scariest based on science.
Since 2020 a study has been conducted by Broadband Choices called the Science of Scare where
they hook 250 people up to heart rate monitors and make them watch various different scary movies.
During each movie they record their heart rate and then rank the movies 1-30 based on the average heart
rate during the movie and heart rate spikes. For my list I used the 2021 Science of Scare rankings, however
they have just recently released the official 2022 rankings with some new contenders on the list. I then
added in scary movies from various different articles, friends, and movies I personally think
should have been included. Afterwards this is the list I was left with in alphabetical order
(the numbers next to movie titles indicates the movie’s ranking in the 2021 Science of Scare study):
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28 Days Later (#23)
Alien (#30)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) (#16)
Annabelle
A Quiet Place (#14)
A Quiet Place II (#8)
Audition
Cabin Fever
Candyman (#24)
Carrie
Child’s Play
Dark Skies
Friday the 13th (#29)
Get Out
Goodnight Mommy
Halloween (1978) (#17)
Hell House, LLC
The House October Built
Hereditary (#5)
Hills Have Eyes
Host – Shudder (#1 Scariest)
Hush (#13)
Insidious (#3)
Into the Tall Grass
IT: Chapter One (2017) (#19)
It Follows (#7)
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
Lake Mungo
Last Seen Alive
Let the Right One In
Lords of Salem
M
Mama
Paranormal Activity (#9)
Poltergeist (#27)
Psycho
Pulse
Rec (#22)
Rosemary’s Baby
Saw
Scream
Signs
Silent Hill
Sinister (#2)
Sleepy Hollow
Spiral: Saw
Suspiria
Terrified – Shudder (#6)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre(1974) (#18)
The Babadook (#11)
The Birds
The Blair Witch Project (#28)
The Conjuring (#4)
The Conjuring 2 (#10)
The Conjuring the Devil Made Me Do It (#20)
The Descent (#12)
The Exorcist (#21)
The Grudge (#25)
The House of the Devil
The Invisible Man (#26)
The Last House on the Left (1972)
The Nun
The Omen
The Orphanage
The Others
The Possession
The Ring (#15)
The Shining
The Strangers
The Thing (1984)
The Unborn
The Visit
The Wicker Man
The Witch
The Witches
Under the Skin
Unfriended
Us
When a Stranger Calls
Wolf Creek
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Once I had the master list created it was time to get to work and watch some horror movies.
I went through the entire list, even rewatching ones I had seen before in order to give each
movie a nice fair fight, and then constructed my list.
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MY TOP TEN SCARIEST
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So after all the long late nights of adrenaline pumping madness these are the movies
I personally think are the top ten scariest movies to watch:
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10) Last Shift/The Descent
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I went back and forth between these movies for which I thought deserved the number 10
spot and then decided since it is my list I can put both. Lol Last Shift is a lesser known movie
which surprises me given the level of pure creepiness and jump scares it has in it while
Descent really uses fears like claustrophobia combined with jump scares to get to ya.
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9) The Houses October Built
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This movie will make you rethink ever going to a haunted house. In fact I refused
to go to one for a very very long time after I watched it for the first time.
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8) REC
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Zombie movies don’t typically scare me all that much, but this one really
surprised me with just how scary it turned out to be and I did not see the twist at the end coming.
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7) Paranormal Activity
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Not being able to see things coming and the long periods of building
anticipation make this movie a definite fear inducer.
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6) The Nun
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The chanting in this movie is really what scares me more than anything
however the jump scares in this movie, like all the other Conjuring movies, are top notch.
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5) IT
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A killer clown and a TON of jump scares. Totally forgot how scary this movie is.
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4) Hell House, LLC
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The fact that this movie was not on ANY of the three Science of Scare lists just boggles
my mind. This is hands down one of the scariest movies I have ever seen and I will die on that hill.
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3) The Conjuring
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The movie that started off the best and scariest horror universe to date.
No matter how many times I watch it I STILL get jump scared.
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2) Annabelle Creation
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Dolls and children. Two things I do NOT mess with in horror movies.
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1) The Conjuring 2
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The Conjuring universe in my opinion has produced THE scariest movies
I have ever seen and this one takes the coveted first place seat.
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Final Thoughts
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After watching all the movies there were of course some I was not only surprised to see
on the Science of Scare list, but also see so high up in the rankings such as the movie
It Follows. You can yell at me all you want, but I don’t think there is a single thing about
that movie that is scary and it should not have even made it into the top 30. Same with the
movies 28 Days Later and Cabin Fever. I also have to point out that slasher films don’t
affect me in the slightest because I have (sadly?) become very desensitized
to all the gore. Pretty much if it is not a jump scare you are not going to be scaring me! Lol
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Overall, I had a lot of fun watching all the horror movies on the list and
crafting my own top scary movie list. Do you agree with my choices? Are there
some movies I missed that you think are scary and worth a watch? Let me know in the comments!
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