LIST: Top 10 Horror Movies of All Time

As with all lists these are my 10 favorite horror movies, not necessarily the 10 best of all time.

10 - Blair Witch Project (1999): Some people absolutely hated this movie, but I really liked it. It was slow at times but I think it did a masterful job of building tension. As a city boy the fear of being lost, really and truly lost, hits clost to home. A movie like this was the perfect storm of concept, execution and viral marketing and likely will never be duplicated.

9 - Evil Dead (1981): Confession time. I saw Army of Darkness before I saw Evil Dead 1 or 2, so I went in thinking this would be a low budget version of it's sequel. Oh boy was I wrong. Evil Dead has a wicked sense of humor, but it's still a straight-up brutal horror movie. It gleefully soaks the viewer in blood and gore without ever tipping over into brutality.

8 - Se7en (1997): I've had actual arguments about whether Se7ev is a horror movie or not. To me any movie designed to scare that stars a monster can be considered a horror movie. To some friends a horror movie needs some element of the fantastic or supernatural; anything that lacks that element is a 'thriller'. Whether you consider Se7ev to be horror or a thriller it's still a great, scary movie. David Fincher's dystopic view of city life felt a little forced to me, but I can see how powerful it would be to someone that hadn't grown up in a major city.

7 - The Ring (2002): Yes this is the American remake version; I never saw the original Japanese version of Ringu. The individual elements of this movie may not be great, but they combine to form a very entertaing whole. And I love a good urban legend tale.

6 - Dawn of the Dead (1978): There are several Romero movies that I could have put on this list, but Dawn has always been my personal favorite. The combination of over-the-top gore and social commentary just blends perfectly here; the message is just subtle enough to enjoy it as just a zombie flick or as an indictment of our consumer culture.

5 - The Thing (1982): Like most of the great horror movies of all time John Carpenter's The Thing plays off primal, basic fears; in this case isolation. Everything in this movie reinforces the fact that they are alone in every sense of the word. Like almost every other film on this list the effects stand the test of time; Carpenter knew his limitations and worked around them instead of against them.

4 - Suspiria (1977): I had heard of Dario Argento but until about three years ago I had never actually seen one of his films. One night Suspiria was showing on IFC and I was blown away. The story is fairly basic but the visual execution is like nothing else I've ever seen. Most horror films reside in the gray - brown - black end of the visual spectrum, whereas Suspiria looks like the crayon box exploded. The palette used gives the whole movie a fantastic, dream-like quality that is to this day still pretty unique in the world of horror movies.

3 - Alien (1979): Another classic concept honed to perfection by a great director. Alien earns a place on this list, as well as the upcoming Sci-Fi list, because it was one of the first 'realistic' space movies. Gone were the transporters, friendly aliens and robots of ambiguous sexuality; in was a gritty, claustrophobic space craft that resembled a 19th century steamer more than the Enterprise. Like many of the legendary horror classics Alien scares you more with what you don't see, letting the imagination run wild with speculation. The chestbuster scene is still one of the most memorable in the history of cinema.

2 - Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974): Little known fact: The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre wasn't very bloody. The teens were killed off in some brutal ways, but there was very little actual blood on-screen in the movie. This was, of course, the birth of the modern slasher flick, and it may be the best example of the sub-genre. This movie actually got better in my eyes after seeing the abysmal remake from a few years ago, which was paradoxically both gory as hell and completely neutered.

1 - The Exorcist (1973): The pinnacle of scary movies. There is almost no blood. The characters aren't confined to a small or unfamiliar place. No 'monster' is stalking the characters. The Exorcist manages to be the most terrifying movie ever comitted to film without any of the three major devices of a horror movie. The fear in this movie is more basic: a mother with a sick child whom modern science cannot even diagnose much less cure. The war between Fathers Damien & Merrin and The Demon is secondary to the fear one has when a loved one is ill and just won't get better.

Only three out of the top ten were produced after 1982, and only one in the 21st century.

Honorable Mention - Event Horizon (1997), Aliens (1988), Nightbreed (1990), Last House on the Left (1972), Silence of the Lambs (1992), Jaws (1976), Nightmare on Elm Street (1986), The Silent Hill games (not the movie!)