5 Horror Movies That Still Scare Me in Real Life

Growing up with horror movies was one of the more enjoyable parts of my younger years. There’s something about having semi-strict parents who were prone to restricting what content I could watch only for me to sneak out of my room each Friday night to tune into whatever ghost story or creature feature AMC was playing at midnight that week. Between introducing myself to Child’s Play 3 and doing the same with South Park, those were good times. I just had to keep the volume low and continuously and nervously peer down the hallway of our little one-story rancher house. Some movies stick out in the memory as ones that made me cover my eyes. Yet, they don’t have nearly the same effect today.

What follows are the movies that still freak me out as an adult. So, while Gremlins certainly got to me as a kid, it wasn’t applicable. That said, Phoebe Cates talking about her dad breaking his neck in a chimney while trying to give his family a good Christmas is still jarring.

Day of the Dead

The vast majority of horror films inherently see their impact diminish as time marches on. The majority, but not all. In fact, rare as it may be, sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes a horror movie’s themes become only more pronounced as we grow older, so we come to appreciate them more, which allows them to sink under our skin even deeper.

Such is the case with George A. Romero’s trilogy-capper Day of the Dead, which once I deemed the weakest entry of that trilogy (Romero went on to make six total zombie movies, but only the first three are truly effective) by a country mile. Now it’s my favorite, if only because it’s startlingly accurate in conveying just how much some people seem to enjoy turning on one another. These days, with the United States proving to be more of a collection of states, it’s a movie that gets one to thinking of just how far off it is from reality.

Stream Day of the Dead on Peacock.

The Exorcist

The Exorcist is unequivocally the scariest movie of all time. It’s astonishing how much they got away with back in 1973, just as it’s utterly unsurprising how much it affected the audience when it was first released. Even 50 years later, it remains a truly moving work and the best film of The French Connection and To Live and Die in L.A. director William Friedkin’s career.

The reason why The Exorcist leaves such a lasting impression is actually fairly easy to pinpoint. Naturally, the demon Pazuzu is an inherently frightening presence, but that’s not really it. It’s not even the spiderwalk scene, which was added in the “Version You’ve Never Seen,” which surprisingly enough does not diminish the theatrical cut’s impact. What really makes The Exorcist as scary now as it probably was back then is that at the core it’s about a loving, single mother who is just trying to save her daughter. But what she’s trying to save her daughter from is something that not only can she not combat, but it’s also something that she cannot even fully understand. A decent chunk of The Exorcist‘s run time is a trial-and-error process of just trying to find out what’s destroying Regan MacNeil. Ellen Burstyn portrays Chris MacNeil so well that we, the audience, are forced to feel every ounce of her anguish and helplessness and that’s five times as horrifying as seeing light green vomit spew onto the face of a priest.

Rent The Exorcist on Amazon Video.

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Hereditary

Much of what was just written about The Exorcist applies to the brilliant Ari Aster‘s Hereditary. It’s just as ominous a film and, primarily thanks to Toni Collette, it’s just as well acted. The fact she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar is both baffling and betrays that ceremony’s unnecessary bias against horror, not that that’s ever been a secret.

Some of the movies on this list are as much a go-to choice for a rewatch as Halloween, Friday the 13th (parts one through eight), and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Hereditary is not one of those movies. Go figure that The Exorcist is. That said, The Exorcist doesn’t have what might very well be the most unexpected death of a child character in cinematic history.

Stream Hereditary on Netflix.

Suspiria

For the most part, I’ve never been able to get into Dario Argento as much as other horror fans. The same goes for Re-Animator and From Beyond director Stuart Gordon. Yet I can appreciate both horror icons’ mastery of their craft, and the first time I saw Suspiria, I was glued to the screen. Visually stunning and blessed with a terrifically ominous score by Goblin, it’s very much akin to watching a nightmare unfold.

Like Hereditary, it’s not a movie I can revisit but every so often. It’s too draining, too powerful. In no way is that a slight against the movie; if anything, it’s a testament both to how Argento was able to get his exact vision on the screen and the note-perfect work by lead Jessica Harper.

Stream Suspiria on Hoopla.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Like how the exact nature of The Exorcist‘s frightening power can be pinpointed, so too can the power of what I consider to be the second scariest film of all time: Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. What it comes down to is realism — nothing happens in this movie that couldn’t conceivably happen here in the real world.

Halloween, Psycho, and Friday the 13th all also have a certain enveloping nature, but the threadbare budget used to craft TCSM, when combined with the sun-soaked fields of Round Rock, Texas, makes it even more so. You feel like you’re there. It also goes to some disturbing places in the third act (and, really, during a van ride in the first act, as well) that are impossible to shake from the memory. Had the movie actually been bloody, as the title implies, it’s doubtful it would have the same impact. It’s not a gratuitous movie, and that’s why it works. It can be scary just via the sight of an opening sliding door.

Stream The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on Peacock or Prime Video.

What movies still scare you as an adult? Let us know in the comments below!