My Personal Horror: The Playlist Team Picks The Films That Scare Them Most

“The Shining” (1980) — Rodrigo Perez
So, I’m not a huge proponent of articles that essentially shame yourself—“10 classic movies I’ve never seen,” “10 amazing movies that I secretly hate,” etc.—you’re not doing anyone any favors here other than an audience that’s probably laughing at you. Most confessions like these usually only serve to underline your ignorance so it’s best to leave them in your unpublished wake. But contradicting this notion somewhat, I’ve chosen “The Shining” as notable to me personally, because it was a movie I hated the first time I saw it as a kid (believe it was early high school). I thought it was grossly over the top, totally un-subtle, just a torrent of shrill horribleness. Being a Stanley Kubrick fan already, I mostly thought to myself, “Gee, what happened to him here?” (in my ignorant-at-the-time meager defense, it also opened to mixed/negative reviews; here’s Variety’s original negative review). Which is ironic now because since then “The Shining” has become easily the scariest movie I’ve ever seen (close runners-up are “The Exorcist” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”). It just creeps me out to unholy levels. It’s also got a wicked sense of humor, and, perhaps more powerful to me than outright scary, an uncanny power to unnerve; it’s so disquieting it almost undoes your equilibrium. This is what “The Shining” does to me, it makes me deeply anxious—there’s certainly been an occasion or three when it’s come on late at night and in its more frightening scenes I’ve screamed bloody murder for the remote and changed the channel. In truth, not all of “The Shining” is even that scary. The first half’s devilish Jack Nicholson conversations with ghosts are wickedly and deliciously evil, yes, but it’s later, as the movie rises to its crescendo, and that freakishly discordant Penderecki music comes on, that the hairs on the back of my neck begin to stand up and I become progressively more unhinged. And those scenes alone—plus those super fucking creepy flash shots of the twins and the bear suggestively kneeling at the butler’s feet, oh Christ, that will give me nightmares for weeks. And props to Shelley Duvall who just gives sheer sheet-white terror an unforgettably alarming face. Not remotely the most original pick, but clearly that’s not the point here.

“Jaws” (1975) — Erik McClanahan
Steven Spielberg’s best film can’t be fully described as a horror movie, but it’s nonetheless terrifying. So much so that, upon seeing it on TV repeatedly at a young, impressionable age, it made me afraid to swim in the deep end of swimming pools. Soon as my feet couldn’t touch the bottom, I was sure a giant Great White (“that’s a 20-footer”… “twenty-five”) was going to pull me down and make me its lunch. Silly as it is to think about that being a legitimate fear for a young boy, the film still retains its power to scare, continuing to flood my psyche as an adult. Just the idea that in the ocean you are helpless… at the bottom of the food chain, and you can’t possibly know what’s beneath you. Spielberg exploits this very basic fear, playing the audience like a harp from hell. The fact that the mechanical shark didn’t work, of course, turned out to be a blessing for the production, forcing a very young Spielberg to obscure the terror and hide the shark for most the film. Though when it does rear its head, the nightmarish images are burned in your memory for life. After seeing this film, it’s hard not to think about John Williams iconic score, or again, just how helpless you are, every time you go swimming in the deep. Or at least it has been for me. “Jaws” is also a wonderful adventure tale, brilliantly structured, shot, acted and made up of characters and indelible moments that get you to care about the people and heighten the tension, for fear one of them could be picked off at any moment. Some may find it quaint by today’s standards, or maybe you’ve forgotten just how great this film is. I recommend you revisit it, but not right before you go swimming.

“Poltergeist” (1982) — Diana Drumm
As a child goth wannabe who didn’t know it, I was obsessed with death and darkness, which, compounded with a precocious appreciation for classic films, made for an over-the-top appreciation of Boris Karloff and Vincent Price. Around the Brownie campfire or just waiting for the school bus, I was the go-to-gal for the macabre, taking inspiration from “Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark” and “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” and receiving a few complaints from parents. Suffice it to say, I relished the feeling of spine-chilling creepiness. So when my mother turned on “Poltergeist” and said, “It’s a pretty scary movie,” I was pumped. Roughly 8 or 9 years old, this was my first modern (post-1960s), real (not “Scooby Doo“) horror movie. I had no clue. To this day, I still get creeped out by trees too close to windows and little tow-headed children staring into static-ridden televisions. But don’t we all? Even so, the most scarring moment for me was when the flesh peeled off of one of the paranormal investigator’s faces. I had not yet seen “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (not-so-coincidentally, “Poltergeist” was co-written and co-produced by Steven Spielberg) and most other flesh melting/pulling I had seen was in the context of a very distant costume horror, not someone’s bathroom in the suburbs. The flying furniture and dinnerware seemed old hat. Demons talking to children? Been there, done that. Oh, a skeleton in a pool. Scary. Yeah, that lady from “Teen Witch” was creepy, but hey, that was her job… But a man staring at speedily decomposing, maggoty meat and then going to the mirror to witness not only his flesh rotting but his own hands pulling it off (spooky production note, the hands were Spielberg’s) was the most disturbing thing I had ever witnessed, and possibly seen since, excluding “The Human Centipede” and its graphic ilk. “Poltergeist” was on TV a bit ago (considering the season, it’s probably on right this very second, too) and that scene has stood the test of time in giving me (and many, many others) the creeps. Even just thinking about it… Oh, there’s that chill up the spine and grimace on the face (and that’s not even going into “The Poltergeist Curse”). Happy Halloween, everybody!

“Don’t Look Now” (1973) — Drew Taylor
Being a lifelong horror fanatic, at a young age there were movies that you were simply able to read about but never see (either because the movies were obscure and out of print or your parents just wouldn’t let you). “Don’t Look Now,” starring Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, was one of those movies. It was written about endlessly as one of the scariest movies ever, and when I finally got my hands on a copy (a weathered, secondhand VHS number), I was pretty excited, not just because it was a holy grail of horror that my eager little eyes had never gotten to feast upon, but because there was also just as high a probability that I wouldn’t like it. That it would be too slow or old-fashioned or that the lore that had surrounded and built up on it would far outweigh the actual content. Boy, was I wrong. The movie had a palpable sense of atmosphere and dread (later I would learn that it was based on a piece of material that was written by Daphne du Maurier, the same woman who came up with “Rebecca” and “The Birds“) that disquieted me and the sex scene, graphic and expertly put together, far outweighed the flashes of nudity that I had seen in other movies (like “Die Hard“). But the ending of “Don’t Look Now” is what really destroyed me, and probably everyone else. It led to sleepless nights and endless anxiety. If by some wild twist of fate, you haven’t seen it, I am not going to give it away here, but it is something that will stick with you, whether you want it to or not. As forbidden cinematic fruit, “Don’t Look Now” was, and is, deliciously terrifying.