The paradox of recommending scary movies is that the very thing that makes them great – their unpredictability – is also the thing that makes it so tough to talk (or write) about them.
The best of them, like the five below, benefit from knowing as little as possible going in, adding a layer of unease to a format already designed to wrench you out of your comfort zone. This isn’t just about jump scares (if there are any, and not all horror films need jump scares), but about preserving the feel of the thing, ensuring viewers remain blissfully ignorant of the horrors to come.
In ideal circumstances, every scary movie should be seen on opening night at TIFF’s Midnight Madness: before the trailers are out, before the hype machine is in effect, before the reviews and the headlines. And if there has to be a trailer, every scary movie trailer should be like the original teaser for Alien (1979), with its rapid-cut visuals which reveal little, yet evoke a strong sense of the experience.
In ideal circumstances, you wouldn’t even be reading this article. Someone would have plopped you down in a darkened cinema, fired up the projector, and pointed out the barf bags and the emergency exits.
In other words, watching a scary movie should be a lot like taking off on a particularly harrowing flight, one where you don’t know where you’re going, and have no idea what you’ll encounter along the way.
ALIEN (1979, dir. Ridley Scott)
Case in point is our first pick, Alien, a film which has so deeply penetrated our culture that an encounter with any of its horrifying offspring – the sequels, the prequels, the parodies, homages, rip-offs – can easily dull the impact of the original.
Slow burning, tightly plotted, and exquisitely (by which I mean horrendously) designed, this tale of space truckers vs. malevolent organism has been reproduced countless times, but – and this is saying something for a 45-year-old film – never surpassed.
That said, if you happen to be lucky enough to experience Alien with fresh eyes, just know that you’ll have something in common with its cast: prior to rolling camera on Alien‘s most memorable scene (you’ll know it when you see it), Ridley Scott refused to tell his actors what was about to happen. Yes, those screams are real.
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999, dir. Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez)
The curse of The Blair Witch Project is that, in single-handedly defining the found-footage horror genre, it instantly rendered it obsolete. Even the best imitators – Cloverfield (2008), the first Paranormal Activity (2009) – will forever pale in comparison to this ultra-low-budget masterpiece, which continues to terrify audiences twenty-five years after its much-hyped release.
Blair Witch‘s brilliance is that it takes a decidedly plausible scenario – getting lost in the woods (without a cell phone!) – and ratchets up the tension by keeping all the spooky stuff tantalizingly out-of-frame or barely glimpsed. It’s still unclear what, exactly, happened to Heather, Mike, and Josh that October of 1994, but damn if it doesn’t give us nightmares.
Fun fact: the original Blair Witch website, which did much to promote the myth the footage was real, is still active and full of easter eggs to hunt down.
JAWS (1975, dir. Steven Spielberg)
The ne plus ultra of the creature feature, Jaws taps into our primal fears of the wild and the unseen, ensuring every viewer experiences some hesitation the next time they’re about to dip their toes in the nearest body of water. (Hell, first time I saw Jaws, I was afraid of the local swimming pool for months.)
Much of Jaws is suspenseful as opposed to outright scary, but the nail-biting tension – aided enormously by the fact the mechanical shark kept breaking down, forcing Spielberg to limit its screen time – is punctuated by some of cinema’s most scream-inducing moments. I have never not been to a Jaws screening where someone didn’t literally jump from their seat.
MIDSOMMAR (2019, dir. Ari Aster)
The era of so-called elevated horror has only just begun, but it’s hard to imagine how anything can surpass Ari Aster’s sophomore feature.
The best way to describe Midsommar is as the world’s worst drug trip: unsettling and disorienting, like a nightmare that refuses to end and from which you are desperate to escape. (Midsommar earns every second of its two-and-a-half-hour runtime.) It’s also, in its own very special way, history’s worst-ever date movie.
Florence Pugh’s intense, nerve-rattling central performance is one for the ages, establishing her as a major screen presence and making it impossible to imagine this film with anyone but Pugh at its riveting, gasp-inducing core.
THE NIGHT HOUSE (2020, dir. David Bruckner)
Coming hot on the heels of Midsommar and with a not dissimilar theme, The Night House does everything a horror movie should do, with a precision that should make other filmmakers jealous: (largely practical) special effects which render the title abode eerie and off-kilter; impeccable sound design; an intelligent script which alternates between believable human drama and supernatural thrills.
Also like Midsommar, this film would be nothing without its star, Rebecca Hall (who really should have been Oscar nominated for this one), who delivers a staggering performance as a grieving widow haunted by ghosts both metaphorical and (sur)real.
Of the five films on this list, only Night House made me cry – and those were tears of sheer terror.
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For more spooky recommendations – including Alien pseudo-sequel Alien: Isolation – click here for our inaugural “No One Can Hear You Scream” feature.
For creepy delights closer to home, check out the spookiest and most fun things to do in Toronto.
