Top 10 Halloween Movies

As the creepiest holiday of the year is approaching, we recommend you put aside your carved pumpkin for a second and check out the list of best horror movies to give you chills on Halloween. Don't forget the popcorn!

1. The Exorcist (1973)

Coming in at number one, William Friedkin’s 1973 film “‘The Exorcist”’ caused quite the stir with unsettling scenes that led cinemagoers to faint, vomit and pass out.

This horror classic follows the demonic possession of a young girl named Regan (Linda Blair), and her desperate mother’s (Ellen Burstyn) attempt to save her through an exorcism. The speaking in reverse, sinister moving of objects and Regan twisting her head were hard to stomach for some viewers. The titular exorcism is performed by a young and an old priest willing to give their lives to free Regan from an evil spirit proclaiming itself to be the Devil.

And if the film wasn’t scary enough, several surprising incidents, a freak fire and deaths of at least four people led to claims that the film was “cursed,” and many would agree.

You can't call yourself a scary movie buff unless you've had the chance to walk the Exorcist Steps, located on 3600 Prospect Street NW in Georgetown, Washington DC. They were featured in the scene in which the character Father Karras (Jason Miller) fell to his death down the stairs from a nearby house.

The Exorcist

© Photo : Warner Bros Horror Entertainment (1973)

2. Carrie (1976)

Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation of Stephen King's debut novel was released a mere two years after it was published. The cutting-edge film depicts a lonely teenager (the distractingly attractive Sissy Spacek) who discovers that she has telekinetic powers that put a dent in the senior prom. Some call the last scene a “menstrual apocalypse” that gave viewers a final scare to keep them shivering on the way home.

3. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

A top-ranked slasher in American horror. The story follows a young woman named Sally (Marilyn Burns) and her paraplegic brother Franklin (Paul A. Partain) who, after she hears that their grandfather's grave may have been vandalized, sets out to investigate along with some friends. After a detour to their family's old farmhouse, they discover a group of crazed, vicious outcasts living next door. The group is attacked one by one by the chainsaw‑wielding slasher, Leatherface. The giant madman then embarks on a bloody spree, killing Sally's entire troupe as she is held hostage inside the home before she escapes in the movie's climax.

4. Halloween (1978)

John Carpenter’s ingenious 1978 film “Halloween” is easily one of the most influential horror films — especially for introducing tropes that involve a killer who was somehow wronged in the past looking for their revenge through wholesale murder. Lastly, there is a single victim who escapes alive at the end. Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

5. The Shining (1980)

Its tracking shots of Danny riding his tricycle along the hotel's corridors made “The Shining” among the first productions to exploit the true potential of horror. Stanley Kubrick’s film is a creepy, unnerving, deeply engaging cinematic adaptation of Stephen King’s beloved novel, in which supernatural malignancy reigns and mental stability are overturned by an awry environment. Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) becomes winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado, hoping to cure his writer's block. As the family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter, a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.

The Shining

© Photo : Warner Bros. (1980)

6. Friday the 13th (1980)

If you ever pondered the idea of going to summer camp, chances are Jason Voorhees and the “Friday the 13th” franchise had something to do with your fear of going. This golden-age era slasher film suffered criticism for the violence, gruesome deaths, and graphic sexual content — all involving teens — depicted in the film. Nevertheless, this first storyline does not actually involve Jason Voorhees in his iconic hockey mask at Camp Crystal Lake, but instead his mother Pamela (Betsy Palmer) seeking vengeance against the camp.

7. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Reality and fantasy meet in unsettling ways in the classic slasher film series that begins with Wes Craven's “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” a 1984 horror film that depicts a monstrous spirit of a slain child murderer, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), that seeks revenge by invading the dreams of teenagers whose parents were responsible for his untimely death. After watching this film, horror fans will be too afraid to fall asleep.

8. Scream (1996)

Wes Craven’s suspenseful horror film “Scream” uses a tongue-in-cheek approach combined with a bloody brand of straightforward scares as the anonymous caller in the prologue, known as Ghostface, preys on teenagers. And as the body count begins to rise, one girl and her friends find themselves contemplating the rules of horror films as they find themselves living in a real-life one.

9. Hocus Pocus (1993)

“Hocus Pocus” is a 1993 American horror fantasy comedy film that was released by Disney and directed by Kenny Ortega. It tells the story of pranksters who inadvertently conjure up three diabolical witches from seventeenth-century Salem for a night of fun and comic chaos. “Hocus Pocus” has become a family-friendly, all-time Halloween classic.

10. The Conjuring (2013)

“The Conjuring” is a more modern horror film that managed to do something so few supernatural horror films ever accomplish… to truly terrify. Directed by James Wan (“Saw,” “Insidious”) and written by Chad and Carey Hayes, the film stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as the real-life ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren. The film chronicles the alleged experiences of the Perron family in the 1970s and the Warrens’ attempts to help rid the home of an unwanted demonic presence.