The 20 Best Horror Movies of All Time

Rebecca Pahle and Mental Floss present The 20 Best Horror Movies of All Time. Pahle’s list is a good one that made narrowing down to my top three tough, but here they are with my thoughts on each…

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968):  is one of those rare movies that influences a genre.  Can you imagine the billions (trillions?) of dollars that would have been lost if George Romero had never made NOTLD?  Romero made a horror movie with a layer of social commentary that shocked and inspired.

THE EXORCIST (1973): is perhaps the scariest movie ever made.  Its the kind of scary that stays with you and invades your mind in the dark hours of the night when you’re trying to sleep.  Here’s a true story involving The Exorcist:

Back in the pre-internet days when the only way to see a movie at home was through HBO or a similar service, I was fortunate enough to have both HBO and a video recorder.  A friend of mine didn’t have cable but did have a VCR.  He asked me to record The Exorcist for him.  I did.  He lived alone and decided to watch the movie late one night. When he turned off the VCR, the counter was at 666.  What are the odds?  Needless to say, he didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991): doesn’t usually come to mind when I think of horror movies.  It does meet the criteria but I always think of it as a cop movie.  Still, it did make Pahle’s list and it is one of the top three films selected, so of course it made it to my selections as well.