Original-Cin 2020 Halloween Special: The Films That Most Freaked Us Out

By Original-Cin Staff

A wise man once opined that there is a thin line between scary and funny which, in cinematic terms, means “horror” can have many applications. Battlefield Earth was certainly a horror by any measure, especially for sad-sack critics tasked with reviewing it.

A scene from The Witch.

Yet held against John Carpenter’s oeuvre — or Roman Polanski’s singular, dizzying Rosemary’s Baby, for example — the goalposts for what defines horror seem absurdly wide; a fitting thought to ponder in a year as unnerving as 2020, where horror has taken on heretofore unimaginable gradations.

At Halloween, with so many of us (still) marooned at home and immersed in binge-watching, we Original-Cin staffers thought the time was ideal to contemplate the films that most define horror for each of us, for various reasons. Not all titles slide neatly into the traditional “horror” category with gore or jump-scares, but all had chilling and lasting impact.

Jim Slotek

Wait Until Dark: There are epic, scream-worthy jump-scares in my film selections. Not all horror directors are capable of pulling them off, but the best have a ton of build-up. The tension is thick in this thriller from 1967 about a blind woman (Audrey Hepburn), whose home is invaded by thugs who think she has come into possession of drug contraband. The jump-scare in question involves a hand coming out of nowhere. It is widely considered the first jump-scare of its kind.

Jaws: There are at least two bona-fide, heart-stopping jump-scares here. One is a classic red herring, an underwater attack-that’s-not an-attack, but it’s enough to scare the bejeezus out of the audience (and Richard Dreyfuss). If you’ve seen the film — and who hasn’t? — you know the more famous one is followed by the words, “We’re going to need a bigger boat.”

Carrie: Again with the hand. In case you haven’t seen it, that’s really all I’m going to say. I can add that it ignited the biggest mass scream I’ve ever heard in a theatre. In subsequent screenings, it still sends shivers up my spine even though I know it’s coming.

Linda Barnard

Die! Die! My Darling: My first exposure to the relentless tension of a well-crafted thriller was this 1965 Hammer Horror. It starred my then-hero, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.’s Stefanie Powers, as a woman held captive by her late fiancé’s mom-gone-mad (Tallulah Bankhead). I was babysitting that night and I was so scared, I left all the lights on in the house. The returning parents were annoyed.

The Blair Witch Project: The 1999 found footage film that changed horror. I had to keep reminding myself: “This isn’t real.” Shaky cam, darkness terrors, and what the hell was that? Made me very uncomfortable.

Alien: Maybe nobody can hear you scream in space, but I shrieked when the juvenile alien burst from John Hurt’s chest. Actor Veronica Cartwright passed out after the scene was shot. That’s how you make a terrifying movie.

Thom Ernst

Return of the Living Dead: It’s not a sequel to George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead but it takes Romero’s lead by turning a group of graveyard partiers into a midnight snack for zombies. Gory, funny, and hide-under-the-blanket scary, it’s the ideal movie to prove how much fun horror films can be.

Dead Alive (a.k.a. Brain Dead): Before Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson directed insane horror films. Dead Alive is just about his craziest. It’s a zombie flick only the corpses don’t know they're dead. The film is such a relentless bloodbath filled with ingenious comic set-pieces that it hardly matters that some creatures—particularly a demented monkey and a vicious, murderous baby—are puppets.

Rosemary’s Baby: A great introductory horror for those wary of gore and jump scares. The future looks bright for Rosemary and her young husband when they move into a New York apartment. But strange occurrences begin to break down Rosemary’s comfort, like the unaccountable reason for a tenant’s suicide and the insidious nature of their friendly but imposing neighbours. And as comfort gives way to suspicion and paranoia, Rosemary discovers that the real horror is who can and can’t be trusted.

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Karen Gordon

Hereditary: For his 2018 feature directorial debut, Ari Aster unleashed all the creepy tropes of 70s horror movies and demonic possession in a story about a family haunted by a secretive matriarch. Even before the supernatural stuff kicks into high gear, there’s an accident scene that still wakes me up at night.

The Witch: Writer/director Robert Eggers researched court records of Salem witch trials and other era-specific sources to create the dialogue for his 2015 film to especially creepy effect. Set in New England in the 1600s, a family banished from a religious colony moves to an isolated farm near a forest to eke out an existence. Things are already strange, but when their infant disappears while in the care of by their eldest daughter, the grief-stricken parents wonder if she is to blame for all of it.

It Follows: Lots of horror movies link teenage sex with a relentless, stalking murderous supernatural figure. But none have stuck with me more than writer/director David Robert Mitchell’s 2014 film. Student Jay sleeps with her new boyfriend and discovers she’s been betrayed. Like a macabre game of tag, the sex was really about him passing on a deadly curse. She’ll now be pursued by a murderous entity that can take the form of any human, show up at any time, and that only she can see… until it kills her or she passes the curse to someone else via sex. The entity’s one disadvantage? It moves in a slow jerky shamble that still gives me shivers.

Kim Hughes

Open Water: Forget monsters and aliens and escaped lunatics. What made this film so horrifying is that it could really and truly happen… and did. Floating alone in the dark in shark-infested waters without a boat? No exaggeration: I was unsteady for a week after seeing this.

The Exorcist: William Friedkin’s masterful film perennially lands on “scariest-ever” lists because it IS the scariest ever. That “spider walk” scene (cut from the original, later added) where Regan creeps down a flight of stairs upside-down? Ugh.

Blair Witch Project: The impact this tiny but blazingly original film had on audiences at its release cannot be overstated. People were literally vomiting because of the discombobulating camera movements that made the “found footage” conceit so believable. Must-mention: Trilogy of Terror with Karen Black. It was a Movie of the Week, yes, but that segment with the murderous little fetish doll messed up a generation of small children, me included.

A scene from Rosemary’s Baby.

Liam Lacey

The Masks: Confession: I’m cheating, this is TV, but it is about the topical subject of masks. This famous 1964 Twilight Zone episode, directed by actress/filmmaker Ida Lupino, is about a dying old man who insists that his vain money-grubbing family put on grotesque masks for Mardi Gras eve or risk losing their inheritance. When he dies after midnight, the family’s celebrations are short-lived when they discover their faces are now permanently frozen in the hateful expressions of the masks. The masked performances in the episode’s final third suggest the heightened quality of Greek drama but, from my childhood, I remember almost nothing except my nightmare about these horrible masks that spoke in dark, muffled voices.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: I saw Tobe Hooper’s influential film at one of the Yonge Street’s 24-hour theatres without knowing anything about it, and was horrified anything this gruesome could end up being shown on screen. Like Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, it was inspired by real-life serial killer Ed Gein, who made trophies from human body parts. Academic critics of the film have observed that this redneck bloodbath parodies American capitalist consumerism and nuclear families. Only after reading about the film did I learn that, while there’s a lot that’s grotesque, there is relatively little gore on the screen

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer: Made in 1986 and released three years later, this film is both artful and alarming. Director John McLaughlin set out to redefine the horror genre, and in some ways he did, taking out the thriller elements and offering this nihilistic portrait of a couple of psychopaths loose in dysfunctional America. I saw this in Vancouver at the 1990 Vancouver International Film Festival, and there was a competition between bodies falling on the screen and those falling out of their seats to get out of the theatre. Though the film finished on some top 10 lists for 1990, I haven’t brought myself to watch it again.

Bonnie Laufer

The Exorcist: I’m not a huge fan of scary films, but I will never forget seeing The Exorcist for the first time in the theatre. To this day I still cannot look at an image of Linda Blair without freaking out; this film in all of its special effects and head-spinning glory was one of the scariest films I had ever seen.

To top it off I was the driver that night. After walking to the car looking over our shoulders, we hopped in, locked the doors to discover my car would not start! What came next was horrifying! Green liquid was spewing from the car making me think that my car was possessed. Of course, it turned out to be leaky antifreeze! Really? The timing couldn’t have been better!

Poltergeist: For someone who is and always has been obsessed with television, Poltergeist was probably not a smart choice to watch! I was completely entranced by Carol Anne's creepy pronouncement, "They're here!" To this day, I still feel like something is always there. That movie was horrifying to me. I could never, ever watch it again.

The Ring: Learn your lesson, Bonnie. Don’t watch horror films that involve televisions. Many people think the actual video from 2002’s The Ring is the scariest part of the movie but the part that always stands out to me is when Samara crawls out of the TV. That scene was terrifying and gave me nightmares for weeks. Thank god I got over THAT fear!