Best Horror Movies (2012 Update)!

Obvious quibbles. But "Nosferatu" is the grandaddy of horror. I will be reading whatever jerkoff critic hated "King Kong".

Oct 18 - 12:01 PM

Janson Jinnistan

William Troy of The Nation, decries the humanity in "Kong". He must be one of these PETA-ELF type of misanthropes. Does he not even have the imagination to devise a colonial subtext? Boo.

Oct 18 - 12:04 PM

This comment has been removed.

Will Sharville

Hey babe, heard you like to bike?

Oct 28 - 01:38 PM

Linda Burke

I hate King Kong. It wasn't realistic or gritty enough ;)

Oct 18 - 02:32 PM

Janson Jinnistan

Yeah. Kong's got nothing on Troll and Leprechaun. Their grit is truly horrifying!

Oct 19 - 08:20 AM

Linda Burke

Exactly. I don't know about you, Janson, but I like my giant monkey movies gritty and realistic.

Oct 19 - 05:14 PM

Janson Jinnistan

OK. It could have used more flying feces.

Oct 20 - 10:31 AM

George Patchell

how great would it be to see King Kong in a suit? Then cut to see like 200 tailors making it in a warehouse.

Oct 21 - 12:59 AM

Dave J

This is a still solid list but it's too bad as a result of this new list, it may have bumped other classics as "Dead Alive", "The Sixth Sense" and "American Werewolf In London"!

Oct 18 - 01:37 PM

Alan Smithee

I stopped reading when I saw The Shining at the paltry 68 spot. Formula be damned.

Oct 18 - 01:52 PM

karl anderson

nice to see a lot of old faves and some new faves joining the list...Cabin in the Woods and Shawn of the Dead, even though they are more comedy, definately deserve to be on the list..... Nice to see The Dead Zone there as well. Highly underappreciated

Oct 18 - 03:48 PM

Christopher Kulik

I may be in the minority, but I think it's awesome that Roman Polanski's REPULSION made the top 5. I saw that movie when I was fourteen and it seriously did freak me out, so much so I nearly lost control of my bodily functions. With all due respect to the horror genre and it's fans, the scariest movie I've ever seen is THE CHINA SYNDROME. Producer Micheal Douglas once touted it as a monster movie, and he's right if you think about it.

Oct 18 - 10:18 PM

Janson Jinnistan

"Repulsion" has the classic mirror trick shot. It deserves 100% for that alone.

Oct 19 - 08:29 AM

Frisby 2007

Why do I feel like the only person in RT that wonders why Shaun of the Dead is considered an actual horror movie?

Oct 18 - 11:29 PM

Val Mordas

Well, there were some pretty gory effects in it... Scary, no.

Oct 20 - 06:05 PM

Chris Dunn

I love lists like this! You get to sit around and say "watched that, hated it" "oh, yeah, I remember that one" and so on.

Oct 19 - 08:03 AM

Mark Arbutina

Any list that doesn't have Halloween as #1 is garbage. Also no Friday the 13th 1 or 2? They are classics. Bad calculation they used here, might as well have thrown darts to determine the order.

Oct 19 - 08:20 AM

Sam Spade

that is an objectively terrible opinion

Oct 19 - 09:37 AM

Total Stranger

So, IT is not on RT because it was a made for TV movie, correct? BC I think I saw that movie when I was too young...When people say they are afraid of clowns, thats the clown they're afraid of...

Oct 19 - 10:32 AM

Brad Hadfield

Nope, the Poltergeist clown scared me years before the IT movie was made.

Oct 19 - 11:12 AM

Bryan Sein

Poltergeist clown is a bitch compared to Pennywise. Literally too scared to finish it till I was about 16.

Oct 26 - 08:24 AM

Daniel Raimondi

halloween is the best horror movie

alien
jaws
king kong
the old godzilla

scream more of a parody why but is it not on here

Oct 19 - 11:24 AM

Jeremy Foster

Sorry,but there aren't 67 better horror movies than The Shining! And The Changeling didn't even make the cut? But let's put Zombieland on there(which is a comedy) and NOT Shaun of the Dead!!

Oct 19 - 02:59 PM

Linda Burke

I agree, Jeremy. For me, the Changeling is the scariest movie ever made.

Oct 19 - 05:17 PM

Jeremy Foster

Finally! Someone else has seen that movie! That and The Shining are my two favorite horror movies.

Oct 19 - 06:33 PM

Linda Burke

I know, and yet some of the most popular ghost stories of the 21st century have borrowed heavily from the Changeling (i.e. the Sixth Sense, Ringu/Ring, and the Devil's Backbone), not to discredit these titles, but Changeling DNA is evident in all of them. It's funny how a generally unknown movie can generate so much influence, which leads me to believe that the movie was more popular amongst filmmakers than it was film-goers.

Oct 19 - 08:35 PM

Janson Jinnistan

This highlights the problem with the tomatometer with older films. "Changeling" has 3 rotten reviews out of 18 which dropped it down to 79%. That's harsh. "Paranorman" has 19 rotten reviews out of 140, for an 87% and makes the list. Likewise, one can say that some of the older films have the advantage that only their positive reviews have survived, and in the case of "Psycho", the contemporary TIME and Variety reviews have become the stuff of scorn and legend, and that's probably the only reason why they've been registered here. (Oddly, the Variety pan isn't here, and there's a new rotten review from...The Nation! WTF! When did it become The Nation's mission to recast our horror classics like this. Spare yourself from reading these awful articles if you're easily incensed.)

Oct 20 - 10:41 AM

Val Mordas

Saw The Changeling 30 years ago and remember some key parts, and recall it being really creepy. Haven't seen it since so my opinion might have changed a bit.

Oct 20 - 06:09 PM

Peter Winters

I think The Changling is getting this buzz because it was PG rated and people all saw it as kids.

Oct 30 - 10:36 AM

Janson Jinnistan

"The Changeling" was rated "R". (Eerie, how it's almost as if this information is hiding on this very site somewhere....) People like it because George C. Scott is a boss and the atmospheric camerawork is awesome.

Oct 30 - 12:36 PM

Peter Winters

But before PG-13 existed

Oct 31 - 12:19 PM

Anthony Johns

While RT still seems unsure of how to weigh their percentage scores, I guess I don't object much to this list. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is my favorite movie on the list (granted not the scariest movie, even if it's more tense than you'd expect), so I'm glad they gave it some respect. And A Nightmare on Elm Street, another personal favorite, has about the best place you could hope for.

But there are a few odd changes; it seems like RT tried to compensate for Aliens gaining ground on Alien in the ratings (last time it was only one spot below), and Nosferatu is just about our underdog of the year here. With only more good horror movies coming along each year, this is the first time, of all the horror lists from RT, that it placed first. (Thank the new negative votes to Psycho and King Kong? Did it even manage third last time?)

There are a couple

Oct 19 - 07:26 PM

Holly Jolly

Deep Red is pretty awful. Suspiria is far superior. Sorry, just saying in hopes of saving someone a few hours.

Oct 19 - 10:18 PM

Janson Jinnistan

Bah! They're both awesome. Argento's two best in fact.

Oct 20 - 10:50 AM

Spiritual Phoenix

This list is way way outdated. Whoever made it is obviously a fan of older horror movies but I do not feel this represents anyone from my generation at all. The Mist, House on Haunted Hill, Drag Me to Hell, Silent Hill. I can think of so many movies that are great that are not on this list and majority of this list is just shy of laughable. This feels like a list made by my great grandmother. ~

Oct 19 - 10:25 PM

Janson Jinnistan

Obviously no single generation seems to have a monopoly on open-mindedness and curiosity :(

Oct 20 - 10:51 AM

Gary Cecil

Of Guillermo del Toro's horror movies (Cronos, The Devil's Backbone, and Pan's Labyrinth) Cronos should not be the only one on this list. Though I generally approve of this list.

Oct 19 - 11:18 PM