11 Horror Movies You Must Watch

Photo Illustration by: Ashley Alonzo

As Halloween approaches, the excitement for horror movies increases. However, the problem with a good horror movie is that finding an actual scary one has become more challenging. Whether it is because we don’t look hard enough or because the amount of the so-called scary movies has decreased over the last decades, the fact is that they are hard to come by. Here is a list of 11 horror movies that can make you bite your nails, flinch and even cover your head with a blanket.

Halloween (1978)

Since it’s Halloween season, why not starting with the scariest movie of 1978. Let’s not take this flick for granted because although this film is not recent, it is definitely one of the movies that would make us fear for our life in less than a few seconds.

This starts with a kid who commits a murder. He goes to the psychiatric ward. Since he was mentally ill, he's locked up for seven years. His escape happens in October, making his return on Halloween day to the same town and same street where his first murder happened.

The amount of emotions that this film expresses are frightening. It makes the viewers feel as if they were living that horrible day of Halloween and even make them paranoid that this man would come and haunt them.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

An eight-year-old child gets haunted by ghosts, making him able to see dead bodies. This movie tells us two things: Children are able to see things adults can’t and because adults can’t see these paranormal things, they often don’t believe them.

Cole (Haley Joel Osment), was able to see people who were hanged in his school, as well as paranormal activities that happened at home. His teacher, Dr. Crowe (Bruce Willis), did not fully believe him but was struggling with problems at home, so not listening to Cole would have been like the rejection he was experiencing with his wife.

When watching this movie, be ready to one, accept that the child is able to see ghosts, two, expect the unexpected and three, know that images that are not appreciated will appear out of the blues. It makes the suspense 110 times worse.

The Ring (2003)

What would you do if you receive a call saying you will die in seven days? Many would think it’s just a joke. Others would not even pay attention to it, but a few would actually believe it. The frightening part is that in this movie, all the people who received the call have a concrete reason to fear for their lives.

One aspect that is bizarre about this film is that a ring would appear in the TV screen regardless if it was on or off. Also, the little girl who is the main villain of this movie is extremely creepy and scary.

Make sure to watch this with more than two people and don’t sleep alone for at least a week after watching it: The nightmares can be extremely traumatic.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 remake)

Good horror movies are often the ones with ghosts and exorcisms, but the "Texas Chainsaw" franchise doesn't want to exorcise anything or anyone. This movie is more like a labyrinth that wants to trap suspense in our imaginations and cause certain disgust. Especially because of the amount of horrific images: blood, bones, rats, severed limbs. It's photographed in murky darkness and scored with screams.

This movie is a remake from the original film from 1974, offering the same tale of a brutal serial killer who becomes bothered when strangers enter his house.

Paranormal Activity (2009)

It's about time to discuss one of the main characteristics that are often admired during Halloween: haunted houses. This movie is about a couple that moves into a house that seems to be haunted, but later the wife admits to have experience with dealing with ghosts and paranormal characters since childhood.

In other words, the house wasn’t haunted at first; it became haunted by the spirits and ghosts that followed the wife. After failing at cleansing their house, the couple sets cameras to record the ghosts’ manifestations and even pull out the uses the Ouija board to communicate with them.

Overall, it is a suspenseful movie that makes you think that your own house might be haunted.

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

If you are looking for a movie that includes curses by demons, "Drag Me to Hell" is the number one on your list. Just as Christine Brown (Allison Lohman) earns the assistant manager position at her bank, a client loses her home. An old lady, to be exact, curses her for foreclosing on this home and practically humiliating her. Christine is assaulted at the underground parking lot by the old lady who tells her that soon she well suffer her revenge.

The most feared demon, Lamia, was after Christine and the only way to rid this curse was by giving it away to someone else before she gets taken to hell.

Sinister (2012)

In 2012, this movie was considered one of the scariest for the following reasons: One, the house that the family had just moved into has a good amount of tapes from the people who lived in the house before. The tapes are not the problem; the content of the tapes is what makes it really creepy. Two, the main character’s child tells him he wants to be in the picture with Stephanie, a girl that used to live in the house. Three, there is one iconic symbol that associates to the devil in the house. And four, this symbol represents a pagan Babylonia deity named Bughuul who consumes the lives of the human children.

From possession to mysterious deaths, this movie seems to have it all.

Evil Dead (2013 remake)

It starts with the arrival of five friends to a cabin in the middle of the woods. This film introduces a paranormal entity who lived in the woods and later possesses the youngest girl of the five.

The massacre she causes as she is possessed makes her friends terrified: From warnings, to screams, curses, blood, pain and even fire, this movie becomes unbelievably scary as the possessed girl causes a revolt. Even after being stabbed, she comes back to keep haunting the rest of the people at the cabin.

This movie is disgustingly scary and not apt for sensitive people who have zero tolerance for blood.

It Follows (2014)

This is the story of Annie (Maika Monroe), who as a teenager dreamed of finding the perfect man who would simply make her happy. She thinks she finds him. But she gains something else from the man: a stalking invisible entity that gets passed along to each successive sexual partner.

This is enough information to connect the dots of what could and what might happen in this movie. Although its small-town Michigan setting is not in a haunted house or with spiritual possessions and exorcisms, this movie can become any teenager’s biggest nightmare.

Unfriended (2015)

On April 9, 2013, a video of Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman) was anonymously posted to the internet leading her to commit suicide three days after the video was posted, mainly because she underwent bullying. A year later, all the friends who were present the night the video was made got on their social chat to facetime and talk about their plans. They randomly received a call from an unknown person.

The online chat is what the soul of Barns uses to make them suffer until they all confess who made the video viral.

We see videos on YouTube that humiliate another human being. They are often funny and inappropriate, making the viewers judge and even bully the person in the video. The horror the friends live, gets shorter and shorter as they are victimized and soon killed by the spirit of Laura.

Hush (2016)

This 2016 film takes silence on a new, terrifying mode where a deaf girl living in the woods gets hunted: just like a cat hunting the mouse and enjoying its slow death.

The main character was not only deaf, but she couldn’t speak either. She was alone, but as she gets victimized she began to have company. This is already scary enough, with not being able to hear; only to feel the presence and later see the intruder. Silence can be terrifying, and this movie shows it well.

 Find the time to watch any of these Halloween movies, you will not be disappointed.