What's the Scariest Movie You've Ever Seen?

The Blair witch story

Slept with the lights on and still gives me the creeps.

It's so funny>>>I think of Jaws as one of the best movies ever but not as a scary movie. The Grudge and Ringu freaked me out. And anything with a scary mom (or mom type figure) would do it, too. The Omen had that freaky nanny...and The Sixth Sense had that creep-o mom.

Let me preface this: I love scary movies. I watch many, many of them. It is incredibly hard for a movie to actually scare me. That being said "Event Horizon" scared my socks off. Screaming nightmares for a week after.

To this day, I refuse to watch it again.

There was a movie in the seventies about this woman who had just got out of a mental institution named Let's Scare Jessica To Death. To this day I know I would not watch that movie alone. I don't even know if I could watch it.

I don't really watch scary movies, but one that sticks out in my mind is Candyman. I watched at a friend's slumber party when we were about 13 years old. I still think of it and get the chills!

Alien makes it to the top of my list as one of the most frightening horror films ever made. It's one of my favorite movies because it combines the elements of great filmmaking - an exciting and well-written story, excellent performances, superb editing and special effects. As a sci fi, which is my favorite genre if done right (and too few are), it's one of the best. The two sequels were as good as the first, which is almost never the case. I own the trilogy and never tire of them. Hey, maybe tonight after the trick-or-treaters are gone.

I see the comment below about The House on Haunted Hill. For it's time it was a suberb horror film without all the gore and special effects of today's films. I was obsessed with it and watched it every time it was rerun on television. It haunted me throughout my childhood.

house on haunted hill. i had to pause and take a break and come back to it later because it was so scary.

Believe it or not it was the 1962 release of Phantom of the Opera. I was just a kid and my baby sitter and boyfriend put it on while my sister and I watched from behind pillows :) The part where you first see the phantom's face gave me nightmares for months!

It's funny that those were such low budget times (i.e. very cheesy effects) and that the Phantom was played by Herbert Lom who went on to star in the Pink Panther movies.

Halloween with Jamie Curtis. The first one.

It's a toss up between Event Horizon and The Blaire Witch Project. They both sounds shivers down my spine...

Scariest movie for me is a toss between the Shinning and Silence of the Lambs (horrible!). And since books are being mentioned, I also have a toss up between two books: Anne Rice's "The Vampire Lestat" (the 2nd book), and the very frightening trilogy "Lord of the Vampires" by Jeanne Kalogridis (horribly frightening!).

I could go on with this discussion, but I'll mention two more movies that had me scared out of my mind for days, The Exorcist (I was living alone at the time) and The Ring. Yikes!

I see some of the conversation has morphed from scariest "movie" to scariest "book". For the latter, I will always and forever vote for Stephen King's "Salem's Lot". I was reading it alone in a Hollywood apartment one time many years ago. I had a single lamp on and as I sat there reading...that lamp went out. I sat there in the dark for a long time thinking that as soon as I reached out my hand to touch the light, there was going to be another cold hand waiting there for me. To this day it makes my heart race!

I voted for Jaws, mostly because I watched it for the first time by myself, in the dark, stuck in a hospital room, at AGE 6. I have no idea what those nurses were thinking! They also let me watch Piranha. I suspect they were evil.

It has taken me nearly 30 years to get over my fears and go back in the water. Thanks Steve.

The Ring. I had to have my boyfriend and his friend stay up with me because everytime I closed my eyes that girl came walking towards me.

Funny thing is. I watch horror easily. I own the Exorcist and have watched it a number of times.

Wow, what a hard question! I'm a scaredy cat, so many movies have terrified me, but one relatively recent movie that comes to mind is the first Paranormal Activitiy - the image of someone standing over and watching a sleeping person all night still haunts me.

Love the references to how scary "clowns" and "dentists" are in movies. How about the Hitchcock movie "The Birds"? I've always been an animal lover, so that one never bothered me at all. Even when they attack, I still like the critters.

The ring. Everyone said that it wasn't that scary, so I rented it from Block buster on Halloween. NOT a good Idea. My husband was like, Why the heck did you rent this movie? It's really scarry! I had nightmares for a week after that.

Friday the 13th: Watched it when I was 12 and wasn't able to fall asleep with my back to my bedroom door for the next 6 years!

Mini-series. It. Stephen King. Killer Clown.

There were a few dentist-themed horror movies that didn't do me any favours either. It's funny, I used to watch horror movies all the time when I was a kid...even a really young kid. I've lost my stomach for them.

I've seen exactly zero of those movies. I don't "do" scary movies. The only horror/scary movies I've actually seen were Pet Sematary (and it bugs me to type it that way) and Scream. I hated them both but Pet Sematary probably gave me more nightmares than Scream. I like "psychological thrillers" a bit more than straight up scary but they still give me nightmares.