What's your scary movie list?

We all know that scary movies fall into several categories.

There's the slash-'em-up movies -- which usually involve masked humans, and then we have the gross-'em-out movies (see Excorcist photo from other post re: scary movies), which usually require non-human characters, as in Alien. Then there's the devil's-gonna-get-you movies...as in the original Gregory Peck's Omen or Mia Farrow's Rosemary's Baby types. But my favorite scary movie favorites are about normal people, doing normal things...that is...until life events go terribly WRONG! These are the "build-the-suspense-until-your-ready-to-scream" type, but with hardly any blood 'n' guts gore...or spewing vomit either for that matter. The kind where your knuckles hurt when the movie's over because you were grabbing the arm rests so tightly! Now that's the sign of well done suspense!

And, for full disclosure here, I've never had the nerve to see Silence of the Lambs. If I could ever get myself to see it...I'm sure it'd be on my list!

But, as someone who's been going to movies a long, long, time...my favorites span decades! So, here we go!

When a guy is the creep...

Psycho (1960)...If you can put yourself back in time to before computer effects "enhanced" films, you'll know why Hitchcock the greatest scary-movie maker!

Charade (1963), often known as "the best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made," All about a crew of really dedicated bad guys out to get Audrey Hepburn. And they're out to get her in Paris!! Does it get better?

Wait Until Dark (1967) again, with Audrey Hepburn. This actress had the wits scared out of her a lot before she became My Fair Lady. One review from http://www.imbd.com/ said that "Never in my life have I ever seen 800 people fly off their seats like I did the night I saw WAIT UNTIL DARK at the cinema in 1970. And I was up there with them. Moaning away in shock. Screaming! (and I don't scream) ...In the run up to the final 20 mins the cinema management slammed the foyer doors, switched off all the aisle lights one by one all around the cinema, and turned up the volume; ripples of creepiness washed over the audience....and then....whammo! The noise from the audience, the screaming and the shifting about in our seats.....I haven't heard shocked noises like that in a cinema since. Do yourself a BIG favour...get the DVD and watch this at home, by yourself, in total darkness! You will scream your head off and tell everyone you know what a great thriller this is." Once my daughter got old enough, she and I watched this one together. Until seeing Audrey Hepburn in this one she's only seen her in Breakfast at Tiffany's and My Fair Lady: Now she knows that Miss Hepburn was much more of an actress than she ever had imagined!

Okay, so I'll leave the sixties behind and move forward a bit.

Misery (1990) With James Cahn and Kathy Bates. Rather like Wait Until Dark, the movie needs only one room for its entire plot! Here's the most understated summary I've seen of this one ... "When a fan crosses the line between admiration into obsession."

And, with that same summary could be Clint Eastwood's Play Misty for Me (1971). If my memory serves (don't count on it) I think this was Eastwood's first directing work. According to Wikipedia, this film "paved the way for later stalker films such as Fatal Attraction, particularly those with a female antagonist."

So, oh yea, Fatal Attraction (1987). Stars Glenn Close and Michael Douglas. Man, if this movie won't keep your hubbies on the straight and narrow...nothing will!

You'll never wanna be a defense attorney after seeing these!

Again with Glenn Close, as a defense attorney, in Jagged Edge (1985) How charming the bad guy can be!!

Female defense attorneys...boy, they better watch their backs! Cher plays one in a this good suspenseful courtroom thriller, co-stars Dennis Quaid, The Suspect (1987). Take a look at the judge...it's Frasier Crane's dad! And Liam Neeson long before Schindler's List.

Two more: one extremely famous and one ... well, has anyone out there seen this one, or am I the only one?

Blow Out (1981) stars John Travolta, directed by Brian de Palma, so you know it's really, really going to have you on the edge of your seat! But I don't think I've ever met anyone who's seen it ! If you have, please leave me a comment!

The Sixth Sense (1999) with Bruce Willis, the "I see dead people" movie: directed by M. Night Shyamalan who has gone on to make several much less suspenseful movies. My daughter had to drag me to this one...I loved it!

There are so many more I thought were great films for creating scary suspense. But hope this is a good sampling that goes back for decades!