Fall, the season of sweaters, pumpkins, and scares. Every time Halloween season comes around, people search for spine-tingling thrills. While physical activities like escape rooms and haunted houses are some people’s speed, the easiest and most common way to get spooked is to watch a horror movie. In the horror genre, there are several classics, staples that served as the blueprint for many films afterwards. But how do those movies hold up today? What was scary in the 80s is quite different from what is now, and with the advancements in technology and special effects, lots of these iconic movies end up looking rather humorous to modern audiences. In this article, I’ll be ranking classic horror movies from silly to scary.
6. “A Nightmare On Elm Street” (1984)
“A Nightmare On Elm Street’s” villain, Freddy Krueger, is an icon in horror. From his burnt skin to his sharp fingers, everything about him is meant to terrify. Krueger is a monster that visits people in their dreams, tormenting a young girl named Nancy and her friends in the first installment of “Elm Street”. But viewers don’t get the opportunity to fear Krueger, because he is barely in the movie. His horrors manifest themselves in the characters’ dreams as gross things like bug-filled mouths and worm-filled insides which might make you squirm, but definitely won’t send a chill down your spine. Everything from the kills to the acting choices in this movie are, for a lack of a better word, goofy. The effects are underwhelming, likely a result of the film’s low budget of only $1,000,000 and shooting time of only a month. No matter how hard the movie tries to get you to care, everything feels so trivial. The line delivery in every scene is so awkward, always too much or not enough, leaving everything looking quite silly. “Elm Street” is a humorous watch, because besides laughing at the absurdity of it all, you won’t get much else out of it.
5. “Child’s Play” (1988)
Before there was Annabelle and M3GAN, there was Chucky, a doll possessed by a serial killer on a mission of revenge for his partner who turned on him and the cop who killed him. Chucky is a horror movie with comedy elements that doesn’t take itself very seriously. Aside from the intentional jokes and antics -mostly performed by Chucky-there are parts of the movie intended to spook viewers that end up having the opposite effect. The majority of the laughable horror attempts fall on Chucky’s physical state. “Child’s Play” is a product of its time and Chucky’s animation is the biggest proof of that. His facial expressions are ridiculous instead of menacing and watching him run around and jump on people is certainly a fun time, which it shouldn’t be. A part of the animation that is scary, though, is Chucky’s hand. Watching as it moves around and grabs things is a truly uncomfortable experience. While the content itself is not horrifying, the movie does a great job at creating atmosphere. Chucky’s first kill of the movie is key evidence of this with the suspenseful music and personal camera shots. Viewers really can feel the fear. But, while Chucky was the staple for killer dolls, the genre has definitely elevated since the days “Child’s Play” premiered.
4. “The Blair Witch Project” (1999)
Credited as the pioneer of the “found footage” genre (where a film is shot as if it were video recordings by the characters themselves, that were later recovered), “The Blair Witch Project” is a film that puts viewers right into the lives of the main characters, Heather, Josh, and Mike, three film students aiming to make a documentary about the urban legend of The Blair Witch. They go deep into the woods in search of proof that she exists. The trio gets lost and each night as they sleep, they experience a strange phenomena: the sound of children’s voices in the night, their things being tampered with and covered in goo, and screams from across the forest. Losing more hope every day that they will find their way out of the woods, Heather, Josh, and Mike descend into madness and lash out at each other. The majority of the movie is just the three of them fighting, which quickly gets repetitive. Every five minutes there is a new argument between them. The film spends too much time building up anticipation just to kill it quickly by showing the trio’s reaction to scary things rather than the scary things in question. The sounds the group supposedly hears are too quiet to spook the audience as well and every “horror” is moved past so fast that you never get a chance to really feel the fear. Nothing truly terrifying happens until the last 15 minutes when Heather and Mike stumble into an old abandoned house in search of Josh. Everything is so dark and they keep getting separated, viewers know that the witch is near. It’s the perfect buildup of tension, but once again the movie moves past it abruptly, making the whole film feel anticlimactic. While the found footage style is intriguing, it may have done the movie more harm than good because we as viewers don’t even know what to be afraid of.
3. “The Exorcist” (1973)
“The Exorcist” was a film I was scared to watch. Just seeing the title across the scene made me shudder. Soon into the film though, I realized that it was not what I expected. “The Exorcist” follows an actress named Chris, her daughter Regan, and a young priest named Father Damien. When Regan gets possessed by a demon, her behavior takes a wild and dangerous turn and Chris seeks out Father Damien to perform an exorcism on her. The film moves extremely slow and takes an hour to get to the actual horror. The first time the voice of the demon inside Regan is heard, viewers are supposed to shiver in fear, but the voice is so jarring and the things it says are so random that it comes across as silly and uncomfortable instead. The physical horror is where the movie really shines: Regan struggling to get free from her restraints, charging at people, the 360-degree head turn, and the way you can see Regan getting sicker and sicker in every scene, losing all the life and color in her body. The film is more dreadful than anything, with Chris going through a divorce, Father Damien grieving his recently deceased mother, and Regan battling demons inside of her body. The Exorcist is a film that will not only make you feel quite sad, but also uncomfortable and uneasy.
2. Halloween (1978)
“Halloween” is undoubtedly one of the first films that comes to mind when people think of horror during this spooky season. The film follows a babysitter named Laurie and her friends who are hunted by a killer named Michael Myers, a recent mental asylum escapee. Michael’s psychiatrist Dr. Loomis is the only character aware of how dangerous he is, and spends the movie chasing after him. Michael travels through the town on Halloween wearing a blank white mask, completely devoid of any expression, and is silent for the entirety of the film apart from his loud breathing. There are several parts of the movie that’ll make you sigh and roll your eyes, such as everything Dr. Loomis has going on, especially with answering every question asked about Michael with “he’s just pure evil.” As well as Laurie dropping her weapon, taking a seat, and relaxing everytime she battles with Michael because he is “dead” on the floor, in the same room as her I might add. But, despite this,“Halloween” is still horrifying. Michael appears out of the dark often and is seen standing motionless, watching Laurie in several scenes. Every kill in the movie shows exactly how twisted Michael Myers is. One scene that stuck with me is when he stabs a man and then stands in front of his body for a long period of time, moving his head from side to side and just watching. Adding to the horrors, every actor in the movie is fantastic at playing dead. The visual of the life leaving their eyes is something that is not easily forgotten. “Halloween” is truly a classic for a reason because even since it came out 45 years ago, it will still frighten viewers of today.
1. “The Ring” (2002)
Technology has been something that people have feared for a long time now and a lot of that fear of the ever-advancing science can be credited to “The Ring,” a film that follows a journalist named Rachel, her ex Noah, and their son Aidan. After the mysterious death of Rachel’s niece, Katie, Rachel sets off on a journey to find out what exactly happened to them. Rachel uncovers a strange movie that will kill you exactly a week after you watch it and with Noah’s help, tries to get to the bottom of where it came from and why it kills before her time is up. While the actual “killer movie” itself is random rather than scary, “The Ring” is a film that is truly frightening from beginning to end. One of the main devices used to scare viewers is a static television screen. There’s something so eerie about the stillness of it, the quiet buzz, the unknown message it’s trying to convey that made me uneasy every time one was on screen. It all comes to a head at the end of the film when a girl slowly crawls out of the television, glitching and filled with static, and commits the film’s last kill. Chills coursed through my body long after the movie was over, the uneasy feeling it gave me lingering for quite some time. “The Ring” is a movie that will terrify you every time you merely think of it.
