What are your top 5 favorite horror movies?

Exorcist & The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre
I'm not sure I will even go see the newly released Texas Chainsaw Massacre cut I still have not gotten over the old one!
any movie that says based on a "true story" that is scary, scares me differently.
but if it's not real the sky is the limit does not phase me...

Phantasium

other than that I haven't found one that really got to me in anyway...

This is a harder list to fill out than I thought it would be. Hrm.

1. Session 9 (Still creeps me the hell out.)
2. The Exorcist (Ditto.)
3. Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell.. what else need be said?)
4. Hellraiser (-Such- a quality script, and some great acting, but my god, it was such a poorly done movie.)
5. The Shining (See #1)

Phantasm..... [I agree]

1. Event Horizon (far and away the creepiest movie I have ever seen)
2. American Warewolf in London (I saw this one when I was very young, gave me nightmares for years)
3. The Original Psycho (again...saw it when I was young...creeped me out)
4. Nightmare on Elm Street #1
5. I can't think of any more movies that scared me. The Ring was fun, so was Identity...but not really scary...

Hus, I agree about The Ring and Identity. Both were great thrillers.

Oh just 5!
Well...
1.Nightmare on Elm Street(the first one only)
2.The Shining
3.Jacob's Ladder(liked the vibrating faces in the mirror, creeeeepy!)
4.The Ring..especially when the girl comes thru the tele, that got me! lol
5.The Excorcist, of course.

Sorry but I left out the original Night of the Living Dead, I just HAD to add that one!

ScoobyDoo, Now that was frightful

Not in any particular order

Alien -- Although it doesn't have the same effect on multiple viewings, I saw it on the big screen when it first opened, very effective on first viewing.

Wait until Dark -- Not a horror movie per se (more suspense), but the lights out bit at the end was extremely good.

The Haunting -- The original Robert Wise version. One of the quintessential haunted house movies.

Night of the Living Dead -- The original 1968 version. Extremely good.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers / The Thing (Tie) -- Both very good early horror.

Some honorable mentions:

Suspiria -- Early Dario Argento.

Nightmare on Elm street -- Excellent concept, not as well implemented as I would have liked, but pretty creepy.

Phantasm -- Very good. The sequels pretty much tanked, though.

I'm not into horror flicks.

1) Identity. great thriller!
2) Final Destination 2.
3) HellRaiser. was awesome.
4) Maximum Overdrive. not a horror, but a another great thriller.

1. Alien http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/
2. The Hitcher http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091209/
3. The Changling ( George C. Scott creepy ghost story ) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080516/
4. Poltergeist http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084516/
5. The Thing http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/
6. The Shining http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/
7. The Blair Witch Project http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185937/
8. Ghost Story http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082449/
9. Halloween http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077651/
10. The Exorcist http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070047/

Some are more fun than scary. I couldn't stop at 5 and they really aren't in order. If you aren't talking sceeeery, I love the old Hammer horror films ( http://www.hammerfilms.com/ ) and the original Dracula/Nosferatu/Wolfman/Frankenstein stuff. Doesn't make me turn on the lights but they are darn entertaining.

Oh, I just remembered another one as well

11. Stir of Echoes http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164181/

That really, really creeped me out, even though the live people ended up being scarier than the dead.

1. The Birds (Hitchcock is just the king)
2. Alien (the first one)
3. The Shining
4. Se7en (not really horror but just so well done and still effective)
5. Poltergeist (saw this one as a kid but would probably laugh about it now)

I have to admit that I haven't seen a real horror flick in ages. I am normally just soo bored if the plot is weak.

1. The Exorcist
2. The Shining
3. Halloween
4. Friday the 13 (the very 1st one)
5. Rosemary's Baby

.........I see dead people

I forgot 1 more.

5) Texas Massacre Part 2. My dad rented Texas Massacre. That bald guy & leather face scared the crap out of me.

Alien was very well done,fantastic monster suit.Chest burster scene actually shocked me the first time I saw it.

Excorcist is still hard to watch alone in the dark.

Carrie scared me at the end when the arm shot up out of the rubble,my date grabbed my leg at that moment and I yelled.

Shining was a camera mans masterpiece and very creepy.

Poltergiest got to me because I watched it after everyone had gone to bed and a baby monitor That I didnt know was on was making wierd noises.

1. The Thing (Carpenter's 1982 version)...after spending a winter at the South Pole and watching it there, this is definitely my top pick!
2. The Exorcist (both 1 and 3)...in #3, the scene at the senior care home with the old woman crawling quickly across the ceiling in the background (almost missed it!) gave me the creeps for a couple days!
3. Susperia...elegant and well-made, the use of the camera (cinematography?) was especially good.
4. Alien...when it first came out, it was so different from anything else! It still scares me!
5. A tie between 'Nosferatu' and 'Prince of Darkness'...the latter being a little cheesy, but things having to do with the devil give me the creeps!

Well, I guess I will have to add an extra to my list. Texas Chainsaw Massacre "the new one" made me jump more then once. I think it was put together pretty darn well. Creepy, very creepy!

Baker,

Thanks for reminding me

-- Ghost Story --

I was thinking about it, but couldn't remember the name. Very well done movie, makes me want to see it again.

Changeling was also a good one.

My top 5:

Karmagirl in the land of NO coffee or Printers Part 1

Jafo becomes Kona

I am joking! can't think of anymore

The Blair Witch Project is such an incredibly dull movie. It starts out alright, but after fifteen minutes, you've seen all you have to see, really. The hysterics after that are just plain annoying.

First horror I ever saw was Hellraiser, so everything else just pales in the gore department. Can't say that I've ever seen a movie that gives me the creeps, though minutes of silence, followed by shrieking violins always give me the spooks.

Anyhow, those old Hammer films are quite entertaining.

I think how spooky The Blair Witch Project is to you depends on your background. There is a supernatural/occult mythos in Appalachian history that a lot of people aren't all that familiar with, even people who live here in Appalachia. A good example is the Bell Witch stories from middle Tennessee. I grew up with 'haints' and the various stories of satanism and witchcraft, so The Blair Witch Project kind of resonated with me. Stories similar to that have been circulating for hundreds of years. I have walked through houses that had almost exact mythologies as the one at the end of the movie, and hiked hours from the road to get to them.

Anyway, I figured it was scary to most people for the same reason Deliverance was scary. Is anything scarier than dangerous hillbillies? . I am one, so I'll abstain from opinion.

Don't mean to wander off-topic, just wanted to explain since I was the only one to cite The Blair Witch Project so far.

I was lucky enough to be one of the first people to see Blair Witch, and at that time the hype machine was in overdrive. At the time I was living in the States, and I'd seen the TV 'documentary' about the 'real' events leading up to the creation of the movie out of the recovered videos. At that time, nobody doubted the movie was a true story. I also lived in a remote apartment complex in the middle of acres and acres of wild forest, so that didn't exactly help on the way home after watching the movie. I think it very much depends on the circumstances under which you saw the movie. Unfortunately, by the time it reached the UK it was well known that it was a hoax. It therefore didn't do nearly as well at the box office in this country.

I saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre when I was about 10 years old, again when I was living in the States for a while. Looking back, it was pretty irresponsible of the family I was staying with to allow me to watch the movie, as it seriously scarred me at the time. I might go and see the new one, but it'll probably reduce me to tears!

As for my top five, in no particular order:

1. Halloween (Still creeps me out every time. There's just something unsettling about mental hospitals.)
2. Blair Witch Project
3. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
4. Event Horizon (The subliminal imagery is wicked.)
5. The Ring (The original, not the popcorn-friendly remake.)