Just in time for Halloween, I wanted to offer up my Top 11 Horror films of all time, ranked from scary great to the horrifying best. These films span the last 60+ years, but all earned an A+ ranking as terrifying treats that I love to revisit often in search of the new tricks they hold for repeat viewers.
Why 11 and not 10? Because I could not pick one of these below to eliminate from the list, they're all that good!
I've searched to find alternate posters for each that you wont see on their review within the George At The Movies site.
If there have been remakes of the film, I have shown the release date along with the title to avoid any confusion.
How many have you seen?
What are your favorite scary films that I've missed? I bet a lot of them would be #12 to 20 on mine......
#11. A Quiet Place, Part II
WOW. This is the way to do a sequel.
John Krasinski returns to the writer/director chair and surpasses the original with the amazing A QUIET PLACE PART II.
The film opens on Day One, with a nearly perfect fifteen-minute sequence of small-town life as Lee Abbott (Krasinski) visits the local grocery store for some snacks on the way to his son’s baseball game. The store owner seems a bit distracted by the news of a huge catastrophe somewhere far away. Krasinski sets up the baseball game as an almost lyrical peek into a perfect, quiet life. We again meet his two deaf children Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe) and their interactions are hilarious and supportive. Lee’s wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) silently encourages Marcus, calming his nerves about the game. “Just Breathe” seems to be her mantra.
Neighbor Emmett (Cillian Murphy) brings Lee up to speed on the game as both their boys take turns at bat.
And then, something massive comes barreling down through the clouds, flaming like a giant asteroid down toward the Earth.
The baseball game immediately breaks up and within moments, the first of the creatures we know from the original arrive, tearing the fabric of the small town apart in a fantastic, suspenseful, action packed opening that leaves you stunned.
The story then flashes forward to after the events of the first film.
Lee is gone, most of civilization appears to be destroyed and Evelyn, her baby, Regan and Marcus leave their farm in search of food, people…..whatever is left.
They meet up with Emmitt, a shell of his former self and living alone deep within a factory.
The brilliance of the story is that it doesn’t take the audience for a fool.
It knows that we know the creatures hunt based on sound, but very poor eyesight.
The film knows that we are dreading a predictable post-apocalyptic story, so it turns our expectations on their heads.
I won’t ruin any of their quest by detailing it here. Krasinski does a masterful job of unveiling it scene by scene.
The acting is fantastic across the board. Simmonds and Jupe are probably the best young actors working today. There are scenes of incredible physical pain and anguish for Jupe and he delivers them so well, they cut any parent (or grandparent) to the core. Simmonds and Cillian Murphy have some of the film’s best moments as Regan and Emmitt’s trust evolves. Blunt is a kick-ass hero.
There are two major parts of the film where multiple seismic events are happening at the same time. Krasinski and his editor Michael P. Shawyer (Black Panther, Creed) cut between them so brilliantly that the suspense is doubled and tripled, leaving you on the edge of your seat. Then damned if they don’t do it to you again.
The ending twist leading to Emmitt yelling “Get Inside!!!” is so well executed that I never saw it coming. The structure of the entire film is taut, edge-of-your-seat suspense for its lean 90-minute running time.
The special effects work is very good and not overdone, while Marco Beltrami jolts you with a spooky and propulsive music score that gets under your skin. It’s the perfect complement to the moments of absolute silence that pepper the movie.
With all its surprises it feels like the best M. Night Shyamalan film he never made.
Krasinski continues to surprise as a director. His work here is even more sure handed than in the original.
A QUIET PLACE PART II is a rarity, a sequel to a great film that’s even better than the original.
Buckle up for one hell of a ride. This one gets an A+.
Keep telling yourself, “just breathe…..”
#10. Us
Two years ago, writer/director Jordan Peele shocked the film world with his genre busting thriller "Get Out". Two years later he proves he's no one-trick pony with his excellent sophomore effort, US.
One of the most unsettling movies I've seen in recent memory, US weaves a suspenseful, bloody horror story with perfect splashes of comedy.
We first meet young Adelaide Wilson as she wonders away from her argumentative parents at a seaside carnival, stumbling into a trick mirror funhouse and an event that changes her forever.
We then move forward to present day, as grown up Adelaide (an incredible Lupita Nyong'o) and her husband Gabe (the perfect comic relief of Winston Duke from "Black Panther") take their two children to their summer vacation house.
Their daughter Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and son Jason (Evan Alex) are at the age where their parents are never cool and the beach house's lack of wi-fi is their biggest concern.
Their vacation goes south when they see a family of four standing in their driveway, holding hands. Clad in red overalls, the family looks impossibly like them. A terrifying home invasion takes place.
But what follows from that point will be left unsaid. Peele has a lot more on his mind with US than a simple home invasion thriller. Much more.
Events echoing back to 1984 spin in and out of the story, with Peele ratcheting up the suspense and blood as he goes, until you're on the edge of your seat with no idea where you're headed.
Like "Get Out" you could spend hours discussing the larger issues that lie beneath the story, from social class and unseen elements of the population to the duplicity of our true selves. Peele lays it all out in front of you like the sharp corners of a roller coaster, pulling you forward, deeper and deeper down his rabbit hole. Only afterward do you have time to ponder the sub-layers of the events.
I wasn't anticipating the ending, but it played really well for me, making me want to go back and see it again, knowing what I knew by the time the final haunting shot faded to black.
Nyong'o is fantastic. Like Toni Collette in last summer's horror thriller "Hereditary", her performance lifts the entire film into something far beyond horror.
The entire scene in which the family sits across from their doppelgangers inside the house is flawless, from Nyong'o's terrifying other voice to the mirrored ticks of each family member's personality.
Michael Abels creates almost 90 minutes of music for the film. It's far from traditional and very good, spiking the scares and tightening the suspense at all the right moments.
This isn't one of those "look out a cat's going to jump up in the window" kind of horror films. US is built on a foundation of slow building understanding of what is actually going on with and around this family. As each new reveal of awareness is peeled back, the scares get bigger, the violence gets bloodier and you sit further forward on the edge of your seat.
Throw in allusions to bible versus, numerology and some very clever camerawork and you've got the #1 horror film opening of all time.
It'richly deserved. Peele's the real deal and US becomes an instant horror classic that gets an A+ and another Peele spot in my all-time Top 100.
#9. Psycho (1960)
One of the most, if not THE MOST influential horror movies of all time, 1960's PSYCHO is one of Hitchcock's all-time greats.
Looking for a break from big budget films after "Vertigo" and "North by Northwest", the director wanted to make a small budget, black and white thriller. This lean mystery was born.
After 60+ years, spoiler alerts seem unnecessary, but if you've never seen this classic, stop reading, go watch it and come back!
Featuring a mid-film twist that M. Night could only dream of, Hitchcock takes everything you've settled into after an hour and turns the story sideways.
Hitch also mixes sex, madness and mystery in a blend that was bold and shocking to the audience of the time.
The story opens with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and her boyfriend Sam (John Gavin) in a lunchtime tryst at a Phoenix hotel. For a 1960 hookup, this was pretty graphic.
Joseph Stefano's screenplay (based on Robert Bloch's novel) has some dated lines of dialogue, but his structure is brilliant. We immediately know that Marion is looking for something more.
When the perfect opportunity to steal $40,000 lands on her desk, she does so, escaping town and driving all night as Bernard Herrmann's perfect music score cuts through your ears.
The scenes with Marion waking up to a policeman knocking on her car window and selling her car to avoid being followed are some of my favorite in the film. Hitch's famous fear of policemen is front and center.
Marion's travel east eventually lands her at the worst lodgings in memory, the Bates Motel and it's socially awkward but seemingly kind young manager, Norman Bates.
Anthony Perkins IS Norman. Quirky, hesitant and quick to defend his invalid Mother he lives with, Norman is a disturbing blend of boy scout, loyal son and serial killer.
Perkins and Leigh are terrific in their scenes together., spinning a long conversation over a sandwich. Marion finds some wisdom in Norman's simple approach to loyalty and temptation, vowing to herself to return to Phoenix and make things right.
And then she takes a shower.
When this hit theaters in 1960, audiences were screaming in the aisle.
Set up a main character and her story arc for an hour and then have an old woman stab her to death in a hotel shower? NO ONE saw that coming.
Hitchcock builds almost constant suspense for the rest of the film after Marion's murder.
Marion's sister Lila (Vera Miles) goes to meet Sam and ask her where Marion is.
Private detective Milton Arbogast (the superb Martin Balsam) is hot on their heels.
Arbogast tracks Marion to the Bates Motel and meets Norman. The tension in their scene is so tight you cut it with the same giant knife Mrs. Bates used in the bathroom.
Murders are committed and staged creatively.
One murder that happens at the top of the stairs seems to have the camera a foot from the victim's face, falling down the stairs with them as one huge line of blood drips down their face.
Sheriff Al Chambers (John McIntire from "Elmer Gantry") meets with Sam and Lila, now on the trail of Arbogast and reveals some vital secrets about the Bates Motel.
Sam and Lila check in and meet Norman.
Hitchcock is relentless, using all the camera angles and editing tricks that made him one of the best filmmakers in history.
Check out the documentary 78/52 (also reviewed here on the site) for an in-depth look at the 78 camera set ups and 52 edits that comprise the most famous shower scene in film history.
It's just one component of what makes this film a classic.
The main titles by Saul Bass would be creative if someone debuted them today.
Herrmann's score is flawless, with plucking and screeching strings ratcheting up the horror and suspense. John Williams has named this score the inspiration for his "Jaws" theme.
The cast is superb from start to finish, with psychiatrist Dr Richman (Simon Oakland from "The Night Stalker") trying to explain the madness. Just when this talkiest scene in the movie seems to be going way too long, Hitch strolls you into a holding cell, where Mrs. Bates' voice decrees "She wouldn't even hurt a fly...." just as Norman's face seems to become a skull thanks to a couple inserted frames.
Hitchcock's bag of tricks has rarely been as effectively used.
Hitch famously had cardboard stand-ups in every lobby saying that managers were not allowed to sit anyone in the theater after the main titles. Audiences lined up in droves, driving over $40 million in box office against an $800k budget.
60+ years later, it's considered a modern classic of suspense and horror.
Norman: She needs *me*. It's not as if is she were a maniac, a raving thing. She just goes - a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?
Marion: Yes. Sometimes just one time can be enough.
PSYCHO gets an A+ Followed 23 years later by a surprisingly good and underrated sequel, "Psycho II" and two additional sequels of declining value. Also needlessly remade in a shot-by-shot style by Gus Van Sant in 1998 that served only to remind you how good the original is by comparison.
#8. It
As a lifetime Stephen King fan, it's always sad to see how poorly many of his novels have translated to the screen.
Which makes it all the more enjoyable when you experience a superb adaption like IT.
For King "Constant Readers" like me, it's a 2 hour plus brilliant rendering of one of King's best books.
Like "Stand by Me", our story revolves around a collection of young people in the fictional town of Derry, where the adult murder rate is high and the missing child statistics are startling.
In the film's opening scene, we first meet the sheer evil behind those numbers, Pennywise the Clown. His savage encounter with young Georgie sets the tone for what's ahead, graphic, bloody and scary.
The band of bullied kids that comes together to fight the dark forces is comprised of one of the best ensembles of young actors I’ve seen in a very long time.
Jaeden Lieberher (Midnight Special) is Bill, whose brother Georgie’s disappearance drives the story. Jeremy Ray Taylor is Ben, the new kid at school with a big heart. Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) is Richie (Beep Beep Richie!) who faces terror with plenty of jokes, providing a lot of the terrific humor that translates so well from page to screen.
Best of all is young Sophia Lillis as Beverly Marsh, the lone girl in the Loser’s Club. She’s so good that you feel like you’re watching the birth of a major star. Her quietest moments with Bill are just as good as the most terrifying moments of the film.
And there are plenty of very scary scenes. This isn’t the cheap thrills of jump scares and loud bangs; these are well-crafted, slow builds that payoff with some chilling moments.
The closing frames of the out-of-control slide projector scene are chilling and really horrifying. The entire finale sequence inside the house of Pennywise is really well crafted and will make any King fan smile in perfect execution of some classic scenes.
At the center of the film is Bill Skarsgard (Atomic Blonde) as Pennywise. With incredible makeup, a voice that ranges from enticing to horrifying and just the right amount of realistic CGI for the best set of jaws since Aliens, his Pennywise is just plain scary as hell.
Pennywise knows what scares you and manifests himself in that form, bringing plenty of chills as we learn what each of these young people are truly scared of and face it up close.
The writing is very good, which I’ll credit a great deal to Cary Fukunaga (True Detective) and the brilliance of one of King’s best massive novels. The photography by Chung-hoon Chung (Oldboy) is terrific, painting a disturbing small town in a dingy palette, while Pennywise’s red balloons POP off the screen.
This is a very good horror film that I can’t wait to see again. The great news is that PART 2, which will detail these same characters as adults dealing with the return of Pennywise, is heading into production soon, based on the biggest September box office opening in the history of the movies for IT. The novel flashed back and forth from them as kids to adults, but the story structure here works very well, telling just the first half of the story and leaving you hungry for more, while still offering plenty of closure for this chapter.
GREAT young cast, plenty of scares and a truly disturbing villain. Like all of Pennywise victims, IT floats to the top of King screen adaptions and gets an A+.
#7. The Thing
One of my all time fave horror/sci-fi films, 1982's THE THING is a tense, gory and claustrophobic winner.
Following "Escape from New York" the previous year, Director John Carpenter and star Kurt Russell teamed up for an eighties take on a 50's classic.
Russell is terrific as MacReady, the quiet but tough leader of a group of scientists at a desolate Antarctica research site. Surrounded by blowing snow and ice, MacReady and his team find themselves exposed to an alien organism that is all too eager to replicate them and hide in plain sight. Russell builds on his Snake Plissken portrayal in "Escape" for a more well rounded anti-hero.
The physical special effects as our alien changes from dog to human to something MORE are fantastic and very gross in the best possible sci-fi movie fashion.
Over 30 years later, this movie will still make you squirm. The small cast is terrific with Wilford Brimley as Blair, Keith David as Childs & Donald Moffat as Garry standing out in their roles.
As the shape shifting alien jumps from host to host, no one knows who to trust and even begins to doubt if they themselves have been infected.
Carpenter is at the height of his game here and pushes every button without being cliche. The scene where someone's head removes itself from their body, sprouts spider legs and tries to runaway is still a classic!
The blood test scene is another winner, mounting tension even when you've seen this movie multiple times.
Kudos to Ennio Morricone for his moody, nonstop music score and Bill Lancaster for a smart, lean and tense screenplay.
THE THING is a model of horror/sci-fi, visual excess and things that make you JUMP on cue, done with class and style. Just try to not look away. A slimy, screaming, freaky, terrific classic that earns a dripping, oozing A+!
#6. An American Werewolf in London
Back in 1981, Writer/Director John Landis followed up "Animal House" and "The Blues Brothers" by scaring the hell out of us with AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.
I remember going to see it in theaters thinking it was going to be a horror comedy. Joke was on me. Landis crafts a full on, graphic scary horror film sprinkled with character driven laughs.
David (David Naughton, great here, why didn't he become a bigger star?) and his best friend Jack (Griffin Dunne, genuinely funny) are backpacking across Europe
When they hit the foggy rural country,locals tell them to stay off the moors and stick to the road. When they fail to follow that advice, they are attacked by a massive and vicious creature.
David wakes up in a London hospital to find that Jack is dead and that he's been badly bitten and carved up himself. Luckily, he's got beautiful young nurse Alex (Jenny Agutter from Walkabout, Logan's Run) to tend his wounds.
While he insists they were attacked by creature, witnesses and the police insist it was a psychotic madman.
When the full moon rises in London, I think we all know which way this goes.
Landis is a great director and sets up the near perfect transformation scene, with "Bad Moon Rising" blaring on the soundtrack, Rick Baker's killer physical transformation effects (No CGI here kids) and Naughton's great performance, its one of the best man to wolf scenes in the history of movies and still packs a hell of a punch.
As a writer, Landis sets up plenty of clever characters and plot twists, including an ever decaying Jack coming back to visit David and warn him on what's going to happen when the full moon hits.
I love the scene after David's first transition when he is after a lone commuter in a London train station. You see almost the entire scene as a side shot of the man running, but at the last moment when he collapses on an escalator, the camera positions to look down from his view to the base of the moving stairs, where you get a great view of a very freaky creature walking right into frame. Visually, it packs a punch because you don't expect to see it.
Likewise the carnage of the Piccadilly Square conclusion or the leisurely pace of David and Alex's romance.
Look for a great performance by John Woodvine as Dr. Hirsch, the genuinely caring doctor who doesn't think the towns people's account jives with David's wounds. Frank Oz (Yoda) also delivers a funny performance as an American embassy man with a very bad bedside manner.
Landis throws it all at you here, horrifying and bloody nightmares, dreams within dreams to keep you off balance, massive gore, nudity, great humor, romance and some serious tragedy, all sprinkled with classic rock and roll to accompany key moments. "Blue Moon" will never seem quite the same....
A huge hit and an all-time fave that holds up really well today. WEREWOLF has some serious bite and gets a perfect A+.
David after hearing a loud howl on the moors:
"Maybe it's a sheep dog, let's keep going...."
Oops. Fasten your backpacks kids, this one's a wild ride.
#5. Poltergeist (1982)
"They're here........"
It was a lot of fun to revisit the original POLTERGEIST last night and remember how groundbreaking the special effects were back in 1982.
The Freeling family led by Craig T Nelson and JoBeth Williams as husband and wife, Steve and Diane, have it all. A great home in the suburbs, Steve's job as leading real estate salesman in Cuesta Verde Estates, three great kids.
Early on, youngest daughter Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke) hears the voices of "TV people" when stations go off the air at night (how quaint that now seems) and strange things begin to happen with their furniture.
Pretty soon that escalates to some terrifying events and Carol Anne disappears in the unseen grasp of those folks in the TV.
There are so many classic fun moments here, including Robbie's least favorite tree outside his bedroom window, his clown doll at the end of the bed and lots and lots of unhappy folks beneath the Freeling's home.
There were major controversies at the time, including major pushback on the PG-13 rating. The scene where the paranormal investigator eats some nasty chicken and then begins to pick at his face in the mirror certainly pushed the boundaries at the time. It was also rumored that Steven Spielberg actually directed quite a bit of the film when director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) ran into trouble and delays on set.
Beatrice Straight (Network) is very good as Paranormal scientist Dr. Lesh and her quiet moments with the family are some of the best in the film. Zelda Rubinstein nearly steals the film as diminutive house exorcist Tangina, spouting faves like "Go into the light Children, All are welcome....." and "This House is Clean" which ends up being a bit premature.
It's a great thriller and still remains one of the best haunted house flicks of all time. The entire sequence in which Diane "goes into the light" to save Carol Anne is excellent and the new Blu-Ray with True Dolby HD sound mix really spotlights all the sound effects and Jerry Goldsmith's fantastic music score, one of his all time best. Great cast, great frights, classic moments.
POLTERGEIST still scares up an A+ decades after its premier. A scary, fun entry in my all-time Top 100 films.
#4. The Omen (1976)
An all-time favorite, 1976’s THE OMEN mixes a great story with an all-star cast, top production values, some fun & gory moments and a classic horror movie score to scare up great fun.
Gregory Peck and Lee Remick star as US Ambassador Robert Thorn and his wife Katherine. As the film opens, Remick is in a Rome hospital having just given birth. The baby did not survive but Father Spiletto proposes that they switch the child with a newborn whose mother was lost giving birth at the same time, 6:00am on June 6th. (666 oooooooohhhh….)
As young Damien grows, people around him begin to die in spectacular fashion. This being the 70’s there are some spectacular and gross effects, but they are not the blood and guts gore of the 80’s, providing more jolts and movie fun than stomach churning horror. One scene in which a character falls from the second story, landing face down on a wooden floor is especially well done. As these are all mechanical & camera tricks (pre CGI), it makes the slaying scenes all the more incredible.
David Warner is great as a photographer covering Thorn that captures some strange shadows and omens on film that portend the death that soon awaits key folks around the boy.
Soon, Peck and Warner are on the trail of discovering more about the night of Damien’s birth. Their scenes in the Italian cemetery and hotel afterward are some of the film’s best moments. Director Richard Donner (Superman, Lethal Weapon, The Goonies) knows how to make a fast moving, fun film and this is one his finest. There is just enough menace to be suspenseful and scary. Donner brings great performances out of his actors. I can’t imaging this film would be half as good without Peck at it’s center. He is a big time movie star and excellent as Thorn. Billie Whitelaw is strange and scary as Damien’s nanny Mrs. Blaylock. She’s hell on wheels and creepy in every scene.
The spectacular deaths depicted for key characters drove a lot of chatter and interest in the film and they hold up pretty well nearly 40 years later. Anytime you can stage a beheading, an impalement, a hanging and assorted other mayhem and create a mainstream blockbuster, you’ve done something right. Donner, Peck and the cast do that one better and have put together a horror classic.
Jerry Goldsmith won a well-deserved Oscar for his imposing, scary music score that many of us mocked mercilessly to scare our siblings in the seventies. The music is constant in key scenes, sometime quiet, often powerful, but always creepy.
Avoid the needless 2006 remake and go for the original. If you haven’t seen THE OMEN in awhile, check it out. It’s a HELL of a lot of suspenseful fun and a horror tale very well told. It gets a 666….oops, I mean an A+. One of my all-time faves, with a solid spot in my Top 100.
Followed in 1978 by "Damien Omen II".
#3. Hereditary
One of the best & most disturbing family drama/horror films I've ever seen, HEREDITARY is well worth seeking out in theaters.
We meet Annie as the film opens, preparing for her mother's funeral. Far from the standard eulogy, Annie shares her shock at seeing so many strangers and describes her mother as a secretive, flawed woman. You get the feeling that Mom will NOT be missed.
Annie is played by Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, Little Miss Sunshine) in her best screen performance, seething with pain just below the surface that's begging to be unleashed. When she does, it makes you cower.
Annie's husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) is a soft spoken man, tasked with holding the family together. Their son Peter (perfectly played by Alex Wolff (Jumanji, Patriots Day) is a stoner, existing in the house as quietly as possible.
Rounding out the family is their daughter Charlie, hauntingly played by screen newcomer Milly Shapiro, who starred on Broadway as the original "Matilda" in that long running musical.
She is a LONG way from Broadway show tunes here. Her Charlie is a quiet, disturbing girl who often expresses herself with a loud "cluck" of her tongue, when she's not cutting the heads of off kamikaze crows.
There is something off about the family.
Writer/Director Ari Aster masterfully immerses you in their world almost immediately.
As the camera weaves through the miniature models that artist Annie is creating for an upcoming gallery show, the mini rooms unveil disturbing glimpses into their normal.
When a tragedy strikes the family, Annie begins a tailspin into anger, grief and despair that drives her into some very bad choices.
There are seances, terrifying otherworldly encounters and a creeping dread that makes your skin crawl.
Annie's unhinged, frank bitterness and depression is thrown totally off the rails by the family tragedy, which I suspected was one thing and shocked when it took another path.
With about twenty minutes to go in the film, Aster stages a scene in Peter's bedroom so brilliantly that something horrifying is revealed to you with incredible patience. It's there for you to see, but you won't for the first thirty seconds. When I saw it, it freaked me out in all the right scary movie ways, and STILL haunts me every night I go to sleep since.
The music score by Colin Stetson, his first for a feature film, is a terrifying element throughout, making your skin crawl well before anything visually scares you.
This isn't a cheap horror film with jump scares that will make you startle and laugh. HEREDITARY is an "Exorcist" like delve into a family facing powers far beyond their understanding. At least in "The Exorcist", Fathers Merrin & Karras arrived at some point to help that family.
Part of HEREDITARY's power is that you slowly become aware that no one is coming to help this twisted and tortured bunch.
Unfortunately, the final five or six minutes of the film almost destroy all the artistry before them with a too literal explanation of the events. It's disappointing and sad.
Like that special edition of "Close Encounters" that ruined the magic by actually taking Roy Neary inside the mothership, we should NEVER have seen what happens after Peter ascends into the treehouse. Alas.....
Ignore the final scene and enjoy the horror masterpiece that will wrap its darkness around you for the first 115 minutes of its running time.
HEREDITARY is scary as hell and gets an A+.
#2. The Shining
Rarely has a movie generated so much suspense and dread for the viewer as Stanley Kubrick's 1980 hit, THE SHINING.
Jack Nicholson is Jack Torrance, a frustrated writer who takes on a job as winter caretaker for the massive, isolated Overlook Hotel.
When the manager (Barry Nelson) advises him as part of his orientation that the last caretaker killed his wife and children, chopping them up with an axe before killing himself, Torrance raises the classic Nicholson brow and says, 'Don't worry, that's not going to happen again."
Shelley Duvall oozes awkward and lack of confidence as his wife Wendy and young Danny Lloyd is great as their son Danny, who has quite a gift for "shining" or picking up the vibes of places or people long past.
It's not long after they are alone and the snow starts to block them in that the spirits of the Overlook begin to make their presence known.
The strong sense of foreboding that Kubrick creates builds throughout the movie, culminating in some now classic movie moments, including the woman in the bathtub in room 237, the twin girls who would like Danny to come play with them "forever and ever" and the last 30 minutes as the madness reaches full crescendo.
Nicholson is fantastic here, over the top certainly, but the arc from insecure teacher and frustrated writer to full tilt madness is a lot of fun to watch.
As usual, Kubrick chooses some very scary orchestral pieces to accent his action and the music score is one of the scariest parts of the film, from the brilliant opening shots behind the credits to the final jolt of music.
One of my favorite horror films.
For fun, check out the TV remake from 1997 with Stephen Weber, it's better than you might think and was executive produced by Stephen King, who notably does NOT like Kubrick's vision of his novel.
For me, The Shining is a frightening, suspenseful, brilliantly directed winner and gets a blood soaked A+ and a spot in my all-time Top 100.
and the scariest, craziest, most nightmare movie of all time for me remains:
#1. The Exorcist
For most of my lifetime, every scary film has been judged against 1973's THE EXORCIST. After all these years, nothing else compares.
The film opens with a long sequence at an archeological dig in Iraq, where Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow) encounters the first findings tied to an ancient demon. As he watches, the unburied artifacts cause disturbing behavior all around him. The sequence concludes in an onslaught of dissonant noises and dust.
The next scenes are idyllic pictures of Georgetown, Washington, where famed film actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) and her daughter Regan (Linda Blair) live in a beautiful brownstone on a perfect street.
When things begin to go bump in the night in the attic and Regan demonstrates odd behaviors, small at first and then escalating in severity, Chris takes Regan to every doctor and psychiatrist looking for answers.
Director William Friedkin is at his best here in his thrilling follow up to his 1971 Best Picture winner "The French Connection".
Friedkin escalates the tension throughout, making us suffer through Chris's fears, Regan's medical tests and the rising horror as Regan begins demonstrating some very powerful and very nasty behavior.
Chris finds herself turning to her local, rebel priest Father Karras (Jason Miller) for answers.
He in turn, brings in Father Merrin to support him in the film's final scenes.
This is a film classic. From the time Regan first turns violent through the harrowing final 20 minutes in which Merrin and Karras perform the rites of exorcism over her tortured body, the film twists its suspense tighter.
What a cast!
Burstyn is 100% believable as a tortured mother running out of answers. Miller is superb as Karras. His recent loss of his mother haunts him and the demon's leverage of that fact (Dimi, why did you abandon me!!??") tear Karras apart. Miller will make you feel it.
Lee J. Cobb is pitch perfect as police detective Kinderman, Kitty Wynn is good as Chris's loyal assistant Sharon and Von Sydow is perfection as Father Merrin.
The only weak link in the acting department are Linda Blair's scenes in the first half hour of the film. Before she's possessed, her line readings are horrible and you can feel Burstyn and Wynn pulling her along, it's painful.
But once the demon takes hold, you have to credit Blair with a strong physical performance and actress Mercedes McCambridge for the voice work she does for the possessed Regan.
That husky, life time smoker voice that emerges from Blair "It's a wonderful day for an exorcism" still haunts & deeply disturbs.
The makeup by Dick Smith is startling, the Oscar winning sound mix is SO unsettling, I defy you to not get the creeps listening to what in the hell is going on behind Regan's bedroom door as Merrin and Karris first approach it together.
The screenplay adaption by William Peter Blatty of his own best selling novel also won an Oscar, deservedly so.
The only films that I have ever felt even approached this one for creating terror have been the two "Conjuring" films, but even they don't equal the white knuckle dread that a good, loud presentation of THE EXORCIST generates in a darkened room.
A modern classic, it still scares the hell out of me in all the right horror movie ways and gets an A+.
Followed by numerous inferior sequels, including the laughable "Exorcist II: The Heretic" in 1977 and fifty years later by the pretty good & scary "Exorcist: Believer" that didn't connect with audiences.
The scary great news is that Mike Flanagan, the horror genius behind "The Haunting of Hill House", "Doctor Sleep" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" has taken the reins for a NEW Exorcist film in 2026. He's superb. Fasten your seatbelts and get out your bibles, Flanagan will BRING it.
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