My Top 5 Favorite Horror Movies of All Time

Halloween is about candy, fun, costumes and great scares. It’s also about horror movies, the official film genre of Halloween. With that in mind, I decided to lay out my list of my Top 5 All Time Favorite Horror Movies. My choices are both traditional and non-traditional. I have at least one all timer that goes on just about any list of favorite horror movies and two movies that have divided fans who either love these movies and the filmmaker behind them or loathe them. Regardless of how you feel about my list, be sure to get in touch with me and tell me what your favorite horror movies are on Twitter where my handle is @PodcastSean.

Special mentions to the movies that narrowly missed my Top 5

The Descent, Carnival of Souls, Us, Get Out, Martyrs, The Saw Franchise, Happy Death Day, and Hausu, among many others.

5. The Witch - Directed by Robert Eggers, The Witch is a dizzying and daring horror movie that earns scares via tension and suspense as well as shocking violence. Set in America prior to the Revolutionary war, somewhere in the wake of the first European settlers in America, the story proceeds from realistic depictions of ancient superstition, religious allegory, and on to a story that spins ever more wildly toward an uncanny and unsettling conclusion. Robert Eggers is one of the best directors working today and paired with the ethereal and brilliant Anya Taylor Joy it’s a wonder that The Witch isn’t already one of the most beloved and revered horror movies of this young century. It’s certainly worthy of consideration.

4. The Mummy - I love old school monster movies and while Frankenstein and Dracula are long lasting icons whose movies are revisited constantly and have become staples of horror movie culture, my preference is Boris Karloff’s classic, The Mummy. Karloff and Director Karl Freund deliver an old school monster movie that is wildly clever, inventive and genuinely scary even as it was made nearly 90 years ago. It’s remarkable that a movie that was made in 1932 still can sway and frighten audiences who have, since The Mummy was released, seen every form of horror, torment and visceral terror imaginable on the big screen. That, in my estimation, is the proof of concept for me that The Mummy is the greatest monster movie of all time.

3. Hereditary - Hereditary and its director Ari Aster are a new breed of horror movie. The psychological terror of Hereditary is matched with Aster’s peerless talent for staging horror. Watching an Ari Aster movie is like a roller-coaster of horrors with terrifying twists and turns, horror beats rising and falling, building toward bigger and even more terrifying horrors. Ari Aster has made two masterpieces in his very young career and the other one is at the top of this list.

2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Whether or not Director Tobe Hooper intended to make a horror movie that comments on the culture and politics of the day is debatable. What is not debatable is the final product which, whether you view The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as just a slasher movie or if you revere it, as I do, as THE movie that defines the end of the 1960's and the start of the 1970's with its remarkable metaphoric representations of the horrors of Vietnam, the end of 1950's style naivete, and the death of the Hippie dreams of peace and love, the legacy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is that of not just one of the greatest horror movies of all time but one of the greatest movies PERIOD.

1. Midsommar - And speaking of movies that transcend genre into a space all of their own while still providing the biggest and best scares, Midsommar is one of the great film achievements of this young century starring Florence Pugh and directed by the incomparable Ari Aster, Midsommar is an emotional, intellectual and all consuming experience. Midsommar attacks all of the senses, it’s visually dynamic, supremely intelligent and rich with deeper meaning. The terrors that Ari Aster unleashes in Midsommar are equaled only by the masterful way in which he weaves stories about grief, betrayal, trust, sex and violence without ever losing sight of his greatest goal, to terrify and appall with the precision of craftsman the eye and instinct of a true artist. Midsommar is my favorite horror film of all time and a strong contender to be my favorite movie of all time regardless of genre.