Top Ten Classic Horror Movies and Why I Love Each One. Part Two.

Hello and welcome back to top ten classic horror movies! I hope that the wait wasn’t too bad. Thank you for sticking around for the second part anyways! The scare rating is also featured the same as last time! How scary it is does not control where the movie is ranked on the list! Like I said before, there will be mature content and spoilers included in this segment along with my own biased opinion on each movie! Lets just get back into it! 

 

5. The Strangers (2008)

The Strangers was another one of my favorites for a while. It was remade into “The Strangers: Prey at Night” in 2018 but I still prefer the first one. The screenplay of this film was inspired by two different true happenings. In the film there were three masked antagonists, one man and two women. A newly unhappy couple lead the movie as our protagonists. They make some good decisions and some very.. very disappointing ones. The masks used in the film easily accomplished that unsettling feeling for me.  They didn’t say much through out the movie but when they did they always spoke in short sentences, amplified by their soft monotone voices. I’m just saying if I saw one of these people outside of my window at night… I would either have a rush of adrenaline and go ham on them myself, or that adrenaline would move to my legs, not stopping until I’m in a whole different country. My favorite line from the movie, and probably the most famous one is:

Kristen McKay: Why are you doing this to us?

Dollface: Because you were home.

Scare Rating: 8.5/10. Never looking out of my windows at night again.

4. Psycho (1960)

My mom introduced this to me about a year ago. Before watching this movie I had seen a little of the spin off television series named Bates Motel. I wasn’t surprised to find that the movie was in black and white since the iconic scene of the woman getting stabbed in the shower. Even though I had heard of the movie, the ending plot twist really caught me off guard and made the movie. This was a super impactful and iconic movie that the line “We all go a little mad sometimes” was also referenced in the movie Scream which was number 10 on my rankings!

Scare Rating: 4/10 uncomfy uncomfy uncomfyyyy.

 

 

3. Nightmare on Elm street (1984)

The concept of this movie is possibly one of the most creative I’ve seen for the time period that it was made. In the film, they use different events and phrases that set up cliché’s in future horror movies. The main antagonist is named Freddy Krueger. His whole character is based around being able to kill people in their dreams and he is known for his iconic character design. He wears a fedora hat, a green and red sweater, has burnt skin and obtains an iconic glove with knives for fingers. Yeah, freaky I know. He usually likes to play around with his victims like a cat and mouse dynamic which really makes my skin crawl. Its intriguing to me to see how the protagonists try to avoid sleeping in order to get away from Freddy. They try caffeine, pills, and other things. They all seem to fail though. Sleep is inevitable and that’s the scariest part. There is some backstory around the character of Freddy Krueger but I think that you should watch the movies to figure it out!

Scare rating: 7/10. No sleep for me </3

 

2.  Friday The 13th (1980)

This is one of the most popular horror movies if not THE most popular of all time. If you haven’t at least heard of Friday The 13th, Jason Voorhees, or his iconic hockey mask you have been living under a rock. This franchise has twelve slasher films, a television series, novels, comic books, video games, and tie‑in merchandise. I actually bought the Friday The 13th game this year. Anyways, if you haven’t heard of this film I’ll summarize it really quickly.  Jason Voorhees is a hockey masked serial killer that preys on.. active.. teenagers at Camp Crystal Lake. I really loved the lore and all of the plot twists that occupy these movies. I definitely recommend them!

Scare Rating: 3/10. Its an amazing classic, but not the scariest I have seen. 

 

 

1. Halloween (1978)

Finally! I’m so excited to talk about this movie. My Mother and I share a love for this movie; its both of our favorites. We have Michael Myers’s mask and outfit in our Halloween storage boxes. Speaking of Halloween, the movie takes place on October 31st. This movie isn’t cheesy nor is it a funny spin off like the title would have you believe. Halloween is about a serial murderer by the name of Michael Myers. His main goal is to kill off his entire family because it brought him inner peace. In the opening scene of the movie,  a younger Michael is seen murdering his older sister, Judith Myers, and then brought in by the police to be ultimately sent to a mental institution. The primary protagonist of the series is Laurie Strode, Michael’s unknown younger biological sister. When Laurie was only a baby, she was left out on the street, eventually being adopted by the Strode family. This protected her from Michael for the first decade of her life, but Michael soon found out about his abandoned sister and targeted her for his final victim.  Halloween was THE movie that set off the babysitter trope for other horror movies. His character wears a mechanic’s navy jump suit and a pale face mask with brown hair on the top. He uses a sharp kitchen knife for a weapon as well as whatever else he can find if he doesn’t have access to one. He walks in a slow and calm manner, including perfect posture as he does his killings. He also has incredible strength. Gosh I love this movie, and even the more recent add-ons to the series were just really cool! They even included the same actress for Laurie as well, Jamie Lee Curtis! All together, this is just my absolute favorite classic horror movie series! 

Scare Rating: 6/10. Don’t ask me to babysit your kids.

 

That’s the end of the list everyone! I appreciate your reading and waiting for this part! I hope you enjoyed it and feel free to leave a comment about your top ten or what you think about mine! Keep your eye out for my blogs in October! I’ll be revisiting horror themes! See ya!

Author: Locklyn Wilchynski

Locklyn Wilchynski (She/Her) is a poet, writer, and musician. She is also a senior literary arts student at Mississippi School of the Arts. Her writing has been published in Co-Lin Refractions Literary & Art Magazine and The Phoenix Literary Journal. She won two gold keys, a silver key, and two honorable mentions in the 2021 Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards. She has also won an honorable mention in the 2021 Ephemera Prize. She is a lover of all things crafted in darkness and finding the beauty within that. She believes that storytelling is one of the most powerful forms of communication to open up new conversations and ideas.

One thought on “Top Ten Classic Horror Movies and Why I Love Each One. Part Two.”

  1. Once again, absolutely going to be using this blog to guide my deep dive into horror movies. Your summaries of the plots of each movie has me planning to watch all of them.

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