10 Fun & Fearsome Fright Flicks

What's your favorite movie to pop in for Halloween? What scares you most? Narrowing down a list to just 10 movies inevitably stirs debate, but there's no question that each film in this rogue's gallery will elicit a sense of fear and fun to get you into the Halloween spirit!

Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece is now over 50 years old, and while perhaps tame by today's standards, it still delivers with sheer atmosphere, that iconic shower scene and the swinging-bulb reveal of "Mother" in the end. Groundbreaking in its day, the film stars Janet Leigh as a woman on the run who becomes an unsuspecting victim when she checks into the remote Bates Motel, the home of twisted psychopath Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins).

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John Carpenter's 1978 edge-of-your-seat thriller ushered in a whole wave of slasher films in the late '70s and early '80s, cleverly casting Psycho star Janet Leigh's daughter Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, a prudish babysitter who must battle the seemingly unstoppable Michael Myers, who "came home" after years locked in a mental institution. From the hypnotic theme song to Myers' distorted William Shatner mask, Halloween is a perennial horror classic.

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Director William Friedkin's frightening and controversial 1973 film remains the horror standard that all other possession films are compared to, especially with the extended director's cut in 2000 that restored that spooky "spider-walk" scene. Linda Blair plays young Regan McNeil, the daughter of an actress (Ellen Burstyn) whose strange behavior soon reveals itself to be a full-fledged demonic possession. Father Karris (Jason Miller) and Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) are recruited to perform an exorcism on the girl, resulting in a lot of levitation, a lot of cursing, a lot of mind games and a lot of pea-soup puke.

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Stanley Kubrick's 1980 masterpiece of modern horror still chills to the bone, especially when little Danny Torrance (Danny Lloyd) spouts "Redrum" and sees those creepy twins in the hallway, beckoning to "Come and play with us." Based on Stephen King's novel, the story follows Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall as they move in to the remote Overlook Hotel to be the winter caretakers. A perfect opportunity for Jack to write his novel, he gradually becomes distant and gets cabin fever, falls off the wagon -- courtesy of the ghostly bartender Lloyd, types "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" over and over and over and then picks up an axe to cure his troubles.

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This 1981 classic by director John Landis broke new ground, mixing horror with comedy and never-before-seen lycanthrope transformations and makeup effects that not only earned Rick Baker his first Academy Award, but also helped generate a brand-new category: Outstanding Achievement in Makeup. David Naughton and Griffin Dunne play buddies backpacking through Europe who are attacked by a werewolf on the British moors. David wakes up in a London hospital, while Griffin wakes up dead – but that doesn't stop him from haunting his pal and warning him of the impending full moon. Will David sprout fangs and run about on all fours, or is it all in his mind?

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The perfect fright flick for all ages, this 1948 gem features funnymen Bud Abbott and Lou Costello facing off against the holy trinity of classic Universal Monsters: Dracula, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein's Monster. With tongues firmly in cheek, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. reprise their most famous creature-feature roles opposite Abbott and Costello as baggage clerks who bungle the receipt of two crates belonging to McDougal's House of Horrors museum. The crates contain two of the monsters, and once unleashed, a dastardly plot involving the theft of Costello's brain is revealed!

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London is overrun with bloodthirsty zombies, but will slacker flatmates Shaun (Simon Pegg) and Ed (Nick Frost) even notice? This clever satire of George Romero's enduring zombie movies and other cult flicks follows the duo's grand scheme to rescue Shaun's mom and ex-girlfriend, take them to the local pub, "hole up, have a cup of tea and wait for this whole thing to blow over." The film made Simon Pegg (Star Trek) a stateside star, enviably streamlined the horror-comedy genre, and turned the cricket bat into a choice anti-zombie weapon.

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Forget the remake; Tobe Hooper's original 1974 shocker remains one of the most influential and scariest experiences committed to film. Pitched as a true story (although it's not), the plot follows a group of Texas teens who stumble upon a creepy old house inhabited by a deadly and deranged family. Controversial and accused of crass exploitation, Chain Saw is partially inspired by the behavior of true-life serial killer Ed Gein, namely the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface's (Gunnar Hansen) affinity for wearing a mask made of stitched human flesh. Good times!

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Tim Burton mined his fervor for the classic Hammer Horror films as inspiration for this atmospheric take on Washington Irving's vintage Halloween tale. Johnny Depp plays Ichabod Crane as a curious city police constable sent upstate to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of murders. Tangling with local townsfolk and refusing to believe in "ghouls and goblins," Crane soon finds himself confronted with a local conspiracy – and an all-too-real Headless Horseman (Christopher Walken).

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Oscar winner Francis Ford Coppola gets film-school experimental with Bram Stoker's legendary vampire tale and delivers a triumph in costume, make-up and production design. Gary Oldman plays the Count, who travels from his Transylvanian castle to turn-of-the-century London to pursue Mina (Winona Ryder), whom he believes is the reincarnation of his wife from over 400 years ago. Standing in his way are Mina's fiancé Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) and Prof. Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins), ready with a crucifix and a fistful of garlic.

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