I considered "Martyrs" to be very scary.

Signs from M. Night Shymalan, Paranormal Activity and The Orphanage are the scariest ones.

The Others scared the crap outta me in the theater. I was shaking with fear. I've watched it since, and it never gave me that reaction again.

My choice for scariest film that no one will else will find scary is "Audrey Rose". Something about the rising volume of the shrieks as the spirit of Audrey revisits her fiery death all the while screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" has freaked me out since the first time I saw it as a 10 year old.

Paranormal Activity, the ending to [REC] and The Shining

The Ring
The Others
The Shining
The Descent

For some reason Silent Hill (the first half, anyways) scared the hell out of me.

My scariest movies:

The Exorcist
Jaws
The Blair Witch Project
Halloween (original)
The Grudge
The Ring
Poltergeist

Rosemary´s Baby. Slow train to absolute terror. No jump cuts. No quick edits. No cheap tricks. Just the real horror crawling easily under your skin. The story is there, the characters, the innocents and the creepies. Show me a better scare show and I´ll bow.
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It´s a shame how few people born after 1970 have seen this masterpiece. The old movies are by far the better. The newer horror/terror movies are an absolute joke, depending on the sound and the fury and gory stuff, cheap tricks for quick emotions. Read: quick emotions don´t last long.
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I prefer the slow train to terror.

The Uninvited (1944)

It's a rteally old haunted house move that scared the hell out of me when I was 10 years old. No other movie has ever come close.

if you haven't seen it or wanna see it again i would suggest the sixth sense as an 8 year old boy it scared the crap out of me

I'm yet to be scared by a horror film, but I will say that Sidney Lumet's Fail-Safe scared the absolute Bejesus out of me when I first saw it. One Hour Photo was also quite effective the first time I saw it.

Two great recent movies that meet my criteria: The Innocents AND El labertino del fauno are about the only movies I remember. Sorry, but quality does not come in quantity.

Since you mentioned it, Carson Dyle, I really liked The Sixth Sense. It was an honorable attempt at terror. And made the grade. A depressing thought that the writer and director of that movie has not made a decent frame since. And I thought we had someone special there.

Anything made by Spanish people.

The Descent scared me very much. A perfect Halloween movie.
The Orphanage was also very scary, but a little to intellectual for Halloween.
Paranormal Activity was also great.
REC is also highly recommended. Taut, intense, and scary.

The scariest movie ever was "Glitter". Joke.

2nd scariest was Mothman Prophecies. No Joke.

The Strangers

I saw The Fourth Kind in the theater a few days ago…SCARY AS HELL!

I had goose bumps and watery eyes for 2 hours after the film. If the so-called "real footage" is actually real, then we got some freaky shit on our hands. Those poor bastards in Nome Alaska are gonna have every white owl shot on sight. If the footage isn't real then…well…it was still entertaining and worth the free.99 I paid to see it. It's gotta be number 1 on my list. I haven't been truly creeped out by a movie in a long time.

Now time to go see Paranormal Activity

I remember watching Signs for the first time and wetting myself and loving it at the same time. Favorite Shymalan film! The end scene in Paranormal Activity, other than that the movie wasnt that scary.

People watching SIGNS or or other recent movies have not seen real movies. I have not seen PARANORMAL but it seems interesting just by the fact that it was made by youngsters or amateurs. I like that.

The thing ratchets up the tension so much that when I firsat saw it at about 11, I was frightenes half to death. Nightmare on elm street 3: dream warriors is the first horror movie I ever remember seeing and its still one of my favorites ever (the ventriloquist scene!). My wife absolutely refuses to let me watch a single frame of the original "hellraiser" if she's even in the house, that's her vote. Clive barker is a demented man.

i saw "poltergeist" for the first time when i was fourteen years old and it scared the hell out of me.. and my dad used to scare the holy shat out of me with the beginning of "jagged edge". he'd jack up the volume and that scary ass music would go all through the house. my dad was a prick

@JFox: is the fourth kind all completley real because there is talk on the internet that none of the footage has yet to be proven true

Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Strangers
The Thing
Jaws

The Shining and The Exorcist. No other films have ever come close.

Paranormal Activity was a bit of a disappointment, but that was due to how much it was built up. That being said, it did still scare the shit out of me.
The ones I would include on my list would be The Ring, Blair Witch, Splinter (really well made, track it down if you can), The Grudge, Feast (not all that scary, but a great watch nonetheless), Drag Me to Hell, Quarantine, just too many to list

One I forgot to mention was Pontypool. Very cool take on the Zombie genre and like Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch, does a lot by showing little

The Orphanage
The Others
The Mist

Here are some of mine:

- Shutter (the 2004 original)
- Texas Chainsaw massacre (the oriignal)
- Saw (the first one)
- The Blair Witch Project (reinvented the horror genre)
- The Others
- Nightmare on Elm Street
- Rosemarys Baby
- The Omen (original)

I would have to say the first time I saw Signs I couldn't sleep very well for a few days but aliens totally give me the heebie jeebies which is why I am excited to see this movie The Fourth Kind. Also The Grudge when I saw that for the first time scared the living daylights out of me, but I believe that most horror movies (like the two I just mentioned) almost loose their edge after you've seen them for the first time but that's because the horror genre (or at least the good ones in it) rely a lot on suspense and not knowing what's going to happen next.

Drag Me to Hell
1408

scream
poltergeist
texas chainsaw massacre
bug
nightmare on elm street
fright night =)

Poltergeist 3 creeps me out. Mirrors and the folklore around Heather O'Rourke's death will do it. Bob Hope's Cat and the Canary gave me nightmares as a kid. That and The Peanut Butter Solution :) The Burbs!
@Will: I love Pontypool! Try listening to it with headphones on, a lot of fun. Looking forward to the sequel/alternate POV movie.

The Bad Seed! Little kids are freaky, murderous little kids are more freaky.

I'm quite spun-out at how people are saying The Shining… yeah it's a scary movie and brilliant at that, but it's not Kubrick's scariest… you remember them two scenes in Full Metal Jacket?… or the whole of 2001: A Space Odyseey?… yeah they've got my vote.

Kubrick is still the scariest film-maker cinema has ever seen.

Erasurehead by David Lynch always scares me when the baby is on screen or when that chicken starts squirming and bleeding.

… and can't go without mentioning Texas Chainsaw Massacre of course… "go fetch grandpa!"

The Thing and The Shining both of which I saw as a young teenager and they scared me to pieces.

More recently Blair Witch and then REC which I watched in a dark room last halloween and needed a stiff drink afterwards. Am really looking forward to see Paranormal Activity when it gets released in the UK

The ones that scared me were the original Nightmare on Elm Street and the Exorcist.

paranormal activity
the descent
orphan
alien
28 days later

Amenabar's "Tesis." I love "The Others," and it was very freaky the first time I watched it, but now I consider it to be a wonderful film and a great drama and very rewatchable (I've seen it 4 times now) but not that scary.

"Psycho." I totally didn't expect it to scare me because it was a B&W movie from the 60's, and I didn't think any mainstream audience before the 70's could handle a movie that would scare me, but I was very wrong. I knew Hitchcock was a great director, but "Rear Window" was exciting, not scary. Meanwhile, Psycho was literally scary!

"Paranormal Activity." The only time I screamed in a theater.

The first time I saw "Saw," the part with the man in the girl's bedroom freaked me out. As did the girl climbing out of the TV in "The Ring." But those don't scare me anymore.

Otherwise, I'm really running up short with movies that scare me. I never go see a movie to be scared, simply because I know there isn't much chance it'll scare me. However, when I am scared by a movie, I am surprised and gratified.

Oh, and whoever says, "An Inconvenient Truth" or some other such movie scared them… haha, you're not funny. We don't mean THAT kind of scary, and whenever we say "What are the Scariest Movies?" we NEVER mean that kind of scary.

The Strangers
Paranormal Activity
Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors

The first two genuinely scare me, the third is the first movie to ever scare me…granted i was six when i first watched NoES. But it will always have a special place in my heart.

@raveman2001: I thought I was the only one to have been creeped out by Silent Hill! Especially since I'm almost totally desensitised to computer game violence/ video nasties.

Being a caver and knowing the feeling of claustraphobia and all-encompassing darkness, I'd nominate the first half of the Descent – as soon as the white men-monsters turn up I breath a sigh of relief as it turns into another (albeit higher-quality) monster romp.

And having seen Repossessed first, The Exorcist was one of the funniest things I've ever watched!

Dante's Peak. scariest movie ever i saw it when i was like 5. traumatized me

The Exorcist
Paranormal Activity
The Blair Witch Project
Pet Cemetery
The Entity

I have to agree with you two about SILENT HILL- did not expect it to be what it was, which is probably why it was very scary and very good- by far the best video game adaptation. Living Near Salem,MA- I can attest to some of the things that happened in that movie were very accurate during the Salem witch trials. For sure a surprise scare for anyone who wants to pick it up!

Exorcist
The Shining
Jaws
The Descent
Silent Hill

HOUSE OF WAX (1953 3D)
JEEPERS CREEPERS
PSYCHO (1960)

I agree with a lot of films listed here, but one that is definitely missing is "The Changeling" with George C. Scott.

For my money, it's the scariest movie ever made.

Pure scares. Pure terror and not the jump out at the screen tween scream texters in the theater crap, I find these films fulfilling in the true horror sense…

1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The original one. Almost a documentary it was so lo-fi and real. Scary in the most visceral way.

2. The Shining. I remember the opening music scared the hell out of me. A haunting movie that slowly ratchets up the terror.

3. Jaws. Jump out of your seat terror. Still won't swim in the ocean because of it.

4. The Exorcist. These Post-Scream children don't understand what that film was like when it actually came out. Scary as hell.

5. Halloween/The Thing/The Fog. John Carpenter classics. All three should be watched in a row on halloween night. As dated as they are, they still hold true to the simple and visceral nature of our most primal fears.

Hey, black hoody & affliction t-shirt wearin' mall playaz…stop texting in the theater. You are not important or cool. You are a fake sociopath wannabe with a bright future at Best Buy. Now go get my dvd and make it quick, bitch.

1. Stand by me

i can't stand this movie, it scares the hell out of me

2. Sleepwalkers

i hate that movie for one particular reason, that song "Sleepwalk", i can't stand that song, it scares me to death

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is difficult for me to watch because it seems so real. I think "It" is the reason why I'm afraid of clowns and "Jaws" is why I'm afraid of open water. I'd probably have more, but I don't really watch horror movies. 'Tis the season though and this list provides some good suggestions.

Ils (Them) scared the crap out of me, twice. Quarantine is pretty freaky. And Let the Right One In is undoubtedly one of the best vampire movies of all time. I'm still trying to expand my horror base. Hoping to watch Halloween (Carpenter), The Shining, The Descent, and a few others in the near future.

I'll have to say that i don't get scared very easily with horror movies as an adult, But here is a list of recent movies, that scared me or at least gave me the creeps. Then i'll list movies that I just find overall scary to watch alone in the dark.

Recent movies:
1. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and say it's the scariest movie ever, but it is a very effective movie… at being creepy and getting to your head about all the noises you hear ini your home and therefore giving you the "heebie jeebies". It got me to jump and get that frightened "oh shit" feeling in my gut quite a few times. It's definitely works being low budget and with no big stars and the is a great entry in the "found footage" genre .

2. THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE: I saw this movie before going to work the grave yard shift at the the job i had the time. I still can't watch that movie by myself without getting creeped out.

3. THE RING. Ok, so the whole movie was executed very well and wasn't necessarily scary to me (creepy imagery = awesome)… until the girl came out of the TV. I wasn't expecting that at all and as soon as that scene happened I was big ball of nerves and on the verge of hyperventilating. To this day i still get goosebumps when I watch that scene.

4. THE MIST. This one creeps me out because I'm not a fan of bugs and fog has always freaked me out to some degree, (in fact about 12 years ago me and some friends we're driving down a fairly busy street late at night, also a very foggy night and out of no where this lady jumped out of the fog and almost in front of the car trying to hitch a ride, the only reason we even saw her and just missed hitting her was because she was silhouetted by a street light) but what scares me most about the movie is what happens to the people trapped in the store… very accurate depiction of humanity, unfortunately. If you haven't seen it, get the special edition DVD and watch the black & white version… it ups the scare factor by 11.

5. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. I saw this way before the hoop-a-la and it being let out that it was fake. Though part of me thought it couldn't have been real at the time, it still scared the shit out me to think that it may have happened.

Ok, so that doesn't for the "recent" movies. Here is a list of movies I've found (and still find) scary because I was a kid when I saw them

1. THE SHINING. I can't anything about this film that hasn't already been said. But i do get a chill down my spine when i hear the creepy twin little girls say "Come and play with us Danny.", because that is my name and those girls (to me) are one of the scariest things about that movie. OH! and the old naked lady in the bath tub that comes after Jack.

2. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (original). This movie still freaks me out and it's due to the whole claustrophobia aspect to it and the almost documentary way it was filmed gave it a very crazy sense of realism to me

3. AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. Yes i realize this movie is a horror/comedy, but the sound of the wolf howling in the distance still gives the chills and the POV shots from the wolf of the scared victims always get me.

4. POLTERGIEST. For years every time i watched this movie, when it got to the part where Heather Clark gets sucked into the TV, the TV i was watching would mysteriously turn off… I shit you not, this happened on quite a few occasions and on quite a few different TV's. So I ruled out the accidental setting of the timer function some TV's have right away. Still don't know why that seemed to happen. adds a little bit to the movie viewing experience.

5. THE LADY IN WHITE. I have to admit i've seen this movie a couple times since i was kid and it's not nearly as scary as i remember it being, but as a kid i couldn't watch that movie. In fact i remember screaming in the theatre when i saw it originally.

6. CANDYMAN. Because of the bees and the "repeating the name of a killer in the mirror" mythology.

7. THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (the remake). Let me clarify. I wasn't a kid when i saw this and the movie itself isn't that scary. BUT, the way they do the ghosts, that creepy fast motion and the make up… and the fact it's supposed to in an old mental institution… those elements scare me about the movie.

Theses last few movies, aren't scary (at least to me), but have scary scenes that still make me cringe.

1. SIGNS. The scene with the alien hand in the basement and the Home Video at the Japanese kids birthday party
2. PEOPLE UNDER THE STARES. The people under the stairs freaked me out as a kid.
3. THE OTHERS. The scene with the old lady looking in the closet
4. THE SIXTH SENSE. When Cole sees the "battered wife" ghost, the "hanging" ghosts in the school and the "puking girl" ghost in his fort.
5. DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE. The goddam Banshee! I know it's a Disney movie! But that banshee gave me nightmares.

Sorry about the typos in my above post, i tried to catch them as i was typing it all out, but it appears i didn't catch them all.. in my defense though i was out partying most of the night before sitting down to write this. HA HA HA HA

any movie featuring Eddie Murphy in a fat suit.

I saw Paranormal last night and after the ending the light's stayed off for about a minute and nobody moved untill the lights were turned on.

Movies don't scare me.

I saw "The Shining" the other day, and at no point was I ever scared. I just didn't find it scary.

Return to Oz. One of the most frightening movies ever. The Wheelers! The witch with the hallway of heads! The crazy electro-therapy!

P.s. This is a serious suggestion.

Nobody's done a write-up on ALIEN here?????? I saw that in a cinema when I was 17, was shaking all through the first half. Saw DAWN OF THE DEAD in a cinema a couple of months later and was petrified through the first half. Saw POLTERGEIST a few years later when it first came out and jumped out of my seat.

Let's face it, the scariest movies are when you were a kid (seeing the original THE FLY, and FORBIDDEN PLANET on TV scared the bejesus out of me).

THE EXORCIST – still won't watch it again.
30 DAYS OF NIGHT – cause it's hard to find a serious vampire flick.
SPLINTER – freaked me out.

@Justin Casey: Yeah, I've read the rumors that the "real" footage in The Fourth Kind is fake. It very well could be. The problem is how would anybody really prove it. You already have actors saying that it is "real" and even if the director made public statements that the footage was tested by nonaffiliated "experts" and they said it was real, people would still speculate. We'll probably never know for sure and besides, it's more likely to be proven fake someday due to someone slipping up and admitting it but as the movie says "It's up to you to decide…"

Id have to say the first Grudge.
That movie had me paranoid for 2 weeks and I actually went to see it twice and it still scared me at the same parts of the movie.

The first Childs Play was pretty scary too. Chucky was pretty scary before they started turning him into a sideshow freak!

Paranormal Activity wasnt really that scary, more like a little disturbing especially if you live alone or if you believe in that kinda stuff.

I think the "scariness" of a movie has a lot to do with the hype leading up to the viewing. I typically don't find most of the "scary" movies today to be scary, and I blame a lot of that on today's soceity – so much is shown in trailers and ads, that there isn't much left to the imaginiation. We're told so often that a film is scary, by the time we get to the theater the "suspense factor" has worn off.

However, there have been some throughout the years that have given me some chills…

1. Alien – A movie that, regardless of the number of times I watch it, I still get tense during the build-up of the the chest explosion, the ship search and the airshaft search. By far, the scariest movie I've ever seen.
2. Jaws – I think it's the reality issue that still gives me the chills. The mechanical shark doesn't scare me, but the thought of going into the ocean and the possibility that a Great White could attack me just keeps the suspense – no matter how many times I've seen it.
3. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original) – It's the low budget vision that gave it such scary "credibility."
4. Signs – Has some great build-up that keeps you at the edge of your seat.
5. The Excorcist – A classic great thriller. A subject that can't be completely dismissed (by all) which can make for a great suspense/horror.

Alien traumatized me when I saw for the first time, I was 12 and saw it on TV, I couldn't sleep for two nights, and 'till this day (I'm 35) still have a sensation when I see it, I skip it when I find it on cable, but I always ended up watching it and getting scared again.

I haven't seen Paranormal Activity, but I heard of people saying that The Blair Witch Project was better, I saw TBWP at a midnight show when it opened, and did nothing, absolutely nothing for me, so I don't know about all the hoopla about PA.

@bounds: Love it, love you!! Damn texters!! I do get free passes because of you talkin' in the back idiots!! Love the movies you picked!!

Paranormal Activity
8mm–Sorry but snuff movies are a bit much!
American Werewolf in London–was little when i watched it, still haven't made it to the end!!
IT–Damn clowns!!
Poltergeist–best series of movies…Love watching it!!
Pontypool was kinda creepy
Pet Cemetery–that damn kid creeps me the hell out!!

Would love to see Rosemary's Baby…but can't find a good copy!!
Also excited about Rec, and Martyrs….:)

signs was really the first movie that legitimately freaked me out. I was probably 10 when I went to see it. the alien at the kids party and when it's on the roof watching mel gibson sleep really got to me. I definitely lost some sleep over it. Music really adds to the movie.

Scariest movie for my heart and brains is not a true horror, but a psycho-apocaliptic-drama:
M I R A C L E M I L E.
Go find it now!!!

And a few others:

WOLF CREEK, sick to the bone.

THE RUINS, very wild, creepy and disgusting.

28 WEEKS LATER, involving members of family in zombie story, I think that is the main reason for my stomach ill.

The Descent, oh my god, THE DESCENT, I got a phobia.

ANTICHRIST is preety much ugliest movie on planet.

DAWN OF THE DEAD from 2004. is fantastic.