I’ve never been one to enjoy scary movies. After I watched the first episode of “Stranger Things,” I had nightmares about it for an entire year. But when the new friends I’d made during the first semester of my freshman year wanted to watch a scary movie, I obviously couldn’t say no.
When they saw my reactions to that scary movie, they thought it was so funny that they continued to choose more scary movies for us all to watch. My FOMO (fear of missing out) was so bad that I would stay up with them until 2 a.m. with my shoulders up to my ears and a blanket held just below my eyes. They decided that the whole month of October would be “Scary Movie Month,” so we watched a scary movie every single night.Â
Despite the minimal amount of sleep I got last October, not only did I get used to watching horror movies, but I can confidently say that now, I actually enjoy them. Now that we have almost completed our second annual Scary Movie Month, I believe I’m qualified to share this list of some of the scariest movies you can watch this upcoming Halloween.Â
1. “Talk to Me” (2022)
We’re starting off strong with “Talk to Me,” which is absolutely the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. When a group of teenagers come to possess a hand that allows them to interact with the dead, they, for some reason, decide to make it their party trick. They take turns holding the hand and letting different spirits enter their bodies while everyone else watches to see what the spirit makes the person do. They continue all night until, finally, the wrong person gets possessed by the wrong spirit, and everything goes horribly wrong.
This was one of the first movies my friends and I watched this October, and we immediately knew it was going to be impossible to top it. The violence was hard to watch and the gore made my stomach hurt. The plot is twisting and unpredictable, and as the movie progresses, it becomes impossible to decipher what’s real from what’s just going on in the protagonist’s head. In addition, the suspense is so high that at one point, I screamed when my friends’ roommate opened the door to the dorm (it was so embarrassing).
2. “Hereditary” (2018)
Before watching “Talk to Me,” “Hereditary” was the scariest movie I had ever seen. We watched this one last October and it freaked me out so much that, of course, my friends decided to watch it twice. “Hereditary” is about a family who is grieving the loss of their grandmother, and after another pretty disturbing death occurs, they start to learn the dark secrets of their family’s past. The actors in this movie do a phenomenal job of depicting grief and the different ways humans process traumatic events. The whole plot is filled with tension, and because nothing is ever really outright explained, it leaves you asking questions long after the movie is over.Â
3. “Evil Dead Rise” (2023)
If you decide to watch this film, make sure you don’t need to take an elevator to get home afterward. “Evil Dead Rise” is about a single mom and her sister reuniting shortly before they are trapped in their apartment by a murderous demon. The demon possesses members of the family and they have to fight it to escape.
I would say that this movie is more intense than suspenseful. It’s filled with action and gore that doesn’t ever really stop once it starts. What makes this movie different from most other horror films surrounding the supernatural is that it takes place in the present day inside a Los Angeles apartment rather than an old house in the middle of nowhere. The idea that the plot takes place in our lifetime and within a more relatable setting makes “Evil Dead Rise” all the more terrifying.Â
4. “Bones and All” (2022)
I love TimothĂ©e Chalamet, but I just can’t look at him the same after how queasy this movie made me. “Bones and All” begins with introducing Maren, a young woman who is kicked out of her home for being a cannibal. She’s lost and unsure where she fits into society until she meets Lee, a young man who happens to be going through the exact same thing. As the pair navigates love and life, life and love, their unusual circumstances secure this movie a spot on this list.
My friends and I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into at 2 p.m. on a random Sunday when we decided to watch this movie. It was a TimothĂ©e Chalamet movie I hadn’t watched yet, so I insisted on choosing it. As you can imagine, “Bones and All” is definitely the most unsettling film you will ever see. The whole concept is just so disturbing that it’s impossible to predict what will happen next. It can be hard for the audience to formulate opinions about the protagonists because, even though they do horrible things, the story comes from their perspective, so the events are presented with a little bias.
Another cannibal like Maren, Sully, on the other hand, is not hard to read. He’s one of the creepiest characters I’ve seen in a movie. I can confidently say that you will not want to be eating popcorn while watching this film.
5. “Haunt” (2019)
Even though the actual storyline of “Haunt” is a little clichĂ©, it’s still one of the scariest movies I’ve seen so far. It’s about a group of friends who leave a Halloween party early to visit a haunted house. They find a random house on the side of the road, and even though it seems a little fishy, they decide to go in anyway. At first, it just seems like they accidentally found the world’s best haunted house, but later, they realize that they might not ever leave.
The aspects of this movie that impressed me the most were the costume design and makeup. The outfits and masks that the people running the haunted house were wearing made me feel so uneasy, and then when they revealed what was underneath their masks, I actually screamed. I genuinely had to look away during some scenes when the characters were speaking solely because their appearances made me so uncomfortable. There’s a lot of suspense throughout the whole movie, and when the characters split up, the movie flashes from action scene to action scene, not giving viewers any time to recuperate.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s a little cliche, and the acting and ending were nothing groundbreaking; however, it was still scary, and if you’re looking for a simple movie that screams Halloween, it’s perfect.
Other Scary Movies
Some of my other favorite scary movies include “The Conjuring” series, “The Platform,” “Barbarian” and “Smile.” There are a ton of scary movies I still need to watch that I have on a watchlist, some of which include “Cuckoo,” “Longlegs,” the “Terrifier” series and “The Substance.”