“Poltergeist” (1982)
“They’re Here!” Poltergeist, directed by Tobe Hooper (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”) simmers as a precocious creep show that managed to entrench several tropes within the horror genre. Hooper, an anxiety-inducing extraordinaire, alongside the whimsical-minded Steven Spielberg, fabricate a tale rich in paranormal and psychological dread while perfectly snapshotting the typical American family battling with something beyond fathomability. Although not the usual bloody, jump-scaring horror flick, ‘Poltergeist’ drives its terror through a conceptually eerie atmosphere that adorns the haunted-house storyline to a never-before-seen level of style, dexterity and deranged imagination. Audiences are presented with a picturesque family living carefree in the suburbs, that is until unforeseen spirits interject their amenity by tormenting their residence and sucking their youngest daughter into a paranormal portal. Miraculously for its age, ‘Poltergeist’ thrashes an unrelenting slew of scares to a level many horror films today cannot match; it possesses an inherent discreteness about its style that made it such an authentic and fresh horror picture during the ‘80s, yet still appeals to audiences today.
“The Haunting” (1963)
Appraised by Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg to be the scariest movie ever made, Robert Wise drew on his early work with producer Val Lewton to make a film where the power of suggestion is not just in the direction, a masterclass of sound and shadow, but also ingrained into the plot itself. Diverting from the conventionally supernatural source material,Wise respun the story as a study of mental disintegration. Julie Harris’ timid spinster Eleanor may well be both victim and antagonist, which means Richard Johnson’s quartet of amateurs ‘researching’ evil old Hill House effectively conjure the haunting into existence with the power of their imagination. Eleanor’s interior monologue renders the overt physical signs of the supernatural, such as the justly famous ‘breathing door’ special effect, possible symptoms of her psychological breakdown. The ambiguous stance makes it an anomaly on this list. There may not be a ghost at all (a conceit entirely ditched by Jan de Bont’s crass CGI polluted 1999 remake), the ‘evil’ of the house a myth perpetuated by coincidence and gossip over the years. As in life and death, the scariest thought of all is that we just don’t know.
“Pulse” (2001)
Easily the most disturbingly twitchy of the technological anxiety sub-genre that surfaced at the top of the millennium is Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Pulse” is a modern chilly classic. Long forgotten by the ungrateful Weinsteins in favor of their dreadful Kristen Bell-starring remake, Kurosawa’s original centers on two loosely connected stories that see souls of the dead beginning to invade the physical world through the internet. It sounds extremely silly, but Kurosawa produces something deeply sad and soul-shuddering, carefully curating an creepy mood to completely unnerve. Also exploring the disconnected nature of internet life in a way that doesn’t come across as wagging its stern fingers at the kids. By the apocalyptic finale, you’ll be ready to cut your broadband cables and set them on fire.
“The Orphanage” (2007)
Behind the conscientious storytelling of director J.A. Bayona and Guillermo Del Toro’s unmistakable touch of absurdity, ‘The Orphanage’ subverted its marketed expectations of terror and wound up personifying a thriller with an aching heart at its center. This supernatural spine-chiller is a rare breed of horror — one that wrenches out as much tear-jerking emotion out of a ghostly rag as it does fear by excavating empathy and anguish from its encounters with spirits of abused, neglected children. Aside from being scared, the viewer will also weep at the film’s lurking tragedy. Elegantly shot and paced, ‘The Orphanage’ is an awe-inspiring snapshot of horrific grief accented by arresting trepidation and dismay that stays clear from ghost-story banality; it manages to offer a riveting and intensely creeping hand to a claustrophobic experience worthy of mention. ‘The Orphanage’ subdues cheap thrills and jump scares, leaving a lot of the anxiety up to the viewer’s imagination, because witnessing a ghost for what it isn’t rather than what it is, seems more terrifying.
“The Shining” (1980)
In Stanley Kubrick’s seminal “The Shining”, the ghosts and the frights that they procure aren’t that of a typical ghost story. Instead the spirits linger in the walls of the hotel and inspire a previously dormant unhinged anger in Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance to be unleashed upon his family. The ghosts of the deceased – many brutally murdered- appear like apparitions, their souls continuing to decay in bathtubs or roam the halls aimlessly, untethered to any world here or beyond. The terror doesn’t lie in the abundance of gore or sheer shock value but in how insidious the nature of these ghosts are, coming and going with blink and you miss it frequency (like the iconic dog costume), or lingering in the corner of your eye. It’s the type of horror film that makes you do double takes when something catches your own eye, or avert your gaze when passing darkened doorways or windows, wary of what may be awaiting you. Based on Stephen King’s novel, the story truly is so haunting because beyond the madness of the hotel itself and the unpleasantries that reside there, the real horror is Jack himself, a ticking time bomb who is set off right when things are amiss.