Five Scary Movies To Keep You Up At Night

Hundreds of horror movies are made every year, but true scare-your-pants-off horror is increasingly hard to find. Many horror movies are scary to watch, but after the credits roll, the nightmare ends, and you can rest easy, knowing that, yes, The Descent was scary, but there’s really no need to fear. After all, you won’t be spelunking in any unmapped caves in the Appalachian Mountains any time soon.
There are a few movies, however, where the horror sticks with you long after the DVD is back in the box. You won’t be able to navigate your house without constantly looking behind you! These five movies will have you avoiding the basement at all costs, jumping at every tiny noise and checking behind the shower curtain before you can bring yourself to brush your teeth!

1. The “Paranormal Activity” Movies –

   Although the scariness of these movies has been debated, there are countless reasons why Paranormal Activity is the cruelest series of them all. Not only is the setting always the victims’ homes—making your home suddenly seem like your own private death trap—but the premise of the haunting is that it follows the victims wherever they go. In other words, there’s no escape from the horror. After watching these movies, where the hauntings start small and culminate in bone-crunching chaos, every out-of-place item in your own home will suddenly start to seem like the beginning of the end. Fortunately there’s always that secret weapon from childhood; nothing bad can get you when you’re under the covers, right?
   Wrong. In the very first film of the so-far trilogy, the main character, Katie, is ripped violently out of her cozy bed by a demon, and dragged screaming away from her horrified husband. So forget that safe feeling of being at home nestled under your cozy blankets. To the evil forces in Paranormal Activity, that just makes you a human burrito!

2. “The Ring” Movies –

   Widely known to have caused mass hysteria among pre-teens at the time of its release, The Ring is another set of movies that turns any home-sweet-home into a living nightmare. Every TV screen in your house will suddenly become the opening to a portal of pure evil, and every VHS tape in your basement will now hold the potential to be a seven-day harbinger of agonizing death! The killer video tape in the film haunts the innocent movie-watcher late into the night with disturbing images of dismembered fingers wiggling in a box and a ten foot monster bug, among other more traumatizing visions.If you’re looking forward to waking up in the morning no longer afraid, you can forget about it; this movie will keep you jumping at every noise for seven days straight—the number of torture filled days it takes for the tape in the film to kill its victims!

3. “The Shining” –

   This classic film version of the novel by the infamous Stephen King, The Shining is a movie that almost everyone has seen, and if you haven’t, it’s about time. It doesn’t get much creepier than being snowed-in at an ancient, sprawling, empty hotel with a violent murderous history. This movie will have the viewer terrified that two little dead girls are waiting for them around every corner, and a naked, decomposing old woman is waiting to prey on them in the shower.The scariest thing about this movie is that checking behind you and seeing that no one’s there won’t make you feel any safer; these terrifying visions happen in an instant, so you never know when a couple of bloody little twins will ask you to go play with them, or when you’ll have a slimy, handsy dead friend when you visit the bathroom alone!

4. “Dead Silence” –

   One of the creepiest horror mysteries out there, Dead Silence manages to scare the pants off any audience with a theme that seems almost silly at first—    puppets! To be more specific, we’re talking about horrifyingly creepy ventriloquist dummies, here. The true terror of this movie, however, doesn’t lie with the dummies themselves, but with an old wives’ tale told by a small and somber town: “Beware the stare of Mary Shaw, she had no children – only dolls; and if you see her in your dreams, be sure you never, ever scream.” As the legend says, she will haunt the victims’ most terrifying nightmares, seeking to claim them and, should a victim scream at the sight of her, she will cut out their tongue, killing them in both the dream and real life.Every scene of this movie is set in eerie, dark locations, the most horrifying of which are saved for the very end, with a shocking and disturbing twist no viewer will ever see coming. The thought of being attacked in a dream, where the victim would be utterly helpless, is terrifying—but even scarier is knowing that doom will come when the victim is simply weak and succumbs to instinct… but who can stifle an instinct as uncontrollable as a small, frightened scream?

5. “The Exorcist” –

   Finally, a film that has terrified viewers since its release, on a deep and fundamental level, The Exorcist is a classic that cannot be missed. For a non-    religious audience, the disturbing content alone is enough to scar a person for life, but for viewers that believe deeply in Christian-based religions, this film could be a true story. After all, a possession could happen any day of the week as a result of something as simple as playing with a Ouija board. This is the innocent mistake the young main character, Reagan, unknowingly makes. After talking to a friendly spirit she calls “Captain Howdy,” Reagan is taken over by demonic forces, with absolutely horrifying results.With super human abilities and perverted and unsettling new interests, Reagan quickly becomes the stuff of nightmares. Her loving mother is powerless     to stop it until a couple of exorcists arrive, but they soon find themselves wishing they had just stayed home. Make sure to rent the uncut version of this masterpiece that includes horrific extended scenes that will shake every viewer to the core. When the horror on the screen seems like a real life possibility, it’s hard to ignore the terror creeping deep into your chest.

When it comes to horror movies, the scariest are the ones that seem to take away all illusion of safety the viewer possesses. Whether this be the security of one’s own home, or the safety of being under the covers snug and tight—whether you take for granted that a simple video tape or TV screen is just a silly plastic box, or that a Ouija board is just a piece of painted cardboard—after these chillers, you’ll have no courage left to muster for that midnight trip to the bathroom!