Essential
Horror Movies

Halloween
– 1978 Probably the BEST horror movie. Not too much gore,
but lots of dark and eerie settings.
Dawn
of the Dead – 1979 The new remake of Dawn
of the Dead (2004) is out now. This 1979 version rules;
the new version is not very good. Typical of new horror movies
– Metal soundtrack and ‘modern film effects’.
Halloween
II – 1981 Continues where the 1st one left off. Great!
Day
of the Dead – 1985 Third in the ‘of the dead’ series:
Night of the Living Dead, and then Dawn of the Dead. HIGHLY
RECOMMENDED
Halloween
IV – 1988 Forget Part III, it wasn’t really part of this
series – Part 4 has even more eerie late october settings.

City
of the Living Dead – 1983 Zombies and Gore. This is pretty
old and has very little plot. Not scary either. The cover
image look cool though. Not scary!
Halloween
H20 -1998 Really good except that there is a rap star
in the movie. What’s up with that?? Otherwise a prefect sequal.
Zombie
– 1980 Yeah, zombies rule! Not too bad, not too good either.
You won’t be on the edge of your seat watching this – zombies
are cool, but there is nothing to make you jump.
Sleepaway
Camp – 1983 Actually, this belongs in the VERY unessentail
horror movie list. Not sure why so many people like this one
– not scary!
Suspiria
– 1977 Eerie and freaky! Not a scary high-paced movie. Cool
to watch, once, but nothing that makes you really scared.
Slow.
The
Beyond – 1983 Slow horror gore.
Nightmare
on Elm Street – 1984 Probably the 3rd best in the long
running horror sequals (Halloween and Friday the 13th)
Friday
the 13th, Part 1 – 1980 The Essential slasher film!
Black
Christmas – 1974 Old, not too scary, but was probably
one of the scariest movies in the 70′s.
Friday
the 13th, Part 2 – 1981 Similar to the Halloween sequal
in that it maintains the same quality.
Evil
Dead – 1983 Evil Dead II isn’t as good as the first one
– the third one, ‘Army of Darkness’, is even less scary.
Friday
the 13th: Jason Lives – 1986 Most of the other sequals
were not that good – this one has high quality picture and
a pretty good story. The beginning is awesome!
My
Bloody Valentine – 1981 Another UNESSENTIAL horror movie.
Not sure why I see this on other horror lists. Bad ‘made for
TV’ quality style. Low impact ‘scare’. Seems like it would
be good – it aint!