My All-Time Favourite Spine-Tinglers (Part 2)...

The unofficial “Halloween weekend” might be almost over, but the scariest night of the year is still yet to come. So as promised, here’s the list that completes my top ten scariest horror films of all time. After reading, you might want to stay well away from caves, forests, trick or treaters in general, and probably your own house. Might just be best to stay under the covers and not move until Wednesday then…

6. Halloween 2 (2009)

Following the events of Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake of the 1978 original, Halloween 2 sees survivor Laurie Strode make the shocking discovery that brutal maniac Michael Myers – now presumed dead - is her brother. But, of course, Myers is anything but dead, when he makes new and violent efforts to reunite himself with his sister on Halloween once again. On first glance, the film brings nothing to the Myers family dinner, seemingly offering no more than a macabre sequence of gratuitously-violent kills, but Zombie’s reboot of the 1981 sequel is, perhaps on further viewings, a horribly-bleak nightmare that, like its 2007 predecessor, renders the silent, masked killing machine a towering force of anything but nature, and is as intimidating as it is chilling. 

7. The Descent (2005)

After losing her daughter and husband in a crash, Sarah’s friends take her potholing in North Carolina to take her mind off things. When they become lost in the dark, though, they realise that they’re actually in an uncatalogued cave system. But that’s the least of their problems, when humanoid predators – which, like bats, rely only on sound to navigate and hunt – emerge and unleash unforgivingly-brutal terror on the group. Combining primal fear and hyper-tense claustrophobia, The Descent is a taught and terrifying rollercoaster ride through hell. And if the subterranean carnivores aren’t enough to haunt your dreams, then watching the film’s characters painfully-squeeze their bodies through impossibly-narrow cavities is. This isn’t just one of the finest British horror films, but one of the finest in the genre, period.

8. Blair Witch (2016)

When footage emerges from the Black Hills Forest that suggests Heather Donahue – a documentarian who went missing there in 1996 - may still be alive, her brother, James, rounds up his friends and heads there to find her. But despite a local couple’s warnings against spending the night because of the infamous legend of the malevolent Blair Witch, the group head deeper into the woods and into the grasp of a powerful, unseen force. Blair Witch might lack the surreal sense of authenticity of the original, but it still manages to conjure up some fresh new nightmares by not only bending the rules of the palm-sweating mythos itself, but those which rendered the first film so effective, making for some haunting frames that you’ll never be able to unsee. 

9. Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

In 1988, long before the events of the original film, young couple Kristi and Dennis experience strange occurrences in their home, which coincide with one of their two daughters’ sudden obsession with an imaginary friend known as “Toby.” The girls, Katie and Kristi, are the younger counterparts of the film series’ present-time victims, and so begins the terrifying activity and where it all started. The fount-footage genre rarely makes for a solid scare, especially in the case of the now-exhausted Paranormal Activity series, but like the original, the threequel-prequel doesn’t rely on games consoles, Skype, mobile phones and actual ghost cameras to frighten you to the point of not wanting to live in your own house. Instead, there’s just the one camera and its trembling aim on dark shapes that lurk behind curtains and windows. 

10. Sinister (2012)

Twice-successful true crime writer Ellison Oswalt deceptively moves his family into a house that saw its last family brutally murdered, now a cold case on which he is basing his new novel. But when Ellison discovers a box of Super 8 films in the attic, he learns the horrifying truth behind the family’s deaths, and that there is a much more sinister force at large. On paper, the film is as cliché as they come, but this film is all about execution – and it’s one that is razor-sharp. It also makes much use of the less-is-more approach and relies heavily on its insanely-atmospheric score for the jumps, making it one to watch through the fingers and with the lights on. 

What are your thoughts on my top ten? What’s your favourite scary movie? Comment below and share your own favourite spine-tinglers…