Happy Halloween kids! This week I bring you my Top Five Creepy Horror Movies. These are movies that made me physically uncomfortable while watching them — and may have actually done permanent psychological damage.
5. Quarantine 2008 – This is a remake of the Spanish horror film Rec. A TV reporter and her camera man are spending a night following the local firefighters. The firefighters respond to a call from a nearby apartment building. It seems one of the tenants is very ill! In fact, she bites a police officer on the neck. When the non-residents attempt to leave the building, they discover they are all locked in and the building has been quarantined by the CDC. Apparently, the virus affecting the residents was some form of super rabies brought in by a pet dog. (ED Note: Just another in a long line of reasons not to have pets!) All doom and gloom as you, the viewer, have zero hope that anyone will make it out alive. This movie was extremely hard to watch because even several years ago I could imagine this sort of virus being a possibility. With the recent advent of Ebola the subject matter takes on an even darker feeling and becomes truly terrifying.
4. Hostel 2005 – Three college guys are on a trip to Europe. While there they are persuaded by an acquaintance to visit a hostel in Slovakia ( a real place). They are advised this particular hostel will be full of available beautiful women. The boys travel to the hostel and do indeed find several lovely ladies to have sex with. Unfortunately, they find something else that is not so lovely and come to regret their decision to come to Slovakia. It turns out well-to-do business men are paying large sums of money to torture and kill tourists! WTF! Perhaps one of the most terrifying aspects of this film are the scenes where you hear one of the killers whistling as he walks through the halls of the dungeon people are being killed in. I will never forget that whistle. It made the film that much creepier. That casual whistling is more affective than any forboding music could ever be. In today’s world, the depth of human cruelty knows no bounds so to me this is possible. The moral of this story is boys will let their dicks get them killed.
3. House of the Devil 2009 – Ti West’s directorial debut is set in the 80s. A young college girl takes a babysitting job to help pay for the deposit on her new apartment. She ends up in a remote area babysitting for a very strange couple. As it turns out, they have something very sinister in store for her. There are a few things this film does well. The first being that it is 100% successful at convincing the viewer that the movie is both set in and filmed in the 80s. The second is the creepy atmosphere. At least 45 minutes to an hour of the film is build up. The babysitter imagines she hears and sees things the whole time she is there. I know this feeling. I have lived it many times as a teenager. I remember the first time I ever babysat for some mall money. I was 13, alone at night in a townhouse with an infant. The townhouse was literally right on the edge of the woods. That feeling I had that night is exactly the feeling I had watching this film. That my friends is amazing. It is a good film that can reproduce the horror of being alone at night as a kid.
2. Cabin Fever 2002 – Eli Roth’s directorial debut. A group of college kids go to a cabin in the woods for Spring Break. While there, they encounter at least one local who appears to be very ill. It’s not much longer before the kids begin to get sick with sores and vomiting blood. By the end of the film, it is revealed the drinking water is infected with a flesh eating virus. The locals don’t seem to know anything about it and you realize eventually they will all be dead. Once again, this is a scenario that didn’t seem impossible even 12 years ago when this was first released. The scene where one of the girls had to be put out of her misery and the other’s skin peeled off as she shaved her legs made my skin crawl. On top of everything else, the town the cabin was located in bore an overwhelming resemblance to the one in Deliverance — locals and all.
1. Wrong Turn 2003 – A med student driving through the mountains of West Virginia runs into five other kids who are stalled in the middle of the road. The next thing you know these kids are being picked off and eaten in broad daylight by a bunch of backwoods freaks. I remember the first time I watched this movie. I was at once so completely disgusted and terrified that I had to keep stopping the movie and coming back to it. This seemed to be a completely plausible scenario. Now maybe it is or maybe I just can’t function outside of a large city, but nevertheless I will never ever be visiting any backwoods in my lifetime. If there is no Dunkin Donuts I am not going there!
So there you have it. My top five most squirm worthy and creepy horror movies. Feel free to dispute or add your own picks.
