Alien
This is the first of the science-fiction horror movies that made Sigourney Weaver, as Officer Ripley, a star and launched a franchise. Ridley Scott directed this original, about the crew of the commercial spaceship Nostromo during their journey home to Earth. En route they receive an SOS signal and touch down on a nearby planet, where they discover strange eggs. After a creature attacks crewmember Kane (John Hurt), putting him in a coma, the crew realizes that the planet isn't quite as deserted as it first seemed … Remember: In space no one can hear you scream.

An American Werewolf in London
Two American students, David and Jack (David Naughton and Griffin Dunne), take a backpacking trip across Europe. While hiking through the fog one night, they're attacked by a wild beast. Jack is killed, and David barely survives. While recovering in a local hospital, David has visions that lead him to believe the creature that attacked them was a werewolf and that he is destined to become one too.

The Amityville Horror
A family moves into a new house and soon after strange things start to happen. It all begins to make sense when they learn that a year ago, the house's previous occupants were murdered.

Arachnophobia
A deadly South American spider is inadvertently brought to the U.S. where it mates with one of the locals and spreads panic in a small California town. A big budget horror movie with a sense of humor.

The Birds
People in Bodega Bay, Calif., experience a frightening attack of murderous, vicious birds.

The Blair Witch Project
Three student filmmakers venture into the woods to make a documentary on the mysterious titular witch and disappear. This film was put together out of the footage that was recovered from their cameras.

The Blob
THE BLOB is one of the quintessential films for lovers of those science-fiction/horror/monster/camp films of the 1950s. A red, gigantic, gooey, gelatinous glob arrives from outer space and proceeds to terrorize a small town. The more it eats, the more it grows. Local teenagers, who have witnessed its obscene display of hunger, are ignored until it seems that it's too late. Can the local bad boy (Steve McQueen, in his first leading role) save his 'burb from the sinister slime--and reform himself in the process? A perennial favorite of Saturday afternoon horror shows, the film is still a joy to watch, as the young McQueen battles his parents and the big protoplasmic hunk of Jell-O.

Bride of Frankenstein
James Whale's BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, the sequel to his classic FRANKENSTEIN, is considered one of the best horror films of all time. After the Monster (Boris Karloff) is trapped in a windmill fire, Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) assumes that the fiendish murderer has perished...but he's not dead yet. Rising from the rubble, the Monster is on the loose again--lonely and misunderstood, and killing those who cross him. Frankenstein wants to forget his creation, but the evil Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) has a diabolical plan to create a mate for the Monster, and Frankenstein must comply or else.

Carrie
When Carrie White (Sissy Spacek), who is menaced by bullies at school and her religiously fanatical mother at home, gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers, she begins to focus them on her tormentors.

Cat People
Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) is a young, Serbian artist living in New York City. When she meets American Oliver Reed (Kent Smith), she falls in love and gets married. But their union hits the rocks when she becomes consumed with the belief that she is the victim of a curse. According to Irena, the curse will make her turn into a deadly panther the minute she becomes emotionally aroused. In an effort to fix their problems, Oliver seeks psychiatric counseling for his beautiful and tormented young bride. But talking about her problems may only make them worse. The first of several interesting horror films by producer Val Lewton, CAT PEOPLE was innovative in its style. Joining Lewton's artistic sense and mastery of atmosphere with Jacques Tourneur's directing talent, the film created fear in its audience precisely by not showing too much. This restraint and emphasis on psychological tension rather than physical violence would go on to influence later horror directors.

The Changeling
Well told horror story with Scott playing the role of a widower music teacher. After the death of his wife, he moves to Seattle in hopes of starting a new life in a grand old mansion. Unfortunately, his new home turns out to be haunted by the troublesome ghost of a murdered child bent on revenge after 70 years of torment.

Children of the Corn
Young lovers on a cross-country trip stop in a small Nebraska community and make a shocking discovery. One day, three years prior to the couples' arrival, the town's children killed all of the grown-ups at the apparent behest of a demon simply dubbed "He Who Walks Behind the Rows." Based on a short story from horror scribe Stephen King's "Night Shift" collection, this film spawned a slew of bloody sequels.

Creature From the Black Lagoon
Scientists in the Amazon discover an amphibious, man-like creature living in a lagoon. When the beast sees a comely woman in their group, he falls in love.

Dawn of the Dead
Dawn of the Dead follows a group of survivors who, after seeing zombies wipe out scores of people, hop in a helicoptor, fly as far away from the walking dead as possible, and take refuge in an abandoned shopping mall. Once there they begin preparing for a showdown.

Dead Alive
Peter Jackson, master of subversive comedy, presents the story of a hapless young man whose overbearing mother gets him into a heap of trouble when she catches a bizarre zombie virus and starts turning innocent passersby into walking corpses. This grandiose splatterfest features loads of unforgettable, stomach-turning effects. Highlights include a ghoulish, bloodthirsty baby, zombie mutilation, progressive putrefaction, and an off-the-wall undead mating scene. Sick, twisted, and hilarious, DEAD ALIVE is unlike anything you have ever seen before--and is definitely not for the squeamish.

Dracula
A real estate agent travels to Transylvania to complete a deal with a man named Count Dracula and is soon after driven insane. Once in his new digs, Dracula begins terrorizing his neighbors.

The Evil Dead
Like The Ring, Sam Raimi's low-budget horror classic features a tape (audio, not video, however) that, if played, has nasty consequences. In The Evil Dead, a group of teens finds a tape recorder in a house in the woods, but whoever listens to the recording turns into a "deadite" — a zombie of sorts. They only way to kill the newly undead is to dismember them.

The Exorcist
In this horror classic that shocked audiences when it was released in 1973, a teenage girl (Linda Blair) becomes possessed and two priests are called to exorcise the demon.

Frankenstein
All hell breaks loose when Dr. Frankenstein successfully animates a creature made from old body parts and the brain of a madman.

Friday the 13th
A year after a young boy named Jason Voorhees drowns at Camp Crystal Lake, the two counselors thought to be responsible are murdered by an unknown killer. The camp is shut down, but in 1980 it reopens. Bad idea. As the new counselors prepare for the summer season, they begin dropping dead one by one, victims of a maniac wearing a hockey mask.

Halloween
The night before Halloween, 15 years after murdering his sister and being sent to an asylum, Michael Myers escapes. He's tracked to his hometown in Illinois, where unsuspecting Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends become Myers' next intended victims.

The Haunting
A doctor begins psychic research at an old mansion that is supposedly haunted. During the first night in the house, participants in the group study are attacked by ghosts.

Hellraiser
The Lamont Configuration is a box-like puzzle that, when solved, opens up a portal to hell and causes the solver to be torn to shreds. Frank is the latest to make this mistake, and after his encounter with Pinhead, an evil demon who leads a crew called the Cenobites, he's ripped apart and reincarnated as a skinless monster.

I Know What You Did Last Summer
After a post-graduation Fourth of July beer blast, four tipsy teens accidentally smash up a pedestrian with their car, and, in a panic, dispose of the almost-dead body in the ocean. Sure enough, the following summer, the reunited group is stalked by a mysterious figure clad in fisherman's garb--replete with fish hook. A putative echo of screenwriter Kevin Williamson's mega-hit "Scream," substituting that movie's inside-jokiness for genuine feelings of guilt and angst.

The Invisible Man
With THE INVISIBLE MAN (the first film in a series), James Whale (FRANKENSTEIN) provides another stylish, blackly comic entry in the popular Universal horror cycle of the 1930s. When a mysterious man, face wrapped in bandages and wearing dark goggles, arrives in a small English village one snowy night, things start to go awry. Jack Griffin (Claude Rains), a chemist who has discovered an invisibility formula, wants desperately to find the antidote, but a side effect of the drug is driving him insane. Becoming gradually more unhinged, Griffin strips off his nose, bandages, and clothes before the stunned villagers and sets about terrorizing the countryside. When he progresses from mayhem to murder, Griffin's beloved Flora (Gloria Stuart) and colleague Dr. Kemp (William Harrigan) work with police to try to capture the elusive Invisible Man. It is a race against time to stop Griffin's plans to make the world "grovel" at his feet. Watch for the stunning special effects during the snowy climax to this gripping, atmospheric horror classic.

King Kong
Carl Denham, a documentary filmmaker, travels to Skull Island with his starring actress, Ann Darrow, who is kidnapped by the natives and sacrificed to a giant ape named King Kong. Kong saves Ann, however, and Denham and his cronies eventually capture Kong and take him to New York, where he escapes and wreaks havoc, finally winding up at the top of the Empire State Building.

Misery
When romance writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan) crashes his car on his way to deliver a manuscript, Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), his biggest fan, rescues him and nurses him back to health. But when Annie discovers that Paul kills off her favorite character, Misery Chastain, in his last book, she demands that he write a new novel and bring Misery back to life, or else.

The Mummy
Archaeologists digging in Egypt uncover the 3000-year-old mummy of Im-ho-tep, a prince who was buried alive, with a curse placed on anyone who opens his tomb. The disturbance brings restores life to the mummy, who escapes and assumes the persona of Ardeth Bey (Boris Karloff), a mysterious Egyptian whose one goal is to reincarnate his lover of 3000 years ago. When he believes he sees a shadow of his lost love in lovely young Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann), only her would-be suitor, Frank Whemple (David Manners), and resourceful Dr. Muller (Edward Van Sloan) can save her from body from being consumed by the soul of a long-dead woman. Thanks to director Karl Freund and an understated performance by horror legend Boris Karloff, THE MUMMY is a dreamlike masterpiece.

Night of the Living Dead
Radiation from a fallen satellite causes the dead to rise from their graves and crave human flesh.

Nosferatu
Nosferatu is the original vampire movie — Max Schreck plays the mysterious Count Orlok, who travels to Bremen by ship and wreaks the usual blood-sucking havoc there. Ellen, the wife of real estate agent Hutter (the Jonathan Harker character), sacrifices her own life to keep Orlok alive until sunrise, killing him.

The Omen
Gregory Peck and Lee Remick star as an American couple living in England whose young son is pegged as the embodiment of the Antichrist. A photographer is sent to investigate, but soon finds more trouble than he expected.

The Others
In this psychological thriller, Nicole Kidman plays a mother (Grace) who moves into a remote island mansion to await her husband's return from World War II. Her two sons become very ill and can't be exposed to sunlight, causing them to live in darkness. Grace hires a group of servants to help, but soon discovers there's something mysterious about the house …

Pet Sematary
A man discovers a place where, over the years, pet lovers have been burying their deceased critters. Just behind it is an ancient Indian burial ground that just happens to have the power to resurrect the dead. After seeing a cat brought back to life, the man attempts to revive his departed son, with disastrous results.

The Picture of Dorian Gray
Adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 1891 novel about a handsome young Victorian gentleman who remains eternally young while a portrait of him grows old and bears the ugly scars of his vile undertakings. He keeps his loathsome secret locked behind a schoolroom door. Academy Award Nominations: 3, including Best Supporting Actress--Angela Lansbury.

Poltergeist
Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) directs this Steven Spielberg production about a haunted suburban home. The Freelings (Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams) learn that their new home was built on a burial ground, and the ghosts aren't too happy about that. Soon their daughter is abducted into the supernatural world and they must fight to get her back.

Re-Animator
A young med student develops a substance that revives dead tissue, only to see it misused by his boss, forcing him to contend with lots of zombies and gore.

The Ring
In this remake of the 1998 Japanese thriller Ringu, which became one of the country's top-grossing movies of all time, Naomi Watts plays a Seattle newspaper reporter who learns that her 16-year-old niece is literally scared to death exactly one week after she and three friends — who also die — watch a mysterious videotape at a motel cabin in the woods. Watts' investigative nature kicks in, she watches the video (a short, surreal menagerie of nightmarish images), makes a copy, and is hell bent on discovering who or what is behind the tape. She enlists the help of her former lover, with whom she has a son, a precocious kid who appears to be psychic.

Rosemary's Baby
In Rosemary's Baby, a young couple buys an apartment in New York and befriends an elderly couple who live next door. Though strange things begin to happen almost immediately, including the inexplicable suicide of a woman in the building, Rosemary is elated to discover she's pregnant.

Scream
Kevin Williamson's postmodern hit deconstructed horror film clichés by cleverly weaving them into the plot. The characters in the film are all pop-culture-aware teens, and when a murderer starts killing people, they soon realize that the only way to stay alive is by not making the same mistakes their favorite movie protagonists make.

The Shining
Things start to go awry shortly after the Torrence family checks into the Overlook Hotel as winter caretakers in The Shining, Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of the Stephen King novel. Jack (Jack Nicholson) is the husband who is slowly possessed by the hotel, Wendy (Shelly Duvall) is his terrified wife, and Danny (Danny Lloyd) is their psychic son, who's haunted by dead twins.

The Silence of the Lambs
Jonathan Demme's frightening psychological thriller, based on Thomas Harris's bestseller, is about an FBI agent (Jodie Foster) who tries picking the brain of an intelligent psychopath/cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in hopes of solving a series of grisly murders. A critical and commercial success, Lambs is one of the most superbly-crafted, suspenseful films ever, and became just the third film in the history of the Oscars to sweep the top five major awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay (Ted Tally).

The Sixth Sense
After being shot by one of his former patients, child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) begins to treat a 9-year-old boy (Haley Joel Osment) who says he has horrific visions and can communicate with the dead.

The Stepford Wives
Katharine Ross stars in this classic horror film as Joanna, a woman who moves to Stepford, Connecticut, along with her husband Walter (Peter Masterson) and her best friend Bobbie (Paula Prentiss). As the two women meet the other housewives who live in Stepford, they begin to notice that all of them are interested only in cooking, cleaning, and pleasing their husbands. Joanna and Bobbie are further alarmed when their husbands join the mysterious Stepford Men's Club, which convenes in a heavily guarded mansion and harbors a nefarious secret agenda. Based on the novel by Ira Levin (ROSEMARY'S BABY) and followed by the made-for-television sequels THE REVENGE OF THE STEPFORD WIVES, THE STEPFORD CHILDREN, and THE STEPFORD HUSBANDS.

Suspiria
Dario Argento's masterpiece of horror, with its assault of garish colors, booming soundtrack and horrifically dreamlike set pieces, is the cinematic equivalent of an exceptionally scary fun house. It tells the story of Susan (Harper) a young, impressionable American who travels abroad in order to study at a prestigious European ballet academy. From the first day, however, she begins to realize that frightening things are afoot at the hallowed institution. Enduring a rain of maggots, poisoned food and other unpleasant occurrences, she discovers that the school is a secret convening place for an ages-old witches' coven. Cut to various lengths due to violent content, the film's original full running time is 100 minutes.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
An unlucky vanload of teenagers trespass on the wrong rural Texas farm and find themselves hunted by a family of maniacs in this horror classic.

The Thing
Scientists at an Antarctic research station encounter what they think is a dog, but they soon discover that it's an alien that can imitate all forms of life.

Village of the Damned
Gripping sci-fi thriller about an English village in which strangely emotionless children with genius I.Q.s are born after a mishap occurs. An excellent adaptation of John Wyndham's chilling novel. Sequel: "Children of the Damned."

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Baby Jane (Bette Davis) was a child star. When she grows up, she is forgotten by the public, and instead, her sister, Blanche (Joan Crawford), gets famous as a Hollywood actress. Blanche is physically handicapped after a mysterious car accident, and the two wind up living together, barely surviving their seething mutual envy and hatred for one another.

The Wicker Man
A notoriously troubled production notwithstanding, the controversial cult classic THE WICKER MAN is now regarded as a classic of British cinema. Edward Woodward stars as Sergeant Howie, a naive young police officer sent to Summerisle, a secluded island off the coast of Scotland, to investigate the disappearance of a young girl named Rowan. When he arrives there, he finds a very tight-knit community that is mistrustful and hostile to outsiders. No one is willing to even acknowledge Rowan's disappearance. Soon, Howie begins to realize that the town might, in fact, be a strange pagan cult, one given to unbridled sexuality and possible human sacrifice. Seeking an audience with the oddly civilized Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), Howie hopes to get to the bottom of the mystery, but instead he finds something more shocking than he could have ever imagined.

Written by Anthony Shaffer (SLEUTH, DEATH ON THE NILE), Robin Hardy's eerie film paints a disturbing portrait of an almost prehistoric, multi-deity worshipping society given to bizarre rituals and Bacchanalian excess. Though recognition may have been a long time coming, THE WICKER MAN stands as a strikingly original achievement that is equal parts horror, drama, comedy, and musical.

Zombie
After a New York harbor patrolman is murdered at the hands of a flesh-hungry ghoul aboard what was believed to be an abandoned yacht, Anne (Tisa Farrow)--the daughter of the ship's missing owner--teams up with a newspaper reporter named Peter West (Ian McCulloch) for a private investigation. With the help of a pair of sightseers, they travel to the secluded Caribbean island of Matul, where Anne's father was last seen conducting medical research. There, they meet his colleague, Dr. Menard (Richard Johnson), who frantically attempts to find a scientific explanation for a phenomenon that has plagued the island; it seems as if the dead refuse to stay dead. The locals believe a voodoo curse is at work as scores of animated corpses rise from their graves to hungrily seek out live flesh. Anne learns her father has died, but before she and the others can return to civilization, they are forced into battle with a plethora of bloodthirsty zombies.

Italian maestro Lucio Fulci's most lucrative outing features an abundance of shockingly gruesome sequences filmed in the director's regular close-up style, wasting none of frequent collaborator Giannetto De Rossi's amazing makeup effects. The ominous synthesizer soundtrack by Fabio Frizzi splendidly shrouds the action with simplistic, yet catchy hooks that are sure to continue buzzing in viewer's mind long after the film's spine-chilling ending. Released abroad as a sequel to George A. Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, produced by Dario Argento in Italy as ZOMBI.