They're Coming to Get You, Barbara

In honor of Halloween, here's a list of guaranteed-scary films if you're looking for something creepy to watch:

Repulsion

Rosemary's Baby

Candyman

Alien

Paranormal Activity (currently in theaters)

These are some of the most chilling films I've seen. I haven't seen tons of horror films, because I avoid the gory and sadistic ones. Torture and explicit gore are NOT scare-inducing. Disgust and nausea inducing, yes, but what's the difference between that and watching open heart surgery? There's very little artisty in cheap shock.

Most of the above films operate on a psychological level. They are about the horror within the mind of the protagonist. Repulsion, one of the scariest, has almost no violence or gore, yet the sense of dread that build is very unsettling. That's true for Rosemary's Baby as well. The delicate Mia Farrow doesn't know if she's going mad or the world around her is, and we are right with her. Candyman is brilliant because it puts the existence of a fictional monster in the power of people's minds: if you believe he exists, then he does. Alien and Paranormal Activity are about the unknown. We know there's something bad out there, but we don't know what it is, or what it's capable of. It's not the things we see in full flesh and blood that are scary, it's what we don't see, lurking out there in the dark...