Horror movies that are actually scary or disturbing

This one may seem dated to those who grew up on it, but it made multiple generations anxious in water over their heads. It was the direct predecessor of countless other aquatic beast movies and made shark documentaries popular enough to gain their own week on television. The scary highlights: That series of tugs just before Chrissy is pulled under. That magnificent musical score by John Williams that everyone knows by heart. The fisherman's body trapped under the derelict boat. The chum scene. Best line - "You're going to need a bigger boat!" You'll never look at the ocean with quite the same trust again.

It was the ghosts that made this movie scary. The story was rock solid, the acting, perfect, but the ghosts made me, a jaded horror fan, see things moving out of the corner of my eyes for days afterward. Delicious jump scenes and a truly shocking twist gives this movie an exalted place in my list. Best lines - "I see dead people." "Dead people in graveyards?" "Dead people walking around like live people. They don't know they're dead. They get mad, it gets cold."

This is a subtitled Thai movie. There is an American remake that is actually very good, but the original Asian movie is one of the best examples I have ever seen of using light and shadow and atmosphere to give you a feeling of being pursued by an inescapable supernatural force. This movie starts out with the jump scenes very early and they escalate rapidly leading to a surprise twist at the end.

This is fairly obscure John Carpenter film that was never very widely seen. It has a strangely intrusive quality. It seems dated now because of the fashion and the stereotypical characters, but this movie is disturbing on deep level. It deals with pure evil. The church couldn't destroy it, so they contained it and hid it away, but as it awakens it infects everything and everyone around it. The only clue is a strange, recurring dream the characters all share that does not seem like a dream at all.

This is based on an H.P. Lovecraft story. It is visually stunning full of eerie, unforgettable images. The ones that are scary for me are not necessarily the gory ones, and there is plenty of gore in this one. Some of the best: A boy on a bicycle growing old then young again then old as he is caught in an endless loop running from the evil he can never escape until the end of time. Driving across a bridge in the night only to see the roadway drop away into nothingness beneath you. Creepy children chasing a dog. The corrupted church.

Few things are as terrifying to a parent as losing your child. Now imagine losing your child in a ghost town shrouded in falling ash and continually shifting between realities, populated with visceral grotesque monsters that form from the darkness before your very eyes, cruel religious zealots, and a demon with the face of a child. Best line - "Mother is God in the eyes of a child."

I really debated on whether or not to put this on the list. This is not just a horror film, this is a horrible film. It is the only movie I have ever watched that I wish I could erase from my memory. The acting is marvelous, the plot absorbing, the cinematography beautiful. I had to watch to the end even when I wanted to be physically sick. This film takes everything beautiful, innocent, and moral and degrades it into something vile. If a being of supreme evil sat down to make a movie this one would be it. A porn star with a wonderful family needs to make some money to cover his bills, so he lets himself be drawn into a web of mysterious people supposedly shooting a movie that gets darker and darker as the movie unfurls. The film is banned in many countries and the final scene cut in some. That final scene is an abomination. I put this movie on the list because it disturbed me deeply and haunted me after it was over. I will never watch it again and I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy. But I have goosebumps and nausea right now thinking about it.