Best Horror Movies

I’ve always believed that it’s not what you see that scares you in a horror movie, but that which has not yet presented itself. Few movies serve as a better example of this idea than “The Amityville Horror,” which sits unshakeably near the top of my all-time horror movie list.

This is a brooding movie that unnerves the viewer with some of the spookiest scenes in horror history. But, wild-eyed monsters don’t lunge from the screen. Instead they reside in closets or in the room at the top of the stairs, unseen and yet powerfully menacing.

When the camera forces you to stand inside that empty room with the priest, as flies gather on the window sill and the door slams shut, you want to hurl yourself through the window to escape. When you see the closet door swing shut on the babysitter, you want to burrow your way through the wall with bloody fingers to flee that claustrophobic darkness. This is a movie that places you directly in the center of the nastiness and won’t let you go. The haunting music doesn’t help, either. What is more terrifying than the singing voices of children in the darkness?

Another strength of the flick is the witnessing of Brolin’s character slowly coming unraveled as he seeks to maintain control out of the growing terror around him. Brolin is every man, with a strong desire to take care of his family and to confront things that scare him. But the wickedness of the spirits that live with him is stronger, and the thing beneath the basement, well… That’s something you should see for yourself, through a first or tenth viewing of this frightful film.