Nine of the best scary movies to watch this Halloween

Here are nine of the best to watch this Halloween weekend, as picked by Herald staff.

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'A Nightmare on Elm Street' (1984) 

Jonny McFarlane, Head of Digital Sport

Don't fall asleep... iconic horror baddie Freddy Krueger has been the stuff of nightmares since the 1980s (Image: Getty)

Few have tapped into the horror potential of fever dreams quite like Wes Craven in the director's seminal 1984 horror.

Its simple story follows a group of teenagers being stalked in their sleep by a horrifically burned phantom with a glove of razors instead of fingers called Freddy Krueger.

If it sounds bonkers, that's because it is. What follows is a wonderfully twisted, bizarre tale that has a memorable stock in gory surrealism - it's Salvador Dali on crack.

Genuinely innovative and original, the terrifying central character and his sickening murders stay long in the memory - even when you'd rather they didn't.

Far from withering like many other films in the genre, it's intrinsic nastiness means that nearly 40 years on, this modern classic shows little sign of creaking with age.

You dare not fall asleep after watching it.

'Scream' (1996) 

Helen McArdle, Health Correspondent 

You should never say ‘who's there?’ Don't you watch scary movies? (Image: Getty)

“Do you like scary movies?”.

It’s nearly 30 years since ‘Ghostface’ slipped on that iconic mask, prank called Drew Barrymore, and set about “slicing and dicing” a string of unlucky teenagers (plus one headteacher and a TV cameraman) in the fictional Californian suburb of Woodsboro.  

Wes Craven’s slick and self-referential slasher was a game-changer for a genre which, by the mid-Nineties, had become bogged down in formulaic franchises from Friday the 13th to Halloween (by then on its fifth sequel).

For horror fans, Scream was a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the tropes they had come to love – from the ‘final girl’ to the sex-equals-death 'rule' – that simultaneously packed in enough jump scares, surprises, and genuine tension to remind cinemagoers just how thrilling a great scary movie can be.

It opened the floodgates for a new wave of teen horror, from the Final Destinations to the ‘I Know What You Did…’ saga (plus its own sequels), but Scream remains a true original – and Craven’s best work.

'Alien' (1979) or 'Don't Look Now' (1973)

Catriona Stewart, columnist & Writer-at-large

'You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? The perfect organism' (Image: Getty)

It's the elegant and leisurely pace of sci-fi horror Alien that makes it so brutally terrifying.

We don't see an extraterrestrial until we're around an hour in to the movie, by which point the methodical building of tension has any average heart pounding in anticipation of the alien's imminent reveal.

Alien, the 1979 Ridley Scott masterpiece, explores the fear and ripe menace of the female form. It takes place almost exclusively within the confines of a spaceship - the commercial space tug Nostromo - where a seven-member mining crew is on its way back to earth.

The film is woven with imagery of sexual violence and forced birth, the onboard computer is called mother and the space tug is all tubular corridors and sucking air locks and womb-like rooms.

When the alien finally bursts forth from Kane's chest it is almost a relief - here, at last, is the release of tension and a wild, swashbuckling, terrifying fight for survival begins.

Sigourney Weaver is magnificent as Warrant Officer Ripley who, as the franchise continues, becomes a flame-throwing warrior-queen. 

This film's terror is in the fear of the known: that corporate greed may kill you, that the monster is under your bed, that your body is not your own.

And, of course, in space no one can hear you scream.

• READ MORE: Why watching scary movies can actually be good for your health
• READ MORE: Acclaimed horror director Wes Craven dies at 76
• READ MORE: Wicker Man and Local Hero locations celebrate filming milestones 

'Us' (2019) 

Adam Miller, Social Media Editor 

'They look exactly like us. They think like us. They know where we are.' (Image: Getty)

“There’s a family in our driveway”.

As anyone who’s ever hosted Christmas dinner will ever tell you, nothing good can come of that sentence. And so it proves in Us. 

Mention acclaimed director Jordan Peele’s name and most people’s thoughts will instantly turn to Get Out.

That modern classic of the horror genre deserves every ounce of praise that it received, but if you’re after sustained tension, serious chills and an exceptionally creepy voice reminiscent of Gillian Anderson’s Margaret Thatcher in The Crown, it’s his 2019 follow-up you’re wanting.  

That voice belongs to the brilliant Lupita Nyong’o, who plays Adelaide, first seen wandering through a house of mirrors on Santa Cruz beach in 1986. The terrified young girl meets her double, and then Peele cuts to the present day. 

Adelaide is on holiday with her husband and two children, but a return to that beach 33 years later triggers a series of unsettling coincidences that culminate in a home invasion from the family’s menacing doppelgängers. 

What follows is smart, unpredictable and nerve-shredding, but traces of Get Out’s humour are still evident. 

There is striking imagery, intriguing symbolism, a pair of disturbingly repurposed hip hop classics and a number of impressive performances, with The Handmaid’s Tale star Elisabeth Moss in her element as a friend of the family.

The film’s title refers not only to the ‘Us’ of the family and their mirror images, but to the United States; the disparity between that country’s privileged and underclass is a central theme in a horror film that’s far more than just a series of cheap jump scares. 

We’ve all joked about being our own worst enemy, but Us runs with that idea in a horror that will stay tethered to you long after the credits roll. 

'Suspiria' (1977) 

Derek McArthur, Engagement Editor 

What do witches do? (Image: Getty)

Dario Argento’s Suspiria is much like an entry from Grimm’s Fairy Tales – macabre and perilous yet ultimately comforting and childlike.

Argento uses garish Technicolor as a means of creating the first pop art horror movie, placed upon a simple story of a ballet school that hides its true purpose as a witches’ coven. 

It’s an incredibly singular piece of cinema, with elements coalescing into a fine irreplicable patchwork. The heightened visual style drops any semblance of realism, fully throwing itself into a cacophony of mise-en-scene and painterly intentions.

While Argento had perfected the gritty Giallo murder mystery by this point, Suspiria was his entry into the supernatural, adjusting the tones, hues, and lighting to match its otherworldly aura. 

One could say Suspiria is just an exercise in aesthetics, and they wouldn’t be wrong, but horror prays upon our aesthetic sensibilities to produce those familiar feelings of fear and disgust.

Argento innately understood this as an old master of splatter, foregoing a coherent plot and meaningful imagery in favour of pure sensation. 

It would be sacrilege to not mention the hypnotic sound design and crawling, eerie soundtrack (supplied by long-time collaborators Goblin).

Less driving and thudding than their other soundtrack work, the film whooshes with ambience and drones while the melody of its iconic main theme breaks through to the surface at the most opportune moments.

'Funny Games' (1997) 

Neil Mackay, Columnist and Writer-at-large 

Whether by knife or whether by gun, losing your life can sometimes be fun (Image: Getty)

Funny Games sorts common-or-garden ‘horror fans’ from dyed-in-the-wool aficionados of extreme cinema.

I’m talking about Michael Haneke’s 1997 Austrian masterpiece, not the almost shot-by-shot remake he directed in 2007 for the English-speaking market.

I first saw Funny Games at a horror movie festival in the late 90s. It left the audience emotionally shattered, myself included. Some left in tears; others just left.

Imagine a classic house invasion movie written by Harold Pinter. That’s Funny Games. This isn’t a horror film, it’s a work of art which plays with the themes of horror, and it does so with the intention of forcing the audience to ask themselves a series of increasingly troubling questions. 

Why are you watching this? How can you tolerate what’s happening on screen? Is there something wrong with you?

Haneke wields Hitchcockian themes of audience voyeurism like a scalpel.

The fact that Haneke creates such psychological tension with barely a drop of blood spilled on screen is proof that he’s one of cinema’s great auteurs. Do not come to Funny Games looking for gore or jump scares. This is an exploration of the dark heart of the human condition.

The film is dazzling directorially, and the story elegantly simple, yet primordially distressing.

A pair of white-gloved young men arrive at a rich, young family’s summer home looking for eggs for breakfast. Once the door opens, we’re in hell.

Perhaps the film’s most celebrated - or infamous - moment comes halfway through. We think mum, dad and son have a chance not just to survive but to kill these sadistic intruders.

Then Haneke dashes all hope, in a fourth-wall breaking moment which no other director could pull off. It’s like he boots the very soul out of your body.

This is a fearsome film, but watch it. It will change your opinion of what horror can do, and why horror exists.

Be warned, though. When you hear that cacophonous intro music, remember it’s a metaphor for the screaming that will live on inside your head for weeks to come once the final titles roll.

'Pet Sematary' (1989) 

Gaby McKay, Digital Reporter 

Sometimes dead is better (Image: Getty)

Ask people for the best Stephen King horror adaptation and they’ll probably tell you it’s The Shining (though the author himself hates it).

They might point to Misery (that ankle scene), Tim Curry’s tour de force in IT or the Stranger Things style success of the newer incarnation of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The correct answer is, in fact, 1989’s Pet Sematary.

Adapted from the book that King himself says scared him the most, Pet Sematary is about how we deal with death and the idea that, as a superbly cast Fredd Gwynne puts it, 'sometimes dead is better'.

It’s not exactly a cheery watch – the source material’s author admits it 'spirals down into darkness' – and wasn’t even particularly well-regarded upon its release, but if it’s scares you're after then it’s hard to beat.

Whether it’s the existential dread of losing a loved one, be they animal or human; visceral revulsion at some pretty gory body horror; or the most terrifying character, Rachel’s sister Zelda, whose nightmare appearance is a masterpiece of practical effects and whose plight is nothing to do with the supernatural.

Just don’t bother with the 2019 version: that should have been buried in the ground – and stayed there.

'Psycho' (1960) 

Kenneth Ward, Deputy Sports Editor 

Well, a boy's best friend is his mother (Image: Getty)

The shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) is one of the most famous in film history. It’s not my favourite scene in the movie, though.

On the hunt for her fugitive sister, Lela (Vera Miles) becomes suspicious of the unassuming proprietor of the sleepy Bates Motel, Norman (Anthony Perkins) - and the shadowy presence of his elusive mother at the adjacent mansion on the hill.

When Lela enters the Bates residence closely followed by Norman, she ducks into the basement stairway as Bates piles upstairs towards his mother’s bedroom.

In the basement, Lela finds Mrs Bates sitting in a rocking chair, only to discover it is her decayed corpse – mouth agape with toothy grin panning into view on screen (in somewhat comical fashion by today’s standards).

It’s unsure whether this big reveal would have produced yelps of fear in theatres to match Ms Miles’ as she recoils in horror, knocking her hand against a bare hanging lightbulb.

As the swinging light sends staccato shadows over the bare brick walls, Bernard Herrmann’s unmistakable shrill string score returns on the soundtrack.

Mirroring the movement of the shadows, the high-pitched screeches accompany the appearance of a petrifyingly spindly (Perkins was 6’2”) Norman clad in one of his mother’s dresses, a mousy wig and an open-jawed grin reflecting her skeletal remains.

If this doesn’t send chills down your spine, then maybe you’ve watched one too many slasher films already.

'Event Horizon' (1997) 

Mike McKenzie, Production Editor 

'Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see' (Image: Getty)

I don't remember 90% of this movie, but what I do know is I'll never watch it again.

Tormenting me since 1997, it follows a crew on board a starship sent to rescue another vessel that's randomly reappeared after going missing seven years before.

Not the usual sci-fi on the face of it as I first thought, but a sinister hell-and-back plot sees main characters having to live out their biggest fears, in space - a terrible combo.

The mysterious ship has essentially brought hell back with it, causing all sorts of messy scenarios and plenty of death and destruction in its wake.

The classic horror standards are all in there, peppered with some right Exorcist-y Latin banter, and it's a 'never again' from me.

Creepy hallucinations, mutilation, eye-gouging, regret and sheer horror all make this movie a cult hit with fans, but for me - then in my late teens - watching it definitely left a wee impression.

I'm 40 now and laughing at myself because even if I see it on the telly planner, I quickly shuffle by.

If all that isn't fear-inducing enough, there is also a fully naked Sam Neill to deal with. And as a big fan of Jurassic Park - that's the stuff of nightmares.