In no particular order except for #1:

1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
2. Hellraiser
3. Day of the Dead (1985)
4. The Thing (1982)
5. Alien
6. The Beyond
7. Dead Alive
8. The Shining
9. The Evil Dead (1981)
10. Sleepaway Camp

1, 2, & 3 in order, the rest not

1. Alien
2. The Thing (82)
3. Creature From the Black Lagoon
4. The Blob (88)
5. The Return of the Living Dead
6. Hellraiser II
7. Abominable
8. The Beast Within
9. An American Werewolf in London
10. The Monster That Challenged the World

Honorable: Creepshow, Feast

How did I forget the Thing or Night of the Living Dead? Smh... Great films, both!

1. The others
2. rosemary's baby
3. Omen
4. Babadok
5. The orphanage
6. The shining (Kubrick's version)
7. Pet Sematary
8. Insidious 1
9. 28 days later
10. The thing

And anything by David Lynch always gives me the creeps + all the early David Cronenberg stuff. This guy has some twisted mind : Shivers (1975); Rabid (1977); The Brood (1979); Scanners (1981); Videodrome (1983); The Dead Zone (1983); The Fly (1986) and Dead Ringers (I had Cronenberg's marathon last year :P). Although i'd prefer 2 different list - one for scary scary and one for funny scary like Braindead, Evil Dead 2 and 3, shaun of the dead, Rogue 2007, Grabbers.

• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
• Rosemary's Baby (1968)
• The Witch (2015)
• Possession (1981)
• Candyman (1992)
• The Wicker Man (1973)
• The Ninth Gate (1999)
• Alien (1979)
• The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• Excision (2012)

Not in any specific order.

1. The Exorcist
   
2. Alien
   
3. Halloween
   
4. The Blair Witch Project
   
5. The Omen
   
6. The Orphanage
   
7. The Shining
   
8. The Descent
   
9. The Others
   
10. Black Swan

@Isserley said:

• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
• Rosemary's Baby (1968)
• The Witch (2015)
• Possession (1981)
• Candyman (1992)
• The Wicker Man (1973)
• The Ninth Gate (1999)
• Alien (1979)
• The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• Excision (2012)

Not in any specific order.

I love The Witch! I was just thinking about Wicker Man, too. Ninth Gate is underrated, one of my favorite Polanski films.

@catmydogs said:

@Isserley said:

• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
• Rosemary's Baby (1968)
• The Witch (2015)
• Possession (1981)
• Candyman (1992)
• The Wicker Man (1973)
• The Ninth Gate (1999)
• Alien (1979)
• The Blair Witch Project (1999)
• Excision (2012)

Not in any specific order.

I love The Witch! I was just thinking about Wicker Man, too. Ninth Gate is underrated, one of my favorite Polanski films.

Yeah, I agree that The Ninth Gate is underrated. It was really hard to pick just ten. My list would probably change a bit depending on the day and my mood lol. I really love all the films you mentioned as well. I haven't seen the last three listed, so I'll have to check them out.

FYI, this is really hard..

1. The Exorcist (1978)
2. The Shining (1980)
3. Halloween (1978)
4. Poltergeist (1982)
5. Rosemary's Baby (1968)
6. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
7. Scream (1996)
8. An American Werewolf in London (1981)
9. Alien (1979)
10. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Good God! All I can think about now is all the movies I didn't list. 😫

@AlienFanatic said:

1, 2, & 3 in order, the rest not

1. Alien
2. The Thing (82)
3. Creature From the Black Lagoon
4. The Blob (88)
5. The Return of the Living Dead
6. Hellraiser II
7. Abominable
8. The Beast Within
9. An American Werewolf in London
10. The Monster That Challenged the World

Honorable: Creepshow, Feast

Props for The Blob, The Return of the Living Dead, and Creepshow. Such fun movies.

@catmydogs said:

Mine, in no order, are:

1) The Exorcist 2) Nosferatu (1979) 3) Alien 4) The Shining 5) Mulholland Falls (not strictly a horror film, but close to it) 6) The Evil Dead (heck, the whole trilogy) 7) The Ring (I like the American version better than the Japanese one) 8) Kwaidan - WOW. The most gorgeous horror film ever. 9) The Bermuda Depths (ever heard of it? it's rare. Campy. But I love it). 10) Trilogy of Terror - Zuni doll! Nuff said.

Nice list. You mentioned Nosferatu from 1979 (great movie), but I was wondering if you ever saw the original from 1922. That one scared the crap out of me. I'm kind of surprised it didn't make my top 10, but oh well.

1. The Blair Witch Project
2. The Exorcist
3. Suspiria
4. The Thing
5. The Innocents
6. Possession
7. The Shining
8. Rosemary's Baby
9. Jacob's Ladder
10. Paranormal Activity

What I'm liking about everyone's lists so far is that every film is not only good, they're all what I'd categorize as "true horror." There was an explosion of films deemed "torture porn" following the release of movies like Saw and Hostel, but I have a really hard time calling any of them "horror." They're designed to gross out the audience, making them squirm by overwhelming them with ultra-violence, but I've yet to find a single one of them scary in the slightest.

I know there are much older "torture-porn" or "gross-out" movies like Cannibal Holocaust and a lot of the giallo films that emerged in the '70's, so the trend is nothing new, but I've had absolutely no interest in them whatsoever. I'd much prefer to sit down to a Hammer film, like Horror Express, than The Human Centipede any day of the week.

There's something to be said about leaving it to your imagination.

@lantzn said:

There's something to be said about leaving it to your imagination.

Speaking of leaving it to the imagination, The Haunting (1963) does a great job of this.