Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-25226524-20141012235524/@comment-25220801-20141013153743

In no particular order:

1. The Thing (John Carpenter's) - Scared the living shit out of me as a kid, and although it's aged a little, it's still the perfect setup (a frozen wasteland with nowhere to go). That, and the fantastic open-ending.

2. Pontypool - Not as scary as some, but briiliant for a horror film that's basically based within a couple of rooms.

3. The Blair Witch Project - Okay, I admit, in a field gorged on 'found-footage' films now, it's hard to get the same scares, but when it first came out it was fresh, original, and for those of us with enough imagination to fill in our own blanks, terrifying.

2. The Fog (John Carpenter's) - Again, another one that scared the daylights out of me as a kid. The recent remake was the biggest pile of horseshit known to man.

1. Dawn of the Dead (George A Romero's original) - I think there's a pattern emerging here of VHS tapes in the 80's warping a childs mind. An apocalyptic world were the living were in the minority, under constant threat of being eaten by strangers and loved ones, and the smallest wound was a death sentence. Granted, zombies are getting old hat now, but as monsters go, that's still a pretty nasty skill set.

Of course, there are tons of others, but since these sprung first to mind, I guess these sit as my top 5.