The vast majority of my friends despise horror movies which I adore. I even like the really bad obvious ones where you know who the killer is from the get go, the gorefests with basically no plot and the super cheesy ones. As a whole, horror movies aren't worth watching if you do not like them. The acting is universally lame. The dialogue is weak and there's nothing of too much human interest to move the plot forward. The characters are one dimensional archetypes. If you are one of those people who chooses movies carefully because your time is so valuable you don't want to waste it in front of the television, just ignore the horror genre as a rule of thumb.
There are, however, many stellar horror movies whose merits may outweigh one's fear. There are some with excellent characters and plot arcs, stunning visuals and creative premises. They are not just examples of good horror movies but some are excellent movies of any kind.
I have compiled a list of the best horror movies I would recommend people who don't necessarily like horror movies to check out. This doesn't mean that they aren't scary. Some are downright frightening to most people. Some I don't even consider to be horror movies at all. I'm merely using the movie rental store definition of horror here, meaning you would likely find all these titles in the section labelled horror.
This is in order of my opinion, not gospel.
- The Shining
- Session 9
- Let the Right One In
- Audition
- Dawn of the Dead (1978) (2004's not too shabby either)
- Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn
- Hostel
- Deep Red
- The Brood
- Antichrist
- Ju-On
- Night of the Living Dead
- Suspiria
- The Exorcist
- Paranormal Activity
- The Innocents
- The Tenant
- Psycho
- Alien
- Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
- Jaws
- The Thing
- The Haunting
- Rosemary's Baby
- Phenomena
- Carrie
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- Saw
- 28 Days Later
- Halloween
- Black Christmas
- Misery
- The Strangers
- Rec
- Insidious
- A Tale of Two Sisters