Many people consider ghost stories the scariest type of horror movie. A good ghost film tends to be part murder mystery, part supernatural horror and all terrifying, the sort of movie to watch at night tucked safely under the covers -- next to your trusty baseball bat. Here are 25 spooky flicks worthy of taking a swing.
5. The Sixth Sense (1999)
© Buena Vista
Like Lady in White, The Sixth Sense generates scares by putting you in the position of a helpless child who discovers that there really are monsters in his closet...and under his bed...and hanging from his ceiling. Its now-clichéd "I see dead people" line and well-worn twist ending make people forget how many terrifying moments the film has: the tent scene, the boy who wants to show him his father's gun, the hanged ghosts, the angry closet ghost and more.
4. The Ring (2002)
© Paramount
Perhaps the only Hollywood remake of an Asian horror movie so far to improve upon the original, The Ring haunted us with jaw-dropping visuals (pun intended -- see the opening scene) and introduced America at large to the "yūrei" ghost figure that would be featured in dozens more Asian horror films.
3. Session 9 (2001)
© Universal
It's debatable what exactly the "presence" is in this movie -- ghost, demonic force, swamp gas -- but whatever it is, its impact is creepy with a capital CREEP. In the film, a group of hazmat workers cleaning up asbestos in an abandoned mental hospital encounter a malevolent force. One of the workers begins listening to audio tapes of psychiatric "sessions" with a former patient, and by the time he gets to session 9, every hair on your body will be standing on end.
2. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
© Artisan
Cheap and simple yet ingeniously executed (and marketed), The Blair Witch Project is a documentary-styled first-person account of the search for the legendary spirit of a witch rumored to haunt a forest in rural Maryland. The mind-numbing scares lie in the realism of the film, which features mostly improvised dialogue, natural lighting, shaky camerawork and spooky ambient noise that truly epitomizes the phrase "things that go bump in the night."
1. The Shining (1980)
© Warner Bros.
Almost every haunted house movie seems to have a scene in which the evilness of the building is touted in dramatic tones, but rarely do the manifestations of the evil live up to the legend. The Shining has no such letdown. Its iconic imagery, courtesy of legendary director Stanley Kubrick, is nightmare-inducing even if you haven't seen the film for years. Amazingly, it even rivals the Stephen King novel upon which it was based in terms of pure terror. Redrum!
