HAPPY HALLOWEEN! My 10 Favorite Horror Movies of All Time.
- 48 minutes ago
- 8 min read
It’s no secret that horror is my favorite genre. I am obsessed with horror films. They are by far my favorite kind of movies ever since I was a very, very small child.
October is my favorite month of the year, and Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year, and I love the fact that everyone really loves to watch horror movies during the month of October, especially as we get closer to Halloween.
So, as a celebration of Halloween (my favorite time of year, my favorite holiday) I thought I would share with you my top 10 favorite horror movies now.
This, by the way, is a very difficult list to compile. I’ve done it before (many times, in fact) and every time I do, I swear I change my mind five minutes later. Because, honestly, narrowing it down to just 10? It’s almost impossible. If I could make a top 400 list, I would.
Actually, scratch that, I could probably fill 500. Maybe even a thousand. There are just so many horror films that I love, admire, and rewatch over and over again.
But for better or worse, these 10 movies, as of right now, at this precise moment as I write this, are, in my opinion, the best horror films ever made. And yes, they are in order of preference. (Don’t hold me to it, though, because by next week, that order might change, it always does.)
Before I get to that list, I have to talk about my relationship with horror, which, to be honest, has been one of the longest and most important relationships of my life. It started when I was about three or four years old... and no, I’m not kidding.
I was this little kid in Chicago, watching late-night Creature Features on an old black-and-white TV, catching the original Svengoolie on Channel 32. That’s how it all began. That’s where the obsession took root.
From there, it just grew. I got hooked on Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, devoured issues of Creepy and Eerie, and later became addicted to Fangoria, that glorious, gory bible of teenage horror nerds everywhere.
My first cinematic hero wasn’t some matinee idol or action star, it was Peter Cushing. The great Peter Cushing. The man who, for my money, was the heart and soul of Hammer horror. To me, he was the epitome of class, intelligence, and charm, even when he was battling vampires, reanimating corpses, or scowling through a puff of pipe smoke while delivering some perfectly enunciated line of scientific doom.
Horror has always been there for me. Through every era of my life, every stage of my career (from being a kid sneaking scary movies on late-night TV to becoming a professional film critic) it’s remained my favorite genre.
Forty years in this business, and I still get the same jolt of excitement when I see a great horror film. And yes, they’re still being made! Every year brings something new, something daring, something that proves the genre is alive and well. 2025 alone has given us a handful of strong, inventive entries that remind me why horror never dies.
I could easily write about horror forever. I could go on for thousands of pages... about subgenres, about slashers, about creature features, about the directors and actors who helped define them.
I could go on about Argento, Carpenter, Craven, Romero, Cronenberg, Hooper, and so many more. But I’m not going to do that here. No runners-up, no honorable mentions, no deep-dive essays (at least not today). This isn’t a dissertation, this is a celebration.
I just want you to know that horror is in my bones. It’s in my blood. It’s been with me for nearly sixty years, and I wouldn’t trade that love for anything. It’s the best genre ever. It’s the most creative, the most daring, the most emotional, the most fun.
And it's the most reflective of the fears, anxieties, and wild imaginations of the people who make them and the people who love them.
So, here we go. These are my top 10 favorite horror movies of all time (in order of preference) as of this very moment. Ask me tomorrow and it might change. But right now, this is where my heart is.
NICK DIGILIO’S TOP 10 FAVORITE HORROR MOVIES OF ALL TIME (as of right now)
John Carpenter’s Halloween is my favorite horror movie. Everything about it is perfect. The simplicity. The precision. The way Carpenter builds tension with that incredible camera movement, the way the music gets under your skin, the way that nothing happens, and yet everything happens. Michael Myers is pure evil. There’s no reason, no backstory, no “trauma explanation,” none of that modern nonsense. He’s the Boogeyman. The Shape. The blank face of death.
Carpenter’s direction is surgical, it's clean, confident, and terrifying. And that score… good god, that score. The best horror theme ever written, hands down. I saw this movie when I was a teenager and I loved every second of it. It’s the reason I fell even deeper in love with horror. Halloween is horror stripped to its essence: beautiful, elegant, primal fear.
George A. Romero’s masterpiece. The greatest zombie movie ever made, and one of the best horror sequels of all time. It takes everything that Night of the Living Dead built and explodes it into this insane, colorful, bloody, satirical carnival of chaos.
It’s horrifying, hilarious, sad, and somehow still relevant every single time you watch it. The mall as a symbol of consumerist hell? Romero nailed it decades before people started tweeting about capitalism.
The gore effects by Tom Savini still hold up, actually, they still shock. And the cast is made up of real human beings. Not Hollywood types. People who look and act like us, trapped in the apocalypse, trying to hold it together. This movie is what happens when you mix philosophy, social commentary, and exploding heads. It’s art.
Dario Argento’s Suspiria is like being trapped inside a nightmare painted by a lunatic artist, and I mean that as the highest compliment. The colors, the music, the sound, the way it feels like logic and narrative don’t matter, it’s pure dream-state horror.
Goblin’s score alone could drive a person insane (again, that’s praise). Argento wasn’t making a “movie” here; he was making a fever dream. Every frame looks like a piece of surreal art soaked in blood.
Jessica Harper wandering through that strange German ballet academy, the place might as well exist in another dimension. This is the kind of horror film you feel in your spine more than you “understand.” It’s sensory overload, it's hypnotic, gorgeous, and absolutely terrifying.
This movie is flat-out bonkers, I adore it, and in the summer of 1979 I saw it in the theater over 100 times...not exaggerating. Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm feels like it was beamed in from another planet, and somehow that planet was orbiting David Lynch’s nightmares. There’s something so off about it, in the best possible way.
The Tall Man (the great Angus Scrimm) might be the single weirdest and most haunting villain in horror history. The flying silver sphere. The dwarves. The mausoleum. Mike, Reggie, Jody. What is this movie? Who knows. But it’s brilliant. It’s one of those films where logic doesn’t apply, but emotion does. It’s about fear, death, and dreams, the weird, subconscious kind. Every time I rewatch it, I find something new. Phantasm is pure movie magic.
There’s no movie like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. None. It’s raw. It’s dirty. It feels real. The first time I saw it, I honestly thought I was watching something I wasn’t supposed to see. Like a snuff film smuggled out of some rural Texas nightmare.
Tobe Hooper’s direction is so brilliant, you think it’s gory, but it’s really not. It’s all suggestion, noise, and panic. It’s that dinner scene. It’s that sunbaked madness.
Leatherface dancing with that chainsaw as the sun sets, it is one of the most iconic endings in all of cinema, not just horror. It’s a movie that smells like sweat and fear. It gets under your skin and never leaves. Chain Saw is a masterpiece of terror.
Even after all these years (all the parodies, all the sequels and reboots, all the spoofs) The Exorcist still works. It still scares the living hell out of me. William Friedkin made a film that feels like it’s possessed.
It’s not just the pea soup or the spinning head; it’s the atmosphere, the dread, the sound design, the way everything feels slightly wrong. It’s also one of the most beautifully shot horror films ever.
Ellen Burstyn gives a performance that belongs in the pantheon, this isn’t just horror, it’s tragedy. And the exorcism scene… there’s nothing like it. The way it feels real, spiritual, primal. The sound of the demon’s voice still gives me chills. This is the kind of film that reminds you horror can also be high art.
Hammer Horror at its absolute finest. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, the greatest horror duo in cinema history. The color! The gothic sets! The cleavage! The blood that looks like red paint but somehow makes your heart race!
The Horror of Dracula took what Universal started in the 1930s and turned it into something vibrant and sexy. Lee’s Dracula isn’t just a monster, he’s seductive, animalistic, terrifying. And Cushing as Van Helsing is, well, my hero.
I grew up watching this movie and dreaming about hunting vampires in a Victorian coat. It’s elegant, it’s British, it’s bloody, and it’s everything I love about classic horror.
Brian De Palma’s Carrie is the best Stephen King adaptation ever made (although The Dead Zone comes very close). It’s tragic, operatic, funny, disturbing, and it builds to one of the greatest endings in movie history.
Sissy Spacek gives a performance that breaks your heart, she’s terrifying and innocent all at once. Piper Laurie as her mother? One of the scariest “bad moms” ever, she's fanatical, insane, hilarious in her extremity.
De Palma directs like he’s possessed, with the split screens, the slow motion, the prom scene that feels like an out-of-body experience. It’s a film about cruelty, repression, and power. And when Carrie finally lets go, it’s glorious. Carrie is horror as tragedy, and it’s unforgettable.
James Whale was a genius. The Bride of Frankenstein is not just a great horror sequel, it’s one of the greatest films ever made, period. It’s campy, emotional, funny, heartbreaking, and visually stunning.
Karloff gives a performance for the ages, he is sympathetic and monstrous all at once. Elsa Lanchester as the Bride is barely in it, but she steals the whole thing. And that score! That design! Whale was doing things in the 1930s that filmmakers today are still trying to figure out. This is horror with soul. It’s weird and poetic and utterly human.
If Halloween is pure terror, then Evil Dead II is pure madness, and I love them both equally for completely different reasons. Sam Raimi took the original Evil Dead (which is a masterpiece) and turned it into a live-action cartoon soaked in blood. It’s slapstick, it’s surreal, it’s gory as hell, and it’s one of the most fun horror movies ever made.
Bruce Campbell gives one of the all-time great physical performances. Hey, the guy fights his own hand for five minutes and it’s a masterpiece. The camera work is insane, and Raimi’s style is like Tex Avery directing a nightmare. Every frame of Evil Dead II is alive. It’s horror as chaos, and it’s glorious. Groovy.
So there you have it... my Top 10 Favorite Horror Movies of All Time, at least as of right now. Ask me again next week, and I’ll probably swap two or three of these out, but one thing will never change: horror is the greatest genre there is. It’s my comfort zone, my obsession, my favorite playground.
Happy Halloween, my fellow horror freaks. Keep the lights low, keep the pumpkins lit, and keep watching the good stuff.
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