Halloween is upon us and it’s time to dust off the VCR and watch some freaky classics. Gather your friends and snuggle up, this could get scary.

10. Alien (1979) (R)

Director Ridley Scott taps into primeval fears of impregnation, infection, and rape and holds us in a vice-like grip from the moment John Hunt’s ribs split. “In space, no one can hear you scream…”

9. Carrie (1976) (R)

Brian de Palma’s adaptation about adolescent

angst and paranormal powers, a young John Travolta plays one of Carrie’s tormentors, while Piper Laurie freezes the blood as her religious maniac mother. Sissy

Spacek plays Carrie, our cloistered heroine

whose high school prom becomes a nightmare.

8. The Exorcist (1973) (R)

Outlawed by the British Board of Film Classification for many years, the recent reissue proved time had not dulled the impact or genuine capacity of this film to unsettle its viewers. This all-time horror

classic stars 12 year-old Linda Blair, who becomes a levitating, head-spinning demon with a talent for vomiting pea soup and putting a crucifix where the sun doesn’t shine.

7. Halloween (1978) (R)

The mask of Michael Meyers was based off of the face of William Shatner and created a genre staple from Freddy Kreuger’s pizza face to Jason Vorhee’s hockey grill. Shot in 21 days with $300,000, the original of John Carpenter’s relentless slashers starred Jamie Lee Curtis as the baby sitter in peril from the masked maniac and made her the ultimate “scream queen.”

6. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) (R)

With, believe it or not, intelligent characters, and a thought-provoking screenplay, the first installment in the 1980’s slicer-dicer Freddy Kreuger series sets it apart from other films in the genre.

5. Jacob’s Ladder (1990) (R)

If you forget the ending, you’re left with one of the most disturbing, creepy flicks in film history. As a Vietnam vet haunted by harrowing hallucinations that obscure his hold on reality, Tim Robbin’s character is sure the military used him in a drug experiment gone awry.

4. Psycho (1960) (R)

Alfred Hitchcock’s grim horror yarn that put an entire generation of women off of showering for life, while using chocolate syrup for blood!

3. Seven (1995) (R)

Starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as New York homicide cops trying to track down a maniacal serial killer whose victims represent the seven deadly sins, fully realized characters and harrowing special effects make Seven a sure-to-be classic.

2. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) (R)

Who else but Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lector, the ultimate psycho gourmet? “A census taker tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti…” Brrr!

1. The Shining (1980) (R)

“Here’s Johnny!” Who can forget Jack Nicholson’s deranged laugh as he terrorized his snowbound family in a haunted hotel? Never really finding an audience, Stanley Kubrick’s most commercial film, with repeated viewings, revealed a classic psychological study into the mind of an unhinged man and family dynamics. The auteur makes the Overlook Hotel itself a character, with as much power and intrigue as the real-life actors.