The parasite will grow and decimate a person’s backbone unless it’s defeated by the only logical reaction to fear: screaming. Chapin (Vincent Price at the height of his weirdo sophisticate phase), a man who believes that every human being has a parasite living in their spine-that’s the “tingling” sensation you get every time you’re panicked-that feeds off of extreme fear. And, to prove his medical conclusions, Castle introduces us to Dr. The only way to live through The Tingler? You’re going to have to scream. Fear is a natural but serious affliction, a building-up of poisonous humors within one’s nervous system, and so it must be addressed should you endure the film he’s about to show you. So begins The Tingler, Castle’s 1959 creature feature, wherein the director appears on screen like a B-grade Alfred Hitchcock to remind the audience that what they’re about to see is hardly a lark. Or at least he wanted to convince you as much: If he didn’t have you believing you had some serious stakes in what was happening onscreen, then he-the 20th century’s consummate cinematic showman-wasn’t doing his job. So let’s get started: The 100 best horror films of all time.įor William Castle, going to the movies was a matter of life and death. In the oddest of ways, horror movies help us overcome our own fears. Horror cinema speaks toward the dark side in all of us, allowing us to confront the most frightening, primal forces we struggle with every day-death, and human malevolence-in a way that is actually constructive in strengthening the psyche. One thing is for certain: With all the films that were nominated, we could easily have made this list 200 entries long. In others, you’ll find yourself surprised to see us going to bat for films that don’t deserve the derision they’ve received. In some cases, you will likely be shocked by films that are missing. There are foreign films from around the globe, entries that range from 1922 to 2017. There are also likely a handful of independent features that will be unknown to all but the most dedicated horror hounds. There are classic films on this list, of course. That ends now, with the list below: a practical, must-see guide through the history of the horror genre. We’ve even given you the likes of the 50 best zombie movies of all time, and the 100 best vampire movies of all time, if you can believe that.Īnd yet, somehow, despite all that expertise, we’ve never put together a definitive ranking of the best horror films of all time. Case in point: We have so many writers focused on horror that we’ve produced huge lists of the best horror films on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu that are all updated on a monthly basis. Several Paste staff writers and editors are lifelong horror geeks, and there’s also a strong sentiment toward the macabre among several of our more prolific contributing writers. We are fortunate-some would say “cool enough”-to have quite a lot of genre expertise to call upon when it comes to horror in particular. This list has been a long time coming for Paste.