After recently seeing the masterful The House of the Devil, a simple retro thriller from director Ti West, we started trying to put together a list of our favorite scary films - a genre we're not exactly experts in. And while the temptation to include thrillers like Jaws or comedies like Army of Darkness and Shaun of the Dead was there, we decided to stick with just the movies that really freaked us out and/or gave us nightmares. This being a Ze Catalist list,  no, we’re not including the movies that simply aim to make you bite your nails and scream and jump. Those films, we’ve found, are usually only worthwhile once, if at all. For our list, we picked films. Well made movies. You get it. So here they are, in the spirit of mid-fall, our 50 favorite scary movies …

1. The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme)
2. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick)
3. Se7en (David Fincher)
4. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro)
5. Repulsion (Roman Polanski)
6. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
7. Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick)
8. The House of the Devil (Ti West)
9. Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock)
10. Alien (Ridley Scott)

11. The Exorcist (William Friedkin)
12. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson)
13. The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick)
14. The Thing (John Carpenter)
15. Bug (William Friedkin)
16. Funny Games (Michael Haneke)
17. The Strangers (Bryan Bertino)
18. Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski)
19. Zodiac (David Fincher)
20. Manhunter (Michael Mann)

21. Signs (M. Night Shyamalan)
22. The Others (Alejandro Amenabar)
23. Videodrome (David Cronenberg)
24. Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven)
25. The Fly (David Cronenberg)
26. Panic Room (David Fincher)
27. Misery (Rob Reiner)
28. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock)
29. Let Me In (Matt Reeves)
30. Dark Water (Walter Salles)

31. The Mist (Frank Darabont)
32. Time of the Wolf (Michael Haneke)
33. Red Dragon (Brett Ratner)
34. Frailty (Bill Paxton)
35. Cabin Fever (Eli Roth)
36. 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle)
37. The Tenant (Roman Polanski)
38. Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper)
39. Dawn of the Dead (George Romero)
40. Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli)

41. Halloween (John Carpenter)
42. Cloverfield (Matt Reeves)
43. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper)
44. Hostel (Eli Roth)
45. The Fog (John Carpenter)
46. The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan)
47. Joyride (John Dahl)
48. The Ring (Gore Verbinski)
49. Drag Me to Hell (Sam Raimi)
50. High Tension (Alexandre Aja)

Written by G. William Locke