Martin Scorsese is a big horror fan. Over the years, he has heaped praise on dozens of creepy movies. Some of his favorites include David Cronenberg's Shivers, The Fog by John Carpenter, Ari Aster's Hereditary, and the excellent miniseries The Enfield Haunting. Most recently, he gushed over Ti West's Pearl, calling it "a wild, mesmerizing, deeply — and I mean deeply — disturbing 102 minutes."
In an article for the Daily Beast, Scorsese went so far as to name the 11 movies which he thinks are the all-time scariest. His picks include some of the most iconic horror movies ever made, alongside some more obscure gems that even horror aficionados might not have seen.
'Psycho' (1960)
It's no surprise that Marty picked Hitchcock's ultimate thriller for his list. Psycho hasn't aged well in every respect, but the key scenes more than hold up the first time Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) dons his mother's clothes, the shower scene, and the grisly climax. These moments pack a punch more than 60 years later.
Even more impressively, Hitchcock accomplished this while working within the limitations of the Hays Code, which restricted violence and sex on-screen. He also made the most out of limited practical effects, like the chocolate syrup he used as blood. "The shower… the swamp… the relationship between mother and son—it’s extremely disturbing on so many levels," Scorsese says of the film. "It’s also a great work of art."
'The Innocents' (1961)
The Innocents follows a governess (Deborah Kerr) who looks after two children at a massive, old estate. After some mysterious incidents, she believes that the house is haunted and that the spirits are possessing the kids. "This Jack Clayton adaptation of The Turn of the Screw is one of the rare pictures that does justice to Henry James," Scorsese wrote about the film. "It’s beautifully crafted and acted, immaculately shot (by Freddie Francis), and very scary."
Guillermo Del Toro is also a fan of The Innocents and said it inspired his 2015 gothic horror Crimson Peak. Viewers looking for a modern adaptation of the story should check out Mike Flanagan's series The Haunting of Bly Manor, which is based on the same book.
'Night of the Demon' (1957)
Night of the Demon centers on American psychologist John Holden (Dana Andrews), who travels to the UK to investigate a satanic cult. Holden discovers that the cultists are engaging in rituals to summon a gigantic demon, and he is absorbed into their wicked plots. It's a bit quaint by today's standards, but the lead actors are terrific, and the demon is well-designed.
"Jacques Tourneur made this picture about ancient curses near the end of his career, but it’s as potent as his films for Val Lewton," Scorsese writes. "Forget the demon itself—again, it’s what you don’t see that’s so powerful."
'The Exorcist' (1973)
No list ranking the scariest movies would be complete without William Friedkin's groundbreaking possession story. The film works both as a drama about faith and a vehicle for some of the most frightening scenes ever put to film: the head-spinning scene, the angiogram, Regan's spider-like walk, and, of course, that scene with the crucifix.
"A classic, endlessly parodied, very familiar—and it’s as utterly horrifying as it was the day it came out. That room—the cold, the purple light, the demonic transformations: it really haunts you," Scorsese writes. The Exorcist was seen as a major leap forward for the genre and made history as the first horror to be nominated for Best Picture.
'The Shining' (1980)
"I never read the Stephen King novel, I have no idea how faithful it is or isn’t," Scorsese says, "but Kubrick made a majestically terrifying movie, where what you don’t see or comprehend shadows every move the characters make." He's absolutely right. The Shining represents the creative fusion of Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick, two artists who were then at the top of their game.
Jack Nicholson puts in one of his most iconic performances as Jack Torrance, a recovering alcoholic tasked with looking after an old hotel during the winter, where his son Danny (Danny Loyd) beings communicating with the ghosts. The film boasts too many iconic moments to list them all: the twins, Danny's tricycle, "redrum," the wave of blood, Jack bursting through a door, screaming, "Here's Johnny!" Never has a single movie contained so much nightmare fuel.
'The Changeling' (1980)
"Another haunted house movie, filled with sadness and dread," Scorsese says about this Canadian psychological horror directed by Peter Medak. "George C. Scott, recovering from the death of his wife and child, discovers the angry ghost of another dead child in the mansion where he’s staying."
John (Scott) tries to find out more about the ghost's origins and learns about a murder that occurred in his house decades before. He is excellent in the lead role as a man wrestling with loss. As a result, the film is a meditative, slow-paced ghost story, which was a far cry from the violent, gory horrors that were popular in the early '80s. It'll appeal to devotees of more thoughtful horrors, like Robert Eggers's The Witch.
'Dead of Night' (1945)
Scorsese called Dead of Night "a British classic: four tales told by four strangers mysteriously gathered in a country house, each one extremely disquieting, climaxing with a montage in which elements from all the stories converge into a crescendo of madness."
It's an early horror anthology movie featuring a particularly chilling story involving an evil ventriloquist's dummy. Edgar Wright is also a big fan and included it in his list of his 1000 favorite movies.
'The Entity' (1982)
An unseen being torments a family, but the outside world believes they're just delusional. "Barbara Hershey plays a woman who is brutally raped and ravished by an invisible force in this truly terrifying picture. The banal settings, the California-modern house, accentuate the unnerving quality," Scorsese explains.
The film is anchored by the believable performance from Hershey. She brings a realism to the film that elevates it above more tame ghost stories like Poltergeist. It makes for a compelling horror drama mixed with social criticism.
'The Haunting' (1963)
This classic horror follows Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson) as he assembles a team to investigate the infamous Hill House, which is said to be haunted. It was the first film adaptation of Shirley Jackson's seminal novel The Haunting of Hill House. Scorsese called it "absolutely terrifying."
A lot of the creepiness comes from the psychological aspect of the story. Screenwriter Nelson Gidding perceived Jackson's book to be more about depression than phantoms and emphasized the script's themes of loneliness and mental breakdowns. This change works to the film's benefit. Indeed, the story has proven to have remarkable longevity. It was remade in 1999 and then adapted by Mike Flanagan into the series The Haunting of Hill House in 2018.
'The Uninvited' (1944)
"Another, more benign haunted house picture, set in England, no less atmospheric than The Haunting," Scorsese says of this black-and-white horror directed by Lewis Allen. "The tone is very delicate, and the sense of fear is woven into the setting, the gentility of the characters."
The Uninvited is a more restrained, mature ghost story, which deals in atmosphere and carefully-crafted imagery (one shot of a wilting flower comes to mind) rather than jump scares. It succeeds thanks to terrific performances from the leads. Fans of slow-burning, subtle horror should give it a try.
'Isle of the Dead' (1945)
Horror legend Boris Karloff stars in this film as a general stationed on a small island in 1912. The islanders are trapped there by a quarantine after a disease breaks out. However, even deadlier forces stalk the island: a local woman suspects that a type of vampire is picking people off one by one.
"There’s a moment in this Val Lewton picture, about plague victims trapped on a Greek island during the Balkan Wars, that never fails to scare me," Scorsese explains. "Let’s just say that it involves premature burial." Isle of the Dead makes for an interesting glimpse at a bygone cinematic and crams a lot into its lean 72-minute runtime.