Best Horror film ever

[Sgarre1]

Heck, EVIL DEAD 2 starts off with a remake of THE EVIL DEAD in the re-cap (eliminating extraneous characters), then just re-retells the basic story with different characters, more humor, and the boom-socko ending.

There were all kinds of cameras attached to all kinds of things, IIRC - the long capper shot that ends EVIL DEAD was supposedly achieved by strapping the camera to a dirt bike, driving it through the cabin (as fake doors were pulled aside by heplers), and then running straight into Bruce Campbell! On the other hand, Sam Raimi likes a good tall tale as well...

[stePH]

Hell High had an awesome shower scene.  Even though it was a body double.

[Planish]

I think The Shining is the best movie in the horror genre. [snip]

Hard to argue with The Exorcist, too. 

If you want scary, one of the few movies that had an impact on me was the original Salem's Lot miniseries.  It came out in 1979 and I was 10.  THE scene from the movie is when a kid wakes up to see his recently vamped brother floating in the fog outside his second story window.  The vampire taps on the window and says, "let me in.  It's OK." The vampire kid is deathly and has a big, fangy smile, but his voice is completely normal.  Judging from the blog posts I found googling it for the release date, it looks like just about everyone from my generation was terrified by this scene.  google it yourself and you'll find several images of the scene I'm talking about.  This was probably the first really scary thing I had seen.  Probably because it was on TV, and if it had been in a movie, I wouldn't have been able to see it.

Excellent choices.
I thought The Shining was the best movie overall in that group (I think the twin girls are what creeped me out the most), but The Exorcist was the only movie (ever) that disturbed me after I left the theatre.

It will be interesting to see if the scariness of the movie is affected by what age we were when we saw it.

 I thought I was still in high school when I saw The Exorcist, but I just did the math and it turns out I was 20 at the time. I believe I read the original novel shortly after, too.
The window scene was great, and one of the few images I can still recall clearly. That version was also the first time (since Nosferatu) that I recall seeing a vampire that was not somehow handsome, or at least passably human. The wiggly teeth were a nice touch.

The Lost Boys was a pretty good take on the vampire genre too. Just enough comic relief.

You're a vampire Michael! My own brother, a goddamn, shit-sucking vampire. You wait 'till mom finds out, buddy!

[Swamp]

The culling has begun.  As I promised, I have spawned a poll based on the comments and suggestions here.  Go vote for your favorites, but if you want, also go rent the movies you haven't seen first.  You'll have two weeks between each poll.

[deflective]

if there's still room for another film i want to mention spoorloos, the dutch film that the vanishing was based on.  it's slowly paced but still interesting because of the mundane realness that horror films rarely achieve.

[Sgarre1]

Ohh, yeh, SPOORLOOS, that's one that would fall into my "10 others I'm forgetting"!  Great movie.  Shame about the sucky American remake!