Alfred Hitchcock broke a number of rules with his indisputable masterpiece about a lonely hotel owner (Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins) and his deranged "mother," who prey on pretty young guests. For the first 45 minutes, we're treated to an expose on guilt, as Janet Leigh's bank employee steals $40,000 and attempts to run away with it. Then she stops at the Bates Motel. Her sudden, shocking death in the shower still ranks as one of the most horrifying in scene history. Most modern scary movies owe a debt to what Hitchcock created here.
Director John Carpenter borrowed a great deal from Hitchcock with 1978's "Halloween." It contains very little blood; the terrors held by the film rely on mood and atmosphere as much as shocks. He also retains Hitchcock's simplicity, telling a straightforward chiller about a madman who escapes from a mental institution and menaces babysitters in his home town on All Hallows Eve. The film made a star out of Jamie Lee Curtis, launched the slasher film genre of the 1980s, and for a time was the most profitable movie (in terms of starting budget) ever made.
The devil can be notoriously tricky to conjure onscreen, but no film has yet to top William Friedkin's 1973 adaptation of the William Peter Blatty novel. It works because of its grounding in serious theology and because it posits very rational characters struggling to deal with otherworldly evil in their midst. When a little girl (Linda Blair) starts acting strangely, everyone assumes it's a psychological problem. Only when things grow worse and a doubting priest is brought in to ascertain the situation do the monstrous forces at work reveal themselves. For a time, "The Exorcist" was the highest-grossing film of all time.
Author Stephen King didn't care for Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of his novel, about an alcoholic writer (Jack Nicholson) and his family snowed in at a haunted hotel. Few others share his opinion. Kubrick's film is now regarded as one of the high points of the horror genre, and the terrifying finale contains numerous moments which have become pop culture icons. Nicholson's deranged performance has often been imitated, but no actor has been able to match the chilling depths of insanity to which his character is driven by the hotel's ghostly inhabitants.