During this time of year, it’s a question that’s constantly asked: What’s the scariest movie you’ve ever seen?
And one Philadelphia man and self-described “lover of movies,” Aaron Mettey, decided to figure out that answer for himself (luckily, he has a blog with Philadelphia Magazine’s The Philly Post where he keeps track: blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post).
“Usually, every year I get together with friends and we discuss what we think are the scariest movies. And when I started this blog and started asking for recommendations, I saw that there is a big differentiation on what people consider scary. And since I love scary movies, I figured this was a good excuse to watch them.”
Mettey came up with a list of 100 movies that fall under the genre of “really scary.” And since he hadn’t seen around 35 of them, he decided to watch the picks in a two-week, hair-raising period to offer a fair appraisal.
Out of the 100, he’s shared with us his top five and gives this advice on his marathon of movie watching: “What I found out is that horror movies are not scary at all if you’re watching them at home, by yourself, in the middle of the day. I watched ‘Children of the Corn’ and ‘Hell Raiser’ when the sun was shining, and I wasn’t scared. But then I saw ‘The Strangers’ with a friend at night, and we were seriously freaked out.”
Mettey’s top five
1 “Jaws” I know this is controversial. But everyone would say how scared they were to go swimming — even in a pool — after they saw “Jaws.” It’s the perfect monster flick.
2 “Exorcist” It’s just the best of the genre. And there’s something truly horrifying when it’s a young girl having to go through all of that.
3 “Psycho” Just because it’s Hitchcock. And it shows you don’t need blood or gore to make a truly terrifying movie.
4 “Halloween” The best and first slasher movie. The relentless presence that’s after you all the time — it really made you feel like you were there.
5 “The Ring” It’s one of the newer ones and it just terrified me. The girl climbing out the screen … it just stuck in my head.
