The scariest horror movie depends on who you ask. What scares us most hits at our core and disturbs us. That’s the beauty of the horror genre: it can appeal to the most simple or complex fears, and cause us nightmares and uneasiness.

For my scariest movie, I chose The Ring. I watched this movie in 2002 and was fine, or so I thought. I watched it pretty early at night, but when it came time to fall asleep, it was impossible. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Samara. Her image was burned into my brain, and when I did doze off, I’d wake up immediately thinking she was in the room. I stayed awake all night and refused to watch it again.

Determined to face my fear, I rewatched it this weekend. I’m glad I did because I was fine, or so I thought again. I couldn’t figure out what freaked me out so much the first time. However, I realized as I heard the closing credits, I didn’t watch the last 20 minutes. Right before Samara appeared, I found myself keeping busy and only listening to the movie. She still scares me.

And I’m still not sure what about her bothers me so much. My heart races and my palms sweat thinking she may crawl out of my TV. She’s just scary.

It occurred to me that it’s not the movie that scares us, it’s the things in the movie. When scared, we tend to focus on the one or two things that make the entire movie scary. So, here’s a quick list of my scariest things in horror movies, which make these my scariest movies:

• Clowns – As cliché as it sounds, I’m terrified of them. Thanks to watching IT, my lifelong fear stems from watching this movie as a child. It’s also interesting that I can look at Pennywise for short amounts of time but not Samara.
• Clap game – The Conjuring‘s clap game freaks me out. I will never play that game and have become superstitious about it. My mind thinks if I play it, it will serve as a Quija board and conjure some demon or evil spirit.
• Ghosts – Thanks to Paranormal Activity 3, ghosts make me a little uneasy. I’ve been around them throughout my life, but when the kitchen furniture falls to the floor, that was it. My comfort level diminished.
• Rats/mice – This fear stems from childhood trauma, but movies such as Graveyard Shift and Ratatouille (yes, the kids movie!) make my skin crawl. I refuse to watch them and yell at anyone who doesn’t warn me of a rat scene first.

As we close out the Halloween season, we at RevPub hope everyone had a safe holiday and weekend. Here’s to costumes, candy, good friends and scares, and we hope you enjoyed our favorite time of the year!