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With this week’s arrival of Halloween, I started thinking of some of the scariest movies and/or stories in my experience.  Being anba avid movie watcher,  these tend to be movies.  I looked up a listing from the Internet Movie Database (AKA IMDB)   50 Scariest MOvies Ever Made 2012 Edition.  My personal selections from this list:

Silence of the Lambs – Anthony Hopkins’ character Hannibal is one of the creepiest and most effectively unnerving character I have encountered in the movies.  This,  along with the great foreboding soundtrack,  and the grisly murders kept me thoroughly involved and on edge.

Jaws – This is the movie that for how exhausted I was after leaving the theater.  I was 16,  and the movie had plenty of what pushed my “scare” and “creep-out” buttons,  along with another of those great , foreboding soundtracks that became classic re-use for all things scary.  The arm “leftovers” found on the beach being eaten by crabs,  the head floating by the porthole,  and the kid being pulled under in a torrent of blood,  all those kind of tucked themselves into my psyche for a long time to come.

The Sixth Sense – Great story about ghosts (aka “dead people”) .  I was not even in a theater for this one,  but on a relatively small hotel room TV screen,  and this still had great effect.  I can only imagine what it was like for big screen,  Dolby Sound viewers.

The Excorcist I was in college,  and watched this on HBO with a group of about a dozen friends.  Again,  nothing but a 26″ TV and no sound system,  but a story that got me dreading the ascent up the stairs to “Reagan’s room” where abuse awaited (and various other assorted gross-outs) .  I was feeling rather drained after this one.

Blair Witch Project This one was intentionally not of high production value,  but it achieved its goal.  I was feeling afraid to go outside after this one (and I was a middle-aged adult).

I’m sure there are others,  being the avid movie watcher that I am,  and one who likes the suspenseful movie genre.

What about you?  What would you put on your list of all time scariest movies (or books, if you’re a reader of scary stories)?