Halloween is fast approaching, making us think of all the great horror films to watch this year. There are classic Halloween movies like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining or Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. These movies hold so many scares that viewers can still be scared no matter how often they watch them.
Then there are the movies that are creepy or have creepy moments. Sometimes these movies offer as much scare as the great horror classics, and sometimes they just have moments that are truly creepy. Then we have the campy movies that make us laugh, even if we avert our eyes from a tension-filled moment. While there are many movies we could have chosen for this list, read on to see our top campy movies (for a good laugh) and creepy movies (for a quick scare).
Campy: Jennifer’s Body
Jennifer, the beautiful it-girl, gets possessed by a demon. While she initially still stays close to her best friend, Needy, she becomes a killing monster for guys (yes, even Needy’s crush, Chip).
When Needy confides in Chip that Jennifer is evil, she has to clarify, “She’s actually evil, not high school evil.” Although Jennifer can be scary, she often crosses the line into over-the-top camp territory. When Needy confronts Jennifer, telling her that she’s killing people, Jennifer is quick to reply, not people, just guys (as if that makes it better).
Creepy: Malevolent
Netflix has several creepy horror movies, including Malevolent. Released in 2018, it features a sibling duo and their friends who are investigating hauntings, except their business is a scam. However, the siblings have gifts, especially the sister, inherited from their mother.
In what proves to be an awful decision, the group decides to investigate a haunting where a horrible crime happened involving the death of three girls, all of who were found with their mouths sewn shut. While this was definitely a bad decision for our scam artists, it does make for one creepy and disturbing horror film.
Campy: Sleepwalkers
While Stephen King is the master of horror, his movie, Sleepwalkers comes across as more camp than frightening. It features Brian Krause before he was our favorite angel, Leo, on Charmed, and the popular Twin Peaks actress, Mädchen Amick as the title leads (Charles and Tanya).
The film sets up a high school romance between Charles and Tanya. All would be going swell, of course, if Charles weren’t a monster who loves his mom maybe a little too much. Luckily, these monsters are afraid of cats, so much so, that Tanya should have just embraced being a cat lady.
Creepy: Flatliners
Although this movie was redone in 2017, the 1990 version is the creepiest. Flatliners has a tense plot and features a stellar cast of Julia Roberts, Oliver Platt, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin, and Kiefer Sutherland serving as the leads. The plot centers around these five medical students who want to know more about the afterlife. To do this, they flat-line each other for a couple of seconds, before bringing each other back.
That alone would be creepy. However, what they saw when they flat-lined eventually follows them back into the real world, providing even more creepy (and frightening) encounters.
Campy: Teen Witch
This film is sometimes seen as a lesser-known cult classic. However, Teen Witch is incredibly campy. Louise (Robyn Lively, Blake Lively’s older sister) discovers that she is a reincarnated witch and will have her powers back on her 16th birthday.
What does she decide to use her powers on? Well, it is high school, so she wants to be part of the popular crowd and to get the guy of her dreams. Along the way, she does help out her best friend (another outsider) create a humorous rap to challenge the local teen hip guy/her crush (who goes around town making up musical numbers with his friends). This leads to a charming number called “Top That.” Added to that, the best friend initially didn’t want to talk to her crush because of “how funkier he is.”
Creepy: The Conjuring
The first Conjuring set the stage for some truly creepy moments. While the plot sometimes spins and sags, the subtle camera work amps up the creepiness in a very quiet way. For instance, when the Warrens investigate a potential haunting, we see the scene through both of their eyes.
A scene, such as being outside under a tree, may not reveal a lot to Ed Warren, who doesn’t have Lorraine’s special gift; however, when the camera shows the scene through Lorraine’s eyes, The Conjuring delivers a truly creepy fright.
Campy: Scream
There is a lot to love about the Scream franchise, especially the first movie. Unlike other movies of the time, it openly played with (and ridiculed) horror story tropes. As such, it was extremely self-aware (or meta). Although campy, there were moments in Scream that were pretty frightening.
However, the film broke new mainstream ground in providing meta moments and laughing at itself, even while it still delivered the jumps and screams.
Creepy: Gothika
Halle Berry plays Dr. Miranda Grey, a psychologist who works with convicted women that have mental health problems. She is rational, and then the switch happens. In the middle of a rainstorm, Miranda stops to help a young blond woman in the middle of the road. Only the blond woman is an angry ghost, who is terrifying and possesses Miranda for a short time.
That short time lands Miranda in the ward with her patients. Miranda isn’t able to rationalize everything away, and she’s followed by the scary blond ghost at every corner. Is the ghost good? Is the ghost bad? Either way, her presence provides some of the biggest jumps, and the whole situation of why Miranda was possessed in the first place is downright creepy.
Campy: The Evil Dead Franchise
No list of campy Halloween movies would be complete without The Evil Dead trilogy. While the first film attempted to be more scary than camp, the rest of the franchise fully embraced the camp, providing great one-liners and laughter.
It could be said that this trilogy helped secure Bruce Campbell’s place as B-Movie royalty. The Evil Dead also spawned an enjoyable series in Ash vs Evil Dead.
Creepy: Poltergeist I & II
The original Poltergeist has enough creepy moments to fill a pool (or a yard built on top of a graveyard). There are creepy toys coming to life, a television trying to suck in a young girl who has psychic abilities, and a tree that tries to harm the brother.
The sequel continued with the creepiness, adding a scary cult leader ghost that’s trying to get Carol Anne, jealous of her psychic abilities. What also makes Poltergeist extremely creepy is that many horrible things happened to the cast, making the cast and movie appear to be cursed. This film is the creepiest for both its story-lines and for the behind-the-scene incidents that happened to members of the cast. It makes us shudder to think about it.
