As the sunny days of summer give way to the grey skies of fall, it becomes clear that the season of the witch is upon us. Soon, pumpkins will be carved, and bowls of candy will be laid out. The long nights give us the chance to curl up on the couch with a blanket and watch movies that will leave us too scared to sleep, filling our minds with visions of maniacs dancing in our heads. The time for horror movies has come!
But, with so many amazing horror movies to pick from, how can someone make sure that they get the best scares for their time? No one wants to spend the night watching a dud knowing that they missed out on seeing some really creepy horror villans just before bedtime. Luckily, when it comes to the horror movies of the 1990s, you can't swing an ax without hitting a classic.
10 Evil Ash
In 1981, Sam Raimi created one of the scariest low-budget horror movies of all time with The Evil Dead. In 1987, he showed the world his sick sense of humor with Evil Dead II, and, in 1992, he revealed the true scale of his horrific humor with Army of Darkness.
Starring the ever amazing Bruce Campbell as the always in over his head Ash Williams, Army of Darkness is an endlessly entertaining movie thanks in part to Campbell taking on dual roles as both the hero Ash and his vile counterpart, Evil Ash. Evil Ash may not leave you shaking with fear, but you will laugh until you cry.
9 Dracula
In making Bram Stoker's Dracula, director Francis Ford Coppola and actor Gary Oldman did something with the titular character that hadn't happened since Bela Lugosi played the role in 1931; they created a new iconic look for the most famous vampire in the world. The movie, a big-budget gothic horror that eschewed newer special effects formats to use old school tricks, was a critical and commercial success.
Also starring Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, and Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing, Bram Stoker's Dracula updated the classic Universal Studios film with a darker style and an operatic sense of storytelling, making the studio feel confident in trying to remake a number of their Classic Universal Monsters movies, including Frankenstein and the Mummy.
8 Graboids
Released in 1990 and starring Kevin Bacon, Tremors didn't set the box office on fire, but that hasn't stopped the franchise from continuing with six sequels, the lastest one set to be released this year. While Kevin Bacon may have been the headliner of the first film, the franchise belongs to actor Michael Gross and the monstrous Graboids.
Graboids are an ancient species of giant subterranean sandworms that grow up to 30 feet long and weigh upwards of 20 tons. These nasty worms cut through the ground like it's water and use their tentacles to grab their prey, feeding on anything they can catch.
7 Candyman
Based on the short story "The Forbidden" by Clive Barker, Candyman centers on a Chicago urban legend about the Candyman, the son of a slave who became a wealthy businessman after the Civil War only to be lynched by a mob of racists who cut off his hand and covered him in honey, attracting the bees that stung him to death.
Now, whenever someone says Candyman into a mirror five times, he appears. Using the hook that has replaced his missing hand, the Candyman kills whoever summoned him. The Candyman was originally played by the iconic Tony Todd, but, in the upcoming remake, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, best known for playing Black Manta in Aquaman and Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen, will be taking over the role.
6 Chucky
While Chucky made his debut in 1998's Child's Play, the 1990s were where he really shined. The killer doll, voiced by Brad Dourif in seven movies and an upcoming TV series, was also voiced by Star Wars and Batman: The Animated Series star Mark Hamill in the 2019 remake.
In the 1990s, the series released three films, Child's Play 2, Child's Play 3, and the much-loved Bride of Chucky, which added Jennifer Tilly as Chucky's killer love-interest, Tiffany. Like the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, the Child's Play series started off as a darkly serious horror series before leaning into the more fun aspects of the franchise.
5 Sadako Yamamura
First introduced in Koji Suzuki's Ring novel series, Sadako Yamamura made her on-screen debut in 1998's Japanese horror film Ringu. As the movies explain, anyone who watches the cursed videotape that shows a series of disturbing images, ending on the image of an open well, will die in seven days.
What kills them is Sadako, a girl who had psionic powers who was killed by her doctor, who then hid her body in the well. Sadako's ghost psionically created the cursed tape to take her rage out on the world. Ringu kicked off the early 2000s J-horror craze. Along with its own series of sequels, Ringu was remade into the American franchise, The Ring.
4 Hannibal Lecter
The Silence of the Lambs isn't the first film to feature Hannibal Lecter; that honor belongs to 1986's Red Dragon, but, when people think of the character, they think of Anthony Hopkins with that mask covering his mouth so he won't eat anyone.
Hopkins was so terrifying in the role that he not only won an Academy Award for his work but turned the character into a cultural icon like few other characters in film history. To this day, just about everyone gets the reference "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti".
3 Annie Wilkes
Just like Anthony Hopkins with Hannibal Lecter, it is hard not to see Kathy Bates holding a sledgehammer when thinking about the character Annie Wilkes in Misery.
The movie, based on Stephen King's novel and starring Bates and James Caan, tells the story of popular writer Paul Sheldon, who finds himself trapped in Annie's home after a car accident. Annie, a demented fan of Sheldon's Victorian romance novels featuring a character named Misery Chastain, holds the writer hostage, forcing him to write a new book just for her. Kathy Bates won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Annie Wilkes.
2 Blair Witch
How scary is the Blair Witch? Whatever it may be, it never even shows up in the movie The Blair Witch Project, but it still led to the rise of found footage horror movies. The movie, made to look like a documentary, follows three film school students who head off to Burkittsville, Maryland to make a short documentary about the legend of the Blair Witch, only to become lost in the woods and hunted by an unseen evil.
The Blair Witch Project was one of the first movies to use the internet for advertising, and the film itself was so convincing that people believed it to be a true story. While there have been two sequels and a video game made based on the movie, none of them have had the same powerful effect of the original horror classic.
1 Ghostface
Written by Kevin Williamson and directed by horror master Wes Craven, 1996's Scream brought the slasher genre back from the dead by mixing in meta-commentary about the genre with some very intense kills. From the moment Scream hit theaters, the Ghostface costume became an instant Halloween must-have. The original movie has launched three sequels—with a fifth coming soon—as well as TV series.
Like Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees before, Ghostface has an instantly recognizable look, but what this killer added to the slasher genre is that a different person is behind that mask in every movie. Not only that, the killer is almost always actually two or more killers working together to keep their victims guessing.