Forever Scared: The Scariest and Most Rewatchable Movies (2020): Degrees of Terror

By Steve Hutchison

This book includes summaries and reviews of some of the 36 both scariest and most rewatchable movies I've seen. They have been assigned a note of 4/4 on both aspects. This selection represents 1.5% of all the horror movies I've covered as a critic.

The films are sorted in chronological order. They are rated on five aspects: stars, story, creativity, acting, and quality.

These are not for the squeamish. You have been warned!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Hutchison
• Release date: Feb 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778870927

Steve Hutchison

Artist, developer and entrepreneur in film, video games and communications Steve Hutchison co-founded Shade.ca Art and Code in 1999, then Terror.ca and its French equivalent Terreur.ca in 2000. With his background as an artist and integrator, Steve worked on such games as Capcom's Street Fighter, PopCap's Bejeweled, Tetris, Bandai/Namco's Pac-Man and Mattel's Skip-Bo & Phase 10 as a localization manager, 2-D artist and usability expert. Having acquired skills in gamification, he invented a unique horror movie review system that is filterable, searchable and sortable by moods, genres, subgenres and antagonists. Horror movie fans love it, and so do horror authors and filmmakers, as it is a great source of inspiration. In March 2013, Steve launched Tales of Terror, with the same goals in mind but with a much finer technology and a complex engine, something that wasn’t possible initially. He has since published countless horror-themed books.

Book preview

ForeverScared2020_Cover.jpg

This book includes summaries and reviews of some of the 36 both scariest and most rewatchable movies I’ve seen. They have been assigned a note of 4/4 on both aspects. This selection represents 1.5% of all the horror movies I’ve covered as a critic.

The films are sorted in chronological order. They are rated on five aspects: stars, story, creativity, acting, and quality.

These are not for the squeamish. You have been warned!

#1

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

1974

Siblings and their friends, while driving to the desecrated tomb of their grandfather, run out of gas and become the victims of cannibals.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre features a kind of violence that is closer to realistic torture than most horror flicks dare or choose to go. There is nothing supernatural, here, although there is a mysterious aura to the cannibal family our protagonists are targeted by. The cinematography is minimalist, the picture grainy, the set design simply spine-chilling.

Visceral, it pulls no punches and always brings us back to our basic, every day ultimate fears: suffering, mutilation, torture and death, mostly. The film isn’t exactly bloody but it’s crude, gritty and conveys pain through dry audio effects, screams and sudden loud noises. It essentially speaks to the phobias humans have about evil, sociopathy, insanity, sorrow and pain.

Watch a bunch of teens get chased, butchered, and meet Leatherface, an iconic chainsaw-wielding brute masked by dead human skin. Depicted as a dumb teenager watching over his family, he is a walking gimmick. He quickly turns a road thriller into physical and mental torture horror. The antagonists are all played by performers who are so natural, yet creepy, they don’t seem to be acting at all.

#2

The Shining

1980

Secluded in a remote hotel for the winter, a family is terrorized by ghosts.

The Shining is the ultimate ghost movie. It is not only about the dead coming back, but about vice, mental illness and human evil. It is a slow burn that never gets boring because when nothing happens, photography does. It is among Kubrick’s best work and one of the best horror movies ever made. The hotel is a dense psychedelic labyrinth, and the script follows the same theme and logic.

Fans of thrillers get a thick depiction of family violence caused by alcoholism and supernatural lovers get scary ghosts. When mental illness and seclusion are gradually added to the equation, claustrophobia takes a new meaning. This is a long feature that constantly foreshadows, setting a stressful and uncomfortable tone that is as efficient psychologically as it is viscerally.

The set design is right out of a nightmare. The actors are so vigorous and meticulous it is troubling. Family horror, when approached so brilliantly, becomes something we can all relate to. It is never explicit about taboos, but quickly hints at many twisted concepts that make the movie highly rewatchable. Get ready to be immersed and shook up. Prepare for the horror experience of a life time!

#3

The Evil Dead

1981

Teenagers partying