With less than two months to go until the latest adaptation of Stephen King‘s It hits the big screen, audiences are waiting with bated breath to see as much footage from the project as possible in hopes of determining how effective the film could be. Different people directly involved with the adaptation have tried to assure audiences about the film’s quality, but it’s tough to take their opinion too seriously due to their biases.
Writer Joe Hill is no stranger to the world of horror, having written the horror fantasy comic Locke & Key and the novels NOS4A2, Heart-Shaped Box, and Horns. Hill has been surrounded by horror all his life, as he’s the son of Stephen King, and even appeared as a child in the King-written Creepshow film.
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The writer was recently speaking at a conference about the upcoming adaptation of Locke & Key, whose pilot recently lost director Scott Derickson and was replaced by It director Andres Muschietti, which led Hill to share his thoughts on the new adaptation.
When speaking about the director, Hill explained, “He also recently directed the adaptation of my dad’s novel, It, and I had the good fortune to see an early screening of it, about four weeks ago. I think Andres’ adaptation of It is one of the five scariest films ever made. It’s tremendously humane, you’ll love the characters in it, but it is just relentlessly terrifying.”
The writer went on to name four other movies that he considers to be scarier than It, to give a frame of reference for how effective he finds the project to be.
Scroll down to see the rest of Hill’s picks for the scariest movies ever made!
The Exorcist (1973)
Based on the novel by William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist is often considered one of the most effective and chilling horror films of all time.
When young Regan (Linda Blair) starts acting odd — levitating, speaking in tongues — her worried mother (Ellen Burstyn) seeks medical help, only to hit a dead end. A local priest (Jason Miller), however, thinks the girl may be seized by the devil. The priest makes a request to perform an exorcism, and the church sends in an expert (Max von Sydow) to help with the difficult job.
Much like Rosemary’s Baby before it and The Omen after it, the effectiveness of The Exorcist lies in how unconventional of a horror movie it is. Shot and acted much more like a traditional drama than a typical horror film, the horrific subject matter plays out much more effectively with the compelling performances and inventive direction from William Friedkin.
Jaws (1975)
The film that is almost single-handedly responsible for Steven Spielberg’s career, Jaws focuses on a series of mysterious deaths taking place just off the shore of a sleepy New England island community. With police chief Brody (Roy Scheider) having only recently moved to the town, he struggles to find the balance between keeping his residents safe and making sure tourists still visit the island, ensuring a financially prosperous season.
After enlisting the help of shark scientist Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and shark fisherman Quint (Robert Shaw), Brody sets out into the ocean to solve the problem once and for all, no matter what the psychological or physical repercussions might be.
Far more than just a horror movie, one of the biggest strengths of Jaws also lies in how it depicts how people with various backgrounds handle terrifying events, whether it be through logic, science, or faith.
The Thing (1982)
The second adaptation of the novella “Who Goes There?” after the 1951 The Thing from Another World, John Carpenter’s The Thing is not only an exploration of paranoia, but also features some of cinema’s best practical special effects.
At a research station in Antarctica, a mysterious dog seeks refuge while being chased by people in a helicopter. The station’s researchers attempt to discover why this dog was being pursued, only to stumble upon footage at another research facility that shows a team uncovering something massive from the ice. Upon further analysis, the dog is not what it seems, as it reveals itself to be an alien life form capable of replicating other living creatures perfectly, including the other researchers.
Full of tension and shocking twists, The Thing contains many clues and surprises that audiences are still analyzing to this day in hopes of interpreting the bleak and mysterious finale.
Let the Right One In (2008)
The most recent film in Hill’s ranking, this Swedish film is an adaptation of a novel by the same name.
In the Swedish film, a young girl and an older man, possibly her father or grandfather, moves into the apartment complex of a bullied 12-year-old boy. The boy and girl strike up an unlikely friendship from living in the same community, despite the girl not spending time outside of her apartment during the day. The girl eventually reveals that she is a vampire, with the older man she lives with responsible for seeking out her victims to satiate her thirst for blood. The young kids form a friendship, even though they both know what it means to embrace her true nature.
Equal parts love story and vampire film, Let the Right One In earned an American remake in 2010.
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