The Horror of It!
September 26, 2025
We’re coming into horror movie season. Whether you are a horror fan or a horror avoider, you have a month or so now to either lean in or look away.
Believe it or not, horror as a cinematic genre began way back in the 19th century.
The movie Le Manoir du Diable (The House of the Devil) by the famous French early filmmaker Georges Melieis, scared the living daylights out of its audience for all of 3 minutes in 1896.
But how about we advance into the modern era and take a look where horror cinema has taken us.
After a thorough review of horror films on the internet, we’ve come up with a list of the 10 most popular/talked about/influential horror movies of all time, in our opinion, starting with number 10 and working down to number 1.
The Conjuring is the story of paranormal events (5% true, 95% made up) back in 1971 at a farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island. The owners of the farmhouse at the time of the movie’s release sued Warner Brothers for substantial damages after the house was overrun with looky-loos and ritualists. No fun sitting on your toilet with cameras peering into the bathroom window.
It to date is the highest grossing horror film of all time. The main character, Pennywise the Dancing Clown, played by Bill Skarsgard, didn’t meet the kids he would be terrorizing until he was on-set for a scene. The kids’ look of terror in that first-appearance scene is real.
The baby in Rosemary’s Baby, of course, was the devil. The film’s composer, Krzysztof Komeda, fell off a cliff in Los Angeles under mysterious circumstances. He later fell into a coma, and his only moment of consciousness occurred when Rosemary’s Baby’s lullaby was played to him before he died.
Jaws was the first big summer blockbuster and one of the last big movies to be made without computer-generated special effects. Its special effects had to be welded, hammered and bolted together.
The shark, fondly named Bruce on the set, was a calamity of a machine. Because it proved unfilmable, it was used only sparingly during the filming, which as it turns out, left the shark up to the audience’s imagination and heightened the fear.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was born from a Christmas shopping experience of co-writer and director, Tobe Hooper. He was in a very crowded Sears doing holiday shopping and had to detour down an aisle full of chain saws. First, he jokingly considered to his friends using them to get out of the store and then came up with a better purposing.
The film was shot by a collection of newbies near Austin, Texas in horrific mid-summer heat and humidity on a budget of only 60k. Gunnar Hansen, the massive chainsaw guy, was plucked off the nearby University of Texas campus, not because he was an actor but because he was big.
Alien was groundbreaking for the time for its special effects, winning many awards. But some of the best effects were not special. The alien was made out of shredded condoms, and drooled KY jelly out of its mouth.
“Heeere’s Johnny!” when axing down the hotel room door was an ad lib line Jack Nicholson made up. The Shining was not filmed at the time-honored Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado as suggested in the movie, but on a soundstage in England. Exterior shots were of the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood in Oregon.
Halloween was the slasher movie that defined the genre. Jamie Lee Curtis, who battled the slasher Mike Myers, got the part at age 17 through her actor mom, Janet Leigh’s, influence. There have been 13 films in the Halloween series. Jamie Lee has been in most all of them. The Mike Myers slasher character keeps turning over. Must be the part is hard on the psyche.
The girl’s vomit, one of the most memorable scenes in The Exorcist, was a mix of green pea soup and oatmeal. Its sequel, The Exorcist 2, released in 1977, has been consensually labelled as one of the worst movies of all time, slapped together for a quick buck.
Psycho was a big risk, and the movie studio behind it expected it to be a flop, in fact, assigned all future rights to the film to producer and director, Alfred Hitchcock. But Alfred was not only a great filmmaker, but also a master marketer.
Hitchcock had sandwich board signs placed outside each and every theater showing his movie picturing him looking at his watch, with the caption “no late entry allowed”. This was quite an attention-grabber for the times. Back in the 50s and 60s, it was common for movie goers to enter a theater at any time and just watch the beginning of a movie at the next showing. Curiosity was a major factor in turning his film into an all-time hit.
The greatest horror of all results from not maintaining our health.
Tariff-ic Trend
With so much anxiety about tariffs, sales of the Bemer electromagnetic field therapy microcirculation device have exceeded projections in recent months because of consumers’ concerns about rising prices.
Tariffs on Luxembourg-manufactured products, including the Bemer, have risen some since April, with the possibility of larger tariffs looming.
If you or someone you know might have a need for improved cardiovascular circulation for any number of reasons, including just helping to keep in good health, this might be a good time to reach out to us for more information and a possible complementary trial period with the Bemer.
Your New Grocery Ally: The Yuka App
Shop smarter, not harder: let Yuka guide the way.
Yuka – Food & Cosmetic Scanner
Do you really know what’s in your cart? The Yuka app is a free tool that scans food and personal care products to give them a simple, color-coded health score. It shows nutrition, additives, and organic status and even suggests healthier alternatives, so you can make quick, informed choices.
Turn grocery trips into a game, let your kids scan with Yuka too!
Swap That Pumpkin Spice Latte For…
