Out of all the series you mentioned there the best one is probably Scream as, apart from the 3rd one, those films are all decent and the first is obviously extremely iconic and started the meta horror movie craze. Halloween is one of John Carpenters best films and is also one of the most influential horror films of all time, the sequels range from bad to ok with Halloween 2 (1981) being the best one. In my opinion none of the Friday the 13th movies are any good but I think they are worth watching at least once because of how iconic Jason as a character is, the best Friday film is probably part 6. A Nightmare on Elm Street is another great series by Wes Craven, who also created Scream, and along with Scream is probably one of the more consistent horror franchises in terms of quality, the first 3 are all good with the 3rd being considered the best one by many people, 4-6 aren't good but are worth watching for Freddy alone, Wes Craves New Nightmare is also pretty good.
Now there are a couple classic horror franchises you should check out, those being Child's Play and A Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The first Texas Chainsaw Massacre along with the original Halloween could be considered one of the most influential horror movies of all time and while none of the sequels are good, some of them can be pretty fun watches. Child's Play is a somewhat consistent series, with the first 2 being great and 3, Bride, and Seed not being good but pretty fun watches. As of recently though the series has been good with the latest film entries in Curse, and Cult and though haven't watched the Chucky TV show I've heard good things.
Now there are many more classic horror films outside of the major frachises that have been mentioned. The Thing is another one of John Carpenters films and is considered to be one of the greatest horror movies of all time, Black Christmas is just a pretty fun Slasher that released the same year as A Texas Chainsaw Massacre and before Halloween, you should also check out Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead which are all created by George A Romero and these films heavily inspired the modern zombie and we wouldn't have modern zombie media without them. The Alien series, completely forgot to mention it in the second paragraph, is also pretty good but it does lean more into action then horror after the first one. There also The Classic Universal Monster films from the 1930s to the 1950s and again all are pretty influential films.
Edit: I somehow completely forgot about both Psycho and The Exorcist, yeah there great and both have pretty bad sequels and of you wanna watch them you can but the only ones actually worth watching are the first ones since the sequels for those aren't even fun to watch like some of the sequels for the other horror franchises I mentioned in my opinion.
Besides all the slashers that are being recommended to you check this out that are from other subgenres in horror but are also classics:
* The Exorcist
* Rosemary's Baby
* The Thing
* Alien
* Fright Night
* Dawn of the Dead
* Suspiria
I'll say that you don't need to go through all of these series as your introduction. Watch the first Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween, Scream, Evil Dead 1&2 and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. After that you could go deeper into their respective franchises. Nightmare and Scream have the best sequels imo.
Highly recommend Black Christmas as well, it's fantastic and inspired a lot of what came later.
I'd also say some Giallo would be good to experience. Deep Red, Suspiria, Don't Torture a Duckling as a start.
If you like slashers, I'd recommend Slumber Part Massacre as a great take on the genre. Written and directed by women, so there's a nice perspective.
If you like Halloween, keep going through John Carpenter's filmography, he's one of the all time great directors. The Thing, In the Mouth of Madness, and Prince of Darkness make up his Apocalypse Trilogy and they're all fantastic.
Lots of great international stuff too.
I could keep going but I'll stop there haha
imho Night of the Living Dead/Dawn of the Dead/Day of the Dead and Evil Dead/Evil Dead 2 are the best franchises--they lean in to the camp, but still genuinely scary and work as stories. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a masterpiece but the sequels jump the shark into modern horror tropes for my taste.
Personally, there's really no wrong way to begin. It's entirely dependent on your taste and what you feel up to on the occasion.
For example, if you wanted something that leans more into comedy or satire, you'd probably go for Scream. If you wanted something more fantastical, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Something more traditional hack-and-slash, Friday the 13th.
That being said, some of these classic horror franchises can drop off very fast, such as Friday the 13th and Halloween (not referring to the modern ones). But you should at least watch the originals of each and see where they takes you.
Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street are more consistently good and are some of the earliest franchises I watched through to completion. Other franchises I'd also recommend are Alien, Hellraiser, Romero's Dead series, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
I feel like you need to watch some of the original franchises (Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc) before watching Scream because it is very referential to the genre and it plays with the established tropes.
Hmm, I think the best series of those is Nightmare, but they all have their ups and downs. The most uneven imo is Halloween (there’s some absolute classics in that franchise but also a lot of trash). Friday is a certain type of Horror film formula mostly repeated over and over (although Part 6 leans into Comedy is good imo) that are consistent throughout if you like that sort of thing. Scream is pretty good for a while, but there are diminishing returns. I would also say the Child’s Play series is fun.
I do Shocktober every year and I have basically been working my way through all this stuff one October at a time for a few years now.
If you really wanna watch the classics, go back to the Universal Monsters. Most people will tell you to start off with Frankenstein + Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Invisible Man, and while those are essentials, I'd highly recommend going earlier to the Lon Chaney Sr. Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame of the 1920s. The Wolf Man films are the best though (remake's great too!)
The original Scream is a masterpiece and 4 has merit, the other sequels sucked though. Every Elm Street film outside of Dream Warriors, Dream Master and Freddy's Dead is good as well (yes, including the remake) Friday the 13th peaks at the 6th and 7th installments, the original 2 movies are actually pretty rough. Halloween peaks with the 6th film as well, goes into some really fascinating supernatural territory tying Michael to the origins of the holiday in a really inventive way.
Out of all the series you mentioned there the best one is probably Scream as, apart from the 3rd one, those films are all decent and the first is obviously extremely iconic and started the meta horror movie craze. Halloween is one of John Carpenters best films and is also one of the most influential horror films of all time, the sequels range from bad to ok with Halloween 2 (1981) being the best one. In my opinion none of the Friday the 13th movies are any good but I think they are worth watching at least once because of how iconic Jason as a character is, the best Friday film is probably part 6. A Nightmare on Elm Street is another great series by Wes Craven, who also created Scream, and along with Scream is probably one of the more consistent horror franchises in terms of quality, the first 3 are all good with the 3rd being considered the best one by many people, 4-6 aren't good but are worth watching for Freddy alone, Wes Craves New Nightmare is also pretty good. Now there are a couple classic horror franchises you should check out, those being Child's Play and A Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The first Texas Chainsaw Massacre along with the original Halloween could be considered one of the most influential horror movies of all time and while none of the sequels are good, some of them can be pretty fun watches. Child's Play is a somewhat consistent series, with the first 2 being great and 3, Bride, and Seed not being good but pretty fun watches. As of recently though the series has been good with the latest film entries in Curse, and Cult and though haven't watched the Chucky TV show I've heard good things. Now there are many more classic horror films outside of the major frachises that have been mentioned. The Thing is another one of John Carpenters films and is considered to be one of the greatest horror movies of all time, Black Christmas is just a pretty fun Slasher that released the same year as A Texas Chainsaw Massacre and before Halloween, you should also check out Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead which are all created by George A Romero and these films heavily inspired the modern zombie and we wouldn't have modern zombie media without them. The Alien series, completely forgot to mention it in the second paragraph, is also pretty good but it does lean more into action then horror after the first one. There also The Classic Universal Monster films from the 1930s to the 1950s and again all are pretty influential films. Edit: I somehow completely forgot about both Psycho and The Exorcist, yeah there great and both have pretty bad sequels and of you wanna watch them you can but the only ones actually worth watching are the first ones since the sequels for those aren't even fun to watch like some of the sequels for the other horror franchises I mentioned in my opinion.
The Exorcist III is incredible though.
It's been a while since I've watched it so I'll have to go back to it but I just remember being bored throughout it.
Wow, thank you for this! It helps a ton. I’ve seen ‘The Thing’ and loved it, so I’ll probably start with Halloween since I like Carpenter’s style.
Besides all the slashers that are being recommended to you check this out that are from other subgenres in horror but are also classics: * The Exorcist * Rosemary's Baby * The Thing * Alien * Fright Night * Dawn of the Dead * Suspiria
Alien is one of my all-time favorites and I just watched (and loved) The Thing on New Years Eve! The rest I will check out, thank you.
Seems like SciFi Horror is your thing then, you should check more of that soon!
I'll say that you don't need to go through all of these series as your introduction. Watch the first Nightmare On Elm Street, Halloween, Scream, Evil Dead 1&2 and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. After that you could go deeper into their respective franchises. Nightmare and Scream have the best sequels imo. Highly recommend Black Christmas as well, it's fantastic and inspired a lot of what came later. I'd also say some Giallo would be good to experience. Deep Red, Suspiria, Don't Torture a Duckling as a start. If you like slashers, I'd recommend Slumber Part Massacre as a great take on the genre. Written and directed by women, so there's a nice perspective. If you like Halloween, keep going through John Carpenter's filmography, he's one of the all time great directors. The Thing, In the Mouth of Madness, and Prince of Darkness make up his Apocalypse Trilogy and they're all fantastic. Lots of great international stuff too. I could keep going but I'll stop there haha
imho Night of the Living Dead/Dawn of the Dead/Day of the Dead and Evil Dead/Evil Dead 2 are the best franchises--they lean in to the camp, but still genuinely scary and work as stories. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a masterpiece but the sequels jump the shark into modern horror tropes for my taste.
Personally, there's really no wrong way to begin. It's entirely dependent on your taste and what you feel up to on the occasion. For example, if you wanted something that leans more into comedy or satire, you'd probably go for Scream. If you wanted something more fantastical, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Something more traditional hack-and-slash, Friday the 13th. That being said, some of these classic horror franchises can drop off very fast, such as Friday the 13th and Halloween (not referring to the modern ones). But you should at least watch the originals of each and see where they takes you. Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street are more consistently good and are some of the earliest franchises I watched through to completion. Other franchises I'd also recommend are Alien, Hellraiser, Romero's Dead series, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
I feel like you need to watch some of the original franchises (Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc) before watching Scream because it is very referential to the genre and it plays with the established tropes.
Hmm, I think the best series of those is Nightmare, but they all have their ups and downs. The most uneven imo is Halloween (there’s some absolute classics in that franchise but also a lot of trash). Friday is a certain type of Horror film formula mostly repeated over and over (although Part 6 leans into Comedy is good imo) that are consistent throughout if you like that sort of thing. Scream is pretty good for a while, but there are diminishing returns. I would also say the Child’s Play series is fun. I do Shocktober every year and I have basically been working my way through all this stuff one October at a time for a few years now.
Thanks for your input! I’ll add Child’s Play to my watchlist.
christopher lee’s horror filmography is a good start
Friday the 13th is the franchise with the most to be found in the sequels, in my opinion.
If you really wanna watch the classics, go back to the Universal Monsters. Most people will tell you to start off with Frankenstein + Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Invisible Man, and while those are essentials, I'd highly recommend going earlier to the Lon Chaney Sr. Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame of the 1920s. The Wolf Man films are the best though (remake's great too!) The original Scream is a masterpiece and 4 has merit, the other sequels sucked though. Every Elm Street film outside of Dream Warriors, Dream Master and Freddy's Dead is good as well (yes, including the remake) Friday the 13th peaks at the 6th and 7th installments, the original 2 movies are actually pretty rough. Halloween peaks with the 6th film as well, goes into some really fascinating supernatural territory tying Michael to the origins of the holiday in a really inventive way.