I saw my first scary movie at the drive-in with some older cousins. I must have been very young because all I can remember is a large black cat that turned into a woman with a red scarf or vice versa.

I don’t think it was all that scary, but then I may have been too young to realize it was. Either that or I didn’t buy into a woman who turned into a big black cat or vice versa.

Which could explain why the first scary movie that really got to me was more believable. Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte was just plain creepy. I loved it. I watched it again years later and it still gave me chills. Imagine a black and white movie without special effects and no blood and guts being scary, but it still was.

There is no one like Betty Davis. I just recently watched Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. It had its moments.

My next favorite scary movie is of course Psycho. Again it was creepy – with blood. Nothing like an old scary house and a mummified dead old woman. I loved not knowing if the mother was alive or not.

Another favorite is Sea of Love. Don’t you love movies where you don’t know until the end who the killer is? The music was good too.

I liked Silence of the Lambs. The storage unit scene was plenty creepy.

I also really liked The Gift. Psychic stuff can be wonderfully creepy.

As you can see, I like crazy people movies, creepy stuff that is true enough to life that it scares me, and older scary movies.

I just looked at a list of the top 50 scariest movies and was surprised how few of them I liked or thought were scary. I don’t like zombies, vampires, aliens, giant killer snakes or houses or cars, you get the idea. That cuts out a lot of scary movies for me.

Clearly there is something wrong with me that I’ve never seen the original The Thing. And while I loved all the Stephen King books like Salem’s Lot, Cujo and The Shining, I didn’t like the movies. I imagined everything better when I read the books than what showed up on the screen.

So what are your favorites? And maybe more to the point, what do they say about you?