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The Amityville Horror (1979)
Many movies have been made about this real-life house where a family was murdered by its oldest son, but this terrifying original is the granddaddy of them all. Even scarier is the true story behind it... go on, Google it.
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Crimson Peak
In Guillermo del Toro's haunted-house flick 'Crimson Peak,' the house wasn't just the setting for a haunting -- it actually WAS the haunting, a living, breathing, bleeding place... with its own memories.
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The Conjuring
What's going "bump" in the night at an old Rhode Island farmhouse? Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren are about to find out -- the hard way.
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The Changeling
George C. Scott plays a lonely musician who moves into a house haunted by a little boy. When we learn what happened to the child, we sure don’t feel any better -- especially when a red rubber ball keeps appearing by the stairs. Yes, 'The Changeling' made a BALL scary.
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Burnt Offerings
When Karen Black's scary, she's beyond terrifying. But when you add Bette Davis into the mix, you've got yourself a REAL scary movie about a family affected by the hauntings of an old mansion they’ve rented for the summer. Creepy, funny and grim, the film offers up some helpful advice -- chiefly, don’t rent a home from Burgess Meredith.
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Beetlejuice
Tim Burton's fun, inventive and even scary movie pits novice nice ghosts (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) against an obnoxious family who has moved into their house. Their remedy? A poltergeist for hire who promises to scare the new clan out. Michael Keaton's most memorable role is a giddy joy.
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The Others
Alejandro Amenabar directed this unsettling ghost story with a twist. Nicole Kidman plays mother to two light-sensitive kids who experience ghosts talking to them and weird servants in their old house as she waits for her husband to return from World War II. Old fashioned and gothic, the movie keeps the audience guessing.
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The Innocents
Jack Clayton's take on Henry James's 'The Turn of the Screw' stars a fantastic Deborah Kerr as a governess hired by Michael Redgrave to care for two creepy kids who may or may not be evil. The sufficiently freaked out Kerr also contends with the specters of the late estate manager and evil governess. Is she simply hysterical, or is all this really happening?
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Poltergeist
The quintessential why-don't-these-people-just-move-movie, the Tobe Hooper-directed/Steven Spielberg-produced scarefest gave audiences a new jolt of horror. This time, it's not an old dark house that's haunted, but a seemingly normal one that just happens to be built over an Indian burial ground, leaving it host to all sorts of horror: trees, toy clowns and the TV.
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The Uninvited
An “A” project of its time (when most horror films were relegated to B status), this classy film starred Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey as a brother and sister who buy a country house that's riddled with curious sounds, smells and temperature shifts. It's also inhabited by two female apparitions--one evil, one friendly.
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The Shining
OK, so it's not exactly a house, but the isolated Colorado hotel is indeed home to the Torrance family who suffer some serious cabin fever. If you haven’t heard "Here’s Johnny!" outside of Ed McMahon, well then, you just better rent this movie.
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The Haunting
Within the genre of haunted house pictures, Robert Wise’s adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s 'The Haunting of Hill House' remains the crème de la crème. This first-rate chiller about three people staying at a haunted New England mansion has all the hallmarks of disturbed domiciles but also offers a deeper story.
