How about Ghostbusters? What did you end up going with OP? I'm going to watch The Host and Last Train to Busan, both free on Amazon prime, to get my blur moon K-horror on tonight!

note: do not watch the 1980s version of the Thing.

You can start with some 1950s 'horror' movies like

The Thing
The Blob
War of the Worlds

These are pretty tame by today's standard, but have a bit of suspense.

Love and Monsters

Rear window
Wait until dark
Birds

Witches

The Thing from another planet
The Night Stalker (TV movie)
The Night Strangler (TV movie)
The Haunting of Hill House
The House on Haunted Hill (Vincent Price Original)
Gargoyles (TV movie)
Trilogy of Terror
Salem’s Lot

Blair Witch just flat out stupid and not scary.

There is a one off episode of Doctor Who called “Blink” that is regarded as one of the scariest episodes of Dr Who in the modern telling. Won many awards and launched the career of Carrie Mulligan.

Season 3 episode 10 of the modern version of Doctor Who. It’s a “one off” episode meaning you don’t have to know that much about Dr Who to understand it. You can watch it fresh and know what is going on.

Burnt Offerings. From the 70s but creepy
Blair Witch

Anonymous wrote:Highly recommend Attack the Block - it’s about aliens, so not true horror - but scary and has teenage protagonists. My 14 yo son loved it. Bonus points for themes of social inequity and racism.

I watch this and within 5 minutes was really turned off and annoyed by a bunch of street punks so I stopped watching.

Then I ended up watching it again and it is now on my cult classic must watch list. Love this flick. Think it is brilliantly done. Not to scary but kind of fun.

One note: a bit of marijuana usage and references. Two characters are burned out stoners.

Highly recommend Attack the Block - it’s about aliens, so not true horror - but scary and has teenage protagonists. My 14 yo son loved it. Bonus points for themes of social inequity and racism.

I legit don't understand what people find so scary about the original Halloween. I saw it for the first time as an adult, and I felt like 75% of the movie was just a guy walking around silently to (admittedly good) music in the same white hallway, just walking down it in different directions. It reminded me of the chase scenes in the old Doctor Who series, when they only had a few hallways in a studio to film in, so they just kept changing the angles.

Anonymous wrote:We showed Zombieland to similar aged kids a couple weeks ago, followec by Sean of the Dead.

Both of these have a lot of language (if you care about that) and violence (more than some of the other suggestions, like Poltergeist), but if it were my 14-year-old, I'd be good with either of these. They're both really funny and engaging and not too slow.

It is worth checking Common Sense Media (I ignore the religious overtones you sometimes find there, but the overall explanation of what people might find objectionable in a movie there is usually pretty good).

30 days of night