Halloween is inching closer by the minute, like a chain-rattling beast from beyond the grave. So now’s a good time to check out some of the scariest movies your local video stores have to offer.

Here’s a suggested top 10 most frightening flicks – or at least horror classics – of the last 30 years:

1. The Exorcist: This film is so scary that you might have to sleep in your parent’s room after seeing it. When it was originally released in 1973, ushers had to be on hand to drag people out of the theater after they fainted. One crazed audience member in California actually tried to attack the screen with a knife. Even though this film is more than 25 years old, it still has the ability to make your heart beat so fast you think it might explode.

2. Alien: Speaking of things bursting out of your chest, here is one older film that you can see in the theater in all of it’s slime-dripping glory with the director’s cut re-release out this week. Like Hitchcock movies, a big part of the scare was the unknown, and catching just glimpses of the hideous beast. It’s the movie that made everyone who saw it think a little more seriously about the repercussions of indigestion.

3. The Fly: If you are in the mood for pure gross-out moments, then look no further then The Fly. This film has more nauseating moments in it then an entire season of Fear Factor. The film answers the age old question of what happen if you mix a person and a house pest. Jeff Goldblum plays the unfortunate victim of this unholy mixture and proves that there is no substitute for a really good fly swatter.

4. Event Horizon: This film about a haunted space-ship might have been a bomb at the box-office but it had enough jump-out-of-your-spacesuit moments to make it a late-night video rental favorite. This movie proves that Latin is the official language of the underworld, and that people should just leave the spaceships to George Lucas.

5. Fear: Before Mark Wahlberg was kissing monkey people and stealing Italian gold, he was every parent’s worst nightmare in this 1996 film. It is the innocent tale of sweet and innocent Reese Witherspoon and her psychopathic boyfriend who likes to tattoo himself using common everyday office supplies.

6. When a Stranger Calls Back: This film might be a little more difficult to find, but it is definitely worth the hunt. It starts off with a baby-sitter’s worst nightmare when the children she is watching become targets for a deranged killer. The movie never lets up on the creepy button and will have you screaming at the television for the haggard young woman to get away by the end.

7: The Ring: Hands down the scariest movie of the last five years. The Ring uses gritty photography and bowel-loosening suspense to effectively keep you from ever falling asleep in front of the television again. This is actually a remake of a Japanese horror movie with the same name that pays homage to another television-centered horror masterpiece.

8. Poltergeist: Take the maker of E.T. and team him up with the creator of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and you get this haunted tale of a suburban family that just doesn’t have sense enough to get out of the house. Steven Speilberg lets loose his dark side in this film, whose key character (Heather O’Rourke) actually died after filming the third movie in the ghostly franchise.

9. The Shining: There is no doubt about, Jack Nicholson is the freakiest guy in Hollywood and this Stanley Kubrick directed scare-a-thon is proof. The Stephen King inspired story is enough to make anyone think twice about having a nice relaxing winter vacation at a snow-bound hotel.

10. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: While the tribute film is in theaters now, the original version of this film is still the superior example of the slasher genre. Take a few innocent kids driving across Texas and mix in a sadistic family of mad men, shake them up together vigorously, and you have the ultimate horror movie gross-out cocktail. Here’s a little known fact: The voice over at the beginning of the film is actually John Larroquette from NBC’s Happy Family.

Brook Griffin can be reached at 1-800-522-0255 ext. 1309, bgriffin@eastoregonian.com