GenX was Never Safe: How We Grew Up on the Scariest Horror Films Ever Made

The 10 scariest horror films that defined Gen X: Halloween, The Exorcist, The Shining, and more. Why no generation before or since survived what we did

GenX was Never Safe: How We Grew Up on the Scariest Horror Films Ever Made

The generation who suffered through the best and worst in horror has to be, without question, Gen X. I’m writing this piece for Halfway to Halloween, so it’s just for fun. Don’t get all cranky, Boomers. Your Dracula and Frankenstein were okay, and don’t tweak on me, Gen Z. You have had a couple of decent frights, but the all-time kings of kids being scared to death by horror films is Gen X, hands down.

The movies were terrifying. Real life wasn’t much better

Night of the Living Dead — George Romero, 1968

Starting early in the generation we see the advent of modern day zombies. It was almost 60 years ago and we’re still using the same template George set down in this extremely indie horror film shot in black and white. That means Gen X was the first generation to grow up with modern day zombies. AH HA! Beat that, Boomers.

Oh, I remember that fateful Saturday when my parents left me home to go visit my aunt and uncle, and I happened upon this black and white film just staring back at me, with creepy music in the background. I was maybe 10 or 11. My parents would be gone for a few hours, so I could watch whatever I wanted! No one could stop me! What’s the harm? How scary could it be?

I locked in on Romero’s masterpiece and didn’t even leave to go to the bathroom. When the movie was over it was dark, my parents weren’t home, and I was terrified out of my damn mind. The idea of zombies surrounding my house was so horrifying that I closed all the curtains and sat with every light on in the house until they got home. I remember the still shots at the end of the movie absolutely haunted me. It was so visceral and so real, and I was dying for my parents to come home. No cellphones back then to save me, so I sat there for a couple more hours on guard. When my mom asked, “Everything okay?” I nodded and went to my room and never spoke a word of it to her. Came to love the movie later, but it scared me the first time I saw it.

In real life I watched this movie and had to stay home alone, a key feature of GenX.

The Exorcist — William Friedkin, 1973

You think the mummy was scary? You think Dracula was creepy? I don’t care what anyone says. Sinister? The Conjuring? Not even close. The Exorcist is the all-time heavyweight champion of horror films. Hereditary? Pfft, give me a break. The Exorcist put people in the hospital. If you were flipping through the channels in the 80s or 90s and this movie was on late at night, you flipped past it freaking fast. You did not want Linda Blair’s pasted-up, cracked, demon-possessed face in your head right before you went to bed. Gen Xers know exactly what I’m talking about. You can lie and say horror movies don’t scare you until you’re up at 1 a.m. about to go to bed and those green glowing eyes and scared face flashes across your screen.

The Exorcist is of course about a little girl who becomes possessed by a demon and has to be exorcised by a priest. The movie was a rite of passage for Gen Xers. You were a wuss if you hadn’t seen it, which led to me being like 12 years old, in broad daylight, hiding in my room watching this movie. I don’t know why I didn’t want my parents to know I was watching it. They took me to horror movies when I was 4, but in my not-yet-developed brain, it would be my cool secret and I could go to school and finally hang out with the cool kids who knew and talked about such terrifying things. Yeah, I about crapped my pants watching this movie. I remember not being able to sleep for a few weeks after. But I still have this badge of honor, I saw The Exorsist when I was 12.

In real life, on TV everyday you saw an evangelical telling you, you were going to hell if you didn’t do what they said. The Satanic Panic was real and invasive. It was all around us.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre — Tobe Hooper, 1974

Yes, the second greatest and scariest horror movie bestowed onto humankind is another gem from the dawn of Gen X. It kicked off the modern day horror film. Yes, Mr. Boomer, I know when you saw Dracula in the theater when you were 15 it scared you for a month, but TCSM is a balls-to-the-wall, scream at the top of your lungs, “Oh my god did he hang her on a hook,” film that shocked generations. Yes, it is still listed as one of the scariest movies of all time. Tarantino called it a perfect film. Funny how nothing out of the 40s, 50s, or 60s really ranks among the top scare films, but everything out of the 70s and 80s absolutely dominated modern horror lists. This is for my Gen Z readers: no, I’m sorry, Sinister isn’t going to cut it. And I know, Paranormal Activity or Blair Witch. Um, no, they aren’t going to cut it up against a guy who wears another human’s face on his face and chases you with a chainsaw.

TCSM not only has a horrifying premise, based on a real life serial killer, it is also extraordinarily well done. For a movie made by amateur filmmakers and actors they are punching way above their weight class. If everything was fair and right in the world, Marilyn Burns would have received an Academy Award for this movie. She puts up an amazing performance. TCSM is creepy. It’s visceral. It’s heart-pounding.

I remember the excitement of bringing this film home from the rental store with my crew of regular horror fans. We could not contain ourselves. This was a rush to the VCR, we’ll grab the pizza later, and get this movie going. We all sat completely mesmerized. From the beginning with the monument of corpses, to the Hitchhiker, to Franklin getting the saw to the chest, our eyes were rolling around in our heads like we’d just blasted a gravity bong with the delusion and high that you can only get from being zinged by a heavy-hitting horror film.

“Dude, that’s wild,” I remember Jim saying when Grandpa was trying to kill her with the hammer. I’ve talked about the falling into feathers scene, but the scene we all wanted to see when we watched this together, the one we were all so excited about was the girl going on the hook. This was a legendary scene in horror. You could go out and meet some new kids and they’d find out you liked horror movies, and someone would always say, “When he hangs her on the hook, dude...” You just knew you were real horror fans.

In real life it seemed that serial killers were running wild. I don’t know how many there were out there, but every day there was something about another serial killer on the news. Go ahead, walk home from school alone, it’ll be fine.

The Omen — Richard Donner, 1976

Talk about a terrifying movie. Go ahead, watch it by yourself and see what happens. The evil of this movie just seeps right in. You’ve got Gregory Peck, who is a massively talented actor. I don’t even think they have actors like that anymore. I think it’s illegal to be an actor like Gregory Peck. Hardnosed, gruff, gentlemanly. He really could play anything and he sells The Omen.

The Omen is of course about a cult that wants to bring about the end of the world by giving a devil child, the Antichrist, to the U.S. Ambassador to the UK. Peck’s child dies at childbirth, so he agrees to take this kid. Potato, potato, I guess. As the child grows up, terrible things begin to happen.

The scene that sticks out, and again this would have been a Friday night pizza movie sleepover watch (I think I had one of these every weekend for like 4 years), involves one of the servants who, in order to demonstrate her loyalty and love for Damien the demon child, goes up to the top of the five-story house on his birthday, calls out to him, “For you, Damien,” and leaps off with a rope around her neck. The realism of this scene is so shocking, and the way it’s shot, you almost feel like you thud at the end of the rope with her. That’s the terror of this movie. It’s not monsters chasing you. It’s the slow, terrifying, unsettling creepiness of knowing this child will end the world. Great scenes and it’s full of atmosphere and terror.

In real life there was talk of the antichrist and the end of the world on TV. People were sure things were ending in the year 2000. It was over! Nothing you could do about it, go to school, kid, hide under your desk, it’ll save you.

Halloween — John Carpenter, 1978

This movie launched a thousand copycats and ten sequels. There is nothing in Gen Z or in the sad, tired Boomer horror that even comes close to this film. Don’t even try it! In 1978 all of horror was transformed by this movie. We went from Vincent Price and Christopher Lee as Dracula to the monster being in your house, across the street, killing your babysitter.

What makes Halloween so great? How does it pull off being terrifying without spilling a drop of blood? It does it with its slow build to the greatest third act in movie history. When Laurie takes a walk to the house across the street, where you know Michael has killed everyone, where you know he is waiting, where even Tommy has seen him carrying bodies, you are screaming, “Don’t go in that house!” She goes in and finds a tombstone and her friends’ bodies falling out of closets. From that point on it’s a dead run and fight for survival and you don’t think she has a chance, but she proves herself to be a badass babysitter. It’s one of the best Gen X horror movies, and little or nothing in the last 50 years has compared to it.

I was of course way too young when I watched this movie, but it was bonkers and scary, and later it became an almost title card movie for our movie nights. Meh, this movie is boring, pop in Halloween. Oh nothing to do on a tuesday, let’s watch Halloween. Sometimes just sitting around talking in my room, Halloween played in the background while we all talked about skateboarding. It is the face of horror

In real life we were lucky to have a babysitter, but we all knew they were the first one going on the chopping block. Most of the time though, you just stayed home alone.

The Amityville Horror — Stuart Rosenberg, 1979

The house even tells you to get out, and it kills priests with fly swarms. It was also the time when a maniac went from room to room of a house killing his whole entire family, and a few years later we were all watching a movie about how haunted the house was. You can say what you want, but The Conjuring is nothing compared to this.

Basically while we were watching this movie getting scared shitless, the family was on talk shows telling us what really happened and how it was even scarier. The amount of hype that came with this movie is unreal, but there are some really terrifying moments in it. When the priest tries to bless this haunted house he is attacked by flies and basically chased out of the house by slamming doors and evil spirits. The movie is a slow burn, atmospheric pressure cooker with very few jump scares, done the right way.

In real life the people who ran screaming from this house were touring the country and telling you that evil spirits were probably in your house too, so stop complaining kid and go to bed dammit.

The Shining — Stanley Kubrick, 1980

So when you say atmospheric pressure cooker, this movie is bound to surface. Always listed as one of the scariest movies in history, and if you were 10 years old and flipping through the channels late at night in the 80s, trying to go to sleep, this movie was bound to be playing.

The Shining is of course the story of writer Jack Torrance, who takes his family up to the Overlook Hotel to be caretaker for the winter, where they will be snowed in. As it turns out, the hotel is hopelessly haunted and possessed, maybe even by the devil itself, and it basically drives Jack mad. Hhe tries to kill his family like other caretakers in the past have done. You’d think they’d mention that in the job listing.

The best and most terrifying scene is the woman in the bathroom. Jack goes and sees this beautiful woman, and when he starts to make out with her she’s really a very old, rotted-away hag. It is a brain-twisting, terrifying scene unlike anything in any other horror movie. Really, The Shining is completely unique in its scares. It’s all creep and feeling and mood. It’s what you are afraid is there, and not what you actually see, that is the real terror. Some movies have tried, but no movie has even come close to the fear embedded in The Shining.

I believe the first time I saw this it was a ABC Friday Night Movie of the week. I watched with my parents, terrified, and I’m pretty sure I was 8. Thanks mom!

In real life it seemed like child abuse was rampant. It was on the news all the time and dads were scary. Some of my friends’ dads were scary. Boomer dads in the 80s were no joke..

Friday the 13th — Sean S. Cunningham, 1980

Friday the 13th is just different than other horror movies. Even the first movie had this amazing commercial that counted down the number of kills, throwing up a big number on the screen for each person being stabbed or beheaded. This movie is the marker of where slasher movies became what I call a celebration of horror. Slashers are horror movies, but they are really more than horror movies, and this started in the 80s. All great things horror started in the 70s and 80s, and Gen X had to endure it, like it or not. I think we were lucky.

Slashers are about the number of kills and the way people die. Seems twisted, but it’s really a celebration of life, kind of. Horror scares us on screen and teaches us how to deal with our real fears, but slashers, generally all jump scares, are made to simply enjoy the dance of death on screen. Friday the 13th was really the first time this happened with a wider audience. If you’ve seen Scream II, all those people wearing Ghostface masks, running up and down the aisle of the theater, partying, laughing, joking, probably drinking, that’s the slasher celebration that started with Friday the 13th. It’s put on full display in that movie, a bit of meta like all Scream movies are famous for. (Horror fans don’t come at me, yes I know Psycho and yes I know Black Christmas was the first blah, blah, blah. I said “wider audience”).

In the later iterations of this movie we got the full-on fun of real slasher movies. It all grew out of Friday the 13th. You didn’t care about the body count in Halloween, but by the time we were watching Friday the 13th Part 2 and then the wonderful and glorious Friday the 13th Part III, we were dying to see people die and scream on screen. A lot of people don’t realize that slashers are a completely different breed than other horror genres.

In 1989 me and 3 friends snuck into a theater to see Friday the 13th Part 8 Jason Takes Manhattan. By that time slasher films were at a fever pitch. We used that old trick. Being that we weren’t old enough, we bought tickets for a different movie and just ducked into this one. It was one of the best, most fun, most laughing, celebratory movie viewings I have ever been to. I’ve seen hundreds of movies at the theater in my lifetime, and this one is way up there on the fun scale. When Jason shows his face to the street gang to scare them all away, we cheered. When Julius almost punches him off the roof, we were going nuts: “He’s gonna do it, dude!” And when the sewer flooded and washed Jason away, we were honestly a bit sad to see the fantastic, albeit ridiculous, movie end. Slashers are the best. They are best seen with friends.

In real life do you want to go to haphazardly put together summer camp with adults who don’t pay too much attention? Go ahead kid have fun, remember to write home, or not.

Evil Dead — Sam Raimi, 1981

Evil Dead was the Thunderdome of demon possession before Thunderdome even existed. The first time I saw this movie on a sleepover rental pizza night, the whole group almost lost our minds. This movie was a touchstone of what low-budget horror movies could do. It wasn’t perfect, but it was scary and it was fun. The chaotic and brutal nature of this movie just made us horror fans freak out. Then Evil Dead II came along and set the standard for dark horror comedy. But the first Evil Dead was a dark, gritty nightmare of demon possession and terrible deeds.

Evil Dead II was bonkers fun, but in Evil Dead prime, Cheryl goes into the forest and is sexually assaulted by possessed trees. It’s one of the most notorious moments in horror. The distributors were taken to court in England over this film. It was restricted, censored, and parts had to be cut out. I remember even my crazy horror group was completely shocked by this scene. It was a “Dude, what did we just see?” moment, and we moved on.

The shock value of movies was just higher back then. To my knowledge no movie has done anything this shocking since 1981. The Exorcist is more shocking overall, but Evil Dead is a hurricane of horror and demons and possession and Bruce Campbell being Bruce. It’s an amazing film.

In real life, demonic possession seemed to be happening every day. Tonight at 11, see a child exorcised in real life, then the weather.

A Nightmare on Elm Street — Wes Craven, 1984

So I watched this on HBO with my parents when I was 10. I remember sitting on the sofa next to my mom and her trying to make it even scarier by saying she hoped no one ever tried to kill her in her dreams. Gen Xers know we grew up in a very different time. Most people wouldn’t let their 10-year-old watch this now. I think 16 is the minimum if the kid is ready, but that’s just the way parents were in the 80s. Yes, I stayed out all day, drank out of the garden hose, and came home when the street lights came on. Yes, that is all true. I understand that to Gen Z it sounds like some kind of alien planet, and Boomers are in complete denial that they did this to their children, but that’s the way it was. Deny it or disbelieve it all you want. Yes, Gen X lived it.

Anyway, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a masterpiece of filmmaking that captures the feeling of a nightmare in one scene after another. Running in mud up your stairs, sinking into your bed, going out your front door only to find yourself in your basement. One camera and editing trick to disorient you after another. There are so many great scenes in this movie, and I’ve seen it at least 100 times. Of course it is the story of some Elm Street children that deceased child murderer Freddy Krueger haunts in their dreams and kills. It is a bonkers movie that spawned 7 sequels and a remake. Freddy in the 80s was a “craze.” This movie was terrifying and had some amazing filmmaking techniques in it, but Freddy Krueger blew up and became the wise, one-liner-cracking hero of horror fans. It’s what I said before, slashers are really a celebration of horror.

Say whatever you will, but Freddy is a truly unique monster. There is nothing before him like him, and there really hasn’t been anything like him since. He’s in your dreams and killing. The most terrifying scene when I was young was the blood geyser coming out of the bed, but there are many terrifying scenes in this movie. Tina in the body bag. Nancy running down the alley. Much of the final act is just bonkers scary. It’s a great movie and there is nothing today that answers this type of terror. Hollywood doesn’t make icons anymore. They just seem to repackage them over and over, and they don’t do it well.

In real life, at school you would hear, and I heard it a 1000 times, “Did you know if you die in your sleep you die in real life!” It was a fun thought when you were drifting off to sleep.

Roll Credits

So I could probably go to 50 on this list. I’m so conflicted at stopping at 10, but I’m not doing 100 pages on this subject. I left off The Thing, The Fly, An American Werewolf in London, Hellraiser, Alien, Aliens, Jaws, Carrie, Dawn of the Dead, Poltergeist, Suspiria, The Hills Have Eyes, Child’s Play, The Howling, Fright Night, Videodrome, Don’t Look Now, Possession, Black Christmas, Magic, Phantasm, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Creepshow, Christine, Cujo, Predator, Scanners, and so many more. Those are just the groundbreaking amazing films that changed the face of horror. They are truly scary and most are better than most horror films made in the last 25 years. If I were a Gen Zer I would be angry there haven’t been more amazing horror films made in the last 20 years.

On the other hand, as a Gen Xer I’m overjoyed by what that time gave us. It was amazing, but coupled with the fact that our parents didn’t mind us watching just whatever on TV, many Gen Xers saw these terrifying movies far too young. I wrote an article on it.

Anyway, even though the 80s, both on film and in the news, scared me out of my mind, it was a fun decade. As a Gen Xer I saw these movies with my parents and later with my friends. Yes, my parents took me to the drive-in to see scary movies when I was 4. That’s not an anomaly, it’s a feature of Boomers raising Gen X. It was pretty normal in my experience, but more to the point, we also saw them at random on late-night TV while flipping through the channels. You really never knew when they were going to pop up. Regardless of how some people want to try to rewrite history, Gen X grew up with the most terrifying and badass horror movies that still have not been recreated or surpassed.

GenX is the horror generation made up of mutants and slasher kids. We stayed out late and were told not to talk to strangers. We walked home alone and got home to an empty house, and yes if we watched a scary movie, we were afraid to be alone sometimes, but we did it anyway because the movies were so damn good. We were never safe, and we wouldn’t have had it any other way.

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