Movies that go bump in the night

October is the perfect month to curl up with some horror flicks, then go to sleep with the hall light on.

Just in time for Halloween, The Times staff weighed in on the first movie that ever scared them, as well as their top five horror movies.

Maybe you laughed through some of these movies, or maybe some will bring back memories of peeking under your bed to make sure the boogeyman wasn't lurking.

News Reporter Brent Bader: When the parents are away, they'll have no say (in what you watch on TV). I found an unedited version of "Alien" to watch when my parents left me home alone on a cold October evening. After all, I was nearly 10, which in my mind meant I could handle anything.

While initially bored, my eyes began to widen as I shoved comfort food in my mouth right before a stomach-churning scare. I was entranced, and terrified, only removing my eyes from the screen to turn on the lights as the daylight began to fade.

Once I finished the film, it didn’t end there. I spent most of the night with the blanket pulled up to eye level as I intensely watched my open closet door, expecting an uninvited extraterrestrial would burst out at any moment.

I had the opportunity to see it in theaters for the first time this month, and it remains a favorite of mine and recalls a cherished memory. Luckily, I was also able to sleep much better this time.

But I kept the closet door shut. Just to be safe.

Alien

The Thing

Halloween

Evil Dead 2

The Shining

Sports Reporter Brian Hoxsey: Although I'm guessing the first movie that scared many of my coworkers were ones watched at a very young age, mine was three days after my 15th birthday in 1983. The movie "The Day After" depicts a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and Soviet Union and follows a number of different people living in Lawrence, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri.

As a pre-teen in the late '70s, the talk of possible nuclear war always scared me, and this movie sent my fears to another level. I can still see the images of fiery destruction and death. The fact that the actors gave you a personal feel made it even tougher, I think. I still to this day have never watched it again and never will.

The Day After

The Exorcist

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

The Silence of the Lambs

Seven

News Reporter Michael Urbanec: I was about 4 years old when my parents bought me "Toy Story" on VHS. It was a good plan; a safe children's Disney movie can't possibly prevent a child from sleeping for a week, could it?

It could.

Sid’s bedroom scene near the end of the movie is still nightmare fuel to this day and the nails-on-a-chalkboard sound that accompanies a baby doll head with metal spider legs turning its head in circles gives me chills. Honorable mention to the burned-brown toy soldiers that spring out of the ground to scare Sid just a few scenes later.

Toy Story is my favorite childhood movie, but as a 25-year-old adult, I still have to look away at that scene. I conveniently take a restroom or snack break the moment that scene comes on.

Thirteen Ghosts

Halloweentown

A Quiet Place

Get Out

Coraline

Sports Editor JT Pedelty: Imagine, if you will, being not quite 5 years old in 1980. You saw and loved the first Star Wars movie — an inspirational, uplifting space fairy tale about a boy going from zero to hero — more than anything in the world. You have the toys, you have the original Star Wars comics, and you're wearing a Star Wars shirt (one almost certainly made by your aunt ironing a cheap transfer on a cheap T-shirt) as you sink into a seat at the historic Majestic Theater in Streator for the first ever Star Wars sequel, expecting more of the same.

What you get, however, is The Empire Strikes Back. By the end of the movie: 1) the coolest guy in the universe is captured, tortured and frickin' frozen, a look of complete terror and anguish locked on his face; 2) the boy hero you idolized and dreamed of being is captured by the Yeti, hung upside-down, stuffed unconscious inside a dead, disemboweled creature, then later has his hand chopped off, screaming in torment; and 3) the black-armored monster who did it, the baddest man in the universe, announces that he is your young hero's father.

Ten minutes later, the movie's over, none of it resolved, no internet to assure you another movie will be out in a few years and all will be right in the universe. Scary, shocking stuff for an almost-5-year-old kid. Man is that a great movie.

Evil Dead 2

Creepshow

Night of the Living Dead

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives

The Exorcist III

Starved Rock Country Brand Manager Ryan Searl: I have a distinct memory of being terrified by the trailer for Tim Burton's 2001 remake of "Planet of the Apes." I must've been around 6 or 7, and the trailer alone was enough to give me nightmares for a week. There was something about the weird, uncanny valley talking monkeys that gave me the heebie jeebies. Cut to two decades later, and I'm a huge fan of the original "Planet of the Apes" movies, so go figure.

The Thing

Re-Animator

Alien

The Witch

The Alchemist Cookbook

Managing Editor Tammie Sloup: In its heyday, MTV introduced us to VJs, A-ha's "Take on Me" pencil-sketch animation video, and Headbangers Ball. I was watching that channel the first time I was truly scared – like crying, can't go anywhere alone, so terrified that I had to sleep in my little brother's room for three months kind of scared. For showings of movies like "The Wizard of Oz," which happened once a year, our family gathered in the living room to watch the program together. We did this with the premiere of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video, which is basically a short horror film. The first glimpse of Jackson morphing into a zombie and turning to his girlfriend to yell "go away!" with huge yellow eyes is still terrifying. Good thing for that fantastic dance sequence at the end.

Halloween

Poltergeist

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Rosemary's Baby

Jeepers Creepers (my guilty pleasure)

Night Editor/Designer Julie Barichello: It's that sensation you have when you're lying in bed, rolled onto your side. That prickle of hair rising on your neck. That shortness of breath. That voice in your head saying, "Don't roll over … if you don't see it, it can't get you."

It’s a sensation I knew all too well in childhood: the fear of rolling over to discover the monster in your bedroom. And it’s all because of “Ernest Scared Stupid.”

I was the world’s No. 1 Jim Varney fan as a kid, so when the comedy-horror “Ernest Scared Stupid” hit VHS in 1992, I couldn't wait to watch it, and I adored it – until bedtime. In one scene, a young girl named Elizabeth rolls over in bed hugging her stuffed animal, only to open her eyes and find herself face to face with the evil troll, who abducts her and turns her into a little wooden doll.

The movie is as delightfully ridiculous as it sounds, but my 5-year-old self didn't dare to roll over in bed for months afterward.

Pan's Labyrinth

Coraline

The Witch

The Babadook

Rosemary's Baby

News Editor Derek Barichello: "The Wizard of Oz" was the first movie that scared me. More specifically, when the Wicked Witch of the West suddenly appears after we are introduced to the Tin Man in the woods, and she offers the scarecrow "a little fire." Her abrupt appearances with that cackling laugh always made me jump.

The Shining

Let the Right One In

Rosemary's Baby

Psycho

The Fog

Photo Editor Tracey Macleod: "Jaws" was the one movie that scared me when I was younger, and I never got over my fondness for sharks. My children LOVE to give me shark-related things. I really don't scare too easily, and I end up laughing through horror flicks and annoying people.

Gothika (I like it; took me a little while to get the ending... usually I can pick it out the "surprise"ending right away!)

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (need I say more, it's Abe Lincoln battling vamps!)

Zombieland (this is hilarious and so is double tap!)

Love the TV series Grimm (Spinoff of Grimm fairytales / German folklore)

Penny Dreadful (Not for young eyes, great human twist on classic characters)

Designer Angie Barry: The first movie to scare me wasn't actually a scary movie: It was Tim Burton's "Batman." I was 3 or 4 and wandered into the room while my parents were watching it just as the Joker — post-acid bath and surgery — demanded a mirror from the back alley doctor. The shadowy visuals and Nicholson's maniacal laughter scared the bejesus out of me. (Meanwhile, I saw "Terminator 2" around the same time and was unfazed.)

The Devil's Backbone

The Thing

The Mothman Prophecies

Dawn of the Dead

Stir of Echoes

Sports reporter Charlie Ellerbrock: The first movie that ever scared me was "I Saw What You Did," one of the first movies I ever saw in a theater, then later "The Omen" with Gregory Peck and Lee Remick in 1976. However, the scariest ever, at least for the first time seeing it, was John Carpenter's first "Halloween" with Jamie Lee Curtis. There was something about the way that Michael Myers was always lurking unseen in the background while his future victims were going about normal actions, then after a short camera shift, he was gone. Shiver ...

Halloween

The Omen

Paranormal Activity

The Blair Witch Project

Final Destination