by Katherine Bigelow. A vampire movie that's as much western as it is horror, but also has touches of The Hitcher (another great horror movie), Bonnie And Clyde, The Wild Bunch, The Terminator (including much of it's cast coming from James Cameron's movies) and was pretty much the Anti-Lost Boys.

Stylish, moody, sexy, and funny too: some cracking dialogue, very quotable and great performances from the cast.

I'm going to have to go home and watch it this weekend now I've thought about it.

The original Dutch one - not the Hollywood remake. Not even a hint of gore - but a profoundly unsettling and haunting presentation of the banality of evil

If you want to avoid blood here are a few oldies but goldies:

Dead of Night- that rare thing, an Ealing horror. Bloody great, and the ventriloquist sequence is seriously creepy.
Carnival of Souls - deeply weird low-budget semi-zombie flick. Wonderfully atmospheric.
James Whale: Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man are all superb.
Nosferatu: yes, it's silent, but genuinely scary.

If you don't like black and white, a more recent effort is The Orphanage. Can horror fims be 'moving'? Ths one can, genuinely heartbreaking at the end and a few genuine scares along the way. Highly recomended.

I just watched it last night, and it was excellent. No gore at all, but deeply unsettling. The creepy neighbours are fantastic, and Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes are on top of their games in this one.

avoid the US remake

The Orphanage
REC (again avoid the US version)
Devil's Backbone
Cronos

Oh Jesus Christ

You can't go wrong with the classics and The Wicker Man is a classic. Like Rosemary's Baby or The Vanishing, there's no gore, just creeping dread and unease.

If you're in the mood for something a bit more visceral, Night of The Living Dead/Dawn of the Dead/John Carpenter's The Thing/The Excorcist are all hard to beat.

To be honnest, you know what film scared me the most? Threads, which I say a couple of years ago. Now there's a film full of real horror.

For sheer creepiness and the brooding sense of menace. Great soundtrack which also helps. Venice in winter - brrrr. I'm chilled just thinking about it.

That Dead Snow - the norwegian zombie film featuring zombie nazis is a complete and utter gore fest of the highest and laughout loud calibre?

If you're scared of needles then avoid Audition. Very nasty.

I switched Let the Right One In off after 40mins as I found it dull, boring and cheaply made?

Both black and white - the first set in a dark, creaky old house, the second a race agains time to thwart a demon. Both have scenes that will make you jump out of your seat and there's no gore.

The first hour or so of the Mothman Prophecies is deeply unsettling. It's one of the few films I've seen that I was thinking about turning off because it was freaking me out.
No gore, no axe-wielding psychopaths - just a creeping sense of dread.

Let the Right One In although I thought the swimming pool scene rather let the film down.
It was more a piece about friendship than anything else so of course it wasn't as fast paced as American horrors but I can't agree with James that it looked cheaply made.It looked exactly as it should've which was dreary and everyday.
Another vote for The Vanishing (dutch)and I would suggest Dario Argento's Profondo Rosso (deep red).
Oh, Polanski's "Repulsion" is a cracker too

has to be the The Shining, but some of the previous suggestions are also brilliant, particularly El Orfanato, which is both scary and moving, and the Vanishing (original). Make sure you cut your nails before you see the ending of the latter as you may draw blood from whichever part of your body your hands happen to be resting on at the time. You may scratch the furniture too.
If you want to jump out of your seat, watch Carrie

... The Haunting, Dead Of Night, Bride of Frankenstein and Night Of The Demon, that would make a great Halloween monochrome all-nighter!

If you're not averse to subtitles, check out Les Diaboliques, which is gore-free, but gave me the screaming ab-dabs first time I saw it (but definitely avoid the remake!)

is the new Japanese horror.

A L'interieur, Frontieres, Martyrs, Switchblade Romance and Sheitan for starters. Intelligent, transgressive and tres, tres scary.

On edit: almost forgot: Ils! Thanks for the reminder, Joyneski.

..Audrey Hepburn and Alan Arkin, deeply unsettling and absolutely terrifying by turns. And no blood at all, if I remember rightly, but it's a long time since I've seen it. Once was enough...

The only horror movie which has actually truly terrfied me. An intricately plotted South Korean tale about two sisters who have had some parenting issues to say the least...Intelligent, slow-burning and very, very scary.

A 1960s Japanese work - based on Japanese demon folk-lore. An old woman and her daughter-in-law ambush passing lone samurai and kill them and rob their armour and weapons, disposing of the bodies in a deep pit. Until, a terrible vengeance is wreaked.

I saw it when I was far too young - about 10 or 11. My father had a laissez-faire approach to bedtime if mother was away. He was holed up in his study and I stayed up beyond Match of the Day and saw this dark tale of sex, violence and demonic possesion

Scarred me I tell you, scarred me.

is the best Hammer horror film I've seen, and is a great film by any standards.

Not the giant ants - it's a French film from 2006. Caught it on Film 4 a few weeks ago - very little gore, less than 80 mins long and relentless in preying on fear of the unknown. Thought at points it was going to lurch into torture porn territory but it didn't. Pretty slim concept even at 80 mins, but every time I thought "They can't spin this out much longer, can they?", the answer came back: Oh. Yes. They. Could. (Never thought that lights coming *on* could be so scarey.)

Have to confess I was very disappointed with 'Let the Right One In'. It had its moments and the girl was really good, but I could not warm to the boy character at all and never really bought into their friendship; plus there were some fairly major events that made me think "Wow - this must be where the story really takes off!" - but, er, hardly anyone else in the film seemed to notice (including the director/scriptwriter).

With you on the whole torture porn scene though; I haven't heard anything about the Saw series that hasn't made me feel ill.

An omnibus type film from the 70's starring Karen Black, I think it was made for TV so there is no gore.

The third (and last) segment is so good no-one can ever remember what the first two segments are about. It scared the very bejeebers out of me when I was a teenager. It's not what you'd call subtle but it's very effective.

for some reason I tend to find foreign language films scarier than those in English - the implausibility seems reduced. The Ring series would seem very silly if it didn't have that alien quality to it.

There are exceptions - the aforementioned Don't Look Know, for example, also Johnny's Got His Gun about a severely wounded soldier (no limbs, no face) hovering between life and death, I think Donald Sutherland plays a christ like figure in the afterlife scenes. Not horror as such but very chilling.

Two foreign films that I don't think have been mentioned are Audition and Les Diaboliques.

Audition (a Japanese film) starts like a rom com - a widowed film producer uses casting sessions to find a new girlfriend. Boy does he pick the wrong one.

Les Diaboliques (starring Simone Signoret) was remade and no doubt ruined by Hollywood - the original is a 1950s spooky psychological thriller of deception in which the wife and mistress of an abusive headteacher plot against him.

Both are well worth tracking down.

well it really wasn't what I was expecting!!!

what was it Maggie said about society?

... can I suggest Picnic At Hanging Rock?

So glacial and gentle, and yet the subtlety hints very effectively at something truly terrifying. Precisely because explanations are thin on the ground.

An early 60s very spooky movie starring Peter Wyngarde.

Watch this on a Saturday night with a bottle of red and enjoy.
It is a great film.

These two genuinely unnerve me. I think its the fact that they're set in England that makes it worse. Seeing the M6 completely abandoned whilst Manchester burns is not something you'll forget.

Also, the people with rage are genuinely scary. Like zombies on speed. They're all over the shop.

And its a Danny Boyle film, with a superb soundtrack. What could possibly go wrong?

..mentioned above, is very creepy. Nothing much is seen but the dread feeling that something very dark and hearbreakingly sad is coming is so prevalent it´ll stay with you for a long time

...but make sure it's the original Japanese version. Non-splattery, but scary as hell, particularly the first 20 minutes or so. Second vote for Don't Look Now too - seriously odd, but atmospheric and very scary at the end.

I was thinking of suggesting something by Dario Argento (Suspiria is very good) but that's pretty gory as well as frightening, so it's probably not appropriate.

No gore but seriously creepy.

I found this genuinely scary and the lack of gore and the implied horror worked really well here. Forget the sequel(s) though.

In the same-ish vein, and I am not sure if it would work after the fact, but BBC1's live programme Ghost Watch in the early 1990s scared the living bejaysus out of me.

I think it was shown on Halloween and was set up as a just-for-fun live vigil, presented by Michael Parkinson. There was a studio with expert paranormal people and a real spooky house from which Sarah Greene reported as the night progressed. It started harmlessly and intial events were light-hearted, as if being reported as a quirky item on the local news. Gradually, as we rejoined the programme through the evening, the tone became more threatening and a real sense of an evil presence emerges and scary things happen.

As events escalate in menace, an expert declares that "it" is "in the machine". Cameras wobble, pictures blur and Michael Parkinson's voice becomes slurred and distorted horribly. Black screen. BBC announcer apologises for the loss of sound and vision and nothing more is explained.

...David Soul Version....brrr!

I saw this for the first time two days ago, and it's brilliant. Utterly odd, ludicrous, OTT... and a little bit scary as well in a camp sort of way. Vincent Price sounds like he's using a Talk Box throughout... kind of like a deranged Peter Frampton.

The original - scared the living daylights out of me.
Jaws - ever since I saw it, I've never been able to go for a swim in the sea without thinking about that bloody shark!

1974

Creepy as you like.

that no-one has brought up 'The Changeling' starring George C Scott from 1980.When that wet ball comes bouncing down the stairs!! yikes! just thinking about that scene gives me the Heebie-jeebies!

Dead of Night. The first ever British portmanteau horror movie involving several scary tales all told within one film, and still the best of it's kind.

Michael Redgrave steals the film with his scary yet heartbreaking portrayal of a ventriloquist being driven mad by his dummy. Redgrave should've gotten an Oscar for this brilliant performance:

is a BBC production of MR James' short story "Whistle And I'll Come To You" starring Michael Hordern. I'm actually getting chillified just thinking about it. It's all available for nowt on You Tube.

I saw this last night and it was genuinely disturbing I thought.Has anyone else seen it?

just been given a loan of this, I'll report back

report back:
nicely shot, tedious pace, crap 'satan/monster type thing', usual continuity errors, poor soundtrack, Linda Hayden more importantly Linda Hayden's muff, in the nuddy, in the scud, naked and proud, as nature intended! :D

she's only 6 years older than me

with Nicole Kidman.Not a great film perhaps but one that absolutely chilled me when I saw it at the cinema when it first came out.
I have never felt the urge to watch it again partly because it just wasn't very good but mainly because it did spook me so much at the time.