October has been my favorite time of year since I first became cognizant of the Halloween festivities that begin come the month’s end. Even before I knew what a horror movie was, I was always excited to dress up for the holiday. The early years saw me dressing up as kiddy cartoon characters, but by the time I was six, I was always dressed as one of the more devious mythological creatures that occompany the holiday.

My enthusiasm for vampires, witches, and werewolves prompted my uncle to introduce me to the genre that would forever change my life. At the tender age of nine, while my mother and I were visiting from Florida, he sat me down on the living room floor of his quiet and secluded West Tennessee home. He laid out two VHS tapes in front of me and told me to choose which one we would watch to celebrate Halloween. I remember being nervous and excited for this grown-up treatment (mostly because my mom didn’t know about it), but had no idea that the movie I would pick would leave me traumatized for a few years before becoming enthralled with the horror genre as I am today.

To celebrate my love for the season and the genre closest to my heart, this week I am counting down the top five horror movies that only exacerbated my thirst for everything macabre. Keep in mind, this is not necessarily a list of my all-time favorites (that would require an extensive breakdown of the many sub genres), but rather, a nod to the movies that kept me begging for more.

5. Stephen King’s “IT"

Those two VHS tapes my uncle laid before me included Halloween and Stephen King’s “IT.” You may be thinking that Halloween is by far the better movie, and you’d be right, but as a nine-year-old, I don’t think it would have affected me the way this one did. I was never afraid of clowns growing up and I never understood why my cousin would cry whenever she saw one. Granted, with all the kid-killing stalker clowns around lately, I might have sung a different tune as a nine-year-old in 2016, but as they say, the world was a “safer” place when I was a kid.

I saw Tim Curry dressed as Pennywise on the cover of the tape and was confused as to how a movie about a clown could possibly scare me. I watched the entire movie with prideful eyes, never turning away from the screen out of fear that my uncle would tease me. But I knew from the opening scene when Pennywise stalks a young girl from behind cotton sheets on the clothesline, that my opinion on Bozo and Ronald McDonald would never be the same. They had officially landed on my bad list, and Pennywise was the one to blame.

When I returned home to Florida, I couldn’t enter my dark room because I was convinced the kid-devouring clown was hiding beneath my bunk bed. My behavior warranted concern, and when I spilled the beans to my mother about what Uncle Steve let me watch, I assure you she was scarier than any horror movie slasher. Years later, when I was 13, my dad bought me the VHS for my birthday. I was so happy when I unwrapped it, but that movie stayed in its plastic wrap untouched on the bookshelf for several years after that. Even after falling in love with the genre, it took some time for me to revisit the film that started it all.

4. "Cabin Fever"

As a teenager, I was still unsure exactly which type of horror movie was my favorite. I remember renting this from Blockbuster when I was about 14, and I had looked up reviews before watching it. Cabin Fever has a bad rap as one of the more poorly made movies in the horror genre, but it’s of my opinion that people just took it too seriously. Very few horror directors have tried to break the fourth wall and make fun of the genre while still trying to deliver honest scares and a sinking feeling of dread. Movies like Sleepaway Camp and The Slumber Party Massacre were obvious tongue-in-cheek movies. Eli Roth delivered a gem with the hybrid Cabin Fever before helping birth the torture porn genre with his follow-up, Hostel.

My age may have been a contributing factor, but Cabin Fever soon became one of my favorite movies and not solely because Shaun from Boy Meets World was the main character. It had a lot of funny moments and a few whimsical story breaks that didn’t make a whole lot of sense (don’t sit next to Dennis, guys) but helped mold the movie into what it was. This is a movie that isn’t afraid to make fun of itself while still delivering some truly disgusting scenes and making shaving difficult for girls everywhere. It opened my eyes to a different kind of horror film and allowed movies like Cabin in the Woods to become such crowd favorites.

3. "American Mary"

The Soska sisters are two beautifully deranged twin sisters who write and direct some truly nightmarish movies. American Mary is one of the more recent movies on this list but it is very dear to my adult heart in a different sense. The horror genre is saturated with male writers, directors, heroes, and villains. The “Final Girl” in slasher flicks usually makes it out due to a valid V-card or because of her status as an up-and-coming actress. American Mary turns the genre on its head, first by introducing us to strong female characters behind the camera (The Soska Sisters) and then to the tragic hero that is Mary Mason.

Mary Mason is a gifted student who has dreams of becoming a surgeon. Like most students, she acquires a debt that she can’t immediately pay, and she finds a questionable line of work that could easily cover the costs of her college expenses. We witness great character development (degradation?) as we follow Mary, which is typically hard to pull off in this genre while still dishing out serious scares.

American Mary is truly a win for women all around in the horror genre, and Katharine Isabelle, one of my favorite scream queens, does a great job at breathing life into one of the most interesting heroes (and villains) of the genre.

2. "The Ring"

The Ring has served two purposes for me. One, it scared me like no other horror movie ever has. Two, it introduced me to the wonderful world of foreign horror. After watching (and recovering from) this movie, I immediately searched for Ringu, and eventually became infatuated with Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and French horror movies.

I watched this at a sixth-grade slumber party with a group of about five other girls. It was the first scary movie I had watched since IT, but the residual affect resonated much longer. After watching the movie, a couple of the girls and I prank called our friend who was still upstairs and breathed “Seven Days…” into the phone. She knew it was us, of course, but this film had me avoiding the phone for longer than a week after watching.

I remember being in class one day after the slumber party. I was scribbling in my notebook subconsciously before I suddenly bounced into reality and noticed I was drawing spirals onto the paper. I was convinced that Samara was going to come to me, and in all honestly, I counted down every hour for seven days after the credits rolled.

My dad also eventually bought me this movie, and I still have it on DVD. I watched it last night and welcomed that uneasy feeling that accompanies it with every viewing. It’s hard for a movie to scare me at 24, so I treasure these nostalgic blasts from when frightening me was a bit easier.

1. "Dread"

My all-time favorite movie is a little B-sided flick churned out by 8 Films to Die For back in 2009. Jackson Rathbone of Twilight fame is the main character in this film, and really, his acting is the only flaw. The atmosphere is daunting, the characters are three-dimensional and relatable, and the concept is original. Not only that, but the movie delivers classic jump scares, some aesthetically (dis)pleasing gore, and a few interesting traps to boot.

Dread introduced me to underground, under-appreciated horror. Independent films are where you now find the original plots and creative villains within the genre. The movies don’t have sequels because the directors realize they don’t need to. The films may be grainier and the acting choppier, but if you love the genre, and want an original story with your beheadings, independent films are where you find them.

Dread is about three college kids creating a documentary for their thesis. The documentary is on dread, the origin of fear. The three students videotape their peers regarding their strongest memories of feeling fear. Eventually, this encourages the directors to delve deeper into their own senses of dread, with dire consequences that follow. Take this movie seriously, and watch it when you’re alone. I’ve made the mistake of introducing it to a crowd full of drunken friends and only getting angry when they didn’t catch the nuances. Give these smaller-budget films a chance, and I promise you will find your reason to fall in love with the genre just like I did.