10 Best Horror Movies Under 90 Minutes

1. Halloween (1978)

If you’re looking for some classic horror but don’t have two and a half hours to spare for the likes of The Exorcist, then be sure to check out John Carpenter’s seminal slasher Halloween. Clocking in at a clean 90 minutes, this 1978 fable of fright set the standard for suspense. Its deceitfully simple story follows masked serial killer Michael Myers as he escapes from the psychiatric facility where he was kept since childhood after murdering his teenage sister at age 6 and his ensuing exploits as he stalks sunny teenager Laurie Strode and her friends.

The film cemented and even invented some of the tropes that slasher movies are now known for such as the sex-obsessed teens that are slain one by one, the psychotic killer in a mask, and the virginal final girl that remains as the sole survivor of the massacre. It also launched the careers of John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis, who follows in the footsteps of her mother, Janet Leigh, best known for her role as the doomed Marion Crane in what some consider to be the first slasher film, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. After becoming a surprise hit in ‘78, Halloween became the movie that defined terror for a whole generation, all packed in to a sleek hour and a half.