Film Horror films suitable for young teens

The Boy

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My 13 year old daughter is having a Halloween party tonight for her mates, she's asked if they can watch horror films so I have been putting together a selection of what I think might be appropriate for them to pick a couple from. I'm avoiding sex and major gore, but at the same time still want them to be able to give themselves a scare. These are my choices so far...

A Quiet Place
Amityville Horror (1979)
Get Out
Paranormal Activity
Poltergeist (2015)
The Blair Witch Project
The Woman in Black (2012)
The Conjuring

Any thoughts, are any too much (I'm a bit worried about the Conjuring) for 13 year olds, or any others you think would be OK for that age, without me being harangued by angry parents tomorrow!
 
I think a lot of those are too scary. The Woman in Black might be OK. I strongly suggest you check with parents to make sure they're happy with their young teens watching 18-rated films, though.

edit - the horror sub on reddit has a thread about this exact thing, scary movies for young teens.
 
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Amityville might be a bit boring for that age group and Conjuring is far too scary for them.

Scream (might be too violent)
The Others
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Jeepers Creepers
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark
Drag Me To Hell
Sixth Sense

That's a decent list of gateway horror in my opinion.
 
remove Amytiville, it will bore them so much they will want to leave. or that's your plan all along?

the rest is fine, I guess.
 
Penna said:
I think a lot of those are too scary. The Woman in Black might be OK. I strongly suggest you check wirth parents to make sure they're happy with their young teens watching 18-rated films, though.
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None of them are 18 rated, the worst are 15s and their parents know they are watching horror films, I just don't want to send them home unable to sleep for months!
 
Dirty Schwein said:
Amityville might be a bit boring for that age group and Conjuring is far too scary for them.

Scream (might be too violent)
The Others
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Jeepers Creepers
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark
Drag Me To Hell
Sixth Sense

That's a decent list of gateway horror in my opinion.
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Yeah I was worried about the conjuring, maybe I'll swap that out for The Others
 
btw, Ebert's review of the original Night of the Living Dead:

Nationally, it was a Saturday afternoon matinée—typical for horror films at the time—and attracted the usual horror film audience of mainly pre-teens and adolescents. The MPAA film rating system was not in place until the following month, so children were able to purchase tickets. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times chided theater owners and parents who allowed children you access to a film they were entirely unprepared for. Ebert noted that the children in the audience initially displayed typical reactions to '60s horror films, including shouting when ghouls appeared on the screen. He said that the atmosphere in the theater shifted to grim silence as the protagonists each began to fail, die, and be consumed—either by fire or the undead

The kids in the audience were stunned. There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying ... It's hard to remember what sort of effect this movie might have had on you when you were six or seven. But try to remember. At that age, kids take the events on the screen seriously, and they identify fiercely with the hero. When the hero is killed, that's not an unhappy ending but a tragic one: Nobody got out alive. It's just over, that's all.
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The Boy said:
Yeah I was worried about the conjuring, maybe I'll swap that out for The Others
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I would also reconsider Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch Project. I love them both but a young teen might get too bored with the slow setup.

Blair Witch (the reimagining by Adam Wingard) might be more teen friendly.

Or show them Serbian Film and get arrested.
 
Maybe try The Hole (2009)? Joe Dante (aka the guy who made Gremlins) made it specifically as a horror film for kids around that age, think it had a 12s rating in the UK.

But of course if I'm a 13 year old watching horror films, I want 15-rated horror rather than 12-rated horror.
 
Quite a lot of classic horror films were reclassified as 15, stuff like Carrie and The Shining.
 
Any film where all the teenagers having sex get killed. I believe that this is far more effective than learning about contraception etc.

It Follows is a good one! You literally get rid of a curse by having sex (and thus passing on the curse). It's meant as some form of social commentary, but a 13 year old is not smart enough to understand that.
 
I re watched Night of the Comet recently and I think that would be a good choice.

Preferably I think, to maintain their interests, the film needs at least one strong female character. She and her friends need someone to identify with and this film has two teenagers who are charismatic and 'fun'.
 
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Penna said:
Really? I'm surprised!
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Me too, but I've avoided any sexual or overly violent films for obvious reasons, just being very scary doesn't get you an 18 rating in the UK!
 
I watched the Blair Witch with my older teens recently and they were very unimpressed. To be fair it's not dated well I don't think, wasn't scary at all. Poltergeist they just laughed at, I wouldn't bother with that one. Only the Paranormal type ones might give them a few jumps. A Quiet Place isn't scary at all in my opinion. I'd say the Scream films, I know What You Did Last Summer and Final Destination ones would be best option, at least they have a story to them and teenagers in it.

Otherwise just break out the old Freddy and Chucky films.
 
I feel that gore should be kicked out of the horror genre altogether. It's easily the worst of the sub-genres. I'd take a B film with jump scares every 5 minutes over the highest rated gore film.

(no Al Gore jokes, I'm not in the mood)
 
You can also show them Saw. The first one is actually not that violent and most of the violence is implied rather than shown.
 
The Cellar
Killer clowns from Outerspace
Jaws
Candyman
IT (the old one maybe)
Sleepy Hollow (not exactly horror but still good)
 
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