Classic Scary Movies That Don't Have a Lot of Blood and Gore (Just Good Old Fashioned Creepiness)

If you don't like to watch movies that have a lot of blood and gore, you may tend to avoid popular Halloween classics like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. Still, no Halloween is complete without a scary movie or two, so here are some old school scary movies that don't involve a lot of blood and gore. Just good old fashioned creepiness.

The Bad Seed (1956) 

Young actress Patty McCormack was phenomenal in this disturbing movie. McCormack plays Rhoda Penmark, a blonde pigtailed seemingly perfect child. The building handyman Leroy (Henry Jones) is on to Rhoda's perfect child act, however., and he lets her know it. When a child at Rhoda's school drowns during a school picnic, Rhoda shows no emotion over the incident, and it is then that her mother begins to delve deeper into the strange behaviors of her unusual daughter.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) 

Bette Davis and Joan Crawford starred in this movie about two aging starlet sisters. When Crawford's character, Blanche Hudson, is crippled after a car accident, her career as an actress is cut short. Her jealous sister Baby Jane (Davis) keeps her in their dilapidated mansion, all the while terrorizing her. Bette Davis is terrifying in this movie.

The Collector (1965) 

Terrence Stamp plays a strange and awkward clerk and butterfly collector, Frederick Clegg, who wins a lottery. He uses his winnings to kidnap and trap an attractive art student, Miranda Grey (Samantha Eggar) who he has been eyeing. He tries to "keep" her much the same way that he keeps the butterflies that he collects. While his motives aren't sexual, he wants her to fall in love with him. Although Miranda attempts to escape from Clegg several times, he always catches her. In the end, Clegg has an eerie a revelation.

Bad Ronald (1974) 

This made for TV movie reigns as one of the all time creepiest movies ever to hit the small screen. Scott Jacoby stars as Ronald Wilby, a teenager who accidentally kills a young girl. He tells his mother about the accident and she hides him in a secret room in their house. But when his mom dies and the house is sold to a new family, Ronald is still hidden away in the secret room. It is there that he envisions a bizarre fantasy life with the new family's beautiful daughters. Totally creepy movie and worth scanning the late night TV listings for or renting on DVD.

Creepshow (1982) 

Totally campy movie based on a couple of Stephen King's short stories. The movie is split into 5 vignettes, the creepiest being "Something to Tide you Over.” Leslie Nielsen plays a wealthy businessman who suspects that his wife is having an affair. He concocts a sick plot to make his wife and her lover pay, by burying them both in the sand up to their necks on his private beach. Some of the stories in this film, including this one, were written expressly by Stephen King for this film. The film pays tribute to horror comic books, as you will see as each story begins.

X Files: Home (1996) 

OK, so this is not a movie but is probably one of the most disturbing and scary things you’ll ever see on television. This episode of Fox's The X-Files originally aired in October 1996, to great controversy. It was given a Mature Audience TV rating at the time and Fox received a lot of flack after the episode aired. Agents Mulder and Scully (David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson) investigate a family of inbred mutants, The Peacocks, after the corpse of a newborn baby is found buried on small town field. The baby has an enormous number of birth defects, which prompts an investigation on to who gave birth to the child. Fox only reran this episode one other time, on Halloween of 1999, before locking it in the vault for good. This episode can be viewed on The X-Files Season 4 DVD. Warning: it is not for the queasy.