10 of the Best Scary Movie Taglines

David Cronenberg's film "The Fly" is not only terrifying body horror but also a tragedy. The simple but agonizedly effective tagline is a line of Geena Davis' character Veronica's dialogue. "Be afraid. Be very afraid." In five words, it was brilliant and summarized the whole film without giving anything away. It sets the scene for the film to come.

Bob Clarke's "Black Christmas" is beloved for more than one reason, but the tagline is mystifying and frightening at the same time. "If your skin doesn't crawl, IT'S ON TOO TIGHT." The justifiable reaction to the violence that it implies is, "OMG, I don't know what it means, but I'm scared! Why would my skin be too tight? AHHHH!" That's a good tagline.

Of course, some films aren't that subtle. Meir Zarchi's "I Spit on Your Grave, starring Camille Keaton, is one of those films. The tagline for the film is extremely descriptive and extremely effective. You know exactly what you are in for. "This woman has just cut, chopped, broken, and burned four men beyond recognition... but no jury in America would ever convict her!" There will be no surprises there, which is a good thing in this case.

"The Lost Boys" is an entertaining horror comedy that plays with the tropes of the vampire film. In many ways, the audience's ideas about the vampire genre are reinforced, played with, and upended. The film's tagline is very apt, as it describes what people would assume is the life of a vampire, "Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire." But the question lingers as you watch the film.

You might think that "Jaws," one of the greatest horror films ever made and directed by Steven Spielberg, would have the tagline that people still quote, but you would be wrong. Surprisingly, the tagline people love and remember is from the sequel, "Jaws 2," directed by Jeannot Szwarc. It's the one everyone remembers. "Just when you thought it was safe to return to the water."

"House of Wax," a remake of the film of the same name from 1953. In the update of the film, director Jaume Collet-Serra cast socialite Paris Hilton, a person who was not well-liked at the time. In the time it takes to make a film, sometimes things can change, and whatever motivated them to cast Hilton had changed, and the horror community's opinion about her was not kind. So they made the problem into a virtue and told the audience, "See Paris Die," which is a smart idea.

George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" is a masterpiece with one of the most memorable taglines in horror history. Like "The Fly," it is a line of dialogue delivered so beautifully and in such a chilling way that it summarizes the entire film. It doesn't tell you exactly what happens, like some other taglines, but it gives you a vision of the movie without seeing a single scene. Ken Foree, as Peter, intones, "When there's no room left in hell, the dead will walk the Earth." we all shiver.

John Carpenter's film "The Thing" is another of the genre's greatest films, and the film's tagline suggests the horror to come. "Man is The Warmest Place to Hide."

It's just so creepy and makes you feel so paranoid. Paranoia is a significant part of the film, so that's perfect. It's a fantastic tagline that does the job with brevity.

Ridley Scott made us all scared of space with "Alien," for a good reason. It's an almost unimaginable horror stalking the crew of the Nostromo, which seems like a haunted house in space, as people have observed. Space is a hollow and echoing nothingness filled with dangerous creatures in the film, and the tagline is, " In space, no one can hear you scream." It emphasizes the loneliness of deep space and the hopelessness of the crew's plight, which adds to the film's atmosphere. It gets your imagination going before you get to the theater.

Tobe Hooper's "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is much more artful than most people realize on its face. It has wild and stunning imagery and horror, and the two artistic concepts add to each other. The tagline, which you will never forget, reminds you of the danger that the characters face. " Who will survive, and what will be left of them?" It's the suggestion of the kind of violence that might happen to every one of the characters, and it does the job very well.