All seriousness aside . . . "the Shining" gets my vote, as well. But I'm undecided on the movies.

The BOOK scared the BEE-JEEZUS outta me! When I read it for the first time, I had just moved out of my parent's house and into my first apartment. I worked second shift, and would "read myself to sleep" (since my girlfriend had just moved to Mississippi on a full scholarship - not much else for me to do!). (This was before the proliference of VCRs and the Plethora of XXX Tapes)

Anyways, on several occasions, I could've sworn the freakin' air conditioning vent was breathing! (I suppose it didn't help any that I was "Higher-than-a f**k'in-kite", at the time!

The better of the movies is harder to pinpoint. Jack "Heeeeere's Johnny" Nicholson makes an excellent case for the first one, but the 'Hedge Maze' did not do justice to the Hedge Animals, from the book. Easily, the scariest part of the book is when the kid is in the playground, and keeps glancing back and "just knows" that the damned animals have moved . . . just not enough for him to be
abso-mo-lutely, f**king SURE that they did. OK, granted, Pot & Paranoia go hand in hand, but it's still the part that scared me the most, even when I re-read it sober.

ABC's Re-make was much closer to the book. [Didn't hurt that Stevie did the Screenplay!] Again, my touchstone is the freaking spooky Hedge Animals. (In case you haven't guessed, when I was reading the book, that's when my damned A/C became possessed)!

Although I'm more of a Sci-Fi kinda guy (DUH!), Movie #1 is easily in my top 5 movies, closely followed by #2.