From ‘The Shining’ to ‘The Birds,’ 25 horror movies to watch before you DIIIIIIIIIIIIE – USA TODAY

Spooky movies are a great way to escape from real-life horrors this Halloween. USA TODAY Handout

Face it, folks, we're all gonna die. Whether it's via natural causesor the business end of Michael Myers'kitchen knifelanding in your head, death is inevitable.

Because that clock is ticking, why not revisit some scary classics or if you're a horror virgin check them out for the very first time? (And perhaps last, because, you know. See above. Hey, we don't make the rules.)

We put together a tried-and-true list of 25 old-school favorites, influential giants and somehidden gems through the years worth a watch before that creepy Japanese girl who crawled out of the TV kills you. Or,if you're not really in the dying mood,to embraceHalloweenas you hunker down and avoid a looming doom. (No, not COVID-19: Those horrendous mini dark-chocolate barsthat return every October. They're worse than a Freddy Krueger dream seminar.)

Ranked: Every horror movie of 2020 (including 'Welcome to the Blumhouse')

Halloween viewing: 10 thrillers and chillers to watch at home for a horror-filled October

Dig in. IF YOU DARE:

Though modern eyes might not initially understand the appeal of the silent film one of the first horror flicks ever spend some time with the tale of a sleepwalker (Conrad Veidt) hypnotized into murder, immerse yourselfin the striking German expressionist imageryand get wowed by an early twist ending.

"The Bride of Frankenstein" starred Elsa Lanchester as the Bride and Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster.(Photo: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS)

You cant go wrong with any of the classic Universal monsters (Dracula, Wolf Man, Mummy) but this is a two-for-one extravaganza in which Boris Karloff reprises his role as Frankensteins Monster and Elsa Lanchester is the bride with the lightning-zapped hair.

Hollywood hasgiven us many Draculas over the years, from Bela Lugosi to Gary Oldman, though it's Britain's Hammer Horror banner that gave us the most fearsome take in a ferociously fanged Christopher Lee and pitted him against Peter Cushing's famed vampire hunter Van Helsing.

Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho featured a cross-dressing killer with a thing for showers. At least you can avoid seedy motels to steer clear of that guy. Squadrons of seemingly innocent feathered fiends turning sinister and pecking at your face is a next-level threat.

Zombies shamble across rural Pennsylvania in the classic "Night of the Living Dead."(Photo: COLUMBIA PICTURES)

If you're going to watch one zombie movie, George Romero's original chiller is the granddaddy of them all. Even 52 years later, the undead ghouls that descend upon survivors in a Pennsylvania farm house are timeless and the gut-punch ending couldn't be more timely.

William Friedkin's movie about innocence lost and the power of faithhas unnerved several generations, and it's Linda Blair's harrowing portrayal of a possessed girl and thedeepermeanings about good and evil that'll stick with you more than the infamous images of aspinning head or inappropriately used crucifix.

Hey, it's a throwback to when people opened up the beaches too soon not because of a contagious disease but because of a killer shark.Steven Spielberg's original summer blockbuster unleashed a great white that put a dangerous edge on the waterlogged adventure.

Jamie Lee Curtis wields a knife in the 1978 horror film classic "Halloween," directed by John Carpenter.(Photo: ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT VIA AP)

John Carpenter's slash-terpiece introduced an iconic masked maniac to babysitting Jamie Lee Curtis and an unsuspecting Illinois suburbia. Pick your villainous poison from the likes of Freddy, Jason and Leatherface, but Michael Myers' mythology and an all-too-realisticstreak makes "Halloween" a cut above.

Whether you think it's a sci-fi film, horror movie, haunted house flick in space or a darn good argument for chest plates, Ridley Scott's cosmic trip gone very wrong is bursting with goodness. The terror is real, y'all, and the killer extraterrestrial goes perfectly with the galactic claustrophobia.

Jack Nicholson stars as increasingly deranged author Jack Torrance in the classic 1980 Stanley Kubrick film "The Shining." After breaking in the door with an ax to face his horrified wife, Jack proclaims, "Heeere's Johnny!"(Photo: AP/Warner Bros., AP/Warner Bros.)

If Jack Nicholson running around an empty and isolated hotel out of his mind, talking to dead barkeeps and carrying an axisnt scary enough for you, an elevator flowing blood, the creepiest twins of all time and an old decrepit naked lady in a bathtub should do the trick.

American dudes backpacking in England get attacked by a werewolf, one of them becomes a beastly nuisance on the full moon, and things get bloody freaky in old London Town. All that plus undead buddies, fantastic special effects, an unreal transformation scene and its pretty funny!

Carpenters snowbound remake features a glorious Kurt Russell beard and a shapeshifting alien organism that assimilates other organisms and grows more frighteningly hideous over the course of the movie. Both are beautiful in their own ways.

Jeff Goldblum crouches in a pod before getting transformed into a monstrous insectoid in "The Fly."(Photo: 20TH CENTURY FOX)

The pest that landed onMike Pence's head during the vice presidential debate launched countless memes and social media conversations andreminded everybody they need to see national treasure Jeff Goldblum getting turned into a monstrous insectoid, courtesy of body horror guru David Cronenberg.

Use the musical as a palate cleanserof sorts from some of these other fright fests. The Alan Menken songs will get your head boppingamidthe retro narrative about a nerdy flower guy (Rich Moranis) who has a crush on a co-worker (Ellen Greene) and develops a co-dependentfriendship with a man-eating plant.

Before Nia DaCosta's sequel next year, go back to the original starring Tony Todd as the hook-handed title antagonist, a vengeful spirit of a slave's son murdered in post-Civil War America. The first movie remains relevant in its tackling of gentrification and the cyclical nature of violence.

Drew Barrymore in the iconic opening scene of Wes Craven's 1996 horror comedy "Scream."(Photo: DAVID A. MOIR/DIMENSION FILMS)

Wes Cravens slasher movie reinventionholds up so well. Ghostface gave us the definitive horror villain of the 90s, the opening sequence with Drew Barrymore and a telephone remains an all-timer, plus its cleverness hasn'twaned since horror tropes never die.

It really shouldn't be this enjoyable to watch Christian Bale hack a dude to death in Mary Harron's 1980s-set bloody satireabouta cold, calculating and murderous New York investment banker with unusual proclivities. If nothing else, you'll never hear "Hip to Be Square" the same way ever again.

More and more folks have found this underrated Frankenstein-esque tale over the years, starring Angela Bettis as an awkward yet hypnotic vets assistant who not only keeps a creepy doll around but also puts together her own special friend from spare body parts.

"28 Days Later" centers on a rage-inducing sickness that fells London.(Photo: PETER MOUNTAIN)

If you're going to watch two zombie movies, have "Night of the Living Dead" be the shot and this the chaser. A rage-inducing virus breaks out in England and leaves London eerily empty while speedy zombies are out for flesh in a story steeped in metaphor that speaks to our pandemic era.

The backwoods horror comedy explodes tropes and is just pretty darnfun and clever. Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine are good-hearted West Virginia hillbillies who, thanks to increasingly nutty circumstances, are seen as homicidal rednecks by a group of campers.

A British soldier (Neil Maskell) comes home, reconnects with his family and gets work as a hitman. Ben Wheatley's genre-mashing masterpiece sticks to being a crimethriller until it takes a turn toward the sinister and transforms into something way moreterrifying.

Maika Monroe copes with a heck of a curse in 'It Follows.'(Photo: RADIUS)

Teens and sex go with horror like hockey masks and summer camps. David Robert Mitchell ingeniously makes a sexually transmitted disease his villain, and Maika Monroe is the girl who's cursed after intercourse and is pursued by a dogged dark force until she can pass it on to someone.

Wouldst thou like to live deliciously? Um, yes, please and thank you. The freaky period piece and tragic family drama features Anja Taylor-Joy as a troubled 17th-century teen on the cusp of adulthood who goes down a dark path and Black Phillip as the G.O.A.T. of hellish goats.

Daniel Kaluuya stars as a young Black man who finds out the sinister reason he was invited to meet his girlfriend's family in "Get Out."(Photo: UNIVERSAL PICTURES)

If you can't empathize with Daniel Kaluuya's victimized protagonist and his shocked, tear-stained face as he's taken to the Sunken Place, you might just be a soulless demon. Jordan Peele's social horror insta-classic is an impressively crafted take on race that changed the scary movie game.

Hail Paimon?Hail Toni Collette! She tears it up in Ari Aster's supernaturally absorbing, demonic dissolution of a family whose grand matriarch was into some seriously weird stuff. "Hereditary" is full of shock and awe, with absolutely brutal deaths and an unshakable sense of doom.

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From 'The Shining' to 'The Birds,' 25 horror movies to watch before you DIIIIIIIIIIIIE - USA TODAY

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero