One of the two entirely new pieces in Glowing in the Dark is a list of “100 Movies to See After You Die,” a joke that got its start on social media and blossomed into the closest thing the book has to a “recommended viewing” list. The goal there was less to curate the best movies, or even my favorite movies, and more to suggest some that were worth watching and yet that people might be less likely to have seen.

Making a list of favorite anything is pretty much always a mug’s game. You’re bound to trip yourself up in arbitrary and self-enforced rules, and by setting up a numerical limit, you’ll be plagued by glaring omissions. For example, in the 13 films selected here, you will find no Hammer horrors and no movies by Nigel Kneale, in spite of the outsized role that both have played on my taste and my formation as a writer, or the fact that either The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) or Quatermass and the Pit (1967) could easily have featured in pride of place.

There are no films by Mario Bava, though Blood and Black Lace (1964) certainly belongs here. In fact, there are no Italian horror or giallo films at all. The Ship of Monsters (1960) is conspicuous in its absence, as is The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968), to name just a couple.

A list of my 13 favorite horror films is doomed to incompleteness and exclusion before it even begins. I could easily add another decimal place to that number and never come near running out of favorite horror films. But, at the same time, no list of my favorite films, of any kind, would be complete without these 13 flicks, which are listed here in order of release date, because trying to assemble them further into a hierarchy is an even more futile endeavor.

As ever, these are not intended to be the best horror movies, or the most important. Just the ones that mean the most to me. And even that, as I’ve belabored quite a lot by now, is a stretch…

1. The Cat and the Canary (1927)

Not as frequently talked about as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Nosferatu, but it should be. This is probably my favorite-ever silent film, one that is as lively, dynamic, and modern as any movie made yesterday.

2. The Old Dark House (1932)

My favorite movie from the classic Universal canon features none of their iconic monsters but is rather James Whale’s eerie old dark house comedy. The book is also fantastic, and I helped to get it back into print.

3. Doctor X (1932)

One of only a handful of surviving films shot in what is colloquially known as “two-strip Technicolor,” Doctor X feels more like a pulp paperback cover or a Richard Sala comic come to life than any other movie I can think of.

4. Curse of the Demon (1957)

The perfect combination of the quiet horror of Val Lewton movies and the rubber monsters of ’50s drive-in movies, even if director Jacques Tourneur didn’t agree.

5. House on Haunted Hill (1959)

When I am asked what my favorite movie of all time is (a question I am asked fairly often, in my line of work) this is what I always answer with. It’s as true an answer as any.

6. Matango (1963)

I still maintain that weird fiction has never translated to the screen as well as it does when it’s filtered through 1960s tokusatsu film, and Matango is maybe the most shining exemplar of that philosophy.

7. The Ghost of Sierra de Cobre (1964)

There are almost certainly other movies that should be on this list in place of this one, but this pilot for a TV series that never happened holds a special spot in my heart as one of the greatest discoveries I’ve ever made without having heard much about it in advance, and it’s still one that a lot of people haven’t seen.

8. Viy (1967)

The monster-filled last few minutes of Viy would be enough to guarantee it a spot on any list like this, but everything that leads up to them is delightful, too.

9. The Thing (1982)

In some ways the most obvious inclusion on this list, in some ways the biggest outlier. John Carpenter’s magnum opus and one of the best monster movies ever made.

10. Gremlins 2 (1990)

Speaking of monsters, Gremlins 2 literally crams the screen with them, while also being a parody of not only itself but the very concept of film sequels in general. Whenever I’m asked about whether a sequel can ever be better than the original, I simply point to this movie and drop the mic.

11. Nightbreed (1990)

Maybe the most imperfect movie on this list, Nightbreed is not even the best Clive Barker adaptation that Barker himself directed. But it is the movie that speaks most to my weird, queer, monster-loving heart.

12. Ghostwatch (1992)

A movie like no other and maybe my ultimate Halloween watch. Possibly the most genuinely frightening film I have ever seen.

13. Noroi: The Curse (2005)

Many people dislike found footage movies. I am not one of them. When I watch a found footage horror, though, Noroi is pretty much the high I am always chasing.