True phobias—paralyzing, crippling fears, sometimes irrational—can make movie-watching an awkward or potentially horrifying experience for some people. There’s a difference between being “afraid” of a scenario and having a true phobia. I, for example, don’t like the thought of swimming in the open ocean, where god-knows-what is swimming around below me. But do I love watching Jaws? Sure. No problem. I don’t particularly like heights either, but it’s not like I have a problem with Vertigo.

But some people do react violently to even the images of their phobias. I knew a guy in college who wasn’t just afraid of spiders—he was petrified of spiders. He was so disturbed by them that the few times we happened to be watching a movie with spiders in it, he’d have to leave the room. I learned this while we were watching the MST3k film The Giant Spider Invasion. Suffice to say, he was out of the room more often than he was in it. It’s the same way for someone with say, ornithophobia (fear of our feathered friends), when they watch Hitchcock’s The Birds.

With Halloween approaching, though, perhaps this is the rare time of year when the phobic will want to willingly confront one of their fears in film. That, or maybe their friends just want to make them squirm a bit. Perhaps this will simply be valuable as a list of films to avoid. If so, by all means employ our phobia film guide, arranging 25 common (and uncommon) phobias from A-Z and a corresponding bit of nightmare fuel. They run the gamut from classics to cheesy crowd-pleasers to pretty terrible flicks.

(And please note, I’m not advocating that you force any friend to watch something that will upset them. Please have some courtesy, folks.)

1. Acrophobia

Definition: The fear of heights

Film: Cliffhanger, 1993

Most of these are going to be true horror films, but you’d be surprised to know that there really aren’t any horror flicks with “heights” as the primary villain. Cliffhanger, on the other hand, almost fetishizes heights and climbing, so for an acrophobic, it’s terrifying. I know—I remember watching this as a kid and being thoroughly traumatized by the opening sequence when Stallone is unable to save a fellow ranger who plummets to her death.





2. Agoraphobia

Definition: The fear of open spaces

Film: Open Water, 2003

Open Water is one of the most terrifying premises I can imagine, phobia or no—a pair of divers are left behind by their guide boat and stranded in the open ocean, with no idea of what direction they should even head. That’s true powerlessness, and once fatigue begins to set in (and the sharks begin to circle), it’s hard to imagine not completely turning to despair. The open ocean is the ultimate terror for an agoraphobic when one realizes the sheer scale of the space UNDERNEATH you—and there could be (and is) anything down there.





3. Arachnophobia

Definition: The fear of spiders

Film: Kingdom of the Spiders, 1977

The obvious choice is to use the film Arachnophobia, as it’s named after the phobia itself, but that’s too easy. Kingdom of the Spiders also features tons and tons of real spiders, which is a huge plus—seriously, there’s tons of scenes of people being covered in tarantulas from head to toe. The spiders attack en masse thanks to human ecological meddling, as you might expect. As a bonus, William Shatner is there, Shatnering it up.





4. Arithmophobia

Definition: The fear of numbers

Film: The Number 23, 2007

A fairly stupid movie, but perfect to spook your conspiracy theorist or numerology-interested friends. The film features Jim Carrey losing his mind as he discovers a book on the so-called “23 enigma; which posits that all important events in history (and indeed the universe) apparently have something to do with the number 23. This is the sort of film that someone involved in a “truther” movement could probably appreciate in a thoroughly non-ironic way.





5. Bibliophobia

Definition: The fear of books

Film: In the Mouth of Madness, 1995

This might have been John Carpenter’s last good horror movie, and that’s mostly because of the creativity of its premise: That an insane author is warping the fabric of reality through his writings. Sam Neill gives the same sort of over-the-top demented performance he later gave in 1997’s Event Horizon. An underappreciated horror flick about the power of books and authors on society.





6. Botanophobia

Definition: The fear of plants

Film: The Ruins, 2008

If you’re afraid of plants, a movie about carnivorous blood-sucking vines is pretty high-octane nightmare fuel. You’d probably be too busy being terrified to notice how much the rest of it sucks. The Day of the Triffids would also be classic, but it’s not likely to freak out a phobic in the same way that modern CGI would—one of the rare times you’ll ever see me advocating for CGI over practical effects.





7. Cacophobia

Definition: The fear of ugliness

Film: Eyes Without a Face, 1960

Hey, a great film snuck its way onto the phobia list, how about that? Eyes Without a Face is a French-Italian classic that not nearly enough people have seen. Edith Scob gives an incredible performance as Christiane, a woman terribly disfigured in an auto accident, kept as a prisoner and forced to wear a mask to hide her ugliness. As we can’t see her face, Scob’s eyes tell the whole story in what turned out to be a subtly influential film on the psychological horror genre. The classic “Eye of the Beholder” episode of The Twilight Zone echoes many of the same themes.





8. Catoptrophobia

Definition: The fear of mirrors

Film: Oculus, 2013

Mirrors are a constant presence in horror movies, with the mirror scare as one of the most commonly abused cliches, but few films are actually ABOUT evil mirrors. If you harbor an irrational fear of them, though, then a movie like Oculus was created specifically to seed your sleep with nightmares. This cursed mirror completely destroys a family’s life, turning normal people into psychotics and projecting horrific visions upon them. It’s hard to imagine another movie that better fits the phobia.





9. Claustrophobia

Definition: The fear of enclosed spaces

Film: Buried, 2010

A film that spends its entire 95-minute runtime with a central protagonist who has been buried alive? Yeah, that’ll activate some triggers with the claustrophobics in the audience. Ryan Reynolds plays a man trapped in a fairly hopeless situation in this thriller, abducted and buried alive by terrorists seeking a ransom. Its cinematography gets creative in keeping an audience engaged for an hour and a half of a man trapped inside a small wooden box.





10. Coulrophobia

Definition: The fear of clowns

Film: Stephen King’s IT, 1990

You knew what it would be. There are tons of killer clown movies out there, but none of them have ever freaked out more of the clown-averse than Tim Curry’s incredible portrayal of Pennywise in the TV miniseries of Stephen King’s IT. His malevolence as a monster in clown’s skin is off the charts, and that defining performance is one of the main reasons it will be difficult to ever do another film version of IT. It’s hard to believe that anyone else could ever compare.





11. Cynophobia

Definition: The fear of dogs

Film: The Pack, 1977

Cujo is probably the most famous of this genre, but there are some other good killer dog movies out there. The Pack is particularly disturbing for lovers of man’s best friend because it depicts beasts driven mad not by rabies but by the negligence of man. When a group of dogs are abandoned on an island and left to fend for themselves, they quickly turn feral and barbaric. When other humans show up, the former pets view them not as masters, but as meat.





12. Cyberphobia

Definition: The fear of computers/automation

Film: Eagle Eye, 2008

The fear of computers is the fear of losing control, and that’s exactly the concern at the heart of the Shia LaBeouf thriller Eagle Eye. Say what you will of him, but it’s an intriguing concept; a rogue governmental A.I. that begins acting on its own interpretations of the Constitution to remove decision-making from the executive branch in order to “safeguard” the American public. To someone who’s afraid of the coming computer singularity, it’s a scary thought.





13. Dendrophobia

Definition: The fear of trees

Film: The Evil Dead, 1981

Two words: Tree rape. Pretty much impossible to top that. To recap: Tree rape.