recommend good horror movies?

i am a big fan of horror movies. anybody have some ideas for good ones i should see? i tend to prefer more obscure movies and directors over the mainstream stuff, but i'll check out anything someone recommends.
also, what do you think makes a great horror movie? should the director focus on character development or keeping things exciting nonstop? personally i think that character development is crucial to a scary movie. the reason so many modern horror movies aren't scary to me is because you never really get to know the characters, so you don't really feel anything for them when they are in danger. this is especially true with the jason and freddie movies, where they may as well be chasing around cardboard cutouts of people. i'm curious to hear peoples opinions on what it is that makes a great horror movie great.

Moth Man Prohpcies
The Grudge (if watched properly)

ive never seen it, but Boo! is supposidly a good one.
also, Poltergeist is good but youve probably seen it.

hopefully Pulse will be good when it comes out ^_^

i like the ones that make you feel trapped in some way. movies that play with your emotions are much more effective. freddie, jason, the leprachaun... theyre all simply laughable.

Pet cememetary is a pretty good movie, not sure if its a horror. Still worth waching.

i definitely agree that those movies that are good at making you feel "trapped" are scary. thats what made the movie Saw effective in my opinion. the gore didn't bother me, but you almost feel trapped in the room with the characters. i can only assume that to watch the grudge "properly" means under the influence of something. i wasn't a fan of that one, although that may have been because i was in a theatre with a bunch of obnoxious middle schoolers. poltergeist is another great one. theres a creepy story behind the making of it too, about a lot of things going wrong during production, people getting hurt and stuff. maybe i'm sick, but that makes the movie even creepoer to me hah.
my personal all-time favorites are:
the shining
the thing
texas chainsaw massacre
suspiria

Automatically go straight to HOSTEL... EXCELLENt movie if your into gore and sickening horror stuff like that. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and I actually wrote a piece about it for my creative writing class..

definitely recommend watching The Grudge as well...

i liked hostel, but i personally thought that it would have been better if there hadn't been as much gore. blood and guts don't bother me, i just think movies can be scarier when the director lets you use your imagination. rather than showing every detail, let our minds fill in the details, because our imaginations can be a lot darker than anything they could legally put on a movie screen.
a good example of that is the movie reservoir dogs, if any of you have seen it. in one scene a guy is tied to a chair, and another guy walks over to him with a razor, and for about 10 seconds the camera focuses on the wall behind them, so you can hear the guy struggling but you can't see anything. i find that kind of thing a lot more unnerving than actually being showed what is happening.

I cannot stress enough that if you haven't seen the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you must rent it immediately. Also Night of the Living Dead (original or remake, doesn't matter), The Shining, Halloween, Alien, Jaws, The Exorcist, The Changeling, Pet Cemetary, Hellraiser... I guess none of these are really obscure, but all great horror movies.

only one of those i haven't seen is the changeling.
TCM and the shining are amazing. same with the original night of the living dead (didn't like the remake though).
i will have to check out the changeling. thanks!

"May"

now, go enjoy yourself