The creepiest thing about my parents' farmhouse? The basement stairs. They're those kind where there's an opening under each step. To a kid heading down to bring up the laundry or feed the cats or just grab something from the pantry, each and every movie monster ever created is lurking below, just waiting to grab your ankle.
The house in the remake of "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark," which opens Aug. 26, has some issues that go well beyond stairway design. There appear to be a clan of creatures living behind a sealed fireplace in the hidden basement who have evil designs on the young daughter of the house.
You wouldn't want to live there, nor would you want to live in these other scary homes.
'The Amityville Horror' house
It's probably a good thing we don't know about all the things that happened in older homes. Surely people have died in my 1931 home, but not, I hope, as violently as the family who was murdered at 112 Ocean Ave. in Amityville, N.Y. The real life murders of the DeFeo family in 1974 supposedly sparked scary voices, swarms of flies, bad smells and that creepy pig-like creature with the glowing eyes.
Manson murders
The Manson family committed more than one murder, but the address that sticks in our consciousness, thanks to "Helter Skelter," is 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles, where Sharon Tate, her unborn son, and four others were killed horribly in 1969. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails famously was the last person to live in the house, building a recording studio there. It's since been demolished and the address changed. The killers famously wrote "Pig" in Tate's blood on the house, and Reznor reportedly called his studio "Pig" and took that front door with him to install at his new studio when he left.
'Poltergeist' house
There are so many reasons you wouldn't want to live in the "Poltergeist" house, number one being that they moved the headstones but they didn't move the bodies. You wouldn't want to star in the movie, either, since several people associated with the film died young — including stars Dominique Dunne (murdered by ex-boyfriend) and Heather O'Rourke (just 12 when she died during surgery).
'Paranormal Activity' house
The house Micah and Katie live in in "Paranormal Activity" seems like a great place. Newly built, so none of those previous murdering owners to contend with. It's in sunny San Diego, so none of that snowbound-caused craziness of "The Shining." And yet sometimes it's the more ordinary seeming places where things go bump in the night. Don't get out the Ouija board either — it just makes them mad.
'The Shining' hotel
You wouldn't want to live, stay, or work in the isolated Overlook Hotel in "The Shining." Let's just say not all of the previous guests have checked out. And no matter how bad you think you need it, you probably shouldn't take a bath there.
What's the scariest home (or hotel) in moviedom? We're discussing on Facebook.
Gael Fashingbauer Cooper is TODAY.com's movies editor.