5. SHRIEKS & SQUEALS: This one’s gotta have that sound that makes the hairs on your neck stand up and sends shivers down your spine.

Directed by Mike Flanagan, who co-wrote the script with star Kate Siegel, Hush is about Maddie Young, who lost her ability to speak and hear after contracting bacterial meningitis as a teenager. Now, she’s a horror writer who is trying to follow up her first book and is writing in the woods, alone with her cat Bitch. Her lack of hearing causes her to miss the stabbing death of neighbor Sarah (Samantha Sloyan) by The Man (John Gallagher Jr.), a killing machine that soon learns that she can’t hear. He even wipes out her boyfriend (Michael Trucco) and abuses her throughout the film, turning this into a cat-and-mouse affair until she uses her environment against him.

Instead of silence, ambient sounds were used. Flanagan felt that total quiet would cause viewers to be too aware of their surroundings and take them out of the experience. There’s less than 15 minutes of dialogue in this entire movie.

This was remade as Khamoshi and Kolaiyuthir Kaalam in India. The Netflix series Midnight Mass is based on the story within a story from the film, which was written by Maddie.

U of M grad Steve King said, “How good is Hush? Up there with Halloween and — even more — Wait Until Dark. White knuckle time.” Was he that happy that Mr. Mercedes is one of Maddie’s books?