MOVIES THAT MADE OUR HEADS SPIN; `THE EXORCIST' GIVES READERS MOST CHILLS.

Byline: Janet Weeks Daily News Staff Writer

There are several advantages to having a head that spins, even if it means you have to share that head with a devil:

1) No priests can sneak up on you. 2) You can spew split-pea soup in a 360-degree circle. 3) Should you feel possessed to watch a scary movie on TV, you can do it no matter where the tube is placed. Talk about convenience.

Head-spinning, as a gory cinematic effect, is also an excellent way to scare the bejabbers out of wide-eyed filmgoers. At least, that's what our readers say.

We asked Daily News readers to contact us with their nominations for the scariest movie ever made. The winner: ``The Exorcist,'' director William Friedkin's 1973 film about a devil that takes up residency inside a young girl (Linda Blair) and literally turns her head.

Supposedly based on a true account, ``The Exorcist'' was a sensation at the time of its release, with reports of patrons passing out (or throwing up) at early screenings.

``The scariest movie I've ever seen was, in no doubt, `The Exorcist,' '' reader Hazel said in an e-mail message. ``I believe it can happen and has happened. It made me sleep with the lights on for a while when I was young.''

``The Exorcist'' also spawned a passal of devil-made-me-do-it imitators (including ``The Omen,'' also nominated by a reader) and a bunch of really stupid sequels, which readers thankfully ignored.

`` `The Exorcist' was frightening in a deep spiritual way,'' Linda Lucas of Lancaster wrote in a letter. ``I've been told that even the film technicians didn't like working on it.''

The runner-up in our poll was Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece ``Psycho,'' in which a freaky motel owner (Anthony Perkins) consorts with corpses, wears women's clothing and hacks up a pretty patron (Janet Leigh) as she showers.

``The one super-scary movie I think was the best was `Psycho,' '' wrote Jean Leighton of Simi Valley. ``After all these years, I still don't like to take a shower when I am alone in the house.''

``Psycho'' was a smash hit in its day, earning a then-record $16 million in the first few months of its release. Part of the appeal: Perkins' Norman Bates was based on a real-life necrophiliac, Wisconsin killer Ed Gein.

Gein was also the model, oddly, for Leatherface, the crazed murderer in ``The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,'' Tobe Hooper's gruesome directorial debut. The 1974 film, shot on a super low budget, tied for fourth in the reader's poll with ``Alien'' (1979).

The selection of ``Chainsaw Massacre'' doesn't surprise horror expert John Bloom, better known as Joe Bob Briggs, wisecracking host of TNT's Saturday night B-movie fest ``MonsterVision.'' The film is his No. 1 choice for the scariest ever.

``I really think `The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' is one of the scariest movies ever made,'' says Bloom, a one-time newspaper columnist and America's foremost expert on drive-in movies.

``A mentally deranged person may have made this film. It's kind of grainy and occasionally out of focus.''

That's the advantage of really low-budget films, he says. They can't afford to be slick, and the amateurism lends a bit of reality to the movies. It's one reason, Bloom theorizes, that George Romero's 1968 shock fest ``Night of the Living Dead'' is considered one of the most frightening films ever (No. 3 on our reader's poll).

He cited Wes Craven's first film, 1972's ``Last House on the Left,'' as an example of a low-budget film that appeared almost documentary in style - so real that people hated it (the film was not mentioned by our readers).

``It's done so realistically that audiences couldn't stand it. They stormed the projection booth at the drive-in. Those types of movies are the scariest, but they are the hardest to watch.''

In addition to realism, Bloom says he's scared by films in which anyone can die at any moment, one reason he prefers Hitchcock's ``The Birds'' to the more popular ``Psycho.''

Kevin Burns, producer of American Movie Classics' Halloween special ``Monster Mania,'' says he is less enamored of the slasher/drive-in films than with the more suspense-filled thrillers of yesteryear, such as Boris Karloff's 1931 classic ``Frankenstein.''

``There's a difference between a movie that frightens you and one that repels you,'' he says. ``One reason scary movies work has to do with empowerment. We like to be frightened because we like to face our fear and survive it.''

Do's, don'ts when faced and chased by creatures

If you think horror movies are scary to watch, imagine what its like to be a character in one. You're either going to get killed or you're going to get chased mercilessly and survive.

Of course, there are certain rules and formulas to the films that - if followed - can help characters survive. Here's a list of horror film survival tips culled from 351 tips found at the Cabinet of Dr. Casey on the Horror Web Page (www.cat.pdx.edu/caseyh/horror/index2.html):

Don't take (or borrow) anything from the dead.

Don't fool with recombinant DNA technology unless you know what you're doing.

Always ask why the estate is being sold so cheap.

If you set the monster on fire, he will not die, but instead try to fight you while he is on fire.

If you are trapped in a house surrounded by zombies, making coffee will help no one.

If you remove something unusual from ice, do not let it thaw.

Never try to communicate with something icky because ``there's just so much we can learn from them.''

Never say ``It's over,'' ``It's dead,'' or ``I killed it.''

Are you making Halloween a Blockbuster evening? Lock the doors, turn down the lights and check out this list of fully frightening films, as decided by Daily News readers replying to our scary movie poll:

1.``The Exorcist'' (1973)

2. ``Psycho'' (1960)

3. ``Night of the Living Dead'' (1968)

4. (Tie) ``Alien'' (1979) and ``The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'' (1974)

5. (Tie) ``The Haunting'' (1963) and ``Halloween'' (1978)

6. ``When a Stranger Calls'' (1979)

7. ``Friday the 13th'' (1980)

Other contenders:

``The Thing (From Another World)'' (1951)

``Sorrow, Wrong Number'' (1948)

``The Uninvited'' (1944)

``Jaws'' (1975)

``Rear Window'' (1954)

``Dead Calm'' (1989)

``Anaconda'' (1997)

``Rosemary's Baby'' (1968)

``Child's Play'' (1988)

``Hellraiser'' (1987)

``The Beast With Five Fingers'' (1947)

``House of Wax'' (1953)

``Wait Until Dark'' (1967)

``The Thing'' (1982)

``Blue Velvet'' (1986)

``The Shining'' (1980)

``The Mummy'' (1932)

``Invasion of the Body Snatchers'' (1956)

``Salem's Lot'' (1979 TV two-parter)

``The Legend of Hell House'' (1973)

``Pet Sematary'' (1979)

``Nightmare on Elm Street'' (1985)

``The Spiral Staircase'' (1946)

CAPTION(S):

7 Photos, 2 Boxes

Photo: (1--4--Cover) REEL CHILLS

Daily News readers pick the scariest films

Psycho

The Exorcist

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Night of the Living Dead

(5) Sigourney Weaver battles the mother of all icky creatures in the sequel ``Aliens.''

(6) That look in Sissy Spacek's eyes in ``Carrie'' is unforgettable.

(7) ``The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'' is a low-budget, cult classic made in 1974.

Box: (1) Do's, don'ts when faced and chased by creatures (See Text)

(2) Nothing like a frightening video to cap the night (See Text)