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Starting our analysis at the top of the graphic, we see an interesting phenomenon: religious fears, for a majority of those surveyed, creates the strongest emotional response. That's not surprising though, as the CIA World Factbook claims that 33.5% of the world population is Christian (at least a faith based in Christianity).
Most interesting to me is the correlation between the themes of the movies, and their ratings on both the survey and on RottenTomatoes.com. It suggests that the ranking of the themes is accurate, in that the scariest movie has the scariest theme, and so on. That trend also continues for the top 5 movies. Moreover, the movies that are the scariest aren't necessarily the best. We could also consider the evidence that movies which mixed their themes got significantly more critical acclaim, but there isn't enough data to prove that hypothesis.
Sources
Central Intelligence Agency. (2008). The World Factbook: Religions. Updated October 4, 2012, Retrieved October 26, 2012, from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/...HorrorBid. (2012). The Best and Worst Horror Movies of All Time Survey - Fans Speak!. Updated October 12, 2012, Retrieved October 25, 2012, from http://www.horrorbid.com/blog/blog1.php/...
