![]() ![]() Horror films are supposed to scare us, creep us out, and make us feel uncomfortable. But sometimes, there is a film that go so far outside of the norm (and our. The Exorcist. The seminal possession film to end all possession films is a no-brainer for any horror list with “memorable” in the title, right? The 3. 0 Best Horror Movies Of All Time. Almost as long as there has been cinema there have been horror movies. While the genre is often branded with the stigma of being low- brow, cheap, and only for hardcore fans of jump scares and gore, it is also responsible for some of the greatest films of all- time, and certainly many of our favorites fall somewhere along the horror spectrum. Just as there are trashy, forgettable, throwaway horror films every year, there are also those that that play upon our greatest fears to create tension, an ominous atmosphere, and to terrify us to our very core. The history genre is full of monsters, both human and otherwise, horrific events, and chilling scenarios that thrill us, scare us, keep us on the proverbial edge of our seats, and stick around to haunt our nightmares long after we leave the theater. The list that follows is Cinema Blend’s definitive, once- and- for- all comment on the greatest horror movies ever made, though we can’t help but wish there was room for 5. Will you agree with all of our choices? Probably not, but we’re willing to bet that some of your favorites made the cut. Friday The 1. 3th. Don't recognize all the horror movies on Amazon Prime? CraveOnline recommends ten that you (probably) haven't seen, and which might surprise you. Based on over 11,000 votes, The Exorcist is ranked number 1 out of 441 choices. Place your vote on the top 10 list of Best Horror Movies of All Time. Great list, many of which i’ve seen and enjoyed, but a few new nuggets to seek out. Under the Shadow: The final entry from our must-see indie-horror list, Under the Shadow is a supremely tense horror film from Iranian director Babak Anvari. Check out IndieWire’s newest list of best horror films of the 21st century! By the pricking of my thumbs, a holiday-themed list feature this way comes. Kill List is a 2011 British crime drama psychological horror film directed by Ben Wheatley, co-written and co-edited with Amy Jump, and starring Neil Maskell, MyAnna. Bloody Disgusting’s Remy Carreiro writes in: Being a huge fan of horror, I tend to notice one thing when people recommend horror movies to one another. Horror fans. The following is a list of zombie feature films. Zombies are fictional creatures usually portrayed as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings. ![]() A franchise most known for it’s hulking, un- killable, hockey- mask- wearing, machete- wielding villain Jason Voorhees, it’s easy to forget that this iconic antagonist isn’t really a part of Sean Cunninghams’s 1. Along with the likes of Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 1. Full of tension and shocks and a very young Kevin Bacon getting speared through the neck, Friday the 1. Shaun Of The Dead. Shaun of the Dead is the one movie on this list that works as a comedy first and as a horror second, but it does both so exceedingly well that there was no way this slice of fried gold could be ignored. From the minds of star Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright, 2. Shaun of the Dead gave the zombie genre the . With homages galore and weapons ranging from rifles to cricket bats to the Batman soundtrack on vinyl (but not Purple Rain), the movie wisely balances the narrative spotlight between imaginative zombie kills and the pub- loving Shaun fighting to keep his life from spiraling away. As quotable as it is blood- soaked and hilarious, Shaun of the Dead is boosted by a stellar supporting cast of talented Brits, including Bill Nighy, Dylan Moran, Kate Ashfield and Lucy Davis (among many others). Fuck- a- doodle- do, this movie is fantastic. ![]() Suspiria. With the giallo subgenre, Italian filmmakers put their own unique, memorable stamp on horror. None of them left quite the mark that Dario Argento did, and none of his impressive body of work stands quite as tall as 1. Suspiria. When an American ballet student enrolls in prestigious German dance academy, she finds much more than she bargained for, as sinister supernatural forces leave a trail of violent, grisly murders. Glossy and blood- spattered, Suspiria is visually stunning—a virtual nightmare captured on film—violent, shocking, and with a score by the legendary prog rock band Goblin, the finished product is a hallucinatory sensory overload. And I mean that as the highest compliment. Repulsion. With movies like Knife in the Water and Rosemary’s Baby, Roman Polanski has shown that you don’t necessarily need monsters and jump scares to make a truly terrifying film. Case in point: his first English- language feature, 1. Repulsion. Starring Catherine Deneuve, the story follows her character, Carol, a woman repulsed by all things sexual, who, when her sister leaves her alone for a holiday, comes unwound, sinks into a depression, and is tormented by horrific visions and hallucinations, all of which culminate in shocking real- world violence. Repulsion is widely regarded as one of the all- time greats in the realm of psychological horror, and that acclaim has rightly remained for more than half a century. Don’t Look Now. When a married couple (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie), attempting to come to terms with the death of their young daughter, travel to Venice, they’re haunted by a series of mysterious occurrences and reminders of death after an encounter with two elderly sisters comes with warnings from beyond. Clearly wearing Hitchcockian influences on his sleeve, Nicolas Roeg’s 1. Don’t Look Now employs occult sensibilities, explores the impact of grief on a relationship, and delivers a chilling, menacing story, tinged with melodrama and the supernatural, that sticks with you long after watching. Psychologically and thematically dense, it’s an examination of the human psyche as filtered through the lens of a tense, tight horror thriller. The Thing. Like many great horror movies, the ones that endure over the years, John Carpenter’s 1. The Thing From Another World, The Thing, was initially dismissed by most critics as being nothing more than an excessive gross- out schlock film. However, in the decades since its release, it has been reappraised and become recognized as one of the great offerings of the genre. A jagged sci- fi thriller that continually creates a tense, taut atmosphere of paranoia and doubt, The Thing follows the rugged crew at an isolated Antarctic research facility as they’re besieged by an alien presence that can assume the form of anything it touches. Playing to gut- level fears and using grotesquely memorable practical creature effects, this is Carpenter, one of the masters of horror, working at the very top of his game. And the ambiguous ending is still the subject of great conversation and debate. Days Later. No one can argue that George A. Romero is the godfather of zombie movies, but with 2. Days Later, director Danny Boyle became the cool uncle of zombie movies that would show up with a case of beer and a couple of sledgehammers. Headed by Cillian Murphy at his most hypnotic, and from a script penned by future Ex Machina filmmaker Alex Garland, 2. Days Later technically replaced the undead kind of zombies with fast- moving abominations fueled by a rage virus, but it still fits into (and sits near the top) of the subgenre. What starts as a stunning and contemplative look at a London mostly devoid of people turns into a rapidly worsening slide into terror as Murphy’s Jim and his fellow survivors come face to face with the somewhat predictable but still hideous outcome of such a population- depleted planet. Winning performances from Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson and Christopher Eccleston only add to its superiority. Scream. In the current landscape, it’s practically impossible to have a horror movie that doesn’t have meta, self- referential elements. You can thank horror master Wes Craven and his 1. Scream for that. As annoying as this trope has become in recent years, as handled by Craven, Scream was a game changer. Using comedy, a whodunit- style mystery, and every slasher clich. Beyond any academic praise you want to heap on the film, at the same time Scream is all of these things, it’s also a great horror film, one that is inventive and funny and harrowing all at the same time. The Blair Witch Project. Similar in spirit (if not style) to producer/director William Castle’s attempts in the 1. The Blair Witch Project was bolstered by fairly extensive pre- release buzz that sold the central story of three missing documentary filmmakers as genuine truth. It’s safe to say that approach was effective, as the film eventually grossed almost $2. At that point, . By choosing indirect and abstract scares to keep viewers unsettled, and letting . Rarely has a less- is- more strategy panned out so successfully. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. An argument can be made that only bad films should get the remake treatment, but 1. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a monolith of an exception. Perhaps it isn’t better in every way than the 1. Jack Finney’s novel), but it’s one hell of a lot more effective as a horror film. Kicking off a solid run of films for director Philip Kaufman, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is the pod people movie to rule them all, and its legacy is cemented by stars Donald Sutherland, his mustache, and Brooke Adams (not to mention Jeff Goldblum and Leonard Nimoy), as well as some of the most fabulously disgusting special effects of the decade. The film also exhibits its 1. Or wherever you want to call that psyche- shattering mutant dog. A Nightmare On Elm Street. The only franchise I can recall that made jumping rope unnervingly creepy, the Nightmare on Elm Street films remain championed more than most genre series for never fully settling into haphazardly conceived dreck. And it all started with Wes Craven’s 1. Freddy Krueger. Everything a horror fan could hope for is in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy is the greatest movie monster of all time, the cast (including an infant Johnny Depp) is perfect, the backstory is chilling and the kills. Freddy’s glove is a masterpiece of weaponry, but this movie’s best deaths were Tina’s, in which her bleeding body is dragged all over her bedroom’s walls and ceiling, and Glen’s, whose murder results in a wonderful geyser of blood shooting up from his bed. Depp’s character said it best: . Baseball bats and boogeymen. Bride Of Frankenstein. When Bride of Frankenstein was first released in 1. Internet where people could argue over the value of movie sequels. Acclaimed but not entirely beloved upon its release, James Whale’s follow- up to his own 1. With Ernest Thesiger eagerly welcomed as Henry Frankenstein’s former mentor Doctor Pretorius, Bride of Frankenstein tells the ghastly next chapter in the story of Henry and Boris Karloff’s Monster, treating viewers to visual and aural splendor for a grisly tale that climaxes in the creation of the Monster’s Bride, played with magnificence by Elsa Lanchester and her unforgettable hair. The Bride is sadly only in the movie for a brief period, but her . One can only wonder what the film would have been like had it not been a big target for censorship. Evil Dead 2. Rare is the sequel that surpasses its predecessor in almost every way, but hail to the king of modern horror follow- ups, baby. Amazing Horror Movies More People Need To See! Bloody Disgusting’s Remy Carreiro writes in: Being a huge fan of horror, I tend to notice one thing when people recommend horror movies to one another. Horror fans always recommend the same movies. People bring up The Exorcist weekly, as if no scary or decent horror movies were made since that (frankly, horrifying) movie. The reality is, there are tons of great horror movies out there that somehow have managed to fly just under most people’s radar. The horror movies that kick ass and take names, yet no one seems to ever talk about or recommend. Well, I am here to change that. As you guys recall from my last article, I am a big fan of foreign horror, so expect to see a few more foreign horror movies on this list as well. Here are six horror movies more people NEED to see. Rabies. Do you know how Quentin Tarantino kept talking about the brilliant movie, Big Bad Wolves from this year, saying it was easily the best movie of 2. Big Bad Wolves is directed by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, and Rabies was their first movie. Not only their first film, but the first Israeli horror film ever made. That having been said, I would dare call it brilliant. Rabies feels like what would happen if Quentin Tarantino would make a horror movie with Park Chan- wook. I am heaping that amount of praise on it. Rabies takes what you expect from a “horror” film and flips it upside down, then ravages it in front of its family. Yes, it’s like THAT. First of all, take the storytelling from something like Pulp Fiction, where we have intertwining lives that are impacting each other, though none of them know it. Rabies is about a brother and sister who run away from home into the woods, and this sets up them crossing paths with three other groups. It is a film filled with “they did NOT just do that, did they” moments, where you are in genuine shock at the dark turns this movie takes without warning. It is brutal. It is, at times, ironic. It is unflinching. Above all else, Rabies is a horror movie the likes if which you have never experienced. Strap in tight when you watch this one, folks, because it is one helluva bumpy ride. Man Bites Dog. A Belgian, mockumentary, black comedy, horror film that follows the exploits of one serial killer as he goes around and does his deeds. While the idea of a mockumentary following a serial killer may not seem that new or exciting (Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is another great example), what makes Man Bites Dog so amazing is that it came out in 1. Way before The Blair Witch kicked the “found footage” horror genre into high gear, Man Bites Dog did it first, and did it in a time when many people still thought this stuff was real. It is a biting social commentary on the passive nature of the “viewer”, and just how manipulated we can all get as viewers. In this case, being manipulated into more than just seeing. Being manipulated into doing. Man Bites Dog follows Ben. An oddly charismatic young serial killer, who gets followed by a camera crew as he expunges on (and shows us) the art of killing. It is off- puttingly funny at times, and incredibly stark and realistic in others. Man Bites Dog DOES feel like snuff from time to time. The jokes do break that up a bit, though. That strange balance it strikes is one of the main reasons it works, though. It finds a perfect blend and and balance between disturbing and funny, and it rides that line the entire length of the film. What makes the movie so haunting and memorable is how Ben manipulates the crew over time. They start out as witnesses. Shocked and bothered witnesses. But over time, they sort of evolve (devolve) into what Ben is. It is the one film (besides Funny Games) that begs the question: At what point do we go from being a voyeur to being involved? Altered. Sometimes, strange, scary, or surreal things happen to us when we are younger, and we grow up having never talked about it. We keep it inside us like some burning ember that just scars us, silently. That is what Altered deals with. It also deals with aliens. The kicker with Altered is, it is one of the few alien movies done right. It is directed by Eduardo Sanchez (co- director of Blair Witch and the brilliant and criminally underrated Lovely Molly) and puts a nice spin on the alien abduction story. This time, humans abduct the alien. When I recommend movies that people haven’t seen, I like to be vague. I want you to WANT to see the story, but I refuse to ruin it. The long story short here is these guys who find this alien also experienced one of their friends being killed by an alien when they were younger, so it ends up being a sort of interstellar revenge movie. Things obviously get complicated quickly, and the plan does not quite unfold how they all want it to. At times, it is funny. At other times, brutal. But one thing that most people agree about Altered once they see it is, it is undeniably entertaining. Funny side note. The film was originally entitled Probed and was going to be an homage to Evil Dead and Troma films. It evolved into something more than that, though. Also, please see Lovely Molly. Those two movies have cemented Sanchez as one of my favorite horror directors. Seriously. Livid(e)Sorry of that title screws you up, but I wanted to cover all bases. Sometimes this movie is called Livid, and sometimes it is called Livide. I talked about Inside in my last article here, so you know I had to discuss those directors ( Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo) follow- up to that amazing horror movie. Livid is not as extreme as Inside, but it is entirely just as memorable. Honestly, I will use a word to describe Livid that you will not likely see being used to describe horror very often. Honestly, the movie is beautiful. Sometimes it feels more like a fable or fairty tale than a horror movie. Then someone gets their throat slashed and you remember, oh yeah, this is horror. Please don’t let that description put you off. The French have never let you down with their horror before, and they wont start with Livid. Livid is about a girl named Lucy (played by one of the most stunning woman in the world, Chlo. She comes to find out there may be an artifact worth great money in the house, and she decides to come back late one night with a couple of friends to see if they can find it and break out of their financial rut they have all been in. Ofcourse, as is the case with most good horror, be careful when you go looking where you shouldn’t. It may start slow, but once things pick up, it is hard not to be magnetized to this film. We find out the old lady she is caring for may not quite be who we thought she was, and this house itself has a bit of a sordid history. Oh, and there are ballerina vampires. That may sound lame, but trust me, there are a couple scenes with them that are visually stunning and wholly unforgettable. Just excuse the ending. Everything in this movie is perfect until that final shot, when it all turns into a fucking Disney movie. But seriously, if you can look past that, you will love Livid. Oh, and Beatrice Dalle is in it, too. Because you can’t do good French horror with Beatrice Dalle. Kill List. I will say this right now. I think Ben Wheatley might just be our brightest ray of hope in horror right now. I have seen four Wheatley films in just as many years, and each one has impacted me in a different way. Sightseers from this year was hilariously cynical and brilliant. A Field in England (from this year) was also brilliant, but in an entirely different way. Trippy as hell, that is a movie that needs multiple viewings to really appreciate. Down Terrace was genius, building pace perfectly. Then we have Kill List. A film I truly thought was one of the best movies from 2. I know Bloody. Disgusting has already told many of you how great this film is, but I need to reiterate it. Kill List IS The Wicker Man of our generation. No, not the remake, which is to say, NOT THE BEES! No, I mean the original. A movie where you really don’t have any inkling what is going on until the final frame, but that final frame just drops your jaw. Hell, I cannot recall a horror movie that has a better ending than Kill List. The last twenty minutes of that movie is like nothing else, and doesn’t even give you a second to come up for air. So for those of you who don’t know, Kill List follows Jay and Gal (former soldiers turned hitmen) who are looking to do one final set of jobs so they can get on with their lives. We learn quickly that Jay seems to take a little bit of pleasure from killing, even if it is business. Things get more and more cryptic and vague (all the people he is set to kill say “thank you” to him right before he kills them, as just one example) and the film boils up to a conclusion that will leave a bad taste in your mouth, and a new appreciation for just how good horror can be. You think Kill List is a slow burn, but you look down and realize you are blistered and it is anything but. Cold Fish. From 2. Cold Fish is much like Kill List in the sense that initially, you will have no idea what is going on or what anyone’s true motives are. But much like Kill List, by the time it ends, you will be exhausted and eviscerated. Cold Fish begins with a girl stealing from a fish store. The meek mannered (haha hardly) owner tells her parents that there is no need to press charges. He says the young girl can work in his store now and can work off what she did, while also learning a thing or two about manners. What happens next is the two families get mixed up with one another, and we find out the owner of the store where the daughter stole is a serial killer (based loosely on a real life Japanese serial killer couple who owned a pet store and are said to have killed at least four) and his actions get more and more depraved and insane. It may seem a simple premise, but do not undermine it. This movie is a lot like I Saw the Devil (the South Korean revenge thriller) in pacing and just how brutal the gore gets.
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