Horror movies have been around almost as long as filmmaking itself, and while the genre has always been cyclical in nature –dipping, sometimes drastically, in both quality and quantity from time to time — all it usually takes is a well-timed box office hit, a fresh new angle or a hot young filmmaker to reanimate it again. The 21st century has been, overall, an extremely healthy one for horror. There’s been the usual amount of dross, of course, but the genre has branched out in a number of interesting new directions as well. We had absolutely no problem tallying the initial batch of movies for this article, and have just continued to update it ever since, starting with the newest and going back in time from there. So here are over 50 terrifying favorites that you can use for your own personal Halloween film festival — and we promise that this lineup delivers. Brace yourselves for a look at the best horror movies of the 21st century.
Saint Maud (2020)
As our own Rosie Fletcher said in her review, Saint Maud is “a strange, gorgeous, and deeply disturbing chiller which mixes psychological, religious, and body horror to form something that feels utterly original.” She added that the film “messes with your perceptions of what’s real and what isn’t and comes with an ending that’s so simultaneously euphoric and horrific it feels like a punch in the heart.” She’s right on the money. Morfydd Clark is outstanding in the title role, a private nurse who believes she can speak directly with God and decides it’s her mission to save the soul of the dying, debauched professional dancer (Jennifer Ehle) she is caring for. Maud lives right on the knife’s edge between spiritual ecstasy and mental illness, and director Rose Glass’ debut feature captures the surreal, horrific netherworld that is this tormented young woman’s life. Saint Maud is out in theaters in the UK now.
Relic (2020)
The horror film at its best allows us to experience our deepest real-life fears in metaphorical terms, which is what the excellent Relic does with specificity, empathy, and atmosphere to spare. Emily Mortimer plays Kay, a workaholic single mom who gets a call from the police that her elderly mother Edna is missing from her home in the Australian countryside. When Kay and her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) drive out from Melbourne to the house, Edna (Robyn Nevin) reappears after two days–but cannot recall where she’s been. Edna’s house–untidy, dark, and littered with odd notes and markings–and behavior lead Kay and a local doctor to surmise that the headstrong Edna is slowly sinking into the grip of dementia. But something else is at hand — an unseen presence that can seemingly bend reality — and the feature debut of director Natalie Erika James works so well because of its complete cohesion between characters, theme and imagery. Grief and loss ooze from every frame of the film, along with an impending sense of dread and claustrophobia.
Color Out of Space (2020)
Color Out of Space adapts what legendary horror author H.P. Lovecraft considered his personal favorite short story, “The Colour Out of Space.” Although the film is set in the present, it is faithful to the original 1927 narrative, in which a family is both driven to madness and altered physically by the presence of an alien entity that has landed on their farm in a meteorite. Starring a typically unpredictable Nicolas Cage, Color Out of Space is flawed in many ways, but is distinguished by three things: the return of director Richard Stanley (Hardware) after too many years away from features, a plethora of eerie and downright disturbing imagery, and an overall atmosphere that comes damn close to that of Lovecraft himself.
The Lodge (2020)
The Lodge stars an excellent Riley Keough as Grace, a troubled young woman in love with Richard (Richard Madden) a journalist who wrote a book about the suicide cult she is the only survivor of. Their relationship triggers Richard’s estranged wife (Alicia Silverstone) to commit suicide, leaving the former couple’s two children devastated. Six months later, Richard, Grace and the children head up to Richard’s remote winter lodge in an effort for all of them to heal. But a series of unexplained events occur that may be tied to Grace’s past or the death of the children’s mother — or both. Directed by Austrian filmmakers Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (the harrowing Goodnight Mommy), The Lodge reeks with dread and leads to a thoroughly unsettling finish.
Wounds (2019)
This Hulu original stars Armie Hammer as Will, a New Orleans bartender whose discovery of an abandoned mobile phone in his place of business portends the arrival of an unspeakable evil, a malevolence that infects him, his girlfriend (Dakota Johnson) and almost everything in his life. British-Iranian director Babek Anvari (2016’s supremely eerie Under the Shadow), creates an atmosphere of extreme dread and rot here, from the cockroaches Will is constantly killing behind the bar to the frightening images and sounds that keep appearing on that damn phone. Based on a novella called The Visible Filth by acclaimed horror writer Nathan Ballingrud, Wounds leaves much unexplained but that’s kind of the point: horror is often most effective when it can’t be rationalized. Watch Wounds on Hulu
Tigers Are Not Afraid (2019)
There’s a reason why no less a maestro than Guillermo Del Toro is a fan of this deeply felt and moving film: it covers much of the same territory that he has explored in some of his greatest works like The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth — the place where imagination, childhood innocence and real world corruption intersect in a surreal, dangerous yet fantastical landscape. After her mother goes missing in the latest cartel rampage through an unnamed and anarchy-plagued Mexican city, a young girl (Paola Lara) finds herself living on rooftops with a small band of little boys and haunted by an apparition that may or may not be her mother. Director and writer Issa Lopez wrings emotion, humor and even minor triumphs out of this dark scenario, while not shying away from its more disturbing implications.
Ready or Not (2019)
Darkly funny and subversive, Ready or Not is an out-of-nowhere surprise that deftly weds (pun intended) an acidic black comedy about income inequality and the politics of marriage to a more gruesome thriller about being chased around an old, dark house by a deranged family of Satanists. If that doesn’t pull you in, nothing will. Samara Weaving is an appealing lead as the young woman who marries into a clan of vast wealth and privilege, only to find out where they came from and what the family must do to maintain them. Weaving is excellent at both the comedy and horror, while Andie MacDowell and Henry Czerny lead a sparkling supporting cast of cracked characters. It may not be especially scary, but ready or not, this one’s a real crowd-pleaser.
Annabelle Comes Home (2019)
Who would have thunk that the third time would be the charm for this popular Conjuring spin-off series? First-time director Gary Dauberman — who wrote all three entries in the sub-franchise — rises to the challenge and brings a wonderful sense of atmospherics and dread to the proceedings that was lacking in the earlier films. Anyone who channels the lighting schemes of horror legends like Mario Bava is all right in our book. Annabelle Comes Home also proves to be the sharpest-written of the bunch, as four girls — one of them the daughter of Conjuring ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, who cameo here) — try to fight off the evil title doll as she unleashes hell on them over the course of one night. The cast is given depth and agency, which makes us care all the more when Dauberman turns the movie into a full-on monster mash. This one’s old school fun.
Midsommar (2019)
Ari Aster blew everyone away in 2018 with his writing and directing debut, Hereditary (see below), a frightening tale of family dysfunction, grief, memory and naked witches summoning an ancient demon (Was that a spoiler? Sorry). His follow-up, Midsommar, wears its direct influences on its sleeve and tries a little too hard to signal its own importance, but it’s supremely eerie in its own way and quite nasty in what it shows and what it hints at. Four college friends — including disintegrating couple Dani (Florence Pugh) and Christian (Jack Reynor) — are invited by an exchange student to Sweden, where they’ll visit the reclusive commune in which he was raised. Fans of films like The Wicker Man will have a pretty good sense of what’s coming, even if Aster doesn’t quite answer all the questions he raises. What he does do, however, is chill the blood with both the way the travelers turn on each other and how the Harga find spirituality and transcendence in their deeply disturbing rituals.
Us (2019)
The second feature from Get Out writer/director Jordan Peele still cleverly uses the horror genre for social commentary, but the focus is less directly on race this time and more on class and privilege. Lupita Nyong’o is outstanding as Adelaide, whose well-off family is terrorized by savage doppelgangers intent on murdering them. Who those duplicates are, and what they mean, provides for a biting commentary on the haves and the have-nots. Some of the story logic is fuzzier this time around, but Peele is still adept at creating a genuine atmosphere of dread while deploying well-worn horror tricks in unique new ways. He also gets tremendous performances out of his cast, including Black Panther’s Winston Duke and The Handmaid Tale’s Elisabeth Moss, in what is ultimately a solid sophomore outing for the director.
Halloween (2018)
After years of mostly lackluster sequels and reboots, director David Gordon Green (and his co-writer Danny McBride) take this horror icon both back to the roots and into the future. The result is a direct sequel to the original that ignores all the other films and concentrates, with stark precision, on two ideas: the concept of Michael Myers as a primal force of evil and the theme of PTSD as exemplified by Jamie Lee Curtis’ powerful performance as a permanently damaged Laurie Strode. Both a thrilling rollercoaster ride and a chilling exploration of an unknowable psyche, the new Halloween is also relevant to what’s happening in 2018 — making The Shape a valid and still scary vessel for whatever metaphor you want him to represent.
Mandy (2018)
Dream-like, surreal and hypnotic — when it’s not screaming with rage — Mandy may be more interested in atmosphere and imagery than story (the plot is admittedly far too simple for the movie’s two-hour length) but is an unnerving experience nonetheless. At the center of this boldly experimental assault from director Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow) is a primal performance from Nicolas Cage, whose reputation for gonzo performances does a disservice to the raw emotion he can still deliver as a lumberjack out for vengeance against a frightening cult. Mandy might try your patience, but its visual poetry and uncaged (ha ha) star are never dull. Toni Collette is off-the-charts stunning as the mother who tries to hold her clan together even in the face of unspeakable tragedy and the knowledge that her own family history is working against them. Harrowing and thoroughly unsettling, Hereditary is perhaps the best example yet of a new wave of genre films that are about something while still scaring the living shit out of you.
The Endless (2018)
Two brothers (played by Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead, who also directed, produced, edited and wrote the film) return to the cult they once belonged to as youths, each carrying different memories of their time there and different expectations of what they’ll find in the present. But neither sibling is prepared for the inexplicable events that occur once they arrive. Following their features Resolution and Spring, the Benson/Morehead team once again prove themselves adept at creating believable, atmospheric, dread-infused horror with limited resources. These guys clearly know what they’re doing, and the eerie The Endless is a strong next step for them. The result is a thriller in which literally every footstep is suffused with dread and a rusty nail becomes an object of extreme terror. While the script creaks a bit and could have used some better development, there’s no doubt that Krasinski directs this for maximum tension while getting terrific work out of himself, his wife and the kids. A Quiet Place is not just compelling horror, but a loud announcement of an outstanding new directorial talent.
It (2017)
It’s been a long time since a Stephen King screen adaptation really got the author’s work and intent right, but It does so and then some. Full of heart and warmth for its seven young main characters — all of whom are perfectly cast — It sets them against an insidious evil in the shape of Bill Skarsgard’s unforgettable Pennywise the Clown. Director Andy Muschietti’s take on King’s masterpiece is humane, moving and even funny — a coming-of-age story that also happens to be an engrossing and unsettling monster tale. It’s very rare that a truly “epic” horror movie is released, but It can stand proudly in that rarefied category. Understated, incredibly claustrophobic (the house is a character itself) and stocked with great performances from Joel Edgerton, Carmen Ejogo, and the rest of the cast, It Comes at Night is as naturalistic as a horror movie gets — and is all the more terrifying for it.
Split (2017)
This was the film we had the toughest time deciding whether or not to include on this list. Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan gives it the structure, atmosphere and tone of a horror movie, yet it’s clear now that it’s also an origin story for a comic book-style supervillain and a de facto sequel to his Unbreakable. But for most of its running time, Split is a harrowing, darkly humorous psychological thriller anchored by an incredible performance from James McAvoy as a man with 24 different personalities in his brain — as well as a monstrous 25th that is about to emerge. Stars Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine and Glenn Close give top-shelf performances, but the movie belongs to young Sennia Nanua as the flesh-eating yet fully sentient Melanie, who may be a forerunner of a new, unexpected step in the evolution of whatever the human race ends up becoming. Gripping from start to finish.
Raw (2017)
Deeply graphic and disturbing, yet also rich with symbolism and subtext, Raw is both as grisly and sophisticated as horror movies come. The movie also touches on gender politics and family dynamics in its tale of two sisters at a French veterinary school who awaken to the power of their own bodies as well as primal, vicious hungers neither one of them thought possible. Director/writer Julia Ducournau stages the film in gritty, intimate style, making the gnawing on human flesh all the more horrific to watch. Raw is a movie that lives up to its name.
Get Out (2017)
The directorial debut of comedy writer/actor Jordan Peele is a sharp, funny and creepy horror satire on race relations, white liberal hubris and socal justice. It’s also a genuinely suspenseful thriller, albeit with nods to earlier movies like The Stepford Wives, and proves that horror continues to be an effective genre through which to tell culturally and socially relevant stories.
Under the Shadow (2016)
International cinema has been exploring genre with great success in recent years, and this intimate yet mournful thriller, set in 1980s Tehran during the ongoing and brutal war between Iran and Iraq, is one of the more thoughtful and unique horror movies to emerge from that creative wellspring. Iranian politics and social mores are woven carefully into the plot, which follows a woman and her daughter who are haunted by a djinn (an evil spirit) that may have been unleashed when their apartment building is shelled. The metaphor of the evil set free by war is fairly on the nose, but director Babak Anvari still constructs an atmosphere of slowly ascending terror and macabre imagery.
Train to Busan (2016)
Just when you thought the zombie genre had been utterly exhausted, someone comes along and reinvigorates it. Director Yeon Sang-ho’s South Korean production brought something back to the genre that had been gradually draining out of it: humanity.
The Wailing (2016)
South Korea struck again with this epic-length (156 minutes!) story of possession and exorcism in a small village from director Na Hong-jin. Once again a father must fight to save his daughter’s life: in this case he is a cop (Kwak Dowon) investigating a series of mysterious and violent deaths, only to discover that they have a supernatural cause that soon infects his family. Despite odd moments of humor here and there, The Wailing is almost unremittingly bleak and its imagery is thoroughly unsettling. Deliberately paced and building an atmosphere of unspeakable dread, The Wailing is a standout of Asian horror.
The Invitation (2016)
This intense little psychological thriller from director Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body) starts off as a weirdly off-kilter domestic melodrama and shifts disquietingly into outright paranoia as it explores the dynamics of grief, modern relationships and how well we really know our friends and neighbors.
The Conjuring 2 (2016)
The Conjuring 2 is a rare example of a horror sequel equaling or even surpassing the original. This time the focus is more directly on paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) as their skills, courage and faith are tested by England’s famous Enfield Poltergeist. Director James Wan once again proves himself a master at using negative space, sound (or lack thereof) and period detail to wring goosebumps out of even the most jaded viewer, and the deeper characterizations make the stakes that much higher as well. There are few horror “epics,” but The Conjuring 2 comes close to being one.
The Witch (2016)
A stunning feature film debut from director Robert Eggers, The Witch tells the story of a 17th century Puritan family who are excommunicated from their village and build their own farm on the edge of a vast forest — only to be preyed upon by an ancient, malevolent witch who lives deep in the woods. Touching on themes of religious persecution and mania, sexual awakening and humanity vs. nature, The Witch is a fully immersive and wholly terrifying experience. Director Robert Eggers maintains astonishing control of mood and texture throughout, and the entire cast — including newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy as the family’s teen daughter — seems eerily snatched out of the past. The Witch is classic supernatural horror.
The Visit (2015)
M. Night Shyamalan began a welcome and long-overdue comeback with this quirky and creepy little found-footage experiment, which focuses on a teen brother and sister who make an unforgettable and eventually terrifying trip to visit the grandparents they’ve never met. Shyamalan seems comfortable working within the lower-budget confines of the Blumhouse scream factory, and he manages to inject both a nice streak of morbid humor and enough of his trademark character touches to keep us off-balance. The movie has an unsettling tone throughout and, for the first time in a long time, the “twist” is well-earned and shocking.
It Follows (2014)
One of the best horror films of the past couple of years is, like all the genre’s standout entries, rich in metaphor and subtext – is the curse passed through sex among the movie’s characters a stand-in for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, or is the sex act itself a way to affirm life or at least postpone the inevitable onset of death? Writer/director David Robert Mitchell keeps it ambiguous – much to some viewers’ chagrin – and instead focuses on the movie’s overall atmosphere and tone, which is dream-like and full of dread. Lead actress Maika Monroe is a star in the making, but the most unforgettable thing about It Follows is its implacable walking phantoms, who cause your flesh to crawl every time they enter the frame.
The Babadook (2014)
An instant classic upon its release, this Australian shocker is, astoundingly, the debut film from writer/director Jennifer Kent, who retains the kind of complete and unwavering grip on her story, themes and tone that you would expect from a much more seasoned filmmaker. Essie Davis is outstanding as Amelia, a widowed mother still reeling from the loss of her husband Oskar as she does her exhausted best to raise their troubled six-year-old son Sam (Noah Wiseman), who was born the night that Oskar died. Enter the Babadook, the subject of a frightening storybook that Sam finds and an entity that is soon terrorizing mother and child. Thoroughly frightening and unnerving, The Babadook is also quite profound as it touches on the nature of grief and parenthood, hinting that both can drive a person to the edge of madness — or into the clutches of the Babadook.
Oculus (2014)
Following his ultra-low-budget indie debut Absentia, writer/director Mike Flanagan expanded his short student film into this striking tale of supernatural and psychological terror. Karen Gillan (Doctor Who) stars as a woman who believes that an antique mirror has been responsible for the tragic history of her family, and sets out to destroy it by any means she can. The mirror, however, has other plans. Set in two parallel timelines that eventually intersect, Oculus is original, creepy and filled with mounting tension; the film is steeped not just in the atmosphere of ‘70s horror cinema but also modern supernatural literature. With more features to his name since (including Ouija: Origin of Evil, his adaptation of Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game, and Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House) Flanagan is a talent to watch.
You’re Next (2013)
Home invasion movies can kind of be formulaic after a while, but director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett (The Guest) find a way to freshen it up by turning You’re Next into a macabre soap opera as well. In the meantime, however, there’s a ton of suspense and bloody mayhem to satiate fans of visceral horror, and the family dynamics at work make for a nice counterpoint to the terror. The cast is terrific, a mix of horror vets (Barbara Crampton, Larry Fessenden) and mumblecore regulars, and Sharni Vinson is outstanding as the dinner guest with a secret of her own.
The Conjuring (2013)
A film about real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren had been in development for nearly 20 years — outlasting Ed himself — before finally coming to fruition in 2013 as The Conjuring. Based on a case the Warrens investigated concerning the haunting of a family farm by a witch, the film afforded director James Wan the change to take the horror skills he had honed on his previous project, Insidious, and apply them to a larger scale Hollywood production. The result was a genuinely scary experience with plenty of atmosphere and just enough empathy for the family and the Warrens to elevate the movie about the usual shock tactics. It was also a major box office hit, making it that rare genre entry that was enjoyed by both critics and audiences.
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
Both a deconstruction of the genre and one of the 21st century’s best horror movies in its own right, The Cabin in the Woods could only be the work of Joss Whedon (co-writer) and Drew Goddard (co-writer and director), whose love and understanding of both the genre and the wider pop culture context around it make this one of the smartest satires in recent memory. Proposing that the standard template for a horror film is what keeps the real horrors at bay, the movie turns that formula on its head yet works it to maximum effect. Goddard is assured in his directorial debut, the cast (including a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth and a brilliant Richard Jenkins as one of the weary “technicians” pulling the strings) is game, and the movie nails its meta premise perfectly.
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Adapted from Lionel Shriver’s novel and directed by Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin is the perennial “evil child” story disguised as an arthouse film. But the combination works, thanks to Ramsay’s striking direction and imagery and two knockout performances by Tilda Swinton as the mother and a frightening Ezra Miller as Kevin. Swinton’s anguished portrayal deepens the film’s themes and offers a searing and complex picture of a parent’s occasional ambivalence toward their own child. Yet the movie doesn’t skimp on its horrors either, both psychological and physical, and stretches the boundaries of what can be considered a horror movie.
Kill List (2011)
With just one feature to his credit before this (Down Terrace), director and co-writer Ben Wheatley hits his second film clear out of the park, fashioning it into a mash-up of gritty crime thriller and chilling Lovecraftian horror tale. The result is a unique movie that’s not quite like anything else on this list and will you leave you shaken to the core. Two former British soldiers turned hit men (Neil Maskell and Michael Smiley) take a job in which they must kill three people — a priest, a video archivist, and a member of Parliament — but soon find out that they have gotten involved with something far beyond their experience and understanding. The somber mood, ambiguous plot (Wheatley deliberately and correctly leaves much unexplained) and almost unwatchable bursts of violence come to a boil in the truly horrifying and enigmatic climax.
Insidious (2011)
After one hit (Saw) and a couple of misses (Dead Silence and Death Sentence), writer/director James Wan and his writing partner Leigh Whannell scored with this tiny ($1 million budget) indie that became a huge hit (and sadly spawned two lousy follow-ups). But Insidious deserved its success: it’s a genuinely scary film, with Wan displaying a tremendous talent for utilizing the camera frame, darkness and silence to create an oppressive atmosphere of dread only enhanced by some truly bizarre manifestations. In pulling tricks from all eras of horror, Wan came up with something original, terrifying and entertaining – a horror ride that all fans could enjoy.
I Saw the Devil (2010)
Director Kim Ji-Woon (A Tale of Two Sisters) sends an intelligence agent (Lee Byung-hun) on a mission of vengeance against a sadistic serial killer (Choi Min-sik) in this shocking and stunningly depraved cat and mouse thriller in which all notions of morality go out the window along with numerous bloody body parts. Yet Kim keeps you invested in the characters as well, and this Korean epic has an undertone of sadness that’s hard to shake. Kim holds it all together masterfully, creating a horrifying experience like nothing else we saw the year it came out.
The House of the Devil (2009)
Indie auteur Ti West’s homage to the horror movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s is replete with stylistic touches from both decades, ranging from the old-school opening credits to the use of zoom lenses to the 16mm film stock meant to look retro. But this isn’t just a pastiche: while The House of the Devil is the definition of a “slow burn” film — which may leave some viewers impatient — the payoff is worth it as babysitter Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is subjected to a night of Satanic horrors that will leave you shaken. West is an expert at leading us along and then tightening the screws hard, and if you told me that The House of the Devil had actually come out around 1981 or so, I just might have believed you.
Paranormal Activity (2009)
For better or worse, Oren Peli’s homemade, shoestring thriller kicked off a tidal wave of films using the “found footage” or “faux doc” style of moviemaking, an esthetic that has proven increasingly confining and exhausted. But there’s no denying the strength of a few early contenders, starting with this. Peli shows us almost nothing in terms of visual effects, which only heightens the experience: you can’t help but feel a powerful sense of dread every time his camera sits and stares into the shadowy abyss of the couple’s bedroom while they sleep. Tons of sequels, rehashes and rip-offs later, Paranormal Activity remains authentically frightening and deserves its berth on a list of the century’s best horror movies.
Let the Right One In / Let Me In (2008/2010)
In an era of endless bloodsucking YA hotties, leave it to an 11-year-old girl to create the best and eeriest vampire seen on the screen in years. Based on a novel by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist and directed by fellow Swede Tomas Alfredson, this is the story of the friendship that grows between lonely, bullied 12-year-old Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) and the little girl who lives in the apartment next door, Eli (Lina Leandersson) — an ancient vampire inside the body of a child. Let the Right One In is scary, funny, romantic and also quite mournful, tackling themes of youth, sexuality, loyalty, loss of innocence and love within a terrific and haunting vampire tale. The two child actors are outstanding, with Leandersson projecting an otherworldliness and weariness far beyond her years. Credit is also due to the English-language remake by director Matt Reeves, who stayed largely faithful to the original while tweaking its meaning slightly (his actors, Chloe Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee, are fine if not quite as good as the Swedish cast). Watch Let the Right One In here and Let Me In here!
Martyrs (2008)
Brutal and almost unwatchable, Martyrs represented perhaps the apex of the French extreme horror movement. A young woman (Morjana Alaoui) finds herself the subject of vicious “tests” by a secret society, aimed at creating a “martyr” whose suffering can give them a transcendental glimpse into the afterlife. The ordeal she goes through is just the grand finale of a nihilistic exercise in depravity. Director Pascal Laugier’s plunge into unrelieved sadism is given context by its powerful, eerie climax — if you can make it to the end.
The Strangers (2008)
Writer and director Bryan Bertino made quite a splash with his debut feature, which relied more on a mounting sense of dread and escalating suspense than violence and gore. The story is a simple, straightforward home invasion narrative, but Bertino keeps it creepy and unsettling throughout thanks to some eerie imagery and his three terrifying antagonists. Bertino has directed some features since – the direct-to-video found footage thriller Mockingbird and The Monster – but The Strangers remains an impressively chilling calling card.
Trick ‘r Treat (2007)
Michael Dougherty’s Halloween-themed anthology sat on the shelf for nearly two years until finally (and criminally) getting just a direct-to-home-video release, but the wait was worth it. Dougherty wrote and directed a loving homage not just to the year’s most haunted holiday, but to horror movies and ghost stories in general, delivering four interconnected tales that each serve as a nasty, creepy and thoroughly entertaining exercise in traditional horror, with just the right amounts of atmosphere, scares and gore. A lot of the best horror movies of this century aim to get under your skin in an unpleasant way, whereas Trick ‘R Treat just wants to have fun – and does.
[REC] (2007)
This nasty shock to the system from Spanish horror specialist Jaume Balaguero uses the “found footage” style in logical fashion, as it’s told from the point of view of a news team that accompanies a fire brigade to a call at an apartment building. Things quickly take a turn not just for the bad but for the unspeakable as our heroes confront a zombie plague of a horrific nature, and [REC] rubs your nose in every nightmarish moment. The building itself is a spectacular, claustrophobic setting, and what [REC] lacks in meaningful character development it makes up in relentless terror and dread. Take a good, stiff drink before watching.
The Mist (2007)
A faithful and pretty great Stephen King adaptation, The Mist is terrifying not just for the macabre monsters that come streaming out of the title cloud to lay siege on a small group of people trapped in a supermarket, but for the way those people turn so quickly on each other as well. Writer/director Frank Darabont, nailing his third King-based adaptation after The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, innately understands that King’s stories are often so disquieting because of the human monsters in them as well as the slimy, tentacled ones. In this case the threat is Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), a religious fanatic who quickly does her best to divide the supermarket into two hostile camps — I’ll let you work out the metaphors. Beyond that, however, The Mist is a genuinely scary monsterpalooza, with one of the bleakest endings ever. When you go even darker than the King original, that’s saying something.
The Orphanage (2006)
The debut feature from Spanish director J.A. Bayona (The Impossible) was produced by his friend Guillermo Del Toro, and frankly feels like it. It certainly has many of the hallmarks of Del Toro’s own Spanish-language horror films, with its focus on children, its marvelously atmospheric setting, its short bursts of shocking violence and its ghostly apparitions. Either way, it’s a rich, beautifully crafted film that becomes unexpectedly and powerfully emotional at the finish. Belen Rueda is sensational as Laura, who returns to her childhood home — an old orphanage — with her husband and adopted son, only to find that it is not exactly empty. An English-language remake was planned for a long time, but perhaps fortunately, it has not happened.
The Descent (2005)
Six women go exploring an unmapped cave system, with tragic and terrifying consequences, in writer/director Neil Marshall’s (Dog Soldiers) riveting horror hit. Marshall subverts the genre with his strong all-female cast (not a male hero in sight), refusing to dumb them down, but then puts the screws to them by introducing the blind humanoid inhabitants of the caves, surely one of the most horrific monster creations of the decade. The movie is unstoppably scary, showing no mercy to the characters or the audience (one shock early in the film makes this writer jump to this day), but also examines how far people will go to survive in seemingly impossible circumstances. The Descent is a harrowing, suffocating masterpiece.
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
This loving homage to the films of George A. Romero — the father of the modern zombie movie — and to the horror genre in general launched the careers of director Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost outside of the U.K. And deservedly so: Shaun is a near-perfect blend of horror and comedy, energized by Wright’s visceral style of directing and flavored with clever pop culture and genre references that are even more delicious if you’re a fan. Pegg and Frost are perfect as two slackers who must contend with a zombie apocalypse — two of the least likely but most endearingly goofy heroes you’ll ever meet.
Saw (2004)
Saw is now so closely associated with the torture porn genre that its numerous sequels almost singlehandedly gave birth to that people often don’t remember that the original is more of a suspenseful police procedural and genuinely gripping puzzlebox than an outright exercise in sadism. Not that Saw is a sitting-room drama either: there are plenty of visceral moments in the film, and even in his feature debut, director James Wan (The Conjuring) displays a surprising amount of control and confidence in his handling of the horrors. Saw may or may not be a truly great film, but its influence is enormous and it still packs one of the best endings the genre has ever seen.
28 Days Later (2002)
Looking at Danny Boyle’s revisionist zombie film now, its grimy handheld video esthetic is getting perhaps just a wee bit dated — but even that fails to dilute the sheer aggressive energy of Boyle’s take on the horror genre. The movie, like its spiritual forefather Night of the Living Dead, is also rich in political and social subtext, while balancing moments of outright terror with passages of almost poetic reflection. Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland expertly reinvigorated a subgenre that had been nearly moribund, paving the way for both the superb (The Walking Dead) and the silly (the film version of World War Z).
The Ring (2002)
It was a foregone conclusion that the Japanese horror smash Ringu (1998), after becoming an underground sensation internationally, would be the subject of a big-budget Hollywood remake. But who imagined it would be this good? Director Gore Verbinski and writers Scott Frank and Ehren Kruger retain the original’s focus on atmosphere and creepy imagery over cheap scares, while Naomi Watts — fresh off her sensational turn in Mulholland Drive — is excellent as the reporter and mother who discovers the haunted videotape that causes viewers to die in seven days. The American version fleshes out a few more narrative points that the Japanese film left ambiguous, but never wavers from its tone of quietly mounting terror. There have been plenty of J-horror remakes in the wake of The Ring, but it remains the first and the best.
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Debate rages (even now, between this writer and his editor) over whether Mulholland Drive is actually a horror movie, but the simple truth is that filmmaking legend David Lynch has incorporated elements of horror into many of his films. No one comes as close to capturing the essence of a nightmare on screen, and Mulholland Drive contains two of the century’s most skin-freezing scenes: the infamous diner sequence and the discovery of a decomposing corpse in a darkened apartment. Even if the plot didn’t invoke the genre in other ways — including a supernatural force at work in Hollywood and the Repulsion-like disintegration of a young woman’s mind — those two scenes would be enough to earn a spot on this list.
The Others (2001)
Alejandro Amenabar (Open Your Eyes) wrote and directed this elegant ghost story. Nicole Kidman is superb as Grace, who relocates herself and her two small children to a remote country estate in the aftermath of World War II. Their highly structured life — the children are sensitive to sunlight and must stay in darkened rooms — is shattered by mysterious presences in the house. Amenabar relies on mood, atmosphere and a few well-placed scares to make this an excellent modern-day companion to classics like The Haunting and The Innocents.
Session 9 (2001)
“Location, location, location” is what makes this tiny independent chiller from writer/director Brad Anderson (The Machinist) work so well and keeps its reputation intact. A five-man asbestos abatement team is hired to clean out the abandoned Danvers State Mental Hospital in Massachusetts, but the crew, led by the stressed-out Gordon (Peter Mullan), soon finds itself at the mercy of both personal tensions and an unseen force inside the facility. Anderson shot the movie at the real Danvers, and the empty treatment rooms and labyrinthine underground tunnels create an undeniable atmosphere of disquiet and uncertainty. The nearly gore-free movie is a model of how a fantastic setting, a solid cast and an almost complete lack of jump scares can make for a thoroughly haunting viewing experience.
The Devil’s Backbone (2001)
Guillermo Del Toro has made several great movies in his career so far, but for our money this remains his best, scariest and most profoundly affecting work (Pan’s Labyrinth is a close, close second). The Devil’s Backbone is a ghost story set during the waning days of the Spanish Civil War, at an orphanage for boys where an unexploded bomb is embedded in the courtyard and a spirit is wandering the halls at night. The movie is drenched in both a heavy atmosphere of dread and a blanket of sadness; its mournful elegance counterbalances some of its more chilling scenes of terror. This is dark supernatural storytelling at its finest and a marvelous example of just how high the horror genre — so often maligned by critics — can reach.
Kairo (2001)
Films like Ringu and Juon were the cornerstones of the Japanese horror explosion of the late ‘90s, but for my money, Kairo is the pinnacle of that era. Director/writer Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film is one of the most unnerving exercises in surreal horror ever made, with one frightening image after another washing onto the screen. Although the movie’s central idea – -that the realm of the dead is infiltrating our world through the internet – is original and compelling, its presentation is somewhat murky. But Kurosawa doesn’t necessarily feel the need to spell things out: he wants to instead lure you into a living nightmare – which Kairo accomplishes over and over again. That’s our list — did we miss any of your favorites that you’d like to add? Let us know below!
