With Halloween just around the corner, we wanted to present an awesome list of horror movies for you to discover, starting with the classics. From black-and-white atmospheric satanic stories to full-color alien threats, these are the best of the best.
Stay tuned soon for our Top 10 Newer Horror Movies to Watch This Halloween, which will only feature horror movies made from the 2000’s and on. Mind that these movies are not in any order of preference, just pick them out and have fun!
Curse of the Demon (1957)
IMDB | Rated 100% on Rotten Tomatoes
The only thing that aged a bit in my opinion is the creature design, but bear in mind this was considered very graphic stuff for the time, as fear of satanic cults was still very strong - so the fact that the creature was heavily marketed on posters was a big seller, but only shows up very briefly in the movie. Nevermind the 50’s marketing campaign - this is a serious suspenseful thriller that puts you on the skeptical protagonist’s side, but as things get weirder and weirder, neither you or him can rationally explain the bizarre happenings surrounding a satanic cult leader. The horror elements are subtle and well paced, but I just love the characters. Dana Andrews is a fantastic lead, one that owes nothing to great detective characters like Sherlock Holmes or Poirot. And his relationship with Peggy Cummins’ character is natural and believable - which is a lot more than one would expect for a horror movie, where characters are usually secondary to the main threat.
Martin Scorsese, famous movie director known for Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and more recently, The Wolf of Wall Street, considers Curse of the Demon one of the scariest movies of all time. You can read his full list here.
Nosferatu The Vampyre (1979)
IMDB | Rated 94% on Rotten Tomatoes
Despite the original Nosferatu still holding up as a scary movie today with its dark atmosphere and the scariest vampire ever put to screen (in my opinion anyway), Werner Herzog’s remake surpasses the original’s limitations by presenting less theatrical acting, stunning cinematography and a more detailed look at the tragic vampire mythos, in a dark and atmospheric movie that is still my favorite vampire movie ever.
The original Nosferatu from 1922 was deemed so scary that an urban legend came to exist - some people theorized that the actor playing the vampire in the movie, Max Schreck, was a real vampire. There was a very good movie made about this crazy theory back in 2000, called Shadow of the Vampire (81% on Rotten Tomatoes).
The Innocents (1961)
IMDB | Rated 96% on Rotten Tomatoes
I firmly believe of good horror movie should be, above all, a good movie - regardless of being labeled as “horror”. Here we learn the story of a woman who’s hired to look after a couple of children, but after noticing how odd the children are, she soon becomes convinced the place is haunted. But these aren’t your regular “horror movie children” - in fact, quite the contrary: they are polite, talented, obedient, and the boy is incredibly eloquent for his age, sometimes talking like a grown man. Which is freaking scary as hell. This psychological horror masterpiece is fantastically well acted, written and directed, and if you haven’t seen it yet, you should.
Trivia: The screenplay was written by William Archibald and famous novelist Truman Capote, also known for writing the screenplay for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, one of Audrey Hepburn’s most recognized roles.
The Thing (1982)
IMDB | Rated 80% on Rotten Tomatoes
The Thing was heavily censored at the time for it’s graphic content, all of which still holds up very well today. The idea is that a shape-shifting alien infiltrates an isolated group of men in an American Research Base in Alaska, meaning the alien could be anyone at anytime, and you can’t even trust the apparent good guys because of it. Not only that, but the transformations that happen when the alien is exposed are absolutely horrifying - and it really gets under my skin just how painful they look.
There was a prequel made in 2011 named exactly the same - just The Thing - which tells the story of the abandoned research facility found in the 1982 movie. The use of CGI for the creature transformations make them a lot less shocking and violent, but the movie itself is serviceable.
Trivia: Enio Morricone wrote a fantastic piece of music called Bestiality for The Thing, but the track was never used in the movie. In 2015, Quentin Tarantino used it in one of the best scenes from his movie The Hateful Eight - ironically, in a scene starring The Thing’s star, Kurt Russel.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1982)
IMDB | Rated 88% on Rotten Tomatoes
This movie is brutal. A masterpiece of low-budget horror movies, this “innocent” little film is horror at it’s rawest and most violent. There isn’t a single moment of levity. When it gets real, it’s a downward spiral straight to hell, making it a truly horrible experience that is sometimes hard to watch due to its oppressive atmosphere and violent imagery. Every movie is a work of art, and like any work of art, it’s supposed to make you feel something, reflect about something, or have an experience. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is so unpleasant most people just want it to end as quickly as possible - but I argue it’s for the right reasons.
There were a billion sequels and prequels made since the original, but pretty much all of them are forgettable, bland or just terrible.
Alien (1979)
IMDB | Rated 97% on Rotten Tomatoes
I’m surprised many people still see Alien as “just” a sci-fi movie, instead of horror. Sure, the sequels slowly pulled the original idea away from its roots, but the creators will tell you this Alien was meant to be horror all along. The slow build-up on the first half-an-hour leads to a crescendo of unbearable suspense. The art direction is mesmerizing to this day - the arrival to the abandoned spacecraft in the beginning is a sublime moment in cinema history. And the creature itself is iconic and scary as all hell. How can you not fear a creature whose primary instinct is to rape their victims and impregnate them with an unwanted baby THAT KILLS THEM? Yeah. If that’s not horror, I don’t know what is.
John Hurt was the most well known actor in the movie, and he’s the first one to die in the iconic chestburster scene. The audience was then left with the ship’s captain played by Tom Skerrit as their protagonist, but he dies two scenes later. It was only more than halfway through the movie that the lead is stabilized as being the now legendary Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver.
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
IMDB | Rated 99% on Rotten Tomatoes
Despite having no gore or scares as we expect in a horror movie, Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby is one of the scariest movies ever made. It does so by presenting a vulnerable and believable protagonist who is constantly being lied to by everyone around her, from her husband to her doctor, while she is certain something is wrong with her pregnancy - and so are you, but all you can do is watch her suffer and be manipulated in and out of trusting these people.
The Exorcist (1973)
IMDB | Rated 87% on Rotten Tomatoes
Oh my, what a shock this one is here. Yes, I know it’s widely renowned as the scariest movie ever, but there is a reason for it: The Exorcist is the best and scariest exorcism movie ever made, and it was made in 1973. Every exorcism movie that came afterward didn’t get close to this movie’s sheer atmosphere of constant dread.
The Exorcist was the first horror movie to be nominated to the Academy Award for Best Picture, and it won both Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound, having been nominated to 10 awards in total.
The Haunting (1963)
IMDB | Rated 86% on Rotten Tomatoes
The Haunting is one of those movies that doesn’t show you much of the horror that’s happening, but somehow, you still feel like you’re getting too much of it. It always keeps you guessing - you’re never totally sure something is actually there, or you’re just jumping at shadows along with the characters. The atmosphere is dense, the mansion is labyrinthian (and shot beautifully), the direction is brilliant, the acting by Julie Harris is Oscar-worthy, and to top it all off, the writing delivers a phenomenal character study that’s worth talking about for years.
There was a remake made in 1999, but we don’t talk about that.
The Shining (1980)
IMDB | Rated 88% on Rotten Tomatoes
My personal favorite horror movie of all time. Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is slow, droning, uncomfortable and incredibly dense for such a simple structure. It deviates heavily from Stephen King’s novel, but Kubrick only added to the horror. This movie gets under my skin like no other. Similar to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, there isn’t room for levity here, but instead of screams and gore, we get this isolated family quietly going insane together. We know right away something horrible is about to go down. There is a whole case study that reveals many hidden horrors Kubrick encrypted within the narrative, from unannounced dream sequences to the geographically impossible way Kubrick built the hotel in order to disorient the viewer subconsciously. There are many theories indicating that Jack abused his son Danny, and his wife Wendy did nothing to prevent it. That’s the whole catch: we think we’re about to see a haunted hotel ghost story, but in the end, the horror came from within the innocent looking family we thought were victims - and that kind of horror is way too real. Danny didn’t have visions of the hotel because of “ghosts” - he had them because he found out he was going to be alone for six months in an isolated hotel with his family.
If you’re curious about the encrypted meaning of The Shining, I recommend Rob Ager’s fantastic study on the whole movie, available on his website, Collative Learning. It’s a 21 chapters article with plenty of dense details that will blown your mind. This has nothing to do with the documentary Room 237, which features some funny theories, but mostly without decent evidence to support them. Ager’s work is extensive and provides evidence from Kubrick’s archives, as well as hints from the movie itself. The details of Jack being an abusive father can be found on Chapter 9, but I strongly recommend the full reading.
Trivia: Stephen King admittedly hated the movie - especially because Kubrick depicted Jack as being crazy before arriving at the hotel. Apparently it was a personal story for King, who himself had fought alcoholism, like the character in the book. In 1997 he re-adapted the book into a three-part mini-series, making sure it was faithful to his material.
Did we forget one your favorite classic horror movies? Feel free to add them in the comments and share this on Facebook!
