The 5. 0 best horror movies ever, Feature . To prepare, we've summoned up with the ultimate list of the greatest, scariest and most spine- rippingly horrific horror movies in cinema's long history. Caligari to It Follows, this is a compendium of scary movies to span the ages. Abandon all hope all ye who enter here..
The Devil’s Backbone (2. Director: Guillermo del Toro. Cast: Fernando Tielve, Eduardo Noriega, Federico Luppi, Marisa Paredes. The “male” companion piece to Guillermo del Toro’s later female- centric Pan’s Labyrinth, The Devil’s Backbone is a classic ghost story set in an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War. Like Pan it’s explicitly political, and there’s a clever metaphor at work comparing ghosts to unexploded bombs (an example of which sits ticking in the orphanage’s courtyard). But it’s also less fantastical than its successor: an elegant supernatural yarn that compares favourably to the classic likes of The Innocents and The Haunting.
Director Richard Donner is known for his popular action films, but his break-through film was actually one of the best horror films ever made.
Stream The Devil’s Backbone now with Amazon Video. Kill List (2. 01. Director: Ben Wheatley. Cast: Neil Maskell, Michael Smiley, My. Anna Buring Kill List begins like a fairly straightforward thriller. Two hit men take on an assignment.
The 50 Best Horror Films From the 1980s. Viewer beware, you're in for a scare. The horror genre gets a bad rap. Regrettably, that’s because many films within the genre believe they can skimp on one aspect of storytelling, such as characters or.
Scare yourself silly with our list of the best horror movies based on true stories. 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.
We've scared up the Best Horror Movies on Netflix from 'Hellraiser' to 'The Babadook' playing this August for your screaming and streaming pleasure. Watch free Horror movies online at Popcornflix. Popcornflix has hundreds of Horror movies to watch for free online. Check out the best scary games in our list of the most frightening, monster infested adventures you can play right now. Halloween is here, which means it's time to haunt your hard drive with the best horror games you can play on PC. Whether you like your terror with a pinch of jump. Check out our lists of the best (and worst) movies of the century so far, ranked by Metascore overall and in a variety of genres.
They have the kill list. They have to kill them. Bish bash bosh. But as you watch, small hints of the film’s true nature slowly appear. An odd symbol is scratched on a bathroom mirror. A doctor offers bizarre, medically dubious advice.
The soundtrack broods like a rumbling storm cloud overhead. Ben Wheatley’s masterful grip on slow- building tension – informed by his love of 1. Brit folk- horror – crescendos to an almost unbearable, shocking finale. Wheatley has never been better.
Watch Kill List online now with Amazon Prime – 3. The Evil Dead (1. Director: Sam Raimi. Cast: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker“The ultimate experience in gruelling horror” proclaimed the end credits.
Some commenters believed the remake wasn’t funny enough, but the laughs in the Evil Dead franchise only really arrive with the splatstick sequel. Here, first time out, what we have is an unrelenting and often genuinely frightening aural and visual assault, with only the occasional easy- to- miss quip to defuse the tension (“We can’t bury Shelly, she’s our friend,” muses a shellshocked Bruce Campbell, surveying a still twitching, dismembered corpse). The miniscule budget and claymation effects only add to the unsettling atmosphere. Stream The Evil Dead now with Amazon Video. Audition (1. 99. 9)Director: Takashi Miike. Cast: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina. The film that broke director Takashi Miike internationally doesn’t initially seem like a horror film at all.
We follow a widower’s attempts to get back in the dating game with a younger squeeze, via the rather dodgy and disingenuous audition process to which the title refers. And it’s only when we realise the object of his desire has literally been waiting by the phone for days – apparently in an apartment empty apart from something ominous in a sack – that we begin to realise something is very, very amiss. And then there’s the foot- sawing and the eye- needles. Kiri, kiri, kiri. The Devil Rides Out (1. Director: Terence Fisher.
Cast: Christopher Lee, Paul Eddington, Charles Gray, Rosalyn Landor. The Devil Rides Out marked a new direction for Hammer, swapping classic gothic horror/fantasy for a Dennis Wheatley occult potboiler. Richard Matheson’s cracking screenplay streamlines and improves the novel; the pacing and dialogue are sharp; and the performances, particularly from the incomparable Charles Gray and, as always, from Christopher Lee, are top notch.
The studio would return to Wheatley with To The Devil A Daughter a couple of years later, but they missed a trick by never bringing back Lee’s Duc de Richleau: the paranormal investigator – who brings hell down on his unsuspecting friends here – featured in 1. His cases could have run and run. Buy The Devil Rides Out now on Amazon.
Cat People (1. 94. Director: Jacques Tourneur. Cast: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Tom Conway With Universal knocking out horror films like there was no tomorrow, RKO tasked producer Val Lewton with creating some similar action.
The results were not what the studio expected. Far from the monster mash they’d asked for, Cat People – directed by Jacques Tourneur – opted for more psychological chills, and a still surprising concept centred on a woman who’s afraid to consummate her marriage because of her belief that sexual climax will turn her into a panther.
Paul Schrader’s '8. FX and erotica, but Tourneur’s more subtle scares are all about stalking and shadows. Stream Cat People now with Amazon Video. Day Of The Dead (1. Director: George A.
Romero. Cast: Richard Liberty, Lori Cardille, Sherman Howard. George Romero originally conceived this as . No matter, the doyen of the undead merely served up another chewy allegory for humanity's doom laden with gory moments enhanced by Tom Savini's majesterial make- up designs. Following on from Dawn Of The Dead with the world in the grip of a full- scale zombie infestation, the survivors head south (in practically every sense) to a bunker in a swampy corner of Florida.
There, a crazed doctor tries to turn the shufflers . The subtext, again, is clear: the zombies are the least of our problems in a world driven by violence and greed. Stream Day Of The Dead now with Amazon Video. Drag Me To Hell (2.
Director: Sam Raimi. Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver. Cue a curse to end all curses: visitations from a demon called the Lamia. While the punishment doesn't seem entirely proportionate, the results offer a wild, raw and wickedly entertaining ride with Sam Raimi at his funhouse best throughout.
Justin Long, the loyal hubbie on the other side of Lohman's hellish bubble, takes on the horror staple role of disbelieving agnostic. You'll want to shake him by the end. Stream Drag Me To Hell now with Amazon Video. The Skin I Live In (2. Director: Pedro Almodovar. Cast: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet.
Something like a Frankenstein fable, The Skin I Live In is nevertheless fed through Pedro Almodovar’s idiosyncratic filter to become. Based on Thierry Jonquet’s novel Tarantula, it’s the story of a scientist’s illegal human experiments, ostensibly into an artificial skin to be used for burn victims. The upshot is kidnap and sexual reassignment, in a disturbing two hours described by the director as a “horror without screams or scares”. Plenty to keep you awake though. Also significant as the reunion of Almodovar with his frequent former star Antonio Banderas. The pair hadn’t worked together since Tie Me Up!
Tie Me Down! 2. 1 years earlier. Buy The Skin I Live In now on Amazon. Dracula (1. 95. 8)Director: Terence Fisher.
Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough. Directed by the incomparable Terence Fisher, written by Jimmy Sangster, pairing Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (with Lee getting actual lines for the first time), and going all out for colour, glamour, sex and blood, Hammer’s Dracula aligns the elements and distils the formula that powered the studio for the next two decades. Sangster’s bold screenplay at once eviscerates Bram Stoker’s novel and sets the narrative free. With the locations transposed and limited to Romania and half the dramatis personae excised, we’re left with a lean adventure.
The Lugosi film is a creaky slow- burn, but Hammer’s is a swashbuckler. Lee, of course, gets to be urbane and darkly seductive, but there’s also genuine savagery to the moments when he gets to bare his teeth. Stream Dracula now with Amazon Video. The Blair Witch Project (1. Director: Eduardo S.
It's instructive to see how little Adam Wingard's surprise sequel deviates from the set- up and formula of the original (bunch of kids head into the Black Hills, record the results on the shakiest of shakycams) 1. At the time, it sparked a revolution in the genre. Since then have come dozens of imitators, although even the best of them fall short of replicating Project's disorientating chills. Twigs and bits of foliage have never been so scary. Stream The Blair Witch Project now with Amazon Video. The Babadook (2. 01. Director: Jennifer Kent.
Cast: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman. Slightly mis- sold by a trailer that made it look like a standard – though impressive – monster movie, The Babadook’s greatest trick is in not really being about the titular thing at all. Rather, it’s a film about a mentally unravelling mother’s difficult relationship with her young son.
Subverting expectations, the film seems to set up Amblin- style hijinks from a resourceful kid, but those elements never come to pass, and his backpack of tricks is ultimately useless. The rules are right there in creepy storybook: you can’t get rid of the Babadook. The eventual solution for its defeat – but not eradication – is something like genius. Stream The Babadook now with Amazon Video. Bride Of Frankenstein (1.
Director: James Whale. Cast: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Elsa Lanchester, Ernest Thesiger.
James Whale’s sequel to his own original Frankenstein reunites the director with Boris Karloff’s classic monster and with Colin Clive’s hapless scientist: this time tasked with creating a mate for the creature. As before, there’s immense pathos in the monster’s plight – ultimately rejected by his stunning, shock- haired “bride” Elsa Lanchester. But there’s more mischievous wit in the second outing, largely thanks to Ernest Thesiger’s cherishably waspish Doctor Pretorius. Frankenstein (1. 93. Director: James Whale.
Cast: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive. Jack Pierce created several iconic make- ups for Universal in the '3. Frankenstein’s Monster of a thousand subsequent parodies. It took Boris Karloff, however, to inhabit the make- up as a tangible character, acting his way out from behind the greasepaint and mortician’s wax to deliver a nuanced portrait of a child- like creature, prone to rage but also capable of great tenderness. You need only compare Karloff’s monster to the later versions attempted by Lon Chaney Jr.
Top 1. 0 Best Horror Movies Of 2. Let’s take a look at the biggest and best horror movies of 2. The scary list features the usual mix of sequels (.
Based on what I’ve seen, and on anticipation, these are the top 2. Get excited. Let me know your picks, or anything I’ve missed, below (leave a comment for your chance to win one of the movies listed!)2. They’re Watching. Starring: Brigid Brannagh, David Alpay, Dimitri Diatchenko, Kris Lemche. Directors: Jay Lender, Micah Wright. Released: March 2. U. S. Dates) - Seen It- The TV crew of a property makeover show return to Moldova, Eastern Europe to catch up with an American pottery artist who bought a remote rustic house outside a simple village.
The superstitious, pitchfork- wielding locals treat the crew with increasing hostility. Soon they will be trying to kill them, but why? To say more would go into spoiler territory. But then it finds its footing and with the premise in focus has a certain originality to it. After a good stretch, things collapse in the last 1.
Sy. Fy Channel ashamed. Some have said these fx are deliberate spoof but the rest of the film really isn’t and either way it’s misjudged. Still, there’s enough quality in the second half to make . And it might have the best horror poster of the year.
Howl. Starring: Ed Speleers, Sean Pertwee, Holly Weston, Shauna Macdonald. Director: Paul Hyett. Released: TBC 2. 01. Seen It- A long- suffering train guard (Speleers, .
Before long the moaning passengers have more than delays to worry about, as they are attacked by werewolves from the forest. As siege horror goes the characters are by the numbers (eg the selfish one locking people out), the supposedly humorous types (football fan, Indian nerd) fall flat, but otherwise the performances are decent. It has strong atmosphere, solid production values and a nice old school vibe. The all- practical creature designs are a mixed bag: close ups of snarling faces and three- jointed legs are very effective but the torsos look kinda rubbery and the performers move a bit like a Comic- Con cosplay. I preferred . With the help of an Australian travel journalist (Taylor Kinney, TV’s . Japan looks good on film, always feeling well suited to the genre, though it’s not used as effectively as, say, . The acting is decent and it definitely has scares.
However it’s hard to buy an emotional connection between one actress playing both twins since there’s a particular artificiality about it. The big frustration comes from a protagonist whose actions we are so against: She is warned that the woods will create illusions to trick her into despair but she falls for it every time. It all leads to a downer of a finale, and a kiss- off jump scare that leaves you shaking your head.
Southbound. Starring: Kate Beahan, Matt Bettinelli- Olpin, Chad Villella, Kristina Pesic. Directors: Radio Silence, Roxanne Benjamin, David Bruckner, Patrick Horvath. Released: February 5, 2.
Seen It- On and off a stretch of desert highway, five sets of sinning characters encounter a reckoning at the hands of demonic- locals and floating soul- reapers. They include three stranded rock chicks who accept a night with an unsettling ’5. The desert setting is used to strong atmospheric effect, with its rundown motels and empty gas stations. The John Carpenter- inspired 8. The first two segments are creepy and intriguing. But the long- winded hospital- torture sequence that follows turns out to be pointless and the idea of characters being killed for their past sins gets repetitive (being unoriginal to begin with – see also this year’s .
For an anthology there’s a remarkably consistent look and tone going from one director’s segment to the next – anthologies typically feel like short films thrown together, often with wildly different levels of quality and the sense that the directors are competing with each other (see last year’s . The result is that it all exists within the same universe. The ending ties in quite nicely with an earlier event but still too much is left unexplained, from what the father did to the girl, why innocents are harmed, to the cafe shaking at the start etc, and there could have been much stronger overlap in the connections between the characters, instead of being randoms dropping in and out. A decent time but expected more.
Cameras (aka . But far more concerning is their revolting, monosyllabic landlord, who has been spying and perving on them using tiny cameras hidden around the property. And just what is he doing in the locked basement? However seeing him shuffle around and grunting on film isn’t as effective as it could have been – in the final analysis he’s not frightening enough.
Instead the movie is overtaken by the subplot of the husband (physically reminiscent of Mark Zuckerberg) cheating on his pregnant wife. That subplot is well acted, nuanced and shot, but it’s not what we came to see and its resolution is abrupt. Combine this with the violence being tame or off- screen and you feel they should have had the balls to go the full horror route. They could have nudged the Slumlord character into being one of the horror greats.
The Boy. Starring: Lauren Cohan, Rupert Evans, Jim Norton, Diana Hardcastle. Director: William Brent Bell. Released: January 2. Seen It- A young American woman (Lauren Cohan, . After violating a list of strict rules, a series of disturbing events lead her to believe the doll might be alive. She’ll need the help of the local grocery delivery man (Rupert Evans, .
It’s an old fashioned film with a particularly slow build up, though off- kilter scenes like the elderly parents adoring the doll, and the nanny growing emotionally closer to it, make it rather watchable. Still, there’s little more than hints and suggestions right until the last 2.
By then curiosity over whether it will be a moving doll (Chucky) or a stationary doll (Annabelle) is as peaked as it can be, for which the film deserves credit. But when things go in the direction they do for the last 2. It also obliterates the tension in what had been, until then, an enjoyable and atmospheric piece.
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