“Horror – painful and intense fear, dread, or dismay”— Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Horror Movies to Watch
Horror movies stimulate physical and emotional responses, such as drawing your knees into your chest and placing your fingers in your mouth as your eyes widen. Some even include Halloween as a premise.
The producers and directors of horror movies aim to evoke fear and shock, prompting the audience to respond in kind. They employ themes such as supernatural, macabre, fantasy, and thriller. When people watch scary movies, they feel disgust, terror, and fear and experience nightmares.
Essential components of a horror movie are evil witches, ghosts, demons, extraterrestrials, monsters, zombies, fierce animals, vampires, evil clowns, werewolves, torture, psychopaths, serial killers, and cannibals. The following list of movies offers enough choices to choose the ideal film to dare watch on Halloween.
1. “Pet Sematary”
The cast alone drives horror fans to the movie theaters, with the added benefit that Pet Sematary is based on one of Stephen King’s most horrific novels. This demonic movie stars John Lithgow, Jason Clarke, and Amy Semietz. It is a remake of the 1989 film, and a sequel followed in 1992.
2. “Overlord”
Produced by J.J. Abrams and directed by Julius Avery, Overlord is a horror movie set during World War II. It follows two American soldiers who parachute behind enemy lines on D-Day and get into a lot of trouble.
The horror trailer is fun to watch because it’s intense and scary. Scripted by talented screenwriters Billy Ray and Mark L. Smith, the movie will move quickly, featuring suspense and thrilling action.
Billy Ray wrote incredible screenplays, including Shattered Glass and The Hunger Games. Mark L. Smith’s most notable screenplay is The Revenant.
Avery helmed other movies, including Jerrycan and Son of a Gun. His directing credits are unlike those of the screenwriters, but watch the trailer. Overlord is a good horror movie.
The cast includes Bokeem Woodbine, Wyatt Russell, and Pilou Asbæk.
The movie trailer shows several Americans dropping from a plane, parachuting into the occupied German countryside, and facing a Nazi experimental lab. The lab holds some scary and brutal work by a psychiatrist.
3. “Halloween”
Jamie Lee Curtis is, once again, Laurie Strode. She never gave up on finding Michael Myers, the knife-carrying, masked figure. He’s haunted her for 40 years because she barely escaped his killing spree on that dreadful Halloween night.
Now, it’s payback time, and she needs to protect her granddaughter.
4. “The Little Stranger”
I’m thrilled about this horror movie adaptation of a bestseller. It is a quintessential British suspense film, featuring a dynamic storyline that also doubles as a horror movie.
Lenny Abrahamson directs the suspense-horror film, with the story focusing on Dr. Faraday, played by Domhnall Gleeson. Dr. Faraday made a name for himself despite being the son of a housemaid. He put together a respectable life and practiced as a country doctor.
In the summer of 1948, he calls upon a patient of his mother’s former employers, Hall, the home of the Ayres family for over two centuries.
Surprisingly, the doctor finds the former Hall in decline, and its inhabitants—mother, son, and daughter—are haunted by something more sinister than death itself.
He takes on the new patient without realizing how intimately and dreadfully the family’s past twists around him.
5. “A Quiet Place”
The movie stars Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Noah Jupe, and Millicent Simmonds. A Quiet Place is a horror movie in the supernatural sense. Directed by Emily Blunt’s husband and co-star, John Krasinski, the movie’s synopsis says, “If they can’t hear you, they can’t hurt you.”
That line sends chills up my spine. I am a fan of Blunt. The movie is scary but in a suspenseful way. I recommend seeing A Quiet Place because it is a unique story that holds my attention. The direction and acting are a perfect fit – seamless and tight.
Scenes in the movie promote American Sign Language (ASL) through the use of deaf actress Millicent Simmonds. She is not aware when her younger brother makes a noise. Noise kills the family and causes the aliens to attack humans.
Emily Blunt said in an interview that the script was so good that she asked her husband if she could play the mother in the film. She was delighted that he said yes. Her husband, John Krasinski, is a co-writer, director and the husband in the movie. Don’t forget to catch A Quiet Place Part II. The sequel includes the background story of how the alien creatures arrived.
6. “Hell Fest”
Gregory Plotkin directed Hell Fest, focusing on three teenagers who attend a local Hell Fest. The teenagers are played by Amy Forsyth, Reign Edwards, and Taylor-Klaus. Because it is an amusement attraction, everyone believes all the scary scenes and death-threatening antics are fake.
Once they get through the gauntlet of horror, it will be just a horrific memory of fun. That is not the case because of an urban legend where a teenage girl was killed last year during Fest.
Plotkin is known best as an editor for Get Out and Happy Death Day. He cut his directing teeth, helming one of the Paranormal Activity movies.
7. “Ready or Not”
Co-directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Ready or Not is impressively cast. The story follows newlyweds who undergo a deadly ritual rooted in the groom’s family’s traditions.
His family is not only eccentric but wealthy. The cast includes Adam Brody, Andie MacDowell, and Henry Czerny.
8. “Suspiria”
From the director of Call Me by Your Name, Luca Guadagnino guides three strong female actresses —Dakota Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Tilda Swinton — in a horrific yet fantastical and mysterious film called Suspiria. The story takes place at a prestigious dance company. The mysterious movie focuses on the artistic director, a determined young dancer, and a wretched psychotherapist.
The movie is about those who surrender to the nightmare, while others will wake up decisively.
Johnson has a massive following from the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise.
9. “Hereditary”
Ari Aster wrote and directed Hereditary, and it stars Toni Collette, who played the mother in The Sixth Sense. She plays a daughter whose mother passed away and left frightening secrets about the family. The whole family becomes immersed as the mystery unravels. As they discover more about their ancestors, they realize the ominous fate they must inherit.
This movie is Aster’s feature debut as both the writer and director. Watch the movie trailer because the film is a complete nightmare, severely disquieting. The story pushes horror into a nerve-wracking depiction of heritage departed to hell.
The movie also stars Alex Wolff, Gabriel Byrne, and Milly Shapiro. Shapiro is genuinely creepy as the daughter. In the trailer, she is both horrifying and entertaining.
Sometimes it’s hard to find the best scary or horror movie you haven’t seen yet, because you have seen them all.
10. “Don’t Breathe”
Directed by Fede Alvarez, Don’t Breathe is an award-winning horror movie. It is not your particular horror story, as it is about three young people, played by Jane Levy, Dylan Minnette, and Daniel Zovatto, who attempt to pull off an easy heist from a wealthy blind man.
The blind man, played by Stephen Lang, is not what they expected, and they are in for a horrific and challenging undertaking. Lang is so believable and horrific. Lang has amassed a remarkable list of acting credits, spanning from the stage to the movie screen. He celebrated the most for his role in James Cameron’s Avatar. He also has earned a Tony nomination for his Broadway performance in The Speed of Darkness.
11. “Slender Man”
The premise of this movie is a tale of urban legends. Slender Man arrives from the imagination of Eric Knudsen, who created a pen name, Victor Surge, to keep Slender Man alive. A fabled creature formed through Surge’s visualization and introduced via the Internet platform Something Awful.
That is as far as Knudsen goes with the storyline, which is nothing compared to American Horror Story. David Birke penned the movie. He is known for scripting Elle and 13 Sins.
Directed by Sylvain White, Slender Man introduces four high school girls living in a small Massachusetts town. The girls gather and conduct a ceremony to uncover the lore of Slender Man.
One of the girls vanishes suddenly, and her three friends are suspicious and believe she is indeed Slender Man’s newest victim.
12. “Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare”
Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare gives me the creeps. Jeff Wadlow directed the movie that focuses on Lucy Hale (Pretty Little Liars) and Tyler Posey (Teen Wolf) as young women playing a deadly game of truth or dare.
The undercurrents drive the movie, turning it from an innocent “Truth or Dare” diversion among friends into a scary horror movie. The game spins fatally when something unknown punishes the characters who fail to tell the truth or decline to do the dare.
If you are a super fan of horror, you will enjoy this one because it is unrelenting in its campy material.
13. “Winchester”
It doesn’t seem like a horror movie, but it is scary with some horrific undertones. The Spierig brothers directed Winchester, starring Helen Mirren as Sarah Winchester.
The elaborate story is genuine, as it focuses on Sarah Winchester (Mirre..). Sarah Winchester was a real person who was quirky.
She resides on a remote stretch of land, 50 miles beyond San Francisco. Today, it is in the heart of San Jose on a busy street in Silicon Valley. Reportedly, Winchester lived in one of the most haunted houses in the world. The heiress to the Winchester fortune of the Winchester rifles never stops building her home and continues for years and years.
Ms. Winchester continues building the house for her niece (Sarah Snook), but it is unclear whether that is true. She could be constructing it for Eric Price (Jason Clarke) – her doctor. It would have been helpful if the directors had clarified this.
The story focuses on her constructing the house to imprison hundreds of revengeful ghosts. The worst of the spirits want to get even with the Winchesters’ family because of the firearms they make. They harmed and killed thousands and thousands of people through wars and such.
Not because it’s haunted, since I never considered it haunted. I don’t like tourist traps.
14. “The Strangers: Prey at Night”
The Strangers: Prey at Night is about a family road trip that turns horrific. Johannes Roberts directed the scary movie, with a script by Bryan Bertino and Ben Ketai. The family arrives at a mobile park that reminds me ofBatess Motel in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Too bad the movie isn’t as good as Psycho.
Prey at Night focuses on the family, who plan to stay with relatives at a mobile park but discover the place abandoned, which is amateurishly scary as the movie unfolds to its conclusion.
Three masked psychopaths jump out from the shadows and lash out at the family in the darkness with spine-chilling music. The family fights back on the edge of madness as they thrash out to stay alive.
The horror movie follows the same theme as the 2008 horror movie The Strangers, with a similar story concerning a young couple being stalked by three masked murderers. Interestingly, Bryan Bertino helmed Prey at Night and co-wrote its screenplay.
15. “IT”
I hope you don’t freak out when you see this trailer. IT tells the story based on Stephen King’s book of the same title.
King is a master at writing scary stories. This movie appears to be just as frightening. While watching the trailer, I was compelled to look over my shoulder about five times to see if I was alone, and no one was sneaking up on me. Even the sounds of my house were unsettling and playing with my mind.
At this point, you are witnessing a quintessential horror movie from King’s classic book of horror.
16. “Happy Death Day”
Happy Death Day is similar to Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day and Zoey Deutch’s Before I Fall. Groundhog Day is one of my favorite movies, where a weatherman keeps living the same day, Groundhog Day, over and over again. Before I Fall is about a high school girl. She relives her day over and over again after dying in a car crash.
Though Happy Death Day is different than Murray’s or Deutsch’s movies, it still has the same premise as a horror movie about a college student who relives the day she gets murdered with the intent of finding her murderer.
The movie is not original, as it copies elements from Groundhog Day and Before I Fall.
Still, watch the trailer and get your fix of scary and horror with a touch of humor.
The producer and director were pleased with the box office return, and the director wrote and directed a sequel, titled Happy Death Day 2U, immediately. It is just as good with a similar premise.
17. “XX”
Have you ever asked yourself, “Why are horror movies so popular?” Watch the collection of short horror movies about mothers, and they give you the answer.
XX comes as a DVD helmed by four talented female directors. The shorts give you a chance to evaluate the popularity of horror movies, as they are not your typical horror movies. They are awkward and confusing at times.
The movies will catch your interest because each short is intelligently produced and acted. The fourth one is the best. It’s called The Box and makes the whole collection a scary, fun time to be shared with your friends. The movie is profound and meaningful. The kids grow up and become who they are, and she can only be their mom. What they do to her is unbelievably horrific.
Only Living Son is my next favorite choice out of the four shorts. The story follows a mother, and she’s left on her own at a stressful party. She continues this experience for the rest of her life. It’s a mother’s nightmare for real. The production is good, and the acting is believable.
Being a horror fan, you will want to see these four shorts.
The overall theme weaves through the movies – motherhood nightmares – fears of what could happen to you and your children. Each director has a distinctive and modern-day expression.
“‘The Ranger’ is one of the most punk horror movies that has ever punked.”— Bloody Disgusting
18. “The Ranger”
The teaser horror movie trailer is entertaining, with its retro look evoking the 1950s or 1960s camping aesthetic. Directed by Jenn Wexler, The Ranger follows a group of punks. The cops confront them, and they head for a national park. Chelsea, played by Chloe Levine, and her pals bolt from the city. They decided to lie low in an old cabin that Chelsea’s family had abandoned.
They fall prey to the watchful eye of an obsessive park ranger, played by Jeremy Holm. He holds a secret concerning Chelsea’s past.
The horror movie is about surviving in the forest while someone is chasing and killing your friends. Humor and glitter mix with the gore to keep the pace moving.
Best Scary Movies
I recommend all these horror movies and hope you get a chance to see each one. Some had higher budgets than others, but they are entertaining to watch.