Horror movies are one of those broad movie genres which span from slashers, thrillers, paranormal, zombies, gore, demonic possession, etc. This fact brings us to the question, what is the best horror movie of all time? We have compiled a list of some of the best horror movies of all time according to film critiques.
#30 The Ring (2002)
Starring: Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman, Brian Cox
Directed by: Gore Verbinski
The story begins when friends Katie Embry, Becca Kotler, Josh Turandot, Stacey Miller, and Scott Conrey watch an allegedly cursed videotape. According to legends, whoever watches the video dies after seven days. True enough, Katie and her friends die after seven days. All of them had disfigured appearances.
After the funeral, Katie’s aunt, Rachel Keller, tries to investigate what has happened. She finds out about the tape, and she watches it. After watching the video, a mysterious caller calls her and whispers, “seven days.”
Rachel then seeks the help of her ex-boyfriend, Noah Clay, with whom she shares a young son named Aidan. Together, they investigate the supernatural things happening to Rachel, leading them to Moesko Island, where a horse breeder named Anna Morgan committed suicide after her award-winning horses drowned themselves.
Rachel travels to Moesko Island to speak to Richard Morgan, Anna’s husband. At the same time, Noah goes to Eola County Psychiatric Hospital. Both find out that Anna had an adopted daughter named Samara Morgan. Samara can etch mental images onto people’s and animals’ minds.
They conduct deeper investigations about Samara and discover that she has undergone psychotherapy sessions. In one of her recorded sessions, they find out that she was the one who drove her mother’s horses to suicide.
In the end, Noah dies in the movie, and Rachel finds out that to prevent Samara from killing, whoever sees the video shall either watch it backward or make a copy of it and show it to someone else.
#29 The Mist (2007)
Starring: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Andre Braughter
Directed by: Frank Darabont
The Mist is another book turned movie, a masterpiece by renowned American novelist Stephen King. From the title itself, the story is about a mist that has enveloped the town of Bridgton in Maine.
Alongside the Mist, different creatures also wreaked havoc in the town. This movie is horrifying and, at the same time, sad as we think of the mental torture that the protagonist has gone through after he killed his son and friends when he felt that they could not run away from the Mist, and moments later, rescuers would come.
#28 Scream (1996)
Starring: Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox, Matthew Lillard
Directed by: Wes Craven
Scream is an American slasher film. It is about a serial killer dubbed Ghostface that targets high school students from Woodsboro High School. The first to fall victim to the serial killer is high school student Casey Becker, iconically played by actress Drew Barrymore.
Casey was home alone when she received a call from an unknown person. The caller starts flirtatiously, but it later becomes sadistic and life-threatening. The caller reveals that her boyfriend Steve Orth is outside her house, tied and bound to a chair.
The caller asks her questions about Friday the 13th, telling her that if she answers it incorrectly, Steve will die. Casey answers the question wrongly, and the killer murders Steve in front of her. Later in the evening, Casey’s lifeless body is found by her parents hanging from a tree in their backyard.
The murders attract the attention of the media. Including reporter Gale Weathers, who is ominous for releasing conspiracy theories about the rape and murder of Maureen Prescott, the mother of Woodsboro High School student Sidney Prescott.
After the murders of Casey Becker and Steve Orth, Sidney also receives similar phone calls. Several suspects were incarcerated, including Sidney’s boyfriend, Billy. However, he will be released after a similar phone call calls Sidney while he was still in the custody of the police.
Because the killer was yet to be apprehended, classes at Woodsboro High get suspended. However, instead of going home, the students chose to attend a party organized by Stu Macher. At the party, Sidney’s best friend, Tatum Riley, gets killed by the killer. The killer crushes her neck with the garage door, ending her life.
The night becomes more confusing as the identity of the killer is trying to be identified. More blood is spilled, and in the end, it is revealed that there were two killers. The party organizer and Tatum’s boyfriend, Stu Macher, and Sidney’s boyfriend, Billy, were the killers.
The two were conniving to frame their murder sprees to Sidney’s father, whom they had taken hostage. It is also revealed that they were responsible for killing Sidney’s mother a year ago, and they framed another person for it. Her mother was having an affair with Billy’s father, causing their family to be broken as it drove his mother away.
#27 Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)
Starring: Elizabeth Reaser, Annalise Basso, Lulu Wilson, Henry Thomas
Directed by: Mike Flanagan
The year was 1976; Alice Zander had just lost her husband. With her husband gone, she has to raise her two children alone. To do that, she works as a spiritual medium with her daughters, 15-year-old Paulina and 9-year-old Doris.
Alice uses an Ouija board in her seances. During one of her sessions, she unknowingly contacts an evil spirit named Marcus, who would later possess Doris.
The family would later experience financial hardships. Grieving Doris would use the Ouija board to contact her deceased father to ask for help. She reached a spirit she believed to be her Dad, leading her to a secret compartment in their basement where a bundle of cash was hidden. She gives it to her mother, and the family conducts an Ouija session to communicate with the spirit.
In the session, they ask the spirit questions only Roger would know. When the spirit responded correctly, they were convinced it was indeed him.
Soon after, Doris becomes fully possessed by the spirit. Changes in her behavior would quickly be noticeable, making her sister worried. Lina finds papers written in fluent Polish, making her increasingly suspicious of her sister. She seeks the help of her school principal, Father Tom Hogan, who visits the family home in the guise that he would like to contact his deceased wife.
After the session, he concludes that they have not summoned the correct spirit. Instead, the energy they called only pretends to be someone else. It can read minds. That is why it can answer their questions.
Later on, they would find out that the spirit’s name was Marcus. He was a Polish soldier held captive in the home by a sadistic doctor during World War II.
The possession of Doris would later become severe that she killed Lina’s new boyfriend when he came for a visit. Afterward, Father Tom can find the secret room in the house where the sadistic experiements were conducted. He, too, becomes possessed and is later killed by Doris.
In the end, only Lina survives the ordeal. However, she is confined to a mental hospital for the suspected murder of her mother and sister.
#26 Creep (2014)
Starring: Mark Duplass, Patrick Brice
Directed by: Patrick Brice
The film shows how an unsuspecting struggling videographer falls victim to a serial killer posing as a client who wishes to make a movie for his unborn child.
The killer initially introduces himself as someone with an inoperable brain tumor, and he fears that he will not be around to witness his wife giving birth. He wants to create a movie for his unborn child. However, during the filming, the videographer notices inconsistencies in his behavior, leading him to flee.
After successfully getting away from the hold of the killer, the videographer will receive a lot of disturbing packages from a stalker. In the end, the two will meet at a park where the killer will finish what he started. He kills the videographer with an ax.
#25 Rec (2007)
Starring: Manuela Velasco, Ferran Terraza, Jorge-Yamam Serrano, Carlos Lasarte
Directed by: Jaume Balaguero, Paco Plaza
Rec is a Spanish found footage horror film. The film starts with reporter Angela Vidal and her cameraman Pablo. The two covered one of Barcelona’s local fire stations for the television series While You’re Sleeping. In the middle of the filming, they receive a call about an old woman trapped in her apartment, Mrs. Izquierdo.
The firefighters respond to the call, and Angela accompanies them. When they reached the apartment complex, everything was in chaos. The old woman bites one of the police officers in the area when they arrive.
Soon after, military and police officers sealed the building, trapping them inside. Residents began to panic. Alex, one of the firefighters, gets thrown out of the building by Mrs. Izquierdo, who was then shot by one of the officers, Sergio.
Angela begins to interview the residents. One of them was a little girl named Jennifer, who was sick. Her mother claimed that Jennifer had tonsilitis. But later, it would be proven to be untrue. The injured people also become aggressive. A health inspector explains that they are infected with a virus similar to rabies.
Because the disease was contagious, the people in the apartment complex soon became infected. Only three were able to survive, Angela, Manu, and Pablo. However, Manu gets bitten outside the apartment. On the other hand, Angela and Pablo retreat to the penthouse.
In the penthouse, they discover a tape recorder. In the recorder, they find out that the penthouse was owned by an agent from the Vatican tasked to isolate an enzyme carried by a little Portuguese girl named Tristina Medeiros. The little girl was showing signs of demonic possession. The agent tried to treat her when the enzyme mutated and became contagious.
Tristana was then left in the house to die of starvation. However, she did not die. Instead, she is hungry for food and kills Pablo. The ending of the movie shows the recording of Angela getting dragged by Tristana.
#24 Paranormal Activity (2007)
Starring: Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Amber Armstrong, Mark Friedrichs
Directed by: Oren Peli
Paranormal Activity is an American supernatural horror film released in 2007. It is the first installment of the movie franchise, and since its success, it will have six more movies released under the same title.
Paranormal Activity (2007) tells the story of a couple’s encounters with a demonic presence in their home. Katie, the girl, believes that the demon has been tormenting her ever since she was a young child. The movie shows several recorded paranormal activities in the couple’s shared home. This storytelling style gives the audience a feeling that they are in the film itself. It’s effective in delivering terror to the audience.
#23 The Thing (1982)
Starring: Kurt Russell, A. Wilford Brimley, T.K. Carter, Richard Dysart
Directed by: John Carpenter
The Thing is an American science fiction horror film. It takes place in Antarctica, where a group of scientists is conducting research. The group would take pity on a sled dog being shot at by a helicopter. They would take in the dog, and all hell will break loose.
After taking in the dog, it brutally attacks all living things inside their camp. The dog had metamorphized into a beast that shapeshifts into its victims. This movie is scary since it plays with the viewers’ minds as it instills a deep feeling of paranoia and horror as the characters are killed one by one.
#22 The Exorcist (1973)
Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb
Directed by: William Friedkin
The Exorcist is perhaps one of the most famous American films out there. Released in 1973, the supernatural horror film has since never lost its shine when talking about the scariest horror movies.
The movie’s opening scene shows a catholic priest, Lankester Merrin, participating in an archaeological dig in Northern Iraq. The dig yields a medallion of Saint Joseph and an artifact representing Pazuzu, an ancient demon.
Across the world, in Georgetown, actress Chris MacNeil temporarily lives in a house with servants and her daughter Regan. Unbeknownst to her, something sinister is waiting to unfold.
She begins hearing noises coming from the house’s attic, and her daughter, Regan, tells her about an unseen ‘friend’ named Captain Howdy.
Eventually, the noises would evolve into violent shaking of Regan’s bed and the possession of Regan by a demon. Regan’s body would soon suffer from demonic possession. Her condition worsens as each day passes, and doctors are puzzled as to why it happens since there is nothing physiologically wrong with her.
One of the doctors studying her condition will suggest that they resort to exorcism as an alternative option since there was nothing clinically wrong with her.
Chris asks for the help of Georgetown-based priest Damien Karras, to which he gladly obliges. He meets with Regan, and after two meetings with her, the demon possessing the little girl claims to be the Devil himself.
The priest concludes that an exorcism needs to be performed, and he asks his superiors for permission to accomplish it. However, his superior insists that an experienced priest needs to lead the ritual, and he only assists. Lankester Merrin, the priest who participated in the archeological dig in Iraq, had performed an exorcism before. Because of that, he was the one to perform the said ritual.
On the day of the exorcism, Merrin warns Karras that the demon uses psychological attacks to weaken one’s faith in the Lord. Indeed, the Devil used his psychological tricks to play with the mind of Father Karras, who was already starting to weaken his defenses.
Noticing it, Father Merrin tells him to wait outside the room as he performs the rites. After a few, Karras enters the room only to find Father Merrin dead. He then challenges the demon to possess him instead. The monster rips off his medallion of Saint Joseph and possesses him.
Father Karras throws himself out the window, where Father Dyer administers the last rites as Father Karras dies.
In the end, Regan regains her old life without remembering her ordeals.
#21 The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Starring: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard, Bob Griffith
Directed by: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez
The title itself hints at what the movie is all about. The Blair Witch Project is an American horror film about the vanishing of three film students conducting a documentary on the fabled Blair Witch legend. The three hikes into the Black Hills, located near Burkittsville, Maryland, would vanish without a trace. They would only leave behind the recording of their journey.
The movie is very horrifyingly great that it popularized the ‘found footage’ genre in horror movies.
#20 Gerald's Game (2017)
Starring: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Henry Thomas, Carel Struycken
Directed by: Mike Flanagan
Gerald’s Game is an American Psychological Horror film based on a novel written by American novelist Stephen King’s book of the same title.
To rekindle their sputtering love, they traveled to an isolated location. During foreplay, the wife unintentionally murders her spouse. In an exciting twist, she was handcuffed to the bed. Due to the location of the place, help was scarce. She soon becomes delirious.
#19 28 Days Later (2002)
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Noah Huntley, Noamie Harris, Brendan Gleeson
Directed by: Danny Boyle
28 Days Later is a British movie depicting a societal collapse due to the spread of a contagious virus called ‘Rage’. The highly infectious virus is spread throughout Great Britain. It started after a group of animal liberation activists freed an infected chimpanzee from a laboratory in Cambridge.
The main protagonist of the story wakes up from a coma at St. Thomas Hospital in London twenty-eight days after the initial outbreak. As he navigates toward the infected world, he meets other survivors. Together they will seek refuge in a mansion run by military officers after hearing about it in an army broadcast. However, they would encounter problems after finding out that the broadcast was only a ploy by the military to lure females and rape them in a move to repopulate society.
The movie is perfect for those who love gory films.
#18 The Conjuring (2013)
Starring: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor, Ron Livingston
Directed by: James Wan
The Conjuring is an American supernatural horror film. The film showcases one of the most famous cases handled by Ed and Lorraine Warren. It’s about the Perron family and their encounters with an unseen demonic presence in their home.
The Perron Family moves into a farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island. Unbeknownst to them, an evil spirit lives in the home. The malevolent spirit is an accused witch named Bathsheba Sherman, the house’s previous owner. When she was still alive, she sacrificed her weel-old baby to the devil before killing herself in 1863 at 3:07, the exact time the clocks at the Perron house would stop.
Bathsheba Sherman would later possess Carolyn Perron and attempt to kill her children. But the Warrens would be able to stop them by performing an exorcism.
#17 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Starring: Marilyn Burns, Gunmar Hansen, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain
Directed by: Tobe Hooper
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was marketed to be based on a true story. This strategy by the movie producers was proven effective. The movie caught the attention of many horror fans, especially those coming from Texas.
It follows the story of five friends going on a road trip in rural Texas to visit their grandfather’s grave. Along the way, they would come across a hitchhiker. He talked about his family and revealed that they worked in a slaughterhouse. After a disagreement ensues between them and Franklin, one of the five friends, he slashes the latter’s arm prompting his friends to throw him out of the car.
Along the way, they stopped to refuel, only to be turned down by the proprietor. The proprietor told the group that there was no gas in the pumps. Despite the depleting fuel of their car, the group moved along their journey. While driving, they stumbled upon an old house. The group decides to stop and ask the owners for some gas. The move was a bad idea.
In the house lived a family of cannibals. The group was chased and eventually killed by a serial killer with a mask made out of leather from human skin. In the end, only one survived, and that was Sally Hardesty.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was well-received by the audience and would eventually go on and have other versions. Thus, making the killer Leatherface an iconic figure in the horror movie game.
#16 The Shining (1980)
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers
Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
The Shining is based on renowned American novelist Stephen King’s book with the same title. It follows the story of an aspiring writer named Jack Torrance. He is a recovering alcoholic who accepted a job as a caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in Colorado.
As his job entails, he and his family move into the hotel. Jack was warned by the hotel manager about the gruesome history of the hotel when he arrived at the hotel. He said the previous caretaker, Charles Grady, killed himself and his family inside the hotel.
Jack’s son, Danny, had psychic abilities and visions regarding the hotel. There was something sinister going on in the hotel that had something to do with its past, which had caused Jack’s mental health to deteriorate. He becomes crazed and tries to kill his family.
#15 The Fly (1986)
Starring: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz, Joy Boushel
Directed by: David Cronenberg
The Fly is an American science fiction-horror film. It talks about Seth Brundle, a scientist, and his invention gone wrong.
Seth was finishing doing his teleportation gadget. In his desire to try it, he tests it on himself. However, he overlooks the presence of a housefly that sneaked up during the procedure. This leads to a fusion between him and the fly. Though the teleportation was a success, the man-insect fusion caused him to turn into a monster.
His lover, science journalist Veronica “Ronnie” Quaife, saw that the man she loved was becoming a monster. She develops recurring nightmares that she will give birth to a maggot. Ronnie decides to get an abortion, but Seth overhears her worries. He tries to convince her to carry the baby to full term since it is the only remnant of his humanity.
Later, Seth reveals his plans of fusing the two of them to become ‘the ultimate family.’ Ronnie does not like the idea. She gets into an altercation with Seth. The two of them struggle until Ronnie successfully kills Seth.
#14 A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Starring: John Saxon, Ronee Blakely, Heather Langenkamp, Amanda Wyss
Directed by: Wes Craven
A Nightmare on Elm Street is considered to be one of the greatest horror movies ever made. It is an American supernatural slasher film. The main antagonist in this story is the iconic Freddy Krueger, a disfigured man wearing a blade-fixed glove.
Freddy Krueger hunts his victims through nightmares. His victims would dream of him and whatever happens in the dream comes true in real life. He was an unseen force that killed his victims while they were asleep and having nightmares.
In the movie, he terrorizes a group of friends. The storyline would, later on, reveal Freddy Krueger’s identity. This revelation is very crucial in the story. Freddy Krueger was a child murderer who killed twenty children. Unfortunately, the victims’ families did not get the justice they sought.
The vengeful parents took the matter into their own hands. They burned Freddy Krueger alive as a form of vigilante justice. This action has made him a vengeful ghost that terrorizes people in their dreams.
#13 The Evil Dead (1981)
Starring: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sanweiss, Betsy Baker, Hal Delrich
Directed by: Sam Raimi
Five Michigan State University students vacationing in a cabin in a middle of a wooded area stumble upon a tape recorder. They played the recorder, and a series of chants started playing.
The incantations release a demonic entity that would soon possess them one after the other, resulting in gory mayhem.
#12 The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Starring: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz
Directed by: Drew Goddard
The Cabin in the Woods is an American horror comedy. The horror movie is about five college friends taking what they thought was just an ordinary vacation. Unbeknownst to them, they will become sacrifices for an ancient ritual done to save humanity.
The ritual entails five human sacrifices, the whore, the jock, the scholar, the fool, and the virgin. The order of death is not chronological. However, the whore should always be the first to die, and the virgin is either the last to die or survive.
Complications in the ritual arise when the virgin, Dana, and the fool, Marty, survive the attacks by zombie-like creatures. The duo causes a lot of blood to be shed when they release the monsters hidden in the underground control center beneath the cabin.
Dana will then face the dilemma of killing Marty to save humanity or spare his life at the expense of the world. Ultimately, she decides that society is not worth saving, and the whole world crumbles.
#11 Halloween (1978)
Starring: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Loomis, P.J. Soles
Directed by: John Carpenter
Halloween is an American slasher film that has made a mark in horror movies. The film’s plot concerns a mentally ill serial killer, Michael Myers. Michael Myers was sent to a mental asylum after killing his teenage sister on a Halloween night when he was only six years old.
Fifteen years later, Michael Myers escaped the mental asylum where he was confined in. Coincidentally, it was also Halloween night. Yet again, he commits several murders in his hometown.
#10 The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine
Directed by: Jonathan Demme
In 1990, Jack Crawford of the Bureau’s Behavioral Science Unit summons Clarice Starling from her FBI training at the Quantico, Virginia FBI Academy. He assigns her to speak with incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist. Crawford thinks Lecter’s wisdom could be helpful in the hunt for “Buffalo Bill,” a psychopath serial killer who kills young ladies and strips their skin from their bodies.
Crawford thinks that Lecter might have information on a case, and that Starling, a beautiful young woman, might be the perfect lure to entice him.
#9 Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Starring: Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman, Keith Wayne
Directed by: George A. Romero
The Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American Horror film that deals with cannibalistic flesh-eating corpses or zombies.
When corpses start to emerge from the graveyard in quest of fresh human beings to consume, a diverse collection of people seek shelter in an abandoned house. The other survivors start to fear when the reanimated bodies near the home, despite the pragmatic Ben’s (Duane Jones) best efforts to handle the situation. The zombies start to find their way inside as the group’s order begins to break down, and one by one, the surviving people fall victim to the dead.
#8 Hereditary (2018)
Starring: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, Ann Dowd
Directed by: Ari Aster
Hereditary is an American supernatural psychological horror film. It deals with the struggles of a family due to an unseen evil force.
Annie Graham is a Miniature artist who lives with her psychiatrist husband Steve and their two children, Peter and Charlie. Everything was well in their household up until Annie’s mother died.
Her mother’s death caused a domino effect which caused their family to experience a series of sinister events. The first is the death of their daughter, Charlie, who was decapitated while riding a car on the way to the hospital.
Later on, Annie will discover a family secret. Her mother was Queen Leigh, the leader of an ancient Witch coven. She and her coven is the reason behind the sinister activities happening to them. All because of their wish to summon the demon King Paimon.
#7 It Follows (2014)
Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto, Jake Weary
Directed by: David Robert Mitchell
It Follows is an American supernatural psychological horror film. The film is about an entity that follows you wherever you go; if it catches you, it will kill you.
The film begins with a young woman named Annie. With fear in her eyes, she is seen running, scared of an unseen entity. She drives to the beach, where she is brutally murdered.
On the other hand, Jaime Height goes on a date with a new boyfriend, Hugh. They go to the movies, and in the middle of the show, Hugh points out a young girl that Jaime cannot see. Terrified, Hugh asks that they leave. After leaving, the two have sex in Hugh’s car. However, he uses chloroform to weaken Jaime before tying her up in a chair.
He explains that he had passed her an entity that is only passed through sexual intercourse. The entity will be following her from then on, no matter where she is. If the entity catches her, it will kill her. His claims are proven when a naked woman appears and walks toward her.
The next day, Jaime reports it to the police. But they cannot find Hugh or the naked woman. At school, Jaime sees an old woman walking toward her. The problem was, she was the only one who saw it. Because of this, she starts to believe Hugh.
Her friends quickly notice Jaime’s torments, and they start helping her. The group discovers Hugh’s real identity, revealing to them that he got the entity after having a one-night stand. After several efforts to protect Jaime from the entity, her friend and neighbor Greg convinces Jaime to have sex with him since he believes in the entity.
Later on, he will be killed by the entity. Another friend, Paul, engages in sexual intercourse with Jaime. But unlike Greg, he passed the entity to prostitutes in the town. At the movie’s end, Jaime and Paul are seen walking while a figure walks from behind them.
#6 The Babadook (2014)
Starring: Essie Davis, Daniel Henshall, Noah Wiseman, Hayley McElhinney
Directed by: Jennifer Kent
The Babadook is an Australian psychological horror film. It talks about a mother and son haunted by a monster called the Babadook.
Amelia Vanek is a widower living in Adelaide. Her husband Oskar died in a car accident while he was driving her to the hospital during labor. Sam, her now six-year-old son, begins to display erratic behavior. He also claims to have seen an imaginary monster.
The unseen monster begins to cause trouble for Sam. It scared him to the point that he had to create weapons against it which he had to bring to school, which caused him to be scolded by the teachers.
At night, Sam asks Amelia to read him a pop-up storybook called Mister Babadook. The book describes a tall pale-faced humanoid in a top hat with taloned fingers. The monster torments the victims after they become aware of its existence. After that, Sam begins to insist that Mister Babadook is real. She also starts to experience supernatural occurrences in the home.
Fed up, Amelia decides to rip the book apart. She thought that somehow it would cause a change in Sam’s behavior. On the other hand, Sam gets into trouble after he breaks his cousin’s nose. The event caused a rift in their families. On the way home, he suffers from a seizure and visions of Mister Babadook.
The following morning, Amelia finds the books in front of their doorstep. It had a warning for her. The book had taunting messages saying that Mister Babadook would continue to become stronger when she denies its existence. Since then, Amelia has been emotionally and mentally troubled. She will have visions of her killing their dog Bugsy and Sam.
Her visions would eventually come true. However, Sam manages to get her mother back to sanity before killing her. Amelia manages to capture Mister Babadook, and the story ends there.
#5 Jaws (1975)
Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Jaws is an American thriller film based on a novel by Peter Benchley. The story happens in a beach town in New England called Amity Island. It begins when an unseen force attacks a young woman named Chrissie Watkins after skinny dipping in the ocean.
Her partial remains would be seen by authorities the next day. Because of the incident, police chief Martin Brody decides to close the beaches. However, the town mayor, Larry Vaughn, fears closing the beach would make the town’s economy to suffer. The re-opening of the beach would lead to another death. The shark kills a young boy named Alex Kinter in broad daylight.
The death of the boy prompts the town to take the matter seriously. A $10,000 bounty is placed on the shark’s head, causing an amateur shark hunting. Local fishermen captured a tiger shark which they thought was the one who had made the attacks. However, consulting oceanographer Matt Hooper says that it was the wrong shark. Based on his examination of Chrissie’s body, the shark who attacked her was unusually large.
His claims are proven to be true when they saw that the shark’s stomach had no human remains in it. Despite his assertion that the only shark capable of making the attacks was a giant great white shark, Mayor Larry Vaughn continues to dismiss him.
Brody, Hooper, and fisherman Quint take the matter into their own hands after an incident on the 4th of July where a local boatman is killed by the shark while boating in the nearby lagoon.
The three men set to sail aboard the Orca, and they can come face to face with the shark. They concluded that the shark’s length is about 25 feet. They try various methods to kill the shark, which costs them the life of Quint. In the end, Brody and Hooper were able to kill the shark and save their people.
#4 A Quiet Place (2018)
Starring: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe
Directed by: John Krasinski
A Quiet Place is an American post-apocalyptic horror film. It tackles the story of a family living on post-apocalyptic earth surrounded by sightless aliens called Death Angels.
Death Angels, though sightless, have a keen sense of hearing. They have taken over the plant and killed most humans on earth.
The film follows the family’s journey as they navigate the Death Angels-infested world. The movie is terrifyingly good, with a few jump scares.
#3 Us (2019)
Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker
Directed by: Jordan Peele
Us is another masterpiece created by Get Out director Jordan Peele. It is an American psychological horror film that deals with doppelgangers.
The protagonist in this movie is Addy Wilson, a wife whose childhood encounters with her doppelganger traumatized her for life. Upon returning to her childhood home, Addy would soon relive the horrors that she had gone through when she was a child.
#2 Get Out (2017)
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford
Directed by: Jordan Peele
Chris Washington is an African-American man who has an interracial relationship with a white woman. He goes on a weekend trip with his girlfriend to meet her family.
He finds the gathering very strange and the people overly welcoming. The weird crowd would soon make sense when he finds out that his girlfriend’s family was involved in what seemed like a cult. Their family has been supplying African-American people to white folks in their golden years. His girlfriend’s grandfather has found a way to use neurosurgery and hypnosis to transfer people’s consciousness to another body. In this case, they like using African-American bodies.
#1 Psycho (1960)
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Psycho is often described as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most brilliantly made movies portraying the most unpleasant, mean, sly, and sadistic minds of people. It is an American psychological horror film based on the novel Psycho by Robert Bloch.
The movie follows the murders done by a serial killer with an alternate personality, Norman Bates. He takes the form of his abusive mother, which he killed ten years prior to the opening scene of the movie.
In the movie, embezzler Marion Crane tries to outrun the law after stealing $40,000 from her work. She then finds herself at Bates Motel, where she meets Norman Bates. She would be the first victim to die in the story after being stabbed while taking a shower. The story progresses from then onwards.