Horror movies are meant to be spooky. They are meant to scare you. Unfortunately some movies are too good at it. Here are some of such scary movies that you don’t want to watch alone.
Possession (1981)
Even in a list of macabre and repulsive movies, it is an achievement for any entry to stand out as the weirdest. This movie is bonkers. Possession is a strange and disturbing creature feature directed by Andrzej Zulawski and starring Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani that is ultimately about divorce. In this film, characters do the exact opposite of what you would expect at any given turn, and the scenes of body horror serve as potent metaphors for the loss of a child or being cheated. Even while watching it, it’s difficult to determine what is supposed to be “real,” and it creates a fever dream-like experience. It’s the first movie of its kind. There has never been a more memorable, puzzling, or well-performed horror work.
Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
This quiet character study is perhaps one of the best horror films about the psychological effects of war: Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins), a Vietnam veteran and postal worker who slowly begins to doubt his sanity or reality itself. Several sequences in the film, such as the gurney ride through a hellish hospital littered with body parts, blood, and inhuman monsters gone mad, influenced horror media for decades afterward, heavily influencing the Japanese horror video game series Silent Hill. It has become a noted cult classic over the decades, lauded for both its vivid imagery and its deep melancholy.
Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
Incredibly terrifying and borderline unwatchable, this movie is the most horrific on the list. Several countries banned it for decades. If you watch it, you might not finish it; if you do finish it, you might not want to watch it again. There can truly be no way to emphasize how emotionally brutal this film is, a loose parable about fascism in which a castle full of aristocrats kidnaps teenagers and tortures them for months. There are no jump scares in this film – the monsters are bland and human. In it, the strong perpetrate the most atrocious acts on the weak and powerless, and the weak are left to suffer the consequences. We’re talking about the worst acts that can possibly occur – this film is outright banned in places like Australia and the United Kingdom. While it’s an important film that resonates (and has been preserved in the Criterion Collection), it’s also gross, it’s horrid, and it will stay with you forever.
Return of the Living Dead (1985)
This offshoot of the George Romero Living Dead movies is one of the most goofily enjoyable zombie movies of all time, but it doesn’t go so far into ridiculousness that you can’t take it seriously. The film examines the aftermath of a zombie uprising caused by acid rain on a party of dirtbag ravers. In spite of its funny, dated style, the content seems fresh, even though the characters do not. Horror films are notorious for characters acting unrealistically and making fatal mistakes – and this film excels in that regard. Most people behave the way you think they would, freaking out appropriately and taking sound measures to defend themselves from a monstrously overwhelming threat. Running, hiding, barricading and strategizing on the fly, they are barely able to hide their shock. Many zombie movies fall into the self-serious trap of being too serious about their material, from Night of the Living Dead to The Walking Dead, and Return avoids it with aplomb. It’s not a parody, just a fun ride.
Goodnight Mommy (2014)
The Austrian feature from 2014 is a master class in making the audience feel terrible. It involves two twins who develop Capgras syndrome, believing that a fake has taken the place of their mother, disfigured in an accident and lost in depression. In an excruciating way, the story unfolds with train wreck inevitability as their investigation turns into an excruciating game, testing the audience’s faith in a seemingly innocuous setting. It is a conservative story, with plenty of blank spaces and patches of silence where a lesser film would resort to exposition, letting the audience make inferences about the plot on their own. In other words, the film isn’t really about surprises, or a twisty-turny storyline, as much as it is about the horror of watching children do unspeakable things. But, it does make you feel uncomfortable.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Found-footage project that launched a thousand copycats (and a couple of sequels) that failed to capture the haunted, pine-scented atmosphere of the original. A low-budget camcorder movie turns the forest into a monster, where every tangle of twigs and leaves assumes an eerie suspicion. As a pack of young filmmakers circle the wilderness, lost and increasingly certain they are being hunted, the film can be read many ways – as an exploration of madness, hubris, isolation, and distrust, while it’s also a straight-up ghost story. The Blair Witch is an enigma, never appearing onscreen, maybe even not real. A sense of uncertainty is at the heart of what horror is – fear, and a sense of helplessness in the face of the unknown.
The Exorcist (1973)
The Exorcist stories have become horror legends. Audiences were getting sick and passing out, the production was haunted, and the director violently terrorized his cast. None of these stories would be as compelling if the film at the center of it all wasn’t any good, and it’s not just good – it’s incredible. A horror film as much about medical horror as religious horror, The Exorcist wouldn’t work nearly as well if it weren’t superbly crafted in every way. There is a sense of dread in every scene; the characters are haunted not by ghosts, but by their own mistakes. Regan, the girl who becomes possessed, turns into a bedridden monster spewing curses and pea soup, throwing furniture and profane insults at anyone who dares challenge the Devil. Possession and Exorcist are still the standards by which all others are measured – and most of them fall short. In the decades since it was released, it has become a common choice for the greatest horror movie of all time – and a perfect, grotesque tour de force that goes places movies today would never dare.
