Horrormovies employ human fears to create entertainment. They feature circumstances that reflect collective sources of anxiety among viewers. However, it’s nigh impossible to define a particular blueprint for horror cinema because it’s perhaps the genre that is most commonly experimented with. Narratively, however, it is common for there to be a villain ora villainous entity that represents a specific fear, although that can also come in the form of a circumstance where no explicit villain exists. For instance, parental anxieties are commonly featured, giving ushorror movies that hit differently as a parent.
Horror cinema often reinvents itself with unique perspectives and narrative approaches that are designed to throw viewers off. A common form of misdirection employed, for instance, is introducing an unexpected aspect to the identity of the villain. Some of thebest horror movies have villain twists, and some shockingly reveal that theirhorror movie heroes were the real villainsall along. So, like any horror movie buff, I have come to expect subversion and reinvention, but every so often, a horror movie comes along that’s unlike anything I have ever seen.
Directed by Bruce McDonald
Pontypool
Pontypool is a psychological horror film directed by Bruce McDonald, based on the novel Pontypool Changes Everything by Tony Burgess. The story unfolds in a small town where a radio DJ and his crew discover a deadly virus is spreading through the English language. As they broadcast from their studio, they grapple with the unfolding chaos and strive to decode the phenomenon.
Zombie movies are characterized by collective panic and the necessity of maintaining physical distance so you don’t get bitten. This is why almost all works in the genre offer extensive action scenes or chase scenes. FromTrain to Busan, one of thebest horror movies in the past 10 years, to Edgar Wright’s iconic horror comedy movieShaun of the Dead, action plays a major part in these films.
Pontypooldoesn’t entirely lack action sequences, but it’s not focused on the fight against the zombies, especially physical altercations. The uniqueness of the zombification process makes it practically meaningless to fight because the condition doesn’t spread through biting. In fact, none of the zombies inPontypoolare attacking others just because they need food, so they don’t explode. What’s ingenious is thatthe disease spreads through spoken English, and no one knows which word will turn them into a zombie. I’ve never seen any other movie basing its horror on the fear of speech and language.
Directed by Tarsem Singh
The Cell
Psychologist Catherine Deane uses experimental technology to enter the mind of a comatose serial killer to find his latest victim. Inside his twisted subconscious, she faces horrifying visions and his darkest secrets. As time runs out, Catherine must navigate his nightmarish psyche to save the girl and herself.
The ’90s and 2000s shot Jennifer Lopez to fame both as a pop star and an actress, butThe Cellflew under the radar and continues to do so, despite being a commercial hit at the time of release. She plays the protagonist, a psychiatrist with a particularly unique approach to therapy – entering the minds of her patients to better understand their issues.
The Cellwas nominated for an Academy Award for Best Makeup in 2001.
When a serial killer suddenly goes comatose right when he’s caught, law enforcement has no way to find his latest victim. So, the psychiatrist enters his mind, and this is where Tarsem Singh’s imaginative direction shines through the brightest. The eerie atmosphere, the haunting imagery, and the use of fantasy elements later,to represent the serial killer’s mind, also allowed him to create an innovative horror movie setting. The violent and gory visuals and the idea of exploring a serial killer’s psyche may put many viewers off, butThe Celldeserves more love than just its cult following.
Directed by Quentin Dupieux
Rubber
Rubber is a 2010 film that follows a group of people gathered in the California desert to watch a sentient, homicidal car tire named Robert. Set in the late 1990s, the narrative unfolds as Robert becomes fixated on a mysterious woman and causes chaos in a desert town.
It is difficult to convince someone thatRubberis better than it sounds, but I wonder why it needs to be. It is about a tire that comes to life and whimsically kills people because he’s attracted to a woman, while bystanders watch him and pass commentary about moments in life that make little to no sense. It isa chaotic mess of a story that lacks coherenceand even loops back to the beginning when it ends, but it’s a joyous ride if you surrender to the lightheartedness of the film.
Rubberis ahorror movie that gets a lot of flak, but I love itanyway because its self-referential sense of humor grows on me every time I watch it again. Moreover, there never was nor will be a horror movie likeRubber. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the uniquely meta approach to making a horror movie, which simultaneously critiques both the process of making horror films and the process of watching them, deserves to be seen at least once in a lifetime.
Directed by Christopher Landon
Freaky
Freaky is a film directed by Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day 2U) and centers around a young girl in high school that swaps bodies with a deranged serial killer. When four teenagers are found dead, the Blissfield Butcher’s re-emergence has made the town somewhat on alert. While waiting for her ride home at the end of a football game, Millie Kessler is attacked by the butcher with a mysterious dagger called La Dola, which then swaps the two into one another’s bodies in a Freaky Friday-like fashion. Millie discovers that to get back to her original body, she needs to get her friends and family to believe that their bodies have swapped - and she needs to reverse the ritual in twenty-four hours, or the switch will remain permanent.
Happy Death Dayis one of thosegood movies that I had very low expectationsfor. It won me over with its unexpectedly gory murders that somehow blend perfectly into the time-loop trope that’s more popular in comedy and romance movies. So, it is no surprise that when its director, Christopher Landon, tried his hand at blending another familiar comedy trope with horror later withFreaky, it yielded relatively glorious results.
I rarely see such invested physical comedy as Vince Vaughn’s performance as a teenage girl.
Freaky Fridayis one of the most iconic comedy films of the 2000s.Freakyblends that with the slasher genre by havinga teenage girl switch bodies with a middle-aged male serial killer. Vince Vaughn and Katherine Langford play the two characters respectively, or vice versa. I rarely see such invested physical comedy as Vince Vaughn’s performance as a teenage girl. Langford as the murderous villain is compelling as well, and the film, quite likeHappy Death Day, doesn’t shy away from depicting gory kills.
Directed by Chris Nash
In a Violent Nature
In a Violent Nature is a 2024 horror-slasher film written and directed by Chris Nash that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024. A group of campers in the middle of the wilderness stumble across a fire watchtower and discover a locket buried beneath its charred ruins. However, by unearthing the locket, they’ve invited the wrath of its prior owner and now must survive the rampage of a supernatural killer looking to retrieve his possession.
One of my favorite horror movies ever is the firstHalloweenmovie. Michael Myers is an iconic villain, and as much as the quality of the films has declined as the franchise has grown, I’ve not grown tired of watching him go on his murderous rampages in every movie. However, my favorite scene in the entire franchise involves him long before he becomes the universally feared killer. The first five minutes ofHalloweenwill always beclassic horror moviefootage because John Carpenter chose to present it in the POV of a young Michael Myers committing his first murder.
So, imagine my awe when I watchedIn a Violent Nature, and it turned out to be almost entirely filmed from the killer’s perspective! We first meet Johnny – who I hope becomes a new slasher icon, and we get more movies featuring him – when his corpse rises from the ground after a group of kids discovers his locket and one of them picks it up. WatchingIn a Violent Naturefeels like being inside my favorite horror genre becauseI get to follow a slasher villain from his point of view.
Directed by Goran Stolevski
You Won’t Be Alone
You Won’t Be Alone is a 2022 supernatural drama directed by Goran Stolevski. Set in 19th-century Macedonia, the film follows the life of a young girl who is transformed into a witch by an ancient spirit. As she explores her new identity, she assumes the lives of various villagers, gaining insights into human nature. The film stars Noomi Rapace, Alice Englert, and Anamaria Marinca.
If you’re alreadynervous about AI, you should avoid moviesthat depict its attempts to take over humanity, especially through endeavors to become human. However, it is particularly disorienting only because AI is currently growing in power in today’s world. Horror and sci-fi movies have long explored the experiences of extraterrestrial and supernatural entities attempting to behave like humans.
One of the most imaginative uses of this premise can be found in the Indie horror filmYou Won’t Be Alone.It has horror movie elements with its premise of witchery and its gory moments, butYou Won’t Be Aloneisbeautifully meditative about the human experience. A shapeshifting witch moves from body to body, and the film explores what it means to be human through her perspective. I particularly love how it blends body horror with the joy of discovery to depict the bittersweet nature of having a human body.
Directed by Julia Ducournau
Titane
Titane is a French horror drama directed by Julia Ducournau. Agathe Rousselle stars as Alexia, a woman with a titanium plate in her head who leads a violent and unconventional life.
It wasn’t until I sawRaw(2017), featuring one of the mostshocking horror movie moments that made me audibly gasp, that I was sold on the horror genre. I have since seen a ton of horror movies and developed a taste for the genre in all its forms. However, nothing could have prepared me for what director Julia Ducournau had to offer with her solo sophomore directorial feature.
Rawwas screened in the Critics' Week section of the Cannes Film Festival 2016, butTitanecompeted for, and won, the Palme d’Or in 2021, and Ducournau’s latest film,Alpha, is competing for the prestigious award in 2025.
Within the first fifteen minutes ofTitane, the protagonist is impregnated by a car. I couldn’t believe what I watched, even after watching it a second time. The cinematography and practical effects are smartly executed to portray the occurrence with a nonchalance that throws me off every time. What follows is even more bizarre, asshe starts growing a metal-human hybrid fetusinside her, which cuts through her skin as her pregnancy develops. Through its beautifully weird narrative,Titaneponders upon love, gender fluidity, the malleability of the human body, and the role of technology in our lives.
Directed by Ari Aster
Midsommar
Ari Aster’s Midsommar follows a group of American college students who travel to a friend’s isolated rural hometown in Sweden to experience their renowned midsummer festival. What starts out as idyllic quickly becomes a disconcertingly violent pagan ritual, with the friends engaged in a ruthless competition that will test more than just their friendship. Florence Pugh stars alongside Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, and William Jackson Harper.
While it’s reductive to associate an entire genre with a specific aesthetic, I usually think of horror cinema as pertaining to scary elements and the fear of the unknown, usually presented in an appropriately dark space.Shady alleys, long shadows, and a dim color paletteare common to some of the most iconic horror movies, where the bright red of gushing blood and cold metallic blue of dimly lit corridors break the pattern.
I no longer know if I can adhere to that impression, because Ari Aster throws all caution to the wind withMidsommar. It has one of the brightest color palettes in cinema history, and it is one of the goriest and most psychologically disturbing horror movies of all time. Florence Pugh delivers one of thebest A24 movie performancesto portray the emotional torment of watching ritualistic suicide and other terrifying customs that paint a portrait of unspeakable violence on a flowery canvas of white.
Directed by John McPhail
Anna and the Apocalypse
Based on a short film created by Ryan McHenry, Anna and the Apocalypse is a holiday-themed comedy horror-musical by director John McPhail. Set in Little Haven, Scotland, Anna and her friends prepare for a big Christmas show at their school until they discover zombies have overridden the town. Anna and her friends will battle armies of zombified Christmas-costumed residents in a comedically horrific holiday fight for survival.
It isn’t rare forhilarious horror comedy moviesto focus on zombies.Shaun of the Dead,Go Goa Gone, andZombielandare some of my favorites in the genre. Christmas movies, often associated with sweet romantic stories or goofy family shenanigans, can also be action-packed films.Die Hardis my favorite Christmas movie, and I considerBlack Christmasone of the best slasher films. Given my love for musicals, it’s not surprising that I love a movie that combines those three seemingly conflicting genres – zombie horror, Christmas, and musical.
The titular Anna embodies the energy of a rising pop star.
Anna and the Apocalypsefeels likeGleemeetsShaun of the Deadin a small town. The story isn’t new, but a few of the characters are memorable and compelling, the soundtrack is so catchy that I hummed some of the songs for a week after watching it, andthe ball pit gag lives rent-free in my head. The titular Anna embodies the energy of a rising pop star, and the sheer contrast of that with her circumstances makesAnna and the Apocalypseendlessly entertaining.
Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi
House
House is a Japanese horror-comedy film released in 1977 and was directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi. A schoolgirl and her group of friends travel to the countryside to visit her aunt only to discover the house is haunted as it slowly consumes the girls.
Slow-paced, atmospheric horror with suspense that builds up to a few moments of intensely violent altercation entertains me the most. The energy one commonly associates with horror movies is the energy of the chase, the intense survival instinct of characters in grave danger, and often the excessive energy displayed by murderous villains who go to extreme lengths for their scary acts. Psychotic breakdowns and unexpectedly intense physical reactions aren’t uncommon either.
So, eccentric and whimsical aren’t words that one would commonly use to describe horror movies. While they do reflect some of the creative choices that went into Nobuiko Obayashi’sHouse, even the word weird doesn’t scratch the surface. A haunted house that feels like it would have beenthe setting of a chaotic comedy musical if the tone were lighterbecomes the setting for skeletons to break into dance and furniture to turn vicious. The character drama and the horror provide a similar contrast in narrative as the visuals of terrifying horror and random goofiness.
