As a writer of horror stories and connoisseur of scary flicks, I get asked a lot what my favorite horror movies are. Well, it's not that simple with me (it never is; ask my wife and kids). There are so many and how can one possibly pick a favorite when there are favorites in so many subgenres? (It's like how my wife tells me she can have more than one best friend when "best" is a superlative, not a comparative.)
Anyway, as of this moment in time (subject to change), this is my list of favorite horror movies (and those that influenced my ideas and my writing) categorized by subgenre.
If you want to consider this your own "to watch" list, I won't stop you. It's a fantastic list (at least in my opinion) of the essential horror stories committed to film.
FYI, you will notice some crossover between subgenres, because, well, that's just the way horror works.
Ghost Stories
For me, ghost stories are my favorite genre of horror tales, and whether they're about a haunted person, house, or even plot of land, I'm all in. 1. The Orphanage
2. The Devil's Backbone
3. The Haunting (1953)
4. Thir13en Ghosts
5. The Others
6. Ju-on
7. The Ring (US version)
8. The Innocents
9. In a Dark Place
10. The Sixth Sense
11. The Shining12. Session 9
13. The Terror
14. Kwaidan
15. The Babadook
16. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
17. Dark Water (original)
18. Crimson Peak
19. Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman
20. The Changeling
The Living Dead
I'm really burned out lately on zombies, and I'm really tired of the "zombies as the apocalypse" theme. I love, however, to see directors and screenwriters do something new and different with the living dead, which for me also includes mummies and ghouls returned from the grave. 1. Dead Girl
2. Night of the Living Dead
3. Carnival of Souls
4. The Fog (original)
5. Tombs of the Blind Dead
6. Make Out With Violence
7. 28 Days Later
8. Dawn of the Dead
9. The Re-Animator
10. Zombi 2
11. Dead Snow12. Brain Dead
13. Dance of the Dead (2008)
14. Return of the Living Dead
15. Day of the Dead
16. Candyman
17. Hello, Mary Lou: Prom Night 2
18. The Ghost Galleon
19. Night of the Seagulls
20. Blood from the Mummy's Tomb
Dr. Frankenstein/The Monster
1. Deadly Friend
2. Bride of Frankenstein
3. The Bride
4. Frankenstein
5. Frankenstein Created Woman
6. May
7. Lady Frankenstein
8. Splice
9. Embryo
10. Demon Seed
11. Halloween III: Season of the Witch12. Depraved
13. The Spirit of the Beehive
14. The Curse of Frankenstein
15. Ex Machina
16. Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman
17. The Island of Dr. Moreau
18. The Golem
19. Tusk
20. Island of Lost Souls
Vampires
1. From Dusk Till Dawn
2. Forsaken
3. Dracula (Spanish Version)
4. Let the Right One In
5. Night Watch
6. Chronos
7. Shadow of the Vampire
8. Nosferatu
9. Prey
10. Salem's Lot (original TV miniseries)
11. Near Dark12. Dracula
13. Lost Boys
14. Fright Night
15. 30 Days of Night
16. Strigoi
17. The Night Stalker
18. Embrace of the Vampire
19. Taste the Blood of Dracula
20. The Brides of Dracula
Werewolves and Shapeshifters
1. Cat People (original)
2. Howling
3. Howling V: The Rebirth
4. An American Werewolf in London
5. The Wolfman (original)
6. The Reptile
7. The Gorgon
9. Cat People (remake)
10. Dog Soldiers
11. Silver Bullet
12. Blood and Chocolate
13. Underworld
14. The Wolfman (remake)
15. The Curse of the Werewolf
16. Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman
17. Ginger Snaps
18. Ginger Snaps Back
19. Skinwalkers
20. Night of the Cobra Woman
Demons
There are as many cultures of demons in the world as they're are countries and cultures of people. Although movies tend to default to the Western devil and demons, I wanted to include a few other brands of the demonic here as well.
1. Wishmaster
2. Sinister
3. The Beyond
4. The Exorcist
5. Lisa and the Devil
6. Rosemary's Baby
7. Drag Me To Hell
8. Jennifer's Body
9. The Evil Dead
10. Hellraiser11. Demons
12. Night of the Demons
13. The Garden (2006)
14. Insidious
15. The Exorcism of Emily Rose
16. The Last Exorcism
17. Nightmare on Elm Street
18. Antrum
19. Prince of Darkness
20. Hereditary
"Witches"/Cultists
Yeah, I know there's a huge different between horror movie witches, Wiccans, and nature worshippers, but for this list it if fits in any of those it works.
1. Suspiria
2. Black Sunday
3. City of the Dead (Horror Hotel)
4. The Dunwich Horror
5. The Wicker Man
6. The VVitch
7. The Babysitter
8. Midsommar
9. House of the Devil
10. Witching and Bitching11. Season of the Witch
12. The Virgin Witch
13. The Love Witch
14. Inferno
15. Mother of Tears
16. Rosemary's Baby
17. Blood on Satan's Claw
18. Witchouse
19. The Lords of Salem
20. The Autopsy of John Doe
Slashers
It's the genre that will never take a break, must less die. Knives, axes, machetes, pointy sticks, bows and arrows, you name it, these folks use any tools at their disposal to dispose of their victims for revenge or no motive at all. And we still love to watch them.
1. Twitch of the Death Nerve (Bay of Blood)
2. Peeping Tom
3. The Burning
4. Halloween
5. Sleepaway Camp
6. Friday the 13th Part II
7. Dementia 13
8. Hatchet
9. Audition
10. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre11. Stage Fright (2014)
12. Last House on the Left (original)
13. I Spit on Your Grave (original)
14. Theatre of Blood
15. The Visit
16. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
17. Martyrs
18. Final Girls
19. The Banana Splits Movie
20. Happy Birthday to Me
Creature Features
For my list, I'm separating supernatural and mutated creatures from the "Nature Gone Wild" critters. These monsters should be way about sharks and bears on the scary-ometer. And they are. The thing I love about this genre is that often the critters are more sympathetic than their prey.
1. Pumpkinhead
2. Gojira
3. She Creature
4. Pan's Labyrinth
5. The Creature from the Black Lagoon
6. Silent Hill
7. Dagon
8. Feast
9. Troll Hunter
10. Humanoids from the Deep11. Tremors
12. Nightbreed
13. The Mist
14. Digging Up the Marrow
15. The Host
16. The Bay
17. Jeepers Creepers
18. Tremors III
19. The Golem
20. Cellar Dweller
Nature's Monsters
You'll never go back into the water. You'll never venture alone in the woods. You won't piss off earthworms or birds anymore either.
1. Jaws
2. Cujo
3. The Birds
4. Eight-Legged Freaks
5. Piranha (original)
6. Chaws
7. Deep Blue Sea
8. King Kong
9. Orca
10. Squirm11. Willard
12. Empire of the Ants
13. Marabunta
14. Sssssss
15. Them!
16. Grizzly
17. Food of the Gods
18. Anaconda
19. Snakes on a Plane
20. Link
Aliens
At some point, sci-fi aliens shifted from adventure to horror, and I love it. Who says first contact should be with something we can categorize and tame? Certainly not these otherworldly killer critters?
1. Alien
2. Slither
3. A Quiet Place
4. John Carpenter's The Thing
5. The Blob (remake)
6. Species
7. Virus
8. Night of the Creeps
9. Bad Taste
10. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (remake)11. Phantasm
12. Pitch Black
13. Day of the Triffids
14. Planet of the Vampires
15. Galaxy of Terror
16. Dead Space: Downfall
17. Under the Skin
18. Killer Klowns from Outer Space
19. Ghosts of Mars
20. The Color Out of Space
Psychos
There's often a lot of crossover between psychos and slashers, but a true psycho is out of his/her/their mind. They over have little to no rationale for their killings, and or if they do, it's because of a break from sanity. They take the murderous urge above and beyond the average.
1. Nightmare in the Wax Museum
2. House of 1000 Corpses
3. Psycho
4. Misery
5. The People Under the Stairs
6. Pieces
7. The Devil's Rejects
8. The Boy
9. 2000 Maniacs
10. Eaten Alive11. Saw
12. Don't Breathe
13. The Collector
14. Dressed to Kill (and yes, there are problematic issues that don't translate well to today)
15. Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator
16. Christine
17. 31
18. The Devil's Rejects
19. Fade to Black
20. The Pit and the Pendulum
Creepy Kids
Creepy kids have to be the absolutely creepiest movie "monsters." But it's so easy to overdo them and turn a flick into a farce. There's a very fine line that must be walked for the story to avoid the "cornfield" motif from Twilight Zone.
1. Orphan
2. The Omen
3. Children of the Corn
4. Cooties
5. The Children (1980)
6. Hard Candy
7. Village of the Damned
9. You'd Better Watch Out
10. Wicked Little Things
11. Who Can Kill a Child
12. Alice, Sweet Alice
13. The Brood
14. Goodnight Mommy
15. Them (2006)
16. The Children (2006)
17. Kill, Baby, Kill
18. Case 39
19. Spider Baby
20. Pet Semetary
Holiday Horror
I love just about any horror flick that attached to a holiday. They can be so much fun, and typically they don't take themselves too seriously. Some though can be super creepy and terrifying, in spite of the holiday trappings (or often because of them).
1. Black Christmas (original)
2. Halloween
3. Rare Exports
4. Santa's Slay
5. Saint
6. Gremlins
7. April Fool's Day
9. Anna and the Apocalypse
10. Trick or Treat
11. Satan's Little Helper
12. A Christmas Horror Story
13. Wind Chill
14. Dead End
15. Santa Jaws
16. Letters to Satan Claus
17. Holidays
18. Krampus
19. Terror Train
20. Midsommar
Anthologies
Okay. A lot of anthologies kind of suck. Maybe one good segment in a bucket filled with crap. But a few, a select few, get it right. Maybe by theming with a good theme. Maybe by lining up great writers and/or directors. Or just maybe by getting lucky.
1. Trilogy of Terror
2. Trilogy of Terror II
3. Tales from the Crypt
4. From a Whisper to a Scream
5. V/H/S
6. Creepshow
7. The House that Dripped Blood
9. Southbound
10. The Field Guide to Evil
11. Trick 'r Treat
12. Creepshow 2
13. A Christmas Horror Story
14. V/H/S II
15. Dr. Terror's House of Horrors
16. Tales from the Hood
17. XX
18. The Uncanny
19. Cat's Eye
20. Ghost Stories
Creepy Comedy
There's a big difference to me between a comedy movie that adds tropes from horror and a horror flick that paces and dresses like a comedy during its run time. I tend to like them both. But the best is the kind that integrates both genres almost seamlessly.
1. Bubba Ho-Tep
2. Shaun of the Dead
3. House (with William Katt)
4. Monster Squad
5. Black Sheep
6. Fido
7. The Cottage
9. Doghouse
10. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
11. Love at First Bite
12. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (movie, not series)
13. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
14. Grabbers
15. Zombieland
16. Evil Dead II
17. Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy
18. Psycho Goreman
19. Young Frankenstein
20. Zombie Strippers
Giallo Horror
When Noir abandons black and white, it found the world of four-color gore and violence. This is one of my favorite genres to watch. I love the everyman aspect, caught up in a dangerous crime spree or mystery. And I love the way this type of film skirts the edges of horror tales and mystery stories.
1. Don't Torture a Duckling
2. Deep Red
3. Blood and Black Lace
4. Hatchet for the Honeymoon
5. Bird with the Crystal Plumage
6. Tenebre
7. The Case of the Bloody Iris
9. Kill, Baby, Kill
10. Four Flies on Velvet
11. Night of the Glass Dolls
12. The Red Queen Kills Seven Times
13. Black Belly of the Tarantula
14. Unsane
15. A Blade in the Dark
16. Whatever Happened to Solange?
17. Don't Look Now
18. Stage Fright
19. Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key
20. The Girl Who Knew Too Much
Body Horror
This one can be a tough genre to watch. It tends to revel in its super-gross-out ideas and images. It can be sickening down to its core concept (I'm looking at you Centipede). But when maintaining a fantastic story to accompany that imagery, they can be the most memorable stories around.
1. Videodrome
2. Blue My Mind
3. Dr. Jeckyll and Sister Hyde
4. Altered States
5. Shivers
6. The Human Centipede II
7. The Fly
9. Spring
10. Thale
11. Tetsuo the Iron Man
12. Society
13. The Fly (Jeff Goldblum)
14. Bug
15. Splinter
16. Dead Ringers
17. American Mary
18. Eraserhead
19. The Skin I Live In
20. Tusks
Voodoo
Voodoo is a mixed bag in horror. Some films treat it as a bogeyman and make up stuff left and right to give it more horror gravitas while some evil cast it as the "white man's fears of others" -- some select few at least try to treat it fairly as a religion. But whatever the bag it's put in, it's still the home of the original zombies.
1. White Zombie
2. The Serpent and the Rainbow
3. Scream Blacula Scream
4. Venom
5. Eve's Bayou
6. Sugar Hill
7. The Skeleton Key
8. Ritual
9. Jessabelle
10. I Walked with a Zombie
11. The Plauge of the Zombies
12. Black Mamba
13. The Curse of the Doll People
14. I Eat Your Skin
15. Ouanga
Gateway Horror for Kids
Even as a kid, I loved being scared by movies. Without these horror-themed entry-level flicks, where would kids like me have ended up? Some were designed to be horror-lite, but some just took elements of horror and wove them in to build in the creepy factor. Either way, they were my gateway drug as a kid.
1. Coraline
2. Corpse Bride
3. Monster Squad
4. Goosebumps (the movie)
5. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
6. The Gate
7. Willy Wonka
8. Monster House
9. The Watcher in the Woods
10. ParaNorman
11. Hocus Pocus
12. Little Monsters
13. Gremlins
14. The Lady in White
15. The Witches
Super Powers Gone Crazy
As a writer of superhero fiction, I love it when horror and superpowers mix. Call me a cynic, but I think if we have powers like that in the real world, they would more often lend themselves to moments of real horror more than boy scouts saving folks from falling buildings.
1. Phenomena
2. Carrie
3. The Fury
4. Firestarter
5. Brightburn
6. The Crow
7. New Mutants
8. Split
9. Scanners
10. Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Warriors
11. Akira
12. Dead Zone
13. Chronicle
14. Blade
15. Tourist Trap
Creepy Dolls
On the creepy scale, does anything rate higher than creepy dolls? I mean, really? (Okay, maybe clowns, but even that would be too close to call without a photo finish.) What is it about things that are almost lifelike that scares us so? Especially things that are inanimate. It there something in them that reflects something we don't want to face back at us?
1. Dolls
2. Puppet Master
3. The Boy
4. Dead Silence
5. Love Object
6. Magic
7. Dolly Dearest
8. Marronnier
9. Worry Dolls
10. Tourist Trap
11. Annabelle
12. Devil Doll
13. Bride of Chucky
14. Trilogy of Terror
15. The Devil's Machine
Stupid Shark Movies
I'll admit it. I love shark movies, both the genuinely awesome, scary ones that make me look twice at the ocean before entering the water at the beach AND the ones that are so stupid, so ridiculous that I simply laugh all the way through at the zany situations they create on celluloid. In fact, sometimes I prefer the really goofy ones, and the dumber the better.
1. Sharktopus
2. Sharknado
3. Santa Jaws
4. Sand Sharks
5. Ice Sharks
6. Ghost Shark
7. Two-Headed Shark Attack
8. Empire of the Sharks
9. Sharknado III
10. Planet of the Sharks
11. Trailer Park Shark
12. Jurassic Shark
13. Ouija Shark
14. Toxic Shark
15. Malibu Shark Attack
Torture Porn
1. Saw
2. Hostel
3. Cannibal Holocaust
4. Martyrs
Truly Weird/Genre Defying/Outliers
This last list is for my absolute favorite of horror flicks, the kinds that don't fit neatly, or often at all, into easily definable categories. This is the place where the truly gifted or the truly insane come to play. It's the kitchen where writers and directors operate with a blender and a spray nozzle more than with a paintbrush or a list of classic techniques and storylines. And it's were the best of the best in horror can usually be found (at least in my opinion).
1. House (Hausu)
2. Usumaki
3. Lake Mungo
4. Rubber
5. Dave Made a Maze
6. The Lift
7. In the Mouth of Madness
8. Lord of Illusions
9. From Beyond
10. Chopping Mall
11. Cabin in the Woods
12. The Woman
13. Jacob's Ladder
14. Freaks
15. Donny Darko
16. Us
17. Waxworks
18. The Deaths of Ian Stone
19. Irreversible
20. It Follows
21. Frontier(s)
22. The Broken
23. The Baby
24. Scare Me
25. Santa Sangre
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