Best Horror Anime To Creep You Out (Or Horror-Adjacent To Entertain You Through Your Halloween Hijinks)

First, we'll start with my lists because we all know that's what you're here for. (And you know how I looooove to make lists.) Some of these will be true horror, featuring hideous monsters, slashing serial killers, and bloody gore. Others will be horror-adjacent, featuring the tropes of horror stories or horror characters in non-horrific settings, such as headless detectives, monsters chillin' at school, and chosen ones with creepy BFFs.

The Top Twenty-One All-Time

1. Perfect Blue

2. Higurashi When They Cry

3. Serial Experiments Lain

4, Bakamonogatari (and the rest of the -gatari series) 

4. Angels of Death

6. Akira

7. Junji Ito Collection

8. Shiki

9. Yamibashi: Theater of Darkness

10. Blood C

11. Killing Bites

11. Another

13. Dead Space

14. Parasyte

15. Red Garden

16. Ghost Hunt

17. Call of the Night

18. Devil Lady

19. Hell Girl

20. Dusk Maiden of Amnesia

21. Demon City Shinjukin

Top Vampire Anime

1. Call of the Night
2. Shiki
3. Rosario +Vampire
4. Blood C
5. Nightwalker: Eternal Darkness
6. Dance in the Vampire Bund / 
7. Diabolik Lovers
8. A Dark Rabbit Has Seven Lives
9. Vampire Hunter D
10. Actually, I Am

Top Slasher / Serial Killer Anime

1. Perfect Blue
2. Higurashi When They Cry
3. Angels of Death
4. Another
5. Future Diary
6. Karakuri Circus
7. Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne
8. Ninja Scroll
9. Talentless Nana
10. The Magical Girl Site

Top Monster Anime

1. Akira
2. Parasyte
3. Dororo
4. Chainsaw Man
5. Frankenstein Family
6. Hellsing
7. Berserk
8. Claymore
9. Nyaruko: Crawling with Love
10. The Island of Giant Insects

Top Monster-Girls Anime

1. Bakamonogatari (and the rest of the -gatari series)
2. Monster Musume
3. Rosario + Vampire
4. Killing Bites
5. Journal of the Mysterious Creatures
6. Monster Girl Doctor
7. Interviews with Monster Girls
8. How Not To Summon a Demon Lord
9. Arifureta: From Commonplace To World’s Strongest
10. Omamori Himari

Top Ghost Anime

1. Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
2. Ghost Hunt
3. Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs
4. Ghost Stories
5. Corpse Party: Tortured Souls
6. Death Parade
7. Ghost Hound
8. Mononoke
9. The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window
10. Muhyo & Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation

Top Zombie Anime

1. Tokyo Ghoul
2. Attack on Titan
3. Dead Space
4. Sankarea: Undying Love
5. Corpse Princess
6. Is This a Zombie?
7. Kabeneri of the Iron Fortress
8. Zombieland Saga
9. High School of the Dead
10. LilyC.A.T.

Top Aliens Monster Anime

1. Parasyte
2. Red Garden
3. The Promised Neverland
4. Argento Soma
5. BEM

Top "And Then There Were None" / Deadly Games Anime

1. Angels of Death
2. Killing Bites
3. Future Diary
4. Akudama Drive
5. Darwin's Game

Top Monsters at School Anime

1. Rosario + Vampire
2. Beastars
3. Monster Musume
4. High School DxD
5. Testament of Sister New Devil
6. Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
7. Vermeil in Gold
8. Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-Kun
9. Sankarea: Undying Love
10. High School of the Dead

Top Horror Anthology Anime

1. Pet Shop of Horrors
2. Boogiepop Phantom
3. Yamibashi: Theater of Darkness
4. Junji Ito Collection
5. Hell Girl
6. Ayakashi: Samurai Horror
7. Mushi-shi
8. Boogiepop and Others
9. xxxHOLic
10. Monogatari

Top Demons/ Devils Anime

1. Demon City Shinjukin
2. Devil Lady
3. High School DXD
4. Testament of Sister New Devil
5. Devil Man
6. Devil May Cry
7. Hell Girl
8. Vermeil in Gold
9. Demon Slayer
10. Demon Lord Dante

Top Witch Anime

1. Witchcraft Works
2. Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches
3. The Ancient Magus Bride
4. Howl’s Moving Castle
5. Kiki’s Delivery Service
6. Puella Magi Madoka Magica
7. Burn The Witch
8. Witch Hunter Robin
9. Grimoire of Zero 
10. Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina

Top Yokai Anime

1. Undead Murder Farce
2. Kamisama Kiss
3. Spirited Away
4. Tsugumomo
5. Noragami
6. Mushi-shi
7. Spice and Wolf
8. Elegent Yokai Apartment Life
9. Into the Forest of Fireflies’ Light
10. Natsume’s Book of Friends

Other Lists

The following are also interesting lists of top horror anime, many of which -- you'll notice -- agree with me. 

10 Best Horror Anime That'll Give You Nightmares For Days

10 Best Horror Anime To Watch This Halloween

The Best Horror Anime of All Time

10 Best Horror Anime of All Time

Anime Monsters: 15 Of The Most Terrifying Creatures and Demons

Movie Reviews for Writers: Kiss of the Damned

 Because you’ve been so good this Halloween season, here’s an extra movie review for writers for your candy bag. Enjoy!

First off, Kiss of the Damned is a brilliant and beautiful arthouse vampire film. There's no denying that. It's obviously an homage to the surreal, dreamlike Eurosleaze of Jean Rollin's films. And like Rollin's work, this flick transcends the exploitive surface plot to say something deeper and at times rather profound about humanity -- through the metaphor of blood-sucking ghouls. 

Djuna is a solitary vampire who satiates her cravings with animal blood and uses her isolation to avoid her impulses to hunt. She's part of a new world order of vampires trying to create a new way of living for her kind without the fear of being hunted. Thankfully, her job as a translator allows her to maintain her solitary lifestyle.

Enter Paolo, a screenwriter who is both rocked by and rocks Djuna's world. Their attraction is instantaneous and undeniable. They are match and gasoline. And, wouldn't you just know it, he's not repulsed by the truth. Instead he welcomes her inviting him into the club. (Not a spoiler. It's literally in the first ten minutes of the movie.)

Enter Mimi, Djuna's sister. She's a bit more... let's say feral. She lives to hunt and uses sex as bait to attract her prey. And she's the monkey wrench thrown into Djuna and Paolo's little slice of vampiric heaven. 

When the film begins, Paolo is staying in town to get away and have undisturbed time to work on his new script. But he's way too much in his head. Even his agent tells him that he's too wrapped in writing something cerebral, something lifeless. Paolo treats his work as if he was above his audience in many ways. He's too smart for them. 

After he moves in with Djuna and begins their new life together as creatures of the night, his writing improves drastically. Where he once spent too much time in his own brilliant thoughts, he now writes with visceral intensity, even to the point of replacing introspection for action, something he had previously avoided because he couldn't write the adventure of living, just the analysis of it. 

When the agent visits, he is amazed by the change in Paolo's work -- for the better! This is something he can sell. This is something that is charged with emotion, with life. 

He learns this simple truth about what writers need. 

Writers must live. 

We can't hide ourselves behind a door and in front of a computer or typewriter (for the old-schoolers out there) and just make stuff up. We must have a well to draw from. We must have experiences to inspire us. We must know emotions and intensity to write emotions and intensity. 

You see, writers are a filter. Experiences are sifted through our word processors into fantasies for others to live through as well. Writers are a prism. We take in the life we live and refract it back in other shades and colors in ways that make it both fantastic and somehow more real. 

It's a truth that changes Paolo's work. And it will change mine and yours too. 

It's difficult to be a prism when you intentionally block the light source. It's nearly impossible to be a filter in a sterile environment without risk. 

But, not only that, we're also fragile. Our egos, or at least our personalities need validation that these projects we spend our time and pain and love and energy on are, well, worth reading, worth having created. 

While attending a post-performance party thrown by the head vampire, Xenia, a stage actress with a large following (and a bit of a diva), Djuna and Paolo tell her how much they enjoyed her performance. They tell her it has left them speechless, that they "have no words." 

Xenia laughs politely, then smiles and instructs them both: "Use words. Use many, many words." 

Like all artists, we writers crave recognition, even if we want to remain hidden from the public by our computer screens. It's why we push so hard to get reviews (and share so many memes about getting them). Even if we don't hear them face-to-face, we want the "many, many words."

We want to know that what we devote our attention and time to actually matters to people. 

After all, it's hard work being a filter and a prism and turning all this life into stories. It's only fair, right? 

Sara Freites: I Can't Ask for More

Sara Freites is not just a gifted writer but a friend. When we first met, I got way too much fun kidding her about her age (or lack of it at that point -- she has gotten a little older now, but she still doesn't look it, and yes, I'm super jealous. I met her while she was focusing on her cosplay work, but I'm super proud of the writer she has become more recently, and I figured it was high time to introduce her to you. 

Tell us a bit about your latest work.

My book Rise of Midnight is a YA fantasy novel about a teenage girl named Autumn. She gets kidnapped by vampires who tell her that she’s the reincarnation of their elder vampire leader, and the reason they took her in is they need her help in sending a demon back to hell with powers she didn’t know she had from her past life. 

What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer?

I started reading the Animorph series at a young age and it was all over after that lol. I made up a character while reading the books that was “me” and I would pretend I was a part of the story. It led to me writing short stories, poetry, and eventually my first novel. 

What inspires you to write?

Anime and instrumental music.

What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?

Inner growth and finding oneself.

What would be your dream project?

Oh, I have a few...but something that would be turned into an animation.

What writers have influenced your style and technique?

KA Applegate, Anne Rice, Stephanie Meyer and Arthur Golden

If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?

It would be my first book, I would have shortened the beginning so that the action started a little sooner. That book is a slow burn and builds up, and I found that the slow start has turned some readers away from reading on.

Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Why?

Omg, both. I believe you do have to have some level of talent to write, but you also have to learn and build on your writing skills. I found reading others' work has helped me.

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

I am a VERY slow writer LOL it takes me forever to have something finished and ready for my actual editor’s eyes 🤣 that and I always want to go back and change things last minute.

How do your writer friends help you become a better writer? Or do they not?

Bouncing ideas off them, reading their work, and sometimes just listening to their ideas. I like to see how others work and think.

What does literary success look like to you?

To me, being published by a big publishing company, having your books in most bookstores, and possibly having a movie/TV adaption. I know I shoot for the moon LOL BUT...once reality sets in... I think just writing a book and putting it out there. I did the thing and finished a book. And I have a lot of people supporting me. I can’t ask for more. 

Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?

I am working on the sequel to my 1st book called Rise of Daybreak, coming in December! I am also working on 2 other non-related fiction books. No official titles yet.

For more information, visit: 

s.a.f.ire_art on IG!

Vampires for Valentines: Dark Oak releases The Cabin By Linda DeLeon

The bodies are adding up,
but the clues aren't...

"The place was perfect. It was far enough from town to be in the middle of nowhere and close enough he could return to his home so that no one would miss him. Walking back outside, he surveyed his surroundings. Not far from the back of the house was a murky swamp. He smiled. In case of emergency, it would serve as the perfect place to dispose of an unwanted body."

Young healthy men and women are dying mysteriously after being found non-responsive at different places around town. No matter what the ER team tries to save them, they fail. The only clues left on the bodies are minor scratches and small puncture wounds. Detective Mason knows that he is on the trail of a careful yet bizarre serial killer. He has followed the deaths and clues from city to city. Now, with the help of a nurse, he may finally be closing in on the killer if he can control his own dark secret before more bodies come in drained of blood.

Only a vampire needs that much blood.

For more information: http://www.darkoakpress.com/cabin.html

Submission: Blood Type -- An Anthology of Vampire SF on the Cutting Edge

Imagine, if you will, a collection of stories that represent the most cutting edge science fiction-based vampire fiction. Think SF-based vampire fiction like I Am Legend and Necroscope and how they affected the vampire genre when they were first released. Dark Vampire SF that goes where the genre hasn't before. That is what I want to aspire to for this anthology. 

The Charity:
All net proceeds from sales of this anthology will go to The Cystic Fibrosis Trust.
In the time since my fiction has been on the market, I've found a lot of friends online. One of these friends has a daughter with Cystic Fibrosis. This friend has been one of the biggest supporters of my fiction and I would like to repay her by giving to the very foundation that is helping her daughter in so many great ways: The Cystic Fibrosis Trust, a UK-based charity that assists those suffering with CF.

Here's more about The Cystic Fibrosis Trust from their website:
"Since it was established in 1964, the Cystic Fibrosis Trust has actively supported excellence in research and clinical care, as well as providing practical support and advice to people with Cystic Fibrosis and their families. We are the only UK-wide charity focusing solely on CF.
 
We believe that everybody living with CF deserves the best possible quality of life with access to the best quality care and with a real hope for a better future. We will support them and their families to make this happen.

To do this, we fund high quality research to understand CF better and to develop new and better treatments, we set standards of CF care and review services to make sure they are meeting those standards, and we provide information and advice to people with CF and their families."

The Indiegogo fundraiser:
I've created an Indiegogo fundraiser for Blood Type to help raise funds to pay the authors. Most charity anthologies aren't able to pay their contributors and I wanted to do something different for a change. My goal is to raise enough money to pay pro rates for all accepted stories. But the great thing about Indiegogo is that if I don't meet my goal, I still receive the funds that are donated, so no matter what, whatever funds that are raised will be split between the contributing authors.

Please take the time to check out the page, there are some great perks. Just donating $5 gets you an early ebook copy of the final anthology. Some of the other perks for higher contributions include your name listed in the acknowledgements, bookmarks, a trade paperback copy, to be added to a mailing list that will receive all of my current and future ebook titles, a trade paperback copy signed by me along with bookmarks signed by the individual authors, a special thanks in the dedication and you get a character in one of the stories named after you.

The fundraiser can be found here:  http://www.indiegogo.com/bloodtypeanthology

Submission Guidelines:
Submissions open October 1st 2012 and last through December 31st. Unpublished stories only. Full fledged horror is welcome but each story must have a strong science fiction element at its core or a particularly strong science fiction outside element.

Stories should be in standard manuscript format (Times New Roman font preferred, 12pt, and double spaced) 1,500 to 10,000 words with a preference in the 1,500 to 5,000 range. Payment upon publication will be an author copy and at least a token payment to be determined by the amount of funds the anthology raises through Indiegogo.

Send submissions to:
bloodtypesubmissions@gmail.com

To clarify what types of stories I'm looking for to fill this anthology: 
To me science fiction isn't just robots, space, and rockets. Science fiction is great fiction based in any branch of science, be it astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology--hell, geology if you can make it work. Whatever.

The first story I accepted is a great story by Michael Collings called Accommodation. In this story the science fiction element that stuck out to me most was more of a social element, but the whole story is founded on it.

Overall what I'm looking for is a balance of two things. 1. A great story with great characters. 2. Innovative science fiction ideas at the core of the story or very strongly in the outer elements of the story. In a nutshell I want a resonating story with great characters that will blow my mind intellectually.
 

Be sure and like Blood Type on Facebook for the latest updates!