The Best Horror Movies To Watch If You Hate Horror Movies

HALLOWEEN APPROACHETH.

You're Next (2011)

Lionsgate

Directed by: Adam Wingard

Written by: Simon Barrett

The Davison family has assembled deep in the middle of nowhere to celebrate their parents’ wedding anniversary when their house is suddenly descended upon by a gang of masked, ax-wielding killers. They clearly think the family is going to be an easy target, and most of them are; they meet their match, however, when a guest of the family turns out to be significantly better at murdering the heck out of people than they are.

Watch if you love: Plot twists on plot twists, ladies kicking ass and taking names, people not doing unbelievably stupid things in horror movies.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

Say Ahh Productions

Directed by: Ana Lily Amirpour

Written by: Ana Lily Amirpour

Part vampire movie, part spaghetti Western, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is the story of Iranian ghost town Bad City — which is home to a lonesome vampire.

Watch if you love: Beautiful films, a strange and whimsical sense of melancholy, vampires that don't sparkle.

Lyle (2014)

Stewart Thorndike and Alex Scharfman

Directed by: Stewart Thorndike

Written by: Stewart Thorndike

Inspired in part by Rosemary's Baby, the plot of Lyle — a pregnant woman named Leah (Gaby Hoffman) is convinced there's a conspiracy around her unborn baby after losing her first child, the titular Lyle, in a bizarre accident — is more psychologically dense. The film sticks close to Leah's point of view, exploring the themes of loss, grief, and what feels like a splintering marriage with her wife June (Ingrid Jungermann). The question of whether it's all in her head, plus her startling loneliness and a vague atmosphere of paranoia create a tight, eerie, and quite memorable film.

Watch if you love: Gaby Hoffman (who is incredible in this role), questioning the supernatural, conspiracy theories.

Housebound (2014)

Semi-Professional

Directed by: Gerard Johnstone

Written by: Gerard Johnstone

Kylie Bucknell (Morgana O'Reilly) couldn't wait to get the hell out of the home she grew up in — but now a court has put her on home detention, and she is forced to live with her mother Miriam (Rima Te Wiata), a woman who won't shut up about how haunted she's convinced the place is. While it has its share of scares, Housebound is a hilarious film with a deadpan sense of humor, clever and unpredictable.

Watch if you love: Cabin in the Woods, genre satire, sarcasm, any ghost-hunting show that involves loudly harassing the dead.

Trollhunter (2010)

Filmkameratene A/S

Directed by: André Øvredal

Written by: André Øvredal

A group of students set out to make a documentary investigating a series of strange bear killings in a remote forest. There, they meet a man who is investigating the same thing — and turns out to be a government-employed troll hunter. Set in Norway, Trollhunter is a visually stunning film filled with arresting landscapes, whose primary special effects are used elegantly and to great effect.

Watch if you love: Adventure movies, documentaries, those shows where people try to find monsters and always fail, beautiful landscapes.

The Apparition (2012)

Warner Bros

Directed by: Todd Lincoln

Written by: Todd Lincoln

This movie is so hilariously bad that it winds up being incredibly enjoyable. The madness begins when Patrick (Tom Felton) holds a séance to summon a ghost; smash-cut to Ben (Sebastian Stan) moving into a new home with his girlfriend Kelly (Ashley Greene). This home soon becomes inhabited by what is easily the most forlornly ineffectual ghost ever encountered in a horror movie. The movie drags a little in places, and there is an unfortunate (but not at all gory) dog murder, but the ridiculous ending of the film makes up for it. I paid $5 to rent this on iTunes and it was worth every penny.

Watch if you love: Doing that thing where you watch every single movie (however terrible) of your faves, watching bad movies with your friends and some popcorn, yelling at your TV screen.

Ravenous (1999)

20th Century Fox

Directed by: Antonia Bird

Written by: Ted Griffin

Second Lieutenant Boyd (Guy Pearce) gets exiled to a small Army fort in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where he encounters Colqhoun (Robert Carlyle), the alleged lone survivor of a traveling wagon train. Colqhoun tells a story of how the members of his wagon trail resorted to cannibalism for survival and the rest of the soldiers at the fort decide to go look for survivors. Soon they begin to discover that Colqhoun’s story isn’t what it seems. Ravenous seamlessly flows from mood to mood, balancing tension and humor, aided by an eclectic score and terrific energy from its cast.

Watch if you love: Cannibals with a sense of humor, a badass soundtrack, a cannibal movie that isn’t reliant on gore, Guy Pearce managing to remain very serious despite everything happening around him.

Cure (1997)

Daiei Studios

Directed by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Written by: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

A frustrated detective (Koji Yakusho) deals with the case of several gruesome murders committed by people who have no recollection of what they've done. The only clue he has to go on is an "x" carved into the neck of every victim. Cure is deeply unsettling and is composed of several long scenes that simmer to a point where the audience will begin to freak out simply because we'll let our anticipation run wild. Kurosawa also manipulates everyday sounds to build atmosphere, so we're never uncomfortable even when we know nothing bad will happen at the moment.

Watch if you love: Atmospheric horror, films that use sound really well, long takes, the unknown, serial killers.

Hausu (1977)

Toho

Directed by: Nobuhiko Obayashi

Written by: Chiho Katsura

A teenager girl (Kimiko Ikegami) upset by her father’s decision to marry again takes six of her classmates to visit her ailing aunt’s country home. They soon realize the house and its supernatural inhabitants are trying to devour all the girls alive. Obayashi was influenced by ideas from his daughter while making this film, and it shows in the way this movie plays up the idea of how children's imaginations can run away from them.

Watch if you love: Films bursting with vivid colors, giant floating cat-head ghosts, over the top acting, people eating pianos.

Body Snatchers (1993)

Warner Bros.

Directed by: Abel Ferrera

Written by: Raymond Cistheri, Larry Cohen

Steve Malone (Terry Kinney) and his family get transferred to a military base for his job at the Environmental Protection Agency. His daughter (Gabrielle Anwar) soon discovers that members of the military base are being replaced by replicated plantlike aliens. Abel Ferrera puts his own twist on the Body Snatchers films by making a film that serves as an allegory for the military and the American family. It's also the most beautifully filmed of three Body Snatchers film adaptations.

Watch if you love: The Body Snatcher movies, horror movies with strong teen leads, social commentary on militarism, early-'90s background music.

Near Dark (1987)

F/M Entertainment

Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow

Written by: Eric Red

A young, small-town guy (Adrian Pasdar) meets and becomes quickly infatuated with a drifter (Jenny Wright). Before the sun rises, the drifter bites him in the neck and runs away. As his body begins to burn in the daylight, the drifter returns with her family and they take him away. It turns out that the girl and her family are nomadic vampires who travel around thieving and murdering people. Bigelow creates a film with vampires to fear without relying on horror tropes or jump scares. Beyond that, she effectively incorporates elements from Westerns and buddy road-trip movies.

Watch if you love: Bill Paxton, stories about psychotic families, Westerns, vampires that don’t actually have a conscience, bar fights, road-trip movies.

Ginger Snaps (2000)

Copperheart Entertainment

Directed by: John Fawcett

Written by: Karen Walton, John Fawcett

Two suburban sisters, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins), are obsessed with death, which leads them to be shunned by their peers. One night while they're out to kidnap the school bully's dog, they get attacked by a werewolf. Ginger gets bitten and starts to lose control, and Brigitte tries to figure out how to save her. Ginger Snaps tackles sisterhood, budding sexuality, and the social pressures of high school in a really mature way.

Watch if you love: Werewolves, body horror, stories that focus on teenage girls, friendship, sisterhood.