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spooky movie rec megathread
🕑 Added 2023-10-24 15:57:57 +0000 UTCHowdy folks! There's been a lot of interest in spooky movie recs, so I thought I'd put together a list of my own recommendations and invite you all to share yours too! Here are some of my favorites:
#actually scary:
1.) The VVitch — I watched this for the first time right after my older daughter was born, and it freaked me out more intensely than any movie I'd ever seen before. It was probably just an effect of the circumstances, but still, it's a hell of a horror movie.
2.) Hereditary — Again, horrifying on the parental level.
3.) Skinamarink — Also in the vein of 'bad stuff happening to kids is terrifying,' this movie nicely captures the mood of childhood nightmares.
4.) The Blair Witch Project — Still scary.
5.) Infection (2004) — Classic J-horror.
6.) Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum — And some K-horror.
7.) The Autopsy of Jane Doe — I guess this isn't all that scary, but it's still good imho.
8.) going through a period where you're no longer sure you're a writer
9.) Event Horizon — Completely bananas.
10.) Antichrist — I made Matt see this insane movie in theaters with me. Wild times.
spooky but not necessarily scary:
1.) Black Swan — Unexpected body horror hit.
2.) The Craft — Just classic.
3.) The Silence of the Lambs — Another classic.
4.) The Sixth Sense — Just atmospherically creepy, even if you know the twist.
5.) Scream — Does this make anyone else super nostalgic?
6.) The Frighteners — It's not Halloween until I've had my customary viewing.
7.) Practical Magic — :3
8.) Se7en — A little detective show with your scary shit. Very nice.
9.) The Others — Again, even if you know the twist, it's just a great vibe.
10.) A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night — A love story.
What do you recommend?
Comments
Steve Babitz
Okay, but genuinely, coolest occupation I think I’ve ever heard
Joe Dreshar
Been thinking about it and should add that abortion plays a big plot point in Noroi, so that may be tough to those sensitive to that.
TS + KL
As far as recent films, I liked Talk to Me. It's Aussie.
TS + KL
Loved it.
TS + KL
Watched Noroi recently and really liked it.
madeline krane
Rosemary's Baby
The Bruenigs
Bram Stoker's Dracula is also a trip
The Bruenigs
funny games traumatized me
Caitlin Still
Liz absolutely has to watch Picnic if she hasn’t seen it. Like The VVitch, it’s one of the best explorations of the colonial condition through horror. But I think that’s a horror preoccupation that’s emerged belatedly in the US, though I’m happy to be corrected.
Bernie Mac
Werner Herzog's Dracula movie Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Marc Catapano
“Vy”!! Soviet film from 1967. Also “Whistle and I will come” 1968 BBC episode. Both on Youtube.
Gina Calabrese
Yeeesss to picnic at hanging rock!! Feels like David Lynch got a ton of twin peaks inspo there...or was channeling the same message from an interdimensional being
Daniel Solano
The Vanishing (1988) Dream Demon (1988) Funny Games (1997) Dressed to Kill (1980) Body Double (1984) The Addiction (1995) Ms. 45 (1981) Hangover Square (1945) Peeping Tom (1960)
Daniel Solano
The Masque of Red Death by Roger Corman. A trippy Edgar Allan Poe adaptation with giallo DNA, but more polished and more well funded than giallo tended to be
Daniel Solano
Robert Wise of West Side Story fame directed an amazing haunted house picture called The Haunting, for some ahead of it's time classic horror
Daniel Solano
Zulawski's Possession (1981) a must watch, again more unnerving than scary but more importantly it features Isabelle Adjani at possibly her most stunning giving an absolutely deranged performance
Daniel Solano
Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre is more unnerving than scary but a personal favorite
James
The Blackcoat’s Daughter hasn’t gotten the viewing it deserves in my opinion. Similar to the VVITCH in how much it unnerved me. And excellent acting.
Michael Hoogenakker
It is for me. I didn’t know I could hate something so much before I saw those abominations. I’m happy you like them though and now I’m going to stop myself from writing a 37 page polemic screed before it’s too late.
TC
It isn't the finale; the Rebuilds are canon, the continuation (and conclusion) of the same story/themes. Stopping at EoE is like only reading the Old Testament; the entire thing is made whole in the succeeding volume!
J P 3
"Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)", technically could be considered a horror film, although the treatment of the subject matter (environmentalism?) will probably produce more tears of laughter. Still highly recommended as a "good, bad" movie: https://youtu.be/jE5dJDgZ644?si=nciOwMPvE7LG_mUn "Wild Tales" (2014) by Damian Szifron is technically more of a dark comedy than a horror movie, but I will evangelize this movie as a candidate for #1 in any movie category that is ever suggested: https://youtu.be/Utq0aDEp084?si=SFoXQWsVJZpqybOs
Andy in Iowa
If you like your horror artful and beautiful mixed with the perverse and macabre...then nobody does it better than the Italians (of the '70s and '80s). Here are some choice cuts: Mario Bava's "Five Dolls for an August Moon" (1970), Fulci's "The Beyond" (1981), Argento's "Phenomena" (1984) staring a young Jennifer Connelly (!), Lamberto Bava's "Demons 2" (1986), and Michele Soavi's "The Church" (1989). These are all superior as is, but ahh, quite transcendent when under the influence of a high-grade THC.
Bernie Mac
The Thing (1982) really rocks
Michael Hoogenakker
I haven’t seen a horror film that “freaked me out” to the point where I couldn’t sleep at night, but there are a couple of movies that had that effect on me. The first one was watching Vanilla Sky when I was 13. This movie really played on my teenage insecurities and fucked with my head. It took my crippling fear of failure, disfiguration and being abandoned by everyone I love and turned all these neuroses into a sci-fi psychological thriller. The headspace was like being trapped in a nightmare as a brain-in-a-vat and not being able to determine what is real and what is delusion. I basically stared at the ceiling all night and walked around like a zombie in a fugue state the next day. Not gonna lie, I held a grudge against my sister for a long time for showing me that movie. The other film that freaked me out was The End Of Evangelion, commonly known as EoE. As a standalone movie it’s a total failure because you need to watch the previous 26 episodes of the TV series in order to understand anything that happens onscreen. Despite this, it’s still the greatest finale I’ve ever seen. Neon Genesis Evangelion is the only anime series I would recommend to anime haters/skeptics and it does subtlety address some criticisms of the genre. NGE is more of a character study of nine people, with the focus being on the three pilots. The actual “plot” is certifiably insane and lurks nefariously in the background, to the point where you half-forget about it because you become so engrossed with the characters. The plot taking a backseat until the very end is what makes the finale so powerful. It’s realization upon realization upon realization while your brain melts in your skull, all of it quite horrifying. Needless to say, I didn’t get any sleep that night. I was too enthralled by what I saw and it took me weeks to unpack everything. Definitely would recommend.
Caitlin Still
I’ll have to ask my husband if he’s seen this! He’s a scholar in Iranian film,
Caitlin Still
Possibly the scariest movie I’ve seen is Lake Mungo, circa 2008. Not a big one, but respected Australian Gothic horror. Picnic at Hanging Rock (the epitome of spooky-not-scary) is an important forerunner in that tradition—it ran so the Babadook could walk. Which is not to say that the Babadook isn’t pretty much 10/10 as well.
TC
Suspiria remake has no right to be as good as it is.
Filler Crowley
I watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) for the first time recently, and was shocked at how well it holds up 50 years later. And speaking of Tobe Hooper, I really enjoyed his film Toolbox Murders. I love John Carpenter's Apocalypse Trilogy: The Thing, Prince of Darkness, and In the Mouth of Madness; all stone-cold classics imho. Prince of Darkness even includes the Catholic Church, Jesus, and Satan as plot points! Suspiria, both the 1977 original and the 2018 remake, are great as well if you're in a witchy mood. Nobuhiko Obayashi's House is probably my favorite movie. Obayashi asked for ideas from his pre-teen daughter for scary things to include, so a lot of the frightening sequences are bizarre and dreamlike in the way childhood fears can be. Not hugely scary, but certainly spooky and very fun. I also wanted to put in a good word for the scariest short film I've ever seen: My house walk-through, a 12-minute j-horror film posted on Youtube.
Charlie Douglas
I really liked The Orphanage (2007)
Otto Laakso
I mean I'm not even a horror fan but I enjoyed it enormously
Corey Vaughan
Up there with Silence of the Lambs as perfect horror films are The Shining and Alien. Also highly highly recommend the X-Files as a long-term horror project. I'd say at least half of the episodes hold up on creep factor and probably 75% hold up via plot/drama.
Lauren Gallagher
You are writer ;_;
William Kay
Came here to say the same thing then saw this lol
William Kay
Barbarian was good and genuinely surprising/ unexpected which doesn't always happen with horror
TL
Barbarian was maybe the best movie of 2022 for me lol
Adrian
Midsommar (2019) was freaky! Matt will think twice about ever visiting a Nordic country after watching this movie
Adam Rust
I was gushing about "Girl Walks Home" last night. What a delightful movie.
Gina Calabrese
Under the Shadow--Iranian djinn movie that is creepy plus excellent atmosphere
Steve Babitz
The Wailing is another K horror that is absolutely terrifying with a lot of biblical themes as well
TC
I wouldn't call it a spooky movie, but also recommend Peter Vack's Assholes for a blackpilled, horror-inducing take on Obama-era millennial sexual politics complete with a fecal demon-witch
Umak
Also check out 'Cure' (1997). For my money, the most eerie movie ever committed to celluloid. On the surface a detective story in the vein of Silence of the Lambs. But it reaches maybe the most unsettling conclusion I've ever seen in a genre film. Same director as 'Pulse' - Kiyoshi Kurusawa (no relation to the other Kurusawa). No other horror director comes close to his total control of tone that somehow never feels self consciously "auteurish".
TC
Sion Sono's Strange Circus (not for the faint of heart) & Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure and Pulse are peak Japanese horror. Also Kim Ki-Duk's Human Space Time and Human for existential eschatological horror
Joe Dreshar
I recommend Koji Shiraishi, who has made some of the best found footage J-horror with Noroi (you can watch on Shudder) and Occult (on YouTube). Both are slow burn, low budget, but scary and fascinating movies.
Dom Weisz
Highly recommend "Pulse" (2001) japanese metaphysical horror movie, beautiful, eerie, and deeply depressing. Also one of the most devastating ghost scenes ever.
Clinton Hallahan
A8 is certified terrifying
Otto Laakso
Liz have you seen Barbarian
