What are your favourite scary movies? Maybe it’s the ones about deranged, masked serial killers, or maybe it’s those about the less-visible terrors, like the featureless shapes that lurk in the dark, or the ones you hear but never see. In short, the answer is that different things scare different people.
The likes of the ground-breaking The Blair Witch Project has seen me wake in a lather of cold sweat once or twice, while others find the film boring and ineffective. Horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street undoubtedly still keeps people awake at night, but there are also those who find it plain silly. Then there’s The Exorcist, a film banned for decades following its concept and use of explicit language and sexual references, but is now considered laughable by many and, like countless other horrors, has been the ugly butt of parodic jokes over the years through the likes of Scary Movie.
We all scare differently, and it’s likely an argument of nature-versus-nurture-versus-whatever-horror-you-snuck-downstairs-to-watch-as-a-child, but deep down I believe we’re all terrified of the same thing whether we admit it or not: the unknown. It is horror’s most powerful weapon, and without it, a film has no upper-hand on the audience. After all, a great horror doesn’t just know how to scare the audience from start to finish, but long after.
On screen, you might not scare easily at the likes of evil cults, shape-shifting demons, relentless ghosts or a faceless force that knows your every move. Hell, you might not even scare at all. After all, they’re just films and we enjoy them for the same reason some of us enjoy the most terrifying of rollercoasters – it’s a “safe” fear, where we are guarded by either a harness or a silver screen. But one thing’s for sure: take away the screen and we all have that little extra something in common.
In no particular order, here are six of my best horror films, carefully picked for both atmosphere and their ingenious off-screen mythologies that might long-linger in your mind after viewing and haunt your waking hours.
This hard-hitting, British psychological-horror sees two otherwise-normal hitmen wind up on a disturbing mission after they reluctantly take on a contract from a sinister businessman. While the film wields deeply-unsettling vibes from the outset, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was nothing more than a kitchen-sink drama if you tuned in having bypassed the blurb, but the film quickly grows bleaker by the frame as our characters, best mates Jay and Gal, descend into a darkness that makes what they do for a living look totally harmless and acceptable. Surreal, bleak and atmospheric, and as terrifying as it is at times mind-boggling, this is home-grown horror at its finest, laced with the true grit that separates ours from the ones across the pond.
After losing her innocence to her new boyfriend, once-ordinary teenager Jay is suddenly stalked by a relentless, seemingly-human figure which, through her now(of course)-ex, she learns is a shape-shifting, “sexually-transmitted demon” that only she can see and which will kill her if it catches up. With the help of her friends, who are refreshingly-well-behaved compared to most Hollywood horror-teens, Jay must either pass “It” on or outsmart it before it’s too late, despite its seemingly-escapable but-definitely-not-the-case pace. Chilling, tense and smart, It Follows is an instant classic, but other than its brilliantly-simple and original premise, it owes its eerie atmosphere largely to the heavily-eighties-inspired score that floods the film with dark nostalgia and an inescapable sense of dread.
When a group of young explorers enter the labyrinth of catacombs beneath Paris in search of the legendary alchemist Nicholas Flamel’s “Philosopher’s Stone”, they instead find a darkness far more hellish than they could have ever imagined. A feast for the senses right up until its nightmarishly-chilling climax, the film echoes more than just the likes of hyper-claustrophobic horror The Descent, as it strangely mirrors even tomb-raiding adventures like Indiana Jones, The Da Vince Code (or more appropriately, given its references to Dante’s Inferno, its now-sequel, Inferno) and of course, Harry Potter, making this a unique horror gem that brings with it some much-needed fresh air (underground-fresh) to the otherwise-exhausted found-footage genre.
Not long after heading deep into the Blackhills forest, three film students discover that there is some meat to the bones of the “Blair Witch” legend when they start hearing strange noises outside around their tent during the night. But things become progressively worse with each night that passes when they find themselves inexplicably walking round in circles trying to escape their faceless hunter. As well as its spine-tinglingly-ingenious mythos which is nightmare-inducing in itself, The Blair Witch Project remains the single most effective and atmospheric horror of all time, packed with nerve-shredding suspense while the film shows your eyes not a single thing, but your imagination plenty.
When the Lamberts suspect that their suddenly-comatose son, Dalton, is being targeted by supernatural forces, they learn from a spiritual medium that he is an “astral projector”, meaning he has the unique ability to “abandon” his body while he sleeps. But this time Dalton has ventured too far into his dreams and is now lost in “The Further,” a place inhabited only by the dead. Said-spiritual realm is evidently inspired by the pure surrealism of dreams and nightmares, and makes for a truly eerie addition to the film. But the narrative’s strongest element is its heart, which allows you to form a connection with the exhausted and terrorised family. Unlike most horrors, Insidious is as human as it is sheer-terrifying, and doesn’t once venture into the shock-factor territory of violence or body-horror to do its work.
Twice-successful true crime writer Ellison Oswalt deceptively moves his family into a house that saw its last family brutally murdered, a cold case on which he is basing his new novel. But when Ellison discovers a box of Super 8 films in the attic, he learns the horrifying truth behind the family’s deaths, and that there is a much more sinister force at large. On paper, the film is as cliché as they come; family moves into haunted house and must figure out what to do before it’s too late, but this film is all about execution – and it’s one that is razor-sharp. The film also makes much use of the less-is-more approach and instead relies heavily on its insanely-atmospheric score for the jumps, making it one to watch through the fingers and with the lights on.
