Best Horror Films

Hello and welcome to the list of the best horror films ever made. At least in this reviewer’s opinion. You probably wonder how such a list is compiled. Well, you take all the horror films you’ve ever seen in your life and rate them according to their value. And how do you go about establishing their horrific value? They must have realism, they must have some real gory scenes, and they should by all means be convincingly acted. A certain mystery element of unpredictability and suspense would be the explosive component in the mix. A secret of the profession though is to select the protagonist in order for him or her to seem as vulnerable as possible to the spectator. That’s why women are preferred because they are perceived as defenseless; also children and people with some kind of handicap (take James Stewart in Rear Window, for example). And you bet that the best horror films out there are going to exploit your deepest fears and phobias until you start climbing the walls.

1. 20 Days Later This smart, fast-passed horror takes place in an alternate reality where most of the population has turned into unintelligent, rather annoying flesh-eating zombies who can’t get a proper tan in the sunlight. Let’s just say that the first 20 minutes of the movie really set the tone right: it has you hooked on how alienated and disturbed this version of reality can be. Even at its most horrifyingly bloody it manages to keep you in tension wondering whether you would have the strength to kill your best friend before he actually bit you.

2. The Descent A movie about a bunch of girls trying out a new and exciting cave which nobody actually got out of. It puts a lot of emphasis on the tight spaces inside the cave and of course on the bottled up tensions which abound between the characters. It puts heavy issues on the table like when does self preservation become murder and how loyal you should actually be to your gal pals. Plus it has that sort of ending which keeps you in hell for a while after the credits are over.

3. Shutter This film is a really special treat and it is by no means your typical horror. Cleverly conceived and artistically rendered, it is a modern horror that knows how to strike the most basic of chords: the emotional one. The main idea is related to photography and how it can encapsulate memories rather than facts and brings out the drama of painful memories that can torture you and burden you in a heartbreaking manner. It’s what makes it one of the best horror films I’ve ever watched.

4. Funny Games U.S. A remake after the German film with the same name, filmed by the same incomparable madman – Michael Haneke, this movie brings the story of two teenage psychopaths that enjoy killing rich families for fun to an even larger audience. The plot is very cruel, the acting realistic and the crazy factor is turned up to eleven.

5. The Ring Also a remake, but after a Japanese horror, the Ring brings to the table the modern myth of the videotape that kills people. Basically, anybody who sees the tape (and once you start you can’t stop because it reels you in) is announced that has only seven more days to live. The interactive part in this movie is that the movie itself uses a frame that makes the suggestion that what you are seeing is the tape itself. By the end of the movie (which has a version with no credits to make the illusion complete) you will be terrified that your phone will start ringing.

6. The Omen There are two versions to this movie: the 1976 and the 2006 one. The story is almost the same, of the American official who realizes that his son might very well be the Antichrist. The hairs on the back of your head will rise as soon as you take a look at the child who is actually as silent, cute and startlingly creepy as you always imagined he should be.

7. An American Werewolf in London If you watch this movie now, you may even think it is a comedy because of how poor the special effects are. But don’t be fooled by mere technicalities: this version has 100 times more juice in it than the one with Benicio del Toro which came out last year, even without the realistic transformation scene. Why? Because it is smart and funny and now a genre classic.

I shall end this list of best horror films noting that there are many others out there which certainly deserve your attention; you just have to discover them according to what scares you most. For example, my personal favorite is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho as it is the classiest, most frightening example of cinema which includes an unexpected protagonist replacement, a handsome schizophrenic with mommy issues and the most famous shower scene in history. Check it out.

Best Horror Films

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