The Beginner’s Guide to Horror Movies
Whether you have dived into the horror world before or have never seen a scary movie in your life, you can agree that horror movies come with an intimidating number of options, a devoted community of fans, and extensive lore unlike any other movie genre. So, I’m here to make that deep dive a bit easier.
My love for all things scary started very early; my Halloween birthday contributed to that. At 11 years old everyone I knew was watching SpongeBob and ICarly, while I was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and begging my parents to show me horror movies. This led to the first horror film I ever watched, The Woman in Black, a 2012 film starring Daniel Radcliffe that my dad showed me when I was 12. Since then, I have never seen Harry Potter the same. Years after watching it, I would still look out my window every night expecting to see a demonic ghost. However, my love for horror endured through every sleepless night. Many of the movies my dad showed me have since been added to my list of favorites, but at 12 years old, they were just about the worst picks he could have made. It's impossible to provide a one-size-fits-all recommendation for a genre so diverse, which is why I have decided to make the definitive guide to horror movies.
Slasher
Home to the faces of horror. When most people think of horror movies, they picture Ghostface or Micheal Meyers, the slasher icons that fuel the merchandise sales of the horror world.
The beginning of slasher movies was Psycho (1960), a boundary-pushing film that broke every movie censor rule in the book to show us a serial killer so brutal it inspired decades of killers. A wave of slashers followed, notably Halloween just a decade later, a pivotal franchise that still lives today.
What differentiates a slasher movie from any other horror is the villain. According to horror movie journalist Brad Weismann, a slasher is typically “a killer with a knife or other implement who stalks his victims.” This can include humans like Leatherface and Jason Voorhees, but it can also be supernatural killers like Freddy Kruger or Chucky. Slasher villains follow a trope called the unstoppable killer, a phenomenon where no matter how many times they are killed, they will come back, always for the sake of a sequel. Opposite to the killer is the final girl, a trope seen throughout horror but popularized within the slasher genre in the 70s with Laurie Strode (Halloween) and Sally Hardesty (Texas Chainsaw Massacre). The final girl is a female character, usually with a tragic backstory or good girl persona, who is the only remaining character by the end of the movie. She is usually the one we follow throughout the film, often even the narrator, and is always stalked by the killer throughout the franchise. Sidney Prescott from Scream is a prime example of a final girl and my personal favorite.
I love a good slasher; they balance the right amount of campiness and scariness that makes a fundamental horror movie. However, due to their tendency to lean into camp, slasher movies can easily be less scary than other horror genres. My favorite slasher is Scream. It stands alone as a great horror movie, but for horror nerds like me, it includes Easter eggs that blatantly make fun of the slasher genre.
My Recommendations: Scare Level
Psycho (1960) Looking for a wild ride from a good old-fashioned classic. ⭐⭐
Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) On the hunt for 80s horror embodied. ⭐⭐⭐
Pearl (2022) If you’re more into interesting cinematography and bitchin’ acting. ⭐⭐⭐
Candyman (1992 or 2021, both are excellent) The most underrated slasher killer. ⭐⭐⭐
Hush (2016) If you’re looking for something outside the box that leans more psychological. ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Paranormal
Ghosts, demons, and the devil, oh my!
You can’t go wrong with a paranormal horror movie; they tend to lean heavily on the scary scale and away from camp. If you’re looking for a movie full of unrelenting suspense and jump-scares, look no further.
Ghost stories are the beginning of horror. They have existed in every culture long before being written into books and movies. The idea that something is lurking in the dark will always scare us, and that is where paranormal horror movies get their punch.
The most common trope for a paranormal horror movie is the haunted house. Seen in movies like The Conjuring, Poltergeist, and The Orphanage, haunted house movies are excellent picks if you want to spend the next few weeks checking behind your shower curtain and sleeping with the lights on. Paranormal horror is also known for the use of Ouija boards and psychics to contact the dead, like in Veronica. The possessed and priest trope is another popular one, made famous by The Exorcist in 1973. Paranormal horror can range anywhere on the scary scale; gothic movies like The Others or Crimson Peak focus more on haunting atmospheres and nuanced characters, while films like Insidious aim to make you jump out of your skin. Meanwhile, movies like Hereditary fill the viewer with a sense of dread that will linger in them for days after watching -- at least, that’s how it was for me.
My favorite paranormal movie is Talk to Me, a 90-minute film brimming with so much tension and shocks that it feels like three hours. It follows a ceramic hand that a group of teenagers uses to contact the dead. This movie will leave you utterly terrified, all while using a soundtrack so good that it later went viral on TikTok.
My Recommendations: Scare Level
The Sixth Sense (1999) A classic haunting with a fantastic twist. ⭐⭐
The Exorcist (1973) The most beloved horror movie of all time. ⭐⭐⭐
The Orphanage (2007) A classic haunted house movie. ⭐ ⭐⭐⭐
Sinister (2012) Regarded by many as the scariest modern classic (I disagree) ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
The Conjuring (2013) The only movie from the Anabelle franchise worth your time. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Creature Feature
Home to all the best creepy crawlers and city stompers.
The most diverse subgenre is creature features, which include movies ranging from sci-fi to comedy. Monsters like Count Orlok (Nosferatu) and Godzilla popularized this subgenre in the early 20th century, while others such as the Babadook and Pennywise rule the 21st.
Creature features are the largest subgenre because of all the categories within it, such as zombie, vampire, and werewolf movies. Similarly, most sci-fi horror movies, such as The Thing and The Fly, are included in this category. Movies like 28 Days Later make zombie horror the most common category within creature features. If you’re looking for a zombie movie, keep in mind the two major types: infectious zombies like in Train to Busan or reanimated zombies like from Night of the Living Dead. A hallmark trope of the genre is the monster reveal; whether it be drawn out and full of suspense like in Jaws or with jump-scares like in The Descent, it is a crucially terrifying part of all creature features.
Being such a diverse category, my opinion on creature features varies. Some of my favorite horror films of all time feature unforgettable monsters like Pennywise, but some, like Art the Clown from Terrifier, are just a bit too twisted for my liking. The Alien series is my favorite horror franchise. The original from 1979 is packed with unrelenting suspense and a fantastic creature design, while the most recent addition, Alien Romulus, is also amazing, full of perfectly crafted jump-scares and a twist for the history books.
My Recommendations: Scare Level
Ginger Snaps (2000) A teenage werewolf movie, complete with hormones and fangs. ⭐⭐
28 Days Later (2003) The classic zombie movie that inspired The Walking Dead. ⭐⭐⭐
The Thing (1982) A sci-fi cult classic from the director that brought you Halloween. ⭐⭐⭐
It (2017) Whether clowns scare you or not, it’s a must-see in my book. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A Quiet Place (2018) Will leave you scared to make a sound for the rest of the night. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Psychological
While other horror movies make you squirm through blood and guts, psychological horror movies make you question your sanity.
The iconic movie Psycho is not only the beginning of the slasher genre but also the psychological genre. Until the 21st century, this subgenre was sparse, as it was much harder to make a movie scary without relying on monsters, gore, or jump scares. But when all the horror tropes we know and love started to get a little too predictable, psychological horror movies came along to thoroughly scare audiences once again.
To terrify you, psychological horror movies use a combination of mind games and emotional pull. They don’t just want to get your adrenaline pumping; they want you to feel like you are right there with the characters. They are explicitly written to confuse you and stress you out. Take The Shining, for example. While most movies from this time explain what is happening to the characters at some point, The Shining never does, leaving the viewer confused from beginning to end. As someone who loves The Shining, I still couldn’t confidently tell you what happens in it. Meanwhile, movies like Misery tell you everything you need to know to show how hopeless the situation is for the protagonist.
A popular device in psychological horror is detective stories like Se7en or Silence of the Lambs, which use unraveling mind games to solve a mystery. Making the protagonist spiral into insanity is also used abundantly in psychological horror movies like Black Swan or Mother to make us feel like we are spiraling along with them. Modern psychological horror can be incredibly complex, with movies like Get Out and The Witch that use elaborate foreshadowing and underlying themes so that the whole movie ties together perfectly by the end -- this is also commonly referred to as elevated horror. Psychological horror and thrillers are usually lumped into the same category, as the only distinction between the two is how frightening you can make the movie without classic scare tactics. Because of this, many psychological movies rank low on the scary scale. But beware, some of the scariest movies I have ever seen are purely psychological, such as The Babadook and Hereditary.
Psychological horror is my go-to subgenre. If you like to dissect movie themes and motifs, this is the genre for you. My personal favorite is Black Swan, which is low on the scary scale but brimming with themes analyzing the human psyche and the pursuit of perfection.
My Recommendations: Scare Level
The Invitation (2015) A classic dinner party mystery thriller chock-full of suspense ⭐
Misery (1990) Kathy Bates gives some of the best (and scariest) acting in horror. ⭐⭐⭐
Get Out (2017) The pinnacle psychological social commentary horror movie. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Shining (1980) The ultimate insanity spiral, all in a terrifyingly haunted hotel. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Smile (2022) Just absolute nightmare fuel. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Torture Porn
The desire to push boundaries has always been heavily rooted in the horror world, but torture porn takes it to an extreme.
Torture porn refers to movies that use graphic displays of violence and body horror to scare the viewer as opposed to typical suspense or jump-scares. Lovers of this genre are often considered sadists, as movies that focus on gore often depict violent acts such as cannibalism and torture. This causes many to question the influence that watching limbs get torn apart or faces getting eaten can have on the viewer,
even if it is all fake. Weismann points out that it is human nature to push any boundary society sets, so with a genre designed to shock its audience, gore and violence are unavoidable. Movies pushing the boundaries of on-screen violence, like Hostel or The Human Centipede, peaked before 2010. However, the use of violence to shock audiences endured. Modern movies use gore to scare the audience rather than purely to shock or disgust, as seen in Tusk, which follows a man who gets mutilated into a walrus, or Raw, the story of two sisters discovering their cannibalistic tendencies.
Far from my favorite genre, most torture porn movies stray from what I love about horror. The first Saw, for instance, is one of my favorite horror movies, but it contains little actual gore. While occasionally gross, in my book, it is better categorized as a psychological mystery movie than torture porn – unlike the rest of the franchise, which embraces the genre. Since I gravitate away from extreme gore when picking a movie, I do not have many classic torture porn films to recommend, such as Terrifier or I Spit on Your Grave. However, of the horror movies I have seen, these are the grossest from my list of favorites:
My Recommendations: Scare Level
Saw (2004). If you want to test out the genre but not dive into ickiness. ⭐⭐⭐
Green Room (2015) Action-packed movie about a punk band up against a group of Nazis. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Raw (2016) A French vegetarian veterinarian student turned cannibal. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Saw 2 (2005) Immensely gorier than the first, but still a worthwhile watch. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Evil Dead (2013) The iconic story retold to replace camp with gore. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Found Footage
No genre will have you screaming at your screen like found footage.
In 1999, a movie called The Blair Witch Project had the country in a panic. Before its release, a website devoted to finding three missing people went viral. When the movie opened with text claiming that the footage about to be shown was found in the woods where they went missing, people were convinced they were watching a real-life horror movie. This, of course, was not true, but the craze started an entire subgenre now known as found footage.
Eight years later, Paranormal Activity came out, a movie about a couple living in a haunted house and documenting it themselves, igniting the found footage subgenre into what it is today. The documentary style from The Blair Witch Project is still the most popular style of found footage, seen in movies like The Taking of Deborah Logan and Creep. This is because the most challenging part about making found footage movies is the believability -- why is this being filmed? Movies that break away from this trope use devices like security cameras, as seen in Paranormal Activity 2, or even computer screens like Unfriended or Host (2020). Found footage horror is hallmarked by super shaky cameras (so avoid it if you easily get motion sickness) and the absence of background music. The more the movie convinces you that the person filming is genuinely experiencing the events, the more you will feel like you are right there with them.
Found-footage horror is my favorite subgenre after psychological; give me a psychological found-footage movie, and I am set. The 2014 movie As Above So Below does just that. It is an absolutely terrifying movie filmed in the Paris catacombs and plays out like a National Treasure movie possessed by the devil.
My Recommendations: Scare Level
The Blair Witch Project (1999) Started it all and still holds up. ⭐⭐⭐
REC (2007) Relentless zombie chaos in under 90 minutes. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Host (2020) Made during COVID and takes place entirely on Zoom -- what could be scarier? ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Grave Encounters (2011) Somewhat goofy but has some of the best jump-scares out there. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014) A 90-minute movie with 9 hours worth of suspense. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The best part about being a member of the horror community is that I love movies that others hate and hate movies that others love. But at the end of the day, our diverse love for horror brings us together and facilitates conversation like no other movie genre. If, after reading my article, you are still confused about where to start or are interested in many things at once, here is my comprehensive list of all the most digestible and easy-to-love horror movies that will still get your heart pounding.
Silence of the Lambs (1991) The only horror movie to win Best Picture at the Oscars. ⭐
Scream (1996) The ultimate slasher. ⭐⭐
The Ring (2003) A paranormal creature feature. ⭐⭐⭐
It Follows (2014) A psychological creature feature. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Paranormal Activity (2007) Paranormal found footage. ⭐⭐⭐⭐