Horror movies employ human fears to create entertainment. They feature circumstances that reflect collective sources of anxiety among viewers. However, it’s nigh impossible to define a particular blueprint for horror cinema because it’s perhaps the genre that is most commonly experimented with. Narratively, however, it is common for there to be a villain or a villainous enтιтy that represents a specific fear, although that can also come in the form of a circumstance where no explicit villain exists. For instance, parental anxieties are commonly featured, giving us horror movies that hit differently as a parent.

Horror cinema often reinvents itself with unique perspectives and narrative approaches that are designed to throw viewers off. A common form of misdirection employed, for instance, is introducing an unexpected aspect to the idenтιтy of the villain. Some of the best horror movies have villain twists, and some shockingly reveal that their horror movie heroes were the real villains all along. So, like any horror movie buff, I have come to expect subversion and reinvention, but every so often, a horror movie comes along that’s unlike anything I have ever seen.

10

Pontypool (2008)

Directed by Bruce McDonald

Zombie movies are characterized by collective panic and the necessity of maintaining physical distance so you don’t get bitten. This is why almost all works in the genre offer extensive action scenes or chase scenes. From Train to Busan, one of the best horror movies in the past 10 years, to Edgar Wright’s iconic horror comedy movie Shaun of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, action plays a major part in these films.

Pontypool doesn’t entirely lack action sequences, but it’s not focused on the fight against the zombies, especially physical altercations. The uniqueness of the zombification process makes it practically meaningless to fight because the condition doesn’t spread through biting. In fact, none of the zombies in Pontypool are attacking others just because they need food, so they don’t explode. What’s ingenious is that the disease spreads through spoken English, and no one knows which word will turn them into a zombie. I’ve never seen any other movie basing its horror on the fear of speech and language.

9

The Cell (2000)

Directed by Tarsem Singh

The ’90s and 2000s sH๏τ Jennifer Lopez to fame both as a pop star and an actress, but The Cell flew under the radar and continues to do so, despite being a commercial hit at the time of release. She plays the protagonist, a psychiatrist with a particularly unique approach to therapy – entering the minds of her patients to better understand their issues.

When a serial killer suddenly goes comatose right when he’s caught, law enforcement has no way to find his latest victim. So, the psychiatrist enters his mind, and this is where Tarsem Singh’s imaginative direction shines through the brightest. The eerie atmosphere, the haunting imagery, and the use of fantasy elements later, to represent the serial killer’s mind, also allowed him to create an innovative horror movie setting. The violent and gory visuals and the idea of exploring a serial killer’s psyche may put many viewers off, but The Cell deserves more love than just its cult following.

8

Rubber (2010)

Directed by Quentin Dupieux

It is difficult to convince someone that Rubber is better than it sounds, but I wonder why it needs to be. It is about a tire that comes to life and whimsically kills people because he’s attracted to a woman, while bystanders watch him and pᴀss commentary about moments in life that make little to no sense. It is a chaotic mess of a story that lacks coherence and even loops back to the beginning when it ends, but it’s a joyous ride if you surrender to the lightheartedness of the film.

Rubber is a horror movie that gets a lot of flak, but I love it anyway because its self-referential sense of humor grows on me every time I watch it again. Moreover, there never was nor will be a horror movie like Rubber. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the uniquely meta approach to making a horror movie, which simultaneously critiques both the process of making horror films and the process of watching them, deserves to be seen at least once in a lifetime.

7

Freaky (2020)

Directed by Christopher Landon

Happy Death Day is one of those good movies that I had very low expectations for. It won me over with its unexpectedly gory murders that somehow blend perfectly into the time-loop trope that’s more popular in comedy and romance movies. So, it is no surprise that when its director, Christopher Landon, tried his hand at blending another familiar comedy trope with horror later with Freaky, it yielded relatively glorious results.

Freaky Friday is one of the most iconic comedy films of the 2000s. Freaky blends that with the slasher genre by having a teenage girl switch bodies with a middle-aged male serial killer. Vince Vaughn and Katherine Langford play the two characters respectively, or vice versa. I rarely see such invested physical comedy as Vince Vaughn’s performance as a teenage girl. Langford as the murderous villain is compelling as well, and the film, quite like Happy Death Day, doesn’t shy away from depicting gory kills.

6

In a Violent Nature (2024)

Directed by Chris Nash

One of my favorite horror movies ever is the first Halloween movie. Michael Myers is an iconic villain, and as much as the quality of the films has declined as the franchise has grown, I’ve not grown tired of watching him go on his murderous rampages in every movie. However, my favorite scene in the entire franchise involves him long before he becomes the universally feared killer. The first five minutes of Halloween will always be classic horror movie footage because John Carpenter chose to present it in the POV of a young Michael Myers committing his first murder.

So, imagine my awe when I watched In a Violent Nature, and it turned out to be almost entirely filmed from the killer’s perspective! We first meet Johnny – who I hope becomes a new slasher icon, and we get more movies featuring him – when his corpse rises from the ground after a group of kids discovers his locket and one of them picks it up. Watching In a Violent Nature feels like being inside my favorite horror genre because I get to follow a slasher villain from his point of view.

5

You Won’t Be Alone (2022)

Directed by Goran Stolevski

If you’re already nervous about AI, you should avoid movies that depict its attempts to take over humanity, especially through endeavors to become human. However, it is particularly disorienting only because AI is currently growing in power in today’s world. Horror and sci-fi movies have long explored the experiences of extraterrestrial and supernatural enтιтies attempting to behave like humans.

One of the most imaginative uses of this premise can be found in the Indie horror film You Won’t Be Alone. It has horror movie elements with its premise of witchery and its gory moments, but You Won’t Be Alone is beautifully meditative about the human experience. A shapeshifting witch moves from body to body, and the film explores what it means to be human through her perspective. I particularly love how it blends body horror with the joy of discovery to depict the bittersweet nature of having a human body.

4

тιтane (2021)

Directed by Julia Ducournau

It wasn’t until I saw Raw (2017), featuring one of the most shocking horror movie moments that made me audibly gasp, that I was sold on the horror genre. I have since seen a ton of horror movies and developed a taste for the genre in all its forms. However, nothing could have prepared me for what director Julia Ducournau had to offer with her solo sophomore directorial feature.

Within the first fifteen minutes of тιтane, the protagonist is impregnated by a car. I couldn’t believe what I watched, even after watching it a second time. The cinematography and practical effects are smartly executed to portray the occurrence with a nonchalance that throws me off every time. What follows is even more bizarre, as she starts growing a metal-human hybrid fetus inside her, which cuts through her skin as her pregnancy develops. Through its beautifully weird narrative, тιтane ponders upon love, gender fluidity, the malleability of the human body, and the role of technology in our lives.

3

Midsommar (2019)

Directed by Ari Aster

While it’s reductive to ᴀssociate an entire genre with a specific aesthetic, I usually think of horror cinema as pertaining to scary elements and the fear of the unknown, usually presented in an appropriately dark space. Shady alleys, long shadows, and a dim color palette are common to some of the most iconic horror movies, where the bright red of gushing blood and cold metallic blue of dimly lit corridors break the pattern.

I no longer know if I can adhere to that impression, because Ari Aster throws all caution to the wind with Midsommar. It has one of the brightest color palettes in cinema history, and it is one of the goriest and most psychologically disturbing horror movies of all time. Florence Pugh delivers one of the best A24 movie performances to portray the emotional torment of watching ritualistic suicide and other terrifying customs that paint a portrait of unspeakable violence on a flowery canvas of white.

2

Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)

Directed by John McPhail

It isn’t rare for hilarious horror comedy movies to focus on zombies. Shaun of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, Go Goa Gone, and Zombieland are some of my favorites in the genre. Christmas movies, often ᴀssociated with sweet romantic stories or goofy family shenanigans, can also be action-packed films. Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie, and I consider Black Christmas one of the best slasher films. Given my love for musicals, it’s not surprising that I love a movie that combines those three seemingly conflicting genres – zombie horror, Christmas, and musical.

Anna and the Apocalypse feels like Glee meets Shaun of the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ in a small town. The story isn’t new, but a few of the characters are memorable and compelling, the soundtrack is so catchy that I hummed some of the songs for a week after watching it, and the ball pit gag lives rent-free in my head. The тιтular Anna embodies the energy of a rising pop star, and the sheer contrast of that with her circumstances makes Anna and the Apocalypse endlessly entertaining.

1

House (1977)

Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi

Slow-paced, atmospheric horror with suspense that builds up to a few moments of intensely violent altercation entertains me the most. The energy one commonly ᴀssociates with horror movies is the energy of the chase, the intense survival instinct of characters in grave danger, and often the excessive energy displayed by murderous villains who go to extreme lengths for their scary acts. PsycH๏τic breakdowns and unexpectedly intense physical reactions aren’t uncommon either.

So, eccentric and whimsical aren’t words that one would commonly use to describe horror movies. While they do reflect some of the creative choices that went into Nobuiko Obayashi’s House, even the word weird doesn’t scratch the surface. A haunted house that feels like it would have been the setting of a chaotic comedy musical if the tone were lighter becomes the setting for skeletons to break into dance and furniture to turn vicious. The character drama and the horror provide a similar contrast in narrative as the visuals of terrifying horror and random goofiness.