The best horror films of the past thirty years

Also your favorites (best is a relative term when it comes to horror.)

• Rosemary's Baby

• "The past thirty years" means the cutoff date is 1982, r1. Rosemary's Baby was released 44 years ago.

• Bride Wars

• The Strangers

• Poltergeist was really good. Silence of the Lambs would probably be considered the best.

  Anonymous

• The Others The Devil's Backbone Session 9 The House of the Devil

• I'd pick "Alien," but that is outside your time parameter by three years, so I'll go with "Aliens." Honorable mention to "Paranormal Activity." The Enid Nelson Rotten Tomato Award for WORST horror film of the last thirty years is....A TIE! The award goes to "Blair Witch Project," the only film I have ever actually walked on, and "The Haunting," the least needed remake of all time.

  Enid Nelson

• The Mothman Prophecies

• "28 Days Later", without a doubt.

• The Thing Ringu The Blair Witch Project Christine Ghost Story The Sixth Sense

• Insidious

• And: Wolf Creek Dark Water (the Japanese version)

  R10

• Worthy mentions: Jacob's Ladder Angel Heart

• The Sixth Sense Let the Right One In The Devil's Backbone Drag Me to Hell The Orphanage The Others

• I'm glad you mentioned that, r11, I worked on it. I'll echo with Session 9, 28 Days Later and Let the Right One In. I'll add: The Eye (Asian version) Audition Shaun of the Dead Pan's Labryinth Splinter Dawn of the Dead (2004) [rec] And a special place in my heart for Old Boy (it's extremely horrifying)

• Sleepless in Seattle. Crazy woman fixates on total stranger, stalks stranger, lures stranger's young child to top of Empire State Building . . .

• REC

• More Honorable Mentions: Skeleton Key--(there; I said it). Trick or Treat Cabin Fever Ils Shaun of the Dead Scream A Tale of Two Sisters

  GL

• Fatal Attraction

  G

• Albert Nobbs

  M

• Thirty years is an arbitrary cutoff point, I admit. It just seems to me that there was a period (roughly coinciding with the disco era) where special effects got better, censorship lifted and horror films started being able to show grosser and grosser stuff, which has its up and down sides. I like a well-made, imaginative horror film but I don't particularly enjoy just watching people suffer.

  OP

• I thought about the original 'Let The Right One In', but it's more of a love story with nice icky parts. I think 'The Ring' for the perversity at the end wins. 'Attic Expeditions' is also a personal favorite.

• 'The Blair Witch Project'. A total mindfuck based on the simple and all to possible premise of being lost in the woods. Also it is the grandaddy of the 'found footage' genre.

• I also love "Skeleton Key," r18. Other favorites from the last 30 years: Candyman (1992) Demons (1985) Final Destination (2000) Haute Tension (2003) House of 1,000 Corpses (2003) Misery (1990) A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) Popcorn (1991) Psycho II (1983) Sleepaway Camp (1983) The Strangers (2008) Vacancy (2007)

• The Cabin in the Woods

• The Orphanage

• Identity!

• Two remakes that were actually better than the originals: The Hills Have Eyes The Crazies

• Final Destination was pretty damn good.

• I enjoy all the Final Destination films--best Saturday night beer and popcorn movies, ever!

  GL

• I agree with most of these, especially Insidious, Skeleton Key (ITA, R18), Scream, Drag me to Hell, Wolf Creek and Cabin Fever. I never really got all that excited about The Strangers, simply because they could have just sat their with their gun in the bedroom and shot the intruders as they came in. I realize it's 'horror' and not supposed to be believable, but if a movie isn't going to have a supernatural element to it and is supposed to be more 'real life', then I want it to have some plausibility.

• I forgot about Cabin in the Woods....too smart for its' own good.

• Haute Tension was good, but the ending was ludicrous.

• [quote]The award goes to "Blair Witch Project," the only film I have ever actually walked on, and [bold]"The Haunting,"[/bold] the least needed remake of all time. Amen on [italic]The Haunting.[/italic] Worst dialogue ever.

  I%20WON%27T%20LET%20YOU%20HURT%20THEM%20ANYMORE%21

• I don't care how hard Lili Taylor tries to make up for it, I will never forgive her for that Haunting remake, because as bad as the movie is, she's worse in it. "The children, the children!" SHUT UP YOU FUCKING NINNY. Wolf Creek made me physically sick from the tension.

• Eden Lake takes this one, hands down, for me. Not sure I've ever seen anything quite like it or quite as unnerving. Co-stars Michael Fassbender, before he hit it big.

• [quote]Wolf Creek made me physically sick from the tension. I still hear that murderer's laugh in my head. So creepy.

• Oh yeah, R36, Eden Lake is pretty tense, too. It made me feel the same kind of tension as Wolf Creek where you physically feel ill. I think it's the 'realness' of it.

• The "Exorcism of Emily Rose" was a great movie... not just horror and the occult but psychological thriller as well. Way under-rated imo.

• I totally agree, r33, but like others mentioned about "Wolf Creek" and "Eden Lake" the tension it creates is almost overwhelming. A shame the lame twist spoils so much of the effect.

• The Descent (#1) The Orphanage (scary and touching) Pan's Labyrinth Misery Joshua (personal reasons) Event Horizon In the Mouth of Madness (also my vote for best Lovecraft inspired movie) Ringu Let the Right One (Sweden) Wolf Creek 28 Days Later / 28 Weeks Later Silence of the Lambs Picnic at Hanging Rock (mesmerizing)

• The Blair Witch Project.

• Agree that 'The Descent' holds up pretty well. That one would be among my choices for best.

• Older than 30 years but "Carrie" and "Halloween" stands the test of time

• I love DelTorro's movies but I've never been able to find a copy of The Devils Backbone anywhere,none of the local video stores have ever had it.

• Does "What Lies Beneath" count as horror? While it doesn't have the biggest scares, I really like the style of that movie. For something that might be more traditionally considered a horror film, I like "Frailty."

• [quote]Older than 30 years but "Carrie" and "Halloween" stands the test of time This. Also, "Candyman" and "Insidious" were pretty creepy.

• The Descent, The Crazies (the one with Olyphant), Dawn of the Dead (The one with Phil Dunphy). Anyone who says any of the "Paranormal Activity" movies or "Insidious" is an absolute idiot. I do remember loving "Frailty" when it first came out, but saw it recently and don't think it held up all that well.

  Gene Schnitzel

• [quote]Anyone who says any of the "Paranormal Activity" movies or "Insidious" is an absolute idiot Who are you, Gene Siskel? Up yours.

• MARTYRS & IMPRINT own this. Both are absolutely terrifying and very original in their own ways and both Laugier and Miike are already masters of horror. IRREVERSIBLE is a close third, also. Have any of these three even been mentioned, 50+ posts in? Unless I missed a mention, I don't think so. You bitches are fucking slipping.

  There%20Is%20No%20God

• R49=Idiot.

• R51 = tasteless douchebag

• Irreversible isn't horror and Martyrs was so boring I nearly turned it off. Next!

  The Know it all Next! troll

• I thought INSIDIOUS was quite good. And I have much better taste than yours, r48.

  Roger%20Ebert

• 1. The Descent 2. The first half of Haute Tension (High Tension) 3. 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later 4. The Silence of the Lambs 5. Saw 6. Scream 7. Audition 8. Se7en 9. Nightmare on Elm Street 10. The Ring/Ringu 11. The Paranormal Activity films (each is overlong, but each has moments that are genuinely terrifying) 12. All but the last 20 minutes of Insidious 13. Cube 14. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer 15. The Final Destination series I've never seen Wolf Creek. Is that a must-see?

• Wolf Creek is a dark, dark film. Well worth seeing. I think the first Nightmare On Elm Street film has to be included in a list of favourites - I've never jumped out of my seat as much as I did for that film.

  Naaaaancy

• No, R55. Absolutely not. It falls apart at the end when you realize the survivor never saw anything of this supposedly "true" story. So everything that the victims went through either did or did not happen to them. They may have just been shot to death and thrown in a pile for all anyone knows.

• Phantasm: 1 and 2 Angus Scrimm - very scarey man I found a brief montage clip on ytube. I actually couldn't watch it after :13 because of the creepy background music and Angus Scrimm character (The Tall Man). It still scares me to this day.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DGy3z96Vyh_g

• R55, considering we share 5 in common on our lists, I would say yes. Little Aussie gem, somewhat based on real murders in the outback.

  R41

• I'm only halfway through it, but I am *extremely* impressed with Exit Humanity.

• Yes, R55, watch it. It's just a movie - you're not investing in real estate.

• Dante's Cove!

• r58's clip recreates the experience of being a rent boy at a Barry Diller pool party.

• Why so little love for The Sixth Sense on this thread?

• Mame with Lucile Ball!

• It was mentioned at R10. No need to repeat, really.

• Because we aren't a bunch of pedos like you R64

• "Inside" or "L'interieur" (its proper name) is one of the best recent horror movies made. You don't need to understand French to love this horror movie as there isn't a ton of dialogue. Think of it as a modern-day, bloody, take on "Halloween". Scary, gruesome....just a really great movie!

• Three movies that aren't technically horror, but I found them creepy/disturbing: The Machinist, with Christian Bale. I believed the DL rumors that he's a masochist after I saw it. American Psycho. No Country for Old Men.

• Huh, I've worked on 2 of the movies mentioned here...cool. r50, I didn't include Imprint because I though Audition was better. Anyone seen V/H/S yet? seems to have good word of mouth.

• An American Werewolf in London

• [quote]Think of it as a modern-day, bloody, take on "Halloween". Scary, gruesome....just a really great movie Sounds good R68 except for the "gruesome" part. What I liked about Halloween was that it was scary without a lot of blood and gore - I guess most horror fans love seeing as much gore as possible, but I think less is more sometimes.

• Wolf Creek, as has been pointed out, is based on a true story. Yet it's also been pointed out that there are huge portions of the movie where there is no way to know what really took place because the people in those scenes die or disappear forever. So there is a LOT of leeway, but knowing that just the premise is somewhat based on truth is still chilling to watch.

• Wolf Creek was a disappointment to seasoned horror fans.

  GL

• Not trying to impress anyone with hidden gems here, but I think this is the best of the last 30 years. Just the greatest from the genre (or any movie that has a lot of elements from the genre). The 70s is definitely the best decade for horror (and most film) Poltergeist ('82, makes the cut) Scream The Blair Witch Project The House of the Devil Hellraiser 28 Days Later A Nightmare on Elm Street Ringu (The American remake is really good as well) The Fly (Cronenberg) Evil Dead II House of 1,000 Corpses My list is definitely U.S.-centric (Japan and France definitely have a strong horror tradition) and I think House of 1,000 Corpses is the only controversial choice, but I stand by it.

• I really like the movie Them. I enjoy it for the tension, and have come to terms with being uncomfortably bothered by the ending which resolves nothing. It's about the French couple that is harassed by (what we find out is) a group of kids while they are in their isolated country house in Romania. Was it an inspiration for the U.S film The Strangers? It seems like it must have been.

• Completely agree with (but am kind of pleasantly surprised by) all the mentions of Wolf Creek. The movie is far too gruesome to ever recommend-- at least not without many, many caveats-- but it is extremely tense and superbly acted. What makes the movie all the more horrifying is that it is largely based on true events. More specifically, it is based on some awful outcomes that definitely did happen, and the director creates the scenes that might have led to it all. It's not a documentary, but a plausible reconstruction of events. It's a horror movie that is all too real in that it relies strictly on the human capacity for depravity. No ghosts, no monsters, no supernatural powers-- just pure human evil. It is the best horror movie of the past thirty years.

• R76 the movie you mentioned is titled "Ils." I mentioned it back it R18. It is the (French) inspiration for "The Strangers," but it is much better.

• [quote]What makes the movie all the more horrifying is that it is largely based on true events. More specifically, it is based on some awful outcomes that definitely did happen, and the director creates the scenes that might have led to it all. It's not a documentary, but a plausible reconstruction of events. Anybody can come up with a "plausible" reconstruction. Truth is not based on the plausible, but upon fact. "Based on" is not nearly the same as true. So I really hope that "truth" wasn't what made the movie great for you.

• [quote][quote]all the mentions of Wolf Creek. I mentioned it first, hee hee.

  R12

• I just read Wolf Creek's wiki page. It says that the movie isn't based on an actual case but a "composite" of Australian outback murders.

• r78, according to the wikipedia entry for The Strangers, the film is based on a personal childhood experience of the director/screenwriter. There is no mention of the French film Ils(Them) being an inspiration. That's why even though the stories are so similar, I question the connection.

  R76

• The Kardashian sex tape. An undeserving society is still suffering the horrors from the ramifications of the tape to this day.

• Silver Bullet

  Eeeek

• Have you seen both films, R82?

• The Descent Frailty Ringu (for the boy) Trick r treat

• Also, just saw CHAINED which freaked me out! Vincent D'Onofrio (yes, I said his name. Deal!) as a serial killer. Really really scary movie!

• My favorites were The Thing, Phantasm (original came out in 79, but I'm including the whole series in my favorites), the original Saw, High Tension, Buried (Spanish film with Ryan Reynolds), Hellraiser (just the first), The Fly.

• [Shaun of the Dead] Bitch, please! This movie is a comedy.

• Insidious Paranormal Activity Ginger Snaps Back The Others Trick or Treat The Woods Let the Right One In (subtitled) Jennifer's Body

• Black Christmas(original). John Carpenter's Halloween is credited for starting the slasher, psycho-killer genre, but he stole everything from Bob Clark's Black Christmas.

• R87, Vinnie D. was pretty scary in "The Cell" too.

  http://www.scifi-universe.com/upload/galeries/images_film/The_cell_8.jpg

• A ton of weak, 'moviegoer' horror mentioned on this thread. The Blair Witch Project was the real deal, and most of you Oscar watching Marys hated it.

• I watched the remake of Fright Night this week. What a stinking pile of crap. I never saw the original, but it couldn't possibly have been worse than the remake. I can't believe the talent who signed on to be in that film. It couldn't have been a huge payday for them. It was no blockbuster.

• [quote] It says that the movie isn't based on an actual case but a "composite" of Australian outback murders Have you ever googled "murdered campers"? Pages and pages of real murders of campers all over the world. You gotsta be crazy to go camping without an automatic weapon and fewer than 10 fellow campers, preferably all former Special Forces members.

• [quote]watched the remake of Fright Night this week. What a stinking pile of crap. I never saw the original, but it couldn't possibly have been worse than the remake. You need to see the original. I grew up watching it, and it is light years beyond the insipid remake. I was appalled at how bad the remake was, actually. They totally fucked up a classic '80s vampire flick.

• Seriously, R93? Close ups of nasal drip frightened you?

• Obviously this is an opinion thread but I am seeing so many middling to downright bad movies mentioned here.

• Exorcist III: Legion - very underrated film, and creepy throughout (also Jeffrey Dahmer's favorite film, as if that isn't scary enough).

• I'm # 100!

• Snowton Murders. Holy shit--just so fucking grim and disturbing.

• That was pretty disturbing, R101, all the more so because it's a true story.

• Dead Snow

• Goddamn remakes. Tonight it was "And Soon the Darkness." The original was a perfectly compact, minimalist suspense film with no elaborate background story, no exotic backdrop, no torture scenes, no soundtrack, no sex and it has been blown into a remake mess. The reason the original was so good was because it was a neat little movie to discover on tv. Two ordinary English girls bicycling through France. One minute everything is fine and a few minutes later, their situation is entirely changed. A sunny, banal countryside becomes sinister, yet it hasn't really changed. It looks exactly like it did before. The people behave exactly as they did before. Pamela Franklyn can't get anyone to do anything; they won't change their routine. The worst thing has happened, it happened quickly and the rest of the world doesn't acknowledge that your world had fallen apart. It seemed very realistic in that way. That's the way it happens in real life. One minute the world is normal and predictable, the next minute your child or friend or spouse is missing and yet the world goes on. Ah well, I guess suspense doesn't cut it anymore in films. Audiences need slashings, torture scenes and boobs.

• Aaah, Pamela Franklin. She was in those strange 70s movies and she had the face of an angel. I heard she retired to run a bookstore in Hollywood.

  Supernatural%2070s

• [quote]Snowton Murders. Holy shit--just so fucking grim and disturbing. That movie reminded me of "Gummo". Life can be fucked up in small decaying towns, and the people so fucking odd they border on depraved. Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert wrote this strange little book called "Wigfield". These all give me the same vibe - I can smell the dirty clothes and mildew.

• Funny Games

• Snowtown Murders must have been bad. The total US ticket sales for that movie is 8,000. I guess it got here Friday and was gone by Wednesday and that's why I never heard of it. There's no Google results for Snowton, so I guess it's a misspelling and nobody can be bothered to correct it. Probably typical for fans of a movie that pulls in a whopping 8k.

• Ok, I'm wrong about the original And Soon the Darkness not having a soundtrack. I must have blocked it out of my consciousness due to its 70s cheesiness. Where did they find all that cheesy movie music from the 70s? It sounded nothing like the real music people were listening to at the time. This was especially true when a young character in a film or tv show turned on a radio.

• 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Those freaking running zombies are the stuff of nightmares.

• Not the best movie but one that I could barely watch was "30 Days of Night". The intense dread and relentless feeling of doom made me cover my eyes in the theater. The group was so isolated with the vampires that it intensified the OMG level. Plus, Ben Foster was real creepy. I'm also severely creeped out by the first 2 Paranormal Activity movies.

• Thanks for calling out the original "And Soon the Darkness" - I recently watched it on YouTube and thought it was brilliant - I loved how it gradually switches from banal to terrifying. But how did they expect to bike in those outfits!!

• Snowtown Murders is a good pick. Extraordinarily dark and grim. Not sure if it is quite a 'horror' movie, at least in the traditional sense. It has much more of a feel of a documentary, and narrowly constructs actual documented events. Frankly it would be way too disturbing for a mass audience: there was no way it was going to be a commercial success. Most horror movies have a sense of gory fun to them, but Snowtown sticks to its disturbing realism. Superbly acted and beautifully shot. But tough to watch. Very tough.

• Candyman is pretty great and under appreciated. It has a very bleak, Midwest, winter grimness, a creepy Philip Glass score, based on a Clive Barker story. It also was my first exposure to Virginia Madsen who I think is terrific in it. There's one particular scene that I still think of, where she can't warn her friend that the Candyman is behind the door, and of course her friend is murdered in front of her. I definitely recommend it.

• Just reading about the Snowton murders on Wikipedia was scary enough! You'd have to be a pretty bad filmmaker to make that unsuspenseful. I liked "Candyman" because it was just such an original story. I don't think anyone had made a horror film set in the projects before, and they're one of the scariest places on earth.

• Seed. That hammer scene...oh my fucking god. I still shudder when I think about it.

• Evita

• I must be hard to frighten because most of the ones posted are fairly tame to me. Let the Right One in wasn't scary at all. Shaun of the Dead was a comedy. Insidious is the only one I've seen lately that truly creeped me out to the point I was peeking in dark corners, closing curtains and jumping at noises.

• P.S. I do admit to finding Paranormal 1&II pretty creepy too. Funny Games---the ending got me because you keep thinking they will escape but as soon as the son is killed it starts looking really bad and the two killers start towards the next house after so calmly killing the couple.

  R118

• Silence of the Lambs 28 Days Later Let The Right One In Irreversible Seven

• Momma Mia

  G

• Sinister was pretty scared, but undermined by a tasteless and silly ending.

• Irreversible is not a horror movie, BTW.

• [quote]Exorcist III: Legion - very underrated film, and creepy throughout Is that the one where Regan is hypnotized? Saw that on tv about a decade ago, and couldn't even finish watching, it was so bad.

• If you like zombie movies [and hell, even if you don't], you need to check out Exit Humanity, it's absolutely superb. One of the very best non-humour zombie movies of all time. As for humourous zombie movies, Cockneys vs Zombies is a treat. It very nearly lives up to the awesomeness of Shaun of the Dead, that's how great it is.