Horror films often aim to evoke viewers’ nightmares, fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Plots within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage into the everyday world. Prevalent elements include ghosts, extraterrestrials, vampires, werewolves, demons, Satanism, evil clowns, gore, torture, vicious animals, evil witches, monsters, giant monsters, zombies, cannibalism, psychopaths, natural, ecological or man-made disasters, and serial killers.
Some sub-genres of horror film include comedy horror, folk horror, body horror, found footage,h oliday horror, psychological horror, science fiction horror, slasher, supernatural horror, gothic horror, natural horror, zombie film, and teen horror.
Here are Top 10 must watch horror Films:
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Cast : Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd.
The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick and co-written with novelist Diane Johnson. The film is based on Stephen King’s 1977 novel of the same name. The film's central character is Jack Torrance (Nicholson), an aspiring writer and recovering alcoholic who accepts a position as the off-season caretaker of the isolated historic Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies.
Wintering over with Jack are his wife, Wendy Torrance (Duvall) and young son, Danny Torrance (Lloyd). Danny possesses "the shining", psychic abilities that enable him to see into the hotel& it's horrific past. The hotel cook, Dick Hallorann (Crothers), also has this ability and is able to communicate with Danny telepathically. The hotel had a previous winter caretaker who went insane and killed his family and himself. After a winter storm leaves the Torrances snowbound, Jack& his sanity deteriorates due to the influence of the supernatural forces that inhabit the hotel, placing his wife and son in danger.
Production took place almost exclusively at EMI Elstree Studios, with sets based on real locations. Kubrick often worked with a small crew, which allowed him to do many takes, sometimes to the exhaustion of the actors and staff. The new Steadicam mount was used to shoot several scenes, giving the film an innovative and immersive look and feel. There has been much speculation into the meanings and actions in the film because of inconsistencies, ambiguities, symbolism, and differences from the book
2. The Invisible Man
Cast : Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid.
The Invisible Man is a 2020 science fiction horror film written and directed by Leigh Whannell, loosely based on the novel of the same name by H. G. Wells. It follows a woman who believes she is being stalked by her abusive and wealthy boyfriend even after his apparent suicide, and ultimately deduces that he has acquired the ability to become invisible. It is an international co-production of the United States and Australia.The development of a new film based on H. G. Wells’s 1897 book began as early as 2006. The project was revived as part of Universal’s shared cinematic universe in 2016, intended to consist of their classic monsters, with Johnny Depp attached to star in the title role. After The Mummy was released in 2017 to critical and financial failure, development was halted on all projects. In early 2019, the studio changed their plans from a serialized universe to films based on individualized story telling and the project reentered development. Principal photography lasted from July to September 2019 in Sydney, Australia.
The Invisible Man was released in the United States on February 28, 2020, by Universal Pictures. The film received positive reviews from critics, with praise for Moss’ performance, its inventive modernization of the novel’s plot, and the combination of scares with “a smart narrative about how people can be manipulated and abused in harmful relationships”. The film grossed $134 million worldwide against a $7 million budget and is currently the eighth highest-grossing film of 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic closing theaters across the world, Universal announced the film would be made available for digital rental just four weeks after it was released theatrically.
3. Halloween
Cast : Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, P. J. Soles.
Halloween is a 1978 American slasher film directed and scored by John Carpenter, co-written with producer Debra Hill, and starring Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis in her film debut. The plot tells about a mental patient who was committed to a sanitarium for murdering his teenage sister on Halloween night when he was six years old. Fifteen years later, he escapes and returns to his hometown, where he stalks a female babysitter and her friends, while under pursuit by his psychiatrist.
Filming took place in Southern California in May 1978, before premiering in October, where it grossed $70 million, becoming one of the most profitable independent films. Primarily praised for Carpenter’s direction and score, many credit the film as the first in a long line of slasher films inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974). Some critics have suggested that Halloween may encourage sadism and misogyny by audiences identifying with its villain. Others have suggested that the film is a social critique of the immorality of youth and teenagers in 1970s America, with many of Myers’ victims being sexually promiscuous substance abusers, and the lone heroine is depicted as innocent and pure, hence her survival.
4. A Quiet Place
Cast : Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Millicent Simmonds.
A Quiet Place is a 2018 American post-apocalyptic science fiction horror film directed by and starring John Krasinski. Written by Bryan Woods, Scott Beck and Krasinski, the plot revolves around a father (Krasinski) and a mother (Emily Blunt) who struggle to survive and raise their children in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by blind extraterrestrial creatures with an acute sense of hearing. While in college, Beck and Woods began developing a story that would lead to the film. In July 2016, Krasinski read their spec script and was hired to direct and rewrite the script in March the following year. The film drew inspiration from other films, such as Alien, No Country for Old Men, and In the Bedroom. Krasinski and Blunt were cast in the lead roles in May 2017. Filming took place in upstate New York from May to November 2017. A sequel, A Quiet Place Part II, is scheduled to be released on April 23, 2021, with Krasinski again directing and the main cast also returning; the film was originally slated for a March 2020 release, but was postponed to September 2020 and later April 2021 due to the COVID-
19 pandemic.
A Quiet Place premiered at South by Southwest on March 9, 2018, and was released in the United States on April 6, 2018, by Paramount Pictures. It became a major box office success, grossing over $340 million worldwide, and received critical acclaim for it's atmosphere, direction, acting, and sound design. It was described as a “smart, wickedly frightening good time”,and chosen by both the National Board of Review and American Film Institute as one of the top ten films of 2018.
5. Jaws
Cast: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss.
Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel of the same name. In the film, a man-eating great white shark attacks beachgoers at a summer resort town, prompting police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) to hunt it with the help of a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a professional shark hunter (Robert Shaw). Murray Hamilton plays the mayor, and Lorraine Gary portrays Brody’s wife. The screenplay is credited to Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography.
Shot mostly on location on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, Jaws was the first major motion picture to be shot on the ocean, and resultingly had a troubled production, going over budget and past schedule. As the art department’s mechanical sharks often malfunctioned, Spielberg decided to mostly suggest the shark’s presence, employing an ominous and minimalist theme created by composer John Williams to indicate its impending appearances. Spielberg and others have compared this suggestive approach to that of director Alfred Hitchcock. Universal Pictures gave the film what was then an exceptionally wide release for a major studio picture, on over 450 screens, accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign with a heavy emphasis on television spots and tie-in merchandise.
Jaws was the prototypical summer blockbuster, regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history, and it won several awards for its music and editing. It was the highest-grossing film until the release of Star Wars in 1977. Both films were pivotal in establishing the modern Hollywood business model, which pursues high box-office returns from action and adventure films with simple high-concept premises, released during the summer in thousands of theaters and heavily advertised. Jaws was followed by three sequels, all with neither Spielberg nor Benchley, and many imitative thrillers.
In 2001, it was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film
Registry as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
6. The Cabin In The Woods
Cast : Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison.
The Cabin in the Woods is a 2011 American horror comedy film directed by Drew Goddard in his directorial debut, produced by Joss Whedon, and written by Whedon and Goddard.The plot follows a group of college students who retreat to a remote forest cabin where they fall victim to backwoods zombies while technicians manipulate events from an underground facility. Goddard and Whedon, having worked together previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, wrote the screenplay in three days, describing it as an attempt to “revitalize” the slasher film genre and as a critical satire on torture porn.
The special effects, monster costumes, special makeup, and prosthetic makeup for the movie were done by veteran horror film actress Heather Langenkamp, her husband David LeRoy Anderson, and their company AFX studio. Filming took place in Vancouver, British Columbia from March to May 2009 on an estimated budget of $30 million.
The film was originally slated for release on February 5, 2010, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists, but was indefinitely shelved due to financial difficulties. In 2011, Lionsgate picked up the distribution rights. The film premiered in December 2011 at the Butt-Numb-A-Thon film festival in Austin, Texas and was released in the United States on April 13, 2012, grossing over $66 million worldwide. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its screenplay, tone, and performances.
7. Nosferatu
Cast : Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder.
Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is a 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire with an interest in both a new residence and the wife (Greta Schröder) of his estate agent (Gustav von Wangenheim). The film is an unauthorized and unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. Various names and other details were changed from the novel, including Count Dracula being renamed Count Orlok to avoid copyright issues.Even with several details altered, Stoker’s heirs sued over the adaptation, and a court ruling ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed. However, a few prints of Nosferatu survived, and the film came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema.
The film was released in the United States on 3 June 1929, seven years after its original premiere in Germany. In this highly influential silent horror film, the mysterious Count Orlok summons Thomas Hutter to his remote Transylvanian castle in the mountains. The eerie Orlok seeks to buy a house near Hutter and his wife, Ellen . After Orlok reveals his vampire nature, Hutter struggles to escape the castle, knowing that Ellen is in grave danger. Meanwhile Orlok’s servant, Knock , prepares for his master to arrive at his new home.
8. Get Out
Cast : Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford.
Get Out is a 2017 American horror film written and directed by Jordan Peele in his directorial debut. This film follows Chris Washington (Kaluuya), a young African-American man who uncovers a disturbing secret when he meets the family of his white girlfriend, Rose Armitage (Williams). Get Out premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2017, and was theatrically released in the United States on February 24, 2017, by Universal Pictures. It grossed $255 million worldwide on a $4.5 million budget, with a net profit of $124 million, making it the tenth-most profitable film of 2017.
It received praise for its direction, acting, writing, and themes, and it was chosen by the National Board of Review, the American Film Institute and Time as one of the top 10 films of the year. At the 90 th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for four awards, including Best Picture; Peele won for Best Original Screenplay. It also earned five nominations at the 23 rd Critics’ Choice Awards, two at the 75 th Golden Globe Awards, and two at the 71 st British Academy Film Awards. It has been featured in multiple listings of the best films of the 2010s.
9. Psycho
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin.
Psycho is a 1960 American psychological horror thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay, written by Joseph Stefano, was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. It Centers on the encounter between a female embezzler on the run, Mario Crane (Leigh), and Norman Bates (Perkins), the shy proprietor of a secluded old motel, and it's
aftermath.
Psycho was seen as a departure from Hitchcock’s previous film North by Northwest, having been filmed on a lower budget, in black-and-white, and by a television crew. The film was initially considered controversial and received mixed reviews, but audience fascination and outstanding box office returns prompted a major critical reevaluation. Psycho was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Leigh and Best Director for Hitchcock.
Psycho is now considered one of Hitchcock’s best films and praised as a major work of cinematic art by international film critics and scholars due to its slick direction, tense atmosphere, effective camerawork, a memorable score and iconic performances. Often ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films, and is widely considered to be the earliest example of the slasher film genre.
After Hitchcock’s death in 1980, Universal Pictures began producing follow-ups: three sequels, a remake, a made-for-television spin-off, and a prequel television series set in the 2010s. In 1992, the Library of Congress deemed the film “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
10. Hereditary
Cast : Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro.
Hereditary is a 2018 American horror tragedy film written and directed by Ari Aster, in his feature film directorial debut. It is about a family who is haunted by a mysterious presence after the death of their secretive grandmother. Hereditary premiered on January 21, 2018, in the Midnight section at the 2018 Sundance FilmFestival, and was theatrically released in the United States on June 8, 2018. It was a critical and commercial success, making over $80 million on a $10 million budget to become A24’s highest-grossing film worldwide.
Hereditary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2018. The trailer for the film was released on January 30, 2018.On Anzac Day in 2018, the trailer for Hereditary played before the PG rated family film Peter Rabbit in a cinema in Innaloo, Western Australia. According to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald, the Hereditary preview was accidentally shown to family audiences and created a small panic in the theater. The theater was apparently full of families including “at least 40 children”. The film was released in the United States by A24 on June 8, 2018. It was released in the United Kingdom by Entertainment Film Distributors on June 15, 2018.
The Binge Flix Conclusion
All of these are our favourite films and they are favourite for a reason!! We love watching these because they are so great in their own ways and no doubt you’ll like them too. When anybody says the word “horror” the names above , comes in our minds , because those films are the actual meaning of the word horror.
The Shining is first on the list because it is just so awesome like if you haven’t seen the shining yet then what are you doing? All of these are a must watch horror film if you love the horror genre. We want you to binge watch these films and let us know in the comments how you liked it. We hope you like these films and give us a follow on our Instagram @thebingeflix._ for more movie stuff. And don’t forget to tell your friends about us ;)
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