The horror movie genre was briefly in trouble at the turn of the 21st century. The dawn of CGI had made filmmakers complacent, which didn’t bode well for a genre whose greatest asset is the ability to surprise. Plus, the meta takedowns of the ‘90s a la Scream had laid bare the artifice of a lot of horror tropes, removing their capacity to scare.
But this just forced horror filmmakers to reinvent the genre, and throughout the 2010s, critics began to take notices of the rise of prestige horror films. The film buff community even coined the ugly term “elevated horror” to make themselves feel better for praising scary movies.
10 Kill List (2011)
Although it starts off as a grounded drama about an ex-killer’s attempts to go straight, Ben Wheatley’s Kill List soon devolves into full-on horror when the lead is targeted by a terrifying cult in the woods.
As is typical for Wheatley’s work, Kill List culminates in one of the most disturbing, harrowing endings in recent memory. It leaves audiences feeling cold – in a good way.
9 It Follows (2014)
Inspired by a recurring nightmare from his childhood, David Robert Mitchell brought one of the most inventive original premises of the decade to life in It Follows. It’s about a sexually transmitted parasite that causes a supernatural entity to follow the affected party until they either pass it on to someone else or die.
Although it wasn’t intended to be, It Follows ended up being interpreted as a perfect metaphor for STDs and their attached social stigma.
8 The Descent (2005)
In the opening act of The Descent, a group of friends go caving in an uncharted cave and get trapped in a cave-in, which is terrifying enough. Then, they discover a race of flesh-eating mutants living down there that want to maul and eat them.
Neil Marshall’s blood-soaked sophomore feature is expertly paced, taking the time in its first half to establish the characters so that their evisceration in the fast-paced second half has more impact.
7 You’re Next (2011)
Adam Wingard asked his screenwriter friend Simon Barrett to write a home invasion movie for him to direct, because the real-life terror of a home invasion was the only thing in horror movies that truly scared him anymore. Barrett wrote You’re Next as a home invasion thriller-turned-slasher that also comments on the excess of the rich with a pitch-black comic bite.
Although the distributor messed up the movie’s release and it went mostly unnoticed, You’re Next is one of the most unique, subversive, and captivating slashers ever made.
6 Train To Busan (2016)
Ever since audiences tired of seeing Romero’s dawdling zombies, many movies about the undead have had their hordes of flesh-eaters sprinting toward their living, breathing prey. But few have made sprinting zombies as effectively terrifying as Train to Busan.
There’s as much of a focus on action as horror in Train to Busan, one of the most exhilarating zombie movies ever made, while the train setting allows for some social commentary about class warfare.
5 The Witch (2015)
The perfect antidote to modern horror cinema’s overuse of cheap jump scares, Robert Eggers’ The Witch is all about atmosphere. A family is banished to a farm in the middle of nowhere due to their religious beliefs and they’re subsequently terrorized by a nearby witch.
Eggers’ film has a sophisticated sense of restraint that can rarely be found in horror films, and this restraint makes the payoffs more effective.
4 Let The Right One In (2008)
The most famous vampiric romance might be Twilight, but the greatest is Let the Right One In. By focusing on the characters – a bullied child and the vampire he befriends – director Tomas Alfredson deftly balanced the story’s horror and romance elements.
Both the bullied kid and the vampire are outsiders, and the movie draws this parallel between them to make their relationship ring true.
3 It Comes At Night (2017)
The apocalyptic event that ended the world before the events of It Comes at Night is never specified, because it isn’t important. This is a character-driven story about a family reluctantly taking in another family during an extremely dangerous, hostile time and trying to figure out if they can trust them.
Writer-director Trey Edward Shults masterfully builds up the tension throughout the movie, while keeping the audience disoriented by the layout of the house, similar to Kubrick’s depiction of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining.
2 Hereditary (2018)
Ari Aster made a name for himself overnight as one of the greatest horror filmmakers working today with Hereditary, which was dubbed “this generation’s The Exorcist” by a number of critics.
Toni Collette gives an Oscar-worthy performance as a grieving mother who is unwittingly lured into a pagan cult that has her family marked for a tragic inevitable fate.
1 Get Out (2017)
When it was announced that Jordan Peele would be directing a horror movie, there were doubts that the beloved sketch comedian could even craft effective scares. And against all odds, Peele’s timely movie changed the cultural conversation surrounding race, revived the “social thriller” genre, and won a much-deserved Oscar for his fiercely original screenplay.
Peele used the same dread and paranoia embedded in Ira Levin’s novels about women’s issues, like Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives, to explore poignant issues of race in America.
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