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The 15 Best Urban-Legend Horror Movies
Favs/dislikes: 1:0. This weekend, Slender Man opens in theaters after a long and winding road to the box office (including multiple release-date changes and a mostly absent marketing campaign). The central story is based on the internet lore surrounding the titular character, a long, spindly humanlike figure who stalks, abducts, and traumatizes people — particularly kids. In the movie, a group of teen girls attempt to solve the mystery of Slender Man to protect themselves and save a friend who goes missing. It’s classic urban-legend horror: those scary stories you heard through your best friend’s cousin’s girlfriend who knows a guy that was totally killed by mixing Pop Rocks with soda. If you’re looking for more spooky stories along these lines, we’ve come up with a list of 15 urban-legend horror movies ready to freak you the hell out, ranked in ascending order of quality. From the haunted VHS tapes of Japan to the sewer-trawling alligators of the United States, here’s your guide to the best, most bombastic, and occasionally sexy urban-myth-based horror movies. -
Top 20 Creepiest Documentaries Ever Made
Favs/dislikes: 2:0. These films will make your skin crawl. Welcome to WatchMojo and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the Top 10 Creepiest Documentaries. For this, we’re looking at documentaries tackling unsettling subject matter in disturbing ways. However, don’t expect to see any multi-part docuseries, because we’ve decided to save those for another day. -
The 13 Best Documentaries About True Crimes
Favs/dislikes: 1:0. While the human obsession with true crime might be innate, the nonfiction genre is relatively new to be taken seriously. With the recent success of the HBO series, The Jinx, and the hit podcast, Serial, true crime seems to be on everybody’s minds. Investigating crime might be inherently interesting for anybody with a taste for documentary, but there’s a moral and ethical standard that comes with any story of this kind. Also, taste plays a huge factor in whether these films stray into camp or exploitation. News hours have made their livings off society’s thirst for criminal behavior and it’s a fine line between simply reporting a dramatic occurrence and digging into the mechanics of how those illegal activities take shape. As such, an impactful, lasting true crime film has to work double-time to be respectful to the people involved, diligent about the facts, and ultimately entertaining. One wrong move and a crime film can get lost in the vortex of multitudes that have sunk to the trash heap. The following list explores nonfiction from multiple angles. Some, like The Thin Blue Line and The Central Park Five, take on wrongful convictions and the ensuing public outrage, while others excavate a botched investigation in search of a greater truth, as seen in Capturing the Friedmans. Others, like The Iceman, are crime films by process of possessing a central character who has dedicated a life to murder and having a story that’s a window into a fractured psychology. We’ve also included some that are rarely considered true crime films, Resurrect Dead: The Msytery of the Toynbee Tiles and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, that take on subjects who are only technically committing the sorts of misconduct synonymous with standard crime stories, however, their makers smartly package them with similar mysterious handling. -
10 great body horror films
Favs/dislikes: 1:0. “The term ‘biological horror,’” David Cronenberg once said, “really refers to the fact that my films are very body-conscious. They’re very conscious of physical existence as a living organism, rather than other horror films or science-fiction films which are very technologically oriented, or concerned with the supernatural, and in that sense are very disembodied.” As the Canadian maestro returns to the big screen with Crimes of the Future (2022), a film pitched in the press – if not by its director, who has long shied away from applying the term to his own work – as a return to the realms of ‘body’ or ‘biological’ horror, we’re taking a look back at some great films that deal in the treacheries of the flesh. Referring to a distinct subgenre in horror cinema that variously trades in aberration, mutation, transformation and a loss of conscious control over the human body – often accompanied by generous volumes of squicky corporeal trauma – body horror usually requires a certain level of tolerance for on-screen yucks. The genesis of the term itself can be traced back to a 1983 essay by the Australian academic Philip Brophy – who would go on to practise what he preached by directing the 1993 feature Body Melt – but its conceptual tropes stretch all the way back into the realms of gothic literature. While biological horror movies offer boundless opportunities for the greatest FX artists in the business to let their imaginations run wild, the subgenre has long proved fertile ground for its political potential, where questions of bodily integrity and autonomy are inherently foregrounded. Here are 10 greats that you might not want to watch on a full stomach. -
Top 10 Horror Mini Series
Favs/dislikes: 1:0. If you're in the mood for quality thrills and chills, look no further. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we're counting down our picks for the Top 10 Horror Miniseries. For this list, we're taking a look at some of the best miniseries to ever be produced that fit into the broader genre of horror. Whether they're gore-fests, supernatural or psychological thrillers, or dark urban fantasies, they're eligible. Have an idea you want to see made into a WatchMojo video? Check out our suggest page at http://WatchMojo.comsuggest and submit your idea. If you’re in the mood for quality thrills and chills, look no further. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Horror Miniseries. For this list, we’re taking a look at some of the best miniseries to ever be produced that fit into the broader genre of horror. Whether they’re gore-fests, supernatural or psychological thrillers, or dark urban fantasies, they’re eligible. -
16 Best Liminal Space Horror Movies That Define the Genre
Favs/dislikes: 3:0. The word "liminal" is something we have been hearing more and more these days. The word is nothing new but its definition pertains to a lot of what we see around us. Liminal is a word that relates to transition, or the initial stages of a transitional process. Think of it as the end of one thing, but the next phase of whatever it may be describing, has yet to really take shape. Horror is often, if not always, a reflection of the world around us and how we react to it. It's the fear of the unknown in everyday life. Whether you like it or not, the 2020s have kicked off in a very liminal way. The old ways seemed to have been torn down, but we've yet to see a new world come together. Many are nostalgic of the past, but the problem with nostalgia is that it feels good to stare at something that reminds you of the good ol'days, but you will never truly obtain what it meant and felt like ever again. Look around you, the world many of us were promised no longer exists. Malls are closing, technology is advancing, politics sways back and forth between conservative and progressive ideals, and here we all are, waiting for something new in this liminal space of life. To help us through that transition is a long list of liminal horror films that hit that spot of feeling like and limbo as you yearn for a past you can't have anymore. -
J-Horror: An Alternative Guide
Favs/dislikes: 3:0. There's a lot more to Japanese horror than the vengeful, lank-haired spook-girls of Ring, Ju-on and their legion of imitators. Sure, the West may have only recently woken up to its charms, but J-horror has been around for a mighty long time. The first Japanese novel, The Tale of Genji – now nearly a millennium old – is positively packed with ghosts and gruesome revenge. Noh and Kabuki are some of the most haunted theatrical traditions on Earth, and Edo period playwrights were constantly fighting to outdo one another in the gore, murder and supernatural vengeance stakes. Pretty much as soon as the first motion picture camera came off the boat here, someone picked it up and started making horror movies. Jizo the Spook [Bake Jizo] and Resurrection of a Corpse [Shinin no Sosei], both filmed in 1898, predate Nosferatu (1922) by decades. Since then, Japanese horror has come to us in a number of guises: sometimes grotesque, sometimes scary, sometimes erotic, funny or even beautiful. Let's take a look at a few examples... -
10 Movies Inspired By Urban Legends
Favs/dislikes: 0:0. Horror flicks can easily be about anything that makes our skin crawl. From maniacs with masks and sharp objects to haunted houses populated by vengeful spirits, finding something frightening is as easy as knowing where to look. But when it comes to certain members of the genre, they need to look no farther than human superstition. Urban legends and campfire tales have been with us since the birth of language itself, so it makes sense that they would transition well from the campfire to the screen. Tales of curses, strange creatures, and boogeymen have populated the genre for decades. So let's look at ten flicks inspired by urban legends. -
The 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time
Favs/dislikes: 1:0. One of the most common claims made about horror films is that they allow audiences to vicariously play with their fear of death. Inarguable, really, but that’s also too easy, as one doesn’t have to look too far into a genre often preoccupied with offering simulations of death to conclude that the genre in question is about death. That’s akin to saying that all an apple ever really symbolizes is an apple, and that symbols and subtexts essentially don’t exist. A more interesting question: Why do we flock to films that revel in what is, in all likelihood, our greatest fear? And why is death our greatest fear? A startling commonality emerges if you look over the following films in short succession that’s revelatory of the entire horror genre: These works aren’t about the fear of dying, but the fear of dying alone, a subtlety that cuts to the bone of our fear of death anyway—of a life unlived. There’s an explicit current of self-loathing running through this amazing collection of films. What are Norman Bates and Jack Torrance besides eerily all-too-human monsters? Failures. Success also ultimately eludes Leatherface, as well as the socially stunted lost souls of Kurosawa Kiyoshi’s Pulse. What is the imposing creature at the dark heart of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu? He makes for quite the presence, but his hungers ultimately lead him to oblivion. So many films, particularly American ones, tell us that we can be whatever we want to be, and that people who don’t achieve their desired self-actualization are freaks. The horror film says: Wait Jack, it ain’t that easy. This genre resents platitude (certainly, you can count the happy endings among these films on one hand), but the best horror movies of all time usually aren’t cynical, as they insist on the humanity that’s inextinguishable even by severe atrocity. Which is to say there’s hope, and catharsis, offered by the horror film. It tells us bruised romantics that we’re all in this together, thus offering evidence that we may not be as alone as we may think. Chuck Bowen -
100 best russian films by Afisha
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20 Great Siege Movies That Are Worth Your Time
Favs/dislikes: 1:0. Certainly one of the most satisfying and exciting cinematic scenarios is the siege picture. Combining fast-paced action sequences and unforeseeable circumstances, the siege motif emerges in a number of different genre categories; action, comedy, drama, horror, science fiction, you name it. As satiating as it is protracted and impassioned these films invariably target an individual or a small group barricaded or cornered – often in a single locale – with overwhelming obstacles they must overcome, safety often a star distance away. The following list, while not exhaustive and far from complete, acts as a sort of compendium of what the siege picture can entail. From mumblegore mindfucks, populist comedies, award-winning crime capers, to indulgent arthouse favorites, siege films not only pin down protagonists, they also capture the imagination. Be careful out there, and source out your exits ahead of time, whenever possible. -
200 Most Disturbing Movies
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20 MUST-SEE ECOLOGICAL HORROR FILMS
Favs/dislikes: 3:0. Here are 20 of our favorite ecological horror stories, from the ’50s to the powerful and poignant films of the last decade. While there’s much entertainment to found here, there’s also an important and increasingly urgent message. If we want to keep our horror on the screen and out of our reality, the time to act is now. -
The Science of Scare: The scariest movies of all time — 2023 update
Favs/dislikes: 3:0. Whether it's zombies, ghosts or anything else that goes 'bump in the night', is there anything better than a good horror movie? But of the hundreds of horror flicks, which is the ultimate 'king of fright night'? Our scientific study tracked heart rates throughout some of the world's most iconic horror films, to study the science of scary, and find the undisputed scariest horror film of all time! -
The Arts & Faith Top 25 Films on Waking Up
Favs/dislikes: 1:0. We need stories about protagonists who learn how to wake up and to be conscious of the deeper realities behind mere default settings, unquestioned assumptions, and the spiritual sedative of focusing on self. Produced by the Arts & Faith online community, this list spans 65 years of cinema, from 1952’s Ikiru to 2016’s Arrival. The Top 25 Films on Waking Up is sponsored by Image, a literary and arts quarterly founded in 1989 to demonstrate the vitality and diversity of well-made art and writing that engage seriously with the historic faiths of the West in our time. Now one of the leading literary magazines published in the English language, it is read all over the world—and it forms the nexus of a warm and lively community. -
The 25 Most Disturbing Horror Movies of All Time
Favs/dislikes: 8:0. The term disturbing is defined as something that can be troubling mentally or emotionally. It is something that is upsetting and may even make you physically ill. That being said, the term can be considered rather subjective. As human beings, we all have had our own unique experiences that over time have molded our characteristics, behavior, feelings, and personal judgments. So something that is disturbing to one person may not be disturbing to another. That being said, this is list of twenty five films from the horror genre that are disturbing or could be considered to be disturbing. The horror genre is the most likely place that we are going to find imagery that will shock and disturb the audience, featuring tales of true crime, serial killers, slashers, rape and revenge, torture, scenes of horrific gore, and the list can go on forever. Within the genre and its many subgenres, they can take us into the deepest and darkest corridors of humanity. Places that we hope to never witness or become a part of. It is those types of events that can be potentially disturbing. This list contains a little bit of everything, with at least one film from every decade between 1966 and 2016 and at least one from America, Serbia, Germany, Austria, Italy, Mexico, Hong Kong, Japan, Spain, China, France, Sweden and Argentina. It is a varied collection of horror pictures; with some between being critically hailed, many being labeled as exploitative and controversial, and some being banned in various parts of the world. [Author’s Note: This list is not meant to be an all inclusive list or a best of list; it is simply twenty five horror movies that may be disturbing.] -
10 Movies with The Best Uses of Point-of-View Shots
Favs/dislikes: 0:0. A point-of-view (POV) shot is one where the camera is positioned in such a way to give the audience the impression that they are viewing the scene as a character in the film. It creates the effect that the viewer is immersed in the action, as if he/she were directly taking part in the movie itself, as opposed to a deep-focus or master shot where the viewer is placed outside of events, passively observing like a “fly on the wall”. There are various types of POV available to the film-maker: the ‘subjective viewpoint’, for example, can be used to replicate the first-person narrative of a novel by showing the action through the eyes of the central character, whereas a more objective experience may be achieved by placing the camera cheek-to-cheek with another actor in the film to show what that character is able to see without implying that the viewer is actually taking part in their place. These kinds of shots are often followed immediately by a close-up of the character in order to show his/her reaction to what they (and the audience) have just seen — an editing combination known as “shot, reverse-shot”. A similar type of POV angle, regularly used in action movies, is where the camera is placed close to ground level alongside one of the wheels of a speeding car, adding excitement through a feeling of participation in the drama of a chase scene. POV shots have been used by directors since the dawn of cinema and they are a standard part of the film-maker’s toolkit. One of the earliest well-known uses of the technique is in Napoleon (Abel Gance,1927) when the camera was wrapped in protective padding and then violently punched around the set by a group of actors in order to recreate the ordeal of the central character being beaten up. Orson Welles originally planned in 1939 to film an entire version of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (later transplanted to the Vietnam war and shot from regular angles by Francis Ford Coppola in Apocalypse Now) entirely as a first-person narrative from the protagonist’s perspective. He discarded the idea as impractical, however, and concentrated on Citizen Kane instead; although he did later revisit the technique in 1952 when he used POV in his 1952 adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play, Othello. Some directors, such as Alfred Hitchcock, are famous for using point-of-view cinematography in many of their works to build suspense or add to the sense of fear they are trying to instil in the audience. The technique is especially beloved of horror and thriller filmmakers who can use it to show the villain’s actions without revealing the identity of the culprit. Nowadays, POV photography is everywhere and has become totally ubiquitous as just about anybody can go out and buy a Go-Pro camera, strap it to their ski- or bike-helmet and start filming away; Facebook and YouTube are full of first-person accounts of thrill-seekers hurtling down black runs or bumping along single-track mountain trails. It is the more memorable cinematic examples, however, that shall be examined in the following list. -
The 10 Best Movies Influenced by 20th Century Occultism
Favs/dislikes: 0:0. Aleister Crowley, an English novelist, poet, artist and “ceremonial magician” has had a acute influence on art. However, this influence is woven within the context of his philosophical religious movement, Thelema, and the impact that it has had upon its adherents (both past and present). Thelema’s influence throughout the last century is an influence that is one that persists within the shadows of culture. It developed as a re-imagining of renaissance-era philosophical law/logic that originated within the secret societies of Europe, such as Francis Dashwood’s Hellfire Club, The French Club des Hashischins (Hashish-User’s Club), the philosophy of Francois Rabelais (a Franciscan Monk, most known for his synthesis of Christian humanism with the ideals of the Greek Stoic philosophy), as well as the influence of various other hermetic orders such as the Freemasons. Crowley, influenced by the ideals of Dashwood and the humanist philosophy of Rabelais, decided to embark on a path toward the design of a hermetic order that would combine the organizational structure of such previous groups with the philosophical underpinnings of Rabelais. In this way, Crowley believed he could revive interest into what was termed ‘Magick’, a ritual practice different from stage performance what is generally termed by Thelemites as “magic”. To Crowley, the performance of ceremonial Magick was essential to the process of self-discovery and self actualization. He described the process of Magick as being the act of : “[finding out for oneself], and make sure beyond doubt, who one is, what one is, why one is …Being thus conscious of the proper course to pursue, the next thing is to understand the conditions necessary to following it out. After that, one must eliminate from oneself every element alien or hostile to success, and develop those parts of oneself which are specially needed to control the aforesaid conditions.” This process of self-discovery actualized by the practice of Magick has found its way into experimental film, blockbusters, comic books, novels, television and performance art. Thelema, though not as popular as an organized religious practice as it was in the past has seeped its way into the creation of popular media by creators like Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, H.R. Giger and Alejandro Jodorowsky. The following list of films expresses the impact that Thelema and its occult antecessors have had on film culture. -
The top 100 Most Violent Movies Ever Made by Tim Wambolt
Favs/dislikes: 59:1. Warning: These are the top 100 sickest, cruelest, most violent, gruesome, upsetting and sadistic films ever made! They contain torture, snuff, rape, animal cruelty, baby killing, genital mutilation and much more! You have been warned! Although none of these films are real like Traces of Death, they are still very realistic and may in fact contain real footage that may be traumatizing, (Seed, Snuff 102, I'm looking at you guys!) Please watch with caution! (Not complete yet. Some entries seem to be missing from IMDB). -
One hundred and eleven cult films by Alexander Pavlov
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21 Movies About Weird, Kinky Or Compulsive Sex
Favs/dislikes: 5:0. Perhaps the most surprising thing about Lars Von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac” (both parts are now on VOD: here’s our review of Part 1 and Part 2) is Shia LaBeouf’s accent that it’s a film that is totally, unashamedly, unavoidably about sex. While coitus, rumpy, intercourse, balling, humping, beast-with-two-back-making does feature in some shape or form with extreme frequency in cinema, it only rarely forms the central, wait for it, thrust of the story, likely partly because distributors (especially in the U.S.) are often accused of a streak of puritanism when it comes to sex, particularly when compared to the their much more carefree attitude toward violence, and partly because even today mainstream audiences can be put off by even a whiff of the smutty-old-man-in-a-dirty-coat connotation. Which means that furthermore, films like “Nymphomaniac” that delve into the darker recesses of human sexuality—power play, taboo fantasies and fetishes, BDSM, sex addiction, etc.—are even fewer. We dabbled in this arena not so long ago, choosing to, um “celebrate” the grotesque and unforgettable image of Cameron Diaz grinding into a car windshield in “The Counselor,” by running down 15 Weird Sex Scenes, having already run down the Best and Worst Sex Scenes. But it got us to thinking about films that took the bold stance of “Nymphomaniac” further, that built their whole narrative around shocking, discomfiting or fetishistic sex. So while avoiding tamer stuff that we’ve covered before, like in our Losing Your Virginity Movies feature, and also while trying to steer largely clear of the erotic thriller subgenre that deserves a feature all to itself someday (sorry “Basic Instinct” fans) we zipped open the eyeholes on our gimp masks and handcuffed ourselves to the DVD player, to bring you 21 films that, from comedies to dramas to uncategorizable arthouse explorations, walk on the wilder, weirder, and often more worrisome side of sex. -
The 40 Best Stop-Motion Animated Movies of All Time
Favs/dislikes: 4:0. This technique has been used since the dawn of cinema to bring objects to life and manufacture magical worlds. Before the days of CGI, it was a primary way to produce special effects, in classics from King Kong, to Jason and the Argonauts, to Star Wars. It’s called stop-motion. It’s rumored that the legendary cinema pioneer Georges Melies accidentally discovered it when his camera jammed once, and upon restarting it he noticed how everything slightly changed. Soon after, stop-motion films began appearing in Europe. What started as a novelty turned into an art form when artists with unique skill and vision began making their films utilizing it. Most commonly, it’s associated with puppet, but over the course of cinema development other mediums were used as well-figures made of clay (claymation), puppetoons (ready-made figurines), silhouettes. The final results are often fascinating, but the process is traditionally painstaking. To make the character move, the filmmaker has to take a picture, adjust the figure, take another, and so on. As there are 24 frames in a second of film, it can take hours to shoot each second. That’s especially true for more advanced works, with multiple characters. With the advent of CGI, stop-motion is considered passé. But it’s still alive and well, with new interesting works coming out almost every year. Much like each painter has a unique brush stroke, each animator creates a uniquely looking work, as the creation of characters and scenes is literally a hands-on experience here. This list consists of a variety of films made using stop-motion, and was compiled in order to best illustrate this unique art form. -
All Sherlock Holmes Films and Series
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35 best Perestroika films
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Movies about youth & rebellion: The 50 best youth-gone-wild films
Favs/dislikes: 1:0. Even the most helicoptering Park Slope parent will admit that some children, adorable though they are, must simply be born bad. Not their children, of course. But these otherbarbaric youngsters—rebellious, foul-mouthed, sometimes just pure evil—always make it to movie screens, from James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause to the NYC hellspawn of Kids(and all manner of demonically possessed tykes in between). Time Out New York has collected the most shocking of these movies about youth and rebellion and ranked them in a countdown of atrocious behavior. Our only parameter: They must be teens and younger, not twentysomethings. Thankfully for all audiences, these wayward children make the rest of us look good.
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