Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die
by billychess7 | created - 09 May 2012 | updated - 09 May 2012 | PublicI have chosen these horror masterpieces from the list "1001 movies you must see before you die" by Steven Jay Schneider. They are put in chronological order. There are also comments by several cinema critic reviewers.
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1. Nosferatu (1922)
Not Rated | 94 min | Fantasy, Horror
Vampire Count Orlok expresses interest in a new residence and real estate agent Hutter's wife.
Director: F.W. Murnau | Stars: Max Schreck, Alexander Granach, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder
Votes: 105,507
"A masterpiece of the German silent cinema and easily the most effective version of Dracula on record."
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
"It doesn't scare us, but it haunts us. It shows not that vampires can jump out of shadows, but that evil can grow there, nourished on death."
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
2. Frankenstein (1931)
Passed | 70 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Dr Henry Frankenstein is obsessed with assembling a living being from parts of several exhumed corpses.
Director: James Whale | Stars: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff, John Boles
Votes: 79,755
"One of the most deservedly famous and chilling horror films of all time."
Don Druker
Chicago Reader
"Classic monster movie still electrifies."
Teresa Talerico
Common Sense Media
"[Whale] did it in the Grand Guignol manner, with as many queer sounds, dark corners, false faces and cellar stairs as could possibly be inserted."
TIME Magazine
3. Dracula (1931)
Passed | 75 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula bends a naive real estate agent to his will, then takes up residence at a London estate where he sleeps in his coffin by day and searches for potential victims by night.
Directors: Tod Browning, Karl Freund | Stars: Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye
Votes: 58,665
"A sublimated ghost story related with all surface seriousness and above all with a remarkably effective background of creepy atmosphere."
Variety Staff
Variety
"Lugosi's seminal performance and the striking opening act are what distinguish Browning's version of the classic tale."
Dan Jardine
Cinemania
4. Vampyr (1932)
Not Rated | 75 min | Fantasy, Horror
A drifter obsessed with the supernatural stumbles upon an inn where a severely ill adolescent girl is slowly becoming a vampire.
Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer | Stars: Julian West, Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz
Votes: 20,531
"An often gauzy-gray movie that makes as much use of white as of the traditional horror-movie black, 'Vampyr' is so beautiful to look at, it's hypnotic."
John Beifuss
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
"If you've never seen a Carl Dreyer film and wonder why many critics, myself included, regard him as possibly the greatest of all filmmakers, this chilling horror fantasy is the perfect place to begin to understand."
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
5. Freaks (1932)
Not Rated | 64 min | Drama, Horror
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates
Votes: 50,633 | Gross: $0.63M
"Absolutely spine chilling Tod Browning classic horror film. "We will make you one of us." Yike!"
Steve Crum
Dispatch-Tribune Newspapers
"To the horror movie, a genre he helped create, he brought a taste for Victorian melodrama and an understanding, which he must have gained in the circus, for the isolated lives of weird and deformed outsiders."
Philip French
Observer [UK]
"Unclassifiable odd masterpiece."
Kim Newman
Empire Magazine
6. Song at Midnight (1935)
Not Rated | 124 min | Horror, Romance
China's first horror film, this is loosely based on The Phantom of the Opera. A disfigured musical genius roams a traditional Chinese opera house, punishing those who offend him.
Director: Weibang Ma-Xu | Stars: Menghe Gu, Ping Hu, Shan Jin, Chao Shi
Votes: 945
"The first fully sound version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA ... Expect a version fundamentally different from Western interpretations of the story."
Mark R. Leeper
Mark Leeper's Reviews
7. The Wolf Man (1941)
Passed | 70 min | Horror, Mystery, Romance
Larry Talbot returns to his father's castle in Wales and meets a beautiful woman. One fateful night, Talbot escorts her to a local carnival where they meet a mysterious gypsy fortune teller.
Director: George Waggner | Stars: Claude Rains, Warren William, Lon Chaney Jr., Ralph Bellamy
Votes: 30,735
"Most horrifying is the potential inability to sway our own innately darker tendencies."
Rob Humanick
Projection Booth
"A classic despite its flaws."
Steve Biodrowski
ESplatter
"In spite of its age, the emotional impact, and sheer terror hasn't lost its punch with great performances, and a tragic ending."
Felix Vasquez Jr.
Film Threat
8. Cat People (1942)
Not Rated | 73 min | Fantasy, Horror, Thriller
An American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland's fables if they are intimate together.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Simone Simon, Tom Conway, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph
Votes: 26,013 | Gross: $4.00M
"This is a weird drama of thrill-chill caliber."
Variety Staff
Variety
"A thinking man's supernatural thriller."
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
9. The Seventh Victim (1943)
Approved | 71 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A woman in search of her missing sister uncovers a Satanic cult in New York's Greenwich Village and finds that they could have something to do with her sibling's random disappearance.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Kim Hunter, Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell
Votes: 7,579
"Endlessly gripping and endlessly fascinating."
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
"Astonishing"
Fernando F. Croce
CinePassion
"Creepy classic horror"
Ken Hanke
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
10. I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
Passed | 69 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A nurse is hired to care for the wife of a sugar plantation owner, who has been acting strangely, on a Caribbean island.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Frances Dee, Tom Conway, James Ellison, Edith Barrett
Votes: 13,669
"Visually magnificent, eerie tale."
Michael E. Grost
Classic Film and Television
"It's a film that works by creating a chilling atmosphere."
Ken Hanke
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
11. Diabolique (1955)
Not Rated | 117 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
The wife and mistress of a loathed school principal plan to murder him with what they believe is the perfect alibi.
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot | Stars: Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel
Votes: 69,428 | Gross: $1.09M
"This is one of the dandiest mystery dramas that has shown here in goodness knows when."
Bosley Crowther
New York Times
"One of the best horror-thrillers of the classic era, and a massively inspirational piece of cinema."
R. L. Shaffer
IGN DVD
"Cruel, sour, and - unfortunately - very effective."
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
12. Horror of Dracula (1958)
Not Rated | 82 min | Drama, Horror
When Jonathan Harker rouses the ire of Count Dracula for accepting a job at the vampire's castle under false pretenses, his friend Dr. Van Helsing pursues the predatory villain.
Director: Terence Fisher | Stars: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling
Votes: 27,990
"This Grand Guignol treatment bowled people over in the 50s, and it still yields some potent shocks."
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
"Easily ranks in the pantheon of genre classics."
Steve Biodrowski
Cinefantastique
13. Eyes Without a Face (1960)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama, Horror
A surgeon causes an accident which leaves his daughter disfigured and goes to extreme lengths to give her a new face.
Director: Georges Franju | Stars: Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Juliette Mayniel, Alexandre Rignault
Votes: 35,172 | Gross: $0.05M
"Among the most disturbing horror films ever made."
David Edelstein
Slate
"It infects your dreams with dread and desperation."
Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune
"A classic of twisted gothic enchantment."
Rob Gonsalves
eFilmCritic.com
"As absurd and as beautiful as a fairy tale."
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
14. Peeping Tom (1960)
Not Rated | 101 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
A young man murders women, using a movie camera to film their dying expressions of terror.
Director: Michael Powell | Stars: Karlheinz Böhm, Anna Massey, Moira Shearer, Maxine Audley
Votes: 39,301 | Gross: $0.08M
"The original first-person horror film."
J. Hoberman
Village Voice
"A risk-all masterpiece from one of our greatest film-makers."
Tom Hutchinson
Radio Times
15. Black Sunday (1960)
Approved | 87 min | Horror
A vengeful witch and her fiendish servant return from the grave and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of the witch's beautiful look-alike descendant.
Director: Mario Bava | Stars: Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi, Ivo Garrani
Votes: 17,613
"One of the cinema's preeminent examples of gothic horror."
Nick Schager
Lessons of Darkness
16. Psycho (1960)
R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin
Votes: 718,756 | Gross: $32.00M
"An unusual, good entertainment, indelibly Hitchcock, and on the right kind of boxoffice beam."
Variety Staff
Variety
"Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece blends a brutal manipulation of audience identification and an incredibly dense, allusive visual style to create the most morally unsettling film ever made."
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
"All those who still get a chill every time they step into a hotel shower, say aye. That, you see, is the power of Psycho."
Mary Elizabeth Williams
Salon.com
"What makes Psycho immortal, when so many films are already half-forgotten as we leave the theater, is that it connects directly with our fears."
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
"With the exception of Halloween, no latter-day horror/thriller has been capable of generating as many goosebumps."
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
17. The Birds (1963)
PG-13 | 119 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette
Votes: 204,658 | Gross: $11.40M
"Classic Hitchcock horror film still gives the chills."
Joyce Slaton
Common Sense Media
"Inventive classic."
Michael E. Grost
Classic Film and Television
18. The Haunting (1963)
G | 112 min | Horror
Hill House has stood for about 90 years and appears haunted: its inhabitants have always met strange, tragic ends. Now Dr. John Markway has assembled a team of people who he thinks will prove whether or not the house is haunted.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn
Votes: 42,506 | Gross: $2.62M
"The scariest movie of its day"
Lori Hoffman
Atlantic City Weekly
19. Onibaba (1964)
Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Two women kill samurai and sell their belongings for a living. While one of them is having an affair with their neighbor, the other woman meets a mysterious samurai wearing a bizarre mask.
Director: Kaneto Shindô | Stars: Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Satô, Jûkichi Uno
Votes: 21,889
"One of the absolute peaks of atmospheric black-and-white horror."
TV Guide's Movie Guide
"Time enough has passed to qualify the uniquely spare look of Onibaba classic"
Christopher Null
Filmcritic.com
20. The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
Not Rated | 89 min | Drama, Horror
A European prince terrorizes the local peasantry while using his castle as a refuge against the "Red Death" plague that stalks the land.
Director: Roger Corman | Stars: Vincent Price, Hazel Court, Jane Asher, David Weston
Votes: 16,243
"Price ... is at his most deliriously malevolent."
Nick Schager
Lessons of Darkness
"Probably Corman's best film. Certainly his best-looking."
Ken Hanke
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
21. Repulsion (1965)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
A sex-repulsed woman who disapproves of her sister's boyfriend sinks into depression and has horrific visions of rape and violence.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser, Yvonne Furneaux
Votes: 57,296
"... a masterfully conducted portrait in madness..."
Sean Axmaker
Seanax.com
"Repulsion is a frightening, fiercely entertaining experience that holds up to time."
Edward Guthmann
San Francisco Chronicle
22. Viy (1967)
Not Rated | 77 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A young priest is ordered to preside over the wake of witch in a small old wooden church of a remote village. This means spending three nights alone with the corpse with only his faith to protect him.
Directors: Konstantin Ershov, Georgiy Kropachyov, Aleksandr Ptushko | Stars: Leonid Kuravlyov, Natalya Varley, Aleksey Glazyrin, Nikolay Kutuzov
Votes: 9,355
"Typical of Ptushko's work, it mixes gothic horror, from a short story by Nikolai Gogol, and grotesque animated effects in a proletarian automatic blender."
Kelly Vance
East Bay Express
23. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Not Rated | 96 min | Horror, Thriller
A ragtag group of Pennsylvanians barricade themselves in an old farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls that are ravaging the Northeast of the United States.
Director: George A. Romero | Stars: Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman
Votes: 139,222 | Gross: $0.09M
"Over its short, furious course, the picture violates so many strong taboos - cannibalism, incest, necrophilia - that it leaves audiences giddy and hysterical."
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
24. Hour of the Wolf (1968)
Not Rated | 88 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
While vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Gertrud Fridh, Georg Rydeberg
Votes: 22,584
"One of the typical bleak psychological dramas of Ingmar Bergman."
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
"A brilliant Gothic fantasy."
Derek Adams
Time Out
"Hour of the Wolf is not one of Bergman's great films but it is unthinkable for anyone seriously interested in movies not to see it."
Renata Adler
New York Times
25. Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Approved | 137 min | Drama, Horror
A young couple trying for a baby moves into an aging, ornate apartment building on Central Park West, where they find themselves surrounded by peculiar neighbors.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer
Votes: 235,351
"One of the finest horror films ever made."
Stephen Whitty
Newark Star-Ledger
"A spellbinding horror film from Roman Polanski."
Wesley Lovell
Oscar Guy
"Four decades later, Polanski's supremely mounted horror thriller holds up extremely well."
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com
26. The Wicker Man (1973)
R | 88 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A puritan police sergeant arrives in a Scottish island village in search of a missing girl, who the pagan locals claim never existed.
Director: Robin Hardy | Stars: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento, Britt Ekland
Votes: 92,394 | Gross: $0.06M
"A mordant study of theological anxiety"
Fernando F. Croce
CinePassion
"It remains a fine example of occult horror that remains with the viewer well past its conclusion."
TV Guide's Movie Guide
27. The Exorcist (1973)
R | 122 min | Horror
When a young girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair, Lee J. Cobb
Votes: 455,289 | Gross: $232.91M
"If movies are, among other things, opportunities for escapism, then The Exorcist is one of the most powerful ever made."
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
28. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
R | 83 min | Horror
Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.
Director: Tobe Hooper | Stars: Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain
Votes: 183,803 | Gross: $30.86M
"A cutthroat, unendingly bleak masterpiece of horror cinema."
Dustin Putman
DustinPutman.com
"The picture gets to you more through its intensity than its craft, but Hooper does have a talent."
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
29. Carrie (1976)
R | 98 min | Horror, Mystery
Carrie White, a shy, friendless teenage girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Amy Irving, John Travolta
Votes: 206,807 | Gross: $33.80M
".. One of the best horror films of the 1970s."
Lucius Gore
ESplatter
"An exercise in high style that even the most unredeemably rational among moviegoers should find enormously enjoyable."
Richard Schickel
TIME Magazine
30. The Hills Have Eyes (1977)
R | 90 min | Horror, Thriller
On the way to California, a family has the misfortune to have their car break down in an area closed to the public, and inhabited by violent savages ready to attack.
Director: Wes Craven | Stars: Susan Lanier, Robert Houston, John Steadman, Janus Blythe
Votes: 39,254 | Gross: $25.00M
"A satisfying piece of pulp."
Variety Staff
Variety
"One of the prime examples of the what was so fascinating about American horror films in the 1970s."
TV Guide's Movie Guide
31. Suspiria (1977)
R | 92 min | Horror
An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.
Director: Dario Argento | Stars: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé
Votes: 105,524
"Argento works so hard for his effects - throwing around shock cuts, colored lights, and peculiar camera angles - that it would be impolite not to be a little frightened."
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
32. Halloween (1978)
R | 91 min | Horror, Thriller
Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Moran, Nancy Kyes
Votes: 306,954 | Gross: $47.00M
"John Carpenter's 1978 tour de force, perhaps the most widely imitated film of the 70s."
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
"Halloween is an absolutely merciless thriller, a movie so violent and scary that, yes, I would compare it to Psycho."
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
"Halloween remains untouched -- a modern classic of the most horrific kind."
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
"The movie itself is repressed; Hitchcock would have admired the way Carpenter artfully avoids explicit bloodshed."
Rob Gonsalves
eFilmCritic.com
"... if there's one John Carpenter film which is a must-see, it's Halloween."
Sarah Boslaugh
Playback:stl
33. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Unrated | 127 min | Horror, Thriller
During an escalating zombie epidemic, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter and his TV executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.
Director: George A. Romero | Stars: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen Ross
Votes: 128,662 | Gross: $5.10M
"Romero's sensibility approaches the Swiftian in its wit, accuracy, excess, and profound misanthropy."
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
"Dawn of the Dead is one of the best horror films ever made - and, as an inescapable result, one of the most horrifying. It is gruesome, sickening, disgusting, violent, brutal and appalling."
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
34. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
PG | 107 min | Drama, Horror
Count Dracula moves from Transylvania to Wismar, spreading the Black Plague across the land. Only a woman pure of heart can bring an end to his reign of horror.
Director: Werner Herzog | Stars: Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz, Roland Topor
Votes: 40,571
"Nosferatu the Vampyre may not be scary in a traditional sense, but it is not easily forgotten."
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
35. The Shining (1980)
R | 146 min | Drama, Horror
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers
Votes: 1,107,555 | Gross: $44.02M
"Kubrick has made a movie that will have to be reckoned with on the highest level."
Richard Schickel
TIME Magazine
"Kubrick isn't out for screams, but he manages to make his movie thoroughly unnerving by keeping the horror so close to home."
Janet Maslin
New York Times
"It's the experience more so than the actual content of The Shining that radiates cold, anti-humanly indifferent terror."
Eric Henderson
Slant Magazine
36. The Evil Dead (1981)
NC-17 | 85 min | Horror
Five friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons.
Director: Sam Raimi | Stars: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor, Betsy Baker
Votes: 232,513 | Gross: $2.40M
"Everyone tries to make a horror flick this way. Few succeed like Raimi did."
Scott Weinberg
FEARnet
"To say that the Evil Dead movies are not for everyone is an understatement. A strong stomach is required."
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
37. Poltergeist (1982)
PG | 114 min | Horror, Thriller
A family's home is haunted by a host of demonic ghosts.
Director: Tobe Hooper | Stars: JoBeth Williams, Heather O'Rourke, Craig T. Nelson, Beatrice Straight
Votes: 179,691 | Gross: $76.61M
"The film delivers honest special-effects shocks without forfeiting its good nature."
TIME Magazine
"Though the shocks are well conveyed, it's the sweetness that lingers, making this the first cute and cuddly entry in the genre."
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
"Poltergeist is like a thoroughly enjoyable nightmare, one that you know that you can always wake up from, and one in which, at the end, no one has permanently been damaged. It's also witty in a fashion that Alfred Hitchcock might have appreciated."
Vincent Canby
New York Times
38. Videodrome (1983)
R | 87 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A programmer at a Toronto TV station that specializes in adult entertainment searches for the producers of a dangerous and bizarre broadcast.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: James Woods, Debbie Harry, Sonja Smits, Peter Dvorsky
Votes: 103,076 | Gross: $2.12M
"Never coherent and frequently pretentious, the film remains an audacious attempt to place obsessive personal images before a popular audience - a kind of Kenneth Anger version of Star Wars."
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
39. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
R | 91 min | Horror
Teenager Nancy Thompson must uncover the dark truth concealed by her parents after she and her friends become targets of the spirit of a serial killer with a bladed glove in their dreams, in which if they die, it kills them in real life.
Director: Wes Craven | Stars: Heather Langenkamp, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund, John Saxon
Votes: 262,692 | Gross: $25.50M
"A highly imaginative horror film that provides the requisite shocks to keep fans of the genre happy."
Variety Staff
Variety
"Craven vitalizes the nightmare sequences with assorted surrealist novelties."
J. R. Jones
Chicago Reader
"... ingenious exploitation that plays on primal fears and subconscious anxieties..."
Sean Axmaker
Seanax.com
40. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Unrated | 83 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
Arriving in Chicago, Henry moves in with ex-con acquaintance Otis and starts schooling him in the ways of the serial killer.
Director: John McNaughton | Stars: Michael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towles, Mary Demas
Votes: 40,482 | Gross: $0.61M
"This film gives off a dark chill that follows you all the way home."
Peter Travers
Rolling Stone
"Genuinely frightening."
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com
"Chilling."
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall
41. Manhunter (1986)
R | 120 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Former FBI profiler Will Graham returns to service to pursue a deranged serial killer dubbed "the Tooth Fairy" by the media.
Director: Michael Mann | Stars: William Petersen, Kim Greist, Joan Allen, Brian Cox
Votes: 80,986 | Gross: $8.62M
"Manhunter ushered in the age of empathy for the devil."
David Edelstein
Slate
"An unpleasantly gripping thriller that rubs one's nose in a sick criminal mentality for two hours."
Michael Speier
Variety
42. Jacob's Ladder (I) (1990)
R | 113 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
Mourning his dead child, a haunted Vietnam War veteran attempts to uncover his past while suffering from a severe case of dissociation. To do so, he must decipher reality and life from his own dreams, delusions, and perceptions of death.
Director: Adrian Lyne | Stars: Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, Danny Aiello, Matt Craven
Votes: 117,963 | Gross: $26.12M
"A bold, powerful psychological horror film."
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
"A slick, riveting, viscerally scary film about what in other hands would be a decidedly unsalable subject, namely death."
Janet Maslin
New York Times
43. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
R | 118 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.
Director: Jonathan Demme | Stars: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine
Votes: 1,549,322 | Gross: $130.74M
"The juiciest part is Hopkins, and he makes the most of it. Helped by some highly dramatic lighting, actor makes the role the personification of brilliant, hypnotic evil, and the screen jolts with electricity whenever he is on."
Todd McCarthy
Variety
"It's a bona fide classic of its kind."
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"A smart, restrained entertainment, it doesn't splash around in blood and hysteria."
Desson Thomson
Washington Post
"There is little doubt that the most memorable aspect of The Silence of the Lambs is Anthony Hopkins' incomparable performance as Lecter."
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
"Demme has created a supremely sensuous and hypnotic thriller, one that's likely to become his first major hit."
Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
44. The Kingdom (1994–2022)
TV-MA | 60 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Doctors at an ultramodern hospital in Denmark become convinced, by way of weird, inexplicable happenings, that the place is haunted.
Stars: Ernst-Hugo Järegård, Kirsten Rolffes, Ghita Nørby, Søren Pilmark
Votes: 20,360 | Gross: $0.09M
"A lunatic, Twin Peaks-like meld of black-comedy soap and Z-grade horror flick that looks like an instant cult item."
John Anderson
Variety
45. Scream (1996)
R | 111 min | Horror, Mystery
A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game.
Director: Wes Craven | Stars: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich
Votes: 388,716 | Gross: $103.05M
"The best fright fest of the '90s."
Richard Harrington
Washington Post
"Whatever you do, don't close your mind to such an inventive concoction. One last time, despite all your better instincts, go ahead - open that theater door."
Bruce Westbrook
Houston Chronicle
"Scream is a rarity: a horror movie spoof that succeeds almost as well at provoking scares as laughs."
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
46. Ringu (1998)
Not Rated | 96 min | Horror, Mystery
A reporter and her ex-husband investigate a cursed video tape that is rumored to kill the viewer seven days after watching it.
Director: Hideo Nakata | Stars: Nanako Matsushima, Miki Nakatani, Yûko Takeuchi, Hitomi Satô
Votes: 77,546
"Director Hideo Nakata's film is a minor masterpiece -- a low-budget horror gem."
Steve Biodrowski
ESplatter
"Subtly expressive faces and spooky interiors are the order of the day in this original, powerful treat."
Michael Thomson
BBC
47. Audition (1999)
R | 115 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A widower takes an offer to screen girls at a special audition, arranged for him by a friend to find him a new wife. The one he fancies is not who she appears to be after all.
Director: Takashi Miike | Stars: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Tetsu Sawaki, Jun Kunimura
Votes: 89,303
"Miike is brilliant at transforming the mundane and familiar ... into something sinister and eerie."
Patrick Z. McGavin
Chicago Tribune
"A diabolically adroit piece of filmmaking that goes even further than the films of Italy's excruciatingly macabre Dario Argento."
Kevin Thomas
Los Angeles Times
48. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
R | 81 min | Horror, Mystery
Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.
Directors: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez | Stars: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard, Bob Griffin
Votes: 285,797 | Gross: $140.54M
"I could tell you the story -- give away every detail -- and The Blair Witch Project would still freeze your blood."
David Edelstein
Slate
49. The Sixth Sense (1999)
PG-13 | 107 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist, starts treating a young boy, Cole, who encounters dead people and convinces him to help them. In turn, Cole helps Malcolm reconcile with his estranged wife.
Director: M. Night Shyamalan | Stars: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams
Votes: 1,051,987 | Gross: $293.51M
"M. Night Shyamalan neutralizes Willis's star presence with impressive plotting that's a fine excuse for the powerful atmosphere."
Lisa Alspector
Chicago Reader
"An effectively understated and moodily engrossing ghost film with a surprisingly satisfying jolt at the end."
Andrew Sarris
New York Observer
"Sixth Sense is scary - and smart!"
Tom Long
Detroit News
"Soulful!"
Joe Baltake
Sacramento Bee
"A remarkable performance from Haley Joel Osment!"
Desson Thomson
Washington Post
"A psychological thriller that actually thrills!"
Lisa Schwarzbaum
Entertainment Weekly
"Masterfully plotted, a superb film!"
Rod Dreher
New York Post
"Phenomenally creepy and conspicuously nonexploitative!"
Jay Boyar
Orlando Sentinel
"An unusually intelligent thriller!"
Tom Keogh
Film.com
50. The Host (2006)
R | 120 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A monster emerges from Seoul's Han River and begins attacking people. One victim's loving family does what it can to rescue her from its clutches.
Director: Bong Joon Ho | Stars: Song Kang-ho, Byun Hee-Bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doona
Votes: 132,827 | Gross: $2.20M
"A sneaky, spellbinding celebration of what movies are supposed to be all about."
Joe Baltake
Passionate Moviegoer
"It's unlike just about any other monster movie I've ever seen."
Richard Roeper
Ebert & Roeper
"A great piece of filmmaking and a legitimate science-fiction/horror classic."
Peter Hartlaub
San Francisco Chronicle
"Bong Joon-ho's cheerfully outrageous monster movie is set to attain instant cult status."
Elizabeth Weitzman
New York Daily News
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