Subgenre Sampler

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Paranormal Activity 4 (2012): Dir. Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
Feat. Kathryn Newton, Katie Featherston, Matt Shively; Creaky fourth addition to the franchise picks up five years since the disappearance of Katie and Hunter, and a suburban family witness strange events…
Woman in Black, The (2012): Dir. James Watkins
Feat. Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds, Roger Allam…; A restrained yet genuinely chilling Gothic horror from the director of EDEN LAKE, with Daniel Radcliffe as a widowed young lawyer whose visit to a…
Awakening, The (2011): Dir. Nick Murphy
Feat. Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton; A classical British ghost story set in 1920s England, with Rebecca Hall as a noted skeptic who's assigned to debunk a haunting at a prestigious…
Grave Encounters (2011): Dir. Vicious Brothers
Feat. Ben Wilkinson, Sean Rogerson, Ashleigh Gryzko; A television crew producing a sham ghost hunting reality series in an abandoned psychiatric hospital have their skepticism tested in this derivative,…
Innkeepers, The (2011): Dir. Ti West
Feat. Sara Paxton, Pat Healy, Kelly McGillis; Horror savant Ti West (HOUSE OF THE DEVIL) turns his attention to the paranormal activity in a run–down hotel in this expertly crafted ghost…
Lovely Molly (2011): Dir. Eduardo Sanchez
Feat. Gretchen Lodge; The co–director of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT treads familiar ground with this spooky tale of possession, filmed in part as a handy–cam…
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011): Dir. Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost
Feat. Christopher Nicholas Smith, Lauren Bittner, Chloe Csenergy…; Third installment in the lo–tech horror series is still surprisingly effective. Set twenty years previous, two young girls befriend an…
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010): Dir. Troy Nixey
Feat. Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce, Bailee Madison; Guillermo del Toro penned this creepily old fashioned remake of a 1974 TV movie that scared the bejesus out of the Mexican filmmaker as a young boy.…
Insidious (2010): Dir. James Wan
Feat. Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins…; The creators of the original SAW reunite for this genuinely creepy haunted house movie, about a stressed couple whose comatose son is preyed upon by…
Paranormal Activity 2 (2010): Dir. Tod Williams
Feat. Katie Featherston, Sprague Grayden, Brian Boland; Scary, straight–ahead sequel to the low–tech horror hit is careful not to meddle with the formula that freaked out audiences, this time…
After.Life (Afterlife) (2009): Dir. Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo
Feat. Christina Ricci, Liam Neeson, Justin Long…; Macabre curio has Christina Ricci lounging on a mortuary slab as she struggles to accept her death, but luckily morgue attendant Liam Neeson can talk…
Lake Mungo (2008): Dir. John Anderson
Feat. Talia Zucker; Unnerving paranormal mockumentary from Australia following the ghostly events that proceed a 16–year–old's tragic drowning, who haunts…
Sauna (2008): Dir. Antti-Jussi Annila
Feat. Ville Virtanen, Tommi Eronen, Viktor Klimenko; Something of a hybrid of the historical epic and ghost story, this unique genre entry from Finland concerns two brothers haunted by a young girl whom…
Trick 'r Treat (2008): Dir. Michael Dougherty
Feat. Quinn Lord, Brian Cox, Leslie Bibb…; Well–crafted horror that interweaves five spooky stories on the same Halloween night, subverting familiar urban legends into unexpected new…
1408 (2007): Dir. Mikael Håfström
Feat. John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson; This good, old–fashioned horror adapts a latter–day Steven King story of the same name. True to genre, it's about a sceptical,…
Dark Mirror (2007): Dir. Pablo Proenza
Feat. Lisa Vidal, David Chisum; Gripping indie–horror reads like an update of AMITYVILLE with nice family moving into nice house with some odd features: mirrors that reflect…
End of the Line (2007): Dir. Maurice Devereaux
Feat. Ilona Elkin, Nicolas Wright, Neil Napier…; Chilling horror set in a Subway where a young nurse boards the last train of the night, only to have it stop halfway and its passengers brutally…
Ferryman, The (2007): Dir. Chris Graham
Feat. Kerry Fox, Tamer Hassan, John Rhys-Davies…; Homegrown high–seas supernatural horror following a group of charter cruise passengers en route from New Zealand to Fiji who pick up a weirdo…
Paranormal Activity (2007): Dir. Oren Peli
Feat. Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat; Benefitting from the low–tech immediacy that made THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT chillingly effective (and hugely profitable), this assembles its own…
Tattooist, The (2007): Dir. Peter Burger
Feat. Jason Behr, Mia Blake, David Fane…; A supernatural thriller that forges the disparate worlds of urban tattoo counter–culture with Samoan cultural taboo, Jason Behr plays an…
Wind Chill (2007): Dir. Gregory Jacobs
Feat. Emily Blunt, Ashton Holmes, Martin Donovan; A prickly college student (Blunt) catches a ride home for Christmas with a random classmate, but when their car ploughs off the icy road, stranding…
Abandoned, The (Los Abandonados) (2006): Dir. Nacho Cerda
Feat. Anastasia Hille, Karel Roden; Spanish dir. Nacho Cerda serves up a surreal English–language Euro–horror that, like the works of Bava, Argento, and their progeny, works…
An American Haunting (2006): Dir. Courtney Solomon
Feat. James D'Arcy, Sissy Spacek, Donald Sutherland; A stylishly cinematic ghost train, supposedly based on a real–life Tennessee family haunted by strange forces in the early 1800s. Donald…
Gathering, The (2006): Dir. Brian Gilbert
Feat. Christina Ricci, Stephen Dillane, Ioan Gruffudd; Goth–lite supernatural horror stars Ricci as an American backpacker who loses her memory after a car accident in a small town in rural England,…
Grudge 2, The (2006): Dir. Takashi Shimizu
Feat. Amber Tamblyn, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Edison Chen…; Dir. Shimizu revisits his effective J–Horror franchise and re–adapts a sequel for Hollywood. While fans of the original JU–ON (and…
Re-Cycle (Gwai Wik) (2006): Dir. Danny Pang, Oxide Pang; Chinese gore connoisseurs Danny and Oxide Pang embark on another otherworldly excursion in this horror about an author who realises the supernatural…
Alone in the Dark (2005): Dir. Uwe Boll
Feat. Christian Slater, Tara Reid, Stephen Dorff; A sadly fumbled attempt to adapt the Atari videogame of the same name, set around a pair of investigators – a detective (Slater) and musuem…
Amityville Horror, The (2005): Dir. Andrew Douglas
Feat. Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George; Competent, though hardly inspiring remake of the 1979 horror, in which a couple of happy newlyweds shift into a baleful–looking house, without…
Constantine (2005): Dir. Francis Lawrence
Feat. Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Tilda Swinton…; A stylish, but rather misfiring adaptation of the DC comicbook 'Hellblazer', with Keanu Reeves playing a wry, hard–boiled detective with…
Fragile (Fragiles) (2005): Dir. Jaume Balaguero
Feat. Calista Flockhart, Richard Roxburgh; Moody horror with a Spanish sensibility, this features a slight Calista Flockhart fending off a series of mysterious and increasingly supernatural…
Ring 2, The (2005): Dir. Hideo Nakata
Feat. Naomi Watts, Sissy Spacek, Gary Cole…; The RING remake cycle moves onto the next installment in dir. Nakata's fable of the lethal videotape, with Watts again returning to this time destroy…
Skeleton Key (2005): Dir. Iain Softley
Feat. Kate Hudson, John Hurt, Gena Rowlands…; A young woman (Hudson) gets a job caring for a troubled elderly stroke victim (Hurt) in a swampside manor in rural Louisiana, coming to realise there…
Supernatural (TV Series) (2005): Feat. Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles; Two brothers scour the countryside for urban myths and legends, stumbling upon various paranorma, horror movie moments and other unexplained events…
White Noise (2005): Dir. Geoffrey Sax
Feat. Michael Keaton, Deborah Kara Unger, Ian McNeice; An architect (Keaton) becomes entranced by the possibilities of speaking with his deceased wife (Unger) by tapping into the audiovisual chaos of a TV…
Boo (2004): Dir. Anthony C. Ferrante
Feat. M. Steven Felty; A group of college students venture into an abandoned hospital on Halloween night for a cheap laugh, and end up trapped there while a gaggle of…
Dead Birds (2004): Dir. Alex Turner
Feat. Henry Thomas, Nicki Lynn Aycox, Isaiah Washington…; After a botched bank robbery during the American Civil War, a group of Confederate outlaws hole up in an abandoned plantation, finding themselves the…
Eye 2, The (Jian Gui 2) (2004): Dir. Oxide Pang, Danny Pang
Feat. Shu Qi, Jesdaporn Pholdee; Another venture into Asian horror for the Brothers Pang, here thematically sequelling their 2002 hit with the tale of an unhappy woman who gains the…
Grudge, The (2004): Dir. Takashi Shimizu
Feat. Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Behr, Bill Pullman…; Unnerving imagery and soundscapes abound in the Japanese director's remake of his own horror film for a western audience, that while recast with…
Hex (TV Series) (2004): Feat. Jemima Rooper, Christina Cole, Michael Fassbender; Bewitching, BUFFY–comparable series in which a feisty English schoolgirl is bestowed with supernatural powers amidst a looming demonic threat.…
Hide and Seek (2004): Dir. John Polson
Feat. Robert De Niro, Dakota Fanning, Famke Janssen…; Bogeyman horror which has psychologist De Niro withdrawing to a lakeside mansion for some quiet time with his daughter, recently traumatized by her…
Kingdom Hospital (TV Mini-series) (2004): Dir. Craig R Baxley
Feat. Andrew McCarthy, Bruce Davison, Diane Ladd…; Horror–writer Stephen King expands his King–dom with a solid adaptation of dir. Lars von Trier's celebrated Danish TV series "The…
Marebito (2004): Dir. Takashi Shimizu
Feat. Shinya Tsukamoto, Tomomi Miyashita, Kazuhiro Nakahara…; A delve into more conventional 'horror' for dir. Shimizo (THE GRUDGE), still retaining considerable austerity and dread with his fable of urban fears…
Saint Ange (Sanatorium) (2004): Dir. Pascal Laugier
Feat. Virginie Ledoyen, Katriona MacColl, Lou Doillon; A young woman (Ledoyen) journeys into the remotes of the French Alps to help clean up an abandoned orphanage, but soon begins to notice strange…
Village, The (2004): Dir. M. Night Shyamalan
Feat. Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody…; A further investigation in atmospherics from the maker of SIGNS and THE SIXTH SENSE, this time sent in the foreboding microcosm of an 18th century…
Grudge 2, The (Ju-On 2) (2003): Dir. Takashi Shimizu
Feat. Chiharu Nîyama, Noriko Sakai, Kei Horie…; Followup to the original Japanese version of dir. Takashi's own JU–ON, this proffers an almost identical vision, with a TV crew visiting the…
Grudge, The (Ju-On) (2003): Dir. Takashi Shimizu; A horror film that understands that fear is best painted blacker than molasses, this cult Japanese hit follows in the ghostly steps of the RING…
One Missed Call (Chakushin Ari) (2003): Dir. Takashi Miike
Feat. Kou Shibasaki, Shin'ichi Tsutsumi, Kazue Fukiishi…; Another 'J–horror' riding on the wave of the RING phenomena, updating the supernatural formula with cell–phone technology and…
Tale of Two Sisters, A (Janghwa Hongryeon) (2003): Dir. Ji-woon Kim
Feat. Kap-su Kim, Jung-ah Yum, Su-jeong Lim…; A further revelation of the K–horror genre (see THE GRUDGE and THE EYE), this enters the forboding world of two devoted sisters who endure the…
Dark Water (2002): Dir. Hideo Nakata
Feat. Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno; Running rings around the RING films in unsettling atmosphere, rich subtext and jump–in–your–seat moments, this creepy fable of…
Darkness (2002): Dir. Jaume Balaguero
Feat. Anna Paquin, Lena Olin, Iain Glen…; The dir. of THE NAMELESS proffers a largely familiar tale of a family relocating to a remote Spanish farm, and becoming entrapped in a supernatural…
DreamCatcher (2002): Dir. Lawrence Kasdan
Feat. Morgan Freeman, Jason Lee, Tom Sizemore…; Four childhood friends, who share psychic powers and an annual appointment to go male–bonding in the Maine backwoods, are inadvertantly drawn…
Eye, The (2002): Dir. Oxide Pang, Danny Pang
Feat. Angelica Lee, Lawrence Chou; Almost guaranteed to give you goosebumps, this unnerving Asian horror show follows in the footsteps and spirit of the watershed RING films, though…
Mataku (TV Series) (2002-2005): Dir. Michael Bennett, Peter Berger
Feat. Temuera Morrison; A well–mounted anthology of contemporary one–off dramas, adapted from the unique and mystical world of Maori supernatural legends. The…
Phone (2002): Dir. Byeong-ki Ahn
Feat. Ji-won Ha, Yu-mi Kim; Down the more cluttered and preposterous end of the Korean–horror genre, this finds a new cellphone being the centre of all the terror for an…
Ring, The (2002): Dir. Gore Verbinski
Feat. Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, Brian Cox; Fitfully creepy American remake of the influential Japanese horror film that surprisingly manages to replicate the foreboding (and uniquely Japanese)…
They (2002): Dir. Robert Harmon
Feat. Laura Regan; Wes Craven 'presents' this supernatural suspenser, which though unambitious, presents its scenario with enough artful suggestion to interest…
Devil's Backbone, The (2001): Dir. Guillermo Del Toro
Feat. Eduardo Noriega, Frederico Luppi, Marisa Paredes; This elegant amalgam of melodrama and horror movie set in a boys orphanage during the Spanish Civil War is rich in baroque atmospherics, and features…
Others, The (2001): Dir. Alejandro Amenabar
Feat. Nicole Kidman, Eric Sykes, Christopher Eccleston; Ghostly tale in the classic tradition of Henry James, conjuring a spectral fog of unease from a gaunt mansion on the island of Jersey in 1945,…
Ring 2 (2001): Dir. Hideo Nakata
Feat. Miki Nakatani, Hitomi Sato; Esteemable sequel to the 1998 original, this finds the supernaturally fatal videotape – the one that causes death, a week after watching it –…
Shadow of the Wraith (Ikisudama) (2001): Dir. Toshiharu Ikeda; Fitfully scary J–horror is set around a series of disconnected horrors in two halves: first, at a high school plagued by a creepy…
Shaft, The (Down) (2001): Dir. Dick Maas
Feat. Naomi Watts, James Marshall, Ron Perlman…; Wildly tongue–in–cheek remake of the dir.'s own THE LIFT, here with a New York City elevator going on a murderous rampage in its…
Thirteen Ghosts (2001): Dir. Steve Beck
Feat. F. Murray Abraham, Tony Shalhoub, Embeth Davidtz…; An orgy of gore, noise and mindless mayhem, this hi–tech remake of William Castle’s 1960 original subtracts the camp and adds a battery of…
Wendigo (2001): Dir. Larry Fessenden
Feat. Patricia Clarkson, Jake Weber, Erik Per Sullivan; Elaborating on a renowned ‘urban legend’ with a refined script and a no–nonsense commitment to storytelling, this is a project fostered in the…
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000): Dir. Joe Berlinger
Feat. Kim Director, Jeffrey Donovan, Erica Leerhsen; Another troupe of young ghoul–hunters head for the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland, which, in a post–modern twist, has become a…
Gift, The (2000): Dir. Sam Raimi
Feat. Cate Blanchett, Hilary Swank, Giovanni Ribisi…; Rivalling THE SIXTH SENSE among latterday supernatural thrillers and with a pedigree to boast of, this eerie tale of smalltown ghosts and secrets is…
House On Haunted Hill (2000): Dir. William Malone
Feat. Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Peter Gallagher; An adaptation of the 1958 William Castle film, this is a modern day B–Movie that's none too ambitious, yet fun in its trashy way. Various…
Isola (Tajuu jinkaku shôjo) (2000): Dir. Toshiyuki Mizutani
Feat. Yoshino Kimura; Curious but finally rather tepid riff on the J–Horror genre has a psychic woman (Kimura) travelling to the city of Kobe to offer help in the…
Rose Red (2000): Dir. Craig R Baxley
Feat. Nancy Travis, Matt Keesler, Julian Sands…; Based on a real–life haunted house (San Jose’s Winchester House) this Stephen King mini–series has Nancy Travis leading a team of…
Seance (2000): Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Feat. Koji Yakusho; A hybrid of crime thriller and ghost story, this remake of the British classic "Seance on a Wet Afternoon" reinstates the supernatural emphasis of…
Sight, The (2000): Dir. Paul Anderson
Feat. Andrew McCarthy, Honor Blackman, Kevin Tighe; Reasonably crafted TV suspenser, has McCarthy playing an American architect on the trail of vicious serial–killer in London, with only his…
Tomie: Replay (2000): Dir. Tomijiro Mitsuishi
Feat. Yôsuke Kubozuka, Kenichi Endo, Tomorowo Taguchi; Second (and best) installment in the manga–inspired series continues the vengeful streak of 'Tomie', the undying…
What Lies Beneath (2000): Dir. Robert Zemeckis
Feat. Michelle Pfeiffer, Harrison Ford; Affluent couple Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford have their watertight marriage spring a leak when the neighbours start acting suspiciously and…
Blair Witch Project, The (1999): Dir. Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez
Feat. Heather Donahue, Michael C Williams, Joshua Leonard; The most profitable film in history on a cost–to–gross basis, this handycam horror struck paydirt thanks to a swag of resourcefulness and…
Haunting, The (1999): Dir. Jan De Bont
Feat. Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Owen Wilson…; Lumpen remake of the classy 60s chiller, with Lili Taylor, Catherine Zeta–Jones, Owen Wilson and psychologist Liam Neeson as the cardboard…
Sixth Sense, The (1999): Dir. M. Night Shyamalan
Feat. Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Colette; A rarity here – an intelligent Hollywood horror movie with no teenagers and no comic relief (intended or otherwise). Story of a troubled…
Sleepy Hollow (1999): Dir. Tim Burton
Feat. Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Christopher Walken…; The oft–filmed short story 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow' is fashioned by illustrious iconoclast Tim Burton as the goriest, most…
Stir of Echoes (1999): Dir. David Koepp
Feat. Kevin Bacon; A decisively scary supernatural thriller unravels following sceptical family man Kevin Bacon's disturbing experience under hypnosis. A palpable…
Storm of the Century (1999): Dir. Craig R Baxley
Feat. Tim Daly, Colm Feore; Umbrellas out! Written for the small–screen by Stephen King, this horror mini–series has a small island community in Maine facing a…
Tomie (1999): Dir. Ataru Oikawa
Feat. Tomorowo Taguchi, Miho Kanno; A severed head in a paper bag mutates into the film's titular school girl from hell in this malevolent Japanese horror offering genuine creeps under…
Charmed (TV Series) (1998-2005): Feat. Shannen Doherty, Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs; A career–reviving hit for Doherty and Milano, as two of a trio of sisters who discover they have the supernatural powers of witches. This…
Phantoms (1998): Dir. Joe Chappelle
Feat. Joanna Going, Rose McGowan, Ben Affleck…; Dropping in on a remote town with no apparent inhabitants, babe sisters Joanna Going and Rose McGowan find themselves on the sinister skids. Ben…
Ring (Ringu) (1998): Dir. Hideo Nakata
Feat. Nanako Matsushima, Miki Nakatani, Hiroyuki Sanada; A cult phenomenon in Japan and everywhere else it’s played, it’s since spawned a sequel, a prequel, both a Korean and American remake, and its…
Ring: The Spiral (Rasen) (1998): Dir. Jôji Iida
Feat. Hiroyuki Sanada, Miki Nakatani; The 'lost' first sequel to RINGU, follows on from the tale of the lethal videotape and the demonic Sadako with the rather prosaic solution to the…
Stand, The (1994): Dir. Mick Garris
Feat. Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, Laura San Giancomo; Stephen King's most popular novel was also his lengthiest, which is why it takes cinematic form as a mini–series. Despite dramatic padding and…
Sometimes They Come Back (1992): Dir. Tom McLoughlin
Feat. Tim Matheson; Tim Matheson cannot forget the brutal murder of his brother twenty years earlier, especially when the 'deceased' killers return to play havoc. From…
Beetlejuice (1988): Dir. Tim Burton
Feat. Michael Keaton, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin…; A deceased couple return as ghosts and discover their home has been occupied by an obnoxious family, so decide to enlist the services of…
Lady in White (1988): Dir. Frank LaLoggia
Feat. Lukas Haas; If you prefer your spook story with subtlety and atmos–fear, then don't overlook this gem. A young boy discovers the truth concerning a young…
Gothic (1986): Dir. Ken Russell
Feat. Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Natasha Richardson; Ken Russell's account of a night when Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and friends unravel their deepest fears. An enjoyable frolic, stamped with many of the…
Haunted Honeymoon (1986): Dir. Gene Wilder
Feat. Gene Wilder, Dom DeLuise, Gilda Radner…; Insipid farce has two hapless honeymooners besieged by various spooky happenings. There is some fun to be had here and Wilder's affection for Abbott…
House (1986): Dir. Steve Miner
Feat. William Katt; Expedient, tongue–in–cheek frightfest about a horror novelist who inherits a haunted mansion.
Christine (1983): Dir. John Carpenter
Feat. Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul; A persecuted teen finds unlikely kinship in a girl with a diff – a demonically–charged 1958 Plymouth that indulges in dispatching…
Poltergeist (1982): Dir. Tobe Hooper
Feat. JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson, Beatrice Straight…; A rowdy spirit disrupts suburban tranquility for an average family when it kidnaps their 5–year–old daughter. The horror film receives an…
Beyond, The (E tu vivrai nel terrore - L'aldilà) (1981): Dir. Lucio Fulci
Feat. Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck; This eerie celluloid nightmare from Italian gore–meister Fulci can be fully appreciated in this uncut version, restoring its succession of…
Entity, The (1981): Dir. Sidney J Furie
Feat. Barbara Hershey, Ron Silver; Controversial sleazy horror, which has Barbara Hershey sexually molested by an invisible demon. Psychiatrist Ron Silver thinks it’s all in her mind,…
Ghost Story (1981): Dir. John Irvin
Feat. Fred Astaire, Douglas Jr. Fairbanks, Melvyn Douglas…; Eerie chiller based on the Peter Straub potboiler has four elderly gentlemen who are bound by a dark secret gather each week to tell each other…
Black Cat, The (1980): Dir. Lucio Fulci
Feat. Patrick Magee; Village crank Patrick Magee is suspected in a gruesome series of killings, linked by the presence of the black puss. Dodgy (dubbed) acting aside,…
Fog, The (1980): Dir. John Carpenter
Feat. Adrienne Barbeau, Hal Holbrook, Janet Leigh…; A curse, put on a Californian coastal town by shipwrecked sailors, is fulfilled when bank of fog, concealing vengeful ghouls, rolls in from the sea.…
Shining, The (1980): Dir. Stanley Kubrick
Feat. Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall; Man, wife and child are assigned to caretaking a remote hotel for the winter. Formidable unease is created before Jack Nicholson completely loses his…
Watcher in the Woods, The (1980): Dir. John Hough
Feat. Bette Davis, David McCallum, Carroll Baker…; One of Disney's spookier efforts, this concerns a family who move into a country house in Britain and are beset with supernatural occurances.…
Amityville Horror, The (1979): Dir. Stuart Rosenberg
Feat. James Brolin, Margot Kidder, Rod Steiger; James Brolin and Margot Kidder are convincingly spooked as happily marrieds who inherit a haunted house. Competently directed, but with the ghosts of…
Changeling, The (1979): Dir. Peter Medak
Feat. George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Melvyn Douglas; An impeccably crafted ghost story that demands to be taken seriously, not least because of the dignified casting of George C. Scott as a recently…
Salem's Lot (1979): Dir. Tobe Hooper
Feat. David Soul, James Mason, Lance Kerwin; Creepy Stephen King story made for TV, but no less scary for it. The town of Salem don't take kindly to nosy strangers!
Audrey Rose (1977): Dir. Robert Wise
Feat. Marsha Mason, Anthony Hopkins, John Beck…; Soberly told thriller which has a seemingly happy couple disturbed by a stranger's (Hopkins) claim that their child is his daughter, in reincarnated…
Suspiria (1977): Dir. Dario Argento
Feat. Jessica Harper, Alida Valli, Joan Bennett; This is the quintessential Dario Argento feature – a hysterical gothic nightmare about a girl trapped in a sinister ballet academy. Visually…
Signalman, The (1976): Dir. Lawrence Gordon Clark
Feat. Denholm Elliott; Smallscale but nicely crafted adaptation of Charles Dickens' ghost story 'The Signalman'. Concerning the spectral experiences of a signalman…
Ghoul, The (1975): Dir. Freddie Francis
Feat. Peter Cushing, John Hurt; In the foggy moors of the 1920's, one of Peter Cushing's 'gate crashers' disappears and turns up dismembered, initiating a disturbing pattern. …
...And Now the Screaming Starts! (Fengriffen) (1973): Dir. Roy Ward Baker
Feat. Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom, Patrick Magee…; Non–omnibus horror from inventively cheap horror specialists 'Amicus' concerns a young bride's horrifying discovery that her husband's family…
Asphyx, The (Horror of Death) (1973): Dir. Peter Newbrook
Feat. Robert Stephens, Robert Powell; Promising 'Victorian' horror set around experiments by a scientist (Stephens) into capturing the 'asphyx' (soul) of a dying person and gaining a…
Don't Look Now (1973): Dir. Nicolas Roeg
Feat. Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie; After their child drowns, Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie travel to Venice in a doomed attempt to shakes off demons of the past. An iconic…
Legend of Hell House, The (1973): Dir. John Hough
Feat. Pamela Franklin, Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill…; Hoary British haunted house yarn based on Richard Matheson’s novel has four ‘experts’ (a skeptical physicist and his wife, a medium…
A Warning to the Curious (1972): Dir. Lawrence Gordon Clark
Feat. Peter Vaughan; A wonderful ghost story in miniature from the heyday of adventurous BBC productions, that adapts a superior M R James story with perfect economy and…
Baron Blood (1972): Dir. Mario Bava
Feat. Joseph Cotten, Elke Sommer, Massimo Girotti; A resurrected 16th century warlock moves back into his old haunt to continue his macabre fantasies. A petrified Elke Sommer runs around in a…
House That Dripped Blood, The (1970): Dir. Peter Duffell
Feat. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Denholm Elliott…; Juicy if variable four–part portmanteau film written by PSYCHO scribe, Robert Bloch, and adorned by the Cushing/Lee double–act as well as…
Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968): Dir. Jonathan Miller
Feat. Sir Michael Hordern; Possibly the finest of the BBC's M R James adaptations, this spooky tale concerns a closeted, sceptical professor (Hordern) whose seaside holiday…
Kwaidan (1964): Dir. Masaki Kobayashi
Feat. Rentaro Mikuri, Michiyo Aratana, Misako Watanabe; A quartet of visually intoxicating ghost stories, the sets being the fastididious work of the director himself. A one–of–a–kind…
Haunting, The (1963): Dir. Robert Wise
Feat. Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson…; Exquisite photography/design and nerve–shredding sound effects urgently conspire for this, the definitive haunted house movie. Played…
Terror, The (1963): Dir. Roger Corman
Feat. Boris Karloff; A legendary Corman quickie on which all of star Boris Karloff's scenes were shot in 3 days on sets leftover from THE RAVEN!
Carnival of Souls (1962): Dir. Herk Harvey
Feat. Candace Hilligoss, Herk Harvey; A woman's vision of the world is not quite the same after surviving a car accident in this vastly under–appreciated spook story that comes…
Thirteen Ghosts (1960): Dir. William Castle
Feat. Charles Herbert, Jo Morrow; A nuclear family inherit a house haunted by a dozen ghosts of various colourful guises and some hidden stash. Trademark William Castle…
House On Haunted Hill (1958): Dir. William Castle
Feat. Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart; Vincent Price is in full ham here, offering patrons $10,000 each to endure a night in the titular spooky mansion. Good fun, if a bit slight.…
Ghost Ship (1952): Dir. Vernon Sewell
Feat. Dermot Walsh, Hazel Court, Hugh Burden…; Small–budget supernatural yarn with a uniquely British flavour about a couple that purchase a haunted yacht.
Spiral Staircase, The (1946): Dir. Robert Siodmak
Feat. Dorothy McGuire, Ethel Barrymore; This creaky staircase descends into a spooky mansion of cantankerous matriarchs, mute nymphettes, 'weak' stepsons and impending murder. Dated, yes,…
Vincent Price Double (The Bat, Shock!) (1946-1959): Dir. Crane Wilbur, Alfred L. Werker
Feat. Vincent Price, Agnes Moorehead, Gavin Gordon; A double feature of B–grade Vincent Price horrors. SHOCK! (1946) – Dir. Alfred L. Werker. This concerns a murderous psychiatrist…
Dead of Night (1945): Dir. Robert Hamer, Basil Dearden, Charles Crichton; This model of the horror portmanteau film remains unsurpassed by modern all–comers, with five strong, scary short stories that converge quite…
Place of One's Own, A (1945): Dir. Bernard Knowles
Feat. James Mason, Margaret Lockwood, Dennis Price…; Elegant Victorian ghost story has an elderly couple James Mason and Margaret Lockwood buy a house possessed by a spirit who begins to fascinate their…
Cat and the Canary, The (1927): Dir. Paul Leni
Feat. Laura La Plante, Tully Marshall; Seminal haunted house flick centres around the gathering of greedy contestants to the will of a rich relative. Imaginative thrills are executed with…

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