“Horror is a genre of fiction that exploits the primal fears of viewers” – “that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes”.

That always prompts for me the parallel with Greek tragedy and its quality of catharsis proposed by Aristotle through the pity and fear experienced by the audience – a quality that would apply equally to Shakespearean tragedy.

It seems ironic that I compare the high art of Greek or Shakespearean tragedy with the notoriously low art of horror films – sometimes I quip that there’s no such thing as a bad B-grade horror film, speaking to my fandom of the latter. Of course, that quip becomes less funny when I add that there’s no such thing as an A-grade horror film either. That’s an overstatement but perhaps not by too much.

However jarring it may be, I stand by that comparison between Greek or Shakespearean tragedy and horror films, at least as holding up in similar qualities of catharsis. And it wouldn’t take too much to tweak most Greek or Shakespearean tragedies into horror films – now there’s an idea for stark ravings or a top ten.

Back to that quip there’s no such thing as an A-grade horror film, while the horror film genre may be mostly cheap and exploitative (something of a virtue for studios seeking high returns on low costs or budding directors seeking to start careers), it does have surprising depth to it that is top ten-worthy of itself – not least in its various sub-genres or different national styles of horror.

“This is a very broad genre, it can go from tasteful and timeless tales of psychological suspense (a trademark of people like Alfred Hitchcock) to gross out horror (which tends to become campy). It often employs the supernatural but “normal” people are more than sufficient to scare audiences when used properly”.

I’ll be frank – my own tastes in horror lean towards dark fantasy or supernatural horror. I don’t tend to like more, well, mundane sources of horror, albeit with quite a few exceptions. I do like films that might be called SF horror – Alien, Terminator, The Thing – but I like them so much more as SF that I tend to rank them in my top Fantasy & SF Films. I will have a closer look at SF horror as a sub-genre in my special mentions, both here and for my Fantasy & SF Films.

And “despite being the subject of social and legal controversy due to their subject matter, some horror films and franchises have seen major commercial success, influenced society and spawned several popular culture icons.”

Anyway, these are my Top 10 Horror Films.

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

 

 

(10) SINNERS (2025)

 

Yeah, I know, hyped but I liked it.

My favorite horror film of 2025, matching my usual criterion for wildcard tenth place as best of the current or previous year.

Sinners is a vampire horror film that essentially pulls a From Dusk till Dawn switcheroo halfway through the film, but in a 1930s Mississippi blues speakeasy rather than a 1990s Mexico strip club. Quite frankly, the vampires seem to be doing almost everyone involved in the former a favor, given life in this Mississippi Delta sharecropping town – and given that the speakeasy, run by the Smokestack gangster duo, was doomed in three different ways before the vampires showed up. The vampires just got there first – and not by much.

The Smokestack duo are Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack”, both played by Michael B. Joran – identical twins and First World War veterans who worked for Chicago Mob before making off with Mob money and Mob beer to go into business for themselves.

The film has its highlights, foremost among them its Irish vampire antagonist Remmick but also its music, which essentially becomes its own character in the film.

By the way, that comparison to From Dusk till Dawn is not out of the blue – it was a comparison made by several critics (some of whom preferred the “more grounded first half” to its “supernaturally driven” second half but those critics don’t know that everything’s better with vampires) but also by writer and director Ryan Coogler himself, who cited it as inspiration.

 

RATING:

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

 

(9) THE RITUAL (2017)

 

What can I say? Despite mixed reviews, I’m a fan of this British supernatural folk horror film’s “monster”, which still has one of the most strikingly innovative designs I’ve seen in horror film, and with literal mindbending effect on its prey – or sacrificial victims – to match.

Not to mention the sense of forested claustrophobia and creeping doom for its British hiker protagonist and friends taking the worst shortcut ever through the weird woods of Sweden.

Ah yes, it’s that old fantasy or horror trope – don’t go into the woods. Or Sweden.

Apparently it’s (loosely) based on a novel of the same name by Adam Nevill – “and is best described as the love child of The Blair Witch Project and The Wicker Man”, except far better than the former, not least for seeing the horror stalking the protagonist hikers.

 

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

(8) IT FOLLOWS (2014 – PRESENT)

 

“It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop…ever, until you are dead!”

No, wait – that’s the Terminator but it’s essentially the same as the “It” in It Follows. Think the Terminator as sex demon – and not in a good way, the way that would involve my fever dreams of Kristanna Loken’s T-X.

As in the shapeshifting demonic stalker, invisible to all but whom It is stalking, as STD allegory kind of way.

“You’re not going to believe me. But I need you to remember what I’m saying. Okay? This thing…it’s going to follow you. Somebody gave it to me, and I passed it to you, back in the car. It could look like someone you know, or it could be a stranger in a crowd. Whatever helps it to get close to you. It could look like anyone…but there is only one of it. And sometimes…sometimes I think it looks like people you love. Just to hurt you. […] You get rid of it, okay? Just sleep with someone as soon as you can. Just pass it along. If it kills you, it’ll come after me. Do you understand?”

That quote from the cowardly cad Hugh who infects the female protagonist with it pretty much sums up the film’s plot and premise. Otherwise the mythos of It – where It came from or anything meaningful about It other than Its relentless pursuit of Its prey, albeit at leisurely walking pace – remains tantalizingly unknown, adding to the creepiness.

The film received critical acclaim and grossed many times more than its shoestring budget – which is something of the appeal of horror films for studios – prompting a sequel presently in development, They Follow.

It has also achieved, dare I say it, a cult following “with many calling it a modern horror classic and one of the best horror films of the 2010s” – “smart, original and, above all, terrifying, It Follows is the rare modern horror film that works on multiple levels – and leaves a lingering sting.”

Part of those levels or that sting is the deeper thematic interpretations with respect to the source and symbolism of It – of which the most obvious is that STD allegory but which extends to other meanings.

As per its director – “I’m not personally that interested in where ‘it’ comes from. To me, it’s dream logic in the sense that they’re in a nightmare, and when you’re in a nightmare there’s no solving the nightmare. Even if you try to solve it…We’re all here for a limited amount of time and we can’t escape our mortality… but love and sex are two ways in which we can at least temporarily push death away.”

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

(7) THE HITCHER (1986)

 

Things are about to get a whole lot…schlockier (and more idiosyncratic) in my top five horror films. But as I like to say, there’s no such thing as a bad B-grade horror film. (Although I’m not entirely sure that there’s such a thing as an A-grade horror film either).

It’s not exactly high art – indeed, it’s mostly exploitative – but there’s just something about The Hitcher, a “road action-horror” film with Rutger Hauer in the title role (or Sean Bean if you saw the remake but you really should have watched the original).

The plot is simple enough – a young man driving across the United States narrowly escapes death at the hands of the titular hitcher, a travelling serial killer, but then finds himself in a weirdly co-dependent cat-and-mouse game with the killer. Like many slasher films, the killer (who goes by the name of John Ryder), is not supernatural, but seemingly comes close in his invulnerability and his ability to shadow the protagonist.

Or in this case, Hauer seems to be replicating his replicant role from Blade Runner (and as usual, Hauer is awesome in this). As I have argued with a friend who insists upon classifying every SF film as action – if you want to see a non-SF action The Terminator, see The Hitcher. (My usual sarcastic line when he states The Terminator is action not SF – “Really? The film with its entire premise as a cyborg travelling in time back from a future Robot War isn’t SF?!)

As a bonus (at least according to TV Tropes), the film was inspired by The Doors’ song Riders on the Storm – “There’s a killer on the road / His brain is squirming like a toad / Take a long holiday / Let the children play / If you give this man a ride / Sweet family will die”. Even more so as the film opens on the road in a storm and the Hitcher gives his name as John Ryder.

 

 

RATING: 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

*

 

(6) DEAD & BURIED (1981)

 

And now for one of my true guilty pleasures, as things continue along the schlockier and more idiosyncratic vein of my fifth place entry – but hot damn, I have a soft spot for this film, ever since I stumbled upon it. Yes, it’s somewhat obscure and off the beaten cinematic track. It had a decent enough scriptwriting pedigree – written by the writers of Alien – but it didn’t perform well at the box office and was even initially banned as a “video nasty” in the United Kingdom, yet acquired something of a cult following.

It’s a zombie film with a bit of a difference – and a hell of a few twists, particularly a “twist ending that would give M. Night Shyamalan a run for his money”. Grisly mob lynchings start being committed against tourists passing through the small, sleepy peaceful New England town of Potter’s Bluff, only for the victims to then appear again in the town – while the sheriff investigates, drawn from one level of existential horror to another.

 

RATING: 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

*

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

 

(5) 28 DAYS LATER (2002 – PRESENT)

 

Yes, I’m counting the franchise through 28 Weeks Later through to 28 Years Later (skipping over 28 Months Later) but the first film remains the best, arguably the most definitive modern zombie horror film after Romero and Russo – certainly bringing new life (heh) to the fast zombie trope.

It helped to bring the fast zombie trope up to speed (heh) that the zombies aren’t actually dead but virally infected, reduced to mindlessness but for the titular rage of the virus – with no purpose but to attack uninfected people. The virus is the true terror, terrifyingly contagious both in its speed and ease of infection through bodily fluids.

Of course, this undermines the apocalyptic premise if you think about it, like zombie apocalypse films in general but perhaps even more so given that the infected are still alive but without any cognitive ability to preserve their life. Forget the starvation that is proposed as the “cure” – I’m pretty sure dehydration would get them before that, particularly given the copious amounts of blood they tend to vomit up when infected, not to mention a few other things that I anticipate would get them as well.

For that matter, the spread of the virus would be limited in that it is transmitted only by infected bodily fluids – typically on contact from an infected attacking you – and has an almost instantaneous transmission period. Yes – that makes it more terrifying if you get an infected pop up in a population center but essentially it spreads like a human relay race, with one infected passing the viral baton on to another (if the latter survives the attack before becoming infected). It’s not airborne and has no gestation period that would allow it to spread by anything less obvious than an infected person attacking you or over any distance (since infected people seem to be dormant or hibernate if no one is in their sensory range).

Also, like other zombie apocalypse films in general that show the real enemy is not so much the zombies as one’s fellow humans – here it’s animal rights activists (and children in the sequel film 28 Weeks Later). Okay, fine – it’s also mad horny soldiers (and sheer military ineptitude on the same level of having a button marked push for zombies in the sequel 28 Weeks Later).

But seriously, animal rights activists are to blame for the release of the virus in the first place. In fairness, I also blame the scientist for obtusely telling them the laboratory chimpanzees are infected with “rage” rather than a lethally contagious disease that can spread in seconds. It practically begs the skeptical response – “Yeah, I’d be pretty angry too!”

Nitpicking aside, there’s no denying the sheer impact of the first film, including the fast zombie action that might be described as frenetic or kinetic – indeed one reviewer described the film as “kinetically directed”.

The second film – not directed by Danny Boyle but by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo – maintained this impact in its fantastic opening scene (which also introduces children as the real villains of the film) but fell off after that, preferring to make some sort of point about US military ineptitude (I think) but fumbling even that as it only does so through contriving that same ineptitude to stupidity beyond suspension of disbelief.

The third film returns to the form (and visual direction) of the first film, not surprisingly as Danny Boyle returned as director, at least in its first act or so. After that, your mileage may vary.

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

 

 

(4) JAWS (1975)

 

DA-DUM

 

The original and still the best shark horror movie – as well as the source of my enduring fandom of shark movies. And yet I still go swimming at the beach most days in summer and warm days in winter. Of course, there’s not too many giant great white sharks at my beach. I hope.

Based on the best-selling novel by Peter Benchley, it is one of those rare examples where the movie exceeds the book – because the film skipped all the small-town drama (Matt Hooper has an affair with Sheriff Brody’s wife?!) which one skipped over for the shark attacks when reading the book anyway.

It was fortuitous that the mechanical sharks, nicknamed Bruce, malfunctioned more often than not, as they were not terribly realistic (I’ve seen the one at the Hollywood Universal Studios tour), but more importantly, they forced director Steven Spielberg to substitute effects designed at suggesting the shark’s presence – including the now iconic ominous and minimalist orchestral theme by composer John Williams. These effects tend to be more tense (and haunting) than the actual appearance of the shark.

The plot – including effects, images and lines from the film – is ingrained into popular culture, revolving around the film’s antagonist, the giant great white shark preying on people in the waters of Amity Island. (Although the town’s mayor becomes something of a secondary antagonist, as he doesn’t seem to mind the shark chowing down on tourists so long as they’ve spent those delicious tourist dollars in the town first). A trio famously formed to hunt the shark – police sheriff Brody, marine biologist Hooper and everyone’s favorite insane professional shark hunter Ahab Quint.

“Now considered one of the greatest films ever made, Jaws was the prototypical summer blockbuster, with its release regarded as a watershed moment in motion picture history. Jaws became the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of Star Wars”.

Not bad for a simple shark horror movie.

 

RATING: 

A-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

 

(3) THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (2012)

 

“On another level, it’s a serious critique of what we love and what we don’t about horror movies.”

I’m ranking The Cabin in the Woods in top tier, because it is virtually an encyclopedia of horror film genre tropes and references, the latter so congested at times you have to pause or watch frame by frame to get them all (and probably not even then).

It is a horror film that is also meta-horror – a love letter to the genre, or more precisely a love-hate letter to the genre.

“I love being scared. I love that mixture of thrill, of horror, that objectification / identification thing of wanting definitely for the people to be alright but at the same time hoping they’ll go somewhere dark and face something awful. The things that I don’t like are kids acting like idiots, the devolution of the horror movie into torture p0rn and into a long series of sadistic comeuppances.”

That is of course from Joss Whedon as producer and co-writer of the screenplay, the latter with director Drew Goddard as the other co-writer” – and the film is definitely Whedonesque in its troperiffic and reference-heavy quality (rather than the more, ah, negative qualities that might be associated with that term from developments since that film). Indeed, it has distinct similarities with the creation that still is definitive of Whedon – Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 4 and the Initiative in particular.

“Five friends go to an isolated cabin in the woods for a weekend vacation.”

And that’s pretty much all you’re getting of the plot here, because any more detail spoils the premise of the film. Let’s just say the premise of the film explains why the plots of horror films often seem so contrived in a deconstruction of both the “cabin in the woods” setting and the horror genre.

Film critic Ann Hornaday summed it up nicely:

“A fiendishly clever brand of meta-level genius propels The Cabin in the Woods, a pulpy, deceivingly insightful send-up of horror movies that elicits just as many knowing chuckles as horrified gasps. [It] comes not only to praise the slasher-, zombie- and gore-fests of yore but to critique them, elaborating on their grammatical elements and archetypal figures even while searching for ways to put them to novel use. The danger in such a loftily ironic approach is that everything in the film appears with ready-made quotation marks around it… But by then, the audience will have picked up on the infectiously goofy vibe of an enterprise that, from its first sprightly moments, clearly has no intention of taking itself too seriously”.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

*

 

(2) THE WICKER MAN (1973)

 

No – not the one with the bees, Robin Hardy’s original cult classic “creep-fest starring Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee – with a final reel that’s become an intrinsic piece of horror iconography”.

Of course, it’s slow-burn horror more in the sense of classical tragedy of creeping doom a la Euripides’ The Bacchae (and a stealth sequel to Caesar’s The Gallic Wars). Also a classic in the subgenre of folk horror – horror based on old folklore or old folkloric rituals, typically the pagan faiths of yore as here. While it was most common in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, it’s surprisingly prevalent, particularly in the so-called folk horror revival in the 2010s – The Wicker Man is predecessor to 2019’s Midsommar.

A Variety article summed it up nicely – “It’s a film set on an island in the Scottish Hebrides, full of gnarly blokes in pubs, that turns out to be a secret sect of Celtic pagan worship. There are dances around the maypole and nymphs leaping through fire, and there is Christopher Lee, sinister in a benevolent sherry-club way, as if he were presiding over a kinky episode of “Fantasy Island,” as the commune’s lord and master. There’s period kitsch in “The Wicker Man,” yet the movie taps into something memorable: a death cult that wears a gleaming smile, as if it were the missing link between Charles Manson’s followers and the Jonestown horde. In spirit, the film takes off from the last scene of “Rosemary’s Baby,” with all those devil worshippers gathered for a party in the Castavets’ apartment — a terrifying vision of middle-class evil. Yet “The Wicker Man” lands, if anything, in an even more unruly place. Watching it, you can’t see the devil, but you can see the scary power of mass belief”.

Also – naked Britt Ekland (and Britt Ekland’s body double) with that infamous wall-slapping seductive dancing and singing.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

*

 

 

(1) EVIL DEAD (1981-1992 / 2013-2023)

 

Hail to the king, baby!

What else? The Evil Dead, the film and the following franchise, are not high art but they embody (in virtually every sense of that word) the archetypal B-grade horror movie in all its fun and glory, with tongue ever more firmly in cheek.

As stated by TV Tropes – “in 1979, a bunch of college dropouts got together in a cabin in Tennessee and made a film with a standard B-Movie plot; this film was The Evil Dead. The film, which was directed by Sam Raimi and starred (the chin himself) Bruce Campbell, succeeded through elaborate gore effects, slick cinematography, and sheer audacity to make enough money to warrant two sequels and get into the public consciousness”.

It is remarkable that a movie made by college dropouts on a shoestring budget – and effects that resemble claymation or plasticine at times – should have any impact upon public consciousness, let alone the enduring impact it and its sequels had upon mine.

“Join us, Ashleeeeey!”

You know you’re in a for a gory horror ride in the first movie, as the classic group of teenagers heads to the classic cabin in the woods. There they unfortunately locate the demonic Book of the Dead or Necronomicon (borrowing from Lovecraft) which was studied by the cabin’s previous occupant – and even more unfortunately play the tape of the recitation invoking the Sumerian demons (although something seems to have been stalking the cabin and woods even prior to that recitation). Those demons possess each of them in turn, turning them into the titular evil dead which then attack the others, until ultimately only one of them, Ashley, is left to fend off the demons (including his girlfriend). This first film works quite effectively as horror, particularly as Ashley or Ash becomes the lone survivor fending off the evil dead in the seemingly eldritch architecture of the cabin. I mean, it’s probably the frantic cinematography but how many rooms does that cabin have? It’s like the Tardis in there. And you know it’s going to get bloody (and oh boy does it ever) when a further playing of the tape reveals that the only way to destroy the evil dead is…bodily dismemberment! Ewww!

The second film (Evil Dead 2), a partial remake and partial sequel, was made with more money but lacks the pure horror of the first, as embracing the absurdity of the premise, it moved from horror to comedy (and Ash became more invulnerable to the demonic threat).

The third film (Army of Darkness) fully embraced all its cheesy goodness and rule of cool as it almost entirely abandoned horror altogether for dark fantasy comedy, yet utterly glorious as a result (while Ash completed his transition into a virtually indestructible superhero). It follows from the second film, which saw Ash magically transported through time to the Middle Ages (yeah, it’s like that), in medieval Europe or perhaps the Latin kingdoms of the Crusades, where he soon has to face off against an undead army. It had the biggest budget of the original trilogy, as well as being the most well-known and quoted, with its memetic one-liners.

The franchise saw a remake of the original film with the Evil Dead film of 2013 – decent enough but somewhat forgettable as lacking the same pulpy fun and tongue-in-cheek humor of the original. That changed dramatically with the fifth entry into the franchise, Evil Dead Rise in 2023, which returned to the spirit and style of the original trilogy (and Evil Dead mythos) but with its own fun twists – and also perhaps the only Deadite that’s strangely…arousing. Whose your mummy?

The franchise has also seen a TV series, comics adaptations, video games…and a theatre musical?

Groovy!

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

*

*

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

(1) THE EVIL DEAD

(2) THE WICKER MAN

(3) THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

 

If The Evil Dead and The Wicker Man are my Old Testament of horror films, then The Cabin in the Woods is my Old Testament (and kinda a fusion of both The Evil Dead and The Wicker Man)

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

(4) JAWS

(5) 28 DAYS LATER

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(6) DEAD & BURIED

(7) THE HITCHER

(8) IT FOLLOWS

(9) THE RITUAL

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER):  BEST OF 2025

 

(10) SINNERS

 

“Horror is a genre of fiction that exploits the primal fears of viewers” – “that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes”.

It’s also a genre in which I watch a lot of films, so I don’t just have a Top 10 Horror Films – I also have my usual twenty special mentions for my top tens, including sub-genre or thematic entries as about half of my special mentions.

 

 

(1) SF HORROR (BODY HORROR & COSMIC HORROR)

 

If you were wondering where Alien or The Thing were in my Top 10 Horror Films, here they are!

My preferred horror films tend to be supernatural or SF horror, but I tend to rank the latter as SF rather than horror. The dividing line is partly my idiosyncratic opinion that the science fiction elements predominate in SF, such as where the sources of horror are aliens or time-travelling killer robots, but is also partly to preserve the SF entries in my Top 10 Fantasy and SF Films.

Alien, The Terminator, and The Thing are my holy trinity of SF horror but I rank all of them as entries in my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films (indeed with Alien and The Terminator as my top two entries and The Thing in fourth place).

Alien was essentially haunted house horror IN SPACE, with a spaceship for a haunted house (neatly solving the so-called haunted house problem of why the protagonists simply don’t leave the house) and the titular xenomorph for the ghost. In a sense the whole franchise is this in one way or another.The Thing is also another alien haunted house horror story, except with an Antarctic base as haunted house – with the haunted house problem posed by the onset of winter as well as by seeking to avoid the Thing infecting the outside world.

Alien and The Thing also illustrate the subgenres of body horror and cosmic horror that recur with SF horror.

The Terminator was essentially robot slasher horror – okay, technically cyborg slasher horror.

 

Top 10 SF Horror Films

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

 

(2) ZOMBIE HORROR & ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE HORROR

 

“Braaaiinnnns!”

Zombie horror films, tending as they do to involve the trope (or tropes) of zombie apocalypse have become so prolific as to define their own film genre, one worthy of their own special mention as well as top ten lists many times over just for their themes, tropes and types.

One thing that surprised me looking it up was that they originated early in cinematic history with the first zombie film often cited as White Zombie in 1932.

That surprised me as one usually associates zombies – at least in their cinematic incarnation as opposed to their origin “in the vodou beliefs of Haiti, referring to a body ‘revived’ and enslaved by a sorcerer” – with George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.

That film defined the cinematic incarnation of zombies – “usually portrayed as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings” and commonly “cannibalistic in nature” (or “ghouls” as Romero preferred to call them in that film). Usually depicted as shambling en masse, invoking metaphors of mobs or proletarian masses.

However, “while Romero is responsible for most of the ‘general’ zombie conventions, the more specific and visible zombie tropes are more often inspired by the later works of John Russo, Night‘s co-writer. Most zombie movies mix-and-match conventions from the Romero and Russo canons. The Russo canon in particular…is the reason most people will respond with “Braaiinnnns” when zombies come up in conversation”.

Zombie horror films have subsequently ramped up the traditional slow zombies with fast ones – “super-fast and super-angry zombies” that make death (or viral infection) look like a positive boon for Olympic-level athletic performance, better than steroids. Not to mention other elite zombies, with other qualities such as intelligence.

 

Top 10 Zombie & Zombie Apocalypse Horror Films

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

 

(3) VAMPIRE HORROR

 

If zombies are the flesh of horror films, then vampires are the blood.

Vampire horror films originate among the first horror films – and indeed in the dawn of the film industry itself. My pet theory is that this is the product of happy coincidence between the publication (and popularity) of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1897 and the origins of the film entertainment industry, particularly in Hollywood.

Dracula was theatrical in its very conception – not surprisingly given Stoker’s background in theatre – and hence readily cinematic for adaptation. Dracula often reads like a play – and indeed Stoker himself adapted it as one in its first year of publication.

After that, you have the 1922 film Nosferatu directed by F.W. Murnau, infamous as essentially a version of Dracula with the serial numbers filed off, before the iconic cinematic incarnation of Dracula with Bela Lugosi in the title role in 1931.

From there, the rest is vampire horror film history – whether featuring Dracula himself (including Christopher Lee being as iconic in the role as Lugosi) or any number of vampires drawn from an almost infinite variety of vampire folklore, including the folklore attached to Dracula in the novel or its adaptations.

 

Top 10 Vampire Horror Films

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

 

 

 

(4) FOLK HORROR

 

“Who are these coming to the sacrifice?”

Folk horror is a subgenre of horror fiction or film – indeed, arguably a sub-genre of religious horror, except based on elements of folklore, supernatural or otherwise, “to invoke fear and foreboding”.

“Typical elements include a rural setting, isolation, and themes of superstition, folk religion, paganism, sacrifice and the dark aspects of nature”.

The original “unholy trinity” identified as folk horror were three British films in the 1960s-1970s – Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) and my own personal archetype of folk horror (as well as second favorite horror film of all time), The Wicker Man (1973).

The phrase folk horror was popularized by the BBC documentary A History of Horror in 2010 by director Piers Haggard for his film The Blood on Satan’s Claw in an interview with Mark Gatiss – in which he invoked the unholy trinity.

 

Top 10 Folk Horror Films

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

 

 

(5) RELIGIOUS HORROR

 

The original horror, preceding horror in film and indeed as old as dirt – horror in religion, with the source of the horror as the antagonistic supernatural beings of that religion.

Of course, in Western popular culture, that religion is Christianity – usually defaulting to Catholicism, as tacit acknowledgement that it is the one branch of Christianity that can go toe for toe with the forces of evil and look good doing it. I’m joking and serious – serious about that last part, due to the visually iconic nature of Catholicism. There’s even a trope named for it – Christianity is Catholic. That is, when Christianity is depicted onscreen, it will tend to be Catholic.

Hence the supernatural beings will usually be the Devil, demons or other forces of Hell – with exorcism and possession often featuring prominently as the opposing sides of the battlefield.

It’s also the original horror for me personally, thanks to being raised in a religion in childhood, although I wouldn’t say it was religious as such – more just the usual background tribal culture in which people grow up. However, by my childhood logic, I figured that everything else bad could be traced to the Big Bad itself, so my biggest childhood fear was the Devil.

I grew out of it but The Exorcist and The Omen – which for me will always be the two leading religious horror films – still invoke something of that childhood fear to scare me sh*tless, even with a few drinks to soften them up.

Yes – there’s other religious horror films, enough for their own top ten, but those two are the biggest, perhaps with Rosemary’s Baby as a distant third for the unholy trinity of religious horror.

And yes – even now there’s enough of that residual childhood fear for me to know better than to talk about the details of those films, just as I also know better than to much around with ouija boards (with one playing a prominent role in The Exorcist).

 

Top 10 Religious Horror Films

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER – OR IS THAT DEVIL-TIER?)

 

 

(6) SLASHER HORROR

 

“Here, we can see a slasher movie killer in their natural habitat, stalking the final girl.”

I tend to prefer other sub-genres of horror to slasher horror but the latter is so iconic of the horror film genre in general that I have to rank it in my S-tier or god-tier special mentions, particularly with the iconic visual design of their slashers.

Also, like zombie horror films, they have become so prolific as to define their own film genre, one worthy of their own top ten list many times over just for their themes, tropes and types, as well as by iconic slasher.

Interestingly, on the subject of type, according to Wikipedia “the slasher canon can be divided into three eras: the classical (1974–1993), the self-referential (1994–2000) and the neoslasher cycle (2000–2013)”.

Given my preference for supernatural (or SF) horror, I tend to prefer the more supernatural slashers. More overtly supernatural slashers that is, as all slashers tend towards supernatural – at least in terms of their superhuman ability to, well, slash, stalk, and all other ancillary abilities associated with them.

It’s like the film Taken – slashers tend to have a very particular set of skills. Hmm…now there’s a story idea concept, Taken as slasher film (or vice versa from the slasher’s perspective).

“The killers, mostly driven by revenge, are also typically somewhat made of iron, at a minimum, and frequently implacable to boot. Slashers prefer melee weapons that let them get up close and personal with their victims and almost never use firearms. Many are borderline (or explicitly) supernatural, having the ability to appear and disappear as if by magic. The corpses of their victims tend to be equally elusive; a slasher killer can whisk away a fully-grown adult’s body in seconds, leaving not a single drop of blood behind, or swiftly arrange all their victims into an elaborate tableau, without ever being seen lugging the dead bodies around”.

 

Top 10 Slasher Films

 

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

 

 

 

(7) SHARK HORROR (ALLIGATOR & CROCODILE HORROR)

 

For instant horror, just add sharks!

I’m joking and serious. There’s even a trope or two for it in TV Tropes – Threatening Shark (or Everything’s Even Worse with Sharks).

Obviously that’s the case in shark horror films – that is, horror films where the source of the horror is a shark or sharks preying on humans.

However, even in films of other genres, adding a shark or sharks usually adds an element of horror – even if only from fear or suspense by the appearance or presence of that shark or those sharks. The James Bond films are fond of their sharks for example, so much so they were parodied by Dr Evil in Austin Powers wanting sharks with “fricking laser beams” attached to their heads.

There’s just something primal about our fear of sharks.

“Want to make a (usually) aquatic situation a dangerous nightmare? One way is sharks.”

But none more so than in shark horror films. In those, the sea’s your limit – or rather it isn’t, since you can have your sharks in almost any water, natural habitat or not. There’s the mutated cave sharks in the sequel to 47 Meters Down – or sharks in a suburban store flooded by a tsunami.

You’re not even necessarily limited to your “(usually) aquatic situation”. The sky’s your limit – literally with the Sharknado films.

For that matter, you’re not limited to normal sharks, often in combination with not being limited to aquatic situations. I’ve mentioned those mutated cave sharks but there’s other strands of evolution – biggest of them all the prehistoric megalodon. And the sky’s the limit for it as well – I’ve seen an excerpt from one megalodon film (Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus), admittedly hilarious, where the mega-shark breached the surface as sharks do, but to literally bring down a jet airliner at commercial flight height.

And you can just get weirder from there – genetically engineered sharks, ghost or demon sharks, and so on.

Special mention within my special mention to shout out alligator and crocodile horror films, albeit not as prolific as shark horror films by a long shot.

 

Top 10 Shark Horror Films

 

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

(8) KING HORROR

 

King horror – Stephen King horror, that is, for the cinematic adaptations from one of the most iconic and prolific horror writers of our time. Images, lines and scenes from his work reverberate throughout popular culture, particularly driven by their cinematic or screen adaptations.

There’s something of a trope that goes around that his work makes for bad cinematic adaptations. This trope seems wrong to me – the more correct statement would be that the cinematic adaptations are mixed. A number of films from his work are good or well regarded – hence this special mention – “while many others are not”.

Of course much depends on the director but one rule of thumb I have is that the better movies are based on his shorter or tighter works. Like most screen adaptations of literary works, the longer the book the messier the adaptation gets. Not too short though – short stories can have too little substance to them for a feature length film.

And for the worst Stephen King cinematic adaptation ever – The Lawnmower Man – they didn’t even use what little substance they had from the titular story for a feature film, choosing instead to go off on their own weird jaunt based on a single (misplaced) line. The film became notorious for King suing it to remove his name from it.

 

Top 10 King Horror Films

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

(9) POLTERGEIST (1982)

 

“They’re here”

The classic haunted house horror film – indeed, I’d argue that it’s never been surpassed or equalled since as haunted house horror film.

Of course, the title helps  – is there a cooler word for ghost than poltergeist? Even its English translation of “noisy spirit” is still cool.

The titular spirit in the film is a lot more than merely noisy, however.

“Poltergeist is a 1982 American supernatural horror film directed by Tobe Hooper and written by Steven Spielberg…The film focuses on a suburban family whose home is invaded by malevolent ghosts that abduct their youngest daughter”.

Interestingly, Spielberg originally conceived Poltergeist as involving aliens rather than ghosts – a horror sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind – and you can kind of see that at times even in the finished film.

Fortunately, it was written for ghosts – and became an iconic ghost horror film as a reuslt, so iconic that it has been frequently parodied. It also spawned a franchise, but one that could never equal the first film.

It also has one of my favorite “”oh crap” moments in horror film.

“You son of a b*tch! You moved the cemetery, but you left the bodies, didn’t you? You son of a bitch, you left the bodies and you only moved the headstones! You only moved the headstones! Why? Why?”

 

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

 

(10) HELLRAISER (1987)

 

“We have such sights to show you!”

None of them pleasant, mind you, but they do indeed.

The film – and at least the first sequel – is just so quotable, usually from the Cenobites that are the heart of the horror, or the hell in the film’s title.

“The series has at its heart a puzzle box known as the Lament Configuration, which when properly solved summons the Cenobites, a cadre of sadomasochistic Humanoid Abominations.”

Worst Rubik’s Cube ever.

“The icon and representative of the series is the only recurring Cenobite after the second film, the iconic Pinhead”.

Although I have a soft spot for the Chatterer – the other two are Butterball and the Female Cenobite. It seems the Cenobites used up their imagination on BDSM by the time it came to their names.

Speaking of quotes, my favorite Hellraiser quote is not from the film but about it – by James Rolfe:

“Hellraiser is a movie that’s so f*cked up, you won’t even look at it unless you want to be freaked out of your mind!”

That pretty much sums up the premise of Hellraiser, where the horror is more its disturbing nature than any fear it evokes. It doesn’t so much make your hairs raise as your skin crawl – or “tear your soul apart”.

The first Hellraiser film was the directorial debut by writer (and sick puppy) Cliver Barker, based on his novella The Hellbound Heart.

The Cenobites, particularly Pinhead, have become horror icons. Sadly, Hellraiser hasn’t been parodied as much as it should have been in my opinion, but the standout parody of it was by Rick and Morty.

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

 

(11) ARACHNOPHOBIA (1990)

 

For instant horror, just add spiders!

Like my previous special mention for shark horror, I’m joking and serious. Again, there’s a trope for it in TV Tropes – Spiders Are Scary. To which I’d add two more of their tropes to make spiders even scarier – Giant Spider and Spider Swarm.

Spider horror films are something of a niche but adding a spider, let alone a giant spider or spider swarm, will add an element of horror to films of other genres. Think Shelob in The Lord of the Rings. Or the spider scene with James Bond in Doctor No – or come to think of it, the spider scene (and just a touch of spider swarm) with Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

There’s something even more primal for our fear of spiders than for our fear of sharks, reflected in arachnophobia being up there as one of the phobias with the greatest name recognition – not least to this arachnophobe.

And yes – my use of arachnophobia in the title is a deliberate reference to invoke not only the phobia but the 1990 film of that title, my favorite spider horror film. And let’s be honest, the only spider horror film that pulls off the schlock well with the perfect mix of horror and comedy.

 

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

(12) AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000)

 

How could we have special mentions for horror films without Patrick Bateman, the titular American Psycho – at least for all the memetic moments?

Well, I suppose you could as it’s arguably not horror, but psychological thriller or even more so black comedy satire. (Or perhaps grim prediction of contemporary American politics, particularly given Bateman’s idol…?)

However, it does feature the titular serial killer (or is he….?), based on the novel by Brett Easton Ellis. The latter is even more intense, with one particularly intense scene featuring a rat that makes Room 101 in 1984 look like a petting zoo and was probably unfilmable as a result.

Christian Bale played Batman Bateman, the personification of American dream and nightmare, in a cult classic of black comedy. Bateman is a wealthy investment banker, obsessed with maintaining appearance and lavish lifestyle – a man so narcissistic and self-obsessed that his idea of conversation is a monologue reviewing his album collection (Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis & the News – which, in fairness, is enough to drive anyone to murder), boring his guests to death before, you know, goring them to death. Not literally goring them with a horn or tusk, but killing them gorily, such as with an axe – and a raincoat to block the splatter and spray. (“Is that a raincoat?” a bemused guest asks before getting the axe).

Or that he is driven into literally murderous rage upon being out-flaunted by his equally superficial (but slightly less murderous) colleagues and their business cards, all seemingly in the same color and font but described in pretentious terms (“bone”, “eggshell” and “pale nimbus”).

It even inspired a musical version – which sounds awesome

But excuse me – I have to return some videotapes.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

(13) ASIAN HORROR – THE RING & THE GRUDGE (2002 & 2004)

 

Yes, yes – I’m sweeping the entire horror film industries of east and south-east Asia into one stringy-haired ghost girl special mention of The Ring vs The Grudge (but not literally the Ring vs the Grudge in that crossover film between them).

That’s because I only have the most superficial knowledge of Asian horror, almost entirely consisting of those stringy-haired ghost girls (or onryo) of Japanese horror film (or J-horror) – and even then in their American adaptations.

Yes – I’m talking the leading ghost girl duo of Sadako (or Samara in the American version) in The Ring and Kayako in The Grudge.

In fairness, those ghost girls are freaky. What makes them even more freaky is that they don’t exactly target their rage at the people who deserve it. Just anyone unlucky enough to cross their path (or play their tape) – they’re just that p*ssed off with anyone that’s not dead like them. And then they come crawling out of your television, or your own hair, or just goddamn anywhere – usually moving in the most unnatural way or making the most unnerving noises.

Anyway, let’s just say they have piqued my interest in Asian horror, which has dipped ever so slightly into Japanese, Korean, and Thai horror films – from which I hope to accumulate enough for an Asian horror top ten.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

(14) THE DESCENT (2005)

 

Just when you thought it was safe to go spelunking…

One of the best horror films of the 2000s – honestly I’d consider it for special mention on the skull of women motif art design alone.

“The Descent is a 2005 British horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall, director of Dog Soldiers and Doomsday. The film follows a group of six women who embark on a caving expedition and become trapped underground after a cave-in.”

If that wasn’t recipe enough for claustrophobic horror, add a pinch of injury and a generous serve of Crawlers – “predatory, pale humanoid creatures” that make the Morlocks seems positively refined by comparison. And like nothing better than to chow down on anyone stupid and hapless enough to enter their lair.

There was a sequel film which I thought was watchable enough but undercut the first film.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

 

(15) SNAKES ON A PLANE (2006)

 

“Enough is enough! I’ve had it with these motherfking snakes on this motherfking plane”.

Scriptwriting genius!

An action horror film “that, more than most movies you’ll find, does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin” and “that turned out exactly as ludicrous on the premise and title sound, and it revelled in its so bad it’s goodness”.

What more do you need to know? It’s snakes on a plane!

Oh sure, there’s a convoluted plot to get to the premise of snakes on a plane. Well, not that convoluted in terms of writing – more in the ludicrousness of it as the weapon of choice by an international gangster to assassinate a witness testifying against him. I mean, surely the classic trope of planting a bomb on the plane would have been easier and more effective? Particularly as he had to import all the snakes to put on the plane as it departed Hawaii, one of three islands in the world famously without snakes.

Oh – and that witness? He’d just accidentally blundered on to the scene at just the right time to see the gangster murder a prosecutor. How do we know it was a prosecutor? Because the gangster mocks the man as “Mr Prosecutor” in my favorite line in the movie apart from its most famous line – or indeed in any movie. Again – scriptwriting genius!

Apparently, when the studio wanted to give the film a serious title, Pacific Air Flight 121 – boooring! – and turn it into an action horror film, Samuel L. Jackson “suggested they change it back when the absurd title gained popularity online and became a huge online meme”. And of course so Jackson could say that iconic line as only Jackson could.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

 

 

(16) THE BABADOOK (2014)

 

“Why can’t you just be normal?”

Well, I guess there’s no hope of that – the kid’s Australian. As is the rest of this psychological or supernatural horror film.

I say psychological or supernatural because the titular monster that haunts the widow protagonist – or is that antagonist? – struggling to raise the son she admonishes as lacking normalcy works on both levels, perhaps literally.

And that’s pretty much all one can say of this film’s premise and plot without spoiling it, except of course for the ultimate moral of the story that pop-up books are evil. And the meme that the Babadook is apparently gay because Netflix categorized him that way.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

 

(17) READY OR NOT (2019)

 

“In-laws.”

 

Horror comedy film starring Australian actress Samara Weaving as the film’s protagonist, it earns special mention with a sequel to come (as at 2025) in 2026.

Technically, I might have included this in my special mention entry for religious horror but that’s (mostly) just the backdrop for the horror in this film – being hunted to death by your in-laws.

I know the feeling.

On the night of her wedding, Weaving’s protagonist – perhaps ironically named Grace – is asked to participate in her newlywed husband’s eccentric and rich family tradition of playing a board game. Unfortunately for Grace, she draws the wrong card for Hide and Seek. Even then, she doesn’t quite realize the twist to what appears an innocent childhood game – Hide and Seek is euphemism for Hunt and Shoot. Shoot to kill that is, because the hider needs to be dead by dawn if the seekers are to win, as part of a deal with the devil for the family’s wealth.

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

(18) M3GAN (2022)

 

It’s the Terminator as a doll – what more do you need to know?

Well, in fairness, it’s both versions of Arnold’s T-800 in the first two films. You know, the bad Terminator in the first film and the good Terminator in the second film. If that sounds weird, it’s because she flips from the latter to the former – and worse, that’s from her programming as the latter driven to insane troll logic extremes.

And yes – I’m giving it special mention because of that dance, which became a meme from its brief appearance in the trailer onwards. It makes no sense and comes out of nowhere, except of course the titular doll getting its groove on as part of its murderous self-awareness.

We’re not talking high art here – but we rarely are when it comes to horror films. It’s cheesy and by the numbers but it’s a hoot.

And after all, it’s becoming a franchise – with a sequel in 2025 and a spinoff in 2026. I also can’t resist citing the 2024 Subservience as something of a spiritual sequel purely based on the same robot gone wrong theme and the play on the name with Megan Fox as the robot in that film. She can be my hot robot nanny any day. That’s right – you heard me. I stand by that statement.

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

 

(19) WEAPONS (2025)

 

“This is a true story that happened in my town. A lot of people die in a lot of really weird ways in this story, but you’re not gonna find it in the news. So this one Wednesday is like a normal day for the whole school, but today was different. Every other class had all their kids, but Mrs. Gandy’s room was totally empty. And do you know why? Because the night before, at 2:17 in the morning, every kid woke up, got out of bed, walked downstairs, and into the dark. And they never came back.”

2025 was a hit year for horror – Sinners, 28 Years Later, and Weapons – as the only films that lured me to the cinema (rather than streaming) were horror.

Weapons is a “horror mystery film with elements of black comedy”, in a non-linear narrative around the premise set up by the opening narration, albeit I had not expected the black comedy – the climactic scene might well have had the Benny Hill theme (Yakety Sax) playing over it.

Of course, that premise only works because the police and authorities in the Pennsylvania town of Maybrook are blind, incompetent or both – but who cares? The film “has achieved something remarkable here, crafting a cruel and twisted bedtime story of the sort the Brothers Grimm might have spun”.

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

(20) EROTIC HORROR

 

Wait – what?

As usual, I tend to throw in a kinky entry among my wilder special mentions – usually as the final or twentieth special mention, where the subject permits, and you might be surprised what kink I can squeeze out of a given subject.

And for the subject of horror films, that kinky entry pretty much writes itself.

Firstly, horror tends to be relegated to a cinematic ghetto not unlike adult film – and often uncannily resembles the latter in production values and with similar restricted ratings (for the more softcore adult films at least). As noted by TV Tropes, “you’d be hard-pressed to find professional film critics who don’t view horror as a land where grisly violence and exploitation stand in for plot and characters…none other than famed horror director John Carpenter once remarked that horror is viewed by the mainstream as being just a notch above p0rnography”.

Secondly, adult films borrow from horror films in visual imagery or what passes for plot surprisingly often, except of course for titillation rather than terror – at least going by the spoof titles for adult films parodying those of horror films. I take it the script is probably the least valued part of the production of adult films so if you can just copy and paste it from another film, all the better.

Thirdly, there’s a reason underlying both of the above two reasons – and it’s that there’s always been an underlying eroticism or erotic themes in horror, albeit in varying degrees across the genre, such that you might even call it part of horror’s DNA.

Just think Dracula and vampire horror, but that’s just for starters. You could argue that many horror films involve both variations of the male gaze – that of the audience and that of the antagonist, with the latter as more predatory. Many or perhaps even most of my top ten entries or special mention have some erotic subcurrent – or could readily be tweaked entirely to the basic plot premise (or “parody”) in adult film.

Indeed, erotic horror or erotic themes in horror are so distinctive that the former has its own Wikipedia entry (also featuring the latter) and lists of films. Although be warned – it gets a little weird, anime tentacles for example.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

 

(19) WEAPONS (2025)

 

“This is a true story that happened in my town. A lot of people die in a lot of really weird ways in this story, but you’re not gonna find it in the news. So this one Wednesday is like a normal day for the whole school, but today was different. Every other class had all their kids, but Mrs. Gandy’s room was totally empty. And do you know why? Because the night before, at 2:17 in the morning, every kid woke up, got out of bed, walked downstairs, and into the dark. And they never came back.”

2025 was a hit year for horror – Sinners, 28 Years Later, and Weapons – as the only films that lured me to the cinema (rather than streaming) were horror.

Weapons is a “horror mystery film with elements of black comedy”, in a non-linear narrative around the premise set up by the opening narration, albeit I had not expected the black comedy – the climactic scene might well have had the Benny Hill theme (Yakety Sax) playing over it.

Of course, that premise only works because the police and authorities in the Pennsylvania town of Maybrook are blind, incompetent or both – but who cares? The film “has achieved something remarkable here, crafting a cruel and twisted bedtime story of the sort the Brothers Grimm might have spun”.

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

(17) READY OR NOT (2019)

 

“In-laws.”

 

Horror comedy film starring Australian actress Samara Weaving as the film’s protagonist, it earns special mention with a sequel to come (as at 2025) in 2026.

Technically, I might have included this in my special mention entry for religious horror but that’s (mostly) just the backdrop for the horror in this film – being hunted to death by your in-laws.

I know the feeling.

On the night of her wedding, Weaving’s protagonist – perhaps ironically named Grace – is asked to participate in her newlywed husband’s eccentric and rich family tradition of playing a board game. Unfortunately for Grace, she draws the wrong card for Hide and Seek. Even then, she doesn’t quite realize the twist to what appears an innocent childhood game – Hide and Seek is euphemism for Hunt and Shoot. Shoot to kill that is, because the hider needs to be dead by dawn if the seekers are to win, as part of a deal with the devil for the family’s wealth.

 

RATING:

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

King horror – Stephen King horror, that is, for the cinematic adaptations from one of the most iconic and prolific horror writers of our time. Images, lines and scenes from his work reverberate throughout popular culture, particularly driven by their cinematic or screen adaptations.

There’s something of a trope that goes around that his work makes for bad cinematic adaptations. This trope seems wrong to me – the more correct statement would be that the cinematic adaptations are mixed. A number of films from his work are good or well regarded – hence this special mention – “while many others are not”.

Of course much depends on the director but one rule of thumb I have is that the better movies are based on his shorter or tighter works. Like most screen adaptations of literary works, the longer the book, the messier the adaptation gets. Not too short though – short stories can have too little substance to them for a feature length film.

And for the worst Stephen King cinematic adaptation ever – The Lawnmower Man – they didn’t even use what little substance they had from the titular story for a feature film, choosing instead to go off on their own weird jaunt based on a single (misplaced) line. The film became notorious for King suing it to remove his name from it.

Anyway, here’s my King horror cinematic top ten on the spot.

 

1 – THE SHINING (1980)

 

“Here’s Johnny!”

Probably THE King horror film adaptation that everyone loves – ironically as King himself is not a fan given the different direction (heh) in which Stanley Kubrick took the film from the book. I like both.

 

2 – CARRIE (1976)

 

It’s not nice to make fun of Carrie…it’s not safe either.

That’s the tagline I recall for the film. With a strong cast including Sissy Spacek in the titular role and taut direction by Brian De Palma, the film is consistently ranked a high place among King adaptations – even more so because it was the adaptation that allowed King to become a full time writer.

 

3 – CUJO (1983)

 

Who’s a good boy? Well, he was until…

 

4 – CHRISTINE (1983)

 

Probably the most famous possessed car in popular culture.

Well hello again, Mr Carpenter – although King himself wasn’t a fan of the film.

 

5 – CHILDREN OF THE CORN (1984)

 

He Who Walks Behind The Rows.

The first film was a cracker, based on the short story by King. The sequels or franchise? Not so much.

 

6 – PET SEMATARY (1989)

 

“No fair”

A monkey’s paw of a movie – in that sometimes getting what you wish for is the worst thing you can get.

They came back wrong. Classic pulp horror but that line and scene gets me each time – because evil Gage is telling the truth. Everything about his death, resurrection and, ah, re-death wasn’t fair.

 

7 – MISERY (1990)

 

“I’m your number one fan!”

Arguably the best and tightest of King’s cinematic adaptations, due to the dynamite duo performance of Kathy Bates and James Caan – Bates got an Oscar for her performance, making the film the only King adaptation to win one.

 

8 – THE MIST (2007)

 

One of the biggest wham endings of any horror film – which Stephen King liked so much he preferred it to his own ending.

 

9 – IT (2017-2019)

 

Ah – Pennywise!

One of the best known of King’s cinematic adaptations, due to the visually iconic depiction of the titular antagonist and all its creepy extensions of itself. I might rank it higher but Part 2 didn’t quite stick the landing from Part 1.

 

10 – IN THE TALL GRASS (2019)

 

Where’s a mower when you need one?

 

HONORABLE MENTION

 

(1994 – 1999) THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION & THE GREEN MILE

 

Honorable mention because neither are horror, although there’s something of a dark fantasy element in The Green Mile. The Shawshank Redemption doesn’t even have any fantasy (or SF) elements – it’s just straight up real world drama. I mention it here because it’s just such a damn good film, often listed by people as one of their favorites, presumably unaware that it was based on a Stephen King short story because of the lack of horror or dark fantasy. It also has my favorite use of the word obtuse in any film.

 

 

 

 

For instant horror, just add sharks!

Also just add sharks for an instant Top 10 Shark Horror Films!

Although to be honest, once you get past my top shark horror film, shark horror tends to be well, schlock.

 

1 – Jaws (the original and still the best shark horror film, although even the Jaws franchise couldn’t escape shark schlock in the sequels)

After Jaws in the top spot, I rank them alphabetically because there’s not much difference between them.

2 – 47 Meters Down (with at least one sequel – with those mutated cave sharks)

3 – Bait (the one with the tsunami sharks – in Australia!)

4 – Deep Blue Sea (genetically engineered brainy sharks – with a sequel!)

5 – Great White (res ipsa loquitur)

6 – The Meg (megalodon shark horror)

7 – Open Water (based on a true story from Australia – with at least two sequels)

8 – The Reef (another film set in Australia)

9 – The Shallows (a great white so filled with rage against humans that it doesn’t even care about a juicy whale carcass)

10 – Shark Night (where humans are the real villain, wanting to feed other humans to sharks – same shtick as Dangerous Animals in 2025)

 

SPECIAL MENTION: ALLIGATOR & CROCODILE HORROR – CRAWL & ROGUE

 

While nowhere near as prolific as shark horror films – which always seem to have a few films breach each year – I have almost as much as soft spot for alligator and crocodile horror films. I’d nominate Crawl as my favorite for the former and Rogue as my favorite for the latter.

 

 

 

“Here, we can see a slasher movie killer in their natural habitat, stalking the final girl.”

I tend to prefer other sub-genres of horror to slasher horror but the latter is so iconic of the horror film genre in general that I have to rank it in my S-tier or god-tier special mentions, particularly with the iconic visual design of their slashers.

They have become so prolific as to define their own film genre, one worthy of their own top ten list many times over just for their themes, tropes and types, as well as by iconic slasher.

Anyway, here’s my Top 10 Slasher Films (and their iconic slashers) on the spot.

 

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1 – WES CRAVEN – NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (FREDDY KRUEGER)

 

My favorite slasher film franchise – the combination of slasher horror with supernatural dream-haunting demon is hard to beat. Wes Craven has also proved one of the more capable directors as creator of slasher horror (and horror in general).

While iconic, Freddy is not the most iconic slasher – that title has to go to the duo of my next two entries

 

2 – JOHN CARPENTER – HALLOWEEN (MICHAEL MYERS)

 

That iconic William Shatner mask. And hello again, Mr Carpenter.

 

3 – FRIDAY THE 13^TH (JASON VORHEES)

 

That iconic hockey mask

 

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4 – WES CRAVEN – SCREAM (GHOSTFACE)

 

Hello again, Mr Craven. Yeah – we’re very much in the self-referential phase of slasher canon here, with Scream as its definitive franchise.

 

5 – SAW (JIGSAW)

 

Yes – less slasher and more torture p0rn but I’m still ranking it here as close enough. And yes – it’s not so much the killer that’s iconic as that damn puppet. “You want to play a game?”

 

6 – TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (LEATHERFACE)

 

Title says it all really – as does the slasher’s nom de slash.

 

7 – CHILD’S PLAY (CHUCKY)

 

If a dream-demon like Freddy Kreuger can be a slasher, why not a possessed doll? Well, apart from the size thing, which makes Chucky a little hard to take seriously – hence why he’s not in the top iconic slashers.

 

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8 – WES CRAVEN – THE HILLS HAVE EYES

 

Hello again, Mr Craven. I’ll rank this here – namely because of the lack of a similarly iconic slasher among its hillbilly mutant cannibal tribe (and also because said tribe strays somewhat from the archetypal slasher film).

 

9 – I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

 

A distant second to the Scream franchise as representative of the self-referential phase of slasher canon – also that hook guy just doesn’t have the same iconic status or visual design as the top slashers.

 

10 – WOLF CREEK

 

Australian slasher horror!

Although again John Jarratt’s Mick Taylor isn’t as iconic a slasher.

 

SPECIAL MENTION

 

1 – CLASSICAL SLASHER HORROR (1974-1993)

 

According to Wikipedia “the slasher canon can be divided into three eras: the classical (1974–1993), the self-referential (1994–2000) and the neoslasher cycle (2000–2013)”.

Within the classical era, there’s the Golden Age of slasher films from 1978 to 1984 – which would include the first Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street films.

Prior to the Golden Age, there was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes, while after it the classical era included Chucky – hence the classical era included seven of my top ten entries.

 

2 – SELF-REFERENTIAL SLASHER HORROR (1994-2000)

 

Scream is the archetypal self-referential slasher horror. I Know What You Did Last Summer was also from this era.

 

3 – NEO-SLASHER HORROR / POSTMODERN SLASHER HORROR (2000-2013)

 

Wolf Creek is my top ten entry from this era

 

4 – EVIL DEAD

 

Yeah, my top horror film doesn’t really fall into slasher horror but I include it in special mention because of Ash’s nickname Ashy Slashy. Also the Deadites are somewhat similar to slashers – and the iconic cabin in the woods is similar to your archetypal slasher setting (of Camp Crystal Lake).

Speaking of which

 

5 – THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

 

As a metafictional horror, slashers feature among the monsters used by the Organization – arguably including the zombie redneck torture family (the Buckner family) picked in the film.

 

6 – ALIEN & TERMINATOR

 

I mean, they’re not slashers but they essentially operate by slasher tropes…although you could say that of most horror film antagonists.

 

7 – PSYCHO

 

Precursor and inspiration for slasher horror – it also gives us an iconic horror figure with Norman Bates

 

8 – THE HITCHER

 

As I rank it in my Top 10 Horror Films and it definitely overlaps with slasher horror, I have to give it a shout out here.

 

9 – SILENCE OF THE LAMBS & AMERICAN PSYCHO

Two of the most (in)famous serial killers in cinema – Hannibal Lecter and Patrick Bateman – influenced and an influence on slasher horror films, although they obviously depart from the slasher archetype in a number of ways.

 

 

 

 

The original horror, preceding horror in film and indeed as old as dirt – horror in religion, with the source of the horror as the antagonistic supernatural beings of that religion. In Western popular culture, that religion is Christianity – usually defaulting to Catholicism. Hence the supernatural beings will usually be the Devil, demons or other forces of Hell – with exorcism and possession often featuring prominently as the opposing sides of the battlefield.

No prizes for guessing the top two entries, which for me will always be the two leading religious horror films – but there’s other religious horror films, enough for this top ten, but those two are the biggest.

So here’s my Top 10 Religious Horror Films on the spot

 

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1 – THE OMEN (1976)

 

Damien!

Antichrist horror.

And yes – it spawned a franchise. The first two sequels were okay enough but neither equalled the first film. 2024 saw The First Omen as a decent prequel.

 

2 – THE EXORCIST (1973)

 

Another franchise – the title gives you the basic premise.

 

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3 – ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968)

 

More Antichrist horror

 

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4 – AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979)

 

Iconic haunted house horror – or rather, possessed house horror. Also spawned a franchise.

 

5 – ANGEL HEART (1987)

 

Seemingly starts off as film noir, ends up as religious horror. Nice turn by Robert De Niro – going by the transparent moniker Louis Cypher.

 

6 – THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE (2005)

 

More exorcism horror

 

7 – PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2007)

 

More haunted house horror – or rather, haunted family horror. Also spawned a franchise, albeit with ever diminishing returns in quality.

 

8 – THE CONJURING (2013)

 

More haunted or possessed house horror, even if I otherwise think of the Warrens, like all mediums or psychics, as frauds. Yet another franchise – I’m also counting the Annabelle and Nun spinoffs, the latter being even more religious horror than the Conjuring

 

9 – HEREDITARY (2018)

 

More haunted family horror, similar to the premise of Paranormal Activity – but without the stretches of nothing on “found footage”.

 

10 – LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL (2023)

 

Sadly not Satan hosting a late night TV show but that’s close enough to the premise for the film

 

HONORABLE MENTION:

 

(1997 – 1999) THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE  & END OF DAYS

 

Not really horror – more supernatural thriller, hence the honorable mention. There was just a thing about the upcoming millennium that saw these two films with the similar premise of an apocalyptic plot for the birth of the Antichrist.

 

(1998) FALLEN

 

A serial killer turns out to be something else.

 

 

 

 

“Who are these coming to the sacrifice?”

Folk horror is a subgenre of horror fiction or film – indeed, arguably a sub-genre of religious horror, except based on elements of folklore, supernatural or otherwise, “to invoke fear and foreboding”.

“Typical elements include a rural setting, isolation, and themes of superstition, folk religion, paganism, sacrifice and the dark aspects of nature”.

The original “unholy trinity” identified as folk horror were three British films in the 1960s-1970s – Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971) and my own personal archetype of folk horror (as well as second favorite horror film of all time), The Wicker Man (1973).

It’s tight (and I have to squint a bit at some films to make them fit) but I can just squeeze out a Folk Horror top ten on the spot – and even a few special mentions.

 

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1 – THE WICKER MAN (1973)

 

The archetypal folk horror film, eerie and otherworldly without any supernatural elements. Second place in my Top 10 Horror Films.

 

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2 – PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975)

 

“Miranda!”

Light on the horror (as opposed to mystery) but the film is cited as eerie and otherworldly Australian folk horror centered around the titular landmark. The mystery at its heart is left unanswered but suggests the supernatural (which turned out to be true according to the answer to the mystery in the final chapter eventually published by the author of the book on which it is based – and a little underwhelming).

Also how has this not had an adult film parody version (well, apart from being too “artsy” and niche a film)? There’s naughty schoolgirls – and the title basically writes itself.

 

3 – ROBERT EGGERS – THE WITCH (2015)

 

All of Robert Eggers’ films have had a folk horror vibe so far – but none more so than The Witch, with the most supernatural element. Overlaps with Christian religious horror in Puritan America.

 

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4 – THE RITUAL (2017)

 

Folk horror in Sweden – definitely with a supernatural element. Ninth place in my Top 10 Horror Films, riding on the back of its supernatural antagonist.

 

5 – GARETH EVANS – THE APOSTLE (2018)

 

A surprising change of direction (heh) to supernatural folk horror by Evans after the martial arts action of The Raid. I’d have ranked it higher if it had included the signature Raid cast.

 

6 – MIDSOMMAR (2019)

 

Brightly lit Swedish folk horror – replaying many of the same beats of The Wicker Man, similarly with no supernatural element.

 

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7 – DEAD AND BURIED (1981)

 

I featured it in both my Top 10 Horror Films and Top 10 Zombie Horror Films. Perhaps somewhat light on the folk part of its American setting (which is borrowed from folk religion elsewhere) but this film definitely has a folk horror vibe to it – and supernatural to boot.

 

8 – CHILDREN OF THE CORN (1984)

 

Based on a Stephen King short story (and surprisingly a film franchise) but it’s also American folk horror – with a supernatural element.

 

9 – LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM (1988)

 

Featured in my Top 10 Vampire Horror Films, it’s also folk horror with its surviving pagan Roman cult and snake god (with a thing for Christian virgins and characteristic psychedelic imagery by director Ken Russell)

 

10 – THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW (1988)

 

Featured in my Top 10 Zombie Horror Films – it’s also Haitian folk horror

 

SPECIAL MENTION

 

1 – EVIL DEAD

 

My top horror film – also my top zombie horror film, stretching the definition of zombie. It’s not folk horror as such but could easily be tweaked to be, particularly as a cult to the Necronomicon – and occasionally folk horror elements pop up in the franchise

 

2 – FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

 

Featured in my Top 10 Vampire Horror Films, it’s not folk horror but has some elements suggestive of it, especially in that closing shot panning out from the Aztec pyramid at the back of the strip club – and in elements of the TV series.

 

3 – BEN WHEATLEY

 

A director whose films have been a large part of the twenty-first century folk horror revival – I’d probably rank him in my top ten if I could find his films to stream and watch.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

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(6) 28 DAYS LATER (2002 – PRESENT)

 

Yes, I’m counting the franchise through 28 Weeks Later through to 28 Years Later (as there was no 28 Months Later) but the first film remains the best, arguably the most definitive modern zombie horror film after Romero and Russo – certainly bringing new life (heh) to the fast zombie trope.

It helped to bring the fast zombie trope up to speed (heh) that the zombies aren’t actually dead but virally infected, reduced to mindlessness but for the titular rage of the virus – with no purpose but to attack uninfected people. The virus is the true terror, terrifyingly contagious both in its speed and ease of infection through bodily fluids.

Of course, this undermines the apocalyptic premise if you think about it, like zombie apocalypse films in general but perhaps even more so given that the infected are still alive but without any cognitive ability to preserve their life. Forget the starvation that is proposed as the “cure” – I’m pretty sure dehydration would get them before that, particularly given the copious amounts of blood they tend to vomit up when infected, not to mention a few other things that I anticipate would get them as well.

For that matter, the spread of the virus would be limited in that it is transmitted only by infected bodily fluids – typically on contact from an infected attacking you – and has an almost instantaneous transmission period. Yes – that makes it more terrifying if you get an infected pop up in a population center but essentially it spreads like a human relay race, passing the bloody baton (if the person receiving it survives the attack). It’s not airborne and has no gestation period that would allow it to spread by anything less obvious than an infected person attacking you or over any distance (since infected people seem to be dormant or hibernate if no one is in their sensory range).

Also, like other zombie apocalypse films, the real enemy is not so much the zombies as one’s fellow humans – here it’s animal rights activists (and children in the sequel film 28 Weeks Later). Okay, fine – it’s also mad horny soldiers (and sheer military ineptitude on the same level of having a button marked push for zombies in the sequel 28 Weeks Later).

But seriously, animal rights activists are to blame for the release of the virus in the first place. In fairness, I also blame the scientist for obtusely telling them the laboratory chimpanzees are infected with “rage” rather than a lethally contagious disease that can spread in seconds. It practically begs the skeptical response – “Yeah, I’d be pretty angry too!”

Nitpicking aside, there’s no denying the sheer impact of the first film, including the fast zombie action that might be described as frenetic or kinetic – indeed one reviewer described the film as “kinetically directed”.

The second film – not directed by Danny Boyle but by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo – maintained this impact in its fantastic opening scene (which also introduces children as the real villains of the film) but fell off after that, preferring to make some sort of point about US military ineptitude (I think) but fumbling even that as it only does so through contriving that same ineptitude to stupidity beyond suspension of disbelief.

The third film returns to the form (and visual direction) of the first film, not surprisingly as Danny Boyle returned as director, at least in its first act or so. After that, your mileage may vary.

 

RATING:

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