Great horror movies have a tendency of flying under the radar. Though many masterpieces have rightfully gained their place in the pantheon of exceptional cinematography, horror is not for everyone, and as such, many gems lie hidden for year and years. This list will highlight some of these hidden jewels, both old and new.
Be warned; this is not the usual “Best Halloween movies on Netflix” type of article. Many of these stories can be quite brutal or disturbing. Others might seem a bit dull if you’re only in it for the jump-scares or the gore, but trust us when we say that a true horror movie fan will definitely enjoy them.
Session 9 is perhaps one of the most popular underrated horror stories out there. It’s a very cerebral horror movie that relies more on its atmosphere to induce a sense of dread in its audience. The gorgeous lighting makes it all the more unnerving since it seems to flaunt every single horror movie rule in the book. Everything is calm, still, and peaceful and dreadfully wrong.
Legendary director Dario Argento claims the visual inspiration for the movie came from Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. The plot of the movie involves an aspiring ballerina, who goes to prestigious ballet school in Freiburg. She soon discovers the school is not what it appears to be. There might be a remake in the works, though Argento himself is not very enthusiastic about the project.
Audiences might be more familiar with the American remake, Quarantine (2008), of this Spanish movie. Quarantine is definitely a movie worth watching, but the devil is in the details. At first glance, REC is a typical zombie outbreak tale, complete with government conspiracies and society slowly disintegrating into chaos. But what makes this movie unique is that it focuses on the very first moments of the zombie outbreak, rather than fast-forwarding, as many zombie movies do, months in the future.
Onibaba is a Japanese movie that tells the story of two women who murder a samurai. The ghost of said samurai comes back to haunt the women, as punishment for their crime. Western audiences have long been fascinated with Japanese horror stories. Both Western and Eastern tales of horror have their patterns and classic imagery, and it’s immensely refreshing to see a tale that feels and looks different from what you’re used to. Since the movie came out in 1964, you can tell it was never designed with a Western audience in mind, thus preserving all of those cultural elements that might be censored nowadays, to give it mass market appeal.
It’s almost impossible to select just one single movie from this miniseries, so we’ve referenced the whole thing here. ABCs of Death follows in the footsteps of classic horror miniseries such as “Tales from the Crypt” and “The Twilight Zone.” There 26 short movies in total. The idea behind the series was inspired by children’s programs (hence the title). Each guest director is given a letter of the alphabet to illustrate in their own personal style. Directors were given just two simple rules they all had to follow: Each story had to feature at least one death, and each film had to start and end with the color red.
Hush is the most recent film to make this list, so it still has a chance to make it to the horror movie hall of fame. It’s a novel take on the old plot of the lonely woman being terrorized by a psychopath. The main character is deaf and mute, which adds a whole new layer of tension to the whole situation. It also has a very well-crafted ‘80s vibe that sure to stir up some nostalgia for the golden age of horror flicks.
Italian director Michael Soavis learned most of his craft from Dario Argento, and it’s safe to say he’s done his homework. Like in Argento’s movies, Soavis has all of the elements you’d expect to see in a gory horror flick but packaged in a refined and tasteful look that makes it all the more disturbing. The plot of Deliria involves a group of actors who remain trapped in a theater with a murderous psychopath. Needless to say, Soavis uses the setting to its fullest.
Religious fanaticism, religious symbolism, and imagery have always been a staple of the horror genre. Maybe it’s because we see how easy it is for an essentially noble belief to go wrong when taken to the extreme. Or maybe there’s something about religion that will always terrify us. Whatever it may be, Frailty has it. Moreover, it uses this motif quite masterfully in the tale of two boys who are forced to become “demon hunters” by their extremely religious father.
It’s really hard to describe the plot of Begotten, but on the surface, it’s basically a parabola about the birth and death of gods. However, the fuzziness of the plot doesn’t make it any less terrifying, on the contrary. The stunning black-and-white imagery has no dialogue to tell you what’s going on, and the images aren’t very descriptive either. It gives you the sense that you are watching something exactly as it is unfolding in someone’s mind, with all of the gaps and leaps in logic you’d expect. It’s the kind of movie you experience, rather than watch.
Martyrs is an incredibly disturbing movie about two young women who go out to seek revenge on the man who abused them while they were children. The background of the plot itself is enough to send shivers down your spine, and the imagery is there to match it.
There are probably many more movies that deserve to be on this list, but it’s difficult to discover these underrated masterpieces unless you stumble upon them more or less by accident. If you have some remarkable discoveries of your own, consider sharing them so that we can spread the word about these under-appreciated gems.