Hidden Horror, Silent Suspense, Dangerously Dark and the Grand Gothic

by JDNightGhobhadi | created - 13 Jul 2017 | updated - 6 days ago | Public

Some gems (that may have been overlooked by either critics or general audiences) with effectively unsettling, creepy and dark atmospheres that buries itself deep beneath your skin. May not necessarily be in the horror genre.

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1. Come and See (1985)

Not Rated | 142 min | Drama, Thriller, War

After finding an old rifle, a young boy joins the Soviet resistance movement against ruthless German forces and experiences the horrors of World War II.

Director: Elem Klimov | Stars: Aleksey Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Laucevicius, Vladas Bagdonas

Votes: 97,324

2. Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)

R | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Horror

67 Metascore

In 1961, a divorced Catholic couple's life is turned upside-down when one of their two adolescent daughters is suspected of her younger sister's brutal murder during her First Holy Communion and a series of subsequent stabbings.

Director: Alfred Sole | Stars: Linda Miller, Mildred Clinton, Paula E. Sheppard, Niles McMaster

Votes: 12,961

3. Burnt Offerings (1976)

PG | 116 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

48 Metascore

A family moves into a large old mansion in the countryside which seems to have a mysterious and sinister power over its new residents.

Director: Dan Curtis | Stars: Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Burgess Meredith, Eileen Heckart

Votes: 13,614

4. Freaks (1932)

Not Rated | 64 min | Drama, Horror

80 Metascore

A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.

Director: Tod Browning | Stars: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates

Votes: 50,624 | Gross: $0.63M

5. The House of the Devil (1896)

Not Rated | 3 min | Short, Horror

With the help of a magic cauldron, Mephistopheles conjures up a variety of supernatural characters.

Director: Georges Méliès | Stars: Jehanne d'Alcy, Jules-Eugène Legris, Georges Méliès

Votes: 3,987

6. Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1973)

PG | 80 min | Fantasy, Horror, Thriller

49 Metascore

A young girl who returns to her hometown to see her dying father finds herself being drawn into a web of vampirism and witchcraft.

Director: Richard Blackburn | Stars: Lesley Taplin, Cheryl Smith, William Whitton, Hy Pyke

Votes: 2,465

7. Jane Eyre (2011)

PG-13 | 120 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance

76 Metascore

A mousy governess who softens the heart of her employer soon discovers that he's hiding a terrible secret.

Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga | Stars: Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell, Su Elliot

Votes: 93,056 | Gross: $11.24M

8. The Phantom Carriage (1921)

Not Rated | 107 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

On New Year's Eve, the driver of a ghostly carriage forces a drunken man to reflect on his selfish, wasted life.

Director: Victor Sjöström | Stars: Victor Sjöström, Hilda Borgström, Tore Svennberg, Astrid Holm

Votes: 14,092

9. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

PG | 115 min | Drama, Mystery

81 Metascore

During a rural summer picnic, a few students and a teacher from an Australian girls' school vanish without a trace. Their absence frustrates and haunts the people left behind.

Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Rachel Roberts, Anne-Louise Lambert, Vivean Gray, Helen Morse

Votes: 41,055 | Gross: $0.23M

10. The Man Who Laughs (1928)

Not Rated | 110 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

When a proud noble refuses to kiss the hand of the despotic King James in 1690, he is cruelly executed and his son surgically disfigured.

Director: Paul Leni | Stars: Mary Philbin, Conrad Veidt, Julius Molnar, Olga Baclanova

Votes: 8,077

11. The Terror (1928)

85 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Guests at an old English manor house are stalked by a mysterious killer known only as 'The Terror.'

Director: Roy Del Ruth | Stars: May McAvoy, Louise Fazenda, Edward Everett Horton, Alec B. Francis

Votes: 69 | Gross: $1.22M

12. The Body Snatcher (1945)

Approved | 78 min | Horror, Thriller

74 Metascore

A ruthless doctor and his young prize student find themselves continually harassed by their murderous supplier of illegal cadavers.

Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Daniell, Edith Atwater

Votes: 10,192

13. The Tingler (1959)

Not Rated | 82 min | Horror, Sci-Fi

An obsessed pathologist discovers and captures a parasitic creature that grows when fear grips its host.

Director: William Castle | Stars: Vincent Price, Judith Evelyn, Darryl Hickman, Patricia Cutts

Votes: 9,468

14. The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936)

76 min | Crime, Drama, Horror

A Fleet Street barber recounts the story of Sweeney Todd, a notorious barber who in the last century murdered many customers for their money.

Director: George King | Stars: Tod Slaughter, Stella Rho, John Singer, Eve Lister

Votes: 1,451

15. The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

Passed | 70 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

The young, friendless daughter of Oliver and Alice Reed befriends her father's dead first wife and an aging, reclusive actress.

Directors: Gunther von Fritsch, Robert Wise | Stars: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Ann Carter

Votes: 7,177

16. Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

GP | 89 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

58 Metascore

A recently institutionalized woman has bizarre experiences after moving into a supposedly haunted country farmhouse and fears she may be losing her sanity once again.

Director: John D. Hancock | Stars: Zohra Lampert, Barton Heyman, Kevin O'Connor, Gretchen Corbett

Votes: 9,313

17. Macabre (1958)

Passed | 72 min | Crime, Drama, Horror

A doctor's daughter is kidnapped and buried alive, and he is given just five hours to find and rescue her.

Director: William Castle | Stars: William Prince, Jim Backus, Christine White, Jacqueline Scott

Votes: 1,404

18. House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Approved | 75 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery

A millionaire offers $10,000 to five people who agree to be locked in a large, spooky, rented house overnight with him and his wife.

Director: William Castle | Stars: Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, Alan Marshal

Votes: 30,844

19. Homicidal (1961)

Unrated | 88 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

The brutal stabbing murder of a justice-of-the-peace sparks an investigation of dark family secrets in a sleepy small town in Southern California.

Director: William Castle | Stars: Glenn Corbett, Patricia Breslin, Eugenie Leontovich, Alan Bunce

Votes: 3,782

20. Strait-Jacket (1964)

Approved | 93 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller

After a twenty-year stay at an asylum for a double murder, a mother returns to her estranged daughter where suspicions arise about her behavior.

Director: William Castle | Stars: Joan Crawford, Diane Baker, Leif Erickson, Howard St. John

Votes: 6,660

21. The Eyes of Annie Jones (1964)

Approved | 73 min | Drama, Mystery

Murder unfolds around a young girl who sleepwalks and talks while she does so.

Director: Reginald Le Borg | Stars: Richard Conte, Francesca Annis, Joyce Carey, Myrtle Reed

Votes: 168

22. May (2002)

R | 93 min | Drama, Horror

58 Metascore

A socially awkward veterinary assistant with a lazy eye and obsession with perfection descends into depravity after developing a crush on a boy with perfect hands.

Director: Lucky McKee | Stars: Angela Bettis, Jeremy Sisto, Anna Faris, James Duval

Votes: 40,509 | Gross: $0.15M

23. Lady Macbeth (2016)

R | 89 min | Drama, Romance

76 Metascore

In 19th-century rural England, a young bride who has been sold into marriage discovers an unstoppable desire within herself as she enters into an affair with a worker on her estate.

Director: William Oldroyd | Stars: Florence Pugh, Cosmo Jarvis, Paul Hilton, Naomi Ackie

Votes: 27,297 | Gross: $1.13M

24. Bus 174 (2002)

R | 122 min | Documentary, Crime

83 Metascore

On June 12, 2000, a young man with a gun took the passengers aboard Bus 174 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil hostage. This documentary examines the event itself, the resulting media frenzy, the police response, and the perpetrator's background.

Directors: José Padilha, Felipe Lacerda | Stars: Sandro do Nascimento, Rodrigo Pimentel, Luiz Eduardo Soares, Anonymous

Votes: 8,622 | Gross: $0.22M

25. Experiment in Terror (1962)

Not Rated | 123 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller

69 Metascore

A man with an asthmatic voice telephones and assaults clerk Kelly Sherwood at home and coerces her into helping him steal a large sum from her bank.

Director: Blake Edwards | Stars: Glenn Ford, Lee Remick, Stefanie Powers, Roy Poole

Votes: 6,639

26. Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)

Not Rated | 107 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

77 Metascore

A woman reports that her young daughter is missing, but there seems to be no evidence that she ever existed.

Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Keir Dullea, Carol Lynley, Laurence Olivier, Martita Hunt

Votes: 10,235

27. Hounds of Love (2016)

Not Rated | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller

73 Metascore

Vicki Maloney is randomly abducted from a suburban street by a disturbed couple. As she observes the dynamic between her captors she quickly realises she must drive a wedge between them if she is to survive.

Director: Ben Young | Stars: Emma Booth, Ashleigh Cummings, Stephen Curry, Susie Porter

Votes: 13,444

28. The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)

G | 87 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

A documentary-style drama about the "Fouke Monster", a Bigfoot-type creature that has been sighted in and around Fouke, Arkansas since the 1950s.

Director: Charles B. Pierce | Stars: Willie E. Smith, John P. Hixon, Vern Stierman, Chuck Pierce Jr.

Votes: 3,636 | Gross: $0.34M

29. The Monster (2016)

R | 91 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

69 Metascore

A mother and daughter must confront a terrifying monster when they break down on a deserted road.

Director: Bryan Bertino | Stars: Zoe Kazan, Ella Ballentine, Aaron Douglas, Christine Ebadi

Votes: 19,359

30. Nightmare (1964)

Not Rated | 82 min | Mystery, Thriller

The nights of young private-school student Janet are troubled by horrible dreams in which her mother, who is actually locked up in a mental institution, haunts her. When her persistent ... See full summary »

Director: Freddie Francis | Stars: David Knight, Moira Redmond, Jennie Linden, Brenda Bruce

Votes: 2,498

31. Shock Treatment (1964)

Approved | 94 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller

An actor hired to locate $1 million in stolen loot endures the rigors of an insane asylum.

Director: Denis Sanders | Stars: Stuart Whitman, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowall, Lauren Bacall

Votes: 614

32. The Other (1972)

PG | 108 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

65 Metascore

A series of gruesome accidents plague a small American farming community in the summer of 1935, encircling two identical twin brothers and their family.

Director: Robert Mulligan | Stars: Uta Hagen, Diana Muldaur, Chris Udvarnoky, Martin Udvarnoky

Votes: 6,984 | Gross: $0.48M

33. Under the Shadow (2016)

PG-13 | 84 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror

83 Metascore

As a mother and daughter struggle to cope with the terrors of the post-revolution, war-torn Tehran of the 1980s, a mysterious evil begins to haunt their home.

Director: Babak Anvari | Stars: Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi, Arash Marandi

Votes: 30,130 | Gross: $0.03M

34. Evolution (2015)

Not Rated | 81 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

77 Metascore

The only residents of young Nicholas' sea-side town are women and boys. When he sees a corpse in the ocean one day, he begins to question his existence and surroundings. Why must he, and all the other boys, be hospitalised?

Director: Lucile Hadzihalilovic | Stars: Max Brebant, Roxane Duran, Julie-Marie Parmentier, Mathieu Goldfeld

Votes: 7,606

35. The Eyes of My Mother (2016)

R | 76 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller

63 Metascore

In their secluded farmhouse, a mother (a former surgeon) teaches her daughter, Francisca, anatomy, and how life and death are not to be feared. One afternoon, a mysterious visitor shatters ... See full summary »

Director: Nicolas Pesce | Stars: Kika Magalhães, Will Brill, Olivia Bond, Paul Nazak

Votes: 14,468 | Gross: $0.03M

36. Aqualorius! (2009)

12 min | Short, Horror

A bullied child is force to enter a pool and retrieve a coin in exchange of a love letter but he must face the possibility of encounter Aqualorius, a monster that it's told to inhabit the bottom of the pool.

Director: Nikolaj Tarp | Stars: August Igor Svideniouk Egholm, Jonatan Tulested, Sara Nybo Vinther, Søren Bech-Madsen

Votes: 103

37. Yami shibai (2013– )

5 min | Animation, Short, Horror

Every week at 5 p.m. an old man in a yellow mask shows up at a children's playground and tells them ghost stories based on myths and urban legends of Japanese origin. The man tells the ... See full summary »

Stars: Kanji Tsuda, Sara, Shôichirô Masumoto, Ryôta Murai

Votes: 906

38. Alice (1988)

Not Rated | 86 min | Animation, Adventure, Fantasy

A surrealistic revision of Alice in Wonderland.

Director: Jan Svankmajer | Stars: Kristýna Kohoutová, Camilla Power

Votes: 13,991

39. The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976)

PG | 91 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

53 Metascore

A thirteen-year-old girl, who lives with her absentee father, befriends a disabled teenage amateur magician and invites him, gradually, into her tenuous struggle against a predatory local neighbor.

Director: Nicolas Gessner | Stars: Jodie Foster, Martin Sheen, Alexis Smith, Mort Shuman

Votes: 18,092

40. Angela (1995)

Not Rated | 99 min | Drama

Rebecca Miller's riveting drama examines how two sisters cope with their mother's mental illness.

Director: Rebecca Miller | Stars: Miranda Rhyne, Charlotte Eve Blythe, Anna Thomson, John Ventimiglia

Votes: 1,060

41. Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)

R | 110 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi

49 Metascore

Despite being under heavy sedation, a young woman tries to make her way out of the Arboria Institute, a secluded, quasifuturistic commune.

Director: Panos Cosmatos | Stars: Eva Bourne, Michael J Rogers, Scott Hylands, Rondel Reynoldson

Votes: 16,910 | Gross: $0.06M

42. The Vanishing (1988)

Not Rated | 107 min | Mystery, Thriller

Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins receiving letters from the abductor.

Director: George Sluizer | Stars: Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege, Gwen Eckhaus

Votes: 44,253

43. The Spiral Staircase (1946)

Approved | 83 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

In 1916, a shadowy serial killer is targeting women with "afflictions"; one night during a thunderstorm, the mute Helen feels menaced.

Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, Kent Smith

Votes: 11,273

44. Return to Oz (1985)

PG | 113 min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy

42 Metascore

Dorothy, saved from a psychiatric experiment by a mysterious girl, is somehow called back to Oz when a vain witch and the Nome King destroy everything that makes the magical land beautiful.

Director: Walter Murch | Stars: Fairuza Balk, Nicol Williamson, Jean Marsh, Piper Laurie

Votes: 30,369

45. Dust (VII) (2013)

8 min | Short, Drama, Fantasy

An alternative interpretation of a Tooth Fairy legend.

Directors: Ben Ockrent, Jake Russell | Stars: Lola Albert, Alan Rickman, Jodie Whittaker

Votes: 838

46. Dead of Winter (1987)

R | 100 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller

55 Metascore

A fledgling actress is lured to a remote mansion for a screen-test, soon discovering she is actually a prisoner in the middle of a blackmail plot.

Director: Arthur Penn | Stars: Mary Steenburgen, Roddy McDowall, Jan Rubes, William Russ

Votes: 4,676 | Gross: $2.41M

47. The Watcher in the Woods (1980)

PG | 84 min | Family, Horror, Mystery

52 Metascore

When a family moves to a country home, the young girls experience strange happenings that have a link to an occult event years past.

Directors: John Hough, Vincent McEveety | Stars: Bette Davis, Lynn-Holly Johnson, Kyle Richards, Carroll Baker

Votes: 7,067 | Gross: $5.00M

48. Willard (1971)

GP | 95 min | Horror

49 Metascore

A social misfit uses his only friends, his pet rats, to exact revenge on his tormentors.

Director: Daniel Mann | Stars: Bruce Davison, Elsa Lanchester, Sondra Locke, Ernest Borgnine

Votes: 5,504 | Gross: $19.22M

49. Little Otik (2000)

TV-14 | 132 min | Animation, Comedy, Drama

74 Metascore

A childless couple passes off an anthropomorphous tree stump as their baby, but things get out of hand when the monstrosity comes to life and demands to be fed.

Director: Jan Svankmajer | Stars: Veronika Zilková, Jan Hartl, Jaroslava Kretschmerová, Pavel Nový

Votes: 6,877 | Gross: $0.12M

50. Alice in Wonderland (1966 TV Movie)

Not Rated | 72 min | Comedy, Drama, Family

A girl named Alice falls down a rabbit-hole and wanders into the strange Wonderland.

Director: Jonathan Miller | Stars: Anne-Marie Mallik, Freda Dowie, Jo Maxwell Muller, Wilfrid Brambell

Votes: 978

51. The Snake Pit (1948)

Approved | 108 min | Drama, Mystery

76 Metascore

A detailed chronicle of a woman during her stay in a mental institution.

Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm

Votes: 8,431 | Gross: $10.00M

52. Kitchen Sink (1989)

14 min | Short, Horror

A woman finds something quaint in her kitchen sink and feels strangely captivated towards it.

Director: Alison Maclean | Stars: Theresa Healey, Peter Tait, Annagretta Christian

Votes: 1,184

53. M (1931)

Passed | 99 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller

When the police in a German city are unable to catch a child-murderer, other criminals join in the manhunt.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann, Inge Landgut, Otto Wernicke

Votes: 168,512 | Gross: $0.03M

54. The Uninvited (1944)

Passed | 99 min | Fantasy, Horror, Mystery

A composer and his sister discover that the reason they are able to purchase a beautiful gothic seacoast mansion very cheaply is the house's unsavory past.

Director: Lewis Allen | Stars: Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Cornelia Otis Skinner

Votes: 12,468

55. The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Not Rated | 96 min | Mystery, Thriller

98 Metascore

While travelling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, May Whitty

Votes: 57,177

56. Onibaba (1964)

Not Rated | 103 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller

Two women kill samurai and sell their belongings for a living. While one of them is having an affair with their neighbor, the other woman meets a mysterious samurai wearing a bizarre mask.

Director: Kaneto Shindô | Stars: Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Satô, Jûkichi Uno

Votes: 21,875

57. The Hitch-Hiker (1953)

Approved | 71 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Two fishermen pick up a psychopathic escaped convict who tells them that he intends to murder them when the ride is over.

Director: Ida Lupino | Stars: Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman, José Torvay

Votes: 10,528

58. What's the Matter with Helen? (1971)

R | 101 min | Crime, Horror, Musical

Two middle-aged women move to Hollywood, California after their sons are convicted of a notorious murder and open a dance school for children eager to tap their way to stardom.

Director: Curtis Harrington | Stars: Debbie Reynolds, Shelley Winters, Dennis Weaver, Micheál MacLiammóir

Votes: 2,301

59. Pin (1988)

R | 103 min | Horror, Thriller

Isolated by his strange parents, Leon finds solace in an imaginary friend, which happens to be an anatomy doll from his father's doctor office. Unfortunately, the doll begins to take over Leon's life, and his sister's life as well.

Director: Sandor Stern | Stars: David Hewlett, Cynthia Preston, Terry O'Quinn, Bronwen Mantel

Votes: 5,294

60. Stalker (1979)

Not Rated | 162 min | Drama, Sci-Fi

85 Metascore

A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Alisa Freyndlikh, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Nikolay Grinko

Votes: 144,813 | Gross: $0.23M

61. Eraserhead (1977)

Not Rated | 89 min | Fantasy, Horror

87 Metascore

Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.

Director: David Lynch | Stars: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph, Jeanne Bates

Votes: 127,525 | Gross: $7.00M

62. Border (2018)

R | 110 min | Crime, Drama, Fantasy

75 Metascore

A customs officer who can smell fear develops an unusual attraction to a strange traveler while aiding a police investigation which will call into question her entire existence.

Director: Ali Abbasi | Stars: Eva Melander, Eero Milonoff, Jörgen Thorsson, Ann Petrén

Votes: 34,271 | Gross: $0.77M

63. Lilya 4-Ever (2002)

R | 109 min | Crime, Drama

83 Metascore

Sixteen-year-old Lilja and her only friend, the young boy Volodja, live in Russia, fantasizing about a better life. One day, Lilja falls in love with Andrej, who is going to Sweden, and invites Lilja to come along and start a new life.

Director: Lukas Moodysson | Stars: Oksana Akinshina, Artyom Bogucharskiy, Pavel Ponomaryov, Lyubov Agapova

Votes: 49,416 | Gross: $0.18M

64. Parasite (2019)

R | 132 min | Drama, Thriller

97 Metascore

Greed and class discrimination threaten the newly-formed symbiotic relationship between the wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim clan.

Director: Bong Joon Ho | Stars: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-sik

Votes: 960,131 | Gross: $53.37M

65. Cure (1997)

Not Rated | 111 min | Crime, Horror, Mystery

70 Metascore

A frustrated detective deals with the case of several gruesome murders committed by people who have no recollection of what they've done.

Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa | Stars: Masato Hagiwara, Koji Yakusho, Tsuyoshi Ujiki, Anna Nakagawa

Votes: 23,082 | Gross: $0.09M



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