10 Most Visually Stunning Horror Movies Ever

Think of all the movies you've seen that stuck out to you because of their beautiful cinematography, and what comes to mind? Sprawling epics like Lawrence of Arabia? Visionary masterpieces like 2001? Conceptual mind-benders like The Tree of Life?

Chances are you'd be someway down the list before a horror film popped into your head, and while Friday The 13th, Scream and Insidious are just as important an entertaining as anything else you've seen, they don't stand out because of the way they look. Horror, by its very nature, is cheap and dirty.

However, there are exceptions, and a few of the most visually stunning movies ever made just happen to be scary as well. Master filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick and Francis Ford Coppola have dipped their feet into the genre and brought their masterful eye along with them. Reds are contrasted against blacks, shadows are cast across the frame, and the nonverbal, cinematic language is as important as any of the dialogue.

Non-horror fans have seriously missed out on some of the most breathtaking pictures ever made. You're as likely to want to frame some of these shots on your wall as you are to scream at them, and never would you think that blood, guts and horrifying monsters could be so artistic.

While it became famous for its shocking gore, Eyes Without A Face is also an utterly gorgeous film all around. Georges Franju's 1960 masterpiece follows a doctor whose daughter is disfigured in an accident, so he kidnaps women in hopes of giving her a successful face transplant.

The movie is really about desperately trying to recapture something that has been lost forever, with these characters hopelessly clinging to the past. This comes across in more ways than just the screenplay, though. Cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan makes heavy use of mirrors, such as in a scene where Dr. Génessier exits a room and a couple observes him. We only see their reflection, and that divide suggests Génessier's transition into his own world. This motif also speaks to the divide between the true self and the self being projected onto others.

To hammer that home, the Génessier house doesn't have any mirrors in it so that Christiane is spared from having to see what she looks like. Once again, we see a manufactured universe contrasted against the real one. A similar point is made with the constant shadows in many shots, as if each character has two identities.

Eyes Without A Face is scary and brutal, but it's also a magnificent work of art in general, and one of the best horror films of its time.