9 Subversive Horror Movies That Aren't What You Expect

Breaking the rules has become something of a rule with modern horror movies. Just when you think you've got the genre figured out with all its reliable trope machinery happily churning away - like virgins being sacrificed, horrifying repulsive monsters, and final girls hacking their way to the end credits - something new bursts onto the screen that throws a big old spanner into the works, and flips audience expectation on its head.

Instead, we end up with virgins throwing their white robes to the wind, poor sympathetic monsters, and final girls being anything but final, in a desperate bid to flip the script on what we already know. Often, this is how new rules are introduced and celebrated within the genre since innovation breeds copycats, but the first film that does something completely abnormal for average horror is always beloved.

Going into a movie with expectations on what you're going to get is almost impossible to avoid in a world of internet hype and over-enthusiastic trailers. Fortunately, however, these are the films that managed to successfully slash their way to something entirely unexpected...

Of course, the king of meta horror has a few tricks up his sleeve when it comes to subversive movies, defining three eras of the genre in his reign as one of the most influential directors out there. He's worked his way through everything from exploitation nastiness and national hysteria in The Last House on the Left, to 80s slasher tropes in A Nightmare on Elm Street, to self-aware rule making and breaking in Scream - and whilst the latter would be the obvious choice for this particular title, there's another film that still stands as an unexpected gem in his personal horror history canon.

What most would expect to be a run of the mill Nightmare sequel actually turns out to be far more considered in its approach to the source material. Playing out as a real-life take on Freddy's legend, the monster breaks free from fiction and starts to kill off the actors involved, turning what could have easily been a slasher packed to the brim with cheesy one-liners and derivative content into an insanely interesting premise.

Wes Craven even stars as himself writing the very script that the film follows the beats of, making for some mind-melting commentary on Hollywood horror as much as it provides gruesome entertainment.