10 Best Indie Horror Movies Of All Time

10. The Descent

Neil Marshall’s directorial debut Dog Soldiers was terrific low budget schlocky fun, but it wasn’t exactly scary, relying more on keen humour and nifty action set pieces than scares. He redressed this with 2005’s The Descent, another low budget feature but one which embraces fear of every kind.

The premise alone will have the claustrophobic shivering: six women embark on a spelunking expedition in the Appalachian Mountains. When they stray into an unmarked cave system, they discover a race of humanoid creatures known as “crawlers”, which have every intention of killing and eating them.

The film is a descent in every sense, first into the depths of the earth, and then into madness. Paranoia is rife among the women; theoretically firm friends, their individual survival instincts soon kick in once it hits the fan, and there are burning, unspoken personal issues to exacerbate the situation further.

The film was a solid success in spite of its utterly bleak outlook, and it’s a minor technical marvel. On a pittance and with unknown actors, Marshall manages to create a hugely powerful horror that grips the viewer from the off and leaves them shaking.