12 Hidden Horror Movies You’ve Probably Never Seen

Underground monsters! Killer cows! Deadly drugs! More wrestlers than you'd expect!

By Cathal Gunning /

There's nothing nicer than chancing across a hidden gem when you're searching for a flick to watch of an evening, and the horror genre is filled with fantastic films which never got the credit they deserved during their initial box office debuts.

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Some of the films on this list bypassed cinemas entirely and were relegated to DVD ignominy and being lost among a sea of similar titles on streaming services right off the bat. Some were admittedly a little luckier and at least earned a review or two before being shuffled offscreen in favour of some more reputable bigger budget projects, but all twelve of the horrors highlighted here have one thing in common.

Each of these flicks suffered the unfair fate of going almost entirely unseen by audiences both in the mainstream and in genre fan circles, meaning they're ripe for discovery by anyone seeking out a horror which is a bit further off the beaten path than most.

12. Phenomena

Suspiria helmer Dario Argento is equally renowned and frowned upon amongst horror fans for his beautifully realised, artful horror films and their less-than-gentle treatment of female bodies respectively.

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But as controversial as the Tenebre director is, there's no denying the filmmaker is a dark wizard with a camera, as epitomised by 1985's faintly ludicrous but undeniably effective Phenomena.

One of Argento’s best, this trippy horror is built on a brilliant early Jennifer Connelly performance with the young starlet playing a girl besieged by nightmares of a serial killer thanks to her pesky telekinesis. The star struggles to stop the murderer before they cause another elaborate, gory, meticulously filmed death sequence in a gory horror all the better for how over-the-top it is.

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