10 Best Horror Movies With No Supernatural Elements

There’s no greater trick a horror movie can pull than have you genuinely convinced that something supernatural is going on. Les Diaboliques plays a devilish game to this end, starting out as a noirish thriller before dialling up the mystery and convincing characters and viewers alike that the laws of the universe no longer apply.

Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1955 classic concerns Michel, a pompous, abusive headmaster, and the two women in his life - wife Christina and mistress Nicole - who plan to murder him. They lure him out of town, commit the dirty deed, then secrete the body in the school’s swimming pool, with an alibi in place for when Michel resurfaces.

Only, he never does. The pool is drained - it’s empty. Shadows of the man flash up around the school and Paris at large, quickly sending Christina, in particular, into shock. As the weight of her crime pushes down on her, we can only wonder - is she going mad, or are dark forces at play?

The ending is one of the era’s true greats, to the extent that the film concludes with a subtitle imploring viewers not to ruin it for their friends. Through sheer atmosphere, it wrongfoots the viewer at every turn, to a dastardly, majestic conclusion.