10 Great Horror Movies Made By Non-Horror Directors

Commonly regarded as the scariest film ever made, and the only horror film to sweep almost every category at the Golden Globe Awards, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist was a major success story when it was first released. Audiences at the time had never anything as intense and thought provoking as William Peter Blatty’s tale of demonic possession, and some people to this day still regard it as a masterpiece of horror cinema.

However, The Exorcist was Friedkin’s first attempt at a horror movie. Before this movie, Friedkin made a career out of a multitude of genres: comedy, neo-noir, and erotic thrillers. Strangely enough, however, despite revolutionizing filmmaking with his use of camera and editing in, Friedkin didn’t capitalize on his success in the horror genre. His next film, made four years later, was a neo noir thriller called Sorcerer that only made 2% of the money that The Exorcist earned at the box office.

That didn’t deter Friedkin, however, as he kept making films outside the horror genre throughout his 50 year career, only dipping back twice with Bug and The Guardian in an attempt at recapturing his glory days. Both movies, however, paled in comparison to The Exorcist