10 Horror Movies One Step From Perfection

There aren't a lot of things more frustrating than an almost-classic film.

You know the phenomenon. These aren't three star efforts which could have been contenders that are being discussed here. No, these are the movies which come close to five star perfection for most of their runtime, with a stellar cast, a perfect conceit, and effective direction...

Only for one fatal flaw to ensure it'll always be stuck in "not quite, but almost perfect" territory.

Horror is particularly susceptible to this phenomenon as a genre, as there are plenty of stumbling blocks set out by its rules. A monster movie can be brutally effective until viewers actually get to see the laughable creature, ghost stories can be chilling until a convoluted backstory overcomplicates proceedings, and incredible slashers can be undone by one lame kill or a silly killer reveal (Kirby should have lived and you know it, Scream 4).

Some are utterly derailed by this pivotal problem, some are still classics but fall at the last minor hurdle, but in each case, these are ten horror films which were one fatal flaw from being perfect pieces of genre fare

Yes, there's no denying that Mike Flanagan has been having an incredibly impressive run in recent years.

From the grim Stephen King adaptation Gerald's Game, to the poignant Before I Wake, to his masterpiece Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House, the filmmaker has displayed a mastery of every horror sub genre from survival horror to fantasy horror to ghost stories.

(Look, 2019's misjudged Shining sequel Doctor Sleep is a well-earned mulligan).

And yes, his suspenseful slasher Hush wrings every ounce of tension from its ingenious premise of a deaf woman being stalked at her remote home by a masked abusive ex.

The film's simple conceit prompts all manner of tense set pieces, and the gradually rising tension is far more impressive than many entries into the genre which boast far higher kill counts.

But come on—the unlikely death of her gormless friend John near the film’s close is unintentionally funny in its implausibility, with the dude ex-machina essentially walking into the knife of a shorter, less intimidating man because the story needs him to. It's an implausible scene which saps the energy from the film's last act via a character who could have been cut, or at least cast with a less imposing actor.