10 Horror Movies That Wage War On Your Senses

When you really boil it down, film is an entirely sensory experience. One that specifically targets your eyes and ears to tell emotionally engaging stories and evoke all manner of feelings.

All films across the spectrum utilise audio and visuals in a specific way to draw you in, but arguably no genre makes better use of them than horror.

Not merely content with plastering the screen with gallons of gore and more bare flesh than Amity Island in the summertime, many horror filmmakers go out of their way to make both the audio and visual components of their films feel truly sinister.

Be it via the use of eye-watering colours, otherworldy sound-effects, or brash, unconventional editing styles, there are many ways that directors and their crews can arouse feelings of fear and anxiety within the viewer without resorting to senseless violence or perverse titillation.

The films that we're here discussing today are prime examples of how giving the audience a sensory overload can be just as effective as cramming in as many jump-scares as humanly possible, so if you're looking for something a little different, we've got you covered.

At the turn of the century, horror-rock icon Rob Zombie made his feature debut with the deliriously morbid and hugely entertaining House of 1000 Corpses.

Zombie has helmed many of his own music videos over the years, and the skills he learned in the director's chair for his signature brand of industrial boogie-metal are on full display in this film's overly energetic presentation.

In essence, the film is a re-telling of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but if everyone involved was on copious amounts of acid.

It's every bit as raw as Tobe Hooper's seminal classic, but it's bathed in so much neon lighting that it could even put Nicholas Winding Refn to shame. Stylistically, it's like a UV paint party inside a fairground fun-house - one that just happens to be full of murderous hillbillies.

To this day, it remains Zombie's most audacious, ambitious, and shockingly bold attempt at making a seventies-style grindhouse flick. Utilising all manner of audio, video, and editing manipulation techniques, this film launches its sensory assault from the opening frames.

Even when compared to his other, more visually stunning film The Lords of Salem, Corpses comes out on top for being so outrageously stylish and thoroughly mean-spirited.