10 Most Terrifying Horror Movie Cults

Most of the cults on this list have a clearly defined set of beliefs, often with a demagogic leader given some big, grandstanding monologues to spell out precisely what they think all these fancy dress rituals and human sacrifices will achieve. That is very much not the case, though, with Kill List, where the slightly frustrating mystery at the heart of the story just makes its esoteric cult all the more disturbing.

In fact, at first Kill List doesn't seem like it's a movie about cults at all. For quite a while in its first half, Kill List isn't even the hitman thriller it was marketed as. Instead it presents as a slice of downbeat social realism about a former soldier with PTSD and his disintegrating marriage.

Sure, there's the occasional occult symbol carved into the back of a bathroom mirror, but the sudden appearance in the final act of figures in masks made of twigs, conducting torchlight rituals in the woods definitely comes out of leftfield.

Your mileage may vary on the lack of any clear explanation for the finale's ritualistic, violent masked knife fight with the "Hunchback" and its shocking reveal, but that vagueness will definitely make the creepy imagery stay with you long after watching.