10 RIDICULOUS Horror Movies That Are TERRIFYING
When horror movies make the most of their very silly concepts.
Above all else, audiences generally expect horror films to be scary or at least basically unnerving, though that can become a serious challenge when dealing with more out-there subject matter that viewers may also struggle to take seriously.
Silly, over-the-top horror movies are great, don't get us wrong, but to be totally absurd and also utterly horrifying is an incredibly tricky balance to strike, and one only a select few horrors can really lay claim to. And so, inspired by this recent Reddit thread on the very subject, here are 10 undeniably ridiculous horror films that still managed to scare the hell out of basically everyone.
The synopses for most of these movies sound totally outrageous devoid of their context, and even then, they still come off pretty damn daft. And yet, each overcame that potential limitation to ensure the "colourful" setup didn't undermine all the scares the filmmakers worked so hard to develop.
It's nothing if not a testament to the tenacity of the cast and crew who worked on each film, taking truly wild material and spinning it into pure genre gold...
10. The Ring
It's easy to imagine another version of The Ring - either the 1998 original Ringu or its surprisingly solid 2002 U.S. remake - that just doesn't work at all.
The premise, of a cursed VHS tape that causes viewers to die seven days later, sounds totally laughable on paper, and with both films arriving in an era where goofy techno-centric horror films were all the rage, The Ring could've gone so, so wrong. But credit to original filmmaker Hideo Nakata and remake director Gore Verbinski for soaking this undeniably silly concept in an almost unbearable amount of dread.
Both films make masterful use of slow-burn storytelling to heighten the viewer's unease, enough to make them forget how utterly daft the whole cursed videotape setup actually is. More than 25 years after Ring's release, it remains a high point of modern international horror, while Verbinski's sumptuous feast of a remake is basically the benchmark by which all glossy Hollywood retellings are measured.