10 Terrifying Animated Horror Movies

Perfect Blue walked so that Black Swan could run, and Satoshi Kon’s 1997 visual delight still manages to terrify all these years later.

Following a J-Pop singer who decides to quit her career and become an actress, Perfect Blue plays with the idea of the obsessed artist losing grip on reality with sequences that blur fantasy and reality to dizzying effect. Moments of quiet stillness are undercut with the increasing sense that something is very wrong and that something very bad could happen at a moment’s notice.

Despite the dark themes, much of the animation has an ethereal quality to it, adding to the overall dreamlike quality. This is contrasted jarringly with the moments of genuine horror, and grimy underbelly of the city setting.

With a genuinely terrifying villain to add another layer of unease to the film, Perfect Blue is a beautifully animated and deeply disturbing tale of the price of fame, and what it can cost someone.