100 Greatest Horror Movies Of All Time
79. The Autopsy of Jane Doe
A somewhat forgotten gem in the horror industry, The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a carefully constructed murder mystery that plays out in a mortuary. Despite having plenty of cliches set up against it, Autopsy expertly weaves a web of tension that leaves you hanging on every strange discovery - desperately trying to unravel the central terrifying truth of who exactly Jane Doe is, and how she came to be on the autopsy table.
Director Andre Øvredal is one of the few people that can actually make a dead body emote, shifting her around throughout the operation process to create eerie, dreamy expressions that mark out chapters in Jane Doe’s dark story. It’s a tight, gripping iteration of the ghost story, and one that will leave you thinking long after watching.
[AM]
78. Paranormal Activity
The movie that took your childhood predisposition for creepy-crawlies and bumps in the night, and made it visible.
Those of us who believe? Who buy into the existence of ghosts, mediums, the occult etc.? Paranormal Activity was made for you.
Though its story centres on an Exorcist-like attempt to relieve character Katie of her demonic possessions and occasional wanderings when the lights go out, the way director Oren Peli uses found footage to make it feel like you’re right there alongside Katie and partner Micah is innovative and memorable as hell.
Naturally, there’s an entire half of the audience who’ll scoff at the bangs, creeping shadows and other suggestive ephemera, but for everyone else, filling in those gaps with the darkest suggestions from your mind can be white-knuckle terrifying.
[Scott Tailford]
77. Re-Animator
There was no shortage of great horror comedies in the '80s (just have a look at how many made it onto this list), so it's easy to forget about Re-Animator alongside the likes of Return of the Living Dead or Evil Dead II. You shouldn't though, as this original flick introduced the world to the gloriously hammy Herbert West, a medical student who discovers a way to bring people back from the dead.
Following the psychotic doctor as he sneaks around and attempts to conduct his experiments in secret, his miracle "cure" is eventually discovered by others, leading West to start killing - and bringing back - anyone in his way.
What you end up with is a colourful, bloody zombie flick unlike any other, and one of the greatest cult movies of the 80s.
[JB]
76. Martyrs
When it comes to pure, unadulterated scares, there are few films that deliver quite like Martyrs - even ones higher on this list. The horror is g*ddamn terrifying, opening with the brutal massacre of a family, then transforming into an intense monster movie before finally playing its hand and revealing that it's actually a movie about a group of people attempting to unlock the secrets of the afterlife through pain and torture.
Safe to say, it's absolutely no fun.
It's unrelenting from the get go, but it manages to find the sweet spot between ridiculous gore and real, suspenseful scares. The latter half slightly loses its way, but it still delivers enough to cement Martyrs as the best film of the New French Extremity boom.
[JB]
75. The Orphanage
As if nobody in this film had ever watched a horror movie, The Orphanage follows a woman's return to her childhood orphanage to transform it into the shape of her dreams. Inevitably, her son meets an imaginary boy in a burlap mask and then disappears, while his mother uncovers the mysteries of the house.
It's a wonderfully effective haunted house flick that doesn't cheapen its appeal with lazy jump scares and which is genuinely unnerving thanks to its atmospheric work. And there's serious power in the horribly downer ending (albeit with a chink of light through it), which adds the kind of poignancy that transforms good horrors into great ones.
[SG]
74. Train To Busan
There are zombie movies, action thrillers, comic book movies… and then there’s Train to Busan.
Meshing impactful CGI with a brilliant cast of memorable characters, it’s an opening statement that lets you know the kills will come frequently down the line, and your personal favourites might not make it through.
Director Yeon Sang-ho knows exactly how to splice the time between character-building, motivations and big-budget stuntwork. Every time the zombie horde appears on-screen, it’s the perfect blend of 28 Days Later-ferality and World War Z scale.
Highlighting the horde-like nature of an entire enemy force surging and refusing to stop, Train to Busan is by its very name, a flick about staying on the move, but the actual pace and utilisation of zombie tropes creates a pace that’s utterly relentless.
[ST]