12 Incredible Horror Movies With No Jump Scares

The second black-and-white directorial debut on this list, The Eyes Of My Mother is far more of a traditional horror film than A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. From its opening scenes, the film takes on an unsettling tone that never once lets up. Why is this strange woman lying in the middle of the road? Why is this weird family obsessed with Bonanza, particularly episodes involving hangings? Why does Francisca's mother let the clearly disturbed Charlie into her house?

Most of the early deaths in The Eyes Of My Mother occur off-screen, as does its main killer's first foray into the world of torturous mutilation. Nonetheless, every moment of the film is tense and disturbing. While the film sometimes leans too heavily on its use of arthouse abstractions, presenting long scenes that simply won't end, this same tendency sometimes aids its success as a memorable entry in the genre. One stabbing in particular runs for an uncomfortably long time, the killing plunging her knife into her victim more than a dozen times before kissing him and telling him "it feels amazing."

Killing may feel fantastic, but it also causes the protagonist a great deal of loneliness. Much like Session 9, this is a killer who is both weak and wounded, transformed into a monster by unspeakable childhood trauma. Her fragile humanity is, almost paradoxically, the precise weakness that turned her into the sadistic creature portrayed on film.

There's an honesty in the sweetness with which both Olivia Bond and Kika Magalhães play the character, and this is precisely what makes The Eyes Of My Mother so horrific. A monster that looks like a monster can be frightening, but a monster that looks like the girl next door? The idea that such a person could exist is the stuff of true nightmares. This film won't have you jumping out of your seat, but it will torment your mind in ways that few other recent horror films have.