20 Most Highly Rated Horror Movies On Rotten Tomatoes

Rating: 94%

Before the Motion Picture Production Code (basically the MPAA of days gone by) came into effect with the mission of prohibiting films that might lower the standards of the good old American public, Pre-Code Hollywood represented a brief era of freedom for American filmmakers and heralded some of the raciest and most shocking movies cinema had ever seen.

One of those films was Dracula director Tod Browning’s Freaks – a 1932 horror about a travelling sideshow populated by the titular ‘freaks’ (bearded ladies, conjoined twins and the like) that was initially deemed so offensive it was banned in the UK, Australia and several US states.

Condemned by many critics as revolting, Freaks all but ended Browning’s career as a director but has since been re-evaluated as a cult classic and noted for its oddly touching and sympathetic, if somewhat exploitative, tone.