30 Best Hidden Gem Horror Movies Perfect For Halloween
9. Black Rainbow (1989)
Bleak supernatural chiller Black Rainbow barely got a second mention at the time of its release, but it deserves rediscovery as a hidden gem with incredible performances and a gritty, tense, unraveling plot.
A travelling clairvoyant (Rosanna Arquette), coupled with her cynical, hard-drinking father (Jason Robards), pulls their grifter show across Southern America, until she starts predicting shocking deaths of her audience members, and those deaths actually come true. An investigative reporter (Tom Hulce) is drawn in, uncovering a larger conspiracy connected to the events.
Director Mike Hodges is hardly a household name, but unarguably, he’ll forever be remembered for the grim brilliance of Get Carter and the glorious camp of Flash Gordon. Yet this effective movie barely gets a mention, and it’s hard to see why. Arquette is fantastic as the haunted figure cursed with this morbid gift, Robards steals every scene he’s in, and Hulce makes for a solid outsider perspective.
What really elevates Black Rainbow, though, is the tone. On paper, it’s a conspiracy thriller, but Hodges tells it through a suffocatingly dark atmosphere, full of unease and creeping dread. It also feels like a ghost movie, even though there are no ghosts, just lots of innocent people murdered for greedy, cynical reasons.
The result is a film that lingers long after it ends, a forgotten late-'80s gem that feels just as haunting and relevant today as it did on release.