30 Best Hidden Gem Horror Movies Perfect For Halloween
6. The Night House
The traditional haunted house scenario is a tad difficult to do anything subversive with at this point, especially considering that if it’s scary enough, there is little point in shaking up the formula. Still, hats off to underrated chiller The Night House for not only managing to subvert the formula, but for delivering impressively bloodcurdling chills at the same time.
Rebecca Hall plays a recently widowed teacher who begins experiencing ghostly nightmares and things bumping in the night at her isolated lake house, built by her late husband (Evan Jonigkeit), who was a victim of a sudden suicide. As she attempts to deal with her grief, the entity gets more vicious, leaving no choice but to investigate the source of it all - and the truth is closer to home than she could imagine.
Director David Bruckner has been etching out a solid career for himself as a horror filmmaker to be recognized. While his better-known titles like Hellraiser (2023) and The Ritual carry a flavor that has often veered to in-your-face shocks, The Night House sees him in a slow and creepy lane, delivering one of the most frightening ghost pics in recent memory.
Add to that, The Night House has a fantastically winding plot that swerves its deceptively simple premise down a very unexpectedly dark and sinister road, and a solid lead in Hall. This is an unseen ghost movie worthy of a watch this spooky season, you can turn the lights on if necessary...