If you enjoy being scared, choosing a flick from a list of horror films is right up your alley. Check them off one by one. If there's a type of horror movie that you don't particularly like, that shouldn't keep you from checking out the other varieties. There are slasher films, psychological horrors, paranormal plots, flicks that feature animals or horrifying creatures as the antagonist, sci-fi, and comedic horror, just to name a few.
Horror Movie Background
Horror is one of the movie industry's oldest genres, and the films have gone through transitions throughout the ages. In the 1950s, there were big bugs, blobs. The gore came later through films like Psycho in the 1960s and other slasher films, especially those in the 1980s. Some have been based on true stories throughout history while others are complete fiction.
A List of Horror Films
There are several ways to file horror movies into groups, though most of them have to do with a crazed killer, demons or ghosts, animals or other creatures that aren't human but don't fall into the realm of the paranormal either, and then those that are horror-comedy hybrids. If you don't like all of the varieties, your list of movies to watch will luckily (or not) be quite a bit shorter than a horror movie buff who is a fan of all types. Keep in mind that some movies could arguably fall into two or more categories.
Slashers and Psychological Horror
If you like gore or even the hint of gore, you'll like slasher films. Do you like movies that aren't particularly gory but involve a human antagonist? You might like creepy psychological horrors, which sometimes revolve around murder without showing the gore:
- A Nightmare on Elm Street (series of movies)
- Black Christmas
- Candyland
- Friday the 13th (series of films)
- Halloween (series of films)
- Hannibal
- I Know What You Did Last Summer
- Jacob's Ladder
- Last House on the Left
- Misery
- Prom Night
- Red Dragon
- Saw
- The Silence of the Lambs
- The Hills Have Eyes
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- Urban Legend
Paranormal
Are your favorite horror movies about those things you can't be sure do or do not exist, the things that everyone can't always see? Paranormal movies are up your alley, consisting of ghosts, demons, possessions, exorcisms, and the unknown as a whole:
- A Haunting in Connecticut
- Audrey Rose
- Carrie
- Hellraiser (series of movies)
- Paranormal Activity
- Poltergeist
- Rosemary's Baby
- The Amityville Horror
- The Changeling
- The Exorcism of Emily Rose
- The Exorcist
- The Grudge
- The Haunting
- The Innocents
- The Ring
- The Shining
- The Sixth Sense
- Animals, Monsters, and Miscellaneous Creatures
Sea creatures, giant bugs, zombies, snakes, and more make up this section of the horror genre:
- Arachnophobia
- Child's Play
- Cloverfield
- Cujo
- Dracula
- Frankenstein
- Godzilla
- Jaws
- King Kong
- Open Water
- Salem's Lot
- Tarantula
- The Blob
- The Creature from the Black Lagoon.
- The Mist
- The Stuff
- The Wolf Man
Sci-Fi
If the thought of alien abductions scares you out of your mind, the sci-fi sub genre is probably one of your favorites.
- Alien
- Event Horizon
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers
- Scanners
- Screamers
- Signs
- Species
- The Thing
- Virus
- War of the Worlds
Horror-Comedy
Some movies are horror-comedies by design while others are just so bad they become laughable. Others are meant to be funny, sometimes while poking fun at other more serious horror flicks.Critters
- Eight Legged Freaks
- Evil Dead
- Evil Dead 2
- Ghostbusters
- Gremlins
- House
- Leprechaun
- Scary Movie (series of movies)
- Slither
- The Cottage
- The Return of the Living Dead
- Tremors
- Final Thoughts
If you've seen the whole list of horror films, keep your eyes open for some of the more obscure films out there. Perhaps you've always been drawn to one type of horror movie, like slasher films; if that's the case, it's time to break out of the mold and try something new, like paranormal or sci-fi. There are several reasons people like to watch horror movies. You may discover an assortment of reasons for watching different subcategories of the horror genre..
