The films

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Cloverfield

A monster attacks New York, filmed on a camcorder from street level, and the marketing invented a genre of mystery.

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Paranormal Activity

15,000 dollars into 193 million, and a decade of imitators nobody asked for.

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The Fly

Under the effects it is a film about watching someone you love get a terminal illness, and Goldblum plays it that way.

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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Almost bloodless and completely unbearable. Heat, noise and exhaustion doing all the work.

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A Nightmare on Elm Street

Craven's best idea: a killer who gets you where you cannot stay awake to avoid him.

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A Quiet Place

A high-concept gimmick executed with real discipline. The nail on the stair is the whole film.

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Dracula

Stagey, slow, and it has no score at all. Lugosi's face is the entire reason it survives.

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Friday the 13th

Copied Halloween without any of the craft, added Savini, and proved the formula worked anyway.

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Insidious

Wan's best jump scares and the film that built the modern haunting industry. The Further is silly and it works.

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Sinners

Coogler in 1932 Mississippi with twin Michael B. Jordans and a juke joint. Shot on 65mm and it shows.

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The Blair Witch Project

Cost about 60,000 dollars, took nearly 250 million, and shows you nothing at any point.

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The Others

A twist that survives a second viewing, which is rarer than it sounds.

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Eraserhead

Five years of weekend shooting, and it is about being a father and being terrified of it.

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Frankenstein

Karloff in Jack Pierce's makeup, and the flat head is a copyrighted design rather than anything from the novel.

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Misery

Kathy Bates won the Academy Award, which is one of two horror performances ever to do it.

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Rosemary's Baby

A film about a woman whose body and doctor and husband are all making decisions without her.

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The Cabin in the Woods

A machine for explaining why every other film on this site is shaped the way it is.

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The Substance

Body horror about how the industry treats women over fifty, with Demi Moore doing the bravest work of her career.

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Carrie

De Palma's split screens, a bucket of blood, and the last thirty seconds that made an entire genre of ending.

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The Evil Dead

Prosecuted dozens of times and won more often than it lost. Raimi was 21 and it shows in the best way.

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Alien

A haunted house film in space, and the crew are contractors arguing about bonuses.

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Get Out

Won the screenplay Oscar, which horror never does. The sunken place is the best new image in the genre this century.

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Halloween

Cost 300,000 dollars, took 70 million, and contains almost no blood at all.

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Jaws

The mechanical shark did not work, so Spielberg shot around it and accidentally made the best one.

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King Kong

The first great monster film, and Willis O'Brien's animation still has more personality than anything rendered.

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Night of the Living Dead

Invented the modern zombie, lost its own copyright, and has one of the bleakest endings ever filmed.

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Saw

Two men chained in a bathroom, made for 1.2 million dollars in eighteen days, and it is far better than its franchise.

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Scream

Characters who know the rules. Worked exactly once and produced a decade of films that mistook referencing for wit.

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The Birds

No score, no explanation, no resolution. Hitchcock withholding everything and getting away with it.

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The Conjuring

Old-fashioned, extremely well made, and the reason there are now nine of these.

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The Exorcist

Ten Academy Award nominations and ambulances outside cinemas. Still the commercial ceiling for horror.

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The Shining

King hated it. Everyone else was right. The geography of the hotel is deliberately impossible.

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The Silence of the Lambs

The only horror film to win Best Picture, and it wins the argument about whether it is one.

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The Sixth Sense

The twist made it famous and the film does not need it. It is about a boy nobody believes and a marriage that ended.

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The Thing

Flopped, was called empty and disgusting, and is now the most imitated horror film of its decade.