Top 25 Horror Films
by thecultofhorror | created - 27 Sep 2013 | updated - 16 Jan 2014 | PublicGiallo's and Hammer excluded.
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1. Dead & Buried (1981)
R | 94 min | Horror, Mystery
Sheriff Dan Gillis investigates eerie deaths in a sleepy coastal town.
Director: Gary Sherman | Stars: James Farentino, Melody Anderson, Jack Albertson, Dennis Redfield
Votes: 14,887 | Gross: $0.22M
Grade A Gore, labeled as a Video Nasty.
2. The City of the Dead (1960)
PG-13 | 76 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A young college student arrives in a sleepy Massachusetts town to research witchcraft; during her stay at an eerie inn, she discovers a startling secret about the town and its inhabitants.
Director: John Llewellyn Moxey | Stars: Patricia Jessel, Dennis Lotis, Christopher Lee, Tom Naylor
Votes: 8,504
Moody, brooding Witch film.
3. An American Werewolf in London (1981)
R | 97 min | Comedy, Horror
Two American college students on a walking tour of Britain are attacked by a werewolf that none of the locals will admit exists.
Director: John Landis | Stars: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Joe Belcher, Griffin Dunne
Votes: 120,318 | Gross: $30.57M
The Greatest Werewolf transformation scene!
4. Black Christmas (1974)
R | 98 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
During their Christmas break, a group of sorority girls are stalked by a stranger.
Director: Bob Clark | Stars: Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, John Saxon
Votes: 48,298 | Gross: $4.05M
The Best American Slasher!
5. Martin (1977)
R | 95 min | Drama, Horror
A young man, who believes himself to be a vampire, goes to live with his elderly and hostile cousin in a Pennsylvania small town where he tries to redeem his blood-craving urges.
Director: George A. Romero | Stars: John Amplas, Lincoln Maazel, Christine Forrest, Elyane Nadeau
Votes: 12,581 | Gross: $0.10M
Romero's (non-zombie) Masterpiece
6. Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)
R | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Horror
In 1961, a divorced Catholic couple's life is turned upside-down when one of their two adolescent daughters is suspected of her younger sister's brutal murder during her First Holy Communion and a series of subsequent stabbings.
Director: Alfred Sole | Stars: Linda Miller, Mildred Clinton, Paula E. Sheppard, Niles McMaster
Votes: 12,927
An American Giallo
7. The Brood (1979)
R | 92 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A man tries to uncover an unconventional psychologist's therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife, amidst a series of brutal murders.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle, Henry Beckman
Votes: 34,267
A fierce Cronenberg Body Horror
8. Possession (1981)
R | 124 min | Drama, Horror
A woman starts exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking her husband for a divorce. Suspicions of infidelity soon give way to something much more sinister.
Director: Andrzej Zulawski | Stars: Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill, Margit Carstensen, Heinz Bennent
Votes: 42,678 | Gross: $1.11M
Zulawski's Masterpiece
9. Rabid (1977)
R | 91 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A young woman develops a taste for human blood after experimental plastic surgery, and her victims turn into blood-thirsty zombies, leading into a city-wide epidemic.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: Marilyn Chambers, Frank Moore, Terry Schonblum, Joe Silver
Votes: 21,359
Another fantastic moody Cronenberg body horrror
10. Cemetery Man (1994)
R | 105 min | Comedy, Horror
A cemetery man must kill the dead a second time when they become zombies.
Director: Michele Soavi | Stars: Rupert Everett, François Hadji-Lazaro, Anna Falchi, Mickey Knox
Votes: 23,301 | Gross: $0.25M
11. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Unrated | 127 min | Horror, Thriller
During an escalating zombie epidemic, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter and his TV executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.
Director: George A. Romero | Stars: David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger, Gaylen Ross
Votes: 128,444 | Gross: $5.10M
Romero's Zombie Masterpiece
12. The Thing (1982)
R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Richard Masur
Votes: 465,931 | Gross: $13.78M
Carpenter's Epic Isolated Sci-Fi Gorgasm.
13. The Haunting (1963)
G | 112 min | Horror
Hill House has stood for about 90 years and appears haunted: its inhabitants have always met strange, tragic ends. Now Dr. John Markway has assembled a team of people who he thinks will prove whether or not the house is haunted.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn
Votes: 42,457 | Gross: $2.62M
14. The Innocents (1961)
Not Rated | 100 min | Horror
A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.
Director: Jack Clayton | Stars: Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, Michael Redgrave
Votes: 33,035 | Gross: $2.62M
15. The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971)
R | 97 min | Horror
In early 18th century England, the children of a village slowly convert into a coven of devil worshipers.
Director: Piers Haggard | Stars: Patrick Wymark, Linda Hayden, Barry Andrews, Michele Dotrice
Votes: 7,501
Folk-lore Horror about a cult lead by the Curvy Linda Hayden
16. Shock Waves (1977)
PG | 85 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
Visitors to a remote island discover that a reclusive Nazi commandant has been breeding a group of Zombie soldiers.
Director: Ken Wiederhorn | Stars: Clarence Thomas, Brooke Adams, Luke Halpin, John Carradine
Votes: 6,277
Nazi Zombies and Peter Cushing
17. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)
R | 95 min | Horror
A cop chases two hippies suspected of a series of Manson family-like murders; unbeknownst to him, the real culprits are the living dead, brought to life with a hunger for human flesh by ultrasonic radiation being used for pest control.
Director: Jorge Grau | Stars: Cristina Galbó, Ray Lovelock, Arthur Kennedy, Aldo Massasso
Votes: 9,310
Underrated Zombie Gem!
18. Suspiria (1977)
R | 92 min | Horror
An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.
Director: Dario Argento | Stars: Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosé
Votes: 105,269
Argento's best film. Hypercolored and Phantasmagoric Epic Witch film.
19. Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)
GP | 89 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A recently institutionalized woman has bizarre experiences after moving into a supposedly haunted country farmhouse and fears she may be losing her sanity once again.
Director: John D. Hancock | Stars: Zohra Lampert, Barton Heyman, Kevin O'Connor, Gretchen Corbett
Votes: 9,302
Slow moving, paranoid crazy-girl, thick atmosphere are they ghost, zombie or ghoul story.
20. Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967)
Not Rated | 81 min | Comedy, Horror
A caretaker devotes himself to three demented siblings after their father's death.
Director: Jack Hill | Stars: Lon Chaney Jr., Carol Ohmart, Quinn K. Redeker, Beverly Washburn
Votes: 7,807
Like a *beep* up Addam's Family.
21. Carnival of Souls (1962)
Approved | 78 min | Horror, Mystery
After a traumatic accident, a woman becomes drawn to a mysterious abandoned carnival.
Director: Herk Harvey | Stars: Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist, Sidney Berger, Art Ellison
Votes: 27,785
Herk Harvey's only film. Low budget, beautifully shot ghost story.
22. Scanners (1981)
R | 103 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A scientist trains a man with an advanced telepathic ability called "scanning" to stop a dangerous Scanner with extraordinary psychic powers from waging war against non scanners.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: Jennifer O'Neill, Stephen Lack, Patrick McGoohan, Lawrence Dane
Votes: 61,667 | Gross: $14.23M
80's Cronenberg psychic madness.
23. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
R | 83 min | Horror
Five friends head out to rural Texas to visit the grave of a grandfather. On the way they stumble across what appears to be a deserted house, only to discover something sinister within. Something armed with a chainsaw.
Director: Tobe Hooper | Stars: Marilyn Burns, Edwin Neal, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain
Votes: 183,320 | Gross: $30.86M
24. Bad Dreams (1988)
R | 80 min | Horror, Thriller
The lone survivor of a suicide cult wakes from a thirteen-year coma in a psychiatric ward, where other patients suddenly start dying under mysterious and gruesome circumstances.
Director: Andrew Fleming | Stars: Jennifer Rubin, Bruce Abbott, Richard Lynch, Dean Cameron
Votes: 4,348 | Gross: $9.80M
25. The Grapes of Death (1978)
R | 85 min | Horror
A young woman discovers that the pesticide being sprayed on vineyards is turning people into killer zombies.
Director: Jean Rollin | Stars: Marie-Georges Pascal, Félix Marten, Serge Marquand, Mirella Rancelot
Votes: 2,748
France's first Gore film by Euro Trash Master Jean Rollin
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