Everyone has their own fear of something. Some of us are afraid of ghosts, some are afraid if something unknown suddenly attacks such as mystical powers and serial killers. That fear can also lead to curiosity so that many people are looking for the Best Horror Movie Recommendations.
Horror movies are movies that make the audience feel scared. This type of movie provides elements of the macabre and supernatural. Most expose more about evil forces, gore and monsters. There are also movies that are not related to the supernatural world but rather serial killers, zombies and psychopaths.
Well on this occasion, Dafunda Movie will share the Best Horror Movie Recommendations that have been summarized from various sources and fan choices. Check out the list below!
Best Horror Movie Recommendations
1. Psycho (1960)
Psycho is a classic horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Marion Crane escaped with $40,000 belonging to her client.
The woman, who works as a secretary in the city of Phoenix, then stays at an isolated hotel to calm herself down after almost being caught by the police on the streets.
Marion is welcomed by Norman Bates, the hotel owner who has mental problems due to his mother’s domination in the past. Marion is murdered by Norman while taking a bath and her body is dumped into the swamp.
When Marion’s sister Lila tried to find her brother, she suspected Norman and managed to catch him.
At the police station, Norman confessed to having killed two other young women before Marion and that he also suffered from multiple personality disorder.
This psychological horror thriller is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best works. It is considered one of the best films of all time and has been included in the National Film Registry.
Norman Bates has even become a famous icon in the horror genre and has inspired many other serial killers in the film industry.
Reportedly, the character of Norman Bates was inspired by Ed Gain, a killer who went on a killing spree in Wisconsin in the late 1950s.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | Psycho |
| Director | Alfred Hitchcock |
| Genre | Horror, Mystery, Drama |
| Rating by IMDb | 8,5/10 |
2. The Conjuring
This horror movie deserves to be on the list of the best horror movie recommendations. The Conjuring has a good story plot, solid, but easy to follow. In addition, the setting of an ancient house that seems haunted, and not many market jumpscares, make this movie have its own impression after watching.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | The Conjuring |
| Director | James Wan |
| Genre | Horror, Mistery, Thriller |
| Rating IMDb | 7,5/10 |
3. The Conjuring 2 (2016)
The next best horror movie recommendation is The Conjuring 2.
This is the sequel to the movie The Conjuring. The choice of setting in London, England, can be combined with a good and creepy story plot. Moreover, this sequel is the debut of our favorite demon sister, Valak aka The Nun (Bonnie Aarons).
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | The Conjuring 2 |
| Director | James Wan |
| Genre | Horror, Mistery, Thriller |
| Rating | 7,3/10 |
4. The Shining (1980)
The Shining is a recommendation for the best horror movie directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick.
The story in the movie “The Shining” adapts the novel of the same name published in 1977 by Stephen King, a famous writer in the horror genre.
It tells the story of a man named Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) who becomes the caretaker of a remote hotel called Overlook, located in the Rocky mountains of Colorado.
Jack works at the hotel with his son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), and wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall). Previously, Jack had been warned by the hotel manager, Stuart, about the bad incident that happened to the previous guard. He was also warned not to enter room number 237.
Over time, living in the hotel makes Jack turn into a different person, and he even threatens to kill his own family. Wendy finally escapes with Danny, who has a bad feeling about the hotel.
Will Wendy and Danny survive the threat coming from Jack?
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | The Shining |
| Director | Stanley Kubrick |
| Genre | Horror, Drama |
| Rating by IMDb | 8,4/10 |
5. Rosemary’s Baby – 1968
Rosemary’s Baby is a psychological horror film by Roman Polanski based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Ira Levin.
Rosemary’s Baby tells the story of actor Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) and his wife Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow).
Together with his lovely wife, the two moved into a Renaissance Revival-style apartment located in New York, USA.
Actually, when they moved in, they were warned to be careful. Because the previoustenant, an elderly woman, displayed a very strange behavior and was not comfortable at all when she moved into the apartment space that Guy and Rosemary were currently occupying.
But despite the warning, the two did not pay any attention to it and still wanted to stay in their apartment neighborhood.
Now, after making this decision, Guy, especially Rosemary, began to be welcomed and often interacted with other tenant neighbors.
At first, everything seemed fine. Rosemary was often given this and that gift. But over time, Rosemary felt that something was really wrong with the hospitality of her neighbors.
Until finally one day, Rosemary suddenly became pregnant. Now knowing this, her tenant neighbors began to display their true intentions: They wanted to sacrifice Rosemary’s child when it was born.
This is of course because all of them (read: the neighboring group of tenants) are a devil-worshippingcult. Now realizing this, Rosemary must now find a way so that she can avoid these satanic intentions. So how will the story continue?
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | Rosemay’s Baby |
| Director | Roman Polanski |
| Genre | Horror, Drama |
| Rating IMDb | 8,0/10 |
6. Insidious (2010)
The next best horror movie recommendation is the first Insidious movie.
This movie has a stronger mystery element than the subsequent Insidious films. Naturally, because it is the first movie. So we call it still the “introductory edition.”
As a result, we are even more curious about what and how the world of “The Further” came to exist. So how did the magical visionary grandmother, Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) know and penetrate her world in the first place?
So why are the demons so obsessed with kidnapping Dalton (Ty Simpkins) into that world? Although we will find out in the sequel and prequel.
But there’s no denying once again that the mystery and curiosity we felt in the first movie is what makes us still excited about the movie to this day.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | Insidious |
| Director | James Wan |
| Genre | Horror, Mistery, Thriller |
| Rating | 6,8/10 |
7. Annabelle: Creation (2017)
Ever since the Sera Mini female doll spin-off was released in 2014, there’s no denying that some of us may have a sudden phobia of dolls.
Well, the phobia becomes even more pronounced when we watch this prequel. But uniquely in the midst of this paranoia, we can also feel emotional.
Because as we know, this movie also tells the story of the closeness of two friends who are both orphans, Janice (Talitha Bateman) and Linda (Lulu Wilson). The closeness of these two friends is like biological brothers and sisters.
As a result, when Annabelle’s demon spirit starts to mess up and ruin their relationship. We can’t help but feel sad when we see it.
Not to mention some of the complexities of the doll’s origin that we can still follow nicely throughout the movie. That’s why we include Annabelle: Creation as one of the best horror movie recommendations.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | Annabelle: Creation |
| Director | David F. Sandberg |
| Genre | Horror, Mistery, Thriller |
| Rating | 6,5/10 |
8. Paranormal Activity (2007)
We can say that after The Blair Witch Project (1999), it’s rare to find afound-footage movie or “documentary” that is very convincing.
It makes us, as the audience, debate by ourselves or with friends whether the movie we are watching is really from a documentary or just made up.
After a long wait, finally 8 years later this movie appeared. In addition, the figures of the two main actors, Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, were not very famous at that time. So it’s no wonder that at that time many believed that the two were a real-life couple who experienced real-life events as well.
This first movie still looks and feels fun and fresh even though we may have watched it 50 times.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | Paranormal Activity |
| Director | Oren Peli |
| Genre | Horror, Mistery |
| Rating | 6,3/10 |
9. Mama (2013)
Long before wowing us with the remake of IT (2017, 2019), Andy Muschietti initially wowed us with this movie.
For those of you who may have forgotten, Mama tells the story of two orphaned sisters, Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lily (Isabelle Nellsse). Both were orphaned after their parents died in an accident.
5 years later, the two, who lived in the cabin alone during this period, were adopted by their late father’s twin brother Jeffrey (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). But strangely and creepily, Victoria and Lily now think that they are not alone.
They now have (are protected by) “Mama.” Mama herself is a supernatural entity. Suddenly, when the two of them live in Jeffery’s house with his wife Annabel (Jessica Chaastain), various terrifying supernatural events haunt the two couples.
What makes Mama cool is not only the story aspect, but also the gothic cinematography concept. Anyway, if you like goth things , Mama is a must-watch.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | Mama |
| Director | Andy Muschietti |
| Genre | Horror, Mistery, Fantasy |
| Rating | 6,2/10 |
10. The Omen (1976)
The name of the story of the devil’s child (literally) will always be interesting. Yes, who is not interested or curious about the figure of a child who was born from a human fetus but while in the womb, he was possessed or “pelleted” to become the devil’s sperm seed?
Well, this is the main premise of this classic movie. With the name of the son, Damien Thorne (Harvey Spencer Stephens) and the ubiquitous mention and appearance of the number “666” , there’s no doubt that The Omen is now one of the best classic horror films of all time.
Stephens’ performance and super creepy blank stare as Damien is another factor why The Omen is one of our must-see horror movies.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | The Omen |
| Director | Richard Donner |
| Genre | Horor, Mistery |
| Rating | 7,5/10 |
11. The Exorcist (1973)
If you’ve ever heard, read or watched a video discussion of this William Friedkin(Killer Joe) directed movie. Surely what you often hear is that The Exorcist is the scariest movie of all time.
In fact, it was rumored that many audiences fainted suddenly when watching the film in the theater. In addition, many of the world’s top celebrities also consider The Exorcist, as the scariest horror movie they have ever seen.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | The Exorcist |
| Director | William Friedkin |
| Genre | Horror |
| Rating | 8,1/10 |
12. Host (2020)
The next best horror movie recommendation that will make you close your eyes continuously is Host.
The movie, which aired through a special streaming service for horror and thriller films, Shudder, immediately surprised us all during the Covid-19 pandemic at that time.
Apart from being one of the super entertaining shows during the quarantine, Host is basically a movie that has a pretty refreshing idea.
The movie Host tells the story of six friends who make their zoom calls. Haley, one of them has an idea to play a seance, which is a game of summoning spirits. So they wanted to communicate with the spirits through Zoom.
Haley hires a medium or spirit medium named Seyland. The catastrophe begins when one of them named Jemma claims to be connected to her friend who committed suicide at school named Jack, which turns out to be just his story.
Strange and horrific events began to happen to the zoom members one by one. They were confused and made Haley call Seyland. They then explained what was going on. It turns out that Jemma’s lie allowed the evil spirits to come to them.
Even though almost the entire duration of the movie that we see is only scenes of people zooming, the horror and horror impression is guaranteed.
Host is one of the best innovative horror movies of 2020.
| Tipe | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | Host |
| Director | Rob Savage |
| Genre | Horror, Mistery |
| Rating | 6,5/10 |
13. Unfriended (2014)
Before Host, it was Unfriended that successfully surprised us by introducing the latest new horror sub-genre at that time, cyber horror.
Of course, the name of this sub-genre is named after the content of the movie. That is, the terrifying terror that comes from the PC or laptop screen and generally when we are online.
Well once again, Unfriended is very successful in introducing and bringing to life the concept of the sub-genre . Even though this movie is very fictional, it still succeeds in making us paranoid about the internet or specifically, doing group chats through the top application, Skype.
This movie also makes us think 100 times about bullying our schoolmates. Because as we saw in the movie, those who bullied Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman), were immediately killed by Laura’sspirit.
And the crazy thing is, the ways in which each of their victims died were extremely sadistic and gruesome.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | Unfriended |
| Director | Levan Gabriadze |
| Genre | Horror, Mistery, Thriller |
| Rating | 5,6/10 |
14. Poltergeist (1982)
It is recognized as one of the best horror films of all time. The American Film Institute also ranked the movie 84th on its 100 Years…100 Thrills list.
Furthermore, Poltergeist even managed to get three Oscar nominations, although it did not manage to win a single one. This film is also credited with popularizing the term Poltergeist for those who previously did not know the meaning of the word.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | Poltergeist |
| Director | Tobe Hooper |
| Genre | Horror, Thriller |
| Rating | 7,3/10 |
15. Dead Silence (2007)
James Wan(The Conjuring) and the Ventriloquist doll. Yups, there is no denying that these two aspects are indeed “horror soul mates”. Because through Wan’ssignature direction, the scary figures and stories that have the character of this hand puppet, become so terrible.
Not only that, Dead Silence also successfully popularized the doll character, Billy (Enn Reitel). Specifically, Billy through this film has become one of the most iconic horror movie characters of all time.
If you like non-killing demon doll movies like Chucky, this movie is highly recommended.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | Dead Silence |
| Director | James Wan |
| Genre | Horror, Misteyi, Thriller |
| Rating | 6,1/10 |
16. The Medium (2021)
It is a mocumentary movie with a touch of the supernatural that is the fruit of cooperation between Thailand and South Korea.
At first, many of us might have doubts about The Medium. You might even think it’s a normal drama movie.
But when we finally saw the movie, we were surprised that The Medium is a supernatural horror movie. Furthermore, it’s a very creepy supernatural horror. Also, the movie is shown in a documentary format that looks like a real event.
So that when we watch the movie, it is really like seeing a real possession event experienced by the main character, Mink (Narilya Gulmongkolpech).
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | The Medium |
| Director | Banjong Pisanthanakun |
| Genre | Horror |
| Rating | 6,5/10 |
17. The Witch (2015)
The Witch will take viewers on a journey back in time to the 17th century, exploring the wild forests of New England to uncover the terrible mysteries within. William (Ralph Ineson) and his family have just been expelled from a puritanical Christian community for allegedly breaking Church law.
They decided to settle at the edge of the forest and build a cornfield to fulfill their food needs.
A few months later, tragedy strikes when their baby, Samuel, suddenly disappears. William argues that Samuel may have been eaten by wolves, but his wife, Katherine (Kate Dickie), accuses their eldest daughter, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), of being responsible for looking after Samuel.
William keeps trying to convince his family that God will always protect them, but their faith is declining, creating divisions in the family without realizing the terror of the witch that always lurks from the forest.
Unlike other arthouse horror films that take a long time to build up the atmosphere so that the audience can feel the tension of the background story, this movie only takes about seven minutes to show the first strange incident – when Samuel disappears – and give us a peek into the witch’s disturbing rituals.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | The Witch |
| Director | Robert Eggers |
| Genre | Horror, Drama, Fantasy |
| Rating | 7,0/10 |
18. The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
And here’s the last best horror movie recommendation, The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
From the trailer alone, the horrible impression is very visible. And it’s true, when we finally watch the movie, the horrible impression is indeed no joke.
This is not only because of Scott Derrickson’s (Doctor Strange) masterful direction. Both the cinematography, as well as the jump scare scenes, also play a big part in displaying the aura of horror.
But more importantly. Don’t forget about Jennifer Carpenter’s(White Chicks) performance as the movie’s title character, Emily Rose.
Carpenter’s appearance really looks creepy when in his possessed state. Anyway, it’s very different from his previous performances which were much more dramatic or comedic, which can make us remember forever.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | The Exorcism of Emily Rose |
| Director | Scott Derrickson |
| Genre | Horror, Drama, Thriller |
| Rating | 6,7/10 |
19. Let the Right One In (2008)
A good story will remain interesting in various adaptations. One of them is a novel by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist published in 2004.
The story is about the friendship between a vampire girl and a human boy with various social problems in the dark 1980s.
The first film adaptation of the novel was directed by Tomas Alfredson, who focused more on the story of the friendship of the two main characters with little attention to social issues in Stockholm at the time. The movie won many awards in various film events in Europe and the world.
Its Hollywood adaptation, featuring Chloe Grace Moretz as the vampire girl, was released under the title “Let Me In” in 2010.
There was a change in character names and the location was moved to New Mexico, although the story and feel remained the same. Shortly after, a mini-series comic was also published that told the prequel to this movie.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | Let The Right One In |
| Director | Thomas Alfredson |
| Genre | Horror, Drama, Fantasy |
| Rating by IMDb | 7,8/10 |
20. The Others (2001)
The movie The Others is set in a town in Jersey, England, in 1945, after the end of the world war involving England. The story follows the lives of a family consisting of a mother and two children.
Their father went off to war and never returned after the war ended. The mother, Grace, took care of her two children alone. The eldest, Anne, was a brave and confident child, while her younger brother, Nicholas, was spoiled and scared, especially of ghosts.
Suffering from photosensitive disorder, Anne and Nicholas cannot see or be exposed to light, except for the light from candles. They live in darkness all day and rarely leave the house, especially during the day.
Grace then hired three new employees in their home, Mrs. Bertha Mills, Edmund Tuttle the gardener, and Lydia the mute girl.
| Type | Detail |
|---|---|
| Title | The Others |
| Director | Alejandro Amenábar |
| Genre | Horror, Mystery, Thriller |
| Rating by IMDb | 7,6/10 |
Those are our top 20 best recommendations for horror movies that you can watch on your legal streaming platform. Which horror movie do you think is the scariest?
