I am a longtime horror fan who’s searching for a good horror movies to watch. A movie like The Exorcist that actually made me feel scared. Something that’s inherently scary, and not because of jump scares. I have watched many popular horror movies and movie series like the Anabelle, The Insidious (my favourite), The Conjuring (another favourite), The Babadook and more. I am looking for movies set in 90s, 70s or earlier, that is not talked about much.
Out of the latest Abigail and Bugonia are fantastic. An old classic - Gerald’s Game. Black Phone was surprisingly good.
Edit: only now noticed you want them to be set pre-2000s, oops, sorry. Oh well ;D
No One Will Save You
Abigail
A Quiet Place
Alien (1979)
Event Horizon may be on the fringe of what you’re interested in based on the comments.
It’s going to sound crazy but after reading your comment about not wanting gore, the perfect movie might be the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original.) It’s just super creepy throughout but with impressively little gore etc.
Last Night in Soho is a mishmash of films but gorgeously shot with a sense of style, in some ways a love/hate letter to London in the 60s.
And finally, a weird one that I really dug, It Ends. It’s not at all like anything else. I saw it called a hang out horror which is as good a description as any.
Haha. I do not believe you. Texas Chainsaw Massacre surely has a lot of gore. Last Night in Soho look visually appealing l might watch it someday.
https://screenrant.com/texas-chainsaw-massacre-movie-not-bloody-gory-reason/
Despite its odd reputation as being extremely violent, the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is almost bereft of blood and gore, and here’s why.
You could have literally just searched Texas Chainsaw Massacre gore.
This is exactly the type of movie you seem to be describing; it is literally one of the best horror movies ever made while simultaneously almost without gore and viscera.
The goriest thing about that movie is that ending shot with the spinning. I get motion sick just thinking about it.
Return of the Living Dead Part II(1988)
Go old-school. Classic, underground, teen, zombie flick.
“Seeeeennnnndd mooooore coooooops!”
The original slasher Black Christmas (1974) holds up well; unsettling, bleak, and scary imo
Rec, it’s a pov Spanish language horror from 2008 but set in a building that could easily be a setting for 70s-90s. Kinda like Blair witch in a haunted house. Some jumps but the suspense is built for the bigger scares.
Candyman (1992) it’s not exactly unknown but I think it’s recognition falls behind other 90s horror movie& series. Philip glass soundtrack, multiple conflicting myths & legends, scares that are suspenseful and gory and unexpected.
There are a couple alternate soundtracks to Nosferatu (1922) that make it more scary and less dated
Edit: for more thriller less bloody I’d go with Hitchcock & the movies he helped inspire like Brick, Blue Velvet, Dark Passage, Basic Instinct
There are a couple alternate soundtracks to Nosferatu (1922) that make it more scary and less dated
I’m intrigued, any particular recommendations?
If you like gothic rock there’s a version with a type o negative soundtrack, they didn’t make a new score but took songs from their first few studio albums that fits really well
Probably my favorite is the Rob Wright string quartet, new score and songs really fitting to a creepy vibe
There’s a bunch more listed here https://musicbrainz.org/series/a3b6359b-20be-4b46-8781-f74c9a85e3ff
Faust (1926) is another old silent b&w movie with multiple alternate soundtracks
Thanks, a lot to check out there!
Carnival of Souls. If you don’t mind black and white movies, this is easily one of the creepiest surreal horror movies ever made
I love horror movies, but haven’t found much time for them in recent years. The two I have watched relatively recently were Hereditary and The Ritual. Both were pretty good for different reasons.
A few off the beaten track movies that come to mind:
- Haute Tension
- The Descent
- Rec
- A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988): takes place mainly in Haiti, where an american anthropologist is attempting to study rumors of zombie resurrection only to find himself caught between the combination of the Tonton Macoute and Voodoo occultism
Salem’s Lot (1979): The original miniseries (2 parts iirc) This one has one of my all time favorite Nosferatu style vampires, along with Richard Straker, a very proper and suspicious antiques dealer played by James Mason
Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986): Silly as it may seem to recommend a sequel like this, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is pretty wild and introduces Chop-Top played by Bill Moseley who is simultaneously disturbing and hilarious, always in a horror-y way.
These are probably like a 5-7 out of 10 for scariness, but are some of my personal favorite horror movies, one more recommendation which I’d give a somewhat higher scare value, but isn’t in that era is
Frankenstein’s Army (2013): Neat storyline, and some really cool practical effects. (Not army of frankensteins which is another film entirely from 2014)
Hereditary
It Follows
The Presence (arguably not a horror flick)
Saint Maud, a fanatically zealous Christian girl moves in with an aging ballet dancer to care for her. Religious mania and weird supernatural shit ensue.
The Ritual, 3 friends on a hiking trip become lost in an increasingly creepy and haunted Scandinavian forest.
Suspiria (remake), a German dance academy hides a bloodthirsty coven of witches. Not nearly as visually striking as Argento’s 1970s original, but MUCH more coherent as a story.
