Horror films contain many subgenres. But perhaps the scariest subgenre is paranormal horror. It taps into our fears of death and the unknown, and our vulnerability to unseen forces. And aren’t the best scary stories usually good old-fashioned ghost stories? We think so. So what qualifies, to us, as paranormal horror? Well, we’re not counting slashers, even if they have supernatural origins. No vampires, witches, werewolves, the Anti-Christ, aliens, or zombies either. By “paranormal,” we’re focusing on ghosts or demonic entities causing domestic disturbances. And needless to say, SPOILERS for each movie on this list. And here are our picks for the ten best, which have left the biggest pop culture footprint.
10. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
Disclaimer: We know we mentioned each entry would contain spoilers for each film, but in this case, we also spoil the mystery of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks TV series as well. So skip to the next entry if you ever plan to watch Twin Peaks!
Critics and moviegoers hated David Lynch’s prequel film to his seminal television series Twin Peaks when it arrived in 1992. But that’s perhaps because folks didn’t know they were walking into a true horror film, not an “after the fact” cozy TV murder mystery. The film covers the last days in the life of teenage Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), a young girl abused by a demonic being named BOB (Frank Silva) since early adolescence. As she uses drugs and sex to numb the pain of her abuse, Laura’s life begins unraveling in one surreal sequence after another.
When she finally realizes the spirit of BOB lives within her own father (Ray Wise), she knows she would rather die than keep living. All this leads to the film’s disturbing climax, one that’ll haunt you forever. This counts as paranormal horror, as BOB is a spiritual entity from another reality. Lynch makes no bones about his otherworldly origins. But the most disturbing parts of Fire Walk With Me are those closer to reality. Primarily, Laura’s abuse by her father, and her mother (Grace Zabriskie) pretending she doesn’t know. But none of that changes the fact that Fire Walk With Me is a truly disturbing supernatural tale for the ages.
9. Paranormal Activity (2009)
In the late 2000s, remakes of ‘70s and ‘80s horror classics ruled cinemas, along with “torture porn” horror like Saw and Hostel. It seemed no one wanted to see anything about spirits and demonic entities anymore. But at the end of the decade, a found footage horror film about a young couple in California facing disturbing events changed the game. Shot on a camcorder, Paranormal Activity centered on Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat), who face demonic forces in their new home. And these forces have lifelong ties to Katie.
Director Oren Peli made Paranormal Activity for a mere $10,000 in 2007. (It was finally released in 2009.) And it harkened back to a style of horror that was all based on suggestion and unsettling sounds. Peli crafted one of the most terrifying moments in modern horror. And it features no blood or gore. It is just a woman standing and staring at her husband in his bed for hours on end. This movie launched a franchise that is still going, and even a Broadway play. But none of that would have happened if this first film wasn’t truly so unnerving. Even now, it feels like we’re watching something real that we were never meant to see.
8. The Others (2001)
What’s a haunting like from the ghost’s side of things? The Others answers that question, which is one that few thought to ask before. It’s almost the flip-side version of The Sixth Sense. Instead of “Hey, this guy has been dead all along,” The Others runs with “Hey, the people we thought were ghosts are all really alive, and we’re the dead ones!” That’s all a bit reductive, of course. But Alejandro Amenábar’s slow-burn, haunted house film flipped the script on what audiences expected from a movie like this. And watching it 25 years later still gives us the creeps. Especially that séance scene.
The Others centers on Grace Stewart (Nicole Kidman), a single mother of two children with a rare condition who must stay indoors at all times, avoiding sunlight. With her husband off fighting in World War II, she keeps experiencing unsettling events in her English cottage. When the film reveals its twist, that she killed herself and her children in a fit of grief, and now they haunt the house, not knowing they are dead, our collective mouths dropped to the floor. This is a truly great film, one that truly transcends its plot twist and genre. And it’s one that doesn’t seem to get as much attention as some others on this list, but it deserves its place in the pantheon of great ghost stories.
7. The Sixth Sense (1999)
1999 was a stellar year for film overall. But near the top of the list of great films that year is M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, which told the story of a young boy named Cole (Haley Joel Osment) who “could see dead people.” He sees them so often, in fact, that his mother (Toni Collette, a horror MVP) seeks help for him from a professional, thinking he may suffer from mental illness. Enter Bruce Willis, who plays psychiatrist Malcolm Crowe, who, after failing with a previous patient, hopes to help Cole deal with his issues.
Of course, as most everyone knows now, the big twist at the end reveals Malcolm Crowe is really dead himself. While this movie might fall more into the category of “psychological thriller” than pure horror, it does feature several incredibly scary moments. But spooky thriller or pure horror, this is a film about the paranormal, and someone who lives their life perpetually haunted. Whatever you may think of M. Night Shyamalan’s later output, what he accomplished with The Sixth Sense was truly incredible, and it’s a film that is so much more than its big twist ending.
6. The Haunting (1963)
These days, everyone knows Michael Flanagan’s Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House. But before Flanagan took a crack at Shirley Jackson’s seminal horror novel, it was first adapted by future Sound of Music director Robert Wise as simply The Haunting. The film came out in 1963, and focuses on a group of paranormal investigators exploring a cursed house in Massachusetts. One with decades of tragic history and ghostly sightings. Horror films at the time, Psycho notwithstanding, had the reputation of cheap, disposable cinema. They were certainly not worthy of award-winning talent. But The Haunting helped change all that, and it remains an effectively scary movie, nearly 65 years later.
One scene, with Julie Harris and Claire Bloom trapped in a room with spirits literally going bump in the night just outside their door, still makes the hair on the back of our necks stand up. We can’t help but feel that this one set piece was lifted in one way or another in every paranormal movie that came after it. This movie helped define “atmospheric horror” for generations to come. Younger audiences might avoid an old black-and-white haunted house movie, but they’d be doing themselves a disservice. Because almost all modern paranormal thrillers, including most on this list, are built on the bones of Hill House.
5. The Conjuring (2013)
Whether or not the paranormal investigators this movie is based on, Ed and Elaine Warren, were frauds or not colors much of the conversation around The Conjuring. But just do what we do. Treat James Wan’s 2013 film as a work of complete fiction, and you suddenly won’t care. The Conjuring tells the (supposedly) true life story of the Perron family, who moved into a remote property in rural Rhode Island in the early ‘70s. From the jump, unexplained happenings in the house plague them. The Warrens (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) come in to help deal with the entities, creating empathetic demon-fighting heroes.
In The Conjuring, director James Wan creates true jump scares that feel earned and not cheap, as many of these films often do. And that “Hide and Clap” scene between Carolyn Perron (Lily Taylor) and her youngest daughter? Still terrifying. And even though Annabelle the doll is a bit played out these days, the opening scene which introduces her in this film is still bone-chilling. It says a lot for a doll that just sits there while scary things happen around her. Only the first Conjuring sequel was any good, and let’s not even discuss most of the spin-offs. But this first movie earned its spot as one of the best haunted house films ever made.
4. Hereditary (2018)
Ari Aster’s first feature film, about a woman named Annie (Toni Collette) emerging from profound grief while being caught in the tangled web of a demon-worshipping cult, came out of nowhere in 2018 and knocked everyone’s socks off. At its heart, this is an intense and personal drama, about a family trying to hold it together after the death of a child. Annie’s emotional, grief-stricken rant toward her son Peter (Alex Wolff) has become the stuff of memes, but the first time you watch it, you are definitely not laughing. We still believe Toni Collette deserved every acting award, for which she was largely snubbed.
But make no mistake, this is a truly terrifying horror film too, in the same vein as ‘70s supernatural movies like The Exorcist and The Omen. Especially with the volume cranked way up. There are floating bodies, possessed children, and an ending so creepy that it’s ingrained in our psyche forever. “Art house horror” or not, the paranormal elements are legit terrifying in Hereditary. We still can’t get the smiling naked old people who worship the demonic Paimon out of our heads. Or the images of a possessed Toni Collette crawling on the ceiling, stalking her own son. And when she saws off her own head with a piano wire? Yeah, that one is one for the record books. You’ll need to watch Teletubbies right after to get it out of your system. Hail Paimon.
3. Poltergeist (1982)
Before Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist (or Steven Spielberg’s, depending on who you ask), haunted house movies took place in creepy old mansions, or real estate with a sizable history. Poltergeist brought the horror to a modern suburban tract home, the kind so many families lived in during the ‘80s. No one dies in Poltergeist. There’s barely any blood, and it’s even rated PG. And yet, Spielberg’s script understood exactly what scares a child. And not just children, but it scares the child that still lives inside us. A twisted tree outside, a thunderstorm. A terrifying toy in your room with the lights off. The stuff that causes childhood trauma brought to terrifying life is what makes Poltergeist so effective as a scary movie.
The entire cast in this film is excellent, grounding the film in characters anyone can relate to. The story deals with a young family living in suburban California, whose six-year-old daughter Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) starts talking to spirits no one else can see. But one night, they take her, while still alive, into their spiritual realm. Her parents, JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson, call on paranormal investigators and psychics to get their child back. But the darkness in the house isn’t going to let go so easily. This film overflows with memorable sequence after memorable sequence, including one possessed doll that soured a whole generation on clowns. Most horror films don’t work when they have too many optical effects, but Poltergeist is the big exception. This is a film where everything clicked, and it’s a true classic.
2. The Shining (1980)
What can we say about Stanley Kubrick’s horror masterpiece about the haunted Overlook Hotel that hasn’t been said? There have been books written, documentaries made, and endless parodies. When it came out in 1980, critics were harsh and the box office success was so-so. And Stephen King, who famously wrote the book, hated it. But The Shining endures because it is so genuinely unsettling. Of course, this is largely because of Jack Nicholson’s iconic and unhinged performance as alcoholic writer Jack Torrance, whose isolation in a giant haunted hotel causes him to snap and attempt to kill his wife and son. But he can’t get all the credit.
No, it’s not only Nicholson’s performance that makes The Shining so damn scary. From the opening moments, the music (Wendy Carlos’ electronic version of a Catholic funeral chant) and sound design elements just get under your skin. It fills the audience with a sense of impending dread from the first title card. The Shining gives us iconic imagery every few minutes. We’re so used to them now, we forget how terrifying the dead Grady twins were the first time we saw them. Or little Danny Torrance saying “Redrum,” or the rotting, laughing woman in room 237. Yes, The Shining is a psychological horror film, using a haunted hotel as an allegory for alcoholism and abuse. But strip all the metaphors away, and it remains one of the best damn paranormal stories ever told on film.
Before we get to our number one entry, here are our Honorable Mentions:
The Changeling (1980), The Entity (1981), The Ring (2002), The Orphanage (2007), Insidious (2010), Sinister (2012), The Babadook (2014), and Talk to Me (2022). All of these nearly made the cut and are fantastic films.
1. The Exorcist (1973)
Five decades later, and nothing tops The Exorcist in terms of scary paranormal movies. You know what this one’s all about, even if you’ve never seen the movie. The possessed little girl (Linda Blair), the spitting of green goo, the heroic priests, “the power of Christ compels you!” You know the iconography. Some things just seep their way into the bone marrow of the culture, and William Friedkin’s 1973 film did just that. When it came out, audiences were not prepared for something this harrowing on the big screen, and people became sick in the theater, and some needed therapy after. But it’s not just shocking or blasphemous; it’s sublime.
What makes The Exorcist (based on William Peter Blatty’s bestseller) so terrifying decades later is that it all plays out for the first hour like you’re just watching a documentary about a normal single mom and her sweet little girl. Then, when the demonic possession happens, it all feels real. The performances of the entire cast, particularly Ellen Burstyn and Jason Miller are stellar, selling the entire film as something that’s truly happening before our eyes. The Exorcist goes into really dark places, places no studio movie would dare to touch today, which is possibly why most of the sequels simply couldn’t ever touch it. Scenes in this movie will scar you for life if you see them at too young an age. Is it a truly great drama about belief and faith? Yes. But it also scares you to your core with what it says about the destructive power of evil.