10 Great Scary Movies You Might Not Have Seen

Every year around Halloween, a variety of publications post best scary movies of all time lists with a high degree of uniformity. This isn’t a knock on the writers, simply noting that there’s a fair amount of consensus. If you haven’t seen Nosferatu, Psycho, The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alien, The Thing, Poltergeist, The Shining, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Blair Witch Project, fire them up at once! But I think most of us have probably many times (I watch The Shining 3-4 times a year). Instead, here’s a list of films I think are nearly as good but much less known. In chronological order:

Vampyr (1932)

Carl Dreyer is more famous for his stark, monumental meditations on faith and the soul—The Passion of Joan of Arc and Ordet, but Vampyr is its own revelation. A dreamy, beautiful, and surreal take on vampire mythology, Dreyer employs astonishing camera work to depict astral projection, a corpse looking towards heaven from a glass coffin, and dream fugues. The limitations of the era work wonders for the genre, the artifice of the sepia toned film becomes organic as if it was some uncovered moving daguerreotype from the 19th century period which it is set. (Criterion Channel).

Ugetsu (1953)

Some of you may scoff and snort: “how can you possibly include Ugetsu as underseen?” Well because 99% of people I know haven’t seen it. It doesn’t matter how celebrated it is, or that it ranked the 50th greatest film of all time on the last Sight and Sound list, Mizoguchi remains less seen than the other titans of classic Japanese cinema—Kurosawa and Ozu. Ugetsu uses the ghost story as a parable for life regrets and base impulses. The inevitable, elegiac quality of the film, shrouded in gorgeous mists drifting off lakes and into castles and forests, renders the experience both a deeply moving melodrama, and an unnerving existential nightmare. I’ve always thought the lyrics to the great British art rock band Japan song “Ghosts” were a nod to this perfect film:

“Just when I think I'm winning
When I've broken every door
The ghosts of my life blow wilder than before
Just when I thought I could not be stopped
When my chance came to be king
The ghosts of my life blew wilder than the wind”. (Criterion)

The Devils (1970)

Again, cinephiles will bray: “The Devils is not underrated.” But it is underseen! According to gossip and rumors, Paramount was so infuriated by the shocking and brash final product, one they spent the 2022 equivalent of 50 million dollars on, they have never released the film in any capacity in the US. To see the uncut version of this movie you either have to find a torrent or buy an all-region dvd player and the UK dvd. The effort is well worth it. The Devils is a truly inspired, unhinged film. It still shocks and burns, and yet it is wildly funny, psychedelic, and visually beautiful (it features set design by recent art school grad Derek Jarman before he went on to his own brilliant career). A terrifying portrait of fanaticism and mob madness and the intersection with personal obsession and vendetta, every time I watch this film (which is every chance I can with anyone who hasn’t seen it) I think it is the best movie I’ve ever seen. (My house).