10 Heaviest Horror Movies of All Time, Ranked

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10 Heaviest Horror Movies of All Time, Ranked

Rotham December 10, 2025 0 Comments

You’d expect most horror movies to be disturbing, to some extent, unless you’re watching a horror comedy that’s heavier on the comedy and light on the horror, maybe like Army of Darkness (if that even counts as horror at all), or the hilarious Shaun of the Dead. Wait… Shaun of the Dead does have an intense final act. Hmm. This introduction isn’t introducing things very well.

Maybe think of the Friday the 13th movies. They’re fun, but sometimes a bit disposable, and while they’re not usually too broadly comedic, they’re also mild when it comes to genuine scares and the capacity to cause proper unease or trauma. They’re roller-coaster horror movies. The following horror movies are more like car crash horror movies, but you’re in one of the vehicles, as the viewer. They’re all deeply upsetting works of horror, usually because they show alarming things, but also because all of them – to some extent – further deal with heavy and potentially upsetting themes/ideas.

10

‘Rosemary’s Baby’ (1968)

Rosemary holding up a piece of jewelry, in 'Rosemary's Baby' — Mia Farrow as Rosemary, holding up a piece of jewelry, in ‘Rosemary’s Baby’

It’s an older movie, so you might expect Rosemary’s Baby to have lost some of its power in the nearly 60 years since it came out, but honestly, it remains up there as one of the scariest horror films of the 20th century. It’s timelessly unnerving, though you do have to be okay with a slow-burn to feel the full effect, as it’s about a woman expecting a baby, and she moves into a new place, and everyone there is off, but only a little off at first.

Then, things start to become clear, there’s gaslighting, and with it, that sense of unease between what might be paranoia and what could actually be a physical threat of some sort. Or, worse, maybe it’s both. Things can always get worse in a horror movie, and in a horror movie directed by the same guy who directed Chinatown? Forget it, Jake. It’s crying-town.

9

‘Possession’ (1981)

Maria on the tunnel being possessed in Possession

Possession isn’t about literal possession as much as you might expect, or maybe it is, and it kind of depends on your interpretation regarding how much is psychological and how much might be otherworldly or supernatural (in a way that’s a bit like The Shining). Also like The Shining is the main dynamic explored in Possession, with a tense family situation involving a husband, wife, and a solitary young son.

But unlike The Shining, both parents seem to be deteriorating to a dangerous extent psychologically, and maybe in other ways, too. All the stuff to do with the extreme family drama is probably even heavier and more mortifying than some of the full-on horror scenes, and those are comparatively less common… but, for what it’s worth, when Possession wants to shock you on that front as well, it ends up being unnervingly successful.

8

‘Mother’ (2017)

Husband and Wife during the destruction of their home in 'mother!'

Some might consider the idea that Mother is almost perfect as a horror/thriller movie to be a ridiculous one, but whatever. It’s great. It’s phenomenal and mortifying and horrible and watching it is absorbing, but in a way where even if you’re fully on board and darkly enthralled, you’ll probably never find yourself in the mood to genuinely revisit it.

There are just too many awful things here to imagine seeing again, and there’s a chance that the way this movie unfolds into absolute (and savage) anarchy would be even more stomach-churning when you know what’s coming. On the surface, it’s a horror movie about a woman who wants people to stop showing up at her house, but there is quite a bit more to it than that, much of it admittedly not very subtle, but there are a few more things to dig into here than what’s just below the surface if you feel so inclined, not to mention emotionally prepared.

7

‘Don’t Look Now’ (1973)

Donald Sutherland as John Baxter holding a child in a red coat while screaming in Don't Look Now — Donald Sutherland as John Baxter holding a child in a red coat while screaming in Don’t Look Now

There are some movies that are probably more enjoyable if you watch them at a younger age, but then there are also movies like Don’t Look Now, where the opposite is probably true. This is a movie about two parents dealing with very adult stuff, including the death of a child and whether their marriage can continue, as well as confronting the idea that being able to move on from something so horrible together might not be possible.

Things unfold slowly and in a bit of a surreal way at times, and so in that sense, Don’t Look Now is queasily effective as a psychological drama that flirts with being a psychological horror movie. It gets into horror territory near the end, and saves its biggest scare by far for one very impactful moment, but that one infamous part – and all the general misery that comes about through grief being explored – proves more than enough to make Don’t Look Now an indisputably heavy piece of horror.

6

‘The Mist’ (2007)

A giant monster in The Mist - 2007. — Giant monster seen near the end of The Mist (2007).

Of all the Stephen King stories out there (and there are many), a fair few have questionable or otherwise divisive endings, while some have admittedly well-liked conclusions. He wrote the novella that The Mist (2007) was based on, but there is a pretty major difference in how the two versions of the story conclude. Things get considerably more mis(t)erable in the movie version, to put it mildly.

Outside the ending, you still get a bit by way of gruesome deaths, and some unsettlingly dangerous people making the whole horror movie premise more difficult.

That ending is the main reason why The Mist is here, though the rest of the film is still pretty intense, albeit in an expected “maybe humans are the real monsters” kind of way. Still, you get a bit by way of gruesome deaths, and some unsettlingly dangerous people making the whole horror movie premise (needing to stay in a supermarket because a mist sweeps through a town, bringing with it strange creatures) more difficult. And then there’s the way it ends, which again… damn, you know?

5

‘Hereditary’ (2018)

For a while, Hereditary doesn’t feel too much like a horror movie, and is instead more of a film about a very troubled family going through some pretty serious grief. Things intensify, the sadness gets much worse than you might’ve initially feared, and then when they’re all feeling particularly vulnerable, the horror elements start kicking in more, and things never really let up from there.

Since it earned a reputation for being soul-crushing and even a bit cruel to its characters, maybe you’ll have some idea of what to expect in Hereditary going in, assuming you’ve not yet seen it. The surprising parts might well have hit harder back in 2018, but lots here can still be appreciated and also prove borderline anger-inducing, since Ari Aster is unable to pull punches, it seems. His characters will – and do – suffer, and so will you, right along with them.

4

‘Cannibal Holocaust’ (1980)

Luca Barbareschi and Perry Pirkanen as Mark Tomaso and Jack Anders, standing in the woods and recording on a video camera in Cannibal Holocaust — Robert Kerman and Perry Pirkanen as Professor Harold Monroe and Jack Anders, standing in the woods and recording on a video camera in Cannibal Holocaust

If you’ve heard one thing about Cannibal Holocaust, it’s probably that it’s an obscenely violent movie, and not just because of its use of grisly special effects. Parts of the film show real-life animals getting killed in unflinching detail… and not that it would be nice to show animals getting killed quickly or without substantial mess, but the scenes here are messy, and some of them go on for uncomfortably long amounts of time.

There are other controversies attached to Cannibal Holocaust and its content, but what’s most impressive or worth praising here is the way it looks at the media being desensitizing in a satirical sort of way, and also how incredible it was on a technical front, as a fairly early found footage movie. There is good here, and stuff worthy of appreciation, and then other parts of Cannibal Holocaust are sickening. The gross stuff will make you feel upset in the stomach, and then what the movie has to say about the media and human nature more broadly will make you feel just upset in the normal sort of way. It’s therefore heavy on at least two fronts.

3

‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ (1992)

If you’ve seen Twin Peaks, and then you sit down to watch Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, and then you’re presented with Laura Palmer still alive, dread immediately starts to creep in. It came out after the first two seasons of the show were cancelled, but it’s made pretty clear early on that it’s largely going to be a prequel to the TV show, and that means seeing the lead-up to – and the committing of – the murder that kick-started the show’s main narrative.

Knowing it’s coming makes it worse, and then the execution makes it particularly harrowing, because Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is pretty much David Lynch at his darkest and most uncompromising. Honestly, it might also be Lynch at his best. There are reasons for this movie to go to the places it does, and it’s ultimately thought-provoking regarding what it’s trying to explore on top of being astonishingly visceral and emotionally brutal as a psychological drama/horror movie.

2

‘Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom’ (1975)

A woman crying in ‘Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom.' — A woman crying in ‘Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom.’

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom is called Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, so something not disturbing is kind of just not on the table here, from the get-go. Nor is it on a chair, or the floor, or the kitchen, or in your house, or anywhere near your neighbor’s table, and maybe the tables come alive whenever Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom is nearby, so that it can not be on them. In this runaway metaphor or analogy or whatever, tables like non-disturbing movies, too.

In this beyond notorious arthouse film, a bunch of young people are kidnapped and imprisoned by a group of fascists, and then the young people are degraded, tortured, and eventually killed over the course of about two hours. There is a politically motivated reason to explore such depravity the way it’s done here, arguably like the also controversial Cannibal Holocaust and its satirical angle, but it’s still an immense amount to expect a viewer to handle; even one who knows full well they’re in for something harrowing.

1

‘Angst’ (1983)

Erwin Leder as the Psychopath in Angst 1983

It’s a bit painful how much Angst lives up to its name, because it really is one of the most unpleasant and relentlessly grim films ever made. Of course, it’s supposed to be, and it gets so confronting that you kind of have to be impressed by the whole thing, because you might think you know what you’re in for with a crime/horror movie about a serial killer and a home invasion, but you don’t. Or, like, you’re not prepared.

Angst just feels way too real, and you know it’s not literally something that depicts people getting targeted and later hurt, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that you might as well be watching an actual horrific situation play out. It’s about as heavy as horror movies get, and it’s really not a stretch to call it one of the heaviest films ever made, from any genre.