10 Most Perfectly Directed Horror Movies of All Time, Ranked
If a movie is perfectly directed, there’s a good chance it’ll be perfect, or at least close to it. Directing encompasses a bit of everything, and can make or break a movie more than something like acting or cinematography. The director can’t control everything or everyone involved in those departments, but he or she is typically expected to have some influence over those things, and all the other aspects of production, too.
It’s that way for every genre, horror movies included. You can really feel a director’s voice in certain horror movies because they’re often a bit more intimate and direct than, say, sprawling epics or blockbuster action movies. A good horror movie can be made with a fairly small cast and crew, so sometimes (not always) the director has even more control, and in the interest of highlighting some particularly good horror film directors, here are some of the best-directed movies from the genre’s history.
10
‘Psycho’ (1960)
A movie that famously did its own thing, and surprised pretty much everyone at the time, Psycho is rightly recognized as Alfred Hitchcock’s scariest film (unless you find birds particularly frightening), and it’s also easily one of the filmmaker’s best overall, too. It’s about a woman who steals money from her employer and then goes on the run, with things taking a turn after she stops at a motel along the way.
Since Psycho wants to surprise as much as it’s keen to unnerve, saying more about the plot will lead to spoilers, and sure, most of those unexpected developments are well known now, but in the rare event you’re one of the five people in the world who doesn’t know about Psycho… you’re welcome. Also, it’s a film where Hitchcock felt in control the whole time, with every scene being masterfully done and the whole film unfolding quite effortlessly throughout.
9
‘Let the Right One In’ (2008)
Let the Right One In is a coming-of-age movie that also gets pretty scary at the same time, combining the two genres well. It’s about a young boy who finds himself drawn to a mysterious young girl who lives near him, and the two seem to be developing feelings for each other that go beyond a friendship, but the girl’s past turns out to be an unusual one, to say the least.
There are supernatural elements here, but they’re handled in a way that feels quite grounded and strangely realistic, at least for the kind of horror sub-genre Let the Right One In taps into. Like with Psycho, it’s best to keep details vague, since the film does take a while to reveal exactly what sort of movie it is, but even if you know going in, this is still engrossing and emotional stuff, not to mention very well-directed by Tomas Alfredson. Less than a decade later, he also did The Snowman, which is anything but well-directed. Oh well, best to focus on the good times.
8
‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991)
Since it’s the only full-on horror movie to win Best Picture, there’s already been so much said about The Silence of the Lambs, with its status as an all-timer rarely – if ever – being questioned. But it’s also a bit more than just a horror movie, and might well be more definable as a crime/thriller film that happens to dive into horror just because the murderous characters are particularly vicious and frightening, in a similar vein to Se7en, which also came out in the 1990s.
With The Silence of the Lambs, there’s a hunt for a serial killer at large that also involves talking with another serial killer who’s imprisoned, trying to get insight about how someone who commits continual murders might think and act. And there’s more, of course, and it’s all handled/paced exceptionally well, making The Silence of the Lambs feel a good bit shorter than it actually is.
7
‘Diabolique’ (1955)
In Diabolique, there are two women who both feel mistreated by the same man, with one being his wife and the other his mistress. They team up to get rid of him together, and they seem to do so successfully, but then his supposedly dead body disappears rather abruptly, and then much of the film ends up being about finding out what the hell might’ve happened, and being driven slowly mad by the odd occurrence.
Diabolique still retains a surprising amount of power, and has the undeniable ability to unsettle across decades and generations.
It’s a movie that’s now 70 years old and counting, but Diabolique still retains a surprising amount of power, and the undeniable ability to unsettle across decades and generations. It’s a bit of a slow burn, but it’s never boring, and when things start to click into place, patient viewers okay with an older horror movie will likely be rewarded.
6
‘The Thing’ (1982)
John Carpenter’s specialty is sci-fi and horror, and so he was a good fit for The Thing, since that’s what this thing is. It’s about a group of researchers in Antarctica who encounter an alien life form that’s able to imitate other life forms it comes into contact with. Naturally, this leads to a great deal of tension and paranoia, with all the researchers having to contend with the notion that any of their associates might actually be the alien in disguise.
It follows the same sort of structure as the original Alien and also Predator, but it doesn’t feel as much like a sci-fi slasher of sorts (compared to the former) and also doesn’t really prioritize action (compared to the latter). The Thing is its own thing, and the antagonist is one of the most effective, mysterious, and unsettling in the history of the horror genre.
5
‘Godzilla’ (1954)
The original Godzilla might well be the scariest movie in the entire series, which is saying quite a lot, since all Godzilla movies involve one or more big monsters stomping around, and a decent number can also be classified as horror movies. But Godzilla (1954) takes the titular monster very seriously, and doesn’t give him any goofy kaiju-sized enemies to fight.
Not that there’s anything wrong with most of the “Godzilla vs.” movies, which work as sci-fi/action movies more that emphasize action and spectacle over horror, but if you want to see the series at its grimmest and eeriest, there’s no better place to go than the start of it all. Godzilla commentates on ever-present concerns over nuclear weapons and the devastation they can cause, and it also works surprisingly well as a disaster movie that just so happens to have a giant monster in it.
4
‘Jaws’ (1975)
The first of many masterpieces Steven Spielberg directed, Jaws is the definitive shark movie, having been so for 50 years now, and it’ll likely remain so for the foreseeable future. It’s about a town during the summer season being affected by a series of shark attacks, and since evidence suggests it’s one surprisingly large shark that’s responsible, a trio of men set out to kill it.
It’s a man vs. nature sort of story, but even if they ventured out and spent the second half of the movie trying to find the shark but never actually battled it, Jaws would still be riveting. That’s thanks to it being well-made on all fronts, and so everyone is worthy of praise, but Spielberg’s perhaps the most responsible for everything coming together so cleanly and seamlessly, ultimately ensuring this one continues to stand as one of the very best horror/thriller films of all time.
3
‘The Fly’ (1986)
Another classic horror movie with a simple premise, The Fly is really just about an ambitious experiment going wrong, and a scientist grappling with the fact that he’s slowly transforming into a fly. It could’ve been mishandled, or come across as goofy rather than horrifying, but David Cronenberg was at the top of his game here, and there’s a reason The Fly endures as his most popular movie.
The Fly is also timelessly disgusting and quite alarming on a visual/technical front, since the practical effects used here for the gradual transformation still hold up surprisingly well nearly four decades on from release. It’s a film that doesn’t mess around, plays on a primal sort of fear, and focuses on the technical side of things when it comes to being complex, with the balance between being narratively straightforward and mind-boggling behind-the-scenes making it all an impressive and immersive watch.
2
‘The Exorcist’ (1973)
Some might consider The Exorcist a little overhyped, since it has a reputation for sometimes being considered the scariest movie of all time, but even if you don’t personally find it the most frightening, it’s possible to see how it kind of became the Citizen Kane of the horror genre. That comparison’s not made because of any similarities between the movies, but more so because of the similarities between how these movies were received and talked about, especially years on from release.
The Exorcist is about a young girl who showcases alarming behavior, and the lengths her mother is driven to in order to make her better, which does indeed involve an exorcism at one point. It’s the go-to religious horror movie, and is also perfectly balanced as something that’s restrained at times and then in-your-face at other points. William Friedkin, though controversial with some of his filmmaking methods, really did knock it out of the park with this one.
1
‘The Shining’ (1980)
A boring pick for the #1 spot, perhaps, but a far from boring movie, here’s The Shining, which has the kind of controlled and purposeful direction you’d expect from a movie directed by Stanley Kubrick post-Spartacus, which was the last film where he wasn’t really in total control. Kubrick is, for the most part, the first person people would think of when hearing the term “auteur director,” so of course his (sometimes controversial) Stephen King adaptation is precise and unique.
The original book is great too, and The Shining (1980) admittedly isn’t a direct adaptation, but it finds ways to unnerve that sometimes line up with the book and sometimes feel like the movie doing its own thing. But it’s tightly constructed and detailed, making it prone to some over-analyzing, but also, all that stuff is kind of fun in its own right. And people don’t usually get obsessed about something unless it’s worth obsessing over, and The Shining certainly belongs to such a camp.
