Many horrormovies are made, but far fewer are horrifying. While classics like are still go-to movies for guaranteed scares, there’s been a fantastic selection of recent films that drove theater-goers to cover their eyes. Over the last ten years, new and talented voices have left a lasting mark on the genre and, with any luck, will continue to do so.

Although the word scary means different things to different people, certain films are generally agreed upon to have gotten under people’s skin more effectively than others. , ranked by how disturbing, shocking, or unnerving they were for horror fans. These gems of the genre remain highly regarded among critics and audiences, and for good reason.

Deadites leave the cabin behind to take over a rundown apartment building in . After an earthquake reveals a hidden bag containing the Book of the Dead, it’s not long before deadites are set free and possess Ellie (), a single mother of three. With her children and adult sister trapped on the apartment floor, Ellie will begin to spread the evil within to her frightened family.

Moving away from its schlockier roots as a campy B-horror movie, Evil Dead Rise is that wastes no time in shedding blood or scalps. There’s a camp of Evil Dead fans who missed the humor from the original films, but the direction Evil Dead Rise takes the material is not far off from the underrated 2013 soft-reboot of the franchise. Creative visuals and emotionally driven performances from the cast will leave viewers anxiously awaiting director ’s

It’s hard to put a finger on why exactly a clown is scary, but the Terrifier series doesn’t help the cause of the red-nosed circus performers. It feels like overnight, Art the Clown () and his disturbingly violent rampages became one of the most buzzed-about series in horror. Although continued to rake in money while breaking bones, it’s that brings the most overall scares.

Benefitting from strong word of mouth, Terrifier 2 became one of the most unlikely box office successes of the year. The Terrifier movie series is not going to be for everyone, especially those who like their horror with minimal gore, but Art and his various torture methods have struck a chord with crowds. Scary is subjective, so while some might find the movie grindhouse schlock, for others.

An embalmed hand becomes a deadly party favor in the critically praised . The film follows Mia (), a teen still reeling from the death of her mother after an overdose of sleeping pills. While attending a party, Mia is invited to take part in a game where, by holding a severed embalmed hand, a person can briefly channel the dead. After experiencing the rush from the experience, Mia wants to do it as much as possible, despite the risks to her and those she cares for.

The acting by the cast across the board is fantastic, with in the leading role of Mia. The pain emanating from Mia is visceral as she struggles to reconcile the fantasy she clings to with the crushing reality in front of her, all the while losing her grip on reality. The steady pace might be too slow for some, but it’s hard to dispute that .

Meeting a partner’s family can be stressful, but for Chris (), his experience takes it to a whole new level in . Chris takes a trip with his girlfriend Rose () to meet her family, and on the surface, they seem like a well-meaning, if not slightly out-of-touch, family. However, the longer he’s there, the more Chris gets the feeling that there’s something sinister about the people surrounding him.

Not all scares come from chainsaws and the supernatural, as Get Out proves with its clever social commentary. By rooting the horror into a relatable activity that most couples experience, the tension can be built . Great acting and an incredibly smart script allow Get Out to shift between humor and horror within seconds, adding to the general feeling of off-balance suspicion Chris feels as the trip continues.

An uneventful train ride to visit a young girl’s mother becomes a fight for survival in the zombie thriller . After a workaholic father realizes he’s let his daughter down, he agrees to a birthday train ride to visit her mother. Unbeknownst to them, a zombie outbreak builds steam as they board the train, with an infected survivor sneaking into a passenger car before it takes off.

It should be impossible to build characters and deliver near-non-stop action and tension, but Train to Busan does so with an ease that should make it required viewing for future filmmakers. By giving the audience characters they relate to and care about, Train to Busan then to the end of the story. Zombie movies don’t get much better than Train to Busan, but they can feel free to try.

follows FBI agent Lee Harker () as she’s assigned to a series of murders where, in each, the father kills his entire family and then himself. Lee sorts through the clues left behind in the form of cryptic notes, only to receive warnings from Longlegs, the person they believe to be behind the murders. As Lee gets closer to solving the case, she also begins to unlock repressed memories from her past.

Longlegs benefited from one of the best horror marketing campaigns in recent years to create a feeling of curiosity tinged with dread that sold tickets to those it hooked in. Because expectations were all over the place for the film, there’s a portion of the audience who felt let down by the slow-burn thriller. For those who enjoyed it,, with scenes that were hard to shake after leaving the theater.

In , Tommy () and his son Austin () are about to call it a day in their small family-run morgue and crematorium. Before they can leave, the Sheriff brings in a Jane Doe found at the scene of a baffling multiple homicide, requesting an autopsy to be done as soon as possible to help with the murder investigation. As the father and son start to examine the body, strange occurrences happen around them that are omens of worse things to follow.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe picks up the conventional tropes of a standard haunted house story and drops them in an antiquated morgue to create a satisfying collection of scares. Cox and Hirsch are excellent as the father and son duo trapped in . The two usually have logical and relatable reactions to the supernatural happenings, avoiding the frustration that comes with dumb horror characters via bad writing.

A disturbing horror film to receive considerable international attention was the -starring . The film follows Annie (Collette), a mother of two who is processing the grief of recently losing her mother, with whom she had a strained relationship. When another shocking tragedy strikes the family, Annie becomes fixated on making contact with the dead, not understanding her decisions were driven by other forces.

Director is divisive for many, especially with more artistically driven, risky films like , but Hereditary is his most accessible horror story and still his best. Endlessly creepy, Hereditary is imbued with , a sense that something terrible will soon happen, and usually, it does. Collette gives one of the all-time best acting performances in a horror movie, and it’s baffling that she wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award.

A curse passed on through sexual contact is the basis for the unnerving . When Jay () has sex with her boyfriend for the first time, she’s shocked to find herself tied to a chair and told that a being who can appear as anyone will slowly stalk her until it kills her. Now in a perpetual state of fear, Jay wrestles with the responsibility of passing the curse on or living the rest of her life knowing she can never be at peace.

The idea of an entity slowly hunting its victim without rest is elegantly laid out in its simplicity and brilliantly executed. in the viewer as they strain to see if something is approaching, deriving fear from absolute stillness. The audience is effectively invited to share the ever-present dread of Jay as anything moving within her peripheral vision could be the last thing she sees.

A looming demonic presence threatens to sink a small town into the throes of evil in the fantastic horror gem . Brothers Pedro () and Jaime () learn that a demon is on the verge of being birthed by a possessed man, but their efforts to stop the demon’s arrival only speed up the timeline. As the brothers navigate one depraved encounter after another, the expectation of a happy ending becomes a foolish pipedream.

When Evil Lurks didn’t benefit from a wide theatrical release or national marketing, but with any luck, word of mouth will slowly put the movie on more people’s radar. while the events of When Evil Lurks play out, and the visual imagery is as shocking as it is masterful. Certain horror movies are fun diversions that illicit a few laughs, but When Evil Lurks burns its way into your brain for weeks, if not longer.

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