To create a lasting impression, a motion picture needs to have one or more of the following key ingredients — Creativity, unpredictability, and innovation. Sadly, in order to play it safe, many of today's horror movie directors simply repackage what has already been done hundreds of times before (family or group of teens find themselves in a haunted house, cheap jump scares, etc.) without even trying to avoid the clichés intelligent audiences have long-lost their tolerance for.
Has the bar been set too high? Maybe. And that's not to say that there isn't still some originality to be found in some of the scare-inducing flicks of the 2010s and 2020s. However, nothing seems to come close to creating the impact some of the biggest horror classics of the 90s and their predecessors had on the genre. In this article, we will revisit some of the irreplaceable classics that shocked the world and still haunt audiences for one reason or another.
5 The Shining
Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, The Shining (1980), remains one of the most re-watched and studied horror films to date. Starring Jack Nicholson in one of his most iconic villain roles as Jack Torrance, and Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance, the story follows a husband, his wife, and their child and the horrific events that follow after the family decides to stay at a desolate hotel as a means for Jack to cure his writer's block. The film quickly takes a dark turn as we find out that there's more for Jack to cure than just his writer's block - namely, his ever-growing insanity.
The Shining did not win any major awards and was even referred to as "a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it" by Stephen King, who also wrote the novel, as per The Independent. However, in time it became one of Kubrick's most iconic creations and blessed us with one of the most legendary villain lines in cinema history: "Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are."
4 The Silence of the Lambs
Based on Thomas Harris’s novel, and directed by Jonathan Demme, The Silence of the Lambs (1994) is a crime thriller/horror that follows the story of Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), an FBI agent who seeks the help of a psychopath cannibal (Anthony Hopkins) to capture a serial killer who wears his victims’ skins as suits.
The film cemented its legacy by winning five academy awards, including Best Actor in a Leading Role for both Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Sound. The Silence of the Lambs is one of the rare examples of a film getting as close as possible to perfection, with a deeply intense and unforgettable story where hero teams up with villain as a last resort for solving the ultimate serial killer case. In addition, it contains wildly-gripping performances and technical mastery on all fronts. Today, the film rocks nearly perfect scores from both critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.
3 The Blair Witch Project
Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s The Blair Witch Project (1999) is a found footage horror film that tells the story of three film students who disappear in a haunted forest after trying to shoot a documentary about the witch that inhabits it.
With a minuscule estimated budget of just $60,000, the team managed to create a shockingly terrifying experience that still haunts audiences more than two decades later. With a limited cast and without the use of any special effects, they accomplished a feat very few filmmakers have been able to come close to, which has earned the movie a top spot in the genre’s most successful films to date. For its time, The Blair Witch Project delivered an experience so real that upon its release, audiences believed it was a real documentary, as per Buzz Feed News.
2
Psycho
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) follows the story of a money-thieving secretary (Janet Leigh as Marion Crane) on the run who checks into an isolated motel where she befriends a young host/receptionist (Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates). The story takes a dark turn as Bates turns out to be a psychopathic killer with a split personality disorder.
Loosely based on the true story of Ed Gein, an infamous serial killer and body snatcher, Perkins's character made history by giving audiences a true glimpse into the mind of a demented nutjob murderer obsessed with his dead mother. At the time, the British master of suspense also shocked the world by defying Hollywood script structure standards by killing off his protagonist 30 minutes into the movie. Psycho remains Hitchcock's most re-watched motion picture and has earned its rightful place in the horror movie hall of fame. Today, the movie boasts an almost perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, with 96% among critics and 95% in audience ratings.
1 Cannibal Holocaust
Italian director Ruggero Deodato’s 1980 Cannibal Holocaust is a found-footage horror film that follows the story of a film crew that sets out to make contact with the tribes of the Amazon rainforest. Desperate to fill their film cans with shock-inducing footage, the team goes to unthinkable lengths, which includes staging scenes of shocking real-life brutality.
Dubbed “the most controversial film ever made” by The Telegraph and known as the movie that revolutionized the found-footage genre, Cannibal Holocaust managed to shock the world like no other movie in history. Being extremely realistic, it also caused Deodato’s arrest as the director was accused of being responsible for the death of the film crew at the hands of cannibals. It was later revealed that the actors were alive and well, and the Deodato had created a publicity stunt to catapult the movie into global popularity. He was also widely criticized for making his crew murder real animals on camera.