Horror has many sub-genres, but one of the spookiest is the unpredictability brought by horror films combining thriller and mystery. The terror of suspense as a story unfolds in a way that the viewer has no idea what to expect next brings the psychological aspect of horror to a new level that can create scares other than, or in support of, slasher or gore terror. The Cabin in the Woods is an early example of utter unpredictability in horror, playing with the audience's expectations of the genre and the creation of scares that dig deep below surface level.

Update October 18, 2023: This list has been updated with even more great horror films to watch that are similar to Cabin in the Woods.

What begins as seemingly a slasher evolves into a tense and sometimes darkly comedic story that ventures into psychological territory further than first expected. Looking for something to follow up on your Cabin in the Woods watch? Here are the top 23 horror films for an unpredictable watch.

23 Vivarium (2019)

Jessie Eisenberg takes on horror in this mysterious, thrilling movie about an idyllic suburban development being far from what it seems. A young couple goes to view a house with an unsettling real estate agent where all the houses look the same, and no inhabitants have moved in yet. But when the agent disappears, they find themselves trapped in a neighborhood that has its own unusual plans for them.

Vivarium crosses genres with some dark comedy, drama, and even sci-fi elements, intertwining with a horrifying story filled with metaphors about parenthood that unravels in a mind-bending manner. Eisenberg stars opposite Imogen Poots in this suburban nightmare.

22 Southbound (2015)

This anthology film follows five interconnected short films that all take place along an isolated desert highway. Southbound combines demonic creatures, mysterious cults, revenge plots, and grisly fights in a plot that twists and turns more than the desert highway. The anthology horror format is pushed into a unique concept where each story threads into the next with some characters in common, allowing a particularly eerie uncertainty as to what will happen next. Southbound premiered at the 2015 TIFF and involves some of the team from the famous found-footage horror film anthology V/H/S.

21 The Menu (2022)

Ralph Fiennes is in fine form in Mark Mylod’s thriller meets horror. 2022’s The Menu put a refreshing spin on a genre that has developed a propensity to rely on the same old, predictable tropes. The Menu employs a unique and distinctive style and narrative as an assortment of couples head over to a remote island to enjoy a high-end restaurant run by the highly-coveted Chef Slowik (Fiennes). An immaculately fastidious Slowik boasts an earth-shattering tasting menu and a culinary experience that has homicidal undertones.

20 Last Night in Soho (2021)

A great way to play with the unknown is by using alternating timelines. Edgar Wright's horror drama Last Night in Soho revolves around an outcast aspiring fashion student who finds herself dreaming of being in the shoes of a performer in the seedy world of 1960s London. Except she may not just be dreaming.

When the past starts to seep into the present, the protagonist and audience scramble to unravel a dark history that will ring in your ears long after the last notes die out. The eerie ambiguity that Anya Taylor-Joy brings to her character Sandie is a great asset to the uncertainty in the story, haunting the protagonist's mind and leaving the audience continuing to question what is reality and will the past catch up to the present.

19 The Invitation (2015)

The Invitation cleverly uses slow-burn trepidation and perspective to build uncertainty in this single-location film and unravels in almost real-time of one evening. A man returns to his old house, where a terrible tragedy occurred, to attend his ex-wife's dinner party. When he suspects something sinister is going on with his ex-wife and her new husband's intentions for hosting all their old friends, the night begins to derail.

The protagonist is still wrought by grief, and as the story progresses, we question whether his suspicions are valid while he's being gaslit or if his mind really is just playing tricks. With the single location, the intimate build-up of tension leaves the audience questioning what is really going on at this dinner party and who can be trusted.

18 The Babadook (2014)

Aren’t all movies that involve kids purportedly having visions relatively scary? Well, the 2014 psychological horror, The Babadook, takes that sentiment and runs with it, creating more of a cowering behind-the-sofa experience rather than simply watching pensively through one’s fingers, such is the painful suspense Jennifer Kent’s low-budget horror dishes out.

When Australian widow Amelia Vanek’s (Essie Davis) son becomes infatuated with a children’s pop-up book called Mister Babadook and the idea that the book’s titular character is real, Amelia reassures her son, Sam, by denying its very existence. However, soon after, she rips up the book, and very literally, all hell breaks loose.

17 Get Out (2017)

Get Out takes uncertainty to a whole other level in this unpredictable story in which a man goes to visit his girlfriend's family, only to find that the family's odd behavior is not overcompensation for their daughter's interracial relationship but due to a much more nefarious scheme. What makes uncertainty in horror play out especially well is when the ending is completely unpredictable, yet when looking back, all the pieces line up and drop the hints that retrospectively can completely piece together the final picture. The intricate creation of intentional scares.

In Get Out, Jordan Peele's directorial debut into the horror genre, the audience is thrown into the perspective of the protagonist being confused at all the eerie occurrences and behavior, but the big reveal of the horrific circumstances is entirely unexpected while also making complete sense with the path that's been paved. Daniel Kaluuya's riveting performance, turning from confused comedic moments to pure terror, carries the uncertainty brilliantly.

16 The Skin I Live In (2011)

This 2011 Spanish-language film directed by Pedro Almodóvar and starring Antonio Banderas hits the jackpot of unpredictability with the unnerving plot alone. What begins as a mystery/drama gradually develops into horror and revenge as the truth is revealed. The plot of The Skin I Live In revolves around a skilled but grief-stricken plastic surgeon working on designing new skin grafts for burn victims.

His isolated mansion imprisons Vera, some kind of human guinea pig for experiments, whose identity remains buried beneath the skin. Based on a French book by the name of Tarantula, the intricate plot and key horrifying plot twist is brought to life through subtle performances in what Almodóvar described as "a horror story without screams of frights."

15 Werewolves Within (2021)

Werewolves Within is a horror comedy that tends to be hit or miss with audiences, but it makes a valiant effort to leave its mark on the horror genre anyway. To be clear, this is much more of a whodunit than a monster film. In fact, don't expect to see much of the titular creature at all, although there are some gruesome kills implied by the beast. The mystery begins when forest ranger Finn Wheeler arrives after being appointed to the small town of Beaverfield. Pairing up with Cecily, a postal worker, he investigates a series of disappearances that lead him to speculate a werewolf might be stalking the community.

Werewolves Within is a layered comedy full of twists and unforgettable characters who feel like they'd really be your neighbors in a small town. Every time you think you've figured out who the creature is, you're proven wrong. Its strength lies in its witty script, which serves up more than one twist and a scathing portrait of human nature before the end credits roll.

14 Mother! (2017)

Director Darren Aronofsky is known for his thought-provoking films like the recent Academy Award-winning release The Whale, but also for particularly disturbing horror films. Mother! is both thought-provoking and disturbing, with the story seemingly an allegory investigated by audiences to draw out meaning from the confusing events. Javier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence star as a couple, a poet and his wife, renovating their Victorian mansion. But when a stranger shows up at their door, and the poet allows him to be their guest, more people start to arrive at the house, and chaos ensues.

This very abstract plot surprises and certainly divided critics and audiences upon its release. But if you're searching for a plot to both challenge the mind and make your heart race, Mother! is a sure choice. Seeing Lawrence appear in a film very different from her previous roles also gives another unpredictable edge.

13 Barbarian (2022)

This release thrilled horror audiences with its sheer unpredictability. Barbarian very cleverly sets up a premise with classic horror movie tropes that tricks the audience into thinking they know exactly how this will play out. But the story uses this false sense of security to create shock factor later on. Introducing a new character narrative in the midst of a tense moment of action plays with the format to keep the audience constantly on their toes.

Barbarian begins with a woman showing up at her rental house in an abandoned neighborhood to find it has been double-booked, with the seemingly charming young man staying there inviting her to stay too. This young man is played by Bill Skarsgard, who after playing villainous clown Pennywise in the IT franchise, brings something untrustworthy to this man in what appears to be the start of a typical horror film. What unfolds is far from predictable. Expect plenty of horror/comedy, too, as Barbarian pokes fun at horror movie tropes while being simultaneously terrifying.

12 Midsommar (2019)

From the eccentric, perhaps slightly perturbed mind of Ari Aster came 2019’s folk horror, Midsommar, following his critically and commercially successful 2018 feature debut, Hereditary. Few anticipated that Aster’s follow-up just a year on from his directorial bow would have the capacity to rival its predecessor, but rival it did. Set against the backdrop of a free love festival in the picturesque fields of rural Sweden, four American friends travel during their college semester over to the Midsommar Festival, blissfully unaware of the hallucinatory fever dream dripping in blood that is set to greet them, the four enter the murderous commune with open minds.

In terms of structural disparities between Midsommar and the stereotypical horror, there are very few. However, the sheer, unrelenting shock factor that is gradually ramped up throughout, combined with this disconcerting, seemingly supernatural presence and sacrificial threat, is thoroughly unpredictable. What transpires in Aster’s horrifying masterpiece is so utterly unforeseeable and deeply disturbing it makes for a truly spectacular and iconic finale.

11 The Witch (2015)

Taylor-Joy stars in another unpredictable horror film directed by Robert Eggers, her feature film debut. The Witch takes place in the 1630s Puritan New England when a family's baby disappears, and they start to suspect their eldest daughter of witchcraft, causing the child's disappearance. The bleak, isolated colonial setting on the edge of a dark, threatening, perhaps paranormal forest creates an environment of slow-burn suspense that feels like a nightmarish fairytale.

The settlers' intense Puritan fears of religious corruption and of the unknown lurking in the hostile woods show how the reaction to uncertainty can be anger, fear, and dangerous suspicion, with the film being an allegory for uncertainty in bleak times itself and how far one might go to pinpoint blame. Eggers is famous for his films having bewildering endings, and The Witch is no exception.

10 Goodnight Mommy (2015)

This 2015 Austrian horror film recently got an American remake starring Naomi Watts, which may not have quite captured the strengths of the original. The original Goodnight Mommy follows two twin boys unnerved by their mother returning home after facial cosmetic surgery. Her face is concealed in bandages, and her cold and erratic behavior leads the boys to think this woman isn't their mother, just posing as her, leading them to take drastic measures to find out who she really is.

A particularly ghastly and violent tale rooted in buried trauma through a child's perspective combines mystery and body horror as the audience questions, like the boys, if this woman is really their mother. Cleverly placed hints piece together a mystery that leads to a gut-wrenching plot twist towards the end. Goodnight, Mommy definitely pushes the limit of scares and begs the question of what really is the cause of the horror in this family—paranormal interference or psychological torment.

9 Underwater (2020)

This claustrophobic thriller set at the bottom of the Mariana Trench has surprised many audiences with its villain reveal. Starring Kristen Stewart as part of a crew of oceanic researchers working for a deep sea drilling company, Underwater is a slow-burn mystery about what caused the earthquake that essentially strands the team in the deepest part of the ocean. Imagine everything going wrong all at once. As they try to find a way out of their predicament, something unknown begins stalking and picking them off, one by one.

John Gallagher Jr. and T.J. Miller are included in the cast, offering moments of comic relief from the visceral, tense atmosphere created by being trapped in an inescapable place. While this movie isn't perfect by any means, it's surprisingly entertaining, especially if you're a fan of creature features.

8 You're Next (2011)

Like Cabin in the Woods, You're Next was a 2011 release that knew what the audience was expecting to see and smartly used that to deliver a completely different experience. Sure, this home invasion thriller features creepy masked killers and gruesome deaths, but it also delivered one of the decade's best final girls. At first assumption, Erin is simply an average young woman accompanying her boyfriend to a family reunion, but that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of who she is.

You're Next is also layered with social commentary that subtly and not-so-subtly taps into real-life fears caused by generational wealth inequality, student debt, and unemployment. This one might be pretty brutal and gory at times, but it never stops surprising the viewer.

7 Housebound (2014)

If you like your horror with a twist of Kiwi, make sure you give the New Zealand film Housebound a chance. A troubled young woman is arrested and placed on house arrest under the supervision of her estranged mother, who believes her home is haunted. Skeptical at first, Kylie quickly becomes a believer after learning the house was once the site of a horrific murder and experiencing a series of unexplainable occurrences.

Full of deadpan dark humor mixed with some real scares, this haunted house tale is clever and full of twists. It can be darkly funny but also gory, and while its premise might be a familiar one used in haunted house films now, Housebound holds up on rewatches as being bloody good fun.

6 Ready or Not (2019)

Before Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett revived the Scream franchise, they directed one of the most enjoyable hyper-violent horror gems rich with dark humor — Ready or Not. Starring Samara Weaving, Grace finds herself marrying into one of the world's wealthiest families despite being a lower-class former foster child. After saying "I do," she discovers her new in-laws' board game empire is built on a deal with the devil when she draws a losing hand that triggers a fatal game of hide and seek.

As Rolling Stone says, "What’s unexpected is subversive wit that turns Ready or Not into a satiric sneak attack on the institution of marriage." While you think you might expect the ending, prepare yourself for a few surprises when you get there.

5 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

10 Cloverfield Lane is part of the Cloverfield anthology film series produced by J.J. Abrams, which are purposely crafted with many questions to make audiences re-watch and connect the dots with their own interpretations. Combining horror, drama, and a chilling dystopian premise, 10 Cloverfield Lane tells the story of Michelle, who is involved in a car collision only to wake up in an underground bunker with two men who refuse to let her leave, claiming the apocalypse has occurred on Earth and their only possibility of survival is to stay in the bunker.

The mind games at the root of the drama cause unnerving unpredictability as Michelle tries different tactics to get into the men's heads and escape the bunker. The high claustrophobia of the bunker setting increases the stakes of what could happen next, sure to keep audiences on the edge of their seat. A somewhat contentious plot twist ending promises an unexpected finale.

4 The Bad Batch (2016)

This dystopian thriller/horror available on Netflix divides both audiences and critics, but can certainly promise an unhinged story of unpredictability carried by Jason Momoa, Suki Waterhouse, Keanu Reaves, and Jim Carrey. In The Bad Batch, Arlen (Waterhouse) is a young woman thrown into a Texas wasteland where criminals of society are sent to live. She finds herself on the run from cannibal leader Miami Man (Momoa) and attempts to find refuge in a drug-fueled make-shift city led by cultish The Dream (Reaves). Carrey plays the mysterious Hermit, whom she encounters on the way.

The bleak setting and absurdist characters, each more uncanny or villainous than the next, create a wild and unexpected journey of survival in a cruel and hedonistic landscape. The unusual alliance that the movie culminates with is sure to surprise and add an emotional layer to the horror.