Horror is one of the more flexible genres, especially in filmmaking, that can be used to discuss serious topics that are really affecting our society or just to showcase some truly horrible and violent images. Either way, sometimes they can be real bummers to watch, but they are usually made by amazing auteurs. John Carpenter is a great director who was on both sides of this coin with the staunchly anti-capitalist They Live and the practical effects masterpiece The Thing. Whether you’re looking for some truly depressing horror or just want to watch something extremely violent, here are 11 horror movies that are some real downers.
11 Suspiria (2018)
A remake of the 1977 giallo classic of the same name directed by the “Master of Horror” Dario Argento in which a young American woman joins a reputable ballet academy in Germany. After a series of gruesome murders at the school, the young woman comes to realize that the school is a front for something much more sinister and supernatural. Luca Guadagnino’s reimagining does not stray too far from the plot of the original, though he does carve his path with the visuals.
Argento’s version is bathed in gorgeous bright colors, which both contradicts and accentuates the disturbing murders, which is par for the course in an Argento movie. Guadagnino, however, wanting to go for a much more grim tone and lean more into the supernatural elements, shoots the movie with almost no color, giving the audience a sense of unease from beginning to end. Stunningly macabre, Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria is somehow much more violent and depressing than the original, with a two and a half hour runtime, making this one a truly difficult watch.
10 Green Room (2015)
Upsettingly ahead of its time, Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room stars the late great Anton Yelchin, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, and Callum Turner as an indie punk rock band on tour trying to make a name for themselves. They end up playing a venue that is the local hangout for neo-Nazis, witness to a murder, and in an effort to cover it all up, are then hunted by the Nazis. Almost 100 years after defeating the Nazis in World War II, who could have guessed we would be living in a world in which we are once again fighting off fascism, but this time in our own country?
The villain of this movie is not supernatural, it is the absolute scum of humanity, and the movie does not shy away from the violence that they perform, giving it a disturbingly grounded tone. In addition, Yelchin does an amazing job that really makes you think about his career and where it could have gone, as this is one of his last performances. Green Room is a distressing and unrelenting horror slasher, that at the time of its release, was fun and stylish, but hits a little too close to home these days, which makes it a real bummer to get through.
9 I Saw the Devil (2010)
A violent and disturbing horror movie, Jee-woon Kim’s follow up to his amazing action comedy The Good, The Bad, and The Weird is an exhausting cinematic experience. I Saw the Devil is about a woman who is brutally murdered by a serial killer, and her fiancée, who is a top secret agent in the Korean government, goes on a one-man revenge mission to avenge her. Starring both legendary Korean actors Choi Min-sik as the serial killer, who is of course famous for his performance in Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy, and Lee Byung-hun as the fiancée who played the titular “Bad” in Kim’s last movie.
When they eventually find each other, they play a cat and mouse game of both psychological and physical torture, eventually beautifully culminating into one of the most upsetting endings of all time. A brutal and at times nauseating movie, I Saw the Devil is a movie that will make you want to load up an episode of My Little Pony afterward as a palate cleanser.
8 Antichrist (2009)
The first of Lars von Trier’s Depression Trilogy, Antichrist was conceived when he was hospitalized due to his own struggles with depression. Von Trier decided to deal with it the only way he knows how: by writing a depraved horror movie starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. After losing their infant son due to their unintentional negligence, Gainsbourg is stricken with violent grief, and with Dafoe playing a therapist, decides that they need to retreat to their secluded cabin in the woods called Eden.
What follows is a disconcerting and lecherous film about two people who are dealing with the most awful thing that can happen to someone. Dafoe hallucinates some ghastly images, and Gainsbourg becomes increasingly violent. This movie was criticized for its violence and extreme sadness, yet praised for it being an incredibly personal piece of art. Though Antichrist is a rough watch and highly distressing, it is a stunning movie with outstanding performances from Dafoe and Gainsbourg.
7 The House that Jack Built (2018)
Once again, Lars von Trier, known for his pushing of boundaries, returns to the list for yet another extremely violent and unnerving horror movie unlike any other. Starring the always superb Matt Dillon as the titular Jack, a vicious and prolific serial killer who we follow over the course of 12 years as he ferociously kills men, women, and children. Jack tells the story of his entire journey with killing to a disembodied voice known only as Verge in the form of narration throughout the entire film in forensic detail.
Beautifully shot by Manuel Alberto Claro who had worked with Von Trier before on Melancholia and both Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, and Dillion gives arguably the best performance of his career. Loosely based on Jeffrey Dahmer and his killings throughout the '80s, Dillion is staggering as the serial killer who takes tremendous pleasure in tormenting others in the most demented ways possible. The House that Jack Built is Lars von Trier making another perverted and abhorrent horror movie, forcing the audience to follow pure evil and true atrocities for two and a half hours.
6 Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)
Though it is considered more of a thriller, Park Chan-wook’s introduction in the unofficial Revenge Trilogy is a morbid tale of desperation and revenge that is highly gruesome and an unpleasant watch. Stars Shin Ha-kyun as Ryu who is a deaf-mute man with a sister, whom he loves very much, and is in desperate need of a kidney transplant. Recently laid off at his factory job, Ryu is convinced to kidnap and hold for ransom the daughter of the higher-up who fired him, played by the indelible Song Kang-ho.
With near constant twists and turns, this movie can feel like a never ending fever dream. Particularly shocking and deeply grim, that it can almost cross over into self-parody at times, all in service of Park showcasing how revenge is a vicious and perpetual cycle that never really solves anything. Compelling yet ghastly, Park Chan-wook’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance holds up a mirror to society by not only being about revenge but about socioeconomic problems as well, making this a tough one to watch due to its brutal honesty.
5 The Sadness (2021)
One of the most disturbing horror movies ever made, Rob Jabbaz The Sadness really displays how vile humanity truly is. Similar to Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, this movie is about a virus that rips through Taipei and turns everyone into sadistic and murderous psychopaths. The local government refuses to take precautionary measures to prevent the virus from spreading (take note of the year this movie was released), thus allowing it to run rampant.
At the center of this pandemic is a young couple played by Berant Zhu and Regina Lei, who are separated by the rapid spreading of the virus and are trying to find their way back to one another through a hoard of lecherous killer zombies. The “zombies” no longer have any inhibitions and act on pure animal instinct, showing that humans are on the edge of a thin line from crossing over into animals. The only thing that separates us from the animals is the thin veneer of our societal rules and once those are gone we see who we truly are. Based on a comic book, The Sadness is a horrifying film and great for anyone who wants to see people having violent sex on top of dismembered bodies and viscera.
4 Hereditary (2018)
From the twisted mind of the recent critical darling Ari Aster, Hereditary is one of the scariest movies in recent memory. Toni Collette stars as the grieving matriarch of a family whose mother recently passed and is being haunted by a demonic presence that she tries to stop. Pawel Pogorzelski is the cinematographer who has shot all of Aster’s movies, and shoots this one in a cold and analytical manner. This visual style gives the movie a bleak tone to a story that is already extremely bleak about the demons (in this case, the literal personification) that we inherit from our parents and the uneasy feeling that the ending is completely inevitable.
Collette also gives an Oscar-worthy performance (if they recognized horror movies) as a mother who is truly terrified, trying to solve the mystery of her mother’s death, and hold the family together amidst true tragedy. Hereditary is an unyielding nightmare that is so deeply spine-chilling that it might be this generation's The Shining.
3 The Last House on the Left (1972)
Wes Craven’s directorial debut that nearly killed his career just as quickly as it started, The Last House on the Left is a shocking horror movie that really puts on display the absolute worst of humanity. Two young girls, trying to see a concert, end up connecting with a group of true sleazeballs in an effort to score some weed for the concert. This group of people proceed to then sexually assault, torture, and kill the two defenseless and naive girls, which the movie has no problem showing all of it. After the parents of one of the girls discover her body, they decide to take revenge on the gang in the most vicious ways possible.
Critically derided and incredibly controversial at the time due to its shocking nature, which can feel like an exercise in futility, however, Craven does not want the audience to revel in the violence that is depicted in the movie but rather depict the endless cycle of it. Wes Craven went on to direct the original The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream 1-4. Now a cult classic, The Last House on the Left is an unpleasant and harrowing watch, but it did put one of our most iconic horror directors on the map.
2 28 Days Later (2002)
After having two back to back box office bombs in A Life Less Ordinary and The Beach, the great Danny Boyle decided to go back to basics and make a very low budget and scrappy movie. Teaming up once again with Alex Garland, the writer and director of Ex Machina and Annihilation, this movie follows Jim, a bike courier who wakes up from a coma to find a post-apocalyptic London. Jim, played by Cillian Murphy in his first major role, finds out that a “rage” virus has swept through the city and has caused complete societal collapse.
The virus causes the person to become irrationally violent, with a need to kill and infect the person nearest. Once more, this movie shows that after society collapses, and the animalistic nature of humanity is being pushed to the very limit, there is not much that separates us from the “zombies” that Jim is trying to get away from. Though it looks like it was shot on a fax machine from 1993, 28 Days Later is still a powerful and poignant horror movie that brought Danny Boyle, as well as Alex Garland, back into the good graces of Hollywood.
1 White Dog (1982)
A unique horror movie based on a novel by Romain Gary of the same title, Samuel Fuller’s White Dog is grappling with issues that today would be considered “too woke” for a certain subset of the country. This movie follows a Black dog trainer who is trying to retrain a violent dog that has been trained to attack exclusively Black people. The movie comes to an interesting conclusion about hatred, and it has an interesting angle for exploration whether racism is a mental condition or is a curable sickness.
Though it was a big hit with critics at the time, it never got a wide release, which is a true shame as this movie is supremely powerful and ahead of its time. With a score by the late great Ennio Morricone and shot by Bruce Surtees who came together to make a beautifully disturbing movie. White Dog might be more relevant now than it was upon its release, which makes it a bold piece of art even though its subject is not particularly fun to watch.