Halloween is approaching fast, and many students are beginning to watch their favorite horror movies.  I’m sure most of you have already seen the classics, like A Nightmare on Elm’s Street, the Shining, Chucky, and many other classic horror films. This year, rather than watching the same old classics, try watching a new horror movie. During quarantine, I was able to discover at least 80 unheard horror movies from Amazon Prime and Netflix, and I have carefully handpicked the best three movies from those that I have watched. This means that this list will be recommending horror movies that you have probably never heard of before, but deserve much more attention for its quality and a good scare. These films are not very well known, but that doesn’t mean that they should be overlooked!

Hell House LLC

Hell House was created to look like a documentary based on a fictional horror event. The “documentary” shows the long journey that the main protagonists go through with footage from cameras that the characters use to record their experiences. The way this movie was filmed made it seem so terrifyingly realistic. There are various horror elements, like clowns, ghosts, moving objects, death, and flinchable jumpscares throughout the movie. Because of the “documentary’s” lengthy introduction, there are not a lot of scary scenes during the first several minutes of the movie, so make sure to stay patient, because eventually the events start to become interesting. The horror scenes in this movie are quite dreadful and unsettling. One example of these scenes was when one of the characters went inside a room decorated with scary props to test out blinking lights. Once he went inside the room, as the lights would blink, one of the props would appear closer and closer to the character, as he screamed to be released from the room. In my personal opinion, this movie is much scarier compared to famous horror feature films. If you don’t want cheesy jumpscares, then this film is great for you.  

An IMDB user, Johndue-78390’s review on IMDB says, “I approach all modern found footage movies with a sense of cynicism nowadays – mainly because they’re usually atrocious – and going by the trailer, cover and even title of this film, it was no exception. But what a pleasant surprise! Great twists, a real and genuine sense of dread in the hotel and intense up until the end.

Location was perfect, fairly rural and run down but without giving in to the cliché, ‘cabin in the woods’ scenario. Great use of Halloween props for creating some ultra-spooky scenes and a decent enough original storyline to keep the viewer interested throughout.”

The film is 1hr and 23 minutes long, and has an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. This film is rated R due to frightening and intense scenes. 

The Night Eats The World

The Night Eats the World is an award-winning French film that is in English. The film is packed with emotion and a very intensely scary plot involving zombies. In 2018, it won an award at Canary International Film Festival, and has very good reviews from critics. Before watching this film, you need to acknowledge that this is an intentionally slow movie because of its emotional focus on how the main character  struggles mentally while learning to cope with isolation during the zombie apocalypse. Do not expect a constant action film like Dawn of the Dead, because this movie is more about the psychological challenges the main character goes through. There are still a lot of intense, hair raising horror scenes in the film, after all, he is surrounded by hordes of zombies during the entire film. The protagonist makes practical choices and uses survival tactics to keep himself alive, unlike typical horror movies where main characters make obnoxiously wrong moves. Overall, the psychological scenes were artistically dramatic, the horrific zombie chasing scenes were indeed agonizing, and all together the movie seemed like a well crafted nightmare. I definitely recommend this movie for patient horror movie watchers. 

Alex Hudson, a critic’s review about this movie is, “Zombies might not be all that scary, but being trapped with your own thoughts is terrifying.”

Erin Kohn, a top critic from Rotten Tomatoes says, “Even as the story drifts off, Night Eats the World derives its power from a beguiling, provocative implication: It’s hard to confront a hostile world, but gathering the courage to do so doesn’t make the job any easier.”

The film is 1hr and 34 minutes long. It has an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is rated R for brief nudity, violence, and gore. 

Seven (Se7en)

Seven is not necessarily a paranormal horror movie, but a disturbing crime/mystery/psychological thriller. This film won MTV movie awards for best movie and best villain in 1996. The two main protagonists are played by Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, but this film should be considered underrated in 2020 despite the famous actors and awards, because it is an older movie that I don’t hear brought up nowadays. Seven is about two police detectives trying to solve a series of murders all relating to the seven deadly sins. The movie is not too gory, but it still finds a way to be very eerie and disturbing. The dreadful murder scenes are not even showed, but simply the idea of it can already make the audience feel sick. Some scenes are action packed and intense, and other scenes are unsettlingly thought- provoking. 

Suryansh Thakur’s review on google says, “Dark. Really dark, now I have seen so many films of the dark genre, serbian, sola’ being the extremes of the genre, but Seven is something that is cut off a unique cloth, slow at some places,and nail biting at others, with not many bloody scenes to be called gory, the finale is not exactly unpredictable, but it’s almost like we know what’s going to happen next and we keep on wishing that it does not. Fantastic acting by Pitt and Freeman. David fincher is a master and class of his own. If you want to enjoy it fully, sit back and watch closely, and notice everything.from the weather to mumbling dialogues… It i s surely worth a watch. But not for the faint hearted.” 

It is rated R for grisly afterviews of horrific and bizarre killings, and for strong language. It is 2 hours and 8 minutes long. 

There are hundreds of horror movies out there on many different platforms. These are the ones I found the best from the ones I have discovered, and if you watch it I hope we share the same opinion about the movies! Hope you enjoy these movies and have a happy halloween!