For a Friday with friends, you need a film that doesn't require perfect silence to work. Something engaging enough that it holds attention even in a room with people in it.
The 2020s have already produced films that will be studied for decades - lean, precise, unafraid to take audiences seriously.
Horror works best when it earns the dread before deploying it. The best films in the genre build something you care about, then threaten it.
Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but egotistical scientist, brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.
In postwar Japan, Godzilla brings new devastation to an already scorched landscape. With no military intervention or government help in sight, the survivors must join together in the face of despair and fight back against an unrelenting horror.
Finney Blake, a shy but clever 13-year-old boy, is abducted by a sadistic killer and trapped in a soundproof basement where screaming is of little use. When a disconnected phone on the wall begins to ring, Finney discovers that he can hear the voices of the killer's previous victims. And they are dead set on making sure that what happened to them doesn't happen to Finney.
After tracing the origin of a disturbing supernatural affliction to a wealthy family's ancestral gravesite, a team of paranormal experts relocates the remains-and soon discovers what happens to those who dare to mess with the wrong grave.
Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
These films work because they respect their audience. They don't rush to the scare. They build it, layer it, let it sit â and then they deploy it perfectly.
Following the events at home, the Abbott family now face the terrors of the outside world. Forced to venture into the unknown, they realize that the creatures that hunt by sound are not the only threats that lurk beyond the sand path.
Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren encounter what would become one of the most sensational cases from their files. The fight for the soul of a young boy takes them beyond anything they'd ever seen before, to mark the first time in U.S. history that a murder suspect would claim demonic possession as a defense.
Following the death of their father, a brother and sister are sent to live with a foster mother, only to learn that she is hiding a terrifying secret.
Recently fired and desperate for work, a troubled young man named Mike agrees to take a position as a night security guard at an abandoned theme restaurant: Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. But he soon discovers that nothing at Freddy's is what it seems.
In a fairy-tale kingdom where beauty is a brutal business, Elvira battles to compete with her incredibly beautiful stepsister, and she will go to any length to catch the prince's eye.
A twist only works if the film has earned it. These films plant their revelations early, play fair, and still manage to blindside you.
Great horror stays with you because it was never really about the monster. The films that linger are the ones that used fear to say something true.