The best films for a group don't flatten the experience - they create one. You want something that generates opinions, debates, a reason to stay up later than planned.
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.
A dangerous combination of radiation and insecticide causes the unfortunate Scott Carey to shrink, slowly but surely, until he is only a few inches tall. His home becomes a wilderness where he must survive everything from spiders living in the cellar to his beloved cat.
A brilliant plastic surgeon creates a synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage. His guinea pig: a mysterious and volatile woman who holds the key to his obsession.
During an ever-growing epidemic of zombies that have risen from the dead, two Philadelphia SWAT team members, a traffic reporter, and his television-executive girlfriend seek refuge in a secluded shopping mall.
In a mid-19th century Essex country house, a young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted by ghosts and that the children are being possessed.
An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.
The horror films worth watching are the ones that stay with you not because of the scares but because of what the scares meant. These films mean something.
Henry Frankenstein pieces together body parts in the hope of bringing a human-like creature to life. The mad scientist's dreams are shattered by his monstrous creation awakening with rage to a world that hates and fears him.
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.
Aspiring Florida defense lawyer Kevin Lomax accepts a job at a New York law firm. With the stakes getting higher every case, Kevin quickly learns that his boss has something far more evil planned.
While working on a thesis about audiovisual violence, film student Ángela finds a snuff video where a girl is tortured until death. Soon she discovers that she was a former student in her university, and that the authors of the video are not very far either.
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
Films that mess with your mind work best when they've earned your trust first. The disorientation only lands if you were fully in. These get you in.
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.