What makes a horror movie a cult horror movie? In a word: rewatchability. And with Halloween nearly upon us, the question of what frightening, shocking, silly, classic, or demonically camp movies to press play on again (and again) has never been more pertinent. Here at Vogue, of course, we dole out extra cult horror points if a movie can hold its own sartorially. Dario Argento’s Suspiria has inspired everyone from Nicolas Ghesquière to the Rodarte sisters; Yves Saint Laurent designed Catherine Deneuve’s costumes for the blood-soaked romance The Hunger; and Eiko Ishioka’s Japanese-influenced creations for Bram Stoker’s Dracula are just as striking now as they were in the ’90s. Below, Vogue rounds up 40 favorite cult horror movies, ranging from the very new to a few select tried and tested (and especially chic) classics.
- Red Rooms (2024)
- I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
- Infested (2024)
- Oddity (2024)
- Out of Darkness (2024)
- Starve Acre (2024)
- The Substance (2024)
- The Devil’s Bath (2024)
- Longlegs (2024)
- The First Omen (2024)
- M3GAN (2023)
- Evil Dead Rise (2023)
- Talk to Me (2023)
- When Evil Lurks (2023)
- Infinity Pool (2023)
- Pearl (2022)
- Smile (2022)
- Speak No Evil (2022)
- Barbarian (2022)
- Lamb (2021)
- The Night House (2021)
- Midsommar (2019)
- In Fabric (2018)
- Hereditary (2018)
- The Love Witch (2016)
- The Witch (2015)
- American Psycho (2000)
- The Blair Witch Project (1999)
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
- Heathers (1989)
- The Hunger (1983)
- The Shining (1980)
- The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
- Halloween (1978)
- Suspiria (1977)
- Carrie (1976)
- Don’t Look Now (1973)
- Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
- Blood and Black Lace (1964)
- What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
How many horror movies do you (or they) think people generally watch around Halloween? Imma guess it’s no where near 40 on average.
What makes a horror movie a cult horror movie? In a word: rewatchability.
No, that isn’t what makes a movie a cult horror movie. Standing the test of time does, and that requires at least a decade to have passed.
Unless the movie is about a cult, which I was hoping the list would be about.
That’s a weird list and being in chronological order really hammers home the recentish bias. Which is an issue because time is the test of a cult film - Longlegs, Barbarian, The Substance and I Saw the TV Glow will likely make the grade but… Evil Dead Rise over the first films? The Last Omen over The Omen? That’s borderline perverse.
And no The Thing? 1 from the noughties? 2 from the nineties? 3 from the eighties? They might be showing their age there. And virtually no foreign films? 🤷♂️
I hope you were serious…
Just an initial first pass…
Criteria:
- Stood the test of time (more recent ones are included that have potential)
- Rewatchable
- Not from big studios or big name directors (at the time they made them) - no Shining, Hellboy, Blade, eXistenZ, From Dusk Till Dawn, They Live, Mist, Event Horizon, etc. bit subjective but…
Also only 1 per franchise
- Dante’s Inferno (1911)
- The Golem (1920)
- Nosferatu (1922)
- The Unknown (1927)
- Seven Footprints to Satan (1929)
- Freaks (1932)
- The Spider Woman (1943)
- Eyes Without a Face (1960)
- Peeping Tom (1960)
- Village of the Damned (1960)
- Matango (1963)
- Kwaidan (1964)
- Onibaba (1964)
- The Last Man on Earth (1964)
- Quatermass and the Pit (1967)
- Kuroneko (1968)
- The Illustrated Man (1969)
- Blind Woman’s Curse (1970)
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1972)
- Horror Express (1972)
- The Wicker Man (1973)
- Don’t Look Now (1973)
- The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
- Shivers (1975)
- Carrie (1976)
- Eraserhead (1977)
- House (1977)
- The Sentinel (1977)
- Suspiria (1977)
- Dawn of the Dead (1978)
- Halloween (1978)
- Alien (1979)
- Phantasm (1979)
- Zombie Flesheaters (1979)
- Friday the 13th (1980)
- Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980)
- An American Werewolf in London (1981)
- Possession (1981)
- Scanners (1981)
- The Thing (1982)
- Xtro (1982)
- The Dead and the Deadly (1982)
- Human Lanterns (1982)
- Wacko (1982) - purely subjective
- Videodrome (1983)
- The Boxer’s Omen (1983)
- Seeding of a Ghost (1983)
- Deadly Spawn (1983)
- The Company of Wolves (1984)
- Razorback (1984)
- Return of the Living Dead (1985)
- Mr Vampire (1985)
- Re-animator (1985)
- House (1985)
- From Beyond (1986)
- The Seventh Curse (1986)
- Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
- Evil Dead 2 (1987)
- Hellraiser (1987)
- Near Dark (1987)
- Bad Taste (1987)
- A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)
- Brain Damage (1988)
- Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)
- Tetsuo (1989)
- Society (1989)
- Tremors (1990)
- Magic Cop (1990)
- The Resurrected (1991)
- Braindead (1992)
- Cronos (1992)
- Dust Devil (1992)
- Body Melt (1993)
- The Crow (1994)
- Cemetery Man (1994)
- Killer Tongue (1996)
- Cube (1997)
- Ringu (1998)
- The Faculty (1998)
- Biozombie (1998)
- Audition (1999)
- Meatball Machine (1999)
- Wild Zero (1999)
- Versus (2000)
- Spiral (2000)
- Ginger Snaps (2000)
- The Devil’s Backbone (2001)
- The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001)
- Visitor Q (2001)
- Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001)
- 28 Days Later (2002)
- Bubba Ho-tep (2002)
- Dog Soldiers (2002)
- Save the Green Planet (2003)
- A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)
- Shaun of the Dead (2004)
- Saw (2004)
- Night Watch (2004)
- Romasanta (2004)
- Survive Style 5+ (2004)
- Wolf Creek (2005)
- Feast (2005)
- Haze (2005)
- Slither (2006)
- Black Sheep (2006)
- Severance (2006)
- Fido (2006)
- The Cold Hour (2006)
- Re-cycle (2006)
- 30 Days of Night (2007)
- Timecrimes (2007)
- Inside (2007)
- Exte (2007)
- Tokyo Gore Police (2008)
- Martyrs (2008)
- Eden Lake (2008)
- Let The Right One In (2008)
- Midnight Meat Train (2008)
- Splinter (2008)
- Pontypool (2008)
- The Loved Ones (2009)
- Splice (2009)
- The Revenant (2009)
- The Collector (2009)
- Dead Snow (2009)
- The Horde (2009)
- Tucker and Dave vs Evil (2010)
- Rubber (2010)
- Stake Land (2010)
- Vampires (2010)
- The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
- Kill List (2011)
- Adam Chaplin (2011)
- You’re Next (2011)
- Juan of the Dead (2011)
- Grabbers (2012)
- Stitches (2012)
- Under the Skin (2013)
- Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
- Open Grave (2013)
- Frankenstein’s Army (2013)
- V/H/S/2/ (2013)
- What We Do In the Shadows (2014)
- Housebound (2014)
- I Am Hero (2015)
- The Devil’s Candy (2015)
- Train to Busan (2016)
- The Void (2016)
- The Greasy Strangler (2016)
- The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)
- Mayhem (2017)
- The Babysitter (2017)
- Anna and the Apocalypse (2017)
- Mandy (2018)
- Hereditary (2018)
- Apostle (2018)
- Overlord (2018)
- Psycho Goreman (2020)
- Spontaneous (2020)
- Titane (2021)
- Malignant (2021)
- The Sadness (2021)
- Silent Night (2021)
- Barbarian (2022)
- Day Shift (2022)
- Late Night With the Devil (2023)
- Strange Darling (2023)
- Longlegs (2024)
- In a Violent Nature (2024)
- I Saw The TV Glow (2024)
Great list, thanks for this.
Although, as much as I loved Malignant, it’s hard to argue that James Wan in 2021 doesn’t count as a big name director lol.
“He is the 16th highest-grossing director of all time as of 2021, with his films having grossed over $3.7 billion worldwide.”
