The horror genre has permeated our lives through age old stories, novels, movies, poetry, video games and comic books etc. Although it has been an undeniable part of popular culture, horror fiction certainly doesn’t get the respect it deserves. This becomes evident with plenty of fantastic horror movies that have existed from a long time, but didn’t attract a lot of audiences. Most of you would want to watch well-known movie franchises, you can make it a little different this time by checking out some lesser known yet mindblowing sci-fi horror classics.To provide you some gateways to the world of obscure horror cinema, we have prepared a small list that will certainly make you more inquisitive, but only if you dare !
- Stephen King’s IT
Ok, let’s start with the least underrated one. Technically it’s not even a film but that shouldn’t mean it doesn’t deserve a mention. Stephen King’s IT was a mini-series that aired in 1990 and is considered to be a classic now. It’s story involved a group of friends named as ‘The Losers Club’ who encounter an inter-dimensional predatory entity simply dubbed as ‘IT’. ‘IT’s appearance is also kept dubious as it shape-shifts continuously and takes the form of the prey’s worst fears. It usually assumes the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, a memorable yet terrifying antagonist played by Tim Curry.
- In The Mouth Of Madness
Directed by John Carpenter, In the Mouth of Madness is the cold and bone-chilling Lovecraftian horror that will shake your very concepts of reality. The movie is narrated by a patient in a psychiatric hospital as he recounts the events of him losing his sanity. The main protagonist and narrator is played by Sam Neill, who delivers a maddening performance of man’s gradual and brutal descent into madness.
- The Cabin in the Woods
With a name like that, we know the movie is going to be full of cliches. But Cabin in the Woods does something that no other horror movie had ever done. The movie starts like a regular horror flick with college kids going to a far-off and remote cabin for vacation and ends up being killed. However, this movie is also a dark comedy that addresses all the cliches quite literally with a plot much deeper and terrifying than any conventional teen-horror flick. Since we do not want to ruin anything with spoilers, it’s better if you watch for yourself.
- Prince of Darkness
Yet another highly underrated classic directed by the aforementioned John Carpenter. Prince of Darkness takes supernatural horror elements and blends them superbly with science experiment gone wrong plot. The story involves a group of scientific researchers who are invited by a priest to investigate a mysterious green liquid that is described in the movie as material manifestation of Satan. Soon the liquid is let loose, and you can probably guess where it goes from here. But what Prince of Darkness does different that most other horror flicks is the highly eerie atmosphere and the cliffhanger ending that will keep you up at nights for weeks. And yeah, it also features Alice Cooper in a short yet memorable appearance.
- Re-Animator
A lot of people might think of this as a comedy-horror, but being one of the few direct adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft’s works, this clearly deserves this spot. The plot seems simple at first with a mad scientist trying to bring back dead to life and experiment goes awry. However, things soon turn even worse than you can anticipate with explicit and graphic scenes no other zombie flick has ever depicted. The storytelling keeps things fresh and will give you more chills than the actual on-screen gore (which happens in insane amounts, so be warned).
The above list might be short, but will certainly leave you with mind boggling and terrifying questions. Even if you’ve watched some of these, they’re guaranteed to be extremely shocking and scary, in a fun way of course!