Horror is often the most fun genre for many film fans, and with such a vast number of different sub-genres and films releasing every year, it’s often easy for great horror films to be lost or forgotten over time. This list will hopefully bring some of those films back for a moment, leaving it up to you to seek these films out and give them a platform should you enjoy them. The audience is key to keeping cinema alive, so let’s work together here! Without any further ado, here are ten great horror films you may have missed.

1. Creepy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2016)

Starting off, let’s talk about a film from the man who may just be the greatest horror director alive right now. Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a master beyond comparison, really, showing such talent from behind the camera and working as such a strong emotionally guiding hand that it’s pretty hard to believe. Kurosawa’s use of blocking and camera movement are beautiful examples of the power of the more simplistic parts of cinema (similarly to how a director like Luchino Visconti uses zooms to express moments of a huge emotional scale through very little time and movement), and Creepy makes use of these in excess.

Creepy follows a family who move house and find their new neighbour… a little odd, let’s say. With Teruyuki Kagawa giving the absolute performance of a lifetime as the aforementioned unsettling neighbour, Kiyoshi Kurosawa takes a shift from his usually more paranormal and fantastical plots (especially as of late with Kiyoshi even switching up his usual genre choices, delving into romance and comedy) to something more real and just as chilling.

2. Maniac (William Lustig, 1980)

Whilst the remake seems to have garnered quite a strong modern cult following thanks to Elijah Wood’s performance and the wonderful choice to shoot the film in a first person POV, William Lustig’s original appears to have been forgotten and left behind in the dust alongside a plethora of other 70s and 80s sleaze-fests. It’s a real shame considering just how strong of a film the original Maniac is, one that utilises its protagonist (if you can call him that, anyway) to take a majestic deep dive into the darkness of the human mind amidst the problems within America plaguing the working class especially in the 1980s.

It’s disorienting and disturbing, and the low budget look (made most clear by the screen being smothered in grain and ruptured film reels) only make it all the more convincing, and therefore, all the more disturbing. Maniac aligns with the likes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a lot more than people let on, and it definitely deserves a lot more acclaim than it gets now.

3. Lake Mungo (Joel Anderson, 2008)

The only film that Joel Anderson has directed to date, Lake Mungo is one of the most chilling horror films of recent memory. Whilst found footage is often given flack for being lazy (an ability it gains from being shot on cheap digital cameras, often using ‘technical issues’ to skip showing things, etc.), Lake Mungo is one of the few found footage horrors that have managed to gather some acclaim next to the Blair Witch Project (1999), REC (2007) and maybe Cloverfield (2008). Lake Mungo uses a mixture of found footage and faux-documentary interviews to tell the story of Alice Palmer, a sixteen year old girl who drowns and whose family begins to experience some… unsettling events afterwards.

One has to admire Anderson’s confidence in tackling his subject, especially considering he is a first time director here. To make such a haunting film but also to make it seem so bold and confident in its execution is genuinely exhilarating, and this self assured swagger makes the film doubly impressive. It’s a shame that Anderson would never make another film, hopefully one is out there somewhere brewing, but it would be especially great for him to return to horror to give another bone chilling slow burner. Lake Mungo is a taut, mature horror film that is just patient enough to be truly memorable and discomforting.

4. Bug (William Friedkin, 2006)

Friedkin made it clear he was out for cinematic blood throughout the 1970s with his absolutely stellar output within said decade. From The French Connection to The Exorcist to Sorcerer, Friedkin marked the landing of a huge new name in mainstream Hollywood for thrills and scares, before going on to a steady career full of pretty overlooked films, such as Killer Joe and The Hunted (two terrific thrillers – Killer Joe especially plays out like a deliriously hellish play, it’s wonderful… and bloodthirsty!).

Bug is another fibre in the string of those late career gems from Friedkin, one that slipped under the radar but managed to gather a cult following together as the word of mouth spread regarding how extreme and weird Bug is. Starring the always excellent Michael Shannon and Ashley Judd, the film starts off sad and by the end is genuinely disturbing. Not so much a fun and quirky horror as one that actually gets deeply under your skin and is more than happy to remain there for some time. A wonderful psychological freakout of a film, Bug is one of the standouts of recent gross-out horror, and my God does it give the sub genre a good name again. It’s a shame that it never quite landed an audience, but maybe that time can still come!

5. Dark Water (Hideo Nakata, 2002)

Taking things away from America and heading back to Asian horror, Hideo Nakata’s Dark Water is a great example of the mixing of melodrama and horror. Using divorce and struggles with both class and mental health (making this movie slightly ahead of its time in a few ways), Dark Water marks a shift in the horror genre as a whole just before that change actually occurred, a shift that saw horror shift from franchise building slashing serial killers (via Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, etc.) to darker, more psychological and more melodramatic horror that instead saw the fear emanate from things that we can all relate to.

Making the choice to manifest these abstract fears within ghosts also proved perfect, lifting the idea from Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse which came out two years prior and editing it to fit with the more direct ideas surrounding class. Nakata’s film is a wonderfully simplistic breath of fresh air for modern horror, and definitely a film that has quite the lasting impact on the horror genre (compare this to the hugely popular franchises started by James Wan and all becomes clear).

Everyone has heard of Freddy, Jason, and Michael, but have they heard of the Guitar-Drill Killer, outlaw biker satanic werewolves, bum-melting alcohol, or Belial? Well, they should, especially if they are a fan of horror. A lot of great horror franchises have received worldwide theater releases and are known and loved by many around the globe. 

Each of the aforementioned big franchises have had 10 plus releases, each spawning sequel after sequel, reboots, and remakes across decades for millions to enjoy. But have these horror freaks seen the criminally underrated 1988 sequel of the awesome Sleepaway Camp series? Do casual horror fans who enjoy modern zombie romps like “The Walking Dead” or “Zombieland” know that “Return of the Living Dead” revolutionized the brain eating undead in 1985? Probably not, but here are 10 cult classics every horror hound should watch right now.

1. Werewolves on Wheels (1971)

The earliest film on the list, “Werewolves on Wheels” is from 1971 during the explosion of the Bikesploitation era.  Many outlaw biker flicks were made during the Vietnam/post-Nam era in which many veterans were coming home with no place or purpose, so they rode on the coattails of their forebears from World War II and joined motorcycle clubs. However, these bikers were nastier and rowdier than ever, giving rise to a great cult genre of film.

This one in particular mixes the grittiness of an outlaw film with the suspense and terror of a classic Universal monster film with a satanic twist. Director Michel Levesque began in film under grindhouse god Roger Corman, and it shows here. We meet the Devil’s Advocates cruising down the road in the desert to an awesome acid-soaked late ‘60s/early ‘70s rock n’ roll soundtrack. A truck driver runs one of the members off the road, so the gang meets up with them at a gas station and beats the one guy to hell. Inside the station we meet the members.

Adam is the leader, Helen is his woman, and Tarot is his right-hand man who sets the occult tone by reading cards for Helen and sealing her fate. The gang happens upon a desert satanic temple in which the monks dose them with drugged bread and wine and perform a ritual to transform Helen into the bride of Satan, but what the gang does not know is that some members have been transformed as well. Later after numerous mysterious deaths, the gang learns on a moonlit desert evening that certain members, including Adam, are the ones performing the claw-dragging ritualistic murders. The end is perfectly pessimistic akin to the feeling of post-war America for this grindhouse cult classic that would be awesome for any drive-in motorcycle rally.

2. The House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

This super sleazy, gritty picture is brought to us by Italian master Ruggero Deodato, who also brought us the super gory cult classic “Cannibal Holocaust.” “The House on the Edge of the Park,” akin to “The Last House on the Left” from American horror master Wes Craven, is Italy’s answer to the home invasion rape and torture phenomenon happening in grindhouse cult horror at the time. It even shares the same star, David Hess, who really brings that dirty, perverted, sleazy vibe to life.

The film opens with Hess running a woman off the road then raping and killing her in her car, and this is just the pre-credit sequence! As the credits roll, we are introduced to that sleazy New York of old that people talk about now as legend. Alex (Hess) is a mechanic getting ready to go out for the evening with his not-all-there buddy Ricky. A car with some nicely dressed young couples comes in to ask for help. Alex is hesitant as they are ready to go out, but Ricky finds a quick fix. Alex and Ricky invite themselves to the small get-together with their new ‘friends’ and away we go, but not before Alex goes and grabs a straight razor.

We arrive at the party and there is a weird vibe. Alex isn’t feeling it and he realizes these snobby folks are mocking and taking advantage of Ricky. Alex does not like this and all hell breaks loose. He beats the one kid bloody and holds everyone else hostage with the razor. From here until the extreme twist ending, it’s nothing but Alex being super sleazy, dirty, and ‘rapey’ until his ultimate demise. Lots of tension and grime mixed with elements of Italian Giallo make “House” a definite cult classic.

3. Pieces (1982)

This bonkers slasher from Spain’s J.P. Simon is exactly that – a bonkers slasher. We open on a kid doing a naughty puzzle of a naked lady. His mother walks in, sees it, and becomes furious and yells at him. He then hacks her up with an axe, chops up the body, then continues his puzzle until the cops arrive. They find her head in the closet. Flash forward to leather-gloved hands back in the house and we find the bloody puzzle box and the bloody dress his mother was wearing. Cut to a college campus and the madness begins. A girl is being chased and slashed throughout the campus and eventually runs into two men moving a large mirror and gets even more cut up, but we get a quick cut to the mother smashing a mirror.

The killings continue this way throughout the film with inserts of the killer attempting to finish the puzzle with other insanity thrown in for good measure. The next kill is a girl studying on some grass and a guy is trimming hedges with a chainsaw. She asks how long he’ll be and he says only a minute. He then chops her head off with the chainsaw. We then figure out his weapon of choice is indeed the chainsaw.

We also get a crazed janitor mistaken for the killer who fights off all the cops, a martial arts instructor who accidentally beats up a female professor, and one of the coolest horror movie kills of all time with a girl being chopped up in a bathroom stall by the killer. It all comes to a wild twist conclusion with no real build-up to a crazy dream-like ending, making “Pieces” one of the finest and most interesting cult slashers of all time.

4. Basket Case (1982)

NYC’s own Frank Henenlotter’s foray into the cult scene cemented him as one of horror’s beloved sons. This gritty, darkly comedic portrayal of New York is as much about the city itself in 1982 as the characters who occupy this strange Henenlotter universe.

The film opens on a doctor in his office being slaughtered by some unknown gnarly creature. We then cut to Duane Bradley walking with a basket through the grimy streets of late night New York City full of porno theaters, drug dealers, and hookers. He lands at the sleazy Hotel Broslin and gets a room. He grabs some food and throws it all in the basket while talking to it and he pulls out the bloody files from the doctor’s office from earlier. Duane goes around and meets up with doctors around the city and eventually meets a girl he likes, one of the secretaries.

Eventually the doctors start dying off due to the grisly murders by this mysterious creature, and only later do we figure out due to a drunken confession by Duane to his neighbor that the thing in the basket is his severed, conjoined twin Belial, who was separated from him when they were younger and doomed to be discarded due to his extreme deformities. Duane and Belial are seeking revenge on all the doctors who performed the secret rogue surgery. “Basket Case” really does capture the essence of early ‘80s gritty New York in this cult masterpiece ripe with awesome practical effects and blood galore, even spawning a few sequels.

5. Rocktober Blood (1984)

This awesomely absurd ‘80s hair metal cult classic will rock you to death. With a ripping soundtrack done by Sorcery and some awesome on-screen kills, “Rocktober Blood” has cemented itself into the annals of metal horror history.

We meet Billy Eye, the lead singer of the band, in the studio rocking out with some new recordings. He leaves to go have a late night booty call. His backup singer, Lynn, records something, but then decides to call it a night. People start getting killed in the studio by a mysterious figure. We then see Billy sitting in the booth menacingly laughing. He slashes Lynn, but a security guard comes in and Billy chases him out to a cut.

Flash forward to two years later and it is Headmistress’s 1984 Rocktober Blood Tour! Lynn is the new lead of the band, but things start to go awry when people end up dead and Lynn swears she sees Billy again, even though he had been executed for the murders years ago. The band decides to get away to a cabin, but the killing does not stop. They even go to dig up his grave to prove he is dead only to find a decaying corpse.

The big show of the tour is coming up and Lynn is still uneasy. Someone in a mask is in her dressing room, who drugs her and puts her in a coffin for her big reveal during the big show. A huge twist as the final rocking performance goes off awesomely in the finale of this metallic crushing cult hit.

Exploitation may not do the business it once did, but in terms of sheer numbers, it’s just as vibrant as it ever was. What’s more, the new ones can often go toe-to-toe with the classics, and a few of them — Sharknado, for one — become genuine cultural phenomena. It’s an impressively giant industry populated by talented people that continues to pay the bills all over North America, which was always kind of the point.

With that in mind, I’ve mixed things up a bit: I’ve gone through some forgotten gems of the early days and mixed them in with the new ones, so that the wild and the crazy of yore can meet the out-there and “let’s just get this done so we can keep calling ourselves filmmakers” of today. Some of these are worth watching for their insanity; others for the sheer unwatchability. You’ll see. Here they are:

1. Zombie Tidal Wave

After the bizarre success of the Sharknado series, the world was left wondering: what next? It was the crowning achievement of the shark craze, which includes Shark Exorcist, House Shark and — my personal favourite — Sharktopus. So what was left?

Of course, the solution was to take another time-honoured monster and combine it with a different natural disaster. Made by the same folks who brought you Sharknado in the first place, Zombie Tidal Wave combines the balls-out insanity of those movies with the classic zombie tale in a way that’s equal parts familiar and novel. Sure, it knows where it comes from — even naming its on-screen punk band “The Fulci’s” [sic] — but it also has a taser sword. And where have you seen that before?

There is nothing else in this whole list that’s as adept at pressing the pleasure button as often and as forcefully as possible. It has the beautiful, nigh-on naked women; it has the hacking-through-bone fun of the zombie movie; it’s ridiculous. Zombie Tidal Wave is easily the most fun movie of 2019 (excluding the joke-a-minute Marriage Story), and can only be recommended to anyone and everyone who claims to have good taste.

2. Boar

In 1984 there was an Australian movie called Razorback about a group of people getting killed in the outback by a gigantic wild boar. In 2017, the movie Boar debuted, featuring a young family getting hunted by a giant wild boar in the Australian outback. In the b-movie field, if something worked one time, it’s worth trying as many times as possible — and then maybe try it a few more times, just to be sure.

A great example of what’s called “natural horror”, this is a style of movie that reached its peak with Alligator in 1980, the essential premise of which is that something is horribly wrong with nature. The fear of being exposed, of being ripped away from civilization to experience the raw violence of the natural world through its most deadly creatures is what all these films base themselves upon.

Some of these movies have featured piranhas, some giant rats, but let me tell you: of all these creatures, none of them is as terrifying as the wild boar. There’s something about the snorting, the protruding tusks and the fact of being consumed by one that’s almost paralyzing. Don’t you think?

Found on the incredible Shudder streaming service, Boar is certain to be spoken of in hushed, traumatized tones by shivering, shuddering masses. Trust me. It’s wild.

3. Bloody Blacksmith

David DeCoteau makes movies quickly. He notoriously depends on long sequences where a hidden killer stalks a shirtless man through the woods, a man who then meets his demise off-screen. Many of his movies follow exactly this formula. It sounds disappointing: it’s actually kind of fun.

Bloody Blacksmith is about a group of history students who are sent on an Easter egg hunt to collect the supposedly cursed tools of a long-deceased homicidal blacksmith. The problem is, the blacksmith has returned: and somebody’s using him for murder.

Sound exciting? Sure it is. And if not, you’ll at least get to see beautiful British Columbia.

4. Evil Exhumed

David DeCoteau makes movies quickly. He notoriously depends on long sequences where a hidden killer stalks a shirtless man through the woods, a man who then meets his demise off-screen. Many of his movies follow exactly this formula. It sounds disappointing: it’s actually kind of fun.

Oh wait, did I just repeat myself?

I admire prolific artists — even above skillful ones — and I’ve not only seen plenty of movies who copied earlier ones almost down to the minute, but loved them, as well. Evil Exhumed, however, copies Bloody Blacksmith not just down to the minute, but almost down to the frame.

Don’t believe me? Try it. It’s a strangely rewarding experience. There’s the opening monologue describing the backstory, the lone traveller talking to someone on the phone, the scopophile who turns out to be controlling the killer watching from the British Columbia woods and, finally, the killer, who watches his victim for a while before dispatching of him off-screen. And that’s just the first sequence. It goes on.

None of which is to be interpreted as criticism. I don’t know that I know, but I think I get it: you’ve gotta be prolific, and whatever you need to do to get you there is part of the fun, not just as the filmmaker, but as the viewer. Doesn’t everybody like to hear about how Plan 9 was made? Isn’t the story behind The Terror the best part of the movie? I mean, what did you expect, Casablanca? We’re into movies that are not only weird, but made weirdly. So what’s the problem?

Just watch this one. It has a mummy in it.

5. Triassic World

I was once like you. I used to look at The Asylum’s titles and think, “God, how do they get away with ripping so many people off?” To me, their business model seemed obvious: you release a cheaply-made knock-off with a title so similar to a hit movie that people accidentally buy it, and you make boatloads of money. But that’s when I was young. I’ve grown up. And I love The Asylum.

The first one I saw that convinced me of their merit was Flight 666. It’s about a haunted airplane — cool premise, right? But the result is every bit worth the price of entry, with some scary moments, great characters and a claustrophobic atmosphere. My shock was just the same as everyone else’s: the guys who make Transmorphers make good movies?

Which isn’t to say they all are. Blumhouse doesn’t release gold every time; Disney just put out a Star Wars movie that everyone seems to hate. Sure, The Asylum releases some duds. But Triassic Park is not one.

Recalling Roger Corman’s Carnosaur, Triassic World follows a group of scientists who are trapped in an experimental facility after a cloned dinosaur escapes and goes on a rampage. “But why,” you ask, “should I watch this instead of Jurassic World?” Because you want gore, don’t you? Violence — mayhem?

Whatever Jurassic World’s pretensions towards being a b-movie, Triassic World is the real deal. Forget Spielberg: get into The Asylum.

There are many ways to celebrate Halloween. For some, it’s an excuse to dress up; for others, an opportunity to spend the evening in the drunk tank. For others still, it’s an excuse to go on a shameless horror movie bender. That, at least, is my plan.

Now, as it is in all things, it’s easy to take the road oft-travelled. Sure, you could watch Halloween and The Exorcist again — but you’ve done that already. Why put yourself on autopilot? Maybe it’s time to do something different. Maybe this year it’s time to change things up by digging through the vault and grabbing a hold of some of the lesser-known, forgotten and misunderstood gems from the annals of exploitation.

In no particular order:

1. Eaten Alive (1976)

Tobe Hooper’s third feature gets understandably lost amidst his two better-known game changers, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist. In fact, much of the conversation around Eaten Alive centres on it (allegedly) not even being a good movie. But this, I submit, is wrong: it’s an excellent movie, and unlike anything you’ll ever see.

The plot centres around a hotel owner in the Texas swamp, who kills people with a scythe and then feeds them to his pet crocodile. Admittedly, what follows is pretty slight: people cross into his domain and find themselves tied up to a bed, brutalized, cut up with a scythe, fed to a crocodile or some combination of the above.

But not only is Eaten Alive genuinely disturbing (the entire Marilyn Burns plot, for example), and not only does it feature some genuinely creative deaths, but the whole thing takes place in a bizarre, surrealistic world — something Hooper accomplished by filming the entire movie on a sound stage. Some of you might enjoy it, then, as an answer to Chainsaw’s realism, but rest assured, if you’ve come for good old fashioned mayhem, Eaten Alive is bursting at the seams with blood, carnage and people screaming for mercy.

2. Creepozoids (1987)

David DeCoteau, a former Roger Corman alumnus, is one of the most impressively prolific directors in the modern age. His IMDb page includes 158 director credits as of this writing, including twelve in 2017 (only one of which is a short). He works cheap, he works fast, and he’s great.

Creepozoids is by no means, then, atypical for him: it runs at only 72 minutes, was made for 75K and features one of the most shameless sex scenes you’ll ever see. It is, in many ways, the Platonic ideal of video-era exploitation. And because of that, it’s also unique, inventive and, in some regards, batshit crazy.

It takes place in 1998 when, as we all remember, a series of nuclear wars has not only reduced civilization to dirt, but also gifted us with lethal and continuous acid rainstorms. A group of military deserters takes shelter from one of these storms in an old government facility, only to find themselves hunted by an experiment that was meant to eliminate human reliance on food but has, unfortunately, gone horribly awry.

From the get-go, the parallels to Alien are obvious. Both movies trap an ensemble cast in close quarters and have a monster hunt them to nigh-extinction. But it’s only in Creepozoids that you’ll pause to wonder if someone taped over your rental with softcore porn, and that alone is worth the price of admission.

3. The Undead (1957)

The ’50’s brought us the first golden era of exploitation. It was during this decade that the young Roger Corman teamed up with Sam Arkoff and Jim Nicholson at AIP to produce some of the craziest movies ever made. There was Attack Of The Crab Monsters, Not Of This Earth, Swamp Women… But amidst all these well-known properties is The Undead, which doesn’t get near the credit it deserves.

Inspired by a national interest in reincarnation that would eventually give rise to past life regression, The Undead is about a prostitute named Diane who’s hypnotized into occupying the body of a past self named Helene. Unfortunately for both Helene and Diane, however, is that Helene is a resident of the Middle Ages wrongly accused of being a witch. To make matters worse, if Diane alters history —which she can do — and has Helene proven innocent, then Diane will cease to exist in the present. An innocent woman may have to die in order that Diane will live.

The script, written by Corman regular Charles Griffith, is filled with the wacky, weird and campy material that’s typical of this era of Corman’s work. As if psychic time travel wasn’t enough, there’s also witchcraft, an imp, shapeshifting… There’s even a leftover prop from It Conquered The World. Of all the movies on this list, it’s the most fun.

4. Nightmare Beach (1989)

For those interested in exploring Italian exploitation, this is like the Al Capone of those movies: definitely Italian, but also definitely American. Made by Umberto Lenzi, who’s best known for initiating the cannibal movie craze in the ’70’s (including the brutal and brilliant Cannibal Ferox) this ’80’s slasher has one of the coolest plots in exploitation history, a great soundtrack and possibly the most beautiful colour palette of any of its competitors.

Nightmare Beach begins with the execution of a member of a motorcycle gang with the innocent-sounding name Diablo. The police know he’s guilty; the mayor knows he’s guilty; but Diablo goes down proclaiming his innocence. Some time later, during spring break, somebody appears in the same Florida town riding a motorcycle, wearing a helmet and leather, and electrocuting people to death. What’s more, Diablo’s grave is now empty. Has the man come back from the dead for revenge? Or was Diablo innocent all along?

Featuring great performances by John Saxon (Nightmare On Elm Street) and Michael Parks (Red State, Kill Bill), it also has a bizarre background story: the way Lenzi tells it, he began to worry before shooting that the plot was too similar to his Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, and decided to pull out. In his place, he assigned a man named Harry Kirkpatrick, who he said helped him co-write the film, and then stayed on himself as a technical advisor. The problem is that nobody’s ever been able to determine just who this Harry Kirkpatrick is and if he even exists; in fact, there’s still speculation that Kirkpatrick is an alias of Lenzi’s.

For my money, as exciting as the Mystery of the Director’s Credit is, the greatest mystery is why Lenzi felt the need to distance himself from this movie. Nightmare Beach is a brilliant, fun and exciting mix of the spring break teen movie with the insanity of the slasher genre that’s visually stunning, bizarre and utterly in its own category.

5. Slugs (1987)

A guy I know named Steve Paps once called slugs “living boogers”. It’s true: they’re disgusting, which makes it interesting that they’re such an under-utilized villain in monster movies. You’d think that an industry which gave us The Blob and The Giant Claw would have latched onto the slug much sooner, but, alas, it was not to be.

Slugs focuses on a small rural town which is besieged by a larger, mutated version of the titular mollusks, and follows the attempts of a health worker to convince the town that the bloody murders of several citizens were because of these things. In typical monster movie fashion, this takes some doing, and the journey is nothing if not memorable.

Produced by the inimitable New World Pictures, this ’80’s monster flick has everything you could ever want in a movie called Slugs: a naked woman torn to shreds by slugs which have literally covered her entire bedroom floor; a man beset by headaches, only to have his head explode during dinner from having been filled with molluscal parasites; and a man who chops his own hand off with an axe to stop one of the things from eating him — a sequence which ends with his house exploding. It’s everything a movie like this should be, and if that’s not enough to convince you that it’s worth putting on, then you and I will probably agree on nothing.

The horror genre is perhaps the most diverse and widely varied in all of film and the one with the richest history. From the genre’s early stages with German Expressionism to the suspense of Hitchcock to the slasher and possession craze of the 80s. Over the last few years, the genre has been experiencing a resurgence with box-office hits and high ratings that have not been this evident since the days of icons like Jason Vorhees and Freddie Kruger.

Horror is always continuing to evolve with new names, faces and ideas emerging at every turn and because of that, it’s very easy for some to slip under that repulsive radar. Whilst services like Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and the horror-exclusive Shudder make access to new discoveries easier than ever before, it’d be impossible to catch them all. So, because we’re the very best; for your convenience, here are 10 of the best cult horrors that you may have missed.

10. The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears (2013)

This French homage to the Italian giallo films of the 1970’s by husband and wife duo Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani is by far one of the most visually ambitious films to ever grace our screens.

 The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears follows Dan (Klaus Tange), an average business man who returns home after a two-week work trip to find that his wife has gone missing. He decides to go from apartment to apartment to aid his search and by doing so, encounters several people who share with him their own stories and secrets, all while trying to unravel the mystery of the whereabouts of his wife.

The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears uses a variety of visual styles for different sections of the experience, all portraying different moods and atmospheres for every new perspective. The film explores an Art Nouveau-esque style, at times exploits black and white and at others exploits colour. From Hitchcockian to jump-cuts to completely psychedelic.

The heavy emphasis on visuals paired with its experimental use of Italian giallo techniques including music and a 1970’s look and feel, seems to sacrifice much actual story focus and comes out as a narrative puzzle and will require your attention and your patience. It’s mysterious, horrific and at times confusing, but The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears isn’t a film that you’re likely to forget.

9. Antiviral (2012)

The body horror sub-genre doesn’t get as much attention nowadays as it once did. There have been some more recent gems such as American Mary, Antibirth and Upgrade but the name most synonymous with the genre is its accredited originator David Cronenberg.

So, thank the gore-gods that Cronenberg’s knack for flesh and the grotesque seems to have rubbed off on a product of his own body- his son. Brandon Cronenberg’s debut feature is full of all the weirdness, shock and squirm-in-your-seat body-abnormalities that you’d hope for in a Cronenberg movie.

2012 Toronto International Film Festival’s co-winner for Best Canadian First Feature Film; Antiviral’s surreal premise comments on our ever-growing, celebrity-obsessed culture as it offers us a glimpse into a dystopian future that terrifyingly doesn’t seem all that far away.

Caleb Landry Jones is Syd March, an employee at a clinic that buys live viruses from celebrities and distributes them as injections to obsessed fans who want to be closer to their idols. The premise speaks directly to our generation and almost acts as a hideous warning.

Cornenberg’s idea for this film developed when he was battling his own viral infection, stating that “something in my body and in my cells that had come from someone else’s body, and I started to think there was a weird intimacy to that connection.”

In addition to inducing your wheeze reflexes, Antiviral dabbles into the psychological by way of trippy hallucinations, dream sequences and even the pale and freckly complexion of Landry Jones being used as a visual device as Cronenberg often isolates him against white backgrounds for effect.

Antiviral is a sure think-piece and while it lacks much depth or character development, its substantial amounts of blood, puss and other bodily fluids along with its social commentary will linger around the dark corners of your mind.

8. Beyond The Black Rainbow (2010)

Panos Cosmatos’s (son of famed film director George P. Cosmatos) directorial debut, Beyond the Black Rainbow can only be described as a trance film. The blue-hue cinematography and what Cosmatos described as “night mode” is comparable perhaps to the idea of a drug-induced fever-dream.

Pertaining to its visuals, Cosmatos has mentioned 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, Suspiria, Enter the Void, Begotten and Last Year in Marienbad as influences. Cosmatos stated that one of his goals was “To create a film that is a sort of an imagining of an old film that doesn’t exist”, and that idea is certainly present and successful as Beyond The Black Rainbow manages to feel both brand new and long lost.

Set in 1983, the complex, rather difficult-to-explain and at times seemingly non-existent plot involves a new-age research facility dedicated to finding a reconciliation between science and spirituality.

There’s a mute girl with psychic capabilities, whom Nyle (the head of the facility) can suppress using a giant, glowing, prismatic device. It is deliberately slow and ambiguous in its story and pacing, with Cosmatos wanting to create something “more dream-like and less story driven.”

While a surrealistically horrifying and psychedelic experience, Beyond The Black Rainbow won’t be for everybody; the film boasts a small but passionate fanbase. For devotees of the science fiction genre in its rawest form and those who appreciate oddball efforts, along with the hypnotic score by Jeremy Schmidt of musical group Black Mountain, this piece is worth a look.

7. Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

Directed by Peter Strickland, this time a British homage to the Italian giallo films of the 1970s is set accordingly — in an Italian horror movie studio, in the ’70s.

Gilderoy (Toby Jones) is a mild-mannered British sound engineer who arrives in Italy to work on a film he knows next-to-nothing about. He soon comes to learn that it’s a giallo film and his Foley tasks include stabbing at things like vegetables to create increasingly gory sounds to the point that it’s uncomfortable for him and for the viewer. He is also tasked with mixing sounds of the actresses’ screams as we are made to listen to the sinister performances over and over again.

The film at often times is narratively ambiguous as the audience continues to be thrust down the ear-piercing rabbit hole, but that seems to be the point. Berberian Sound Studio is a psychological effort about a man’s fear of descending into madness.

What makes Berberian Sound Studio unique is that focus on sound and Foley work. It reverts back to Hitchcock’s philosophy that the audience’s imagination will always be more horrifying than anything that can be filmed.

This idea makes Berberian Sound Studio certainly original and ambitious in its attempt at making a horror movie with essentially no actual horrific visuals but depends on just the audiences’ ears and the implied terrors that the mind creates. Even with the absence of that visual aid, Strickland still manages to create one of the most truly unsettling films of recent memory.

6. Spider Baby (1967)

This black comedy-horror is Jack Hill’s hidden gem. Spider Baby took only 12 days to shoot and follows a dysfunctional family of three orphaned siblings who suffer from “Merrye Syndrome”, a genetic condition that causes them to regress in all regards- mentally, socially and physically.

Anybody with a vast interest in the horror genre and its history should add Spider Baby to their list. This ridiculous but unique trashy B-movie just reeks of midnight drive-in viewing and though recognised under the comedy genre, make no mistake, there are plenty of frightening and gruesome shenanigans present here.

Initially released to obscurity, Spider Baby achieved its cult status through word of mouth and now enjoys high ratings and praise wherever it is mentioned.

Of all the different types of fans that the medium of film breeds, horror aficionados are among the most dedicated and fanatical. With an endless and growing list of sub-genres, there’s something to please everyone’s specific tastes. Cult films are born out of shared experiences.

In the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s, this took the form of swapping VHS tapes and attending midnight movie screenings. More recently cult movies have changed, with fans now finding films on streaming services such as the dedicated horror channel Shudder, and discussing them on online message boards.

It is no longer difficult to find just about any movie one desires, but in today’s oversaturated horror market, it can be forgiven to have missed some lesser-known cult classics of the genre. To make it a little easier, here are some entries to add to your list.

10. Killer Klowns from Outer Space

The ‘80s had their fair share of bizarre horror movie titles, but few can hold a torch to Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Such a name promises so much – horror, sci-fi, comedy. It was perhaps a genre too many for the average cinema-goer, but it did hit a sweet spot for a certain demographic of cult film fans.

Klowns is about a clan of evil aliens from an unknown planet who resemble clowns. They decide to invade Earth, focusing on a small American town, Crescent Cove, where they kill and harvest humans for sustenance. It’s an absurd concept, but first time writer/directors, the Chiodo Brothers own the weirdness and totally commit to the bizarre universe they’ve created.

Killer Klowns enjoyed a limited theatrical release and has continued to breed new fans through subsequent DVD and Blu Ray editions of the film. Most recently SyFy have acquired the rights to the cult classic and hope to produce a sequel. Whether that comes to fruition or not, it’s unlikely the world will see another crazy clown movie quite like this.

9. Hobo With a Shotgun

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s double feature B-movie throwback Grindhouse didn’t exactly make waves at the box office in 2007. It is, however deservedly due a lot of credit for the recent revival the industry has seen in this sub-genre.

One of the more authentic features of Grindhouse are the ‘fake trailers’ before the feature, including entries from Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright. Featured in this roll of film is an entry from small time filmmaker Jason Eisner – a $150 trailer that went on to become 2011’s feature film, Hobo With A Shotgun.

When a train rolls into town, notions of a fresh start fly out the window for Rutger Hauer’s titular Hobo as he finds himself in a crime-ridden hellhole. Pulling the strings is ‘The Drake’ and his two sadistic sons who run havoc around town. No one dared to mess with them until one such Hobo decides to go vigilante. The dream-casting of Hauer in the lead role enjoys himself with the immensely graphic and unexpectedly clever script. A superbly enjoyable throwback indeed.

Hobo is the sort of movie fans and filmmakers alike look at and think, ‘How did this get made?’. Destined for cult status even years before its release, Eisner’s schlocky horror belongs in a strange bubble of timelessness where it will appeal to horror fans as easily in 2030 as it would have back in 1970.

8. The Slumber Party Massacre

The 1980s saw the slasher film at the height of its popularity. It was impossible to escape the titles that were so obviously part of the genre. ‘Killings’ this and ‘Slaughter’ that – these types of films often lived up to their uninspired names. Somehow among the sea of subpar slashers, The Slumber Party Masssacre has stood out over time as a cult hit.

The film focuses on a group of teenage girls who have their slumber party ruined by a drill-wielding madman with notions of murder. It’s a relatively forumaliac slasher. The victims are cliched; marijuana-smoking, boy-kissing teens who get killed off one by one in violent fashion until one Final Girl is left.

The most innocent girl, Valerie takes that responsibility in Slumber Party Massacre, and although she’s not particular memorable in the role she’s still an easy hero to root for and she faces off against the film’s antagonist.

Originally conceived as as a more satirical look at the slasher genre, Slumber Party’s final script maintains quite a lot of the humour from that original draft. The sheer entertainment value of it is a fresh change from the typically dark and serious tones found in slashers at the time.

7. Trick ‘R Treat

Those lucky enough to have seen Trick ‘r Treat in theatres raved about Michael Dougherty’s directorial feature debut. Unfortunately the Halloween-themed anthology didn’t receive a wide release, but the few critics who had the pleasure of reviewing it had very good things to say. Once the flick hit DVD, it garnered itself a very strong cult following.

Trick ‘r Treat relates four horror tales all centred on Halloween, tied together by a mysterious and creepy child trick-or-treater Sam. The different stories are deftly interwoven and told with a real love for old-school horror.

One segment features a high-school principal who masquerades as a serial killer at night, another, a sensible young woman who encounters a hooded predator dressed as a vampire. On the same night, a group of mischievous teens carry out a cruel prank while a husband finds his wife brutally murdered.

Trick ‘R Treat revels in its obvious love for the holiday and a cleverly woven script of tense tales. It delivers all the tropes expected of the genre, but not without some surprises. Obsessive fans have helped spawn spinoff media such as comic books and collectible figures, while a sequel is seemingly still in the works.

6. Creepshow 2

In 1982, the macabre dream team of Stephen King and George A Romero released the highly entertaining anthology, Creepshow. It was a commercial and critical success whose influence can be seen in the years that followed in the likes of Treat ‘R Treat and ABCs of Death.

A film not so talked about anymore is the sequel, which arrived theatrically five years later. King’s involvement, lessened this time around, receiving just a story credit. Romero pens the screenplay, while the previous film’s cinematographer, Michael Gornick sits in the director’s chair.

Having used up some of the stronger ideas in the original, Creepshow 2 is made up of just 3 short films. In “Old Chief Wood’n Head”, an Indian store worker takes revenge on the rednecks who killed an old couple that meant the world to him. “The Raft” finds college students trapped on a raft fighting for their life against a killer black blob in the lake. In “The Hitch-Hiker” a woman is involved in a hit and run with a hitchhiker, only to realize that he’s impossible to kill.

Even with generally poor reviews and an underwhelming box office, Creepshow 2 has enough going for it to warrant a cult following. At just 90 minutes, the film whizzes by without overstaying its welcome, and the tales are told with a real tongue-in-cheek approach. As a fun, comedy horror, this anthology sequel warrants a look.