You don't need insidious spirits, axe-wielding psychos, or even vampires to make a movie
scary.
For some films, it's the wild imagery and emotional and psychological impacts of the
pics that have made audiences shudder for generations, despite never being labeled as
horror flicks.
Here are some movies that have managed to strike fear into viewers, no matter the genre
label.
Return to Oz
While The Wizard of Oz boasted some slightly creepy moments, it was nothing compared to
what craziness Return to Oz had to offer half a century later.
Whoever decided a horrific depiction of electroshock therapy, a talking disembodied moose head,
and sending a young Dorothy to an actual asylum was a totally solid idea must've been friends
with the Scarecrow, because on paper it sounds pretty brainless.
"What do you think?"
What the film tries to pass off as whimsy is utterly upsetting, with the creatures of
Oz 2.0 arriving as much more horrifying than cute.
The creatures of Oz in this pic range from an unintentionally scary pumpkin-headed sidekick
to the very intentionally scary villain, the Nome King.
And that's not even getting into the segment in which we discover that the fun, light-hearted
sidekicks from the original film have been turned to stone.
Return to Oz isn't a bad movie, though.
The creatures are still excellently designed and puppeteered, and while the story is twisted,
it does have a lot of heart.
And… a few dozen decapitated heads.
"I believe I'll lock you in the tower for a few years til your head is ready, and then
I'll take it."
Not terrifying at all.
The Brave Little Toaster
Before Toy Story launched a multimillion dollar franchise on the concept of inanimate objects
coming to life when humans weren't looking, there was The Brave Little Toaster.
And if you find yourself wondering why the former took off while the latter has drifted
into the distant plains of nostalgia, you should rewatch the movie to remind yourself
that it's a technicolor nightmare of a film that no child has, nor ever had, any business
watching.
The themes ultimately boil down to a generational shift in household appliances—one that is,
in retrospect, totally valid.
Technology grows and gets updated, and it's strange and unsettling that the filmmakers
insisted that a kid going off to college should feel a sentimental attachment to his toaster.
We all know where that leads, right?
"I love you."
And then when you do get into the nightmarish imagery, it's a whole new level of inappropriately
scary.
Evil firefighter clowns, panic-induced hallucinations, anatomically correct computer towers, and
a crushing sequence in which the appliance gang finds themselves trapped in a junkyard
make for an experience that even adults may not escape mentally unscathed.
"Did you hear that, boys?
They want to know how to escape!"
Requiem for a Dream
Addiction is a very real horror millions of people grapple with daily, and perhaps no
film has captured it as poignantly as Darren Aronofsky's bone-chilling Requiem for a Dream.
Centering on a group of four people, it depicts the various stages of addiction to drugs,
including amphetamines and heroin.
The film is unflinching in its portrayal of the beginning stages of addiction, the side
effects that come with it, and the withdrawal symptoms and fallout from trying and failing
to get clean.
From self-debasement in search of one more hit, to a full-on arm amputation, there's
a lot to unpack from the results of this disease and all its iterations.
Aronofsky doesn't sugarcoat a single frame.
Everything feels real; everything hurts.
Every moment of the film is an agony-ridden reminder of the anguish of addiction.
It might not be a conventional horror film, but it's scarier than almost any movie about
ghosts or werewolves.
The NeverEnding Story
Fear the Nothing, kids.
The NeverEnding Story has some frightening imagery—but it stands out as particularly
eerie thanks to the fact that its villain is a bone-chilling avatar of nihilism.
Young heroes Bastian and Atreyu are trying to save the land of Fantasia from the Nothing,
a spreading of literal nonexistence.
It's not a monster.
It doesn't have fangs or claws or horrible powers.
It's just a void spreading across the land.
Everything it touches exists until it suddenly doesn't.
Then, there's the horrors of depression and grief, which is rammed into our brains with
one devastating scene involving a horse.
"We don't even care whether or not we care."
These are big concepts for kids to comprehend, but by sweeping away all of our new fantasy
pals and threatening to destroy the childlike empress, it's shockingly scary all the same.
Cropsey
Where do urban legends come from?
To find answers, the filmmakers behind the documentary Cropsey look into the origins
of the titular New York City boogeyman, a sort of amalgam of archetypes like the escaped
inmate and the scary man living in the woods.
What they find is not a concrete answer as to whether Cropsey was ever real, but rather
a sprawling investigation into a series of child kidnappings in the '70s and '80s, with
more questions springing up every time they find an answer.
The truth, as they find, is not only stranger than fiction but infinitely more gut-wrenching.
"You've got this guy, going around, picking off all these kids."
The kidnapper, Andre Rand, was found guilty of kidnapping two of five missing people attributed
to him, mostly children.
He's currently in prison but was never convicted of anything more serious, as four of the bodies
were never found.
Cropsey is a tragically poignant look at the relationship between truth and fiction, and
while he may still be locked up, the phantom of these horrific crimes still lives on to
this day.
Akira
Katsuhiro Otomo's legendary magnum opus is lauded for its groundbreaking animation, design,
and depth.
What occasionally gets overlooked is the fact that it's a very frightening film.
Exploring the fallout of nuclear war and the aftermath of Tokyo being razed in an atomic
blast, Akira tells the story of bike gangs, psychic children, and the evils of the military
industrial complex.
The subject matter is scary enough, but what really comes down to making it grotesquely
terrifying is the visuals.
From a giant oozing teddy bear to a psychic prodigy's body growing and mutating like microwaved
Play-Doh, Akira is riddled with visual horrors.
The film is a spectacular achievement in animation and science fiction, but don't sleep on how
scary it is.
Pairing a grim look at humanity's future with graphic imagery, this movie will shake you
to your core.
Matilda
Why is Matilda a low-key terrifying movie?
Three words: Principal Agatha Trunchbull.
"Your mommy is a TWIT!"
When removed from its villain, it's a fun little film about a brilliant young girl with
psychic powers navigating a world that doesn't understand her.
But throw in Principal Trunchbull and you've got something much darker.
Trunchbull is sadistic, clever, and almost animalistic in her aggression towards her
students.
She also implicitly murdered the father of Ms. Honey, Matilda's teacher and the one person
who seems to understand her.
Any time a child protagonist is put up against an adult villain, there's a certain power
dynamic that makes the relationship inherently disturbing.
But when viewers are presented with a character as fundamentally good and pure as Matilda
and a villain as monstrous and borderline inhuman as Trunchbull, it becomes genuinely
ghastly.
For evidence, look no further than the scene in which Matilda and Ms. Honey sneak into
Trunchbull's house and almost get caught.
Matilda is a great movie as it is, but the addition of Agatha Trunchbull not only makes
it better, it makes it scary.
No Country for Old Men
At the pitch-black heart of the Coen brothers' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country
for Old Men is Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh, a restrained, lurking hulk of a man on a mission
of anarchy and evil.
His performance earned him an Oscar and gave life to one of the definitive villains of
a generation.
Physically unremarkable save for a truly horrible haircut, Chigurh trudges unrelentingly through
the streets, a hit man assigned to take the life of Josh Brolin's Llewelyn Moss.
Despite his uncannily quiet demeanor, Chigurh is a human wrecking ball, slaughtering and
maiming indiscriminately as he makes his way to Moss.
He resembles less a human and more a force of nature.
Bardem's performance is restrained when necessary but brutal and thunderous when the right moment
comes.
He's the lynchpin of an already stellar film, a masterpiece of tension and inevitability.
Moss is doomed as soon as Chigurh has his name—the horror comes in watching him try
to avoid a fate the audience immediately recognizes as inevitable.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Although it's widely regarded as a children's film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
is a movie that cranks the scare factor up to ten with astoundingly little warning.
At first, it's a fun, inspirational movie about a boy named Charlie getting the opportunity
to tour a magnificent, magical candy factory.
Sounds fun, right?
Then Charlie goes to the actual factory and things get weird.
"This is going to be such an exciting day.
I hope you enjoy it.
I think you will."
The next thing you know, candymaker Willy Wonka is revealing his factory is run by an
army of tiny green-haired men that are weirdly inhuman.
One minute the kids are all learning about candy, and the next, one of them is being
turned into a blueberry.
Another is left to nearly drown in a river of chocolate, and then he takes everyone else
through a tunnel of outright terror before punishing some more of the kids.
Like showing them a chicken snuff film wasn't bad enough.
"This is kinda strange."
"Yes, strange, Charlie, but it's fun!"
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
The original Pee-Wee's Playhouse wasn't exactly devoid of bizarre imagery to begin with.
"Aaaaargh!
Come in and pull yourself up a chair"
"A Chairy!"
But under the guiding hand of the master of strange, Tim Burton, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
became something deeply unsettling.
The film is chock-full of mastermind Paul Reubens' signature weirdness, and Burton's
direction cranks it up to the highest possible level.
It's perhaps no more evident anywhere in the film than in the appearance of Large Marge,
a terrifying ghost trucker who gives Pee-Wee a ride.
"This!"
"Ahhhh!"
The appeal of Pee-Wee Herman as a character has always sort of been caught between adults
and children, sometimes skewing heavily in one direction and then suddenly leaning into
the opposite.
"Milk, milk, lemonade... round the corner fudge is made."
The movie makes that switch frequently, which just makes the more surreal Burton bits all
the scarier.
One never quite knows what to expect.
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
It's easy to joke about the Church of Scientology thanks to a few pretty choice moments from
famous member Tom Cruise.
"Have you met an SP?"
Going Clear serves as a tremendously important reminder that the organization is far more
than a punchline—and that it's alleged to inflict a very real horror on its members
and their loved ones daily.
The filmmakers interview multiple former members about their time in the organization and what
they saw, and their stories will horrify you.
From cult-like groupthink to demeaning manual labor, the stories get worse as the film progresses,
with a couple of men who held high positions in Scientology openly talking about using
physical intimidation on detractors of the church as well as its members.
But no segment of the film is as chilling as the one in which a woman recounts the story
of the church effectively kidnapping her newborn daughter, forcing her to do hard labor, and
what she subsequently went through to break out of a church facility with her child and
escape.
Going Clear takes an organization many people are loosely familiar with as a pop culture
reference and recontextualizes it as the masterpiece of a career con man, its founder, sci-fi author
L. Ron Hubbard.
That his group has proven so successful even decades after his passing, and that nobody
seems to be capable of stopping them, may be as frightening as any sci-fi novel.
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