Films that are classified as art-house or art horror aim to arouse feelings of dread through distinctive visuals and narrative strategies that go beyond the cliché of the murderer donning a mask and brandishing a weapon. The art-house horror subgenre includes some horror films that are merely intended to shock and frighten audiences using the clichés from slasher films, as the 2022 release X. The following Art-house horror movies can help beginners comprehend the genre even if it is true that the genre is not for everyone and not all audiences will share a director’s vision.
Art-house Horror Movies
1. The Wicker Man (1973)
Director- Robin Hardy
Searching for Rowan Morrison, a missing adolescent girl, Sergeant Neil Howie lands on a Scottish island. The location is owned by Lord Summerisle and is well-known for its apple and other fruit plantations as well as its harvest. Rowan is likely alive and being prepped for sacrifice when Sgt. Howie finds that the natives are pagans who follow ancient traditions. The story’s terrible twist at the conclusion is unexpected.
2. The Shining (1980)
Director- Stanley Kubrick
Jack Torrance, a writer, attends a job interview for the position of winter caretaker at the remote, historic, enormous, and stunning Overlook Hotel. Jack travels with Wendy, his wife, and Danny, their kid. It so happens that Danny possesses a strange ability known as “The Shining.” On their first day at the Overlook, Danny meets Hallorann, the hotel kitchen, who forewarns him about the establishment and the terrifying Room 237. As the days pass, Danny begins to get visions, while Jack begins to spiral out of control and become increasingly violent. At this point, Danny and Wendy become convinced that Jack may attempt to do something horrible.
3. Suspiria (2018)
Director- Luca Guadagnino
Susie Bannion, a sheltered Mennonite and ambitious dancer, enrols at the esteemed Helena Markos Dance Academy shortly after a troublesome student mysteriously vanishes against the backdrop of intense political instability in a perennially dismal 1977 Berlin. Susie does exceedingly well during the audition in the hopes of being accepted into Madame Blanc’s all-female dancing company. However, rumours about the unholy trinity of witch-mothers—Mater Suspiriorum, Mater Tenebrarum, and Mater Lachrymarum—threaten to cast a shadow on her happy accomplishment. Soon after, yet another ballet dancer vanishes.
4. The Babadook (2014)
Director- Jennifer Kent
A single woman who writes children’s books is battling with her problematic kid, who naively thinks that monsters live in their house. He requests that she read him the book “The Babadook” one night, which is about a malevolent force infiltrating a house. She soon starts to notice odd things, including the monster known as the Babadook. The book and the hallucinations keep returning despite her best efforts to get rid of them, including her attempt to burn the book. She is soon possessed by this creature.
5. Coraline (2009)
Director- Henry Selick
Coraline experiences boredom and parental neglect after moving into an ancient house. Along with a blocked tunnel, she discovers a hidden door. She enters the tunnel at night and discovers a parallel reality with loving parents and the fulfilment of all her fantasies, where everyone has buttons in place of eyes. Coraline rejects the Other Mother’s invitation to live in her world forever, and when she does, she learns that the parallel reality in which she is imprison is really a ruse to get her to fall for it.
6. The VVitch (2015)
Director- Robert Eggers
In the middle of the seventeenth century in New England, William, the tormented patriarch, and his Puritan family established a modest farmhouse on the edges of a dense and dark forest. Soon after the suffering family attempts to settle in their new remote farmhouse, tragedy strikes. Their infant kid vanishes into thin air, and soon after, further unexpected and severe disasters befall the God-fearing farmers.
7. Mandy (2018)
Director- Panos Cosmatos
The calm lives of the quiet lumberjack Red Miller and his kind artist lover Mandy Bloom gets isolate from the outside world. They are live in deep within a continuously chilly and dreary forest somewhere in the huge early 1980s Shadow Mountains. Then, a chance encounter with Jeremiah Sand, the drug-addled spiritual leader of the deluded Children of the New Dawn cult. It would prepare the way for suffering and sacrifice as the Black Skulls, a cannibalistic and LSD-addled biker gang, strip Miller of his bliss. Red is now on the point of going insane from suffering. Now, no force on Earth can stop him or his bloodthirsty battle axe from exacting revenge.
