Horror films, more than any other genre, are known for having a high body count. This is understandable. Given that horror films are heavily involved in pushing audiences to confront the shadow of death and everything that it involves. There are, however, a number of horror films that avoid the common practice of killing off a large number of people.
As a result, they divert the terror of death to other areas of the storey. However, weird as it may seem, these horror films are just as frightening as those that focus on death more heavily.
Below are films likes these! Trust me it’s scary!
1. Signs (2002)
Director- M. Night Shyamalan
Graham Hess, an emotionally wounded former Episcopal priest. He retires to a secluded farm surrounded by maize in Pennsylvania with his two young children and younger brother. After losing his religious faith after his wife’s death in a horrible car accident. When unusual crop-circle formations arise in his land. The same circular patterns manifest all across the world. A menacing undercurrent of fear begins to sweep the family. Grief and denial are increasingly mixing with paranoia as equally unexplained events occur, creating a highly dangerous mixture.
2. The Conjuring (2013)
Director- James Wan
Roger Perron and his wife Carolyn, along with their children Andrea, Nancy, Christine, Cindy, and April, move to an ancient farmhouse in Rhode Island in 1971. The family discovers a hidden basement with a plank-locked door. Carolyn encounters the famous paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren when they are plagued by noises and ghosts. Lorraine and Ed believe the house is possessed by a monster when they visit it. Lorraine and Ed enlist the help of his pals Drew and Brad in gathering evidence to persuade the Church. That an exorcism is required to save the Perron family from evil.
If you have already watched The Conjuring, then check out our list of => Movies like The Conjuring.
3. The Others (2001)
Director- Alejandro Amenabar
Grace Stewart, a widow, lives in a lonely old house with her daughter Anne and son Nicholas in Jersey, Channel Islands, in 1945. Grace’s beloved husband Charles died in World War II, and their children are photosensitive, so Grace closes the curtains and closes the doors to protect Anne and Nicholas from the sun. Grace instils strong discipline in her children and raises them according to Christian values. Grace hires the odd housekeeper Mrs. Bertha Mills, the mute maid Lydia, and the gardener Mr. Edmund Tuttle, who have all applied for work. Strange things happen in the mansion out of nowhere, and Anne claims that a boy named Viktor pays them a visit. Grace searches for the invaders in vain until one day she receives an epiphany about the house and its intruders.
4. The Babadook (2014)
Director- Jennifer Kent
He is a widow. While bringing her to the hospital to give birth to their baby Samuel, Amelia’s husband was killed in a vehicle accident. She has stopped writing children’s books and now works in a nursing home to support Samuel. However, the boy is a problem child who is shunned by his peers, including his aunt Claire and cousin Ruby. Samuel typically has Amelia read him a book before going to bed. One night he offers him the mysterious book Mister Babadook that he discovered in his room. The book that narrates the narrative of a supernatural entity that torments humans disturbs Amelia and Samuel, and Samuel claims that Babadook is haunting him at night.
Amelia tears up the book and tosses it in the trash, but Babadook soon follows them. Amelia takes drugs and is able to sleep through the night with Samuel. Strange things happen in the house when the book Mister Babadook arrives patched in her front door.
5. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Director- Eduardo Sanchez, Daniel Myrick
Three brave amateur documentarians—director Heather, cinematographer Josh, and sound recorder Mike—hike into Burkittsville’s bleak Black Hills Forest. In pursuit of a local legend: the famous Blair Witch. Apart from the raw material they left behind, there’s still no indication of the student filmmakers one year later. After that terrible October of 1994. Who knows what transpired during their terrifying five-day voyage into madness’s heart? Was there an intangible otherworldly presence in the dark woods that caused the crew to vanish? In any case, the trio that went missing had to have witnessed something.
6. Poltergeist (1982)
Director- Tobe Hooper
Carol Anne, the youngest daughter of the Freeling family, appears to be interacting with the supernatural through a dead channel on the television while living in a typical family house in a beautiful area. The mystery beings don’t stay long inside the house’s walls. They appear to be friendly spirits at first, playing jokes and amusing the family, but then they take a nasty turn, terrifying the family to death with furious trees and deadly dolls, before abducting Carol Anne into her bedroom closet, which appears to be the portal to the other side.
7. The Amityville Horror (1979)
Director- Andrew Doughlas
The newly married couple, George and Kathy Lutz, along with their three children, move into the seemingly ideal, and most all, unexpectedly affordable colonial mansion in Amityville, New York, despite the horrifying rumours of the grisly DeFeo murders. However, mysterious events and strange situations soon undermine the Lutzes’ noble yearning for a quiet new existence, as the house’s wickedness progressively erodes the personalities of the once-happy family, turning the picturesque home into a nightmare doorway to hell. Father Delaney, the village priest, begins to suspect that satanic forces are at work as a suspiciously morose George incessantly sharpens his axe.
8. Freaks (1932)
Director- Tod Browning
Cleopatra, the statuesque and flaxen-haired trapeze artist, sets her mind on seducing Hans, the circus tiny guy, for his enviable hereditary inheritance, of all the men in the world. As a result, the duplicitous performer finally manages to marry the unsuspecting and love-smitten man; however, it will take a brief ceremonial rite among friends on the couple’s wedding night to reveal Cleopatra’s true colors—bent on running away with her clandestine lover and the circus’ strongman, Hercules. However, the faithful band of outcasts will soon turn the tables on the conniving rival, who was never meant to be one of their own, in the ashes of a false romance.
9. Eraserhead (1977)
Director- David Lynch
Henry Spencer, a wretched factory worker living in an industrial and brutal urban wasteland, is horrified to learn that his chronically melancholy girlfriend, Mary, has given birth to something unearthly. As the unusual couple returns to Henry’s filthy shoebox flat, it becomes clear that the unnatural baby’s constant and unrelenting sobbing is driving Mary insane, jeopardising their already precarious happiness. But the dream of joyous fatherhood may sometimes turn into a nightmare, and poor old Henry, who’s been coping with dread, worry, and increasingly odd visions for far too long, is at his wit’s end.
10. Flatliners (1999)
Director- Joel Schumacher
In order to understand more about the afterlife, five medical students decide to go on a perilous experiment to break the curtain between life and death. They have weird sights and memories long forgotten as a result of their momentary deaths. What they hadn’t expected was that when they crossed the curtain between life and death, they’d each bring something from their past with them, something that will not only torment them, but also be capable of harming them.
