With Halloween right around the door, it’s that time of the year again when people start to watch new horror movies to have a nice evening of delightful terror. There are loads of horror movies coming out every year, so it’s only natural that it’d get harder and harder to pick a good one to watch on that one night a year.
If you want to make it easier on yourself, you could stick to a theme. While horror movies can be scary for all kinds of reasons, some of them are just so visually stunning that everything looks too realistic for comfort. That’s the movies we’ll be looking at today.
Alien
Back in the day, this was the best visual representation of a hostile extraterrestrial organism that slowly but surely took out Sigourney Weaver’s entire team. While it’s hard to deny that the movie has aged a bit when it comes to the visual effects, it can still very much hold its own against more modern imitations of the same theme.
The Shining
Visually speaking, this movie does a perfectly good job of making you feel crazy along with Jack Nicholson. The clever use of space, color,… It’s just an amazing horror movie, and you should watch it every year.
Let The Right One In
While no one was really expecting much from this film, especially since it was just another vampire drama right about the time when Twilight was a much-hated thing, the visual techniques and cinematography were so good in this movie that it became an instant classic. Unlike that other vampire movie I mentioned earlier, which crashed and burned because there wasn’t really anything memorable about it.
Pan’s Labyrinth
When talking about visually stunning films, you know there’ll be a Guillermo Del Toro movie on the list. Pan’s Labyrinth is perhaps the best option for a visually stunning horror movie – especially considering since it was made nearly 15 years ago and still hasn’t aged a bit visually.
The Lighthouse
Of all the horror movies I’ve seen, this movie is probably visually the best representation of someone that’s slowly going crazy. The visuals are arranged in such a way that even you as an audience aren’t quite sure which of the two lighthouse keepers (the amazing Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson) is going crazy, but you know someone is. And you’re just tagging along for the ride.
Nosferatu
Considering that this movie is nearly a full century old (let that sink in for a while), the imagery and cinematography are just second to none. Never has there been a better visual take on the Dracula/vampire story, and it’s pretty safe to say there never will be.
The Cell
While not a particularly awesome movie, it did have a unique visual twist to it. Most of the movie takes place in the mind of a comatose serial killer, so you know what you’ll be getting yourself into. Imagine a pretty regular crime story, but it takes place entirely in the crazy mind of a psychopath.
American Psycho
While the previously mentioned The Cell takes you into the subconscious of a serial killer, American Psycho does something very similar, but different enough to be haunting in a totally different manner. It shows you the real world, the way a serial killer would. You see him at work, you see him at the bar, and you see him slowly descend into madness as he unravels before you.
