I recommend:
- The Cabin in the Woods
- Tucker and Dale versus Evil
- Midnight Mass
this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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Tucker and Dale is awesome.
Midnight Massterpiece is more like it. Anything from Mike Flannigan is great. Also check out Midnight Club. It's not particularly scary, but more touching and sad, in a good way.
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The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982). Not gory, so much as gooey.
The Babadook.
The Mist. Based on a book by Steven King. King admits the movie ending is better than his own.
10 Cloverfield Lane. It's standalone, don't worry if you haven't seen Cloverfield
Annihilation. The bear freaks me out.
Event Horizon. Sci-Fi/Horror
Original Ghostbusters from 1984.
Gremlins
No One Will Save You. The ending is weird, but the suspense is top-notch.
The 'Burbs. Classic Tom Hanks comedy.
Tremors.
What We Do in the Shadows
Event horizon is definitely not the type of movie OP is after.
The best thing about Event Horizon is how incredibly gorey it is. Definitely not what OP is after.
Seconding Annihilation. Was going to suggest it if nobody else did.
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I would add The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993) to your Funny and Spooky list. I'll also second the The Fog (1981) suggestion.
Hmm... Haven't seen them since they first came out, my memory of them is vague, but might be worth a watch.
They definitely still hold up, and can actually be better seeing them as an adult for the first time if the last time you watched them was as a kid.
Also there’s an Addams Family channel on Pluto.tv that plays nonstop Addams Family episodes from the 60’s. It was a fantastic silly show. Love watching it with my kids.
The TV show version of What We Do in the Shadows is also quite good, I think, and very much traffics in the same themes as the movie, if even a bit sillier.
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I don't watch a lot of creepy/spooky stuff, so my recommendations come from a fairly limited breadth. That said, I recommend a few things that many might lump under "kid movies" (I prefer the more accurate label "family entertainment") since they tend to be perilous and unsettling without being outright violent, gory, or generally miserable.
Coraline (2009) - A young girl, dissatisfied with her home life after moving to a new town, stumbles upon a dark, parallel world. Therein, she finds solace in a parallel version of her mother who is not what she seems.
Paranorman (2012) - A young boy who can speak with the dead learns that a witch who was executed by the townspeople hundreds of years ago will soon return to seek vengeance upon them.
Over the Garden Wall (2014) - A mini-series focusing on two brothers who find themselves inexplicably lost in a forest teeming with fell beasts, witches, undead, and unlikely allies. I watch this one every year around this time. Cozy yet spooky at the same time.
I don't completely object to family entertainment, as the good stuff is usually fun for adults too. But there's also a big difference between the really good stuff and well, everything else. I mostly just wanted to avoid the Hocus Pocus, Hotel Transylvania, and "some random Disney channel crap from the 90s/2000s" that tend to pad out lists of non-horror Halloween movies.
My SO loves Coraline, I thought it was enjoyable enough. Although we watched it not long after watching They Live, which also has Keith David, which lead to a lot of joking about a scene mirroring the famous alley fight, but with buttons instead of sunglasses.
We watched Over the Garden Wall, liked the spooky parts, but wished the little brother would have been MIA for the entire series.
I know of Paranorman, I've had it on the list for a while, added when we felt like we were running out of options. Neither of us have seen it and we don't know much about it, so it's been a lower priority, but not ruled out.
The Pirates of the Caribbean movies fit I think. Skeleton pirates, curses, sea-zombie pirates, giant squid attacks, the East India Trading Company...
Can't argue with that logic.
As long as you don’t mind blood and guts in a lighter context, Cabin in the Woods and Tucker and Dale vs Evil are both incredibly fun comedy horror. Neither is really scary (though CitW has a stretch where it emulates classic slasher tropes), but both are quotably hilarious. Considering Shaun of the Dead is on your list and it includes a full evisceration, you’re probably fine.
If you’ve seen Bubba Ho-Tep but not at least Evil Dead 2 if not also Army of Darkness, then you’re woefully deprived.
Zombieland and its sequel are both delightful popcorn fun and very funny.
Happy Death Day is a slasher, but it’s also Groundhog Day and a likable, fun, PG-13 romp without too much meanness or darkness. The sequel is… fine.
Slither is a brilliant horror comedy but it’s a bit of a gross-out type, so it’s iffy if you don’t like seeing people swell to bursting with alien slugs and stuff like that. But the tone is always light and it’s just so much fun. Nathan Fillion in his peak Firefly days is the immensely likable hero.
There’s also a movie from the 80’s called Night of the Creeps that’s a cheesy, schlocky, gooey slugfest that is the spiritual predecessor to Slither.
Speaking of the 80’s, Return of the Living Dead is a super fun and funny 80’s zombie movie that actually has the honor of originating the “zombies eat brains” trope as far as I know.
If the 90’s are in play, Idle Hands is a fun, slightly gross, thoroughly silly stoner horror comedy that’s especially fun if you’re a fan of The Offspring (IYKYK).
I would also add Coraline and Nightmare Before Christmas as spooky atmospheric fun that aren’t obnoxiously kid-focused.
And segueing into Christmas horror, Krampus is a really fun movie that is both very funny and, but also works as a solid proper horror movie AND a family Christmas movie (for freaks like me).
For "funny and spooky" I'd suggest Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness. The gore is over the top to such a degree that it becomes just ridiculous!
For shows, I've been digging "From" on MGM+. First season (10 episodes) is free. 3rd season just started, new episode tonight!
Trailer:
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Hocus Pocus is classic 90s comedy/super-light horror. It's gooooood.
edit: and OP says in another comment that they want to avoid it. Noooooo! ...I get the sentiment, but noooooo!
A few that I don't think have been mentioned yet:
- Rosemary's Baby
- Ring (Japanese original)
- Mulholland Drive
- Get Out
- The Exorcist
- The Omen
The Omen is great but has a couple of beheading-style scenes if I recall right.
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Dead Zone with Christopher Walken is amazing. Glad to see it on this list.
Some more classic Stephen King you might enjoy if you haven’t already seen it:
- Salems Lot (the original 1970s mini series)
- Carrie (the original Spacek version, not the remakes)
- Firestarter (original with Drew Barrymore)
Edit: The Fog isn’t Stephen King. But it’s still good. I don’t remember it being too gory because everything happens in “the fog” but there might be a neck slicing. It’s been a looong time since I last watched it.
- The Fog (original with Adrienne Barbeau)
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If you haven't seen it yet, I can't recommend Midnight Mass highly enough! Probably my favorite horror/spooky thing ever. Best to go in blind, I think. It's not a mystery per se, but figuring out what's going on is part of the fun for sure.
Don't sleep on Doctor Sleep.
This is an interesting suggestion. I LOVE this movie (even the 3-hour Director’s Cut, which I highly recommend if you haven’t seen it), but it does kinda require having seen The Shining (quite scary and moderately graphic but might be passable since it’s 70’s-scale scary) and it’s pretty dark at times. But it’s a fantastic creepy journey that isn’t actually all that terrifying in itself. It feels more like a novel than most adaptations, and I love that about it.
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A couple old ones:
The Serpent And The Rainbow directed by Wes Craven.
Arachnophobia with Jeff Daniels, John Goodman.
Beyond The Black Rainbow - A psychedelic loveletter to the 80s, about a dying cult and its first and last victims.
Anything by David Lynch, but particularly Mullholland Drive and Twin Peaks.
Mullholland Drive is a dream logic trip through Los Angeles as a small town actress finds work and love and heartbreak and murder in the big city while the world becomes increasingly incomprehensible and nightmarishly surreal; it also includes one of the best acted, directed, shot and scored scenes in all of horror.
Twin Peaks is the story of a small town deep in the forests of Washington, struggling to solve the murder of a high schooler, an FBI agent arrives and proceeds to explore esoteric and supernatural causes; part drama, part cosmic horror.
It could just be that I first watched it when I was pretty young, but The Changeling from 1980 with George C. Scott is a pretty good atmospheric horror. No real gore or even deaths to speak of, but a good creepy ghost story nonetheless.
For 'Action Horror', I've liked The Hunt (2020), Ready or Not, Totally Killer and Strange Darling (technically not a horror, but it's about a serial killer)
I watched Red Rooms recently, and that's French (Canadian), so if anyone asks you what you watched recently, you can say 'Les chambres rouges' and sound all intelligent and stuff.
Haven't seen anyone here recommend The Woman in Black (2012) which fits the atmospheric horror genre perfectly. Stars Daniel Radcliffe and I remember it as being quite good, with no gore and minimal cheap jump scares. I don't think the trailer is a good representation of it so that would be one to go into blind.
X-Files
Studio 666 was really good. Marginally scary; more funny.
Color Out of Space was an amazing adaptation of an amazing short story.
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The Murmuring from Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities.
Try Oculus, 1408, and Session 9.
Everyone likes a good mindfuck horror now and then.
Was so excited to answer this only to find the top post hit virtually every one of my suggestions.
But there is one more. This year I plan to revisit an old classic:
The Lost Boys.
Candyman Candyman Candyman Candyman ....... .. . .. ...... Candyman
The Night House is a really good horror/thriller, I don't recall it having any gore.
The Menu is phenomenal, but does have a bit of blood and gore.
I don't think I saw anyone mention Get Out, a fantastic movie.
I'm not a big movie guy, but these were some of my faves (along with Evil Dead, which have been mentioned a ton already 🙂)
The Haunting of Hill House is a phenomenal show. Incredibly creepy, and one of the most emotionally powerful things I've ever watched.
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Ring (Japanese original)
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The Eye (Taiwanese? Thai?)
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M3GAN (you want the PG/13 rated version, as there's a gory cut out there)
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The Conjuring 2 (the best of the whole franchise)
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Nope
That should keep you going for a bit.
Under the funny and spooky category, one of my favourite movies is Murder Party.
Got any interest in spoliation films?
Scream Blacula Scream Some regard this as the worst blaxploitation movie. Considering the genre consist primarily of low budget movies with very short filming schedules that's a fairly damning indictment but I think it can be enjoyed for what it is if you have an interest in this type of cinema.
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