The Best Horror Movies of All Time

Directed by the men behind the HBO series “Flight of the Conchords,” “What We Do in the Shadows” is a comedic movie shot documentary-style about four vampire roommates. While the movie generally aims for laughs over screams, its respect for genre conventions and willingness to step into darker thematic territory make it a winner for horror fans.

Based on Howard Hawks’s “The Thing from Another World” (1951), John Carpenter’s “The Thing” was critically panned upon its release in 1982. The movie — with its apocalyptic tone and special effects by Rob Bottin — has since risen to the status of horror and sci-fi classic. It currently has an exceptional 92% user rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

“The Birds,” based on the horror story by British writer Daphne du Maurier, is about our feathered friends who one day inexplicably attack people. Ninety-four percent of critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave it a Freshness rating, a near-consensus that was summed up by New Yorker critic Richard Brody, who said, “Few films depict so eerily yet so meticulously the metaphysical and historical sense of a world out of joint.”

German filmmaker Werner Herzog’s update of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent horror classic is both frightening and, in a way, hauntingly beautiful. Part of the film’s success is due to the performance of actor Klaus Kinski in the role of Count Dracula. Following a 2014 screening of the film, Herzog told his audience that “it was clear there would never be a vampire of his caliber ever again.”

“Curse of the Demon” received a Freshness score of 100% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, who hailed it for “unforgettably nightmarish sequences” and called it “one of the most intelligent and thoughtful horror movies ever made.” The film, directed by horror veteran Jacques Tourneur (“Cat People” and “I Walked With a Zombie”), centers around an American professor’s investigation of a devil-worshipping cult in England.