I thought I’d do something a little different. Since it’s October and almost Halloween, I thought I’d share My (current) Top 5 Creepy Movies. Now, I don’t actually watch many horror movies and I am not interested in gore movies or extremely gruesome ones. These ones are some of the few I can watch (in daylight only :D) that I enjoyed the storyline and weren’t so scary that I’d never sleep again.

Horror is not my favourite genre, but I do like watching the odd creepy movie. Usually after my partner has watched if first and deemed it “manageable” for me to watch 😀

However, I love seeing what makes me nervous or apprehensive. Seeing the techniques used in these movies that conjure those feelings can really help me when I want to add something scary into my writing.

The 8th Night

The 8th Night is a South Korean film from 2021, about a former exorcist who is trying to stop the resurrection of a millenia-old malevolent spirit that is possessing people. It is actually down as a mystery-thriller but I do believe it should also be in horror.

I liked the story of this and it was creepy enough that give me a few jump scares and some slightly gruesome scenes but not as bad as many horror movies.  Most of the International horror movies seem to be way too scary for me, but this was not so bad that I could actually watch it.

Grave Encounters

Grave Encounters is a horror movie from 2011 by The Vicious Brothers. It is a “found footage” movie that follows a production crew for a reality TV show “Grave Encounters” about ghost hunting.

They decide to lock themselves into a supposedly haunted abandoned mental hospital overnight in hopes of seeing some evidence of ghosts.

We see what the crew are like outside of the TV show and what they do to make things look real. But things start taking a weird turn. I really liked this movie. Not too scary for me, nothing really gruesome.

As Above, So Below

As Above, So Below is a horror movie from 2014, written and directed by John Erick Dowdle. The story follows Scarlett who’s searching for the alchemical substance, the Philosopher’s Stone.

Her research journey is being documented by Benji and pulls in her old friend, George and a team of young French explorers after her search leads to the catacombs beneath Paris where they enter an uncharted maze of tunnels.

This movie creeped me out a lot more than some of the others, but has a more indepth plot in my view. I also got the added bonus of being slightly stressed out watching the cast squeeze through a shocking narrow area that gave me second-hand claustraphobia. So kudos to the film company for managing that well.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a horror movie from 2016 that features Brian Cox (the actor, not the physicist :D). This movie has a wonderfully limited cast, we spend almost the entire time with just two people (three if you include the body).

The plot follows a father and son, who are both coroners and are called in to help when a young woman’s body found at a crime scene where a family was murdered. However, the body doesn’t appear to be connected to the murders.

This is an intriguing mystery horror as we learn all the strangeness about this body the autopsy reveals. I think what really works is that they are mostly in a brightly lit room and there is a clinical motion to much of what happens but the secrets they reveal get stranger and stranger.

There are some gruesome bits, and all that wonderful tension-rising apprehensive moments as well as a well-created “autopsy”.

The Taking of Deborah Logan

The Taking of Deborah Logan is a horror movie from 2014, written and directed by Adam Robitel. This movie follows a film crew (I seem to enjoy these film crew type movies, I hadn’t even realised!) who are creating a medical documentary. They are documenting her deterioration from Alzheimer’s disease.

So what starts as a heartbreaking and difficult documentary about this degenerative disease and the difficulties for Deborah Logan as well as her daughter who is the caregiver starts to reveal something more sinister.

Even just when we think it’s about Alzheimer’s, it is interesting to watch and I have to say the acting of Jill Larson who plays Deborah Logan is incredible. There is a stark sense of how awful that condition truly is. The movie continues and things get, as expected, weirder and darker with a mystery twist as we try and figure out just what is happening to Deborah Logan and why. Overall, a hair-rising movie but really enjoyable.

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So, for all your horror fans out there. Do you like scary movies? If so, what are your favourite scary movies? Drop them in the comments below.

Happy writing & stay safe

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