Horror is one of the most versatile and inventive genres in all of film. Its ability to creatively convey an endless variety of themes and ideas by filtering them through our most primal emotion –– fear –– has captivated audiences since the earliest days of cinema. 

While major studios can produce truly great horror movies, many of the best come from independent filmmakers. Here are five horror movies to check out if you love, or want to get into, the genre of horror.

“The Lighthouse” (2019), directed by Robert Eggers

If you’re looking for a film that pays tribute to cinema’s early horror roots, you likely won’t find one better than “The Lighthouse.” Shot and framed to resemble a film from the 1920s, the film follows two caretakers who are overseeing a lighthouse on a remote coastal island in the Atlantic. While things start normal enough, the film gradually builds up a sinister feeling of suspense that wears more and more on the sanity of our two leads with horrifying results. Visceral, tense and anchored by two career-highlight performances by Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, “The Lighthouse” is the quintessential movie for a stormy night.

“House” (1977), directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi

Few foreign films have developed a reputation quite like “House,” a horror flick unlike any other. Following a girl and her friends on a countryside trip gone horribly wrong, the film is perhaps one of the earliest intentional examples of the comedy horror genre that has since grown popular in the U.S thanks to directors like Jordan Peele and Sam Raimi. It’s an absolutely insane ride from beginning to end, likely due to many of the ideas coming straight from the director’s 12-year-old daughter. While not necessarily scary by today’s standards, the film is imaginative, hilarious and wonderfully trippy, making it a cult classic in the eyes of many horror fans.

“Skinamarink” (2022), directed by Kyle Edward Ball

In the realm of horror, budgets don’t always indicate quality. “Skinamarink” was made for only  $15,000 — less than 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project” — and yet it manages to deliver one of the most aggressively unsettling horror experiences in recent memory. Though it has a plot –– two young siblings are trapped in a house with an unknown supernatural threat –– it has more of an interest in absorbing the viewer in its atmosphere than telling a story. A uniquely disturbing and nightmarish journey through childhood fears, “Skinamarink” is a truly terrifying slow burn.

“Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006), directed by Guillermo Del Toro

Considered to be one of Guillermo Del Toro’s finest films, “Pan’s Labyrinth” is a complex and gripping venture into folk and fantasy horror. It follows a young girl in the fascist environment of 1940s Spain, and she must survive the brutality of wartime while also navigating her mysterious ties to a dark fantasy realm. Featuring compelling themes, moving performances and some of Del Toro’s most iconic creature designs, “Pan’s Labyrinth” is a thought-provoking must for any horror fan.

“Unedited Footage of a Bear” (2014), directed by Ben O’Brien and Alan Resnick

Sometimes good horror doesn’t even make its way to the theater. This film stands as one of the weirdest horror shorts to come out of the 2010s. At only 10 minutes long, the film functions as a surreal and disorienting parody of U.S drug commercials. The plot is conveyed through a disjointed series of disturbing visuals, with a lot of key details being only hinted at and never explicitly laid out to the viewer. A twisted and timely dive into the impact of the prescription drug epidemic, “Unedited Footage of a Bear” is uncomfortably fascinating.