Photo Credit (Pixeles)

Shocking an audience, being rebellious, and attempting novel and dangerous things are all hallmarks of the horror genre. This can occasionally imply that the finest horror films are the ones you haven’t seen.

There is a The Thing for every The Sixth Sense, which was only recognised long after it was first published. Many excellent horror films have just gone unnoticed, whether it’s because they weren’t properly promoted by the studio, weren’t popular at the time, or are simply better than you remember them being ten or twenty years ago.

Because of this, we have selected 13 films from the present century (that is, anything released after 2000) that we believe are underappreciated and deserving of being seen, either for the first time or again. We’ve combed through twenty years’ worth of horror films to uncover some well-known but overlooked misses, a few that have already achieved cult status, and other hidden treasures that will both frighten and delight.

A fantastic studio superhero film from before the MCU, two unexpectedly good remakes that creatively reimagine their original material, an underappreciated vampire film, a ridiculous found footage duology, an alien film, a shark film, and an alligator film that will keep you on the edge of your seat (and make you dread hurricane season) are all included. We hope you may discover something here that will frighten you in unexpected ways.

The Top 13 Underappreciated Horror Films of the Twenty-First Century
Many excellent horror films have just gone unnoticed, whether it’s because they weren’t popular at the time or because they’ve improved since then.

Constantine, 2005
Keanu Reeves’ portrayal of blond Cockney icon John Constantine as a dark-haired West Coast American turned off fans and critics alike when Francis Lawrence’s Constantine debuted in 2005. However, the film has gradually developed a cult following in the years since. A story about a devil-hunting warlock attempting to do some good in the world before his soul is doomed for all eternity is given a metaphysical and unsettling visual flare in Constantine, which is unlike any comic book superhero film produced before or after. Given that so many superhero stories feel the same these days, Constantine is worth seeing again, especially with Rachel Weisz elevating the clichéd “girlfriend” role with her talent alone, Peter Stormare as an acid-mouthed Lucifer, and Tilda Swinton as a nonbinary vengeful angel.

The 2007 film 30 Days of Night
Perhaps the most underappreciated vampire film of the century is 30 Days of Night. Although it’s not the greatest film ever made, it’s unquestionably better than most people realise. A rather unexpected cast of actors, coupled with a fantastic idea—vampires attacking an Alaskan village during its yearly month of winter darkness—and Josh Hartnett? Melissa George? Ben Foster? Danny Huston? — result in a truly unique and imaginative movie that plays with almost all of the vampire clichés we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in films of this genre. From its foreboding opening moments to its violent conclusion, it is incredibly stressful and gruesome, making it the ideal film to watch on those long, chilly winter evenings.

2011’s Fright Night
The remake of the 1985 suburban vampire film Fright Night by Craig Gillespie is often overlooked when discussing unexpectedly excellent horror remakes. Imogen Poots plays Charley’s girlfriend, and David Tennant, who starred in Doctor Who, plays a leather-clad occult TV celebrity who collects silver bullets and vials of holy water. Colin Farrell plays the bloodsucking antagonist Jerry Dandridge in the new version, while Anton Yelchin plays his horror-obsessed, angsty teen foe Charley. The film moves to a suburb of Las Vegas, which is the ideal place for a vampiric vagabond to live, and skilfully employs Farrell at the height of his bad boy charisma to create its entertaining, spooky vampire thrills.

(2014) Creep 2 (2017) Creep
Mark Duplass plays a deranged serial murderer in both of Patrick Brice’s found-footage Creep films, which should be viewed as a pair. The sequel deftly uplifts and reverses the pattern and clichés established in the first film. As a cameraman in Creep, Brice accepts an invitation to shoot a man in a remote cabin (Duplass) who says he has an incurable brain tumour and wants to make a video of his life to show his unborn baby. The cameraman thinks the man is being stalked because of his increasingly strange behaviour and fixation on a fearsome wolf mask. Desiree Akhavan portrays Duplass’s most recent victim in the follow-up, a YouTuber who is creating a webseries on strange Craigslist customers. Akhavan’s character recognises that he and Duplass might be a match made in hell as he refuses to be frightened by his antics.

Shallows (2016)
The Shallows, a woman-versus-shark thriller, is a prime example of Jaume Collet-Serra’s skill in elevating what would otherwise be the kind of rather straightforward, dumb B films that are released on demand and quickly forgotten. Blake Lively plays a young surfer who, after escaping a shark attack, finds himself trapped on a rock in a remote bay. She must survive for days while the shark hunts her, defending herself against its attacks and caring for her ever more severe wounds with the help of her cunning and scraps of debris she collects from the nearby water. It’s thrilling, gory, and features a really endearing seagull.
I Am the Beautiful Occupant of the House (2016)
(2016) I Am the Pretty Thing That Resides in the Home
Netflix

(2016) I Am the Pretty Thing That Resides in the Home
The eerie and unnerving gothic ghost story I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House is a film that Oz Perkins filmed in between his more recent scary fairy tale Gretel and Hansel and his directing debut The Blackcoat’s Daughter. Horror enthusiasts may recognise Perkins from both films. Ruth Wilson plays a live-in nurse who tends to a dementia-stricken retired horror writer in the movie. The nurse becomes certain that the house is haunted and that the author’s last book is a true account of what actually happened there as odd things begin to happen, such as objects moving on their own, bizarre reflections, and an ever-growing patch of mould on the wall. With its unique take on ghost stories, the film is poetic and surreal and will keep you up at night.

Life (2017)
We must not overlook Daniel Espinosa’s 2017 alien thriller Life, even though Ridley Scott’s Alien is arguably the best space-based horror movie ever made. Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Hiroyuki Sanada, and Ryan Reynolds are among the film’s surprisingly strong ensemble cast members. They play a group of astronauts on board the International Space Station who find evidence of Martian life in a spacefaring creature that quickly grows and transforms into a terrifying, highly intelligent beast that is out of their control. With some particularly gruesome deaths and one of the cruellest conclusions in sci-fi history, it’s a tense and disturbing thriller.

Unsane (2018)
Unsane, a psychological horror-thriller that stars Claire Foy as a woman who is checked into and imprisoned — entirely legally — in a mental institution against her will, is a Kafkaesque dive into the prosaic ills of the healthcare business that marked the beginning of Steven Soderbergh’s iPhone era. Traumatised by a recent encounter with a stalker, the woman is duped into signing a consent form for a voluntary stay in a mental hospital, which she later learns is engaging in a scheme to benefit off the insurance policies of its patients. Furthermore, she thinks her stalker is posing as a staff member with the intention of killing her or kidnapping her. The film has a spooky found-footage vibe because it was shot totally in secret using an iPhone 7 Plus.

Suspiria (2018)
When Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria adaptation released in 2018, it didn’t receive nearly the acclaim it deserved, perhaps because of its strange release date, subdued colour scheme, or lack of a romantic Mediterranean romance. Dakota Johnson plays American ballerina Susie Bannion, who recently moved to West Berlin in 1977 and enrolled in a renowned dance school run by a coven of witches. Madame Blanc, a controlling dancing instructor who is portrayed by Tilda Swinton (who, unbeknownst to the public, plays three parts in the film), is in charge of the coven. Although the film is very different from Dario Argento’s giallo original, eschewing its vibrant colours and firmly focussing on themes of motherhood and the post-World War II depression in Europe, it is nonetheless far superior to what its first reaction would have us believe.

Crawl (2019)
In Crawl, directed by Alexandre Aja of Piranha 3D, Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper played a father and daughter who become trapped in a crawl space beneath their house during a hurricane. The two must climb through the floors of their home to escape as an army of alligators patrols the streets as the storm intensifies and the floods rise. Although the idea seems absurd enough for a forgettable B-movie, Aja makes his man-versus-gator eco-horror surprisingly exciting by creating such tension.

2020’s The Night House
One of those very outstanding films that sadly not many people had the opportunity to witness is The Night House. Despite receiving a nomination for a Saturn Award for Best Horror Film, the film was a box office bust and appeared to go unnoticed. Rebecca Hall, who starred in both this and the equally unsettling Resurrection a year later, plays Beth, a lady who is still in shock over her husband’s suicide. When Beth finds another house across the lake that is a mirror image of her own, things take a sinister supernatural turn. Initially, she believes her husband was having an affair because of a mysterious note, a reversed floor plan for their home, and pictures of a woman who looks like her but isn’t. With one of the most bizarre jump scares in modern memory, it’s both eerie and captivating.

Censor (2021)
Censor, the debut feature from Welsh director Prano Bailey-Bond, is both a fantastic horror film and a biting critique of the British film business. During the Video Nasty frenzy of the 1980s, Niamh Algar plays Enid, a censor who removes any violent content from recently completed films while working for the British Board of Film Classification. Enid, who is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of her younger sister, decides to use any means necessary to find the exploitation filmmaker who she believes has been using her long-lost sister in his graphic horror movies. It’s an honest, engrossing film that critiques the history and current state of the filmmaking profession using historical context.

The Future’s Crimes (2022)
Who would have thought that one of David Cronenberg’s films would be included among the underappreciated horror genres? In the dystopia shown in the body horror master’s most recent film, Crimes of the Future (which borrows its title but not its narrative from one of his early works), physical pain and the majority of illnesses have been eradicated due to advancements in biotechnology and human development. In front of a live audience, Viggo Mortensen plays Saul Tenser, a man whose body is constantly producing new organs that are extracted by his partner, Caprice (Léa Seydoux), a performance artist. In addition to having one of Kristen Stewart’s most captivating performances as a high-strung bureaucrat fixated on subversive art, the movie is full of contemporary concerns, such as the spread of plastic waste in our surroundings and the emergence of degenerative diseases.

Aliens
At least there are some survivors, even though Alien’s current conclusion may not be the happiest—after all, everyone but Ripley and Jones the Cat is horribly slaughtered. Not in the original plan of Ridley Scott! A few years ago, the director confirmed that in a previous version of the story, the alien “comes forward and it slams through her mask and rips her head off” when Ripley shoots the xenomorph out of the airlock. The creature would then “in a perfect mimic” mimic the voice of one of the crew members and send Weyland-Yutani a captain’s log that said everything was fine. Is it any wonder that Fox chose not to use that version?

The Darkness Army
Fundamentally, the Evil Dead films are about director Sam Raimi torturing Bruce Campbell and Ash Williams, his fictional persona, for the audience’s entertainment. Regardless of Ash’s arrogance, a terrifying undead monster is always lurking around the corner, ready to take him down. In Evil Dead II, when he vanquishes the unholy evil in the woods, he is sent back in time to the Middle Ages, which is when Army of Darkness is set. With Ash making another mistake on his voyage back to the present, that film almost ended on a similar cliffhanger. Ash accidentally snoozes through all of human civilisation, only to awaken into a post-apocalyptic future, leaving him perplexed as to how many drops of a sleeping potion he drank. Raimi finally bowed in to pressure from Universal executives and gave Ash a more conventional happy ending, even if it was so ridiculously extravagant that it seemed like a parody of studio-mandated happy endings, even though that was the perfect joke to close out the saga. (Back in the present, at his former retail job, Ash heroically protects a stunning woman from another Deadite monster.) Raimi is skilled enough to salvage a poor situation, but old Ash ought to have been stuck in the future, fighting zombies indefinitely.

The Butterfly Effect
It makes sense that a film about using time travel to change reality would have a variety of possible outcomes. Ashton Kutcher’s Evan concludes that the only way to undo the damage his time travelling has caused to others is to return to his mother’s womb and strangle himself with his umbilical cord while still a foetus. This is the darkest of The Butterfly Effect’s endings, or at least its boldest, which is a significant one these days. Oh no! In addition to the depressing alternative endings, there is the tragic foetal suicide by umbilical strangulation.

Clerks
When Kevin Smith first showed Clerks, it ended in a startling, terrible way: Dante (Brian O’Halloran) would close the Quick Stop after complaining all day long that he wasn’t even meant to be there, only to be killed in a random break-in. Smith later stated that he couldn’t think of a better way to wrap up Clerks and that he did it because it was stunning and ironic. After seeing that early cut, a number of Smith’s friends insisted that he couldn’t release the film in that format. Smith ended the movie right before the last, bloody finale was about to start since he didn’t have the money for reshoots and just cut out the robbery sequence. Smith’s career as a director began when he sold Clerks to Miramax. Which begs the question: Would Clerk’s original conclusion have become a cult favourite if he had disregarded advice?

The Dead’s Dawn
The two human survivors in George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead depart in their helicopter after fleeing the shopping centre where they have been living for a few months. Only after contemplating an alternative ending that would have seen the same two characters choose suicide over being killed by a zombie horde—one of whom even stuck their head into the copter’s rotor—did George A. Romero come to that conclusion. The copter would have continued to spin through the closing credits before abruptly stopping, indicating that any escape would have been futile due to the helicopter’s low fuel supply. Romero gave in during the making of Dawn of the Dead and decided on a little more optimistic ending for the follow-up, even though he had finished the first Night of the Living Dead in a similarly fatalistic manner.

Everlasting
The ending of Eternals was a standard Marvel film: the heroes (except the one who turned out to be a secret villain) restore humanity and prevent Earth from being destroyed. While some team members go for space, others remain to continue defending the Earth. But that ending was a late addition to the production. Throughout the movie, the Eternals were initially going to get punishment from their old Celestial masters for disobeying their commands. A Celestial would have taken the Eternals, erased their minds, and transported them to a different planet so that it might eventually produce another Celestial in the original ending. This would have essentially restarted the never-ending cycle that these characters had unknowingly been a part of since the beginning of time. Marvel chose a more conventional heroic ending, but given the current state of affairs, they might as well have adhered to their guns because I doubt we’ll ever see the Eternals on film again.

First Blood
The first Rambo was a sombre character study of a Vietnam veteran (Sylvester Stallone, of course) who loses it after being abused by a small-town sheriff (Brian Dennehy). The later, absurd sequels frequently hide this reality. Rambo is finally confronted and calmed by Richard Crenna, his former commanding officer, after he has gone on a rampage through a tiny portion of the Pacific Northwest. Rambo breaks down in tears upon seeing a familiar face and consents to turn himself in to the authorities. At least that’s what viewers witnessed; in a different version, directed by Ted Kotcheff, Rambo commits suicide in front of Trautman instead of surrendering and doing time in prison. In addition to being a believable conclusion for John Rambo, it would have kept the character from being the focus of four progressively more unbelievable sequels. (Although they don’t really resemble First Blood, several of them are fascinating and enjoyable in their own right.)

Leave Now
One of the loudest and most enthusiastic crowd reactions I have ever heard in a movie theatre occurred at the climax of Get Out, when Rod (Lil Rel Howery) arrived in a police car and saved his friend Chris (Daniel Kaluuya). The catharsis of Chris’ last-minute escape from the evil Armitage family was adored by audiences, and it undoubtedly contributed to Get Out’s huge box office success. Perhaps Peele’s initial conclusion was more realistic and more consistent with the kind of Twilight Zone satirical twist endings for which he is now known. As originally planned, Chris would be arrested by the police as they arrived, just as he was strangling Rose (Allison Williams). Rod offers to look into what happened when he pays Chris a visit in prison. “I’m doing fine. “They were stopped by me,” Chris responds. I’m happy that Peele has risen to the top of the Hollywood film industry thanks to Get Out’s popularity. And even with the revised ending, Get Out remains a fantastic film. But the first one was far better.

I Am Legend
Will Smith’s character Robert Neville valiantly gives his life to defend his created remedy for the virus that has wiped out society in the dramatic conclusion of I Am Legend, which is based on another Matheson book. That’s… far from the initial goals of novelist Richard Matheson. With Smith realising that the “Darkseekers” he has been fighting throughout the film still have some humanity and that he has, in a sense, turned into the real monster in this situation, the director’s cut takes a completely different turn. They depart without more violence after Neville gives the other members of the party back the Darkseeker he had taken and used for his experiments. Then, in search of traces of civilisation, Neville and the other human survivors travel north. Even if it’s still not exactly what Matheson had in mind, it’s a lot more unsettling ending and at least it gets closer.

The Little Shop of Horrors
One of the most expensive deleted scenes ever produced is also arguably the most melancholic potential ending in film history. The initial ending minutes of the film, which were designed to closely resemble the events of the original Little Shop stage musical, are said to have cost Warner Bros. $5 million out of a $25 million budget. In the version you missed, Audrey (Ellen Greene) and Seymour (Rick Moranis) were devoured by the hideous Audrey II plant, which subsequently escaped the flower store and started to take over the planet. As though ready to swallow the entire crowd, a horde of Audrey IIs invade the soldiers, wrap their vines around the Statue of Liberty, and then erupt through the movie screen. The movie was so well received by test viewers, ahem, that Moranis even pushed Greene’s limp body into Audrey II’s swooning maw. Test-screening scores below 55 are regarded as poor; Little Shop’s initial ending supposedly garnered it a dismal 13. Having run out of options, director Frank Oz and his crew got together for a three-week reshoot, entirely rewriting the movie’s last act so that Seymour defeats the evil plant after saving Audrey. In addition to matching the dark humour of the rest of the movie, Oz’s original ending featured some very amazing puppetry and practical effects that were left on the cutting room floor for decades. (Eventually, they were repaired so they could be included on the Blu-ray of Little Shop of Horrors.)

The Vacation of National Lampoon
The final sequence of National Lampoon’s Vacation was similar to the opening of the John Hughes story on which it was based, which begins with the timeless line, “It would have been our best vacation ever if Dad hadn’t shot Walt Disney in the leg!These scenes were shown in Vacation’s rough cut, but director Harold Ramis changed the ending because he thought it was a bit “soft.” This allowed the family to reach Walley World, where they coerce a security guard into letting them into the closed park so they could ride all the rides. The story has a happy, if twisted, ending, and it’s not a bad one. But one in which Walt Disney gets scolded by Chevy Chase? That might have been something of interest.

Express Pineapple
The brutal, bloody murders of Pineapple Express’s two stoner protagonists, Dale (Seth Rogen) and Saul (James Franco), somehow nearly brought the light-hearted comedy to a close. It’s no surprise that Pineapple Express ends with the heroes emerging from their adventure just slightly worse off because mainstream audiences typically prefer happy endings regardless of the content, but this is particularly true with comedies. However, a highly subversive approach for this action spoof to make a twisted farewell would have been to mow down its stars.

Ronin
In essence, this list is a record of instances where studios tried their best to make a suitably depressing conclusion a bit more hopeful. John Frankenheimer’s preferred conclusion for Ronin, in which Natascha McElhone’s character was abducted and likely killed by IRA militants, was rejected by United Artists. Rather, when Sam, played by Robert De Niro, begs her to leave the scene of the brutal last firefight, McElhone’s character is never seen again. The “compromise” ending is acceptable—at least she doesn’t appear to give Sam a heartfelt “thank you” kiss—but the one Frankenheimer had in mind was more appropriate for Ronin’s brutal portrayal of global espionage.
Pixar

The soul
Soul, which follows a gifted jazz musician as his soul teeters on the edge of death after he falls into a coma, was difficult for Pixar to wrap up during production. Should Jamie Foxx’s character, the musician, completely enter the afterlife or should his spirit return to his physical body on Earth? The filmmakers did make cuts with various finales, including ones where the musician dies, even though they finally chose the more traditional happy ending. A children’s film in which the protagonist just croaks? There would have been an option there.

The Suicide Squad
Look, nobody expects a film like The Suicide Squad to be a complete success. However, James Gunn intended his portrayal of the DC team to delve even further into the shadows than the audience had expected. Several members of the core crew of super(anti)heroes escaped the edit that audiences saw; Gunn had originally planned for Amanda Waller, played by Viola Davis, to murder Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior) for betraying her, and then for Bloodsport (Idris Elba) to shoot Waller in retribution. In the end, Waller, Bloodsport, Ratcatcher (and Peacemaker!) all made it through the ordeal to fight another day, while Gunn and DC took a different route. However, given the conclusion of the DCEU, it’s possible that we won’t see any of those characters again.