10 Terrifying Horror Movies You’ve Probably Never Seen

For those who think Possum is an animal and The Sadness is what you get when Love Island is off-air.

Salvage 2006
Echo Bridge Home Entertainment

These days, horror movies are ten-a-penny, and while the overall quality of both indie and blockbuster horror is at a pretty consistent high, that doesn't mean they're in any way guaranteed to deliver on scares.

While many horror movies don't even purport to frighten us, relishing instead in their ability to bring up our breakfast or represent the deepest evils imaginable, there is now as there has always been a dedicated contingent of movies whose primary purpose it is to separate viewers from their skin.

And we're not just talking jump scares here.

No, there is an unholy treasure trove of creature features, psychological chillers, body horrors and mockumentaries out there that know precisely how to ramp up the fear factor by any and all means necessary. And the best thing of all? Everyone and their mother hasn't already seen them and spoiled the kills, twists or big shocker set pieces.

Herein lie ten horror movies you probably haven't seen that are guaranteed to have you going to bed with the lights on. Some are good, some so bad they're good, and all are designed to terrify. Don't say you weren't warned.

10. YellowBrickRoad (2011)

Salvage 2006
Points North Films

A low-budget indie with enough tension to hold up a bridge, YellowBrickRoad hasn't travelled far in the 12 years since its release, but with some nuts-n-bolts filmmaking and a loose thematic concern with The Wizard of Oz, it pulls something unnervingly scary out of the bag.

The film follows the first official expedition to a small town where, in 1940, the entire populace walked off into the hills and never came back. Intent on finding answers and willing to go to any lengths to get them, the crew sent to do the job fall apart some five days into the wilderness, succumbing to a madness brought on by sinister, ever-present music.

YellowBrickRoad is not exactly Oscar-worthy, nor is it going to impress on a technical level, and yet while there's not a known name in the cast or a single special effect to be found throughout, it makes the most of what it's got. The performances are surprisingly immersive, and the sense of dread that seeps in during the first act sustains until the end, carried along on such a simple device that bigger, wealthier horror outfits are surely kicking themselves they didn't think of it first.

Contributor
Contributor

Writer, editor and lifelong critic of test screenings, money men and films-by-committee.