watching The Descent in 2006, age 20: This is a movie about how you never know... what lurks... in the dark... in the depths of the Earth

watching The Descent in 2024, age 38: This is a movie about how when a group of people has let you down and lost your trust in the mundane world, do not override your misgivings to go on a risky adventure with them, because it will not be a bonding experience, it will be a living hell

With images no longer available to us, our other senses will become incredibly acute, like some sort of debased cave-dwelling society of troglodytes. Our skin will grow pale and we will likely develop a form of primitive echolocation. Over time, our eyes will completely disappear and our ears will become flared and bat-like.

These are in no particular order. I had a hard enough time getting the list down to 25 without also trying to order it meticulously. I feel like there's probably something for most people in this collection. I've also largely avoided including classics that I think would be more popular, like The Shining, The Exorcist, Alien, Aliens, Nightmare on Elm Street or the various other slasher movies (sorry, Jason!) - not because I don't enjoy those or think they have merit, but mostly because I wanted to have space for some of the less well known entries too. Even having done that, I find myself out of room for films like The Wailing, or A Tale of Two Sisters, which are also very interesting.

I'll say something about all the films I've listed, mostly avoiding large plot spoilers, but the odd smaller spoiler may slip in.

• Midsommar. Yes, I could probably have included Hereditary as well - Ari Aster's other shocking horror movie. But I feel like Midsommar sticks the landing a bit better. Midsommar opens slowly and then ramps into a hugely traumatic event - and that's just the start of the film. How could things get worse than that, you wonder? Just watch and see! I love this film for its exploration of how grief can crack people open and render them vulnerable to external influences that aren't always benign. But it's also about terrible relationships that you just can't seem to quit; Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor are great in it. And it's a horror movie that is mostly set in the bright light of day - something that I really enjoyed visually. If I have a caveat about this film, it's that its treatment of people with disabilities is sketchy; I wish it had skipped some of the old tropes about physical deformities.

• The Babadook. For a time, this wasn't just my favourite horror movie - this was my favourite movie. It's about traumatic grief, and learning to live with that in a way that becomes carthatic. The therapist in me loves the way it depicts the shifting mother-son relationship, and how they battle to contain disturbance between them. And also how it shows that entire process of learning to live with trauma and loss - the grief never entirely goes away, but it can become just one part of a larger, still vital life.

• The Innocents. The 1961 film, starring Deborah Kerr and Michael Redgrave. Based on Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. This is a beautiful, visually sumptious black and white movie. They used to show it on TV on Christmas Eve, and I never tired of watching it. By now you'll probably have twigged that I like my horror psychological, and this is no exception, being a film that invites you to reflect on sexual repression (in that most repressed of eras: Victorian times!) but also depicts something of the dynamics around child abuse, how adults sometimes try to use children as containers for their worser impulses. This is very dark stuff, although a lot of it is implied more than directly shown. It's a beautiful movie wrapped around a dark, festering core, and I can't think of a better combination for horror.

• Pulse or Kairo, the 2001 Japanese horror film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. One of the scariest horror movies I've ever seen. There's an iconic scene in it that will make you want to hide behind your sofa. But also for a film made in 2001, the themes around the internet, isolation, loneliness and existential emptiness are still timely today. It's a film that left me with a feeling of an eternal void - very bleak. I had to sleep with the lights on for a week afterwards. I would 100% recommend this movie, and you can find it on the internet archive for free as well.

• The Thing. John Carpenter's 1982 film is full of amazing practical effects, and some very clever, nasty moments of body horror. It's also great to watch a horror movie set in Antartica, because if The Thing doesn't kill you, the frozen wastes will. Either that, or you'll wish that the frozen wastes had killed you.

• Train to Busan. This famous Korean zombie movie features competent survivors, all with their own personalities and priorities - you will grow to deeply like and root for some of these individuals. At the same time, it also holds true to the idea that sometimes the worst part of a zombie apocalypse is other people. The set pieces are intense, especially the ones set on a train, which feel suitably claustrophobic while also being explosive in terms of action. It stars Gong Yoo, and depicts a slowly evolving father-daughter relationship that will eventually have you crying like a baby.

• Ringu or The Ring. The 1998 Japanese horror movie, that made me afraid of my own TV. I think by now everyone knows the famous set piece, but also it's a genuinely creepy film about cursed analogue media, and I don't know anyone who wouldn't like that.

• Session 9. This is one of those horror movies that's become a bit of a cult classic. A caveat is that it plays with some well worn tropes related to insanity, and arguably that's lazy and unhelpful. But if you watch to the end of the film there's a suggestion that behind the madness is also social commentary about toxic masculinty, domestic violence and some suggestion of a malevolent genius loci. So there's a bit more going on than just "asylums are scary; people in asylums are scary" - although that is also going on too. The movie is set in the Danvers State Hospital, which creepy, decaying actual building is an entire character in its own right. To be fair to the "asylums are scary" trope, this building was historically the site of reportedly inhumane "treatments" that patients were subjected to. As a result, it's not hard to image it being a legitimately sinister locale even back in its heyday. The movie stars David Caruso, and for once, his smary, opaque acting style works really well in suggesting that there's something mysterious and darkly wrong going on below the surface. This is a horror movie that is big on vibes, and something about those dark, sad, eerie vibes has stayed with me over the years.

• Picnic at Hanging Rock. The 1975 film by Peter Weir. Some people will probably argue that this isn't a horror movie, as much as a mystery drama. Peter Weir's dreamy depiction of that mystery is beautiful and continually suggestive of something beyond reality, something which we can't comprehend, and which leads to tragedy, and yes, horror too. It's very much about intense relationships between girls and women, and also about a natural landscape that refuses to be totally colonised. In short: it's another beautifully shot, psychological number, so of course I love it!

• Candyman. The 1992 original, based on the short story by Clive Barker. It's not that the remake wasn't good, but I feel like the original film was one of the earliest times I felt compassion and understanding towards a horror villain. Tony Todd is amazing in it. The film's "urban legend" trope is solidly grounded in its housing project locale, and we're invited to think about how racism, exclusion, and oppression might feed into the creation of a figure who is both feared and invoked at the same time. I mean it's also about whiteness - I think the remake is explicit about that, but you can really see it in the original too, in terms of the shadow that racial violence casts down the ages, and the legacy it leaves behind.

• The Sixth Sense. You might very well guess the "twist" before it occurs. But along the way is a filmic depiction of therapy which I don't actually hate, plus another mother-son relationship that develops in interesting ways. Plus all therapists should learn from their clients - again, it's rare that there's a film with therapy in it when I don't end up whinging about bad boundaries and bad therapy.

• The Mothman Prophecies. Another film that's strong on vibes. In fact most of this film is vibes. There's something eerie about it, as if cryptids weren't eerie enough, we have the suggestion of something demonic, or something outside this dimension at least. I like that that's never made completely clear. As with Picnic at Hanging Rock, some mysteries are best when they aren't completely peeled apart, but are left to haunt you with doubt or questions, or a sense of something inexplicable just standing beyond the reach of this ordinary world. Also Richard Gere isn't annoying it.

• The Descent. Once again, people fail to remain upon the surface of the earth, and are punished for that. But it's also about friendships between women, about grief, and has some truly gnarly caving scenes that will make you very glad you're not in a cave. (If you're watching this in an actual cave, I don't know what to say to you except: I hope you told someone where you were going before you set off to explore this cave system.) If I have a criticism it's that there's 6 women in this movie, and none of them are people of colour. I don't know if that's because we're too smart to go into pointlessly dangerous situations, or if it's just the standard diversity line-up where all the diversity is white women. And also some of the characters feel quite interchangeable after a while. But yeah, on the whole a really solid film that will make you scared of caves - which is a good, reasonable fear to have.

• The Orphanage. The 2007 Spanish language film. I clearly like carthartic horror. This one is ultimately cathartic but will happily make you hide behind the sofa along the way at creepy ghost children wearing sackcloth masks. One caveat is that it's another film that suggests that physical deformity is inherently frightening, but I think it does ultimately humanise that particular individual in a way that Midsommar doesn't with its characters.

• The Wicker Man. The 1973 film, starring Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland and others. Good old folk horror, with a genuinely horrifying ending, while at the same time making it clear that you should be rooting for the horrifying folk. I mean, sure you can feel bad for Woodward's character, but everyone around him is having so much more fun than he does, all the way through the movie, that I think that's a clear sign of who to root for!

• Let the Right One In. This Swedish horror movie is also a romance and a coming of age film. The long, dark Nordic nights have never felt colder and dark. At the same time, there's a touching relationship at the heart of the film, and again, you will know who to root for - and again, it's not the "normal" folks.

• Dog Soldiers. Werewolf horror with fun characters, rollicking action, and a good bit of dark humour. I used to own this on VHS back in the day, and could rewatch it an almost infinite number of times without getting bored.

• The VVitch. Do you want to live deliciously? Who wouldn't if you were stuck in the Puritan times? As a result, we all know who to root for again, and yes, once again it's not the God-fearing "normal" folk. Horror's really good at subverting the status quo by turning its attention to the edges of society, to what's forbidden, beyond the pale, taboo... And yeah, obviously if small children are vanishing that's genuinely scary. But you know what's also scary? Purtanism. Pick your poison, folks, there's plenty to go round in this movie.

• Event Horizon. Where we're going, you won't need eyes to see! I mean, what can I say about Event Horizon that hasn't already been said. Jolly good ensemble space horror movie that gets weirder and more gory the longer you watch it. Sam Neill looks like he's having the time of his life, plus the unused footage was famously and tragically lost when it was stored down a Transylvanian salt mine (that link goes to an article with plot spoilers), where the dry air failed to have a sufficiently preservative effect. It's legendary all round, and I wish that footage had survived.

• The Endless. More science fictional horror, but this is more high concept than Event Horizon. We start off with a weird commune that may be a death cult. And then there's some time looping. And there's also a strong sibling relationship that has some genuine emotional heft. This is the film that got me into Benson and Moorhead as film makers. If you enjoy this one, I would also suggest Spring, as a very different horror movie about a holiday romance that becomes increasingly weird.

• We Go On. You're going to start this film thinking it's about one thing. And then along the way it turns into something else, something stranger and more disturbing. I came to this film from "Yellowbrickroad" by the same duo of Andy Mitton and Jesse Holland - a horror movie about the Wizard of Oz, the American wilderness, and degenerating group dynamics. That one was a bit more predictable. Where We Go On eventually becomes more predictable is around family dynamics, but even there it's a decently interesting parent-child relationship.

• The Vigil. Some horror cliches. It's clearly been made on a modest budget, but still a solid film with effective acting, and the Orthodox Jewish setting makes it interesting - the film does some reflecting on what its like to be minoritised and singled out for your culture. Ultimately, it's a humanising horror movie that is about compassion and seeking to relieve suffering. Again, I like my horror films psychological and carthartic so this was a good fit for me.

• The Black Phone. I wrote about this one with more spoilers here. It's got kids in jeopardy. The ending comes together really well. It made me cry. I like horror films that make me cry.

• Noroi: The Curse. We've got to have some found footage, and there's something about the visuals for this Japanese horror movie that has stayed with me. The documentary format works well, lending heft to an increasingly creepy series of events featuring dead pigeons, a TV psychic and yarn loops. It's scarier than that sounds, but the fact that those things have been rendered frightening should tell you a lot about the filmmaking in this movie.

• The Empty Man. The 2020 horror movie. Caveat: there's a moment where the protagonist is presented with a personality quiz to fill out by a weird cult, and some of the questions on that made me frown a bit, in terms of: I'm not sure what light this might be trying to cast on groups that (for instance) suffer from dysphoria. But I might be over-reading into that one scene, possibly because I have some skepticism about checking off "symptoms" on a laundry list even if it's not being done by a creepy cult. That aside, this film has some strange moments in it, in a good way. It might seem like a creepypasta movie, but it's ultimately weirder and more unsettling than that, and goes to some places that you might not expect. I didn't at any rate. There's also mountaineering (which icy and cold environment easily strikes fears in a variety of ways), an eldritch demonic skeleton, and tulpas.

There you go. 25 horror movies I like. The widget to make these tiled charts can be found here if you want to make one yourself.