“Arthouse” is a vague term that means different things to different people. What began as a piece of industry jargon to describe theaters that exist outside of the mainstream distribution ecosystem is often used as a catch-all term for thoughtful films that are elegantly composed and don’t blatantly pander to the lowest common denominator. It’s an adjective that is highly context dependent — plenty of “arthouse” films released in 2023 could have been marketed as perfectly mainstream fare a few decades ago.
But with that caveat in mind, it can still be a useful term for those looking for cinema that will challenge them. Regardless of a film’s distribution model, declaring something an “arthouse” project can be a tacit endorsement of its cinematography, design, intellectualism, acting, and use of symbolism. That is particularly true when it comes to horror movies. Horror has long been one of the most elastic film genres under the sun, as the things that scare us are equally capable of making us laugh, cry, and think. It’s also one of the last genres that makes genuine experimentation a commercially viable option, as horror movies typically have low budgets and built-in audiences that makes it relatively easy to reach profitability.
For filmmakers looking to explore complicated themes and ideas in a way that large audiences will actually see, horror is a natural route to explore. The success of A24’s recent slate of drama-infused horror films prompted an exhausting debate about the merits of “elevated horror,” but a deep dive through film history reveals that arthouse horror has been around for decades. From the great body horror films of the late 20th century to the dramatic nightmares of modern auteurs like Ari Aster, Julia Ducournau, Robert Eggers, the genre is full of artfully constructed films that invite multiple viewings.
In an attempt to highlight a variety of voices, our primer on arthouse horror limits each director to one film. But each artist on this list has other films that merit exploration, so there should be no shortage of ideas for arthouse fans looking to watch something spooky this October. Keep reading for our ten favorite arthouse horror films.
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“The Witch” (2015, dir. Robert Eggers)
Image Credit: Everett Collection / Everett Collection The film that simultaneously launched the career of Robert Eggers and endless “elevated horror” discourse, “The Witch” remains one of the most influential horror movies of the past decade. The folk horror masterpiece stars Anya Taylor-Joy in her breakout role as Thomasin, a young Puritan woman who is accused of witchcraft in 17th century New England. Eggers illustrates Thomasin’s gradual temptation to pursue the occult with artful symbolism and a meticulous pace that allows the film to unfold like a more conventional period drama. The writer/director’s exploration of the links between sexual repression and evil instantly established him as a major filmmaker to watch.
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“Titane” (2021, dir. Julie Ducourneau)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection “Arthouse horror” is an ambiguous term with a scope that might provoke some debate among cinephiles — but when a violent, hyper-sexual body horror wins the Palme d’Or, it’s automatically on the list. Julia Ducournau’s follow-up to her sickening debut feature “Raw” is understandably destined to be remembered as the movie where Agathe Rousselle fucks a car. But the movie is so much more than its shocking imagery. The film tells the story of a young woman who gets a metal plate in her head after surviving a car accident and gradually becomes one with machinery as she goes on a murderous rampage. It’s a fresh, mechanically horny flick that reminded the film community that there are still countless angles to explore our innate fear of bodily mutilation.
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“Mandy” (2018, dir. Panos Cosmatos)
Image Credit: Everett Collection / Everett Collection Nicolas Cage enjoyed a well-publicized career renaissance in the late 2010s by lending his talents to a series of unapologetically bizarre indie films that showcased his theatrical chops and willingness to get weird. Projects like “Willy’s Wonderland” and “Color Out of Space” all existed somewhere near the halfway point between “amusing novelty” and “genuine brilliance” on the quality spectrum, but Panos Cosmatos’ “Mandy” is almost certainly the best artistic achievement of the era. The neon-hued revenge fantasy stars Cage as a sober logger with a past full of demons who follows a gang of drug-loving bikers to the gates of hell to avenge his wife’s murder. While Cage’s GIF-able outbursts and the bizarrely hilarious “Cheddar Goblin” commercial (directed by “Too Many Cooks” mastermind Casper Kelly) might be the most memorable clips, “Mandy” is great because it’s an arthouse midnight movie with enough narrative heft to transcend those viral moments.
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“Beau Is Afraid” (2023, dir. Ari Aster)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Ari Aster infused his breakouts “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” with arthouse sensibilities, but still largely worked within the structural confines of the horror genre. However, his third feature outing, “Beau Is Afraid,” saw him fully enter his arthouse auteur era while still managing to scare the hell out of us. Joaquin Phoenix stars as the eponymous Beau, a painfully anxious man whose journey to attend his dead mother’s funeral takes him on a gut-wrenching trip that robs him of his grasp on reality. The film can be interpreted as a visual representation of Beau’s anxiety and myriad neuroses — but it’s still an Ari Aster movie, so you also get to see a grotesque penis monster.
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“Crimes of the Future” (2022, dir. David Cronenberg)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection David Cronenberg spent the bulk of his career proving that body horror films with nauseating amounts of gore were perfectly capable of containing cerebral ideas and arthouse-level craftsmanship. But as he evolved as an artist, he drifted away from genre filmmaking — and, eventually, feature filmmaking altogether. So when Cronenberg announced that he would be directing “Crimes of the Future,” his first film in nearly a decade and his long-awaited return to the body horror genre, expectations could not have been higher.
The film that he ultimately delivered puts the “arthouse” in “arthouse horror.” Telling the story of two futuristic performance artists (Viggo Mortensen and Léa Seydoux) whose act involves growing new manmade internal organs inside the human body and removing them on stage, the film sees Cronenberg once again exploring ideas about the futility of resisting evolutionary changes to the human body. It meanders considerably more than Cronenberg’s earlier works, but proves that his distinct visual style and interest in the future of our bodies didn’t soften during his hiatus.
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“House” (1977, dir. Nobuhiko Ôbayashi)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Hardcore Nobuhiko Ôbayashi fans often lament the ironic fact that the director of sensitive humanist dramas like “His Motorbike, Her Island” and “Hanagatami” is best remembered by mainstream audiences for this weird-ass 1977 horror classic. But the fact that Ôbayashi joined a long line of filmmakers in realizing that genre filmmaking is a shortcut to getting your work seen shouldn’t diminish the awesome legacy of “House.” The visually striking horror comedy follows seven girls who become trapped in a haunted house of horrors during a trip to the countryside to visit a sick relative. Ôbayashi bombards audiences with a gonzo pastiche of weird visual effects, including deliberately cartoonish ghosts that add to the midnight movie weirdness. The loosely pastoral plotline comes across like the most fucked up version of “My Neighbor Totoro” that you could possibly watch, and feels like exactly what would happen if a true creature of the arthouses set out to make a commercial blockbuster. It’s a must-see for Ôbayashi lovers, horror geeks, and international cinephiles alike. You’ll never look at cats the same way again.
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“Under the Skin” (2014, dir. Jonathan Glazer)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Jonathan Glazer’s mysterious piece of sci-fi horror stars Scarlett Johansson as an alien from an alternate dimension who arrives in Scotland and takes the form of a human woman as she attempts to lure men to their doom in her van. But Glazer’s distant, icy touch behind the camera turns what could have been a B-movie premise into an ephemeral exploration of humanity through the eyes of a character with zero points of reference. Often using hidden cameras and amateur actors, Glazer allows the alien to witness the Earth with as much curiosity and hesitance as we might have about an undiscovered planet in a distant galaxy. At the same time, he provides virtually no information about the alien or where she came from. The result is a stunning film that gives audiences a borderline-voyeuristic opportunity to watch nature take its course from a front row seat.
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“Funny Games” (2007, dir. Michael Haneke)
Image Credit: ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection One of the most unique filmmaking experiments of the 21st century, the 2007 version of “Funny Games” saw Michael Haneke directing an American remake of his 1997 film of the same name. The sadistic film, which follows a family that is kidnapped and tortured by two assailants on vacation, makes a point to hit audiences over the head with endless violence. Haneke conceived of the project as a way to comment on what he saw as excessive gruesomeness in the media, setting out to make a deliberately pointless film to prompt audiences to reflect about the amount of brutality they’ll tolerate on screen. While the movie might not seem like arthouse fare when taken at face value, its role in the Oscar nominee’s meta experiment makes it one of the more cerebral horror films of the century.
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“Berberian Sound Studio” (2012, dir. Peter Strickland)
Image Credit: ©IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection Not since Brian de Palma’s “Blow Out” has a film extracted so much narrative from the process of designing sound effects for movies. Peter Strickland’s nightmarish tribute to Giallo cinema follows a sound engineer who takes a job working on a horror movie for a shady coterie of producers who constantly withhold information from him. As he uses vegetables and household tools to make disturbing torture effects, he gradually becomes immersed in a horror plot of his own as his life begins to mirror the very Giallo films he works on. Strickland’s second feature film, “Berberian Sound Studio” expanded our understanding of the auteur’s fascination with food and sounds, and established him as one of his generation’s weirdest filmmakers.
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“Saint Maud” (2019, dir. Rose Glass)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection The dark undertones of organized religion have fascinated horror filmmakers for as long as movie cameras have existed. But few religious horror movies capture the ennui of human existence as effectively as “Saint Maud.” Rose Glass’ directorial debut stars Morfydd Clark as a young nurse who turns to Roman Catholicism to cope with her guilt over losing a patient. When she begins to care for a hedonistic dying lesbian, she gradually drifts towards more extreme sects of the faith that advocate for self-mutilation. Her attempts to expunge herself of guilt take her down a horrifying path in this elegantly shot, slow-burning (no small feat for an 84-minute movie!) nightmare.
