Top 6 of the Worst Found Footage Movies Ever Made

Seems like everyone is making a found footage movie nowadays. I've seen my fair share of them, and to be clear, I rather enjoy the sub genre of horror. Some of the scariest movies I've ever seen have been found footage movies. Unfortunately, since everyone is jumping on the found footage bandwagon, we've been inundated with cheaply made, horribly edited pieces of crap that leave the audience staring at the screen numbly and asking themselves: What the hell did I just watch? And why did I watch the entire thing when it was clear that it wasn't going to get any better than the first 5 minutes of the movie?


Ubiquitous warning: This post contains movie spoilers, and horrible bad movies that may cause you to lose SANITY points if you watch them. To spare you that fate, I've watched them for you. A word of caution, these movies are so bad, my reviews of them here are super snarky. Like, for reals. 



6. Episode 50 (2011)




"Episode 50" is, wait for it... the 50th episode of a paranormal investigator show where everything goes horribly wrong and lotsa people die.

In this bad found footage movie, paranormal investigators go into an insane asylum (shocking!) to film proof of ghosts but end up running into a demon instead. This demon, is killing people and making ghosts.
Wait... What?
Seriously?
Hold on. Let me check my note.
Dammit.
Yup. It's a ghost making demon.
 *Sigh*

According to the information given to the investigators, inmates of the asylum died of natural causes when their hearts "literally exploded in their chests."

Man, what? Literally exploded? Like: BOOM? How the hell is that a natural cause of death?

I'm sorry ma'am. Your husband died due to heart explosion. We did everything we could, but since it blew up and shredded his chest, there's nothing we can do to resuscitate him. 

On top of the hilarious fictional medical conditions, there's also a ton of random events in this movie, such as the camera guy running into this window, lifting the curtain to find bees. He totally hates bees. Like for real!

AAAHHH!!!!  The bees! The bees!

Later that night, the investigators come across the window to find dead bees all lined in a row on the sill.

The bees are never spoken of again.

OK... Bees. Got it.

See. Totally random events that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. And the ending comes out of nowhere. The plot never set up for it, and we're left going, WTF! Seriously? That's it?

This movie made me bitter. Why? Because it started out as an interesting spoof on ghost hunting shows, and then quickly unraveled the minute they get to the asylum and start shooting footage. Up until that point, the movie is entertaining, and actually funny at times.

I thought it was going to be about a group of skeptics that went around proving that ghosts weren't real and showing the cause of what witnesses actually saw.

Instead, it goes from being an interesting take on paranormal investigating and it does a complete heel-face turn. Suddenly, ghosts and demons are real, and the main character must battle with a demon to save his soul. Oh yeah, and the main character encountered the very same demon earlier in life, and it burned his hand... Riiiight.

This movie is so bad, it's rather funny. So unlike the other movies here, at least it's entertaining to watch.


5. Paranormal Activity (2007)




I know, I know, there's a ton of fan boys out there that absolute LOVE this movie.

I'm not one of them.

Why? Because the movie is boring as hell. It's so boring, I found myself yelling at the characters to do something other than sitting around knitting or doing beads all freaking day. (Watching this movie gave me flashbacks to high school, and when I was forced to read "Anna Karenina" by Tolstoy. There were six pages dedicated to how the peasants cut the grass! Six pages of dense text. Six! Ugh!)

On top of that, the movie is internally inconsistent, with the psychic investigator constantly flip-flopping about what is haunting what's her face. (Yeah, the movie was so boring, I forgot the character's names. And I don't care!) Is it a demon, a ghost? Do you take care of demons, or don't you? Tell me mister! What do you do? What is your purpose in this film? Oh yeah, that's right. Padding to make it longer than it should be.

"Paranormal Activity" may have been a decent short horror film, but as a feature length movie, it's a total snooze fest.

But, the ending Cassie! The ending is so good!

Really? Is it really that good? Let's watch it again shall we?




Recap:
What's her face paces around the bed. Takes off her hubby's sheets, wanders down stairs, then starts screaming. There's a struggle OFF SCREEN between hubby and the possessed wifie poo- then a long pause. A very loooong pause, and then a jump scare as hubby is thrown into the camera. AAAAHHHHH!!! After that, chickie who may or may not be possessed by a demon or a ghost, walks in, all bloody, then approaches the camera and smiles,"spookily."

No, strike that, her look is spoopy, not spooky.

You want to tell me again why you think that's a scary movie? Please, indulge me. Tell me how I'm wrong in the comments section. I'll be nice and hear you out. Promise! I'd love to know your thoughts on this.

4. Area 407 (2012)



"Area 407" is a found footage movie about plane crash survivors that are attacked by dinosaurs. Yup. Dinosaurs.

The airplane crashing scene is the scariest part of the movie. After that, it quickly falls apart thanks to unlikable characters and their inability to act (not the actors not being able to act, but the characters not knowing what to do for most of the freaking movie).

I watched "Area 407" because it had an interesting premise. A plane crashes in the desert and then the surviving passengers are attacked by a pack of velociraptors.

RAWR! I'm a dinosaur!

We'll get back to the dinosaurs in a sec. Let's talk about the characters first:

This is Charlie.

Charlie is an asshole. He's so much of an asshole that he goes out of his way to make both the characters and the audience pissed off at him. Every time he speaks, you'll find yourself screaming at the TV for him to shut the eff up already. Trust me.

This is Trish. She's the one holding the camera and narrating for most of the movie.

She's just as annoying as Charlie, but in that "I'm a 13 year old girl and nosy as hell so I'm going to bother everybody" kind of way. She'll make you yell at the TV too, because she's an airhead and whines a lot. Like, all the time.

There's only one main character that's likable (and interesting); the photo journalist. He has an interesting back story, his reason for being on the plane makes sense, as does the reason why he has cameras and lights to use in the dark desert landscape. Unfortunately, and he gets the least amount of screen time.

The worst part about this movie is that more than half of it is made up of the characters arguing with each other about what do to after the plane crashes. They're literally screaming at each other at one point. And yes, I mean literally. Not like the heart explosion thing in the previous movie. This time, it actually happens.

The movie is about dinosaurs, right? Awesome! Dinosaurs attacking people! But do we get to see any of that on-screen. Not really. There's only two shots of the dinosaurs attacking the camera holder. That's it.

Throughout most of the movie, all we get are people shouting and arguing and getting mad at Charlie. Charlie argues so much, that he almost has a second heart attack in the process.

Trish and her sister would've been more sympathetic characters if they weren't so poorly portrayed. I'm not sure if it's the actors or the dialogue they were given, but damn are they shallow and annoying.

I watch movies to be entertained, not annoyed to the point where I'm about to turn it off because I can't stand watching it any more. The characters are trite and obnoxious, and the plot is so thread bare, that it would blow away in a light breeze if it were a rug.

Here's the recap:

Kids get on plane, annoy passengers by filming them. Plane crashes for some unknown reason after suffering turbulence. Survivors of plane crash attempt to regroup and spend 30 minutes arguing about what do to while one of the kids is about to bleed to death because they made a crappy tourniquet on her arm with a belt and never bothered to wrap up her gushing wound. Then one dude goes to find the other half of the plane. He dies off screen. Another dude goes to find him, comes back, says there's a road, and then proceeds to get eaten off screen.

The group runs away from dinosaurs, finds an abandoned shack, holes up there for a while and then proceeds to argue. They find a walkie talkie, and attempt contact. A car shows up, someone gets out of it, asks a question and then drives away. The group makes a run for it and ends up in a ghost town. They find a military grade radio, are contacted by military, told to return to the plane and fire some flares.

Seriously? They didn't bother to check for flares when they went to find the first aid kit? UGH!

They go back, fire flares, more people are eaten by dinosaurs. Kids escape with CHARLIE (did I forget to mention that I hate him?) and eventually find help.

But, guess what the evil military man does to them once he finds them and says that he's going to help them? I won't spoil it for you.

Needless to say, "Area 407" suffers from the military is evil cliche. Because we so need more of that in our lives... Oh wait. We don't.

3. Diary of the Dead

This movie is so lame; I don't even know where to start. The main characters are boring, probably because most of the time, the actors sound bored. Lines are said without voice inflection, as though they're reading them from queue cards or a teleprompter.

The zombie actors are uninspired and comical. Hell, even the random survivors that the kids run into are a joke. Check out this deaf Amish man who keeps dynamite in his barn. Yes. That's right. He keeps explosives in his barn.
Hoo boy.

The movie has cut scenes from webcams of people across the globe talking about the zombies and totally freaking out about them. In one laughably silly video, a Japanese woman tells the audience "Don't bury dead. Shoot in head."

OK... Got it.

The worst part of Diary of the Dead is that it retreads over everything that has been established in all of the other Romero zombie movies: gotta shoot zombies in the head to kill them, someone freaking out telling everyone else that zombies are reanimated dead people, a main character is bit by a zombie in a stupid way that wouldn't have happened if anyone (themselves included) had been paying attention to their surroundings.


Diary of the Dead also includes such zombie cliches as:

• Ninja zombies
• Zombies playing dead
• Guts spilling out of a disemboweled zombie
• Crazy dude keeping zombies of dead loved ones in his home and lying about it so that when the zombies are discovered, they kill everyone in the main cast.
• Thinly veiled social commentary about how quickly our infrastructure would fall apart because none of it really matters

Much like "Area 407," the main characters in "Diary of the Dead" are unlikable jerks. I for one, was happy when the zombies finally got them and turned them into lunch. I'd say more about this one, but I think I've made my point.


2. Greystone Park (2012)





Three friends go explore the haunted Greystone Park psychiatric hospital to see if they can find proof that ghosts exist. Spooky things happen. People die. The end.

Seriously. That's all this movie is about.

"Greystone Park" is yet another ghost hunter/paranormal investigator found footage movie that is supposedly based on true events, or is real footage of the people being attacked and murdered by ghosts (in this instance, they take the form of shadow people and crazy people that they've possessed).

SHADOW PEOPLE! Ooooo!!! Spooky cookies! 

Instead of sticking with a very easy to do ghost story where all you would need is a big guy to throw shadows on the walls while the main character run around screaming and dying, they decide to go with a ghost that's obsessed with dolls. In particular, a giant Raggedy Ann doll that keeps popping up in random places. Speaking of Raggedy Ann dolls, did you know that Annabelle (the creepy doll in "The Conjuring") was based on a cursed Raggedy Ann doll of the same name? Yeah, I think they were trying to use that in this film, but it totally fell flat.

For instance, there's a random scene in the middle where they find the hospital's chapel and there's a ton of creepy dolls in it, and, surprise, surprise, they get attacked by a female ghost. Yep. The old crazy chick that's into dolls cliche. Woo...

Can't we have, just once, a guy ghost that's obsessed with dolls? Please? 

Anyways, back to the craptastic movie...

There are several things about this movie that are just... stupid.

This also movie features:

• Nepotism: The first is the introductory scene, in which Oliver Stone (that's right, THE Oliver Stone) joins the cast at the dinner table and they talk about ghosts and shadow people. You see, Oliver Stone's son, Sean Stone, is the one that wanted to do this movie. However, unlike his dad, Jr. can't make a good movie to save his life. He may be a decent actor, but as a writer and a movie director, he just doesn't have the chops. He may have the pedigree, but he has no grasp on what makes a movie good, and what doesn't. And that is seriously disappointing. He uses his family's name to make crappy movies. Nepotism at it's finest.
• Random events happening randomly. They throw in ghost sequences for no particular reason other than an attempt to try and shock the audience. The jump scares didn't even make me jump. I always jump at them because the sounds get loud suddenly. It's not the action on the screen, but the loud noise that makes me drop my popcorn. Every. Single. Time. Well, except for in this movie. The jump scares did not work. AT ALL. 
• Some killer's ghost that murdered a whole bunch of patients while he worked there or something that is trying to kill them, or get them to kill each other, depending on the scene.
• Sean and Alex's friends break in to the haunted asylum, dress up in animal masks and robes, and wait for them to come down a stairwell, where they jump out and scare the crap out of them. The strange thing is, those people are completely untouched by the paranormal, right up until they meet up with Sean and Alex. Then they get killed by the ghosts. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
• Alex becomes obsessed with exploring the building and starts acting weird, and by acting weird I mean, being a total douche bag to his friends even they're scared and want to go home before a hobo kills them for their shoes. 
• Alex and Sean attacking each other with pipes and hand tools and trying to kill each other
• A shadow man that isn't in 1/3 of the movie
• Dolls! Spoopy dolls everywhere! According to this urban explorer, those creepy dolls have been in Greystone Park for years. Someone hangs them up and moves them around. So this part of the film is based on that, and quite possibly, they used some of the actual dolls they found there in the movie. So it was life inspiring art in this case. But they could've worked a little harder to get the doll aspect to work better within the context of the actual plot of the movie. Wait... is there a plot in this movie?
•  Shallow, trite characters. (This seems to be a running theme with these really bad found footage films.)

The main characters are so annoying and unsympathetic, I cheered when they started trying to kill each other.

Alex in particular, was a total douche, and ever time he opened his mouth I wanted him to just shut up. Seriously. Shut up already! He is a know-it-all who believes in the supernatural wholeheartedly; so much so that he calls himself Alexander Wraith.

A wraith, for those of you who don't know, is another word for a ghost. Genius huh?

Here's another compilation clip from the movie. It pretty much contains all of the good stuff from the film. There's just one problem with this; it's only 2 minutes long.

 A movie that's one hour and twenty three minutes in length boils down to 2 minutes of actual good footage. Ouch!




Remember kids, when entering an abandoned, potentially haunted insane asylum, always bring your trusty maglight, and your super awesome camera that you got from your dad!


1. Crowsnest


"Crowsnest" is a found footage film about a group of college kids that are going to spend the weekend at their friend's cabin in the woods. Unfortunately, their friend doesn't exactly remember where it is, because it's his uncle's cabin and they get lost. And, of course, one of the college kids, Justin, is a wannabe film maker, so he brings his camera with him EVERYWHERE.

Featuring:

• Chekhov's Night vision! The main character (Justin) gets a video camera for a birthday present and then plays around with the night vision for a good 10 minutes or so, all the while going on about how cool the night vision is on his brand new camera. Said night vision capabilities of the camera are then used later on in the film. Who would've thought that he'd use it later? 
• Magical RV syndrome- HOOOOOOONK! The redneck cannibal killers drive a magical RV that can teleport. Sometimes its behind you, sometimes it's in front of you. And every time it shows up time, the driver is laying on the horn and running someone over. There's also a scene where the RV rams the car the college kids are driving. There's no damage done to the RV whatsoever, and yet, the car looks like it was rear ended by a truck going 70 miles per hour. To see the magical RV in action, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gshS6FIPRH4#t=1840
• Inbred Redneck cannibals
• A Ghost Town (sort of) that is ran by said Inbred Redneck Cannibals 
• Random people getting run over the magically teleporting RV, at random!
• Road Rage: I think that this was supposed to be a cautionary tale. You know, don't get pissed off at people that want to drive past you and play games with them because they'll hunt you down, and eat you. 
• Dude's getting lost in the woods because they don't know how to read a road map or want to stop and ask for directions
• Cell phones that don't work because there's no signal in the wooded mountains. So no one can call for help when the crazy redneck cannibals start chasing them with an RV. 
• Did I forget to mention that the RV can do tight turns, and turn completely around in a narrow dirt road on the wooded hillsides of the mountains in a mere matter of seconds? Because it can. 

See? Justin is just so in love with his camera, it turns him into a complete and total jerk. Also, there's no beer.

No BEER?! On a college camping trip? Noooooo!!!!

The inbred redneck cannibals, or whatever you want to call them, drive a huge RV which never runs out of gas. They're driving around with a license plate covered in duct tape so that you can't read the numbers (which is totally illegal by the way. They'd be forced to pay several fines and take the vehicle off the road if a cop ever caught them driving it). Oh yeah, and the inside of the RV has been gutted and transformed into a torture chamber where they slowly cut off people's limbs so that they can eat them. When the main character goes to rescue one of his remaining friends, instead of camping out inside the RV and waiting for the two cannibal killers to walk through the door and sucker punch them and tie them up or just plain old kill them, the dude runs away when he hears them coming, leaves his friend to die, and after running through the woods for several minutes, he's found by the killers and knocked unconscious without so much as a whimper.

That's when I turned the movie off. I couldn't take it any more. This movie was so bad, I couldn't finish watching it. It was so frustrating to watch, I was getting road rage; and I wasn't even driving while I was watching it!

To spare yourself of any further pain, I created a list of other bad found footage films that you shouldn't watch unless you really are a masochist.

Dishonorable Mentions:
Paranormal Activity 2
The Bucks County Massacre
Re-cut 
The Apparition
Paranormal Activity 3
The Banshee Chapter
[Rec] 3: Genesis
The Last Broadcast
The Poughkeepsie Tapes
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Six Reasons why 'The Conjuring' is a Wonderfully Scary Frightfest

'The Conjuring' is based on not just one, but two true stories. It follows the ghost hunting husband and wife team, the Warrens, and the Perrons, a large family of seven that move into a haunted house. There are so many things in the movie that make it good, so it was a bit hard, but I did manage to figure out the six main things that make this ghost movie so good, and so scary.

6. The Doll Annabelle

The doll Annabelle was based on the possessed Raggedy Ann doll of the same name that has been featured in several ghost TV shows over the years.

The Warrens are a real ghost hunting couple who encountered the doll and locked her up in a case, similar to the one that Annabelle is kept in the movie.

The Warrens worked closely with the producers, which I feel only helped enhance the movie and make it all the more terrifying because it felt so real. Of course, most of the events in the film are incredibly embellished, but the way that they are made larger than life is subtle, and when things really get out of hand during the climax of the movie, everything that happens makes perfect sense.

5. The Characters

"The Conjuring" is old school ghost hunters at its best, and was filmed in the same vein as "The Changeling," and "The Awakening," where a haunted building is one of the main characters of the movie.

The movie slowly, and cleverly builds the tension, to the point where audience members are pinned to their seats, staring at the screen in terror as events unfold. This slow burn ghost movie does it right. It sets up the main characters, makes them very sympathetic people that you'd expect to meet in real life, and then throws them through an emotion and at times physical wringer as the ghost tears down their defenses one by one.

The ghost hunting duo are based on the real life husband and wife team, The Warrens. Their relationship is built on faith and love, and not in a cheesy, forced way.

The same thing goes for the poor victims of the haunted house, the Perrons. The five girls act the way that you'd expect sisters to be, and even their parents are believable.

"The Conjuring" avoids the cliche of the father being the one possessed by the evil of the home, and makes him a loving protector of his family- which is a refreshing change of pace from haunted house movies that take their cues from "The Amityville Horror" and turn the father into a vessel of rage and violence.

The thing that I liked the most was the fact that the movie cleverly misdirects your perceptions of the characters; the ones that you think are going to be the main victim of the ghost, aren't the ones that are the most affected by it, and that makes for one heck of a scary surprise at the end of the film.

4. Ghost Story Elements

There are several instances in "The Conjuring" that reminded me of ghost stories told around the campfire. A lot of thought was put into the script by the writers, and it's clear that they did thorough research of the source material prior to writing the screenplay.

The most interesting ghost story elements is the haunted music box, complete with its creepy peeping clown, and a swirled mirror (an embellishment that appears to be a signature visual theme of James Wan) that spins while the music plays. When it stops, you can see a ghost standing in the mirror behind you.

The music that the box plays is disjointed, the rhythm is syncopated, and unsettling, with unnatural pauses in the melody. The rhythm of the song creates tension, and really gets you ready to jump at any moment, making you believe that the ghost will pop up while it is still playing, but it doesn't. And that is one thing that the movie does right.

Another ghost story element in "The Conjuring" is the haunted hanging tree, a common trope of ghost stories, where one of the ghosts killed herself.

Then there is a ghost of a maid that committed suicide. She appears to one of the victims during the Warren's investigation and says, something along the lines of "Look what she did to me!" or "Look at what she made me do!", and manages to scare the crap out of the guy she appears to, and the audience as well.

Another ghost story element is the spooky, dark basement with long discarded items that nobody wants.  It even had those steps without the back riser, where you can reach through from underneath the stairs to grab someone's foot when they are walking down them.

The first house that I lived in had basement stairs like that, and I hated going down them, they freaked me out, and there they were, in a scary ghost movie. Thanks a lot James Wan.

The last important ghost story element are the clocks. The clocks in the haunted house stop at the same time every day after the family moves into the haunted house. Ghost stories that feature this element often have the clocks stopping in the middle of the night, around 3:00 am. In the case of "The Conjuring" it's 3:07 am.

Thanks to the director's clever, and subtle use of these ghost story elements, the audience's suspension of disbelief is very rarely shattered during the movie.


3. Staring into Darkness

There are multiple scenes in the movie where both the characters, and the audience, find themselves staring into the darkness, trying to see what menacing, evil presence lurking within. The clever use of light and, more importantly, darkness, creates a wonderful tale of suspense and terror. The ghosts are left mostly in the shadows, and are only shown out of focus in the background of a shot.

The inability of the audience to see what is actually haunting the Perrons allows us to use our imaginations, which makes a scene a heck of a lot more scarier than if everything was shown to us. Many ghost movies don't get this part right. They show too much, too soon, and this ruins whatever scares it is attempting to create. Fortunately for us, "The Conjuring" doesn't fall into that trap.

2. The Set Pieces

The Perron's House

The Perron's house has a menacing feel from the moment they open the front door and movie in. It is full of wide open doorways, dark colors, and blind corners.

The basement is creepy, with several pieces of furniture covered in white sheets that are draped in such a way that they look like they are hiding the silhouettes of people. While it doesn't have a face on it, like the Amityville Horror house, the Perron's house still looks like it is watching, and waiting for its next victim to arrive.

The Hanging Tree

The hanging tree on the property is a dead, menacing presence that looms in the distance. The lake that it sits by is still, and stagnant looking. Water is thought by many to be a conduit for the dead, so it's no wonder that the lake looks like there is nothing living in it. That was done on purpose to add another layer of foreboding dread to the movie.

The Haunted Items Museum

The haunted items museum in the Warren's warm looking home is organized evil. From the arrangement of the items, to its focal point- Annabelle's locked glass display case- we can tell that all of the things that are stored there, no matter how mundane looking, are dangerous items that inhabit menacing, and often deadly spirits.

1. Less is More, Especially for Exorcisms

When the demonic ghost, or demon ghost, or evil ghost (take your pick) possesses one of the main characters, the Warrens are forced to do an emergency exorcism to save the possessed person's life.

The possessed victim attacks two of the children, and the other characters rush to save them. Once they wrestle the girls away, the victim is covered in a blanket (one of the blankets that has been draped over the furniture in the basement for the entire movie) and tied to a chair. You can't see the possessed person's face. This is done on purpose. When the evil entity possessing them is ordered to reveal itself, the sheet tears open and you can see only one half of their face. By not fully revealing the body of the possessed during the exorcism, your mind is allowed to conjure an image of what is happening to them, while you are assaulted by terrifying sounds and the pained screams of the innocent victim. This makes the exorcism scene absolutely bone chilling.

The entire movie holds the premise that less is more and that is what makes it an effective, and terrifying ghost film.

I also think that it's important to note that "The Conjuring" is rated R and yet, there is no foul language, no excessive gore or bloodshed. There isn't even any torture porn, even though the director James Wan is known for using them in his Saw movies, (you know, the franchise that made him famous in the horror movie world). Much like "Don't be Afraid of the Dark," the movie is rated R because it's so scary.

If you like subtle, realistic ghost movies that will creep under your skin and scare you half to death, you'll love "The Conjuring."

Top 13 Scariest Ghost Movies

There are a lot of ghost movies in the world, and like ghosts themselves,  some are good, some are bad, and some are downright terrifying. The good ghost movies avoid cliches and get right into the suspense and horror of being haunted by the vengeful dead.

Here's my list of the top 13 scariest ghost movies. Enjoy!


13. The Devil's Backbone (2001)

"What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber."

1939, near the end of the three year Spanish Civil War, The right-wing Nationalists are about to defeat the left-wing Republican forces. Carlos, son of a Republican war hero is dropped off by his tutor at an orphanage that is far away from civilization, where an undetonated bomb sits ominously in the courtyard. The orphanage is run by a strict headmistress  Carmen, the kind Professor Casares, and the brutal, sociopathic caretaker Jacinto who hides a terrible secret that the ghost of Santi, the boy who disappeared when the bomb fell, is desperate to share with the living in an effort to stop Jacinto from getting away with murder.

This cinematic masterpiece by Guillermo Del Toro is a wonderfully scary ghost movie that is both an allegory for the Spanish Civil War, and a terrific fairy tale all wrapped up in one.

12. The Dark (2005)

Sarah and her mother have not been getting along. Her mother thinks that a trip to visit her father in Wales will be just the thing to fix their strained relationship. But she's dead wrong.

While taking a stroll along the cliffs near the sea, they come across a memorial with a missing plate, with the word Annwyn (pronounced ah-noon) written on it. Annwyn is the Welsh afterlife, and is represented by the water.

Soon afterward, Sarah vanishes while walking along the beach and is replaced with a girl named Ebrill- the dead daughter of a local shepherd and the town pastor, who died tragically when her father, desperate to save her, gave her to the sea where she was swept away to Annwyn. In an effort to get her back by exchanging a life for a life, he convinces his followers to throw themselves over the cliffs to enter Paradise.

Ebrill did come back, but something returned with her, something evil. Soon the sheep began throwing themselves off the cliff and into the waters.

When Adele and Sarah visit James, the sheep begin to once again throw themselves off the cliff, an ominous sign that the evil that Ebrill brought with her into the land of the living has returned.

This little known ghost movie has an interesting folk-lore premise and some very creepy scenes that you have to see to believe. It is based on the book "Sheep" by Simon Maginn.


11. Fragile

Jaume Balagueró's "Fragile"  is about Amy Nicholls, an American Nurse, who gets a job at the dilapidated English children's hospital, Mercy Falls, to help transfer the last eight patients to a new hospital prior to the building being shut down for good. Soon after she starts working there, Amy learns that there is a malevolent spirit, called "The Mechanical Girl", a ghost wearing orthopedic braces that is attacking the children and breaking their bones.

This ghost movie has a tense atmosphere, and a strong female protagonist who will do anything to protect her young charges. It covers the themes of loneliness, and the bonding that occurs between nurses and children when they are patients in a hospital and suffering from an incurable, often painful, disease. Unfortunately, some nurses become too attached to their wards, and will do anything to keep them in the hospital.

The paranormal elements, and the mystery behind the Mechanical Girl is well done and creates an eery amount of suspense and dread that many other ghost movies fail to produce.


10. Shutter (2004)

After being involved in a hit-and-run accident, a photographer, Tun, starts to see white faces appear in his photos. It is soon clear that the ghost of the accident victim is haunting him, and she won't stop until she gets her revenge.

The original version of "Shutter" is a fantastic Thai horror movie that has a lot of really intense, scary moments that you have to see to believe. When the ghost appears in the apartment and begins to haunt Tun's girlfriend is when the movie really starts to get good.

9. The Orphanage (2007)

You  may have noticed that this is the second movie with Guillermo del Toro's name on it that appears on my list of Top 13 Scariest Ghost Movies. There's a reason for that. He has a great talent for story telling and interweaving historical set pieces with heart breaking tragedies and his appreciation for horror movies shows in every work he undertakes.

In "The Orphanage," Laura and her husband Carlos have moved back in to her childhood home, which also happens to be an orphanage. She wants to turn it into a home for disabled children. While living there, her adopted son Simon makes a friend with a masked boy, Tomas, and starts playing a hiding game with him, where they hide other people's possessions and Simon has to find them in order to get his wish granted.

Unfortunately, Simon uncovers his adoption papers and learns that he is HIV-positive. Angry with his adopted mother for not telling him the truth about his past, or that he is deathly ill, he runs away and hides from her. Laura desperately searches for Simon, and encounters Tomas, whom she believes is a ghost.

After six months of searching, there are strange banging sounds in the home, and other instances of paranormal activity, which leads Laura to believe that the ghosts of children that died at the orphanage are responsible for her son's disappearance.

The interaction between Laura and the ghosts makes some really good scares, with my favorite being the one where she plays a hide-and-seek game with them.

8. Stir of Echoes (1999)

"Stir of Echoes" is based on a book of the same name by Richard Matheson, which I highly recommend by the way.

Tom is a normal guy living in a working class neighborhood in Chicago. One night at a party, his wife's sister Lisa, convinces him to let her hypnotize him. Tom doesn't believe in it, but ends up being hypnotized anyway.  Lisa ordered him to become more open-minded, but instead of making him be less cynical and jaded, it actually opens his third eye and allows him to receive messages from the dead.

This movie is one of the most underrated movies from 1999. It was completely overshadowed by "The Sixth Sense," which pales in comparison.

"Stir of Echoes" is more of a slow burner, and involves a tormented man attempting to solve a murder and find the body of the dead girl that is haunting him and his son (who can also communicate with the dead). The slow build of tension and suspense allows the frightening conclusion of the movie to stick with you for quite some time. At least, I know that it did for me.




7. The St. Francisville Experiment (2000)

"The St. Francisville Experiment" came out one year after "The Blair Witch Project," and the found footage film's influence on the movie is hard to miss. It follows the same format of introducing the people involved in the ghost hunting experiment, laying down the folklore and local legends of what occurred in the mansion as a means to set up the foundation for the scares of the movie, and then proceeds to place the group of four strangers in a building over night; a formula for the boiler room plot device where some of the tension is caused by the fact that the people that are involved in the story cannot leave or run away from it.

In "The St. Francisville Experiment," ghosts of the slaves of the sadistic murderer, Delphine LaLaurie (an actual historical figure in New Orleans who has had her name slandered and has been branded as a serial killer according to local legends) haunt the LaLaurie house. A group of four people has been gathered to enter the house and spend the night. While there, they record everything that they experience, and it's soon clear that they are not alone, and that the ghosts are real.

Unfortunately for the ghost hunters, the vicious ghost of the house's mistress has remained behind, and has turned the tables on them, making the ghost hunters, the hunted.

This is one of those horror movies that are best when watched in the dark, when you are all alone and in the mood for a good scare. While there are some cheesy moments in the first half of the movie, once the action ramps up and the ghosts start to haunt them, it really gets good and spooky. Fans of "Grave Encounters" will especially like this ghost movie.


6. The Ring (2002)

Based on "Ringu" a book by Koji Suzuki, this ghost movie is about a cursed video tape. After you watch the tape, the phone rings. The voice on the other end says, "Seven days." After seven days, the vengeful hungry ghost of Samara comes for you and kills you.

The main character, Rachel, is a newspaper reporter. When her niece dies of fright, she begins investigating the circumstances surrounding her death and uncovers a cursed video tape. If she can't find a way to placate the ghost that killed her niece, she will soon be its next victim.

"The Ring" is one of those rare U.S. remakes that was actually better than the original film. In this case, it is a remake of  the Japanese horror film, "Ringu."  While some of the main plot points of the original movie have been dropped, the U.S. version added several layers to the myth of the Video Tape of Death, added character development to make us really care for the main character's young son, and overall created a well paced and scary ghost movie.

The movie was so good, that it brought J-horror into popular American culture, well, at least in many horror circles at any rate, and that's a good thing. While Americans generally don't scare as easily as the Japanese (or so I'm told), there are story elements from Japanese culture that are absolutely fascinating. The mixture of American and Japanese ghost stories has created a wonderfully terrifying movie.

Actually, "The Ring" has two scary movies in one, the first is the absolutely creepy cursed video tape that perpetuates the curse, and allows the ghost to kill more victims, and the second is a movie that is more fast paced and suspenseful ghost story than it's overseas counterpart.


5. Darkness (2002)

"Darkness" is a film directed by Jaume Balaguero, the co-director of [REC] and [REC] 2, and stars Anna Paquin in what I think is the best role I have ever seen her play.

The movie is about a teenage girl, Regina, who moves into a haunted house in Spain with her family. Her father suffers from mental breakdowns and periods of psychotic attacks, so when he first starts having problems it is thought that the stress of moving into a new home is the cause of it.

Regina's little brother Paul, suddenly becomes terrified of the dark, and claims that something is living under his bed. As her father slips further into insanity, her brother becomes more and more afraid. After observing the power outages in the home and her father and brother's behavior, she believes that the power outages and their problems are related. So she hunts down the architect of the house and learns that it was built for a dark magic ritual, and that the ghosts of the children that were killed there are roaming the halls while a dark presence is waiting to kill the last sacrificial victim.


4. Session 9 (2001)

"Session 9" is one of the best psychological horror films I have ever seen. On top of that, it is also one of the scariest ghost movies out there, which is why it is on this list.

I love ghost stories that take place in abandoned insane asylums. Between the atmosphere and the eerie backdrop of a dilapidated building that always seems to have at least one wheelchair left behind, they always manage to creep me out.

In "Session 9", Gordon Fleming and his hazmat removal crew are hired to take out the asbestos from the Danvers State Hospital, which was shut down in 1985. One member of Gordon's crew uncovers an evidence box in a tunnel beneath the hospital. Inside the box are nine tapes of therapy sessions with patient number 444, Mary Hobbes.

When Mike finds a working tape player, he starts to listen to the tapes, which slowly uncover the bizarre, twisted mind of a killer suffering from multiple personality disorder. As we learn about the personalities and what happened to Mary, the members of the cleaning crew begin to be killed off, one by one. But is it the ghost of Mary, or the evil entity that claims to possess her who calls himself Simon that is killing the men?

This low budget film more than makes up for its small pocket book with big scares and intense, spooky scenes that will leave on the edge of your seat, constantly looking behind you to make sure that something isn't standing right behind you, waiting to pounce.


3. Grave Encounters (2011)

Pouty-lips girl aside, "Grave Encounters" is one of those movies that actually earned the hype surrounding it. Really, it is. This found footage film features ghost hunters that were a part of a paranormal reality TV show called "Grave Encounters." The ill-fated sixth episode took place in the Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, which was shut down years ago, and is supposed to be haunted.

What was meant to be another installment in the series turned out to be the last episode the crew ever filmed. It starts out innocently enough, with the crew interviewing people about the hauntings and talking with the groundskeeper, who shows them a window that opens by itself every night.

They lock themselves inside the building over night to begin the paranormal investigation and capture everything on camera. One by one, the crew begins to disappear, and it's made apparent that the building is not just haunted, it's sentient and has become a labyrinthine maze of horror. The ghosts of former patients and the doctors that performed terrible experiments upon them, up to and including transorbital lobotomies, won't leave them alone. Trapped in a realm of forever night, where the pitch black darkness threatens to swallow them whole while they are relentlessly hunted and hounded by the tormented souls of the tortured dead at every turn.

What I really loved about this movie is that it wasn't predictable, and it borrowed ideas from "House of Leaves" and faerie abductions, where time has no meaning and dawn never comes to bring light to the world. The terrible fate of Lance Preston and his crew induces mind numbing horror in the viewer, and it reminded me a lot of the stories of H.P. Lovecraft.

2. The Changeling (1980)

"The Changeling" is based on true life events that author Russel Hunter claims to have experienced when he lived at the Henry Treat Roger Mansions in Denver, Colorado.

Composer John Russell is a grieving widow looking for solace. He moves into a secluded estate near Seattle Washington in an attempt to return to composing music and picking up the pieces of his broken life. It is soon clear that he is not alone, and the house is haunted by a violent ghost of a young boy who was murdered there years ago.

Some of the best ghost stories have settings that take on a personality and life of their own. Much like the hospital in "Grave Encounters," the Victorian house that Russell lives in has a looming presence. There are tense moments when you can practically hear the house breathing as the poor man attempts to uncover the mystery behind the ghostly apparition's origin.

The scares in this ghost movie are subtle and the tension builds up beautifully in this utterly terrifying ghost movie. Don't watch this one alone. I mean it.


1. Poltergeist (1982)

"Poltergeist" is about a middle class American family, the Freelings, who move into a haunted house. The dark malevolent forces are playful at first, but things take a bad turn once their youngest child, Carol Anne, is stolen and taken over to the other side; the Land of the Dead.

Diane and Steven Freeling have to confront the invisible forces that are manipulating objects in the home and becoming increasingly dangerous as they attempt to get their little girl back.

Once they contact parapsychologists from UC Irvine, they learn that it's not just one ghost inhabiting their house, but a whole slew of them, and they are being led by an evil presence called "The Beast," who is using Carol Anne to manipulate the other spirits and use them to its own gain. What exactly it means to accomplish is never truly revealed, but this doesn't matter.

All I know is, you shouldn't build a house on a cemetery that is still inhabited by interred corpses. It never ends well.

"Poltergeist" has to be the scariest PG movie ever made.

Never before has static on a television instilled so much horror.

Even at 30 years old, this horror film still manages to scare me. It's the clown man, that damned clown doll. Gets me every time.