20 of the best British horror films
There are a whole host of tempting and terrifying horror movies out there. So many, in fact, that it can be difficult to know where to start.
But if you like your scares with a side of repression, bad weather, and occasional self-deprecation, then you could do a lot worse than beginning in Britain.
For the following list of best British horror films we’ve grouped together the old and the new, the weird and the terrifying, in no particular order — from cult classics like Threads and The Wicker Man to the more recent scares of Saint Maud and His House. Cushions at the ready…
His House (2020)
The best types of horror films are more than just a trickbox of scares. Some are character studies, others explore deeper themes or grapple complex social issues, and a few manage to move you in more ways than just a raising of the pulse. Writer-director Remi Weekes’ debut His House does all of the above at once.
Following asylum seekers Bol (Sope Dirisu) and Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) as they arrive in the UK from South Sudan only to be thrust into an unforgiving world of bureaucracy and racism, His House melds drama with a claustrophobic haunted house mystery. Noises echo in the walls, and Bol’s fear and paranoia grows along with ours. But it’s only as the movie progresses, and Jo Willems’ creative cinematography starts hinting at what took place in the past, that the true horror of His House is revealed.* — Sam Haysom, Deputy UK Editor
How to watch: His House is now streaming on Netflix.
The Appointment (1982)
Prophetic nightmares, a swooning score, and the uncanny feeling that if Twin Peaks had been relocated to middle class Berkshire, it might start like this…
Originally planned as part of a (promptly abandoned) series of TV films, this uniquely weird slice of anxiety from 1981 was to be director Lindsey Vickers’ first and only feature. Despite brief festival success and a few regional TV broadcasts, The Appointment slipped into mythic obscurity for 40 years. Rediscovered like a cursed tape from the vaults of repression, it follows Edward Woodward (flammable lead of iconic British folk horror The Wicker Man, also in this list) as a father who misses his precociously doting daughter’s violin recital in favour of a business appointment. And that’s about it.
And yet, every scene in the ominously dreamy film trembles with unease. The film’s previous disappearance, like the disappearance that stalks its narrative, acts like a hard-to-decipher warning for something unseen. Without overt shock or graphic gore, it trembles with the same haunted logic and trauma of certain public safety broadcasts: mundane familiarity and the cautionary tale teetering over the clipped, polite abyss of English fear. — David Spittle, Writer
How to watch: The Appointment is available to stream on BFI Player via Prime Video in the UK and on Roku in the U.S.
The Descent (2005)
Experiencing Neil Marshall’s spelunking nightmare The Descent in the cinema was truly a singular experience, especially if you had no idea you were in for a nasty little thriller about six female friends who reunite one year after a tragedy to explore an underground cave system together — as you do — only for it all to go terribly horribly wrong — as it does! The theater walls themselves seemed to close in on you as the film grew tighter, more constricted, and claustrophobic, and that was even before any of those creepy crawlers showed up.
Even at home, the film still plays like gangbusters. Just wrap a blanket over your head and turn off all the lights, and you will feel like you’re right there in the Bava-esque underground alongside former besties Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and Juno (Natalie Mendoza), third-wheel Beth (Alex Reid), sisters Rebecca (Saskia Mulder) and Sam (MyAnna Buring) — and who could forget the smidge-too-enthusiastic Holly (Nora-Jane Noone)? — as the walls close in and the blackness starts blinking, then biting, back.* — Jason Adams, Writer
How to watch: The Descent is available to rent/buy from Sky Store in the UK and is streaming on Max in the U.S..
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Edgar Wright may be a fairly well known Hollywood director these days, but two decades ago his big feature break came in the form of this horror comedy classic. Shaun of the Dead follows Shaun (Simon Pegg, who co-wrote the film with Wright) and Ed (Nick Frost), two friends making a last stand against the zombie apocalypse in their local London pub, The Winchester. The first instalment of the Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz/The World’s End) is an endlessly quotable mish-mash of sweary violence, memorable one-shots and Wright’s trademark British underdog humour. — S.H.
How to watch: Shaun of the Dead is now streaming on Netflix in the UK and is available to rent/buy on Prime Video in the U.S.
Host (2020)
A near full-length Covid pandemic horror movie that takes place entirely via video chat, Rob Savage’s Host follows a group of friends taking part in a Zoom seance that goes horribly wrong.
“Noting that Host is “almost” full length is not to designate it as a short, but to acknowledge how much story gets packed into a run time of under an hour,” wrote Alexis Nedd in her Mashable review. “The movie uses every single minute to set up its characters, foreshadowing, and twists while still leaving time for screamingly violent horror goodness. Savage is no stranger to tight scripting, having drawn critical acclaim for his previous horror shorts Dawn of the Deaf (2016) and Salt (2017), but Host stands out as remarkable for getting a full film’s worth of plot within the external time constraint of a non-subscription Zoom call.” — S.H.
How to watch: Host is now streaming on Shudder.
Dead of Night (1945)
Misleadingly renowned for their comedies (realistically only a tenth of the studio’s productions), Ealing Studios conjured one of the greatest anthology horrors of all time: Dead of Night (1945). With distinct “tales around the fireside” vibes, this is a prime choice for anyone seeking a cosy autumnal classic.
An architect (Mervyn Jones who, in 1963, starred in The Old Dark House and Day of the Triffids) is called out to an old cottage where he loses no time in telling the owner, and his assembled guests, that he has seen them all before in a recurring dream. Each of the guests, after a hubbub of natter, begins to tell of their own encounters with, or coveted stories of, the supernatural.
With stories that range from the endearingly daft (a haunted golf course) to the genuinely chilling (mirror world murders and maniacal ventriloquists), Dead of Night spins a ruddy delightful smorgasbord of ghostly treats with the verve of truly classic British cinema. The highlight has to be Michael Redgrave and his terrifying dummy, Hugo: an incredibly acted forerunner to all things “creepy doll”, from Magic (1979) and Dead Silence (2007) to Goosebumps and Child’s Play (1988). — D.S.
How to watch: Dead of Night is now streaming on BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Kanopy in the U.S.
The Wicker Man (1973)
No, not the 2006 remake with Nicholas Cage. Robin Hardy’s 1973 folk horror walked so the likes of Midsommar could run, following police officer Sergeant Neil Howie (The Appointment‘s Edward Woodward) as he investigates a disappearance on a remote Scottish island. The problem? The island is an absolutely textbook case of everybody-here-is-in-on-something, with strange rituals and bizarre encounters plunging Howie deeper into an entirely justifiable sense of unease. Splicing a haunting folk score with a truly horrifying final sequence that’ll burn itself into your memory, The Wicker Man is British horror viewing at its most essential. — S.H.
How to watch: The Wicker Man is streaming on BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Prime Video in the U.S..
Saint Maud (2019)
The unnervingly sinister directorial debut from Rose Glass, Saint Maud will get under your skin, and we really mean that. This truly frightening, erotic, psychological horror is led by the terrifyingly talented Morfydd Clark, who brings a dark and disturbing level of care to her role as deeply pious hospice nurse Maud.
A masterpiece of maddeningly precise sound editing and lighting — Glass wields chiaroscuro and close framing with the same level of suffocating, sensual control as its protagonist — Saint Maud is unrelentingly threatening as Maud takes her role as her patient’s “saviour” to horrifying lengths. We’re already living in a constant state of unease this year, and Glass’s brilliant film, with Adam Janota Bzowski’s haunting score, will plunge you deeper into it.* — Shannon Connellan, UK Editor
How to watch: Saint Maud is now available to rent/buy on Prime Video in the UK and is streaming on Prime Video in the U.S.
The Power (2021)
Following a nurse starting at a London hospital in the 1970s, Corinna Faith’s The Power uses its historical backdrop — in particular the nightly planned blackouts resulting from a war between trade unions and the UK government — to claustrophobic and unnerving effect.
“Faith pushes us to confront this with shaky, lamplit journeys down black corridors, and lingering shots of dark cupboards, constantly building tension that ramps up as Val’s now-dreaded nightshift begins,” I wrote in my Mashable review. “The nightly blackouts that form the film’s backdrop mean that the majority of patients are relocated at the end of the day, with only a couple of hospital wards remaining operational. The rest of the building is plunged into oppressive darkness. It’s the perfect setup for building a creeping sense of dread, in other words, and Faith does this with a deft hand. There are plenty of jump scares, too, but these never feel gratuitous — like all the best scary films, The Power‘s horror is used to draw out the movie’s main themes, rather than wielding them for mere shock value.” — S.H.
How to watch: The Power is now streaming on Shudder.
Threads (1984)
Infamously grim and enduringly potent, Barry Hines’ Threads depicts the devastating fall out of a nuclear war with unsparing realism. Set in the grey and smoking ruins of Sheffield, it begins by recalling the social realist grit of a Ken Loach drama — Hines in fact (also a novelist) wrote the book that became Ken Loach’s film Kes (1969) and collaborated with him in its adaptation – and yet by the end of Threads, its gruelling futility drags it into a far heavier, and far too real, vision of horror.
It’s hard to believe it ever aired on TV in the first place, but these televisual roots go further back – having been partially inspired by another BBC film that, deemed too horrifying, was pulled from its provisional screening at the last minute: Peter Watkins’ The War Game.
The brutal and spiralling logic of Threads matches the upsetting intensity of a Michael Haneke film (like a global version of The Seventh Continent) which, when presented with the attributes of documentary realism, underlines its heavy truth: its horror is the horror of a tragic reality that has happened, and can happen again.
Combine with Raymond Briggs’ When the Wind Blows (1986) to really snuff out the hope in your heart. — D.S.
How to watch: Threads is now streaming on BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Shudder in the U.S.
28 Days Later (2002)
Boyle and Garland revitalized the zombie genre with 2002’s 28 Days Later, a film that throws us headfirst into a brutal world that’s just 28 days into the apocalypse.
The apocalyptic culprits here are humans infected with the “rage virus,” which turns its victims into mindlessly violent — and scarily speedy — attackers. (Though not the first film to feature fast zombies, 28 Days Later is certainly the movie that popularized them.) While the nameless Infected hordes provide many terrifying scares and some effective body horror, especially in the film’s “turning” scenes, it’s 28 Days Later‘s human drama that invokes the most fear.
From the moment bike courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) wanders across a deserted Westminster Bridge, we’re forced to consider how we’d react in the face of the apocalypse. Some of the survivors Jim encounters offer him kindness, while others, like army officers in the film’s stomach-churning third act, have far more sinister, self-serving plans for the future. Blurring the lines between human and monster, and boasting some of the zombie genre’s most iconic imagery, there’s no doubt 28 Days Later is among Garland’s best work.* — Belen Edwards, Entertainment Reporter
How to watch: 28 Days Later streams on Apple TV+ but is currently unavailable.
Kill List (2011)
Crime meets folk horror in Ben Wheatley’s gritty cult classic Kill List, a story about two former soldiers who’ve turned to contract killing to make ends meet. Jay (Neil Maskell) and Gal (Michael Smiley) receive the titular list from a shadowy figure who wants three people dead, and what follows is a twisty journey in which the two men quickly realise all isn’t as it seems. This is one of those films that keeps you guessing right up until the end, splicing dark realism with a creepy side of witchcraft. — S.H.
How to watch: Kill List is now streaming on Prime Video in the UK and on Shudder in the U.S.
Attack the Block (2011)
Featuring John Boyega’s feature-length film debut and co-starring future Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker, Attack the Block is one of the most creative and fun monster movies of the decade.
Written and directed by Joe Cornish (also his feature-length film debut), this British sci-fi comedy horror sees a group of teenagers, led by Boyega, who must defend their council estate from some incredibly pissed-off aliens — or rather, “big alien gorilla wolf motherfuckers” — all on Guy Fawkes Night. It’s gruesome and hilarious, and produced by the studio behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.* — S.C.
How to watch: Attack the Block is now streaming on Prime Video in the UK and on Max in the U.S.
The Other Side of the Underneath (1972)
Not a horror film by design, in fact nowhere near any kind of genre, Jane Arden’s 1978 radical feminist interrogation of mental illness becomes a truly horrifying form of feral catharsis, anguished therapy, and psychosexual derangement.
Adapting her own experimental play, A New Communion for Freaks, Prophets and Witches (1971), Arden’s painfully unsettling drama also acts as a provocative intervention in documentary. Much of the group therapy portrayed was collectively undergone by the cast, and often under the influence of psychedelic drugs and alcohol. The result, though less result and more labyrinthine record of a process, is a raw, nightmarish, and boldly incoherent howl of rage and resistance.
Defiantly counterculture, bridging aspects of the anti-psychiatry movement, feminism, avant-garde art, psychedelia, and insanity, Arden’s unique work is as intellectually uncompromising as it is conceptually and visually fractured. In short, this is not a film to recommend lightly.
If you want to be shaken, challenged, and confronted by a fiercely — even dangerously — volatile form of filmmaking, take a leap into the Other Side. — D.S.
How to watch: The Other Side of the Underneath is now streaming on Shudder.
Possum (2018)
Puppets have long been popular horror fodder, but the spider-like creation in Possum is its own unique breed of nightmare. Writer/director Matthew Holness’ film is part psychological horror and part kitchen sink misery, following disgraced puppeteer Philip (Sean Harris) back to his childhood home to confront his past experiences — and the recent disappearance of a teenage boy. This one is disturbing for all manner of reasons, from the hideous and recurring puppet to the repressed memories that bleed from Philip’s past into his strange present. — S.H.
How to watch: Possum is streaming now on Prime Video.
Censor (2021)
Censor is an unsettling debut from director Prano Bailey-Bond, a twisted ode to horror films and particularly “video nasties” (a term that rose to prominence in the UK in the ’80s to describe unregulated horror or exploitation films distributed on VHS tapes that came under scrutiny for their “obscene” content). In Censor, meticulous film censor Enid (Raised by Wolves star Niamh Algar) valiantly shields audiences from gory or “inappropriate” content onscreen. When she’s assigned a new disturbing film to review, it triggers memories of a traumatic event from her childhood. Bailey-Bond’s lurid, vibrant, and haunting film references everything from Martin Parr’s photography to Dario Argento’s Suspiria to Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead and Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond in a bleak, Thatcher-era Britain.* — S.C.
How to watch: Censor is available to rent/buy on Prime Video in the UK and is streaming on Fubo in the U.S.
Enys Men (2022)
Taking inspiration from the televisual BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas, lesser-known folk horror gems like The Shout (1978) and the crash-zoom enthusiasm of ’70s cinematography, Enys Men (2022) is a timeless and timely ghost poem for the environment: An environment at once frail and elemental where time unravels in a looping (un)reality of menacing lichen and convulsive memory.
An isolated botanist (Mary Woodvine) carries out her research on an invented island (“Enys Men” is Cornish for “Stone Island”), an outpost at the end of the world, inhabited by the coal-smeared phantoms of a bygone mining community and the cosmic disorientation of a standing stone that refuses to stand still. Although this might sound like the genre pic ‘n mix of a psychotronic madman, it is in fact an elegantly unnerving tone-poem of landscape and loss. Or maybe it is better understood as director Mark Jenkin (of runaway Cornish success Bait) tuning into lost transmissions from another time — a world we have forgotten or try, at our own peril, to forget.
Rightly celebrated for shooting and processing his own films and working against the odds of industry funding, Mark Jenkin brings the corporeal grain and tactility of celluloid back into the soul of cinema. — D.S.
How to watch: Enys Men is now streaming on All4 in the UK and is on Hulu in the U.S.
Starve Acre (2023)
Daniel Kokotajlo’s nightmare folk horror – based on Andrew Michael Hurley’s novel of the same name – will make you never look at rabbits the same way again. Following a university professor (Matt Smith) and his wife (Morfydd Clark) in the aftermath of their son’s tragic death, the movie deals in local legends and the mysterious presence of a figure named Jack Gray — an unseen spirt that haunted their son and seems determined to continue haunting the couple. A truly upsetting meditation on unimaginable grief with some stunning performances and horrifying moments (if you’re a bit confused after the ending, we have an explainer on Mashable). — S.H.
How to watch: Starve Acre is now streaming on BFI Player via Prime Video in the UK and is available to rent/buy on Prime Video in the U.S.
The Borderlands (2013)
Found footage, when done well, has the capacity to be one of the most unnerving horror subgenres of all. Elliot Goldner’s The Borderlands (released in the United States as Final Prayer) is no exception. Following a team employed by the Catholic Church to prove or debunk miracles, the film follows Deacon (Gordon Kennedy) and Gray (Robin Hill) as they investigate a bizarre baptism video at a rural church in the South of England. Things get expectedly creepy, but the turn they take — and the movie’s hellish final third — is anything but predictable. — S.H.
How to watch: The Borderlands is now streaming on Shudder in the UK and on Tubi in the U.S.
Last Night in Soho (2021)
Writer/director Edgar Wright’s latest outing involves a hopeful fashion student (Thomasin McKenzie), a ’60s lounge singer (Anya Taylor-Joy), and – as Mashable’s Alison Foreman writes in her review – an “eerily enchanting time travel voyage.”
“The result is a fascinating meditation on externally inflicted self-doubt, which is somehow both profoundly heartbreaking and a bit of a popcorn thriller,” she writes. “It’s an exquisite change of pace for Wright that feels less like the darker side of the guy behind Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World than the twisted sister of Damien Chazelle’s La La Land or Whiplash.”* — S.H.
How to watch: Last Night in Soho is available to rent/buy on Prime Video in the UK and is now streaming on Peacock in the U.S.
*This blurb has appeared on a previous Mashable list.