8 of the Best Horror Movies Featuring Haunted Houses

House — or Hausu, to avoid some future confusion — is really something that has to be seen to be believed. It’s one of those rare films that are unnerving not because of the content portrayed within the film itself but how the film itself was assembled, edited, and shipped out. It’s a movie that seemingly defies every standard convention you’d come to expect out of not just a horror movie but movies in general.

A schoolgirl named “Gorgeous,” along with six of her classmates, returns to her aunt’s rural home for a fun summer trip. However, unbeknownst to her, a longing for a man long dead takes the form of multiple hauntings strewn throughout the aunt’s home, gradually picking off Gourgeous’ classmates one by one.

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It’s a movie that, at first, may come off as incomprehensible nonsense. It’s a haunted house movie that almost completely fails at being scary, and reviews at the time of the film’s original release echoed this sentiment. However, when viewed through a different lens, Hausu takes on a whole new layer of effectiveness. The main characters of Hausu are, essentially, children. Everything, from the cartoony effects to the unflinchingly surreal atmosphere, reflects this childlike perspective. What’s inherently irrational is brought to life in the best way possible, and several of the film’s sequences just go all out in turning a youngster’s strangest fears into something interestingly chilling. At the absolute least, it’s a great film that puts an unconventional twist on a tried-and-true horror subgenre.

Everyone’s seen at least one of these movies in their life: Poltergeist, The Exorcist, or The Amityville Horror. While Poltergeist is a bonafide classic, it’s worth acknowledging how The Amityville Horror ultimately set the stage for its Spielberg-produced cousin.

Based on the (alleged) true story surrounding the Lutz family, who purchased a murder house and fled from it not even a full month later, this 1979 film condenses the family’s experiences into a narrative that would form the basis of future haunted house films to come. James Brolin, father of Josh Brolin, and Margot Kidder both lead the film as their family undergoes significant paranormal stress, culminating in a nightmarish sequence that sees them fleeing from their home with nothing more than their vehicle and the clothes on their backs. In between, you can expect the typical staples of a haunted house movie: things mysteriously breaking, a strange feeling whenever someone enters the house, the family dog fixating itself on an ordinary wall, and so on.

The Amityville Horror has seen some mixed reception, both at the time of its original release and in the modern day. A 2009 interview with Margot Kidder had the actress calling the film “a piece of s***” and saying it was only scary because a culture of fearmongering surrounding the paranormal made it so. Conversely, Stephen King wrote in 1981 that the film was actually a representation of economic concerns at the time. Because the family invested heavily in this house, their plight mirrors that of the audience in maintaining through their financial struggles. There’s also the common issue that accompanies all “true stories,” in that for all we know, everything that happened was just bull. Investigations into the book’s accuracy, along with conflicting reports about how it came to be, only seem to complicate matters.

Still, despite some overacting and some possibly underwhelming effects, The Amityville Horror still remains one of the more enduring haunted house films. It would be remade in 2005 with… Ryan Reynolds, of all people, to mostly negative reception. Since then, more than a dozen films based on the original story continue to line direct-to-video bins and ad-supported streaming services.

Directed by Steve Miner and produced by Sean S. Cunningham of Friday the 13th fame, you could almost describe House as Evil Dead 2 before Evil Dead 2 was even a thing. It’s cartoony, bouncing off the walls, occasionally goofy, and gets to be so ludicrous that you can’t help but laugh at it. For some horror fans, that sounds exactly like a good time.

Stop us if you’ve heard this premise before: an author, Roger (William Katt), moves into a new house and begins working on a novel based on the Vietnam War. Unbeknownst to him, the house resents his presence, and a series of hauntings gradually escalates into a whirlwind of demon ladies, gardening tools, and zombies. Oh, and Norm from Cheers makes an appearance.

House is less of a terrifying horror movie and more of an exercise of hilarious excess. Several full-bodied creatures can be found throughout, with an extreme amount of detail being put into their respective makeup designs. But compared to a similar creature-fest like Spookies, it’s clear that it’s not just multiple separate projects stitched together. There’s a cohesiveness underneath the excess, punctuated by multiple flashbacks to Roger’s experiences in Vietnam.

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House, in many ways, feels like wandering through those prop-laden haunted house attractions at neighborhood get-togethers or professional theme parks. The build-up to the scares is paced well enough, but when things are finally allowed to let loose, it’s a non-stop parade of rubber monsters and hamfisted frights. A cult classic for any horror fan, House would precede Steve Miner’s more popular films in the 1990s, from Halloween H20 to Lake Placid.

One of the more comedic “haunted” house movies out there, relatively speaking, Housebound injects some Australian comedy into the sub-genre. As the feature film debut of Gerard Johnstone, the film opens with our protagonist, Kylie, attempting to steal the safe out of an ATM. Not a great start for her, and it only gets worse when she gets sentenced to house arrest in her mother’s domicile. But, when it’s revealed that her home away from prison is actually a murder house, an unraveling mystery leads to some dire revelations.

Horror and comedy are always a delicate mix, but you could argue that tossing around a few jokes makes the parts where everything hits the fan hit even harder. Housebound never jumps into Evil Dead territory, wherein the horror becomes the vehicle for comedy to happen. Rather, a joke here or there makes our main cast feel more human and likable. In such an intimate movie with few characters, making what’s already there stand out is more than essential.

Being a debut film, it’s obviously not perfect. Some have noted that its pacing drags towards the end, and its hesitance to stick to any one genre may put off those looking for pure laughs or unbridled terror. Otherwise, Housebound is an excellent showcase of the kind of film-making talent that New Zealand has to offer. If you don’t believe us, maybe this will convince you: Gerard Johnstone would direct the Atomic Monster and Blumhouse film M3GAN eight years after Housebound was released to the public.

Before The Conjuring would turn into a huge franchise, it was an isolated haunted house movie based on the real accounts held by the investigative duo of Ed and Lorraine Warren. In the franchise’s first entry, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga play Ed and Lorraine, respectively, as they investigate a remote farmhouse on the east coast.

The Conjuring is an effective haunted house movie that somehow got an R-rating. James Wan previously cut his teeth on the paranormal through his work on Insidious. In a shift from focusing on the family being haunted, we instead focus on the duo aiming to help them. It’s an interesting idea that would make Wilson and Farmiga the de-facto protagonists of The Conjuring universe.

That’s probably what makes The Conjuring so notable, to begin with. A horror franchise, let alone one that advertises itself as a “universe” akin to the MCU or Universal’s failed Dark Universe, is a bold idea. Yet, somehow it worked, with multiple spinoffs meant to give a deeper backstory on characters and ideas established in the mainline Conjuring films.

As a standalone film, The Conjuring works just fine. Ten years after its original release — and seven Conjuring films later — it admittedly feels a little less special than it did back in 2013. Still, nothing is wrong with The Conjuring, barring a few too many pairs of sideburns.

As much as we wanted to put in The Wailing, it’s technically not a “haunted house” film. It’s more of a “haunted everything goes terribly wrong” film. Still, Korea is no slouch when it comes to horror and thriller films, and A Tale of Two Sisters remains a standout example of what can be done with haunted houses.

A Tale of Two Sisters follows a former mental institution patient returning to his sister’s residence, even though he’s thoroughly unprepared for what comes next. Between family trauma and paranormal hauntings, he’ll have to unveil a dark past in order to make it out alive.

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Directed by Kim Jee-woon, who you may recognize as the director of I Saw the Devil and The Last Stand, A Tale of Two Sisters marks his first major foray into horror, bringing with it a reinterpretation of a classic Korean folktale that can be enjoyed by just about anyone. It’s a film that will appeal to those looking for a classic haunting film, one wherein the mystery of what’s going on is slowly drip-fed to you as it goes on.

One of the highest-grossing Korean horror films and the first to be screened internationally prior to its domestic debut, A Tale of Two Sisters is a staple of international horror cinema. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

Paranormal Activity is a found-footage take on haunted houses that was released in 2007. Following Katie and Micah, a couple who have recently moved into a new home, we quickly learn that Katie is seemingly afflicted by a “presence” that has been following her since her childhood. As a means to comfort her, Micah sets up camera equipment around the home to calm her superstitions. However, when this upsetting presence starts to make itself known, escalating in intensity with every successive night, the two find themselves at the mercy of whatever horrible force is infesting their home.

Whether it did absolutely nothing for you or left you sleepless for a few nights, Paranormal Activity certainly left a big splash on the horror scene when it originally came out. How could it not? It was made for fifteen-thousand dollars and made back millions, minus the costs of re-shoots and marketing. For a while, Paranormal Activity was just about everywhere, and its heavy utilization of candid photography added a layer of “authenticity” to the ghostly happenings in spite of its protagonists being pretty insufferable and stupid.

Still, Paranormal Activity was a resounding success. It introduced an unconventional approach to haunted houses that can still be felt today, especially in films like the recent Shudder exclusive, The Medium. It directly opened the door for director Oren Peli to develop the successful Insidious films alongside James Wan and Leigh Whannell. While his later film output would largely consist of being in a producer role, he played a direct creative role in both Chernobyl Diaries and Area 51 as a writer and director, respectively.

The oldest film on this list remains a prominent title directed by the late William Castle, a director equally notorious for his prolific film output and reliance on intriguing gimmicks.

In spite of its age, House on Haunted Hill has a premise most in the modern day can identify with. Vincent Price plays an eccentric millionaire who, after assembling a party of guests, holds a “haunted house” party on his estate. Whoever can stay in the house for an entire night will be awarded ten thousand dollars. But as the night goes on, our guests bear witness to an onslaught of ghouls and ghosts. Oh, and the estate has a vat of acid in the basement. No, we won’t explain why it’s there.

Now available in the public domain, meaning anyone can freely view and modify it, House on Haunted Hill is an interesting time capsule from a drastically different period in movie making. It’s a haunted house film that also blurs into a murder mystery part-way through, leaving our guests in utter paranoia as they try to figure out who — or what — is picking them off one by one.

Fun fact: House on Haunted Hill‘s original theatrical run featured “Emergo,” a silly theater gimmick wherein a giant skeleton would be suspended from the ceiling during the film’s finale. This was in 1959, mind you, so its effectiveness probably wasn’t on par with something like The Great Train Robbery. It certainly didn’t help that when audiences would, appropriately, throw popcorn at it. Still, House on Haunted Hill‘s appealing effort as a low-budget B-movie would lead to some interesting ripples in film history, being remade in 1999 and inspiring multiple other filmmakers in its wake.

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