Terrors from Beyond

A list of hidden or unseen supernatural horror gems, from Ken Russell's 'The Devils' to Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 'Seance.'

SO MUCH OF THE FEAR THAT horror films enkindle within us comes from what horror nerds like me call ‘The Beyond.’ It’s what we don’t see and what we can’t comprehend (much less control) that makes us afraid. It unsettles us to resign to the fact that there are things in this world that go beyond our understanding and forces that don’t adhere to the same laws that apply to us.

Supernatural horror encapsulates this dreadful feeling so well, be it the sinister spirits traumatizing a suburban family in Poltergeist or a demonic entity preying on a woman’s implosion on the back of her grief in Hereditary. Maybe it’s a sentient .exe file that amplifies people’s sorrow and yearning to disappear, like in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse.

There are plenty of good supernatural horror films I’m sure a lot of us have watched, so I put together a list of some titles that I feel have yet to receive their much-deserved flowers — hence, this week’s underrated supernatural horror edition of ¡Qué(ue) Horror!.

👹 Onibaba
1964, dir. Kaneto Shindō | Japan 🇯🇵

Menacing post-war horror that beautifully unfurls in a violent clash of rage, envy, and possession. Shindō’s Onibaba is a masterclass in accentuating terror in a world that’s already riddled with so much fear and infighting. The film picks up after a man wedges a rift between two women who raid soldiers for survival.

😈 The Devils
1971, dir. Ken Russell | United Kingdom 🇬🇧

Many of my peers have yet to acquaint themselves with Ken Russell’s masterpiece, The Devils, and it’s a mistake I’m devoted to correcting. Set in the 17th Century, the film tells a modern story about corrupt institutions desperately trying to burn progressive ideals to ash — sadly, all still relevant themes some fifty years later.

🔥 The Fury
1978, dir. Brian De Palma | United States 🇺🇸

Obscured by his other thriller about a telekinetic teenager, Brian De Palma’s The Fury outsizes his 1976 classic, Carrie, in every way. The film is a widely cynical, noir-ish, superhero origin story with tinges of supernatural horror. So often, it lapses over on the sillier side, but the thrills and the red-eyed cynicism never let up. John Williams’ gorgeous score is a major plus.

🩸 Possession
1981, dir. Andrzej Żuławski | France 🇫🇷

One of my Four Favorites (as of writing this). Żuławski’s Possession is categorically a psychological thriller about marital distress (among other things), but like any great film, it’s more than that. Here, events unravel in ways that make them inscrutably un/real and super/natural. It’s an expressive horror film that sheds light on the anxieties and offers curt commentaries about the zeitgeist.

👻 Whispering Corridors
1998, dir. Park Ki-hyung | South Korea 🇰🇷

The wave of eerie, petrifying ghost stories towered to gargantuan heights with the success of Japanese films like Ringu and Ju-On: The Grudge. This 1998 South Korean chiller from Park Ki-hyung is a welcome entry to that stable, even sprawling into a multi-film franchise that tells standalone stories with each film.

🕯️ Séance
2000, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa | Japan 🇯🇵

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is (rightly) revered as one of the genre’s greatest. In between his two better-known works — Cure and Pulse — he made Séance, a straight-to-TV feature that exhibits the same restraint and possesses the same tenebrous knack for supernatural schemes. It’s loosely based on Mark McShane’s Séance on a Wet Afternoon, which tells the story of an anxious clairvoyant who goes to strange lengths to aid with police crime-solving.

📸 Lake Mungo
2008, dir. Joel Anderson | Australia 🇦🇺

Lake Mungo is eerily committed to the mockumentary facade and never lets the mask come off once. So, when we learn about the menacing thing that happens in the film, it’s hard to fully telegraph in our minds that the mocku’s subjects are mere characters and aren’t real people. There are plenty of scary moments in this film, but that one time-frozen photo still haunts me to this day.

🛌 The Awakening
2011, dir. Nick Murphy | United Kingdom 🇬🇧

I’ve vacillated on whether or not I should add this well-crafted if sometimes rote slice of Gothic horror. I could have gone with other noteworthy entries, from Del Toro’s Crimson Peak to Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others, but ultimately thought its lamentations on grief and sorrow to be so intriguing. Plus, Rebecca Hall’s performance as a moonlighting ghost hunter in post-WWI England is incredible.

🏠 His House
2020, dir. Remi Weekes | United Kingdom 🇬🇧

Remi Weekes’ His House follows two Sudanese refugees struggling to rebuild their lives in a strange English town. It paints a nightmarish vision where migrant horrors, diasporic guilt, and social alienation all come into one. It’s one of the best horror films to emerge at the turn of the decade, and I think more people should see it.

🖍️ We're All Going to the World’s Fair
2021, dir. Jane Schoenbrun | United States 🇺🇸

Schoenbrun’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is an unnerving look at the horrors of living inside a void where nothing feels real (a.k.a. the Internet). It follows a distraught teenager participating in a horror video challenge that drives her deep into madness. The ending is one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve seen; it pushes us to confront our own distorted online identities. Are you still you?

¡Qué(ue) Horror! is a monthly email column where I share horror movie recommendations specific to a theme, genre, filmmaker, etc. This series is exclusive only to Deep Cuts subscribers (free and paid).