13 Underrated '90s Horror Movies Every Fan Needs To See

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The 1990s might have produced a number of hugely popular horror movies, but it isn't remembered as one of the genre's strongest decades. While many movies in the '70s and '80s pushed horror in new directions, the most successful horror films of the '90s were either remakes (The Haunting), adaptations (Bram Stoker's Dracula, Interview with a Vampire), and self-referential deconstructions of the genre (Scream). Only Blair Witch Project, at the end of the decade, gave mainstream audiences a taste of something a bit more unusual.
But away from the big hits, there were some fascinating movies during the decade that did take risks, delivered scares, and entertained in a way studio films did not. There were underrated efforts from some of the biggest horror directors of the past decades, some emerging voices who would form an important part in the development of the genre over the coming years, and impressive shockers from other parts of the world. So here's 13 underrated '90s horror movies well worth rediscovery.


13. Body Bags (1993)


Horror anthologies are a vital part of the genre, and 1993 gave us this gem. The three stories that form Body Bags actually started life as episodes of an anthology show, but when Showtime decided not to progress with it, the completed entries were hastily assembled into a movie. Luckily, the stories were made by some big-name directors, namely John Carpenter (Halloween) and Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and they delivered entertaining tales of serial killers, mutant hair, and possessed eyeballs. As well as also providing a satisfying mix of chills and laughs, Body Bags also features a seemingly non-stop parade of famous faces, including genre directors (Wes Craven, Sam Raimi), pop stars (Sheena Easton, Debbie Harry), and B-movie veterans (Stacy Keach, David Warner). The film's origins means that there's very little to connect these stories beyond an introduction by Carpenter and Hooper, playing mad morgue attendees, but it's great fun.


12. Castle Freak (1995)


Stuart Gordon gave us one of the 1980s' great horror movies with Re-Animator, and while he never quite matched it, there are some other notable movies in his filmography. Castle Freak was one of many movies he made for producer Charles Band. In true exploitation style, there was a poster and a title before there was a script, with Band reportedly telling Gordon he could make whatever he wanted as long as the movie featured a castle and a freak. And that's exactly what Gordon delivered; a weird tale of a family who encounter a deformed, basement-dwelling creature when they buy an Italian castle (which Band owned in real life). It's super low- budget, but it's got a dark, disturbing atmosphere and some good gore, plus appearances from Gordon's Re-Animator stars Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton.


11. Brainscan (1994)


No one is going to remember Brainscan as one of the '90s best horror movies, but it is a huge amount of unwholesome fun. Terminator 2 star Edward Furlong plays a horror-and-video-game-loving kid who gets addicted to a new game. What he thought was just a game in which he controls a murderer turns out to be a sinister program through which he manipulates a real-life killer. It's an often stupid movie that was panned on release, and its predictions of what the future of video games looked like are now ludicrously dated. But it remains hugely entertaining and is way more watchable than many long-forgotten "better" films. And fans of '90s alt-rock will love the soundtrack, with songs from the likes of Mudhoney, White Zombie, Primus, Tad, Pitchshifter, and the Butthole Surfers.


10. In the Mouth of Madness (1994)


John Carpenter is one of the most revered directors in horror. While nothing tops his run of classic movies from the late-70 to mid-80s (think of Halloween, The Fog, and The Thing), he did continue to make interesting films, with In the Mouth of Madness standing as one of the best of this later batch. It's a horror mystery that owes a big debt to the writing of HP Lovecraft and stars Sam Neill as an insurance investigator who is hired to look into the disappearance of best-selling horror author Sutter Cane. With a spooky atmosphere, strong performances, and some great monster effects, the movie is both a clever satire on horror fandom and a hugely entertaining monster movie in its own right.


9. Cemetery Man (1994)


One of the strangest horror movies of the decade, this brilliant, bizarre gothic yarn is one of only four fright flicks directed by Michele Soavi, who at one stage was being touted as the future of Italian horror. Also known as Dellamorte Dellamore, it stars Rupert Everett as a Francisco Dellamorte, a cemetery caretaker who spends every night putting the restless dead back in their graves. At times, this is as much an absurd comedy as a horror movie, with gory gags, a wonderful deadpan performance from Everett, and some incredibly stylish direction from Soavi. But for all its bawdy, gory lunacy, there's also an air of haunting melancholy as Dellamorte mourns his lost love and questions the futility of existence, leading to a strange, sad final sequence a world away from most undead shockers.


8. Dust Devil (1992)


Richard Stanley was one of the promising young horror directors of the early '90s. His debut film Hardware was a stylish, brutal futuristic thriller in which a woman is menaced by a killer robot. But it was his second movie that truly delivered on the promise of that striking debut. Set in the director's native South Africa, Dust Devil is a haunting, atmospheric road movie that combines the tone and style of a classic Western with a quasi-mystical serial killer movie. The title character is a shape-shifting demon that hunts tourists lost in the desert, and the film is a scary, visually-stunning headtrip. Sadly, it never got the release it deserved; it was badly reedited by producers Miramax and wasn't seen in its original form until a decade later. Stanley subsequently moved onto the ill-fated remake of The Island of Dr Moreau, which is its own bizarre story.


7. Cure (1997)


Japanese director Kyoshi Kurosawa is best known in the U.S. for the brilliant Pulse, which was part of the J-Horror wave that followed in the wake of Ringu. But three years earlier, he directed the equally scary Cure. It starts as a procedural police thriller about a cop on the trail of a serial killer, but quickly goes down the route of unnerving psychological horror, with themes of hypnosis and psychological control creating an increasing disturbing experience. Kurosawa is a master at freaking his audience out through creeping, insidious dread, and Cure is one of his most terrifying movies.


6. Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993)


Another of the decade's best horror anthologies, Necronomicon takes the writing of HP Lovecraft as inspiration behind the three tales. It's produced and co-directed by Re-Animator producer Brian Yuzna, and the star of that classic, Jeffrey Combs, plays Lovecraft himself in the wraparound story, in which he reads from the legendary book of the title. The stories themselves fully embrace Lovecraft's love of the weird, with some seriously gloopy, outrageous gore and monster effects. It's shame that it's quite hard to see--it's never even been released on DVD in the U.S.--because Necronomicon is well worth rediscovering.


5. The Resurrected (1991)


The Resurrected is yet another HP Lovecraft adaptation, this time directed by Dan O'Bannon, who also made the '80s classic Return of the Living Dead as well as co-writing Alien and Total Recall. It barely received a theatrical release before being dumped straight to video, and O'Bannon disowned it in later years, complaining that it had been taken away from him and finished by producers. But it's still a great film. Chris Sarandon gives a wonderfully unhinged performance as an amateur scientist who has been performing mysterious experiments, and the build-up in the tension before we find out what exactly he has been up to is expertly handled. The climax totally delivers too, with tons of gore and some outstanding monster effects.


4. Modern Vampires (1998)


Originally titled Revenant, this oddball vampire comedy attempted to cash in on the success of Blade with a very similar poster campaign, but in reality it couldn't be more different. It's set in an alternative Los Angeles where vampires are allowed to exist as long as the don't cause trouble with regular folk. There isn't much plot, but it's a gloriously eccentric experience with an increasingly mad series of scenes delivered by a cast who look like they're having an absolute blast. Starship Troopers star Casper Van Dien is a long-exiled vamp who returns to the city, while acting legend Rod Steiger plays Van Helsing, who is reimagined as a Nazi war criminal that uses LA gang members as his vampire hunting crew. There are roles for Sex & The City’s Kim Cattrall and comedian/late night host Craig Ferguson, and many of the jokes push the boundaries of taste. Modern Vampires is directed by Richard Elfman, brother of famed soundtrack composer Danny, who provides the movie's theme music. There's no other film quite like it.


3. Demon Knight (1995)


Ernest Dickerson started out as Spike Lee's cinematographer, working on such classics as Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X. But while his 1992 directorial debut Fresh was similar in subject matter to Lee's movies, his subsequent work in cinema and TV has frequently embraced horror--mostly recently, he's helmed various episodes of The Walking Dead. His 1995 film Demon Knight is a wildly entertaining horror comedy, spun off from HBO's Tales from the Crypt series. A drifter holes up in a weird motel after stealing an ancient key and is soon besieged by demonic forces eager to get it back. It's a fast-paced, exciting, and funny ride that proved Dickerson's love of the genre.


2. The Addiction (1997)


Maverick director Abel Ferrara is known for his early gritty '90s crime classics King of New York and Bad Lieutenant, but he's also dabbled in a horror a few times. His best chiller is The Addiction, a dark vampire tale the reunited him with his King of the New York star Christopher Walken. Shot in stark black-and-white on the streets of NYC, the movie treats vampirism as a drug addiction, as the title suggests. It also throws in a healthy dose of religious allegory, as a young woman slowly succumbs to mental disintegration and an unquenchable thirst for blood. If that sounds heavy… well, it is. But it's also an intelligent and powerful movie, that counts amongst the decade's best vampire films.


1. Cronos (1993)


While few watching Cronos in 1993 would have thought that its director would one day win Best Picture at the Oscars, this was clearly the work of an emerging talent. Guillermo Del Toro's debut tells the story of a strange insect that secretes a serum that seems to reverse the ageing process but also brings on more undesirable side effects. The movie marked Del Toro's first collaboration with future Hellboy actor Ron Perlman and contained many of the elements that would mark his future work--a confident mix of horror, fantasy, and drama, impressive performances, stylish direction, and a clear love and understanding as to what makes the genre so great.




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