Scary horror movies don’t always need to utilize buckets of blood and nonstop gore to frighten audiences. In fact some of the scariest movies in history have created the same scare tactic by using almost little to no blood at all in their films while ramping up the scare tactics with the right music, setting, and anticipation as the filmmaker tends to set the audience’s nerves on edge just making them wait for that jump scare they know is coming. But there is a fine line between making a person wait for just the right amount of time and making them wait too long since if you tip the scales too far then you create boredom and disappointment. Tip the scare too soon and it becomes a letdown unless it’s followed by increasingly horrifying images that just don’t stop. There’s a balance in horror movies just as there is in anything else, but the best filmmakers know how to work that emotional teeter-totter without upsetting their fans, and they know how to rip the screams from the audience’s throat without going over the top when it comes to the gorier aspects of film.
Here are some of the scariest movies to ever come out featuring little to no blood or gore.
10. Poltergeist
Admittedly this film got bit campy in some places, such as the moment when the man saw himself mutilating his own face in the mirror. But aside from that there really wasn’t any gore or blood in the rest of the film, and as disturbing as that moment was it was over and done with pretty quickly and not as bad as it could possibly get.
9. Paranormal Activity
While the rest of this series kind of went off the rails and the final one even proved it as it incorporated more gore and blood as though it might help, the original used implied violence and possible gore to its advantage but didn’t really show much of anything. It managed just fine when it came to shocking the audience with the jump scares that were featured throughout the movie. Though now looking back at it you can almost time when things are going to happen.
8. The Others
This movie was judged pretty harshly for not being scary enough and not offering enough in the way of a proper horror film. People need to remember though that there was a time when horror didn’t mean blood and guts and the need to do violence to one another on such a massive scale. Horror can be far more cerebral and the twist that came with this movie near the end was pretty clever to be honest.
7. The Blair Witch Project
If there was anything that might have made a person hurl during this movie it would have been the insane camera angles and the continual motion as whoever was operating the camera wanted to go for the ‘real’ feeling of movement and the terror that was inherent within the ‘documentary’. A few people had to shut the movie off or look away when they tried to watch it at home since the motion sickness that’s induced with this movie was far worse than anything the film shows.
6. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
A lot of these movies show that you don’t need the over the top special effects and the nonstop gore to really get through to people on a more cerebral level. Some films rely heavily on blood and guts for shock factor and use them to the greatest extent but it’s not always necessary. In this film the idea of being replaced by emotionless aliens that sought to dominate the earth was bad enough.
5. Rosemary’s Baby
Really, how would you react as a woman if you were told that you’d given birth to the son of the devil? This film relied heavily on perception and what the audience couldn’t see but could easily guess at in their own minds and that’s one of the best types of horror there is since it allows people to think the worst and to expect something that’s just going to pop out and scare the living daylights out of them.
4. The Birds
There is some blood in The Birds but not so much that you would think it to be over the top. The real horror comes from the fact that birds are, as we know, almost always seen in flocks or other groups that can be quite beautiful in flight. It’s hard to admire that beauty however when an entire group of them decide to dive bomb you from on high. Those beaks can be sharper than a lot of people think.
3. It Follows
There’s never any real explanation of what “it” really is, but the entity is something that will seemingly kill anyone that it can reach and will continue to follow that person until it catches up to them. The real horror of this movie is that you don’t ever get away from it, even if you tend to incapacitate it for a time. It will always find you and it will always follow.
2. The Grudge
For such a creepy movie you would think that there would be some bloodshed, and there kind of is a bit of gore and blood, but not enough to really make it count or be seen as all that disturbing. The imagery is what makes this movie truly creepy, and the sound effects that many people tend to make fun of after watching it.
1. The Ring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PkgRhzq_BQ
Ever notice that horror films have moved along with the times to incorporate themselves into modern technology? Honestly, VHS tapes are about as dead a technology as you could think of at the moment, but back when this film came out it was still terrifying to think that something as innocuous as a videotape could seal your fate.
People love to be scared, and when a filmmaker is able to do so without drowning a film in blood and guts it’s even more of a master stroke.
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