10 Horror Filmmakers Recommend Their Favorite Scary Movies

Here at Men’s Health we’re all about feeling alive. And is there any genre of entertainment that helps anyone feel more alive than the one where the threat of someone being knocked off is always right in front of you? We love horror, and we’re celebrating it this year with MH Horror Week. The following story is part of a collection we’ve curated celebrating some of our favorite films, TV shows, filmmakers, and performers in the genre. We hope you enjoy—and maybe find a few new scares along the way too.

You can find all of our MH Horror Week 2022 coverage right here.

Now that spooky season is upon us, it's time for one of our favorite pagan rituals—and no, we don't mean the one were you demand treats under threat of trickery. We're talking about gathering all your friends together, especially the scaredy-cats, locking them in a dark living room, and watching your favorite scary movies together. But what do you watch once you've seen all the year's big horror hits—Barbarian, Smile, X, Hellraiser, and more—and lived to tell the tale? Well, we asked the directors, writers, producers, and stars of those very projects and a few of our other favorite scary movies and TV shows to recommend their own must-watch horror classics. Read what they have to say, turn down the lights, and hit play.

David Bruckner

Director of Hellraiser on Hulu

"One of my favorite early horror discoveries was Cemetery Man (1994), directed by Michele Soavi. (Originally titled Dellamorte Dellamore.) The film is a conscious riff on Italian horror: part zombie movie, part surrealistic experiment, and part pitch-black comedy, featuring an absolutely dashing Rupert Everett in his prime. It ventures wildly between campy splatter horror, ungodly gothic romance, and philosophical musing before finally landing on a truly bleak and existential fate. A bizarre fever dream of some the genre’s greatest flavors, from Raimi to Lynch to Argento. If you’re looking for a truly distinct experience in horror, I can’t recommend this gem enough. Throw it on, leave your expectations at the door and let it work its weird magic."

Michael Giacchino

Director of Werewolf By Night on Disney+

"Poltergeist (1982) is one of my favorites. But there are a million to recommend—Poltergeist, Rosemary’s Baby (1968), and even though it’s a monster movie, I feel King Kong (1933) is a great horror movie too. Those are three very different sorts of films that give you a taste of the different subgenres within the horror genre."

Mike Flanagan

Creator, writer, director, and producer of The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, andThe Midnight Club on Netflix

"The Exorcist (1973), The Fly (1986), Jaws (1975), The Changeling (1980)."

Parker Finn

Writer-director of Smile, in theaters now and on Paramount+ soon

"There is nothing that compares to Andrzej Zulawski's 1981 cult masterpiece, Possession. Part (extremely) toxic relationship melodrama and part supernatural, horrifying weirdness—it may not be the scariest movie I've ever seen, but it will tear your brain open and stomp around inside, leaving a psychic imprint that's impossible to shake. It's a purposefully maddening story of a marriage exploding, where venomous infidelity is only the beginning of the lead couple's problems, as something far more sinister and cosmic has infiltrated their lives. With absolutely mesmerizing performances from Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill, and coldly-atmospheric, mania-inducing direction from Zulawski, Possession is frightening, devastatingly funny, deeply uncomfortable, and simply one of a kind."

Sosie Bacon

Star of Smile, in theaters now and on Paramount+ soon

"My love of horror started with Goosebumps—and no, not the movie, but the book series! My brother and I had every single one. But it was The Ring (2002) that made me fall in love with horror movies. The adrenaline heading to the theater, the spikes in cortisol with every jump scare. It’s addictive. There are a few images in that movie that will forever stick with me: Samara walking out of the well, then crawling out of the TV like a contortionist, and Naomi Watts bleeding out of her beautiful nose! I could never forget—it hooked me!"

Rolin Jones

Creator, executive producer, and writer of Interview with the Vampire on AMC and AMC+

"Is Jeremy Irons’s portrayal of the ethically questionable twin gynecologists Eliot and Beverly in David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers (1988) the single greatest acting performance in a horror movie? Yes and yes! Plus a masterful score from Howard Shore and some props you’ll never be able to erase from your memory. It’s a movie so sinister and haunting that I can only watch it once every five years."

Scott Beck & Bryan Woods

Co-writers of A Quiet Place, now on Paramount+, and c0-writer-directors of the upcoming 65

"On August 9, 1999 we sat in a darkened theater in Iowa, unaware that we would be watching the film which would single-handedly convince us to pursue a career as writers/directors. The advertisements for The Sixth Sense had promised us a terrifying ghost story—and yet what captured our attention the most is the detail and care that M. Night Shyamalan poured into the unlikely pair of nine-year-old Cole Sear and psychologist Malcolm Crowe. This film taught us that in order to be on the edge of your seat with fear, you first have to care about your main characters. To this very day, we take this lesson into every film we make."

"The Fly (1986) is a masterpiece combining David Cronenberg's signature body horror with a romantic tragedy that makes Romeo and Juliet's demise feel like a Saturday morning cartoon. We adore how the film opens with a simple conceit—scientist Seth Brundle aspiring to build a teleportation device—but ends with him fully transformed into a human/fly hybrid who is willing to have his brains blown out by the love of his life. This is a film that scars both the eyes and the heart, and we wouldn't have it any other way."

Ti West

Writer, director, and producer of X, now on VOD, Pearl, available on VOC on October 25, and the upcoming MaXXXine

"The Changeling, starring George C. Scott. The Wicker Man—the original 1975 one. And Don't Look Now (1973)."

Zach Cregger

Writer-director of Barbarian, in theaters now and available on VOD on October 25

"One movie I watched not so long ago that I don’t think gets nearly enough love is Saint Maud (2019), directed by Rose Glass. It follows a hospice worker’s slow descent into insanity and religious extremism, which sounds on the surface like an unpleasant hour and a half. But Glass is an expert storyteller and her skill behind the camera combined with the absolute knockout performance by Morfydd Clark keeps you hooked all the way through. Not to mention, it has a jump scare near the end that I’d say is one of the best I’ve ever seen. It’s a fantastic movie that should be talked about way more than it is!"

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