Horror movies in 2014 produced one of the strongest years the genre had seen in decades. Far from being a period of studio retreads, the horror movies of 2014 — from Hollywood blockbusters to acclaimed independents — redefined what modern scary cinema could achieve. The Babadook became an instant genre landmark, It Follows introduced a generation to slow-burn dread, and mainstream hits like Annabelle and The Purge: Anarchy proved that commercial horror still had real power over audiences. Whether the preference is supernatural terror, found-footage claustrophobia, slasher brutality, or psychological mind-bending, 2014 delivered in every subcategory. This complete ranked guide covers 50 of the best horror movies from 2014 — Hollywood productions and significant releases from the same period — organized by subgenre to help find exactly what kind of fear is being sought.
Critically Acclaimed Horror Films of 2014 — The Essential Tier
The films in this category separated 2014 from average years for horror. Each one has maintained — and in some cases grown — its critical reputation in the decade since release, and they represent the strongest case for why 2014 remains a landmark year for the genre.
1. The Babadook (2014)
The highest-rated horror film of 2014 across virtually every critical metric, Jennifer Kent’s Australian debut holds a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is widely cited as one of the finest psychological horror films ever made. Essie Davis plays a grieving widow whose six-year-old son becomes obsessed with a sinister children’s book character called the Babadook — a figure that begins manifesting with increasingly terrifying effect. The film uses its monster as a metaphor for unprocessed grief and depression with a psychological precision that cheap jump-scare horror never attempts. Director, writer: Jennifer Kent. Stars: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman. Available on: Shudder, Prime Video.
2. It Follows (2014)
David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows operates on a premise that is both simple and deeply unsettling: a supernatural entity that passes from person to person through sexual contact, walking toward its current target at a slow, relentless pace until it kills them or they pass it on. Maika Monroe’s performance and the film’s Carpenter-influenced synth score by Disasterpeace elevated it into legitimate art horror territory. The ambiguous setting — neither clearly contemporary nor period — adds to the film’s haunting quality. Director: David Robert Mitchell. Stars: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi. Rotten Tomatoes: 97%.
3. Oculus (2014)
Mike Flanagan — who would go on to direct The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass — announced himself as one of horror’s most intelligent directors with Oculus. The film follows adult siblings who attempt to prove that an antique mirror is responsible for a series of deaths, including those of their parents. Flanagan’s screenplay weaves two timelines simultaneously, using the mirror’s power to distort the characters’ perception of reality in ways that become increasingly disorienting and genuinely frightening. Director: Mike Flanagan. Stars: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites, Katee Sackhoff.
4. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
Shot in radiant black and white and set in the fictional Iranian ghost town of Bad City, this debut feature from director Ana Lily Amirpour is unlike anything else in the horror canon. A lone female vampire stalks the streets at night, preying on men who exploit women — making her one of horror’s most unusual moral protagonists. The film’s slow, hypnotic rhythm and stunning visual composition drew comparisons to early Jim Jarmusch and earned it significant festival recognition. Director: Ana Lily Amirpour. Stars: Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi.
5. What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s mockumentary about vampire flatmates in Wellington, New Zealand became an instant cult classic and eventually spawned a long-running television franchise. The film’s comic genius lies in applying mundane domestic realism to genuinely ancient undead creatures — arguments about whose turn it is to clean the dungeon, awkward flatmate meetings about sharing blood — while never losing sight of the horror beneath the comedy. Director: Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement. Stars: Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, Jonathan Brugh.
Supernatural Horror Movies 2014
Supernatural horror dominated the mainstream horror releases of 2014, building on the box office momentum established by The Conjuring the previous year. These films range from studio-produced franchise entries to smaller productions that achieved their scares through atmosphere rather than budget.
6. Annabelle (2014)
Spinning off from one of the most effective sequences in The Conjuring, Annabelle focuses on the origin story of the disturbing doll that the Warrens kept in their artifacts room. A couple’s home is invaded by members of a Manson-style cult, one of whom dies while clutching the doll — and the evil that enters the doll through her blood terrorizes the family thereafter. Director John Leonetti delivers competent studio horror with strong atmosphere in the period 1960s setting. Director: John R. Leonetti. Stars: Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton. Box office: $257 million worldwide.
7. Deliver Us from Evil (2014)
Based on the book by NYPD detective Ralph Sarchie, this Scott Derrickson film follows a Bronx cop who uncovers a series of supernatural crimes linked to demonic possession. Eric Bana anchors the film with a credible, weary performance, and Derrickson — who would later direct Doctor Strange — demonstrates the atmospheric craft he had developed with The Exorcism of Emily Rose. The film blends police procedural and possession horror effectively, and its climactic exorcism sequence is among the better ones in recent mainstream horror. Director: Scott Derrickson. Stars: Eric Bana, Edgar Ramírez.
8. Jessabelle (2014)
A wheelchair-bound woman returns to her childhood home in Louisiana to recover from a horrific car accident and discovers a series of VHS tapes left by her deceased mother — tapes containing prophecies that become increasingly threatening. Jessabelle uses the Louisiana bayou setting effectively to build a slow, humid dread, and Sarah Snook’s performance generates genuine sympathy before the supernatural elements escalate. Director: Kevin Greutert. Stars: Sarah Snook, Mark Webber.
9. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)
The Paranormal Activity franchise found renewed energy by shifting focus from its central mythology to a new set of characters — young Latino men in Oxnard, California — who discover a neighbor has been conducting occult rituals. The spin-off format allows a fresh entry point into the franchise’s mythology and the result is more effective than the later numbered entries, particularly in its aggressive final act. Director: Christopher Landon. Stars: Andrew Jacobs, Jorge Diaz.
10. The Quiet Ones (2014)
A Hammer Films production set in 1970s Oxford, The Quiet Ones follows a professor and his students conducting psychological experiments on a disturbed young woman, attempting to prove that paranormal phenomena can be created and controlled through the human mind. The period setting adds considerable atmosphere, and the film’s ambiguity about whether its horror is supernatural or psychological is maintained more effectively than most films attempting this approach. Director: John Pogue. Stars: Jared Harris, Sam Claflin, Olivia Cooke.
11. Horns (2014)
Daniel Radcliffe plays a man accused of murdering his girlfriend who wakes one morning to discover he has grown demonic horns — horns that have the peculiar effect of compelling everyone around him to confess their darkest thoughts. Alexandre Aja’s adaptation of Joe Hill’s novel is horror-fantasy rather than pure horror, and Radcliffe’s committed performance carries the film through its tonal shifts from dark comedy to genuine menace. Director: Alexandre Aja. Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, Max Minghella.
Found-Footage Horror Movies 2014
Found footage as a format had been declared exhausted by critics for years before 2014 produced several entries that demonstrated the subgenre still had invention left in it, provided filmmakers used the camera conceit with genuine purpose rather than as a shortcut to production value.
12. As Above, So Below (2014)
John Erick Dowdle’s found-footage film sends a team of explorers into the catacombs beneath Paris in pursuit of the Philosopher’s Stone — and into something far darker. The claustrophobic tunnels housing millions of human remains provide an extraordinary setting, and the film’s escalation from archaeological adventure to hellish nightmare is swift and effective. Perdita Weeks delivers one of the most physically committed performances in recent found-footage horror. Director: John Erick Dowdle. Stars: Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman. Box office: $41 million worldwide.
13. The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)
Widely considered one of the most effective found-footage films of the decade, this debut feature from Adam Robitel follows a documentary crew filming an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s whose deteriorating condition begins exhibiting signs of something far beyond medical explanation. The film is unusual in that its horror escalates from the very real dread of dementia before incorporating the supernatural, giving the viewer emotional stakes before the terror begins. Director: Adam Robitel. Stars: Jill Larson, Anne Ramsay.
14. Creep (2014)
Mark Duplass plays Aaron, a man who hires a videographer to document his final days before a supposed brain tumor diagnosis — a scenario that becomes increasingly strange, then threatening, in ways the film reveals with patient precision. Duplass co-wrote the film with director Patrick Brice, and his performance creates a character who is simultaneously sympathetic, absurd, and genuinely frightening. The film spawned a sequel and cemented Duplass as a significant presence in indie horror. Director: Patrick Brice. Stars: Patrick Brice, Mark Duplass.
15. Mockingbird (2014)
Bryan Bertino — director of the original The Strangers — follows three separate groups of people who each receive a mysterious camera with instructions to film everything and never turn the camera off. The film’s interconnected structure builds to a genuinely disturbing conclusion, and Bertino’s refusal to over-explain the horror’s origins gives Mockingbird a lingering quality that more explicit films lack. Director: Bryan Bertino.
16. Open Grave (2014)
Sharlto Copley wakes in a pit filled with corpses with no memory of who he is or how he arrived there. The amnesiac mystery format drives the film’s tension as he and a group of survivors attempt to piece together the nature of the catastrophe that has apparently claimed everyone around them. The slow revelation of what has actually happened earns its horror through narrative logic rather than cheap shock. Director: Gonzalo López-Gallego. Stars: Sharlto Copley, Thomas Kretschmann.
Mainstream Hollywood Horror Movies 2014
The studio horror productions of 2014 were commercially dominant even when critics were divided. These films drove the vast majority of genre box office and introduced millions of casual horror viewers to the year’s genre output.
17. The Purge: Anarchy (2014)
Writer-director James DeMonaco expanded his vision dramatically for the Purge sequel, moving beyond the home-invasion premise of the first film to the streets of Los Angeles on Purge Night. The result is a more ambitious, politically charged action-horror with Frank Grillo delivering a compelling performance as a man with his own agenda for surviving the night. The film grossed $111 million worldwide on a $9 million budget and remains the strongest entry in the franchise. Director: James DeMonaco. Stars: Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo.
18. Ouija (2014)
A group of friends attempt to communicate with a deceased peer using a Ouija board and unleash a malevolent spirit in the process. The film is squarely targeted at the PG-13 teen horror audience that the first Annabelle and Conjuring cycle had reactivated, and within that context it delivers competent scares and a polished Blumhouse production. Its $103 million worldwide box office from a $5 million budget made it one of the most profitable horror films of the year. Director: Stiles White. Stars: Olivia Cooke, Ana Coto.
19. Dracula Untold (2014)
A revisionist origin story for the most famous vampire in horror history, treating Vlad Tepes as a tragic hero who bargains with a monster for the power to protect his people. Luke Evans brings considerable physical presence to the role, and the film’s action-horror hybrid approach is executed with a visual ambition beyond its budget. Though not a horror film in the classical sense, its monster-origin framework earns it a place in the genre’s 2014 catalogue. Director: Gary Shore. Stars: Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper, Sarah Gadon. Box office: $216 million worldwide.
20. Devil’s Due (2014)
A newlywed couple’s honeymoon in the Dominican Republic ends with a mysterious lost evening, and the wife begins experiencing a disturbing pregnancy with increasingly supernatural symptoms. The found-footage format applied to pregnancy horror creates an intimacy that amplifies the dread, and the film’s willingness to take its concept to dark conclusions distinguishes it from safer studio horror. Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett. Stars: Allison Miller, Zach Gilford.
Psychological Horror Movies 2014
21. Honeymoon (2014)
Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway play newlyweds whose remote cabin honeymoon turns disturbing when the wife returns from a sleepwalking episode fundamentally changed in ways her husband cannot explain or accept. The film is remarkable for its sustained intimacy — two people trapped together, one of whom the other no longer recognizes — and its willingness to let the horror emerge entirely from character rather than set-piece. Director: Leigh Janiak. Stars: Rose Leslie, Harry Treadaway.
22. Starry Eyes (2014)
A young actress in Los Angeles discovers that the price of Hollywood success is far darker than rejection. Alexandra Essoe’s performance in Starry Eyes is extraordinary — a study in ambition, self-destruction, and physical transformation that earns its place among the best horror acting of the decade. The film uses the horror genre to dissect the real terror of the entertainment industry with uncommon intelligence. Directors: Kevin Kölsch, Dennis Widmyer. Stars: Alexandra Essoe, Amanda Fuller.
23. 13 Sins (2014)
A remake of the Thai horror-thriller 13 Beloved, this Daniel Stamm film follows a down-on-his-luck salesman who receives a phone call offering escalating cash rewards for completing 13 increasingly dangerous and illegal tasks. The film uses its premise to escalate moral corruption and social transgression with black comedy energy that recalls classic Blumhouse concepts. Director: Daniel Stamm. Stars: Mark Webber, Devon Graye, Ron Perlman.
24. The Den (2014)
A graduate student studying online communication via webcam witnesses a murder live-streamed through the platform and becomes the killer’s next target. The computer-screen conceit — a precursor to what Unfriended would do the following year — is used effectively to restrict perspective and generate paranoia. Director: Zachary Donohue. Stars: Melanie Papalia, David Schlachtenhaufen.
Slasher and Gore Horror Movies 2014
The slasher subgenre had a productive 2014 with several entries that combined classic formula with fresh execution, including one significant franchise revival and one critically praised reinvention.
25. The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)
A meta-sequel to the 1976 cult slasher of the same name, this Alfonso Gomez-Rejon film is set in Texarkana — the actual town where the original film was shot — 65 years after the moonlight murders of the original story, where a new killer begins replicating the murders. The film’s self-awareness about horror mythology and its place within it gives it an intelligence the original lacked. Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. Stars: Addison Timlin, Veronica Cartwright.
26. See No Evil 2 (2014)
The Soska Sisters — Jen and Sylvia — bring their distinctive visual sensibility to the WWE-produced slasher sequel, with the unstoppable Jacob Goodnight waking in a morgue and proceeding to terrorize a birthday party of undertakers. Danielle Harris and Katharine Isabelle headline the cast of horror veterans, giving the sequel a genre pedigree the first film lacked. Directors: Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska. Stars: Glenn Jacobs, Danielle Harris, Katharine Isabelle.
27. Stage Fright (2014)
A horror-musical hybrid set at a theater camp where campers are being killed by a masked figure who despises musical theater. The film’s genre-blending concept — part Glee, part Friday the 13th — is executed with genuine wit, and the musical numbers are legitimately good. Director: Jerome Sable. Stars: Minnie Driver, Meat Loaf.
28. Wolf Creek 2 (2014)
Greg McLean’s sequel to his brutal 2005 Australian slasher is a significant evolution in tone — bigger, louder, and more overtly confrontational than the original. John Jarratt’s Mick Taylor is given considerably more screen time and dialogue, transforming the outback killer into something closer to a charismatic monster in the Hannibal Lecter tradition. The highway chase sequence is one of the most impressive action-horror set-pieces of the decade. Director: Greg McLean. Stars: John Jarratt, Ryan Corr.
Creature Features and Monster Horror 2014
29. Tusk (2014)
Kevin Smith’s horror-comedy about a podcaster who travels to Canada to interview a reclusive sailor — only to be surgically transformed into a walrus — is the most singular film on this entire list. Michael Parks delivers a performance of extraordinary malevolent charisma as the obsessive sailor, and Justin Long undergoes a physical and psychological journey that is genuinely disturbing beneath its absurdist surface. Director: Kevin Smith. Stars: Justin Long, Michael Parks, Haley Joel Osment.
30. Clown (2014)
A father finds a clown costume in an abandoned house for his son’s birthday party, only to discover that the suit is made from the skin of an ancient demon and cannot be removed. The practical effects work in Clown is exceptional, and the film’s escalating horror of a loving father slowly losing humanity is more emotionally affecting than most creature features attempt. Director: Jon Watts (later director of the MCU Spider-Man films). Stars: Andy Powers, Laura Allen.
31. Exists (2014)
Eduardo Sánchez — co-director of The Blair Witch Project — returns to found footage with a Bigfoot horror film set in the Texas backwoods. The creature effects are strong and the film takes its creature seriously as a genuine threat rather than a mythological curiosity, delivering chase sequences with real kinetic tension. Director: Eduardo Sánchez. Stars: Samuel Davis, Dora Madison.
32. The Pyramid (2014)
Archaeologists discover a three-sided pyramid buried beneath the Egyptian desert and descend into its passages, encountering something ancient and alive within. The found-footage format is eventually abandoned in favor of conventional cinematography as the film escalates, which actually improves it — the creature design for the film’s monster is among the more memorable of its year. Director: Grégory Levasseur. Stars: Ashley Hinshaw, Denis O’Hare.
Zombie Horror Movies 2014
33. Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014)
Tommy Wirkola’s sequel to his Norwegian Nazi zombie horror is more ambitious, more self-aware, and considerably more fun than the original. The central conceit — the hero having a Nazi zombie’s arm surgically attached in order to fight the undead — escalates into increasingly elaborate gore set-pieces, and the addition of Martin Starr leading an American zombie enthusiasts group gives the film a comedic energy that earns every one of its outrageous moments. Director: Tommy Wirkola. Stars: Vegar Hoel, Ørjan Gamst, Martin Starr.
34. Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014)
This Australian zombie action-horror garnered significant attention on the festival circuit for its inventive premise — a mechanic using zombie-harvested gas as fuel for his vehicle during a zombie apocalypse — and its kinetic, stylish execution achieved on a micro-budget. The film announced director Kiah Roache-Turner as a significant new voice in genre filmmaking. Director: Kiah Roache-Turner. Stars: Jay Gallagher, Bianca Bradey.
35. Life After Beth (2014)
Aubrey Plaza plays a recently deceased girl who returns from the grave — initially to her parents’ joy and her boyfriend’s confusion — and begins deteriorating with the particular fury of a zombie who has been brought back from the other side. The film works both as a zombie comedy and as an unusually honest metaphor for the impossibility of holding onto lost relationships. Director: Jeff Baena. Stars: Aubrey Plaza, Dane DeHaan, John C. Reilly.
Foreign Influence and International Horror 2014
Several international horror films that gained significant distribution and critical recognition in Hollywood and US markets in 2014 deserve their place alongside the domestic productions. These films demonstrate that the best horror movies of 2014 were a genuinely global phenomenon, influencing American genre filmmaking for years afterward. Just as horror anime draws deeply on Japanese cultural mythology to generate its distinctive dread, these international productions brought their own cultural anxieties to the genre with refreshing results.
36. Goodnight Mommy (2014)
Austrian twin boys begin to suspect that the bandaged woman who has returned from facial surgery is not their mother. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s film is a masterclass in sustained, mounting unease — it reveals its horror through implication and the logic of children’s paranoia before an ending that reframes everything that precedes it. Director: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala. Stars: Elias Schwarz, Lukas Schwarz.
37. REC 4: Apocalypse (2014)
The concluding chapter of the Spanish found-footage franchise relocates survivor Ángela to an oil tanker at sea for the final confrontation with the parasitic entity at the franchise’s center. The change of setting and format — abandoning found footage for conventional cinematography — gives the franchise’s ending a scale the earlier films couldn’t achieve. Director: Jaume Balagueró. Stars: Manuela Velasco.
38. Housebound (2014)
This New Zealand horror-comedy follows a woman placed under house arrest at her mother’s home, who begins to suspect the house is genuinely haunted. The film’s extraordinary skill lies in its sustained tonal balance — it is genuinely funny and genuinely frightening at the same time, in roughly equal measure — and its willingness to keep the audience unsure whether it’s watching a comedy or a horror film right up to its surprisingly moving conclusion. Director: Gerard Johnstone. Stars: Morgana O’Reilly, Rima Te Wiata.
39. Only Lovers Left Alive (2014)
Jim Jarmusch’s vampire film is less a horror movie than a meditation on immortality, art, and cultural exhaustion — but its genre credentials are impeccable. Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton play long-married vampires whose centuries of accumulated aesthetic refinement have made the present world nearly unbearable. The film’s horror is existential rather than visceral, but the underlying vampire mythology is presented with more intellectual seriousness than any other entry on this list. Director: Jim Jarmusch. Stars: Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton.
Indie and Arthouse Horror 2014
The independent horror sector of 2014 was exceptional, producing several films that have grown significantly in reputation since their limited releases. Just as Cube found its audience slowly through cult word of mouth, many of these 2014 indie horror films built their followings outside the conventional release window.
40. Honeymoon (2014)
Already covered in the psychological horror section — its dual claim on both categories is a testament to its quality across genre lines.
41. Late Phases (2014)
A blind veteran moves to a retirement community and discovers that its residents are being attacked by something that comes on the night of the full moon. The film’s slow pace and character focus are unusual for a werewolf horror, and Nick Damici’s performance as the ornery, self-sufficient protagonist gives the film an emotional weight most creature features don’t attempt. Director: Adrián García Bogliano. Stars: Nick Damici, Ethan Embry.
42. Proxy (2014)
Zack Parker’s film opens with an act of shocking violence against a pregnant woman and expands from there into a dark study of grief, obsession, and the relationships that form in support groups for the bereaved. The film defies easy categorization — it is horror, psychological thriller, and character study simultaneously — and its performances are uniformly excellent. Director: Zack Parker. Stars: Alexia Rasmussen, Alexa Havins.
43. The Sacrament (2014)
Ti West’s found-footage film is a barely disguised recreation of the Jonestown massacre, following journalists who travel to a remote commune called Eden Parish to retrieve one of their colleagues. The horror here is entirely human — the charismatic preacher called Father and his absolute control over hundreds of followers — and the film’s climax remains one of the most disturbing sequences in recent horror for exactly that reason. Director: Ti West. Stars: Gene Jones, AJ Bowen, Joe Swanberg.
44. Afflicted (2014)
Two best friends filming a travel documentary abroad encounter something that transforms one of them into something superhuman and increasingly dangerous. The found-footage vampire film earns its scares through the tragedy of watching a friendship deteriorate as one person becomes unrecognizable, and the practical effects work for the transformation scenes is impressive on its budget. Directors: Derek Lee, Clif Prowse. Stars: Derek Lee, Clif Prowse.
Horror-Comedy Gems of 2014
45. Wolfcop (2014)
A small-town Canadian alcoholic police officer is transformed into a werewolf and finds that the change actually improves his law enforcement abilities. The film leans entirely into its B-movie premise with genuine affection for the low-budget horror-comedy tradition, and its willingness to be exactly as ridiculous as its logline suggests is a quality in its own right. Director: Lowell Dean. Stars: Leo Fafard, Amy Matysio.
46. Zombeavers (2014)
College students on a cabin getaway are terrorized by zombie beavers in a film that is entirely aware of its own absurdity and committed to delivering on its premise with maximum practical effects enthusiasm. The film works because it has genuine craft underlying its self-aware comedy — the beaver animatronics are actually quite good. Director: Jordan Rubin. Stars: Rachel Melvin, Cortney Palm.
47. Dead Rising: Watchtower (2014)
Based on the Capcom video game series, this film follows a journalist navigating a zombie outbreak in a quarantine zone. It was the first of several video game adaptations that sought to engage the games’ existing fanbase while delivering self-contained zombie action for casual viewers. Director: Zach Lipovsky. Stars: Jesse Metcalfe, Meghan Ory.
Additional Notable Horror Films 2014
48. Mercy (2014)
Based on Stephen King’s short story Gramma, this film follows two brothers spending the summer with their ailing grandmother who begin to suspect that her deteriorating condition is connected to a dark bargain she made with supernatural forces years earlier. The King adaptation maintains the story’s atmosphere of familial dread effectively. Director: Peter Cornwell. Stars: Dylan McDermott, Frances O’Connor.
49. Alien Abduction (2014)
The found-footage format applied to alien abduction horror, based loosely on the real-life Brown Mountain Lights phenomena in North Carolina. A family camping trip turns terrifying as they encounter evidence of extraterrestrial activity that escalates into direct contact. Director: Matty Beckerman. Stars: Riley Polanski, Jillian Clare.
50. House at the End of Time (2014)
This Venezuelan supernatural horror-thriller — the highest-grossing Venezuelan film in domestic history at the time of its release — follows a woman imprisoned for murdering her husband and son who returns to her house thirty years later, still haunted by the supernatural events of that night. The film’s central mystery involving time loops and the house’s dark geometry is resolved with impressive internal logic. Director: Alejandro Hidalgo. Stars: Ruddy Rodríguez, Gonzalo Cubero.
How to Choose What to Watch: A Viewer’s Guide to Horror Movies 2014
The range across this list reflects the genuine breadth of what horror movies from 2014 achieved. For viewers coming to the year fresh, the essential starting point is the critically acclaimed tier: The Babadook, It Follows, Oculus, and What We Do in the Shadows represent the absolute pinnacle of what horror cinema achieves when it operates at its best. They are re-watchable, genuinely affecting, and have influenced the films that came after them.
For pure entertainment with no patience for slow-burn, The Purge: Anarchy, Annabelle, and Dracula Untold deliver satisfying commercial horror with production values to match. Fans of found footage should prioritize As Above, So Below, The Taking of Deborah Logan, and Creep. The international selections — Goodnight Mommy, Housebound, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night — reward viewers willing to read subtitles with horror experiences that American productions rarely replicate. Discovering strong genre performances through less-seen films is one of the most reliable ways to find horror that genuinely delivers. Fans of atmospheric slow-burn horror in the vein of Kubrick or early Polanski should direct their attention toward Danny Boyle’s early work — Sunshine shares the particular brand of intelligence and dread with which the best 2014 horror films operate — before circling back to the independent tier of 2014 with Starry Eyes, Proxy, and The Sacrament.
Frequently Asked Questions
What horror movie was Ethan Hawke in from around 2014?
Ethan Hawke starred in The Purge (2013) and later Sinister (2012). In 2014 specifically, he appeared in Boyhood rather than a horror film, though his horror output around this period includes both Sinister films. His most celebrated horror performance came later in The Black Phone (2022), directed by Scott Derrickson, who also directed Deliver Us from Evil in 2014.
What were the top 10 horror movies of 2014?
Based on critical consensus and enduring reputation, the top 10 horror movies of 2014 are: The Babadook (98% Rotten Tomatoes), It Follows (97%), What We Do in the Shadows (96%), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Oculus, Housebound, The Taking of Deborah Logan, Honeymoon, As Above So Below, and Starry Eyes. For box office performance, the ranking shifts toward Annabelle, The Purge: Anarchy, Ouija, and Dracula Untold.
What was the scariest horror movie of 2014?
Critical consensus consistently places The Babadook as the scariest and most effective horror film of 2014, with a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score and widespread recognition as one of the finest psychological horror films ever made. For visceral jump-scare horror, Annabelle and Deliver Us from Evil generated the strongest audience reactions. The Taking of Deborah Logan is frequently cited as the found-footage entry that genuinely disturbed viewers who watched it at home alone.
Which 2014 horror movie has the best cast?
Only Lovers Left Alive features the most distinguished cast — Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton — though neither is primarily known for genre work. Among genre-specific casts, Oculus starred Karen Gillan (later of the MCU), Katee Sackhoff, and Brenton Thwaites. What We Do in the Shadows features Taika Waititi in a double role as director and lead actor, years before Thor: Ragnarok made him a mainstream name.
Are any of the 2014 horror movies available for free streaming?
Several 2014 horror films are available on subscription streaming services. The Babadook streams on Shudder. It Follows, Annabelle, and The Purge: Anarchy cycle across Netflix, Prime Video, and HBO Max depending on regional availability and current licensing. What We Do in the Shadows is available on Shudder, which has invested in the franchise through its long-running television spinoff. Availability changes frequently — checking JustWatch for current streaming locations provides the most accurate results.
Conclusion
Horror movies from 2014 represent one of the most creatively diverse years the genre has produced. From Jennifer Kent’s devastating psychological masterwork in The Babadook to the stripped-down conceptual terror of It Follows, from the commercial power of Annabelle to the gleeful absurdity of Zombeavers, the year demonstrates that horror is uniquely capable of containing multitudes. The films that have lasted — The Babadook, It Follows, What We Do in the Shadows, Oculus, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night — did so not through marketing or franchise leverage but through the irreducible quality of their filmmaking.
The 50 films covered here represent the full width of what horror movies from 2014 achieved across studio, independent, and international production. No single viewer will find every entry on this list to their taste, but the variety guarantees that anyone drawn to the genre will find something within it that delivers exactly what they came for — fear, laughter, dread, wonder, or the particular satisfaction of a monster movie that gets its monster exactly right.
