Editorials
A Look at the Top 10 Claustrophobic Horror Movies!
Fox Home Entertainment is bringing several horror classics to hi-def Blu-ray as part of their Feed Your Fear campaign, with most of them already at a store near you. We’ve joined forces with them to bring you four top 10 lists related to one or more of the titles. In lieu of the classic Stephen King adaptation Misery now available on Blu-ray, we present to you “The Top 10 Claustrophobic Horror Movies”. Watch for another three features in the coming weeks leading up to Halloween.
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According to Forbes magazine, a fear of enclosed spaces — or claustrophobia — is the sixth most common of all phobias. This falls underneath fear of critters (bugs, mice, snakes, bats); fear of heights (acrophobia); fear of water (hydrophobia); fear of public transportation (thanks, Al Qaeda); and fear of storms (here’s looking at you, global warming). For my money though, none of these fears has been exploited to greater cinematic effect than claustrophobia. Sure, at least one good film has come out of all of the above, but I defy you to come up with a list of the “Top Ten Scary Snake Movies” without doing some serious head-scratching and frantic keyword searches on IMDB. Now, not all of the films listed below are specifically concerned with claustrophobia, but all utilize, to a great degree, this all-too-common fear in order to increase the audience’s sense of dread and unease. In other words, let’s just say you’ll have the sudden urge to get outside and breathe some nice, un-recycled air after finishing these babies.
Rec is better, you say? Well guess what — I haven’t seen it yet, so this American remake will have to do. Ok, so while Quarantine falls far short of “horror classic” status, it was a lot scarier than I expected, and utilized the admittedly over-used “shaky-cam” aesthetic pretty effectively. Not only was the setting itself claustrophobic, but the limited first-person point of view made the whole thing feel that much more stifling. Too bad the marketing executives behind the ad campaign decided it was a good idea to give away the final shot in the trailer.
Sure he’s a child rapist (suck it, Woody Allen), not to mention a certifiable head case, but you’d have to be in major denial not to admit that Roman Polanski, in his prime, knew his way around tight spaces (insert your own joke here) better than any other director. Repulsion was the first in what some might call his “claustrophobia trilogy” (followed by Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant), and the black-and-white cinematography only serves to heighten the suffocating isolation of Catherine Deneuve’s slow descent into madness. A classic in any genre.
Forget the lame sequels; Cube remains one of the most ingenious low-budget horror films ever made. The concept is simple: six complete strangers wake up in a maze of interlocking cubes, many of which possess deadly traps. To escape, the six must band together and use their unique skills (one is a math whiz, one is a building designer, etc.) to figure a way out. The spareness and repetition of the setting alone – cubes measuring 14x14x14 feet, differing only by color – is enough to send any claustrophobic running for their psychiatrist’s office.
So the world is ending, your friends and family have all turned into brain-munching crazy people, and you find yourself trapped in probably the least enjoyable place to wait out Armageddon – a dilapidated farm house. Sigh. Ok, so the shopping mall setting featured in Dawn of the Dead was a lot more fun, but there’s something about the isolated, middle-of-nowhere location in this first of Romero’s never-ending Living Dead series that makes it all the more creepy. At least in a mall, you can stake out your own territory at, say, Hot Topic or Sbarro Pizza. In the house featured here, you’re either stuck upstairs with the crazy blonde chick, or down in the basement with the survivalist nutcase and his glassy-eyed little daughter that keeps eyeing your forearm like it’s a plate of spare ribs.
If global warming-alarmists are to be believed, in 30 years or so not only might your tract home in Fresno become prime beach-front real estate, but movies taking place in the Arctic Circle could potentially feature bitchin’ surfing montages and tanned extras sipping umbrella drinks. Luckily, if this ever comes to pass, those of us who prefer our Arctic cold and isolated need only revisit The Thing, one of John Carpenter’s true masterpieces. In it, the celebrated director utilizes the frigid, remote Arctic setting to brilliant effect. While it’s technically a remake of Howard Hawks’ 1951 film The Thing From Another World, this one features a lot of sweet Rob Bottin creature effects. In other words, give me Carpenter’s version any day.
I once compared the experience of viewing The Descent, director Neil Marshall’s brilliant exercise in audience manipulation, to being trapped inside an angry lesbian’s vagina during menstruation. I know it’s crude, but I honestly couldn’t think of a more apt description at the time (and sorry, still can’t). The film is all sweaty, cramped spaces that, more than any other movie on this list, utilizes claustrophobia in its most literal sense. Sure, the vicious, cannibalistic human-esque creatures that hunt the featured all-female group of spelunkers are way scary, but the super-confined setting is what’ll really haunt your dreams.
I recently re-watched Misery, and I was struck once again not only by what a fine movie it is (this is before Rob Reiner went on to direct such delightful gems as EDTV and The Bucket List), but how well it keeps the audience engaged despite the fact that it’s almost exclusively limited to a single location. Of course, I guess that’s the whole point – the film very effectively taps into our fears not only of isolation and confinement, but of being totally dependent upon another human being for our very survival. It doesn’t help when that person is Annie Wilkes, psychotic super-fan, in the performance that netted Kathy Bates a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar.
Again: Roman Polanski is a child rapist, as in he raped a 13-year-old girl after drugging her with Quaaludes (stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Scorcese). That being said, I can’t in good conscience leave Rosemary’s Baby, his elegant horror opus and the second part of his “claustrophobia trilogy”, off this list. It’s not the setting here that evokes cabin fever so much as the slowly-enveloping sense of dread and doom that permeates every frame (not to mention the ultimate Nosy Neighbors From Hell, played to queasy perfection by Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer). Every time you think your neighbors are annoying, just remember – at least they didn’t try to impregnate you with the Antichrist.
We’ve all heard Alien described as a “haunted house movie on a space ship” before, and really I can’t think of a better description for Ridley Scott’s terrifying sci-fi nightmare, which features the most deliciously phallic monster ever put to celluloid. There are so many reasons why this film works, but at the end of the day it’s all about the setting. This spacecraft isn’t of the gleaming, clean-lined Star Trek variety; rather, it’s a dank, utilitarian labyrinth filled with dark recesses and cramped, anxiety-inducing tunnels and crawl-spaces. In other words, the perfect place for freaky shit to go down.
Yeah, Stanley Kubrick made some kick-ass movies in basically every genre, but for horror-hounds it doesn’t get any better than The Shining. The book by Stephen King was good, if typically uneven for an early King effort, but Kubrick really cut to the marrow of what made the story scary. In other words – it’s the location, stupid. The Overlook Hotel is the ultimate “haunted house” – with hallways like constricted arteries, the creepiest hedge maze ever, and doorways that stand like sentinels against secrets that would drive the average person to insanity. Now take Jack Nicholson in a throat-ripping, Grand Guignol-inspired performance, creepy ghost girls that put all the long-haired “J-horror” phantoms to shame, and Shelley Duvall in a performance that makes you wonder how she survived through principal photography without having a complete mental breakdown, and you’ve got yourself the ultimate in cabin-fever horror. – Chris Eggertsen
We’re now officially in the back half of 2026 now that July is here, but what a year it’s been for horror so far. The sequels and reboots are still holding strong at the box office with films like Scream 7 and Scary Movie, but it’s also been a year where new voices are shattering records in unexpected ways.
Markiplier eschewed conventional production and distribution channels with his feature adaptation of Iron Lung, for example. We’re also still in the midst of Backrooms and Obsession-mania, with the former back in theaters with bonus footage and the latter extending its box office reign. Liminal horror has exploded, and low-budget indie horror is seeing just as much, and sometimes even more, success as big studio-backed fare.
All of which to say that 2026 has been a hell of a year so far for the genre, and it’s only getting warmed up. Still on the way are Evil Dead Burn, Insidious: Out of the Further, Resident Evil, Clayface, Whalefall, and Werwulf, just to name a few.
Also catch up with the Best Horror Books and Best Horror Games of the year so far.
Here are the ten best horror movies of the year (so far).
10) Chime
Horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa is back with one of his most haunting yet, though one that’d likely be higher on this list if it were more accessible. The 45-minute feature was initially produced and distributed as an NFT before receiving a theatrical run earlier this year, with no plans to distribute digitally or on home media. It spins a somewhat cryptic tale, introducing a culinary teacher, Takuji Matsuoka (Mutsuo Yoshioka, Never After Dark), whose classroom becomes disrupted by a strange sound that leads to violence. It’s a quiet but haunting unraveling, one that leaves no aspect of Matsuoka’s life untouched, in true Kiyoshi Kurosawa style. That it defies any easy explanation also ensures Chime embeds itself under your skin.
9) Send Help
Sam Raimi’s splatstick return to form is a delightfully deranged two-hander that doubles as infectious catharsis for anyone who’s ever had a bad boss. Rachel McAdams (Doctor Strange) and Dylan O’Brien (The Maze Runner) face off when their characters are shipwrecked on an island, prompting a bid for survival in more ways than one. While O’Brien often matches her, It’s McAdams who shines as she deftly handles everything that Raimi, working from a script by Damian Shannon & Mark Swift (Freddy vs. Jason), throws at her. Send Help is full of vibrant personality, packed with all of Raimi’s signatures, making for one of the most entertaining films of the year.
8) Mārama
New Zealand filmmaker Taratoa Stappard’s gothic tale begins in familiar fashion, with Mary Stevens (Ariāna Osborne) arriving in Yorkshire upon invitation to learn more about her parents, only to find the remote manor haunted. Just when Stappard’s period horror story feels doomed to succumb to familiar gothic trappings and jump scares, though, its true horror emerges. The more Mary uncovers about her heritage and her Māori culture, the clearer it becomes that this grim home is built on violence and exploitation. Stappard’s vision comes into its own when it leaves behind its gothic influences and embraces its Māori identity; few scenes are as powerful as when Osborne’s Mary performs a haka in response to her vile oppressors, heralding in a righteous bloodbath.
7) Touch Me
Writer/Director Addison Heimann draws from retro Japanese horror, exploitation cinema, and perhaps even hentai for his campy, psychosexual sophomore feature. A toxic friendship plagued by trauma, codependency, and addiction gets tested to the extreme when Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci), a hip-hop-loving, tracksuit-sporting alien, gets between them. Olivia Taylor Dudley and Jordan Gavaris have an easy rapport and play off each other well as directionless, depressed Millennial besties prone to ignoring their problems until they become insurmountable. But it’s Pucci’s inspired, childlike take on the chicken nugget-loving extraterrestrial with tentacled secrets of his own that steals the show. Heimann has a lot on his mind with his sophomore feature and neatly condenses it all into a quirky, eccentric psychosexual camp odyssey that leans heavily into humor.
6) Backrooms
Director Kane Parsons translates the vast liminal labyrinth of his web series to the big screen in his feature debut, one that instills existential dread with its atmospheric horror and narrative. The ‘ 90s-set horror movie introduces a protagonist with a serious chip on his shoulder over life’s many disappointments, who then discovers his furniture store harbors a hidden door that leads to an endless labyrinth. It’s not just the incredible production design that instills a disorienting sense of doom and terror, but the lead characters’ palpable and profound sense of loneliness and isolation. Parsons exudes impressive confidence and control as he methodically entrusts his quiet worldbuilding and talented leads to carry the dramatic weight. While Backrooms does deflate by the film’s cryptic, cliffhanger-y end, it’s arguably the most effective and scariest yet at capturing the uncanny valley of generative AI.
5) Leviticus
Writer/Director Adrian Chiarella uses an It Follows-like supernatural entity that relentlessly stalks its prey as a launchpad to immerse audiences in the horror of constantly living in fear for simply existing. A conversion therapy ritual among a deeply conservative community plunges a pair of erstwhile lovers into a nightmarish bid for survival when it summons a force that takes the shape of those whom the afflicted desires most. Chiarella refines the horror mechanics and metaphor with much sharper precision, ensuring that the scares and emotional gravity of the young couple’s terrifying predicament reach their intended impact. It’s the central layered performances by Joe Bird (Talk to Me) and Stacy Clausen (Thrash) that clinch emotional investment in their heartbreaking plight, ensuring that the social horror cuts deep.
4) Redux Redux
The McManus Brothers, writer/director duo Matthew and Kevin McManus (The Block Island Sound), dials up the intensity of a classic revenge story by setting it within a multiverse, where Irene Kelly (Michaela McManus) seeks to snuff out every single iteration of her daughter’s murderer, Neville (Jeremy Holm). The more she stalks and slays every world’s Neville, the more she risks losing her humanity entirely. Through a narrative foil in Mia (Stella Marcus), Redux Redux smartly bypasses repetition as it explores the moral complexities and vulnerabilities of Irene’s extremely violent quest. Holm becomes utterly terrifying in the climax, ensuring that no matter whether Irene loses herself to vengeance for good or not, it’s justified if it means ridding the world of this sick maniac.
3) 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
Director Nia DaCosta takes the reins in the second entry in writer Alex Garland and original director Danny Boyle’s trilogy, picking up from the previous conclusion that saw Spike (Alfie Williams) fleeing from the infected straight into the welcoming arms of Sir Jimmy Crystal (Sinners’ Jack O’Connell). From here, DaCosta presents a stark contrast between humanity’s best and worst. The former sees the tender studies of Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) make poignant strides toward humankind’s future, while the latter unleashes more pain and bloodshed courtesy of the Jimmies. The dual paths of light and dark collide in one epic conclusion, an inspired confrontation between good and evil on a stunning set piece of heavy metal insanity. Yet it’s DaCosta’s handling of both extremes that impresses most, teeing up one epic conclusion to this trilogy.
2) Obsession
Sketch comedian turned horror filmmaker Curry Barker (Milk & Serial) wrings blood-curdling terror from a classic Monkey’s Paw wish fulfillment scenario in a way that no one could have ever anticipated. To say that it’s taken the box office by storm would be a massive understatement; Obsession is the top horror movie of the year in terms of gross. It’s not hard to see why, either. While Monkey’s Paw scenarios often yield predictable outcomes, and this outcome is practically telegraphed from the start, Barker manages to surprise with the journey itself. And it’s one insane journey paved with blood-soaked violence and no shortage of nightmare fuel. What truly sets it apart, though, is leads Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette as the central pair undone by one vicious wish. Expect to see a lot more from breakout Navarette.
1) Hokum
A surly, traumatized writer must break free from his self-imposed shackles of guilt when confronted by a wicked witch haunting a quaint Irish inn in the latest by writer/director Damian McCarthy (Oddity). Adam Scott’s Ohm makes for an atypical but rewarding protagonist, and his complicated emotional journey gives way to a deeply moving story of a man so thoroughly broken by personal trauma that he constantly dwells in darkness. In true McCarthy style, expect the creepy as hell witch to dole out some supernatural retribution for crimes committed, but never in the way you’d expect. The filmmaker has a way of making whimsy pure nightmare fuel; Hokum distorts a kids’ show into eerie, uncanny valley-induced terror in its torment of Ohm. Channeling Stephen King, this creeper plays like a traditional campfire tale in mood and style, infusing genuine scares with a sense of magic and heart.
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