My Top Ten Foreign Language Horror Movies

I decided it was time to try to put together a bunch of “My Top Horror Movies” lists. I already did these two lists years ago:

My Top Ten Horror Comedies
My Top Ten Body Horror Movies

So I plan to post these the rest of this week:

My Top Horror Movies Pre-1970
My Top Horror Movies 1970-1999
My Top Horror Movies Of The 21st Century (I did a list for this here several years ago which I’ll update)

Then I might do an overall all-time My Top Horror Movies list (but the majority will be from the 1970-1999 list, I’m sure!).

I’ll probably call them all “Top Ten” to stay consistent with my other lists but, especially with this one, I was curious as to how much foreign horror I’ve seen & have listed everything I could think of. I will definitely be missing movies from these lists, though, and am sure I’ll be kicking myself for forgetting something.

I had to put some rules on this list:

1. It has to not be in English (not counting the silent films! Ha!). I disagree with the lists I saw online with The Babadook & loads of British horror listed as foreign. Not foreign to me.

2. I at first spent ages looking up each film on IMDb to see if “Horror” was one of the genres listed. It starts getting complicated as people may have different ideas of what makes a film a horror. If it’s horrific in any way, I usually consider it horror. But then there are other movies people consider horror which I never have (Jaws, a thriller and Alien/Aliens, sci-fi). So you can argue with my choices if you want. 🙂 But I did look up each for this one list & only one isn’t classified as horror on IMDb: M (1931). I’ve left out Battle Royale, though, which I had very high on this list at first then decided it’s not really horror. But M is a horror to me.

So here’s my ranked list counting down to My Top Ten Foreign Language Horror Movies:

Top Twenty:

20. Troll Hunter
19. Dead Snow
18. The Wailing
17. Tetsuo: The Iron Man
16. Audition
15. [REC]
14. The Platform
13. The Host
12. Eyes Without A Face
11. Les Diaboliques

Top Ten:

10. Ringu (but I could do with rewatching this)

9. The Orphanage

8. TIE: A Tale Of Two Sisters & Hausu

7. Let The Right One In

6. Nosferatu (1922)

5. M

4. Pan’s Labyrinth

3. TIE: Deep Red & Suspiria (Included these together but I really need to rewatch Suspiria, which I think looks & sounds great and is iconic, but I enjoyed Deep Red more)

2. The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari

1. Train To Busan

Honorable Mentions:
The Grudge (I remember liking this but really need to rewatch it. Same as with Ringu, although I did include it in the list as it’s so iconic)
Four Flies On Grey Velvet
Inferno
One Cut Of The Dead
Goodnight Mommy
Sputnik
Veronica
Dead Snow 2: Red Vs Dead
Ils

Some I Want To See (and I’d happily take more recommendations!):
Pulse
High Tension (aka Haute Tension aka Switchblade Romance)
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

Ones I Need To Rewatch:
The Grudge & Ringu (as mentioned above)
The Devil’s Backbone (don’t remember at all)

My Top Ten Horror Movies Of The 21st Century

**This list was updated March 2019 for a lot of new additions. There have been some fantastic horror films the last couple of years.**

It’s probably obvious to regular readers that I’m rarely a fan of modern day horror films. I’m sure I come across as quite picky since my ratings for current horror films, even ones I seemed to enjoy, are usually pretty low. I’d never call horror my favorite genre (it’s sci-fi) but that’s probably because there are far more bad films within this genre than in any other. But when a genuinely good horror comes along, I love it! Unfortunately, the good ones have just been few & far between since about 1987 (when the awesome A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors was released). 😉

So, even though horror films of the Seventies & Eighties will forever be my favorites, I wanted to prove that I have actually liked a few since 1987. However, most of the movies on this list still come nowhere near the genius of things like The Shining & The Omen but there’s been an improvement in the quality of horror releases the past couple of years. Hopefully this continues.

One quick note: I’VE EXCLUDED HORROR COMEDIES! When working on this list, I ended up with lots of them as I’ve liked so many since the year 2000. As I already did a list of My Top Ten Horror Comedies, I’ve decided to leave them out to keep things simple. I’m also leaving out some films I like that I don’t consider horror and see more as “thrillers”, such as my guilty pleasure The Purge films & the excellent Battle Royale, and some monster movies like Cloverfield & The Host. I’ve also left out Slither, which I put into My Top Ten Body Horror Movies list.

So, here are My Top Ten 21st Century Horror Movies counting down to my favorite (but let’s be annoying & make it a Top 20…):

TOP TWENTY:

20. The Secret Of Marrowbone
19. The House Of The Devil
18. Ginger Snaps
17. [Rec]
16. Land Of The Dead
15. Gerald’s Game
14. The Others
13. Final Destination
12. A Quiet Place
11. The Orphanage

TOP TEN:

10. TIE: A Tale Of Two Sisters & Let The Right One In

9. The Descent

8. Mandy

7. The Mist

6. 28 Days (& Weeks) Later…

5. It Follows

4. Train To Busan

3. It (2017)

2. The Babadook

1. Dawn Of The Dead

Some Honorable Mentions:
Saw (first film only – hate the rest)
The Conjuring
The Innkeepers
The Boy
Absentia
Honeymoon
The Wailing
Pontypool
Hereditary
Us

My Top Ten Swimming Pool Scenes In Movies

Summer is here! (I think?) I don’t know – it’s hard to tell in England! We did have a few hot days last week… Anyway! As schools are finishing all across England, that means it’s summer which means things like BBQs & pool parties! Except it’s been rainy & crap all week and no one here really has a pool as it would be pointless to have one.

This introduction is depressing me! Let’s just get on with my list, shall we? Here are My Top Ten Swimming Pool Scenes In Movies counting down to my number one… 🙂

10. TIE: A Nightmare On Elm Street 2 & 5

I love the Nightmare On Elm Street series so had to include these. Although these two films kind of suck plus I can’t ever get 4 & 5 straight in my head… I really thought the diving board one was from number 4. Oh well. Freddy Krueger is still my favorite slasher villain.

9. Almost Famous

“I am a Golden God“! Remember when Cameron Crowe made some really good movies like this and Say Anything? This is a great scene. I could probably do a top ten just of people jumping off roofs into swimming pools. Idiots. At least this ended a little better than it did for the dude in All The Boys Love Mandy Lane. Speaking of Crowe, he also wrote my number one choice in this list…

8. Caddyshack

I’m not crazy about this movie in the same way that males my age & a little older seem to be but, like when I included The Big Lebowski (even though I don’t love it) in my list of My Top Ten Carpets & Rugs In Movies, this list wouldn’t be complete without this scene. I know it would top many other people’s lists. And rightly so! It’s a classic.

7. Cocoon

Well, there’s more than one pool scene in Cocoon. I love it when the old people go swimming like little kids. I love Cocoon! Who else here loves Cocoon?? No? Just me, then?

6. Harold & Maude

Look! It’s my “please take me seriously as a movie blogger” choice! 😉 I do love Harold & Maude, though. This scene is hilarious.

5. WALL-E

WALL-E is one of my all-time favorite films so I had to include this moment when the humans realize how much they’ve been missing out in life. “I didn’t know we had a pool…”

4. It Follows

This movie just keeps going up in my estimation & I like it even more now than when I first saw it. Such a refreshing change from the loads of crappy horror films these days. I don’t want to go into this scene much as even knowing there is a pool scene in this movie is kind of a spoiler. I liked that this scene felt so much like a scene from an 80’s horror movie and I liked the naïve innocence of the teens.

3. Let The Right One In

This scene is intense! I remember going to this in the cinema and being quite stressed out during this scene. In fact, I missed the big moment here the first time around as I just couldn’t watch it. Man I’m a wuss!

2. Gremlins

Yeah! Gremlins! My Twitter buddy Zach Galligan! A movie from 1984! Those who know me won’t be surprised by something like this being so high on my list – you’ll find no Wild Things on MY list (well, my number one is filthy). This scene is obviously quite an important scene, of course, as it’s the big moment when the shit really hits the fan.

1. Fast Times At Ridgemont High

Another Phoebe Cates movie! This topped another list of mine (My Top Five Movie Scenes Of Self-Pleasure – do you like how I avoided using a dirty word there?). Well, it had to top this list as well – it’s such a famous moment. I’m surprised I’ve chosen it as I’m not normally a fan of naked boobs but you really can’t “beat” what Judge Reinhold does during this scene. Ha! (See what I did there?) 😉 *Also, Happy Birthday to Phoebe Cates who turns 52 today! I’ll pretend I knew that before this posted….*

Honorable Mentions:

You know what? I’m just going to post pictures of my honorable mentions without naming them. How about we make this a little QUIZ! That’ll be fun, yeah? The winner will receive…… Um. My respect! 🙂

Let The Right One In (2008) IMDB Top 250 Guest Review

Today’s IMDB Top 250 Guest Review comes from Eric of The IPC. He’s already done reviews for Se7en (HERE) & Twelve Monkeys (HERE) & There Will Be Blood (HERE) & Fight Club (HERE). Thanks so much for all these reviews, Eric! 🙂 Now let’s see what he has to say about Let The Right One In, IMDB rank 250 out of 250…

There are still some movies up for grabs if anyone wants to do a guest IMDB Top 250 review. You can find the list of remaining films HERE. See the full list & links to all the reviews that have already been done HERE.

Also, if you’d like to add a link to your IMDB Review(s) on your own blogs, feel free to use any of the logos I’ve used at the top of any of these guest reviews.