15 Bleak As Hell Horror Movies That Will Ruin Your Day

Korean horror just hits different, and Na Hong-jin's The Wailing is no different. The 2016 folk horror mixes traditional Korean shamanism with Christian symbolism to create one terrifying take on possession, as police officer Jong-goo  (Kwak Do-won) is tasked with investigating a series of grisly murders and a spate of sickness in the small mountain village of Gokseong that seem to coincide with the arrival of a mysterious stranger.

What makes The Wailing so bleak, you might ask? Well, for a film that explores multiple aspects of faith, it feels genuinely hopeless. As Jong-goo's young daughter Hyo-jin (Kim Hwan-hee) succumbs to the illness, he becomes a man willing to do just about anything to save her, even it if means seeking help from people he shouldn't. The remote setting and brutal yet beautiful cinematography give The Wailing an atmosphere of desolation and despair, while the ending will have you wondering why you even bothered waking up today (complimentary!)

You might consider Christmas movies to be a sacred safe space removed from the blood and guts of our favorite genre, but the New French Extremity movement certainly doesn't. That much is evident with Fabrice Du Welz' 2004 rural nightmare Calvaire (also known as The Ordeal), which stars Laurent Lucas (Raw) as Marc, a singer who finds himself stranded in a backwoods village after his van breaks down. The villagers, as you might expect, are a little more than curious about their new guest.

We're sure we don't have to warn you that European horror goes hard, but Calvaire‘s cruelty pushes the envelope, with Marc being put through, as the American title more than makes obvious, an ordeal at the hands of both the muddy, murky wilderness and those who inhabit it.

Rose Glass' Saint Maud probably wins the award for most traumatizing final 0.01 seconds of a movie ever made, but the rest of the film isn't exactly all fun and games either. In the 2019 psychological horror, Morfydd Clark plays Maud, a deeply religious yet troubled nurse who is assigned to provide palliative care for Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), a staunch atheist who has lived her life in total opposition to the modest values Maud holds.

Glass' masterful direction, Clark's painfully raw performance, and the backdrop of a rainy English seaside town (side note: notice how many of these bleak movies take place in the U.K.? I'm sure that's fine and normal) all convalesce to make Saint Maud one of the most depressing watches of recent years, and one you won't soon forget.

Ever hit play on a movie and realized that it just feels…wrong? That's the vibe with Bryan Bertino's The Dark and the Wicked. Starring Marin Ireland and Michael Abbott Jr. as siblings who return to their childhood farm house after their mother dies, the supernatural horror contains some truly nightmarish imagery, and one of the most gut-punch scenes this side of Speak No Evil.

What makes The Dark and The Wicked a truly harrowing viewing experience is the lack of any clear answers given for the horrifying occurrences that plague the siblings and the farm. The evil just is, and it makes for truly hopeless messaging.

If you know nothing about Caye Casas' pitch-black horror comedy (yes, really!) The Coffee Table, then we urge you not to read anything about the plot before hand. All you need to know is that the film follows Jésus and Maria, exhausted new parents who bring home the tacky, gaudy titular piece of furniture only to have their lives changed for the worse, forever.

If you want an idea of how fucked up The Coffee Table is, Can Evrenol, director of the equally horrifying Baskin, loved it so much he decided to give it a remake, and horror master Stephen King of all people has warned we've never seen anything quite as black. This coming from the man who wrote that ending to Cujo. After finishing The Coffee Table, be prepared to go about the rest of your day with a 1000 yard stare and an aversion to tables.

Despite being released in 2001, Kiyoshi Kurosawa‘s masterful Japanese techno-horror Pulse  becomes only increasingly relevant with every passing year. In Pulse, people across Japan start going missing after visiting a mysterious website that seemingly allows ghosts to access the corporeal world. The invasion reaches an apocalyptic scale, but unlike other movies of that ilk, nobody in Pulse really seems to want to fight back, merely accepting their fate and letting the ennui overtake them.

Pulse‘s themes of loneliness and Internet-exacerbated isolation only hit harder in our modern world, making the entire film feel like a depressive episode – with some of the scariest horror scenes of all time thrown in for good measure.

Long before Longlegs cemented him in horror infamy, Osgood Perkins was putting in the work to ruin our days from the get-go, starting with his 2015 feature debut The Blackcoat's Daughter. Starring Emma Roberts and Kiernan Shipka, The Blackcoat's Daughter follows two students at an  all-girls boarding school who seem to be spending their winter break with something sinister.

As sad as it is scary, The Blackcoat's Daughter combines the chilling snowy setting with Perkins' signature focus on unsettling atmosphere, and serves as one of his darkest films. The Holdovers it ain't, that's for sure.

From the psychedelic folk horror of A Field in England to the megalodon madness of Meg 2: The Trench, Ben Wheatley is easily one of the most eclectic directors working today. But it's his 2011 day-ruiner Kill List that seems to stick with people most, and for very good reason. Starring Neil Maskell and Michael Smiley, Kill List follows two former soldiers who take on an assassin gig from a mysterious client.

To say anymore would do the film a disservice, as the slow-burn horror of Kill List really deserves your full attention. Just know that you're not going to come out of the film with an overwhelming urge to visit the English countryside any time soon.

Lurking in the darkness between the reeds of Kaneto Shindō's 1964 classic Onibaba is an existential, apocalyptic dread like no other, one that still sends chills down your spine over 60 years since its release. In the historical horror-drama, two women living in war-torn 14th-century Kyoto are surviving by scraping together a meagre living by killing soldiers and stealing their possessions, when the appearance of a neighboring man and mysterious masked samurai throws their lives into further turmoil.

The use of the uncanny Han'nya mask, along with Kiyomi Kuroda's eerily beautiful cinematography, make Onibaba a visually striking watch, while its themes of desperation and desolation hit hard still all these decades later. If you're looking for a movie that will restore your faith in humanity, Onibaba ain't it.

Some movies you can feel and smell through the screen, and Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse is definitely one of them. Lukas Feigelfeld's 2017 folk horror is set in 15th-century Austria and follows Albrun, a young woman ostracized from her local community due to their fear of witches and superstitions. Albrun's lonely life is peppered with instances of cruelty from the townsfolk, leading her to seek comfort in the isolated wilderness, which is brought to life with the textures of mossy banks, stagnant swamps and wriggling worms that make up Hagazussa‘s impeccable visuals.

Like the darker, more metal older sister of The Witch, Hagazussa makes no bones about the way women who don't conform to societal norms have been treated since the dawn of time, and let's just say Albrun's sad story doesn't exactly have a happy ending. If you like your horror to feel like ASMR from Hell, Hagazussa is the one for you.

Inspired by the bleak brutality of the New French Extremity movement, Karim Ouelhaj's Megalomaniac is a nightmarish descent into Hell that offers little in the way of levity, so you might want to have an episode of The Office ready to go for when you're finished.

The film follows Félix (Benjamin Ramon) and Martha (Eline Schumacher), the children of the Butcher of Mons, a notorious, and very real, Belgian serial killer who remains unidentified after his crimes in the 1990s. Félix takes after his father in the killing business, while Martha tries her best to live a normal life, but soon realizes that violence, cruelty and terror are an unavoidable facet of life when you're part of this family.

The experience of watching Megalomaniac is very much akin to that meme in which Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails tells his audience to strap in for a bad time. Don't say we didn't warn you.

If the above image makes you feel some type of way, just imagine how all 85 minutes of Possum feels. They say comedians make some of the most terrifying movies, and that's certainly true for this 2018 psychological horror from Mr Garth Marenghi himself, Matthew Holness.

In Possum, Sean Harris places a children's puppeteer who returns to his childhood home after losing his job, where he is haunted by the puppet-spider-man-thing straight from your nightmares. The film weaponizes the wintery English countryside to craft an atmosphere that's as isolating as it is claustrophobic, and so cold you'll need to throw a sweater on just by watching.

Fair warning: Possum goes to some incredibly dark places, and will leave you feeling like you've been put through the emotional wringer. Definitely not a lighthearted watch to throw on when you have family around, to say the least.

Body horror master David Cronenberg has always dabbled in the bleak side of things, but 1979's The Brood might just be the most dismal of all, perhaps in part due to its very personal inspirations (the film was inspired by a particularly bitter divorce between Cronenberg and his first wife Margaret Hindson), dark themes of child abuse and mental illness, and chilly Toronto setting.

Starring Art Hindle, Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar, the psychological horror centers on a man whose ex-wife is undergoing an extremely controversial type of therapy in which patients manifest their repressed trauma, quite literally, through the body.

Cronenberg himself considers The Brood one of his darkest films, noting that the complete lack of humor and presence of multiple children in peril makes it a tough watch. Might wanna have a lighter Cronenberg on deck for when you've finished, y'know, like Crash or something.

There's a deeply unsettling vibe through Karyn Kusama‘s The Invitation that starts off as good old-fashioned social anxiety and evolves into something much more sinister and all-consuming. The psychological horror-thriller follows Will (Logan Marshall-Green) who has accepted an invitation to join his ex-wife Eden (Tammy Blanchard) and her new husband at a dinner party in their luxurious Los Angeles home.

For the sane among us, this situation alone sounds like a nightmare, but the night quickly devolves as Eden's guests realize there is more to this gathering than just hors d'oeuvre and awkward conversation.

What makes The Invitation so bleak is its continual reminder that no matter how much you think you know someone, all it takes is one incident to rewire their brains completely and turn them into someone capable of doing things you never thought possible. We're trying to keep things as spoiler free as possible, but just trust us – this is one ending that will stay with you.

The futility of vengeance is a recurring theme through much of Korean genre cinema, from Oldboy to Bedevilled, but none hit quite as hard as Kim Jee-woon's I Saw the Devil. In the 2010 thriller, Lee Byung-hyun stars as Soo-hyeon, a special agent hunting down the man who brutally murdered his fiancée. Said killer is played by one of Korea's greatest living actors, the legendary Choi Min-sik, who elevates the role to craft one of cinema's most sadistic villains.

With its incredibly graphic gore and relentlessly hopeless tone, I Saw the Devil is a tough watch. Viewers end up questioning whether Soo-hyeon's quest for revenge is even worth it, or whether he is just becoming more and more of a monster himself as the blood continues to flow. You'll need a shower and copious amounts of cuddles with your pet/partner/plushie of choice to shake this one.