31 Of The Best Horror Movies To Come Out Of The Sundance Film Festival

Jennifer Kent's feature directorial debut, The Babadook, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival before going on to become a contemporary horror classic. We recently caught up with Kent after a tenth-anniversary screening.

The 2015 Sundance Film Festival brought us one of the strongest horror movies of the last decade. Before Maika Monroe became a genre icon, she starred in David Robert Mitchell's modern horror masterpiece of a killer curse in the form of an STD. We're finally getting a sequel, and we're still thinking about that incredibly specific clamshell reader.

Nothing like a girls' trip spelunking into unknown territory to get over some major trauma! As the women descend deeper into the cave system, secrets are unearthed, and ancient cave-dwelling creatures are discovered. As an added bonus, Neil Marshall‘s 2006 claustrophobic horror also has one of the biggest jump scares of the 2000s.

Natalie Erika James' psychological grief horror centers on a daughter and granddaughter searching for their missing family matriarch. They discover a haunting presence hanging over the home, which is taking over Edna's mind.

 Finnish director Hanna Bergholm's Hatching is an impressive creature feature with excellent FX. The story follows a 12-year-old gymnast desperate to please her social media and image-obsessed mother. After bringing a strange egg home and nurturing it until it hatches, the creature that emerges becomes her closest friend and a living nightmare. Check out our interview with Hanna Bergholm and the Hatching cast.

Sundance Grand Jury Winner Nikyatu Jusu wrote and directed this psychological horror fable of displacement. Aisha (Anna Diop), a woman who recently emigrated from Senegal, is hired to care for the daughter of an affluent couple (Michelle Monaghan and Morgan Spector) living in New York City. Haunted by the absence of the young son she left behind,

Aisha hopes her new job will allow her to bring him to the U.S., but becomes increasingly unsettled by the family’s volatile home life. A violent presence begins to invade her dreams and reality, threatening the American dream she is painstakingly piecing together. Jusu blends elements of African folklore for a celebration of the beauty and brilliance of the African diaspora.

Read more in our interview with Jusu.

Chloe Okuno‘s feature film debut, Watcher, stars Maika Monroe as Jules, a young woman who has just moved to Romania with her husband Francis (Karl Glusman). Bored, lonely, and isolated, Jules senses that a man whose apartment window looks onto hers is surveilling her, a feeling that grows in intensity as she wanders through the streets of this new, unknown city.

When she reaches out for help as she believes she is being stalked, no one – including her husband – believes her. Meanwhile, a serial killer is prowling the streets of Bucharest…

Laura Moss‘ modern twist on the Frankenstein mythos centers on a morgue technician (Marin Ireland) who successfully reanimates the body of a little girl. To keep her breathing, she will need to harvest biological materials from pregnant women. When the girl's mother (Judy Reyes), discovers her baby alive, they enter into a deal that forces them both down a dark path of no return.

Ana Lily Amirpour's A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night follows a skateboarding vampire who dishes out her vampire vengeance on disrespectful men.

Peter Jackson's Dead Alive reportedly used close to 80 gallons of fake blood, and screened as part of the Park City at Midnight category in the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. It also has some incredible, wonderfully disgusting FX by Richard Taylor and dare I say, one of the best finales in horror history.

FANGORIA Chainsaw Award winner The Night House has stuck with me since I first watched it, cowered in the corner of my couch, using a pillow for protection, decompressing in silence long after the credits rolled.

For more, check out our interview with The Night House director David Bruckner.

We have been living deliciously since Robert Eggers' dark folk horror screened at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Eggers took home the festival's Best Director award with his tale foregoes the witchhunts in Salem, MA and instead focuses on a family who are cast out of their small community due to the progressive religious beliefs of their patriarch, William (Ralph Ineson).

Read more in our celebration of Ralph Ineson as a modern horror icon.

The Blair Witch Project premiered at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival before going on to massively launch the modern found footage phenomenon. No other film did as much for the subgenre as Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick's 1999 debut. The internet was just enough of a thing at the time of release to fuel the confusion and rumors rather than immediately debunking them.

A phenomenon we will likely never experience again. Following the wild success of Blair Witch, (the film grossed nearly $250 million worldwide on a $60,000 budget), the early aughts ran rampant with found footage horror. A phenomenon that shows no signs of dying down any time soon.

Read more in our 15 Of The Scariest Found Footage Films After The Blair Witch Project.

Mary Harron's adaptation of  Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial novel premiere at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. Giving us one of the most memorable monologues on pop music in contemporary cinema, the satirical take on late-’80s yuppiedom stars Christian Bale as titular Psycho Patrick Bateman.

Sundance audiences lost their heads over Ari Aster's Hereditary when it hit the 2018 Sundance Film Festival screen. Toni Collette's masterful monologue helped to solidify Aster's feature directorial debut as a contemporary horror masterpiece.

In 2004, Sundance audiences were introduced to John Kramer and the beginning of what would become one of contemporary horror's most massive franchises.  Soon to be royalty names in the genre, James Wan made his feature directorial debut with a script written by Leigh Whannell.  Jigsaw, a sadistic serial killer with a penchant for elaborate traps and his own set of morals, went on to spawn sequels in the double digits (and we're still going).

The 2010 Sundance Film Fest saw the premiere of horror comedy Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil. The movie plays with all the familiar tropes found in a cabin in the woods horror and flips it on its head a bit. The titular Tucker and Dale head to the woods for a relaxing vacation, but they're mistaken for killer hillbillies by a group of college students. What follows is a series of accidental deaths, both gruesome and comedic. Slapstick gore in abundance.

Following its premiere at Sundance 2017, Jordan Peele's Get Out broke horror containment and burst furiously into the mainstream, earning four Oscar nominations and a win for Best Screenplay. The whip-smart feature, centered on the very real horrors of racism, also gave Daniel Kaluuya his breakout role and marked Peele as one of the greatest horror directors of the modern age.

Alexandre Aja's Haute Tension (aka High Tension) premiered at the 2004 fest. Two women are stalked by a psychotic truck driver. When one of the women is kidnapped, the other tries to rescue her in this highly divisive French horror.

This terrifying survival horror is based on a true story of two divers stranded in shark-infested waters. We won't spoilt anything, but if you've never seen it or you're not familiar with the story, it's absolutely worth watching.

Michael Haneke's shot-for-shot English language remake of his 1997 home invasion “anti-horror” Funny Games  smashed Sundance kneecaps in 2007 at its U.S. premiere in 2008, retraumatizing audiences who had only just overcome their fear of lending eggs to their neighbors. Intended by Haneke as a satirical comment on violence in media, Funny Games manages to be that rare remake that's as shocking as its source material.

Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan star in what starts off as a charming rom-com, before things go horribly awry. Meet cute turned meat cute, stomach-churning secrets are uncovered and there's also a stellar dance scene.

Long before he was Longlegs, Nicolas Cage had proved himself as an actor capable of giving the most gloriously unhinged horror performances, specifically in Panos Cosmatos' 2018 psychedelic revenge saga Mandy. Although Mandy didn't do too well at the box office, it quickly became a favorite of those who like their horror bleak and brutal, and even took home a few FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards the following year.

Following its Sundance 2024 premiere, Jane Schoenbrun‘s I Saw the TV Glow went on to become one of the most critically acclaimed horror movies of the year, with even Martin Scorsese singing its praises. Starring Justice Smith and Jack Haven, the FANGORIA Chainsaw Award-winning sophomore feature intertwines themes of nostalgia and queer identity to become one of the most moving films of the last few years, one that marked Schoenbrun as a filmmaker for the ages.

Following close in his father's footsteps, Brandon Cronenberg's Infinity Pool continued to prove he is one of the most exciting horror directors working today. Star Alexander Skarsgård showed up wearing a leash to the Sundance premiere, so audiences knew they were in for a wild, ahem, ride. The erotic horror also featured an all-timer performance from scream queen Mia Goth, who put her amazing voice to good use with cries of “JAAAAMESSYYYY!”

Australian horror is famous for not holding back, and Danny and Michael Philippou's Talk to Me proved that in abundance. Following its international premiere at Sundance 2023, Talk to Me shot the brothers from YouTubers to horror stardom, with everyone waiting with baited breath for their next outing, the ingeniously-titled sequel Talk 2 Me and the mysterious Bring Her Back.

POV-slasher In a Violent Nature had Sundance gorehounds gleeful after its premiere in the 2024 Midnights section. Chris Nash's debut features what is arguably one of the all-time greatest kills in horror history, and, with a sequel on the way, we're already excited to see how undead killer Johnny will wreak havoc on a new set of unsuspecting campers.

What a perfect setting for the premiere of a story that follows three friends stranded on a ski lift. This would make a great double feature with Open Water, stranded survival horror on two opposite ends of the spectrum.

In his original review, Michael Gingold called Frozen the best of Adam Green's filmography. Well he specifically said:  “Of all of Adam Green’s movies, the literal chiller Frozen is the best showcase of his filmmaking chops.”

The 2012 Sundance Film Festival saw the premiere of found footage horror anthology V/H/S. The initial installment included segments from six directors, including Ti West, David Bruckner, Adam Wingard, and Radio Silence. This is another entry on the Sundance premiere list that went on to spawn a massively successful franchise. We are currently seven entries deep in the V/H/S franchise, with another installment on the way in 2025.

2007's Teeth asks the age-old question “what if a vagina had teeth.” Vagina dentata is explored as a means for dishing out some good old fashioned vigilante justice. Listen, if you touch without asking… you're gonna get bit. Or worse. One of the best entries in the realm of killer genitalia.

Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi's horror comedy follows a group of vampires (roommates, actually) as they navigate living in a modern world. The film utilizes a faux documentary format in a hilariously effective way, and even went on to span the wildly popular FX series What We Do In The Shadows .