In horror movies, much like action movies, plotting often takes a backseat. Filmmakers are usually so preoccupied with making their jump scares effective and keeping the atmosphere spooky that the storytelling falls by the wayside. But well-constructed, well-paced narratives can enhance the experience of a horror movie.
Throughout the ‘90s – one of the most acclaimed decades for horror movies – the genre’s screenwriters came up with such captivating story concepts as a serial killer inspired by the Bible, a Mexican strip club full of vampires, and a spaceship possessed by demons.
Cape Fear (1991)
Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake of Cape Fear significantly stepped up the violence from the 1962 original, but the relatable protagonists, terrifyingly realistic villain, and tense plotting all stayed the same.
Nick Nolte stars as a lawyer and family man who ensures violent psychopath Max Cady, played spectacularly by Robert De Niro, ends up behind bars. When Cady is released, he begins stalking the lawyer’s family. This whole premise is hauntingly plausible.
Event Horizon (1997)
Paul W.S. Anderson’s underrated gem The Exorcist.
It follows a team of astronauts in 2047 who are sent to inspect a missing spaceship and find that it’s opened up a gateway to a hellish dimension.
Se7en (1995)
David Fincher’s John Doe, the nefarious serial killer on the loose, is uniquely characterized – his murders are based on the Seven Deadly Sins from the Bible – but the real meat of the story is the dynamic shared by the detectives chasing him.
Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt are perfectly paired as a veteran lawman on the brink of retirement and a hotshot young renegade eager to crack his first big case.
Candyman (1992)
Writer-director Bernard Rose’s adaptation of Clive Barker’s short story “The Forbidden” switches out the source material’s themes of classism for an exploration of racism. The titular ghoul in Candyman is the vengeful spirit of a historical victim of racially charged violence.
More broadly, the movie deconstructs urban legends and how they get spread as a semiotics graduate student follows a trail of ghost stories into Cabrini-Green’s public housing development in Chicago.
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Written by Quentin Tarantino but directed by his friend Robert Rodriguez, From Dusk Till Dawn is an interesting experiment in genre-bending. It starts off as a pulpy crime thriller about a pair of gangsters holding a vacationing family hostage on a road trip across the border.
The characters are Elmore Leonard archetypes and the action scenes have plenty of John Woo-style “gun-fu.” Then, the movie surprisingly becomes a blood-soaked vampire movie at the midpoint when the undead rise up in a Mexican strip club.
Misery (1990)
Adapted from Misery feels like it realizes the author’s worst nightmare. After a car accident, famed writer Paul Sheldon is nursed back to health by sinister superfan Annie Wilkes. Misery is a quintessential portrait of toxic fandom three decades ahead of its time.
With James Caan and an Oscar-winning Kathy Bates perfectly matched in the roles, Paul and Annie’s disturbing relationship makes Misery a fascinating two-hander.
Scream (1996)
Unlike Scream isn’t horror legend Wes Craven’s razor-sharp direction; it’s Kevin Williamson’s script, which manages to put not one, but two fresh twists on the well-worn slasher genre.
It brings a whodunit angle to the usual high school murders and also acts as a self-aware satire of the genre, deconstructing its tropes through characters who are familiar with horror classics.
Lost Highway (1997)
In movies like Blue Velvet, David Lynch has developed his own distinctive vision of cinematic horror. Lynch’s style is defined by unsettling imagery and ambient noise, but his Möbius strip narratives are just as engaging.
In Lynch’s underappreciated neo-noir Lost Highway, the blackmailed protagonist inexplicably switches places with a mechanic in the middle of the movie. There’s no other story quite like it. Lynch constructed Lost Highway as a psychogenic fugue as opposed to a traditional narrative.
Audition (1999)
There’s no indication that Takashi Miike’s Audition is even a horror movie until somewhere around the midpoint. It starts off as a straightforward melodrama in which a widower, Aoyama, sets up auditions for a fake project in the hopes of finding new love. He’s instantly smitten with Asami, who turns out to be much more unhinged and violent than she initially lets on.
The bitter irony of the horrifying love story in Audition is that Aoyama is only sadistically manipulated by Asami after he manipulated her and all the other women who unwittingly auditioned for the role of his second wife.
The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
Jonathan Demme’s grisly film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs was the first-ever horror movie to win Best Picture and remains the only entry in the genre to have received the Academy’s highest honor. It’s easy to see why: The Silence of the Lambs is a gruesome horror film, but it’s ultimately a character-driven narrative.
Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins share a compelling dynamic as an FBI rookie on the hunt for a serial killer and an imprisoned serial killer helping her out with the investigation. Demme keeps the audience guessing with one shocking twist after another.
