Ghost stories have existed for ages and will continue to haunt people long after they have passed away. The majority of apparitional stories before movies came from books or short stories. Yes, there were local legends about a haunted house or a hitchhiker on a lost road, but these stories were typically written down in a book. Some of the best ghost stories are created as full-length movies with the director’s sinister vision on the screen, while others are based on real cases or urban legends. These concepts for ghost stories are fresh.
This list is by no means exhaustive. The Amityville Horror is based on a book, but is allegedly “based on a true story”; Charles Dickens’ nighttime visitors in A Christmas Carol are only the ghosts of presents we wrap for holiday coverage; director Lew Allen’s 1944 horror film The Uninvited isn’t here because I haven’t read Dorothy Macardle’s Uneasy Freehold (1941); and The Uninvited. These ghost flicks were inspired by books and imagination. Two items that work nicely at night.
Burnt Offerings (1976)
Customer beware! You might want to reconsider your offer if the mansion’s owner claims that it takes care of itself. Burnt Offerings, the sole theatrical film made by filmmaker Dan Curtis after he redefined horror on television, is based on the 1973 novel by Robert Marasco. Although Curtis mishandles the book’s murky conclusion, he does offer one of horror’s most original fixer-uppers. The tale seems disconnected, much like the novel, although that could just be the house. The Dunsmuir House, a 37-room neo-classical 19th-century estate that was used for filming, would later appear in Phantasm as the morgue.
For Ben (Oliver Reed), Marian (Karen Black), and their son David, the Allardyce estate seemed to be the ideal vacation place. Arnold (Burgess Meredith) and Roz Allardyce (Eileen Heckart), the business’s owners, only require assistance with one item. Of course not the house; after all, it looks for itself. It’s their aging mother (Lee Montgomery), a recluse who sneakily sneaks in meal trays and leaves them outside her door for three times a day refills. Not at all eerie.
Marian could employ Bette Davis’s portrayal of Ben’s Aunt Elizabeth, an artistic woman with a keen eye for detail when her husband and son are fighting in the pool. The split personality interpretation of Marion’s ownership of the house by Karen Black is chilling. As emotionally draining as Black’s entire hunt in Trilogy of Terrors, just one glance into those crazy eyes does. Burnt Offerings’ terror is psychological, yet to Marion, it feels very real.
Don’t Look Now (1973)
In the first scene in Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) declares that “nothing is what it seems.” The script by Allan Scott and Chris Bryant, which was adapted from a short story by Daphne du Maurier published in 1971, stays true to the original and does not shudder at the ending. However, the beginning is what defines the movie experience. Christine Baxter, a small girl, drowned accidentally after playing too close to a pond while wearing a flashy red raincoat. Throughout the movie, that red raincoat is seen. It is reflected in the water, through a stained Venetian church window, on a far-off bridge, behind two arches in a Venice canal as a boat passes, and in the frightened father character played by Donald Sutherland who sees his daughter’s error far too late.
John and Laura Baxter (Julie Christie), who had tragically lost their daughter, moved to Venice. A child’s doll is found at the brink of a canal while a killer is on the run in the foggy city. A body is being pulled up by police. Rats are active all across the Grand Canal. John takes numerous walks around the streets of Venice, but the heartbroken father, who works as a church restorer, doesn’t believe in second sight, omens, or the afterlife. Instead, he sees figures in crimson slipping away from him. The architect drowns in his mistrust because he lacks a plan for the uncharted.
The British tourists Wendy and her sister Heather, who is blind but psychically gifted, encounter the Baxters at a luncheon where Heather claims to see Christine. John has a dynamic energy, and she can tell he predicted his daughter’s passing and senses what is about to happen. However, the future is just as unreliable as the false turns and dead ends on a journey through a deserted late-night Venice. Roeg abandons you lost in the tense expectation as he makes every bridge, canal, and street promise unspeakable horrors that never materialize. The movie leaves nothing but fear in its wake as it creates menacing, off-kilter suspense.
Ghost Story (1981)
In the opening scene of John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980), which also featured the same distinctive voice, John Houseman’s Sears James, Esq., tells a horrifying tale as if he were sitting around a campfire in Ghost Story. He is speaking to the “Chowder Society,” a loose group of men who enjoy brandy, cigars, and terrifying one another with improvised performances. Usually, the elderly orator drinks by himself in his lair all night long every night. He experiences nightmares, along with his former business partner Ricky Hawthorne (Fred Astaire), who also experiences them, and Dr. John Jaffrey (Melvyn Douglas), who cries himself awake from terrifying dreams. Edward Charles Wanderley (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), the mayor of the wintry New England town of Milburn, Vermont, is taking two shots of night terrors. Craig Wasson’s portrayal of his son David Wanderley suggests that he may have been engaged to a decaying corpse who resembles the Chowder Society’s inspiration.
Ghost Story, which was based on the 1979 novel by Peter Straub, is best known for being the final picture that iconic actors Astaire, Douglas, Fairbanks Jr., and Houseman made together. Alice Krige, who plays Alma Mobley, the fiancée of David, and Eva Galli, the long-lost love of the Chowder Club, might have easily taken the ghost story for herself, but she graciously lets the seasoned actors steal the show. They ought to have received greater screen time in the film, which was directed by John Irvin and written by Lawrence D. Cohen, who also penned the screenplay for Brian De Palma’s Carrie. The novel has so much more to offer, and the acting is superb, and the directing is solid. Two hours is not nearly enough time.
Rebecca (1940)
Rebecca, an adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1938 novel of the same name by Daphne du Maurier, never depicts the title character. She isn’t depicted in any portraits, photos, sketches, or drawings. She is not portrayed by an actor. The large painting at the top of the family collection is of an old relative named Lady Caroline de Winter. Like the most iconic ghosts in ghost movies, Rebecca de Winter, the late wife of Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier), owns the movie just by not being there. She fills it with a lovely dread. As the movie opens, we hear, “Last night, I dreamed I went to Manderley again,” as Hitchcock’s camera pans over the crumbling remains of a regal and wonderfully gothic past on the Manderly House. I had the impression that I was standing by the iron gate leading to the drive and that the entrance was closed to me for a moment.
Joan Fontaine portrays the new Mrs. de Winter as someone who now resides in the vibrantly alive East Wing while the West Wing remains shuttered in time like a tomb. Never once does Mr. de Winter use his wife’s first name. She gave that to her husband in exchange for him, as well as any fantasies she may have kept hidden, because she convinced herself that he loved her, or so she is informed.
She had little chance of living up to the moniker Rebecca adopted for herself. Thus, we never hear hers. It’s a ghost, In her role as Mrs. Danvers, the head of housekeeping, Judith Anderson is more spectral than any ghost. The new Mrs. de Winter is eternally known as a terminal letdown thanks to her every wry aside that saps her life completely. It really just takes a little to convince someone to jump from an open window to certain death. If only the unidentified Mrs. de Winters’ bodies weren’t so crowded into the family crypt.
Ringu (1998)
According to one writer, Ringu, which is based on the 1991 novel by Koji Suzuki, is the most viscerally frightful ghost movie ever filmed. Due to one single line of dialogue in the middle backstory, which I won’t reveal here, it is incomparably more subconscious and unsettling than the incredibly well-made 2002 American adaptation, The Ring. Not just enthusiasts of the horror subgenre but also admirers of inventive cinema must watch this. Though you might not want to view it on a television. On TV screens, the movie really comes to life in unexpected ways that are a bit too close to home.
Ringu isn’t simply one of the most influential Japanese horror movies; it also reinvented the genre and ranks among the best horror movies ever made in Hollywood. Based on the fabled ghost of the Onryo, Rie Ino’o’s portrayal of Sadako Yamamura, one of the most recognizable horror icons, is on par with Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Pennywise the Clown, the Frankenstein monster, and Godzilla. Ringu has a frightening mind that lives inside each of us, and it is visually immersive and mentally destructive. An urban legend can be related to by anyone, anywhere. We all want to watch the cursed videotape that Tokyo teens are spreading because it kills its viewers seven days after they watch it. And it is visible to us. As we see the characters, we feel similarly marked.
Nanako Matsushima’s character, Reiko Asakawa, a journalist, searches for answers to a troubling mystery. One of a group of youngsters who perished after visiting a cottage in the woods was her niece Tomoko (Yko Takeuchi). When Reiko investigates the scene, she discovers an unmarked videotape that has been gently rewound and is prepared to cause subliminal nerve damage to anyone clicks the play button. She regrettably sees her son Yichi (Rikiya Taka) watching the VHS just before the boy slips into the blue light of the static-blurred image of a well, which will haunt spectators long after the movie has ended. This is an overt homage to the 1982 ghost movie Poltergeist.
Japanese ghost legend and contemporary worry are muddled together in the cursed videotape because technology functions as a virus and a remote control can start the delivery system. Hideo Nakata, the director, avoids gore and shock. More striking than any jump fright is the steady chase and subdued suspense of the disfigured and greasy Sadako.
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is only very loosely based in Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow. In his 1819 short fiction, Washington Irving explores the legend of the Headless Horseman, a Hessian trooper who was allegedly beheaded by a cannonball. It would be simpler to locate that head than in Irving’s original story in this rendition.
The story centers on Ichabod Crane, a New York City police officer played by Johnny Depp, who is prepared to usher in the “dawn of a new millennium” with enhanced methods of investigation and true justice. A malicious judge sentences him to the little village of Sleepy Hollow in upstate New York because of his zest for doing good. He is sent there to look into a string of beheadings that are thought to have been carried out by a mysterious headless horseman, according to witnesses.
“The bodies were located, but where were the heads?” Ichabod inquires only to discover that no noggins have been located at all. The skulls are taken with the Horseman. Eventually, the heads appear together with an iron maiden and other torturous wonders of horror. The bloody film Sleepy Hollow has the air of a sophisticated Hammer Horror production. It has a lavishly shot aesthetic similar to Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola. A distinctly twisted atmosphere is created by the production design, art direction, and cinematography, and there are times when we want to ride away in terror. The daughter of Baltus, the wealthiest of the old burghers, played by Michael Gambon and Christina Ricci, is Katrina Van Tassel. It’s too bad he can’t afford to change his by-the-book, but not the novel, conclusion.
The Haunting (1963)
In Robert Wise’s timeless 1963 film The Haunting, we don’t see the ghosts. We enter a room just in time to see doors slam shut, shadows vanishing down a spiral staircase, or the final rocking motion of a rocking chair. We are asked, “What does it take to persuade you that the deceased do not always lie in peace, but that certain houses, like Hill House, are born bad?” yet the proof is frustratingly evasive.
There is no violence or jump scares in the movie, which is a faithful adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House. Instead, the movie focuses on a foreboding atmosphere, compelling people, and the nagging suspicion that we could have missed something.
The 90-year-old Hill House, which is seated still in the beginning as Dr. John Markway recounts its history of suicides and murders, is another example of how the slow-burning terror operates from the inside. His paranormal research project attracts sympathetic spiritual seekers of the supernatural to the location. Eleanor Lance (Julie Harris), a sensitive, becomes lost in the past; Theodora (Claire Bloom), a witch, is taken by surprise by the future; and those who are called to the mansion are subject to its nefarious whims. Although a document does not always imply possession, Russ Tamblyn portrays the cynical Luke Sanderson who will inherit the house.
Hill House is possessed by everyone; nobody owns it. The person who has the strangest affinity to the house is Eleanor, who lived through poltergeist activity as a child and dedicated her adult life to caring for her ill mother. Theodora’s cutting double entendres are as modest as the chills, but they crescendo into shattering conclusions.
The Innocents (1961)
In Jack Clayton’s novel The Innocents, where sexual inhibition and youthful curiosities combine to deadly effect, the ghosts are both metaphorical and literal. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, published in 1898, has been adapted for the big screen 27 times. Even while The Innocents personalizes the details on the larger brushstrokes, it is the most authentic. Truman Capote and William Archibald, the playwright of the 1950 theater adaption, collaborated on the screenplay. It was portrayed to them as a ghost story. It’s entirely possible that the governess relies on ghostly evidence that she can only perceive in her mind, yet the ghosts appear genuine to the camera. After recently losing their parents, little Flora (Pamela Franklin) and Miles (Martin Stephens) get a new governess, Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), who has a lot to learn about them and the manor they call Bly.
Miss Jessel (Clytie Jessop), the previous governess, resigned under hazy circumstances, but she might have left anything behind. Peter Quint (Peter Wyngarde), a dismissed valet, was a drunk and a roustabout, and you can still smell his scent in the walls. Kerr’s Miss Giddens is a generation older than the woman in the book and more concerned with the obligations of more adult themes, despite the fact that she may find the spectral evidence alluring. She says, “Most of all, I care for the kids,” yet the kids are, to put it mildly, unsettling.
Every word out of their mouths veers between innocent flattery and frightening suggestion, making them precocious yet oddly natural. Miss Giddens feels sympathetic when Miles is expelled from school for being a negative influence. She appreciates a spirit-filled boy who has a mature soul. Housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins) asks with possibly too much indulgence, “Oh, miss, are you scared he’ll corrupt you?” It’s spooky.
The Legend of Hell House (1973)
The Legend of Hell House, directed by John Hough, is a terrifying paranormal investigation movie with an unending supply of chandeliers to drop. It is an adaptation of Richard Matheson’s 1971 novel Hell House. Rich Rudolph Deutsch (Roland Culver) is almost ready to commit himself in order to learn what awaits him after death. In order to go above and beyond, he pays astronomical charges for the services of physicist Dr. Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill), his sensitive wife Ann Barrett (Gayle Hunnicutt), and mental medium Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin). Physical parapsychologist Benjamin Franklin Fischer, played by Roddy McDowell, is hesitant to participate in the fun. He is the lone survivor of an earlier on-site examination of the Belasco House, known as “Hell House” when its notoriously debauched owner vanished following a bloodbath inside its walls.
What did God do to create this house so terrible, in the name of God? Asks Ann. Fischer responds, “Murder, vampireism, cannibalism, drug abuse, drunkenness, sadism, and mutilation.” How did it turn out? Fischer cautions, “If it had ended, we wouldn’t be here. The researchers expose themselves to the destinies of former victims who now stalk the estate while strapped to bio-monitors and resigned to the abyss. The ghostly tyrant extorts power from the trespassing investigators while being considerate enough to deposit ectoplasmic residue in jars. Fischer’s relentless height-shaming, though, renders him helpless. On your walk out, make sure to shut the door.
The Shining (1980)
Whether or whether the Overlook Hotel is haunted, Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film adaptation of Stephen King’s book The Shining is a masterpiece. A teacher named Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, accepts a job caring for a deserted luxury resort during the off-season. He needs some peaceful time so that he can write. The advertised position at the Overlook Hotel is not quite simple. There is an elevator that spews bloody halls, and the boiler (at least in the book) requires continual attention to prevent explosions. Periodically, it needs mopping. Oh, and some of the previous visitors never truly left. Is that correct?
Danny (Danny Lloyd), Jack’s son, has an imaginary pal named Tony who resides in his mouth. It’s possible that Jack is the only one who stays over at the Overlook. The cook, Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers), shines so brightly he can read thoughts like the cans in the large hotel pantry, and it already has an open-door policy because his son is telepathic. The quantity of food concealed there among the Tang is unsettling.
In Kubrick’s movie, the horror is a reality. Since the spectator doesn’t miss anything, the majority of the scenes are shot in broad daylight with a wide-angle lens. It seems like Jack’s breakthrough is directed towards the audience by the time he calls out “Here’s Johnny!” to his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall). Darkness does not dispel the terrors occurring; we are complicit in them. When the nightmare is done, we may be frightened to close our eyes because we are fully awake during it.
The Brady twins, the bartender, and the woman in Room 237 are just a few of the ghosts in Kubrick’s movie The Shining, but the movie is really about madness, isolation, possession, and imaginative vision. In the final image from 1921, where Jack is smiling prominently, what do you see? For fans of horror, it is a Rorschach test.
The Woman in Black (2012)
Daniel Radcliffe is listed as the star of James Watkins’ The Woman in Black, but the home itself is the most intriguing character. Local kids stay away from it because there is only one road that leads there and the trail is occasionally covered with bogs. Similar to the beginning of any Dracula adaptation, superstitious carriage drivers avoid stopping at the Eel Marsh House. The Woman in Black, based on the 1983 novel by Susan Hill, is really eerie but not terribly frightening. The Hammer Horror production drowns the events in gloom and the tone of Victorian-era ghost stories, but only one genuinely terrifying all-nighter actually breaks go.
A widower lawyer from London with a young boy, Arthur Kipps (played by Daniel Radcliffe post-Harry Potter) arrives to the outlying community of Crythin Gifford in the year 1906. The townsfolk are being terrorized by a hazy black spirit that is thought to be the vengeful ghost of a woman who lost her kid. Kipps is at the location to handle her legal matters. His company promises him that this will be his final assignment if he fails. To that aim, suspicious locals feed his mind with ideas until it becomes difficult to distinguish between secrets and hearsay, and the Woman (Liz White) hardly ever acknowledges him throughout the day. The Woman in Black is classy and well-mannered, with all the atmosphere of traditional late-night reading.
