The Last Resort (2009)
Sinister Abandoned Resort
This was made following the success of Hostel, a low-budget film concerning a group of girls abandoned at a deserted Mexican resort town that may be haunted
Hauntings and Ghost Stories
A ghost is a person whose spirit continues to live on following death in non-corporeal and insubstantial form (as opposed to other more physical forms of undead such as vampires and zombies). Hauntings refers to ghostly phenomena – films featuring ghosts and/or haunted houses and other places.
A common plot in a many ghosts stories is of the living investigating a haunted place to find who the ghost was and achieving a form of exorcism by aiding them in complete their Unfinished Business and depart.
The haunted house is a long-standing tradition and concerns the investigation of a large old gloomy mansions. More modern variants have tried numerous other form of dwelling from suburban houses to hotels, supermarkets, ships and submarines.
There is the misconception that the ghost story and haunted house film originated in the 1930s. The first Hollywood effort was not until well into the 1940s and the genre did not fully develop until the 1950s/60s, reaching a peak in the 1970s.
The 1980s brought the introduction of visual and makeup effects. The 1990s/2000s introduced the Found Footage investigation of the haunted house. In the 2000s onwards, the ghost story has become so prolific that it is rare to find efforts that stand out from the formula and cliches.
There is also the Asian ghost story – see Asian Horror – where hauntings tend to be less centred around dwellings and more about personal vengeance and the grievances.
The depiction of ghost stories is so numerous that this topic has been split between actual ghost stories (here) and those that depict ghosts in a comedic or other vein – for which see Ghosts in Light Fantasy
Last Shift (2014)
Haunted Police Station
A ghost story that borrows quite a few touches from Assault on Precinct 13 in its tale of a haunted police station. Director Anthony DiBlasi spends his time on accumulating atmosphere with considerable effectiveness
The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh (2012)
Ghost Story
Rue Morgue magazine editor Rodrigo Gudiño makes his directorial debut with an old-fashioned ghost story that is a slow, moody ambiguous single-person drama
Lavender (2016)
Haunting/Fugue State
From the director of The Last Exorcism Part II, a title that does nothing to suggest a horror film. All we get is a ghost story that does an M. Night Shyamalan shift into an improbably contrived fugue state drama
Legacy of Dracula: The Bloodthirsty Doll (1970)
Japanese Ghost Story/Vampire
The first of a trilogy of Japanese vampire films, although this does not feature Dracula despite the title and should be considered more of ghost story.
The Legend of Hell House (1973)
Haunted House
While holding many similarities to The Haunting, this is a strong, intelligent film about parapsychologists investigating a haunted house. Filled with eerie scares and a standout script from Richard Matheson
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1980)
Headless Horseman
A tv movie version of the classic ghost story by Washington Irving and the most faithful version of the story to date. With a young Jeff Goldblum as Ichabod Crane
Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971)
Haunting
Part post Night of the Living Dead zombie film, part flower child ghost story, part Body Snatchers and lacking in much explanatory logic, this is nevertheless a film of unnerving and eerie effect
Lightfields (2013)
Ghost Story Across Multiple Eras
British tv mini-series ghost story that takes place across three different eras – in 1944, 1975 and 2012. More of a mystery than a scare show but drawn with a beautifully wistful feel for place and time
Lights Out (2016)
Creature Lurking in the Dark
The James Wan produced (as opposed to directed) film is a dubious prospect. You cannot deny that this film about creatures in the dark does make an audience jump but I felt that I’d seen everything before
Lisa and the Devil (1972)
Italian Psycho-Thriller/Haunted House Film
The last great film from Mario Bava, an exquisitely dreamy giallo/haunted house film that had the ignomity of being butchered and made into an Exorcist copy when it came out
The Little Stranger (2018)
Ghost Story
Adaptation of a ghost story from Sarah Waters, an author who usually specialises in literary Victorian lesbian bodice rippers. The ghost story is an overmined genre but this is a not uninteresting venture into the field
The Living and the Dead (2016)
Ghost Story
One of the best and most original ghost stories in some time, a mini-series for the BBC set in the 1890s, this does remarkable things in entirely turning the genre on its head
The Locals (2003)
Backwoods Undead
A New Zealand-made horror film in which two friends find themselves trapped in a small rural town where the dead keep returning to life
The Lockdown Hauntings (2021)
Ghostly Murders During the Pandemic Lockdown
A film shot during the Covid lockdown, following a police detective who conducts an investigation into deaths caused by supernatural entities unleashed amid the isolation
The Lodge (2019)
Cabin Fever/Possible Haunting
An entry from the revived Hammer Films directed by duo who made Goodnight Mommy. A slow burn of a film about cabin fever and fragmenting psychology often reminiscent of The Shining
The Lodgers (2017)
Irish Ghost Story
A beautifully shot period set Irish ghost story that does a superb job in building atmosphere but is all fascinating mystery that ends without explaining a single thing
Lovely Molly (2011)
Possible Haunting/Woman's Mental Disintegration
Blair Witch Project co-director Eduardo Sanchez makes a film that sits in a fascinatingly ambiguous place as to whether a wife is being haunted/possessed or is mentally disintegrating
Luciferous (2015)
Haunted Apartment
A ghost story that is directed by a married couple who shoot the film in their own apartment and also play a family as they start to be affected by a malign presence
Lurkers (1987)
Hauntings and Mysterious Happenings
A painfully dull and uneventful Roberta Findlay film where almost nothing happens. The film is almost redeemed by an effective twist ending ripped off from The Sentinel
Making Contact (1986)
Haunting/Psychic Child
Roland Emmerich’s second film, a confused oddity that seems to be trying to model itself as a Spielberg film about a kid who gains psychic powers and whose toys come to life
Mama (2013)
Two Feral Children and Ghostly Companion
A Guillermo Del Toro produced ghost story that fails to go anywhere. The promise of the film’s trailer falls apart in the hands of a novice director who blows all of his scares
The Marsh (2006)
Haunted House
Okay ghost story in which Gabrielle Anwar rents a haunted farmhouse. Forest Whitaker turns up as a neighbouring occult expert
Martyrs Lane (2021)
Ghost Story
Director Ruth Platt creates a beautifully subtle and delicate ghost story
May the Devil Take You: Chapter Two (2020)
Possessed Dead in an Abandoned Orphanage
May the Devil Take YouThe Evil Dead. Here Timo Tjajjanto makes a sequel and goes absolutely demented
Mekong Hotel (2012)
Thai Ghosts/Reincarnated Lovers
Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a festival favourite and one genre director whose work is least categorised as such. As with any of Weerasethakul’s films, this has some intensely haunted moments but is severely lacking in plot or any kind of dramatic inertia
The Mermaid: Lake of the Dead (2018)
Russian Dark Fantasy/Avenging Water Spirit
This is a Russian dark fantasy that has been misleadingly titled as a mermaid film in English release. It in fact concerns an avenging rusalka water spirit who haunts a small lake
The Messengers (2007)
Haunting
The Pang Brothers, two of the most exciting genre directors in the world, have their distinctive style swallowed up in their bland US mainstream debut produced by Sam Raimi
The Midnight Club (2022)
Teenagers Tell Horror Stories
Mike Flanagan horror mini-series adapted from Christopher Pike’s book, this is set around a group of patients in a hospice who form a group to tell each other horror stories
Mirrors 2 (2010)
Haunted Mirrors
A sequel to Alexandre Aja’s Mirrors that abandons most of the basics of the first film and strips everything down to a series of gory, novelty deaths
Mirrors (2008)
Haunted Mirrors
Alexandre Aja film about haunted mirrors. Aja is more a director of physical horror and seems less attuned to the supernatural mood
The Mistress (2022)
Haunted House/Reality Bender
This starts out seeming like another haunted house film before developing some conceptual reversal twists of the first M. Night Shyamalan-esque order
Mongrel (1982)
Possibly Supernatural Killer Dog
Incredibly shabby film about residents of a Texas boarding house being killed by a supernatural dog
Mt. Misery Rd (2018)
Ghost Hunters Venture Into Haunted Woods
A strong contender for the worst Blair Witch copy AND the worst Amityville film ever made. This has the feel of a home movie made by a husband and wife and is laughably ridiculous in its failings
Mr. Harrigan’s Phone (2022)
Text Messages from Beyond the Grave/Stephen King Adaptation
A nicely made Stephen King adaptation about a teen who starts to receive text message from beyond the grave. From Ryan Murphy, the producer behind tv’s Glee and American Horror Story
Mr Vampire (1985)
Hong Kong Supernatural Comedy
Hong Kong hopping vampire film that produced a string of sequels. The original is the best, a clever, fast-paced blend of comedy, supernatural and traditional Eastern beliefs
Mr Vampire 1992 (1992)
Hong Kong Hopping Vampire Comedy
The last of the popular Hong Kong comedy series about hopping vampires. While the other sequels became very silly, this goes out on an inspired final note
Mr Vampire III (1987)
Hong Kong Ghost Comedy
Third in the popular series of Hong Kong hopping vampire films. As in the previous entry, a frenetic slapstick element dominates
Mr Wrong (1985)
Haunted Car/Stalker
New Zealand-made ghost story where Heather Bolton buys a second-hand car only to find it is haunted
The Mysterious Doctor (1943)
Haunted Mine
Film made during World War II about the locals of small English town dealing with a haunted mine and uncovering a Nazi infiltration plot
Nails (2017)
Haunted Hospital
Film that takes place with the heroine confined to a hospital bed unable to move as a malevolent ghost enters her room
A Name for Evil (1973)
Possible Haunted House/Strange Happenings
Obscure almost interesting film where Robert Culp drops out of city life, renovates a possibly haunted house before being drawn into a surreal Free Love fantasia
Nang Nak (1999)
Love After Death
Beautifully made Thai film about a husband whose wife dies in childbirth but where he refuses to let go of her ghost
Neverlake (2013)
Haunted Italian Lake
Italian-made film centred around a haunted lake that sits just between earnest amateurism and promising ambition. Features a range of mysterious happenings that you leave you for some time wondering what is going on before these are pulled together in a surprise ending
The Night (2020)
Haunted Hotel
A modestly effective Iranian horror film where a married couple become trapped in a hotel of shifting realities. One of the few films that favourably compares to the mood of The Shining
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)
Giallo Film
A giallo film with Anthony Steffen as an aristocrat who likes to pick up red-haired girls and kill them in the dungeon in his villa, who then becomes haunted by the ghost of his late wife
The Night House (2020)
Haunting
Rebecca Hall gives a standout performance in an eerie ghost story about a woman possibly haunted and discovering disturbing things in the aftermath of her husband’s death
Night of Dark Shadows (1971)
Dark Shadows Movie
The second and better of the films spun off from tv’s Dark Shadows. At last the show gets production values and atmosphere that do it justice, although the series cult figure of Barnabas Collins does not appear
Night of the Ghouls (1960/1983)
Fake Medium
A once lost Edward D. Wood Jr film with police investigating a fake medium scam being run out of a haunted house
Night Swim (2024)
Sinister Swimming Pool
A Blumhouse and James Wan co-production about a malevolent swimming pool
Nightlight (2015)
Found Footage/Haunted Woods
Any Found Footage film about people venturing into a haunted forest cannot help but draw comparison to the progenitor of the genre, The Blair Witch Project. This comes up with some sufficiently original twists and spooky moments, even if it is eventually unbuckled by its pretensions
Nightmare (2000)
Korean Ghost Story
Resembling a supernatural version of I Know What You Did Last Summer, this South Korean ghost story delivers considerable spookiness
Night’s End (2022)
Haunted Apartment
A film shot during Covid lockdown that creates a great sense of isolation with a man locked inside a possibly haunted apartment
No Escape Room (2018)
Haunted Escape Room
Another in the fad for horror films about escape rooms we have had in the last few years, this concerns a possibly haunted venue and reaches an interestingly odd ending
No Tell Motel (2013)
Haunted Abandoned Motel
Horror film where a group of people end up at an abandoned motel where the secrets they have are turned back on them
Nomads (1986)
Urban Phantoms
John McTiernan directs Pierce Brosnan is a film about phantom street gangs that creates an incredibly haunted mood
Noroi: The Curse (2005)
Japanese Found Footage/Paranormal Investigator
A Japanese Found Footage film made not long after The Blair Witch Project with a man investigating various paranormal incidents around Tokyo
The Offering (2016)
Occult Happenings
Singaporean film that offers an assemblage of cliches elements from various horror films in a mishmash of hauntings, possession, occult happenings and ominous Biblical portents that make little sense in terms of explanatory rationale
100 Feet (2008)
Woman Confined on Home Detention in a Haunted Apartment
This lifts the premise of Disturbia – protagonist confined to home detention who spies a killer next door – but then asks what would happen if the space they were confined was haunted
One Missed Call (2003)
Haunted Cellphone Calls
Cult director Takashi Miike jumps aboard the J-horror fad of the 2000s and makes a Ringu copy that substitutes haunted videos for haunted cellphone calls. Two sequels and an English-language remake followed
One Missed Call (2008)
Haunted Cellphone Calls
Probably the worst among the mid-00s fad for English-language remakes of Japanese horror films. Takashi Miike’s original is reduced to affectless CGI pop-up scares
One Missed Call 2 (2005)
Haunted Cellphone Calls
Sequel to the Japanese original, not the English-language remake. This quickly forgets about haunted phonecalls and becomes even more of a copy of Ring, the inspiration of the original, and fails at generating spooky atmosphere
The Orphanage (2007)
Ghost Story
A Spanish ghost story that effectively eschews modern jumpshock tactics in favour of subtle old-fashioned scares
The Other Side of the Door (2016)
Resurrected Ghost Child
From Johannes Roberts, the director of 47 Meters Down and other works, an undeniably spooky variant on Pet Sematary set in Mumbai as a mother unwittingly resurrects her late son’s spirit
The Others (2001)
Ghost Story
Alejandro Amenabar directed ghost story made not longer after The Sixth Sense that works with nicely subtle effect and arrives at an unexpected twist ending that turn the standard haunted house tale on its head
Ouija (2014)
Ouija Board Unleashes a Malevolent Spirit
Blumhouse horror film based around the Parker Brothers boardgame. Modern multiplex horror films don’t come more generic than this. On the other hand, you cannot deny that debuting director Stiles White creates some occasionally quite spooky moments, it’s just that the rest of the show comes entirely by the numbers
Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)
Ouija Board Unleashes Malevolent Spirits
Blumhouse’s Ouija didn’t get many good reviews but they proceeded with a prequel here. This is automatically the better film from the outset by employing Mike Flanagan, behind amazing works like Absentia, Hush and The Haunting of Hill House, as director, even if it comes out as one of Flanagan’s lesser works
Ouija: Summoning (2015)
Haunting
A bafflingly incoherent effort – quite what it is about I am at a loss to explain. The sole distinction it has that it was repackaged from its anonymous original title to market it on the tail of Blumhouse’s Ouija: Origin of Evil despite the fact an ouija board only briefly features at the start
Over Your Dead Body (2014)
Roles From a Play Haunt Their Actors' Lives
The most sustained film Takashi Miike has made in some time. In this case, he adapts Yotsuya Kaidan, the most famous of all Japanese ghost stories, which has been filmed multiple times, but rather than offer a straight telling also adds a layer where the story comes to replay itself among the actors in the play
The Pact (2012)
Haunting and Serial Killer
Modestly effective film about a haunted suburban house. Debuting director Nicholas McCarthy produces a number of accomplished and eerie scares that stand him as a promising new name. The film weakens in the last act when trying to tie everything together with an improbable rationale
The Pact II (2014)
Haunting and Serial Killer
The Pact was a modest and rather effective ghost story about a serial killer hiding inside the walls of a house. This seems to be straining to find some way to justify any relevance a sequel – for one, where do you go with the premise? Another killer hiding inside a different family home?
Paranormal Activity (2007)
Haunting Found Footage Film
No-budget film that became a word of mouth hit, spawned a series of sequels and sparked off the Found Footage fascination that took over the 2010s. Unlike most of the films that followed, Oren Peli creates a creepingly chill atmosphere and some undeniable jumps
Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Haunting Found Footage Film
This necessarily lacks the surprise effect of the first film but still captures some of the same eerie dread anticipation as spooky things begin happening
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
Haunting Found Footage Film
The Paranormal Activity series still manages to produce a reasonable amount of eerie scares and jumps a third time around, although by now the claim to still being found footage is starting to strain credulity
Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)
Haunting Found Footage Film
The Paranormal Activity series has had a better run than most horror franchises up until now but the cracks are starting to show through here. This feels like it is straining to find some new way to do the familiar moves but fails to provide anything unexpected or original
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension (2015)
Haunting Found Footage Film
For supposedly the Paranormal Activity series final entry, this offer the novelty of the first Found Footage film in 3D – a gimmick that signals the series is out of fresh ideas. Moreover, the series’ look via watching security cameras has been de-emphasised in favour of another CGI driven ghost story
Paranormal Asylum (2013)
Ghostbusters Investigate a Haunted Asylum
Loosely set around the legend of Typhoid Mary with ghostbusters investigating an abandoned asylum. One of a host of films that automatically relegate themselves to B movies by borrowing the prefix ‘Paranormal’, this sits between the amateurish and occasionally interesting
Paranormal Entity (2009)
Haunting Found Footage Film
The Asylum’s answer to Paranormal Activity Oren Peli made his film for $15,000, which is about as cheap as it is possible to make a film; this manages to look even cheaper – simply someone wandering around with a camcorder that is at best aimed in the general direction of things happening
Paranormal Extremes: Text Messages from the Dead (2015)
Girl Discovers Abilities as a Medium
The second-to-last film from legendary Z-budget filmmaker Ted V. Mikels. The title is a misnomer and the film is more about a woman discovering her abilities as a medium. Despite having been making films since the 1960s, Mikels has improved none in quality
Perfect Strangers (2003)
Abduction Thriller/Ambiguous Ghost
Very strange New Zealand-made film that starts out seeming to be an abduction thriller and then turns into an even stranger ghost story that we cannot be sure is happening or all in the heroine’s imagination
Pernicious (2014)
Vengeful Thai Child Spirit
A film about three American girls who are haunted by a vengeful child spirit while in Thailand. Another post-Insidious film that uses a sinister adjective as title
Personal Shopper (2016)
Possible Ghost Story/Mystery Texter
Olivier Assayas’s high-profile but wildly critically divided work feels as though it has several competing plots circling around Kristen Stewart – a ghost story, one about a mystery texter and briefly a murder mystery – which feel incomplete and unfinished and only maybe intersecting with one another
Phantom Town (1999)
Haunted Western Town
A quirkily enjoyable horror Western about children searching for their parents and ending up in a town that exists in an afterlife netherworld populated by an assortment of weird creatures
Phenomena (2023)
True-Life Spanish Paranormal Investigators
In the same vein as The Conjuring films, a film about a true-life Spanish team of paranormal investigators
Phobia (2008)
Anthology of Thai Ghost Stories
Horror anthology featuring four ghost stories from Thai directors. While all the segments vary in approach and style, this is a spooky and above average effort with the real standout being the final segment with an air hostess aboard a plane with a dead body in the midst of a storm
Phone (2002)
Korean Ghost Story/Haunted Phone Calls
South Korean jump aboard the Ringu phenomenon about a series of haunted phone calls that works well through a clever ending
Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
Edgar Allan Poe Adaptation/Deranged Nobleman
The second of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe films with Vincent Price. This feels too much as though Corman was trying to make another House of Usher, nevertheless it creates its own thunderously overwrought atmosphere, even if it has little to do with the Poe story
Pizza (2012)
Bollywood Ghost Story
A rare Indian venture into the horror film, this is a haunted house film of modest effect that suddenly becomes a whole lot more watchable when it pulls a major M. Night Shyamalan-esque twist on us
Pizza (2014)
Bollywood Ghost Story
Bollywood remake of a ghost story that comes with one of the cleverer M. Night Shyamalan conceptual reversal twists
Poignant (2016)
Haunting
This is one of a plethora of hard-to-differentiate apart ghost stories that have littered the dvd shelves in recent years, frequently copying Insidious in appropriating a sinister-seeming adjective as title. There is not a single directorial or musical cue, sound effect or line of dialogue that doesn’t feel like a cliche
Poltergeist III (1988)
Haunting
The third of the Poltergeist sequels, which moves the locale to an apartment building and is better than its predecessor thanks to a series of eerie mirror effects
Poltergeist (1982)
Haunting
Debate will always rage as to whether this was directed by Tobe Hooper or executive producer Steven Spielberg. It doesn’t alter the fact that it is a superlative rollercoaster of a ghost story that doesn’t always make sense but pulls its effects off flawlessly
Poltergeist (2015)
Haunting
It has become an overused phrase in this site’s critical arsenal to say “yet another 70s/80s remake that is inferior to the original”. The 1982 Poltergeist was one of the great ghost stories of the era; this hits all the beats and with bigger effects but fails to find any of the haunted mood of the original
Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)
Haunting
Sequel to Poltergeist that without Tobe Hopper in the director’s seat is an unimaginative by-the-numbers effort
The Poltergeist of Borley Forest (2013)
Haunting
A film that sat on the shelf and was then retitled to capitalise on the release of the Poltergeist remake despite featuring no poltergeists … A routine run through the well and truly worn modern ghost story cliches with no originality and little atmosphere
Portrait of Jennie (1948)
Supernatural Romance
Classic, exquisitely made weepie romantic fantasy about an artist obsessed with a woman who appears to travel through time
The Power (2021)
Haunted Hospital
An incredibly spooky film set at a hospital during a power cut as a nurse on night duty finds ghostly things stirring in the building
The Presence (2010)
Ghost Story
Ghost story that does an excellent job in creating an incredibly haunted and unusual atmosphere. On the other hand, the film falls apart during the second half where it heads in another direction altogether and leaves one entirely unclear what is going on
Presence (2024)
Ghost Story
Steven Soderbergh is one of the foremost independent directors in the US. He has dipped into numerous different genres and here takes on the ghost story in a film shot from the ghost’s point-of-view
Prison (1987)
Haunted Prison
An early film from Renny Harlin made for Charles Band concerning a haunted prison. Features an unknown Viggo Mortensen in one of his earliest roles