Asylum of Fear (2018)
Haunted Abandoned Asylum
A crew of reality tv paranormal investigators are hired to investigate a haunted abandoned asylum. This sort of film has been done numerous time before.
Mediums
Mediums are people that talk to the dead. A medium is usually considered to be someone who communicates with the dead as a vocation. There are various people who claim to do be able to so in the real world, several of whom have become celebrities (although this site has considerable doubts as to whether their abilities are real).
The preferred means for talking with the dead is usually via a Seance. Sometimes this may involve channelling where the medium is inhabited by a departed spirit who speaks through them or via automatic writing.
In genre works, mediums are variously employed to find missing persons, attend the investigation of haunted houses, or else to aid people who are dealing the occult or find information from the departed. There are also some comedy portrayals.
There are also several tv series featuring mediums which are in effect detective stories where the medium solves cases by obtaining information from the dead. There is also a body of films about fake mediums, including those whose powers suddenly become real.
Baghead (2023)
Mysterious Creature in the Cellar
Horror film about a mysterious creature in the cellar with a bag over its head that can bring a dead loved one back to life for two minutes, but where use of this comes with a price
The Black Cat (1981)
Black Cat Murders/Italian Horror
Film from cult Italian director Lucio Fulci. This has almost nothing to do with the Edgar Allan Poe story. With Fulci’s trademark gore sequences tamed, there is not much else for the film to fall back on
Black Rainbow (1989)
Fake Medium's Abilities Become Real
Enormously underrated film from Mike Hodges with Rosanna Arquette as a fake medium whose abilities start to become real. The quality of writing and Arquette’s performance is exceptional
Blithe Spirit (1945)
Ghost Drawing Room Comedy
An early David Lean film, an adaptation of a Noel Coward play, a drawing room comedy in which a medium conjures a man’s late wife amid much malarkey and mayhem
Blood Orgy of the She-Devils (1972)
Occultism and Witchcraft
One of the films from director Ted V. Mikels made not long afterRosemary’s Baby and mostly seems an opportunity for Mikels to lecture about historical witchcraft. Certainly, one of the great exploitation titles of all time
Books of Blood (2020)
Clive Barker Anthology
A new Clive Barker film is always something to be excited about – Barker has been absent too long as a creative force. This is an anthology based around Barker’s celebrated story collection
Cassadaga (2011)
Medium Tracks Serial Killer
Director Anthony DiBlasi has become a rising name in the horror genre in recent years. Here he makes a film about a deaf woman who gains mediumistic abilities and her tracking a serial killer who turns his victims into living marionettes
Charlie St. Cloud (2010)
Teenager Can See the Dead
A banal Zac Efron starring attempt to rewrite The Sixth Sense for the mopily sensitive teenage Gothic Chick Lit audience weaned on Twilight with Efron as a cemetery groundskeeper who talks to the dead
The Conjuring (2013)
Haunting/Possession/"True Story"
Supposedly based on a true story. A film that feels written entirely by cliches taken from every other haunting and exorcism film, but you cannot deny that director James Wan generates a more than fair degree of spooky atmosphere
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)
Possession/“True Story”
The third of the Conjuring films, this lacks the presence of James Wan in the director’s seat while peddling an even more highly dubious Based on a True story claim regarding a demonic possession
Convergence (2015)
Hospital That Exists in an Afterlife Limbo
This has an interesting set-up concerning mysterious happenings in a hospital where it is gradually revealed the characters exist in a limbo caught between Heaven and Hell even if it never does the idea justice
Dark Signal (2016)
Haunted Radio Signal
The intriguing idea of a haunted radio signal. A ghost story that does something different telling an ambitious double-stranded story even if it fails to pull it off with complete satisfaction
The Dead Room (2015)
New Zealand Haunted House Film
New Zealand-made film about a trio of parapsychologists investigating a reputedly haunted farmhouse. This treads very familiar ground and ultimately suffers from a sedate approach
The Deeper You Dig (2019)
Missing Girl's Ghost/Divination
Modest and quite well made film entirely shot, produced and acted by the Adams Family who have gone on to make a series of other striking horror films. This concerns a man haunted by a ghost after he kills a girl
The Devil Commands (1941)
Mad Scientist
Boris Karloff mad scientist film with a fear of science at the most extreme of any work of this era. What seems absurd is the film’s belief that doom will be brought by a device that is nothing more than an EEG machine
Don’t Look Up (2009)
Asian Horror Remake/Haunted Film Set
Fruit Chan conducts an English-language remake of a Japanese horror film. A confused and hokey effort about a haunted film set that is only centred around the provision of schlock effects
Down a Dark Hall (2018)
Sinister Happenings at a Girls’ Boarding School
Rodrigo Cortes, who made the fine Buried, directs a Young Adult horror, which is produced by no less than Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, concerning supernatural happenings at a girl’s boarding school.
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Gypsy Curse
Sam Raimi chose to follow up his hugely successful Spider-Man trilogy with this incredibly silly film about Gypsy curses. Raimi piles on ridiculous shock effects that become so over-the-top that the film ends up somewhere in orbit
Einstein’s God Model (2016)
Scientific Experiment in Contacting the Dead
A conceptually wild film about the use of a device that can contact the dead that winds in the use of Thomas Edison’s spirit phone, modern physics and multiverse theory in something uniquely different
The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man (2003)
Erotica with an Invisible Man
Most classic monsters have undergone an adult movie interpretation at some point – here it is the turn of The Invisible Man
The Eye (2002)
Woman Sees the Dead
Thailand’s Pang Brothers proved themselves some of the best horror directors in the world with this eerie film in which a woman starts to see the dead after receiving corneal implants. Several sequels and an English-language remake followed
The Eye 2 (2004)
Woman Sees the Dead
The Pang Brothers are in this author’s opinion some of the finest genre directors in the world. This sequel to their breakout hit The Eye is an even better film that achieves some genuinely haunted moments
The Eye (2008)
Woman Sees the Dead
An English-language remake of the ghost story from the Pang Brothers follows the other film faithfully but in terms of atmosphere is a pallid copy of the original
The Fades (2011)
Teen Can See the Dead/Apocalytic Resurrection
An underrated mini-series – sort of the anti-Supernatural. This creates a highly original afterlife mythology and some great characters arcs, while overspilling with wry nerdish in-humour
The Frighteners (1996)
Medium vs Ghostly Serial Killer Comedy
Before The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson flopped badly with this ghost comedy. Jackson allows his obsession with the effects technology to take over at the expense of much else and provides little that is funny
Gacy House (2010)
Found Footage/Haunted House
This has the great idea of paranormal investigators investigating the home of real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Alas, Gacy is of zero relevance and the film no more that a tatty Found Footage effort
Ghost (1990)
Man Returns as a Ghost
A popular hit in which Patrick Swayze is killed and becomes a ghost. Bruce Joel Rubin’s script has enormous fun in interpreting aspects of the ghost story from the ghost’s point-of-view.
Ghost Chasers (1951)
Idiots Try to Expose a Medium Comedy
Another of the films from the East Side Kids/Bowery Boys, a prolific comedy act of the era. Here the boys set out to bust a fake medium racket during the course of which they are aided by a ghost
Ghost Ship (1952)
Haunted Yacht
From the era of the quota quickie, this is a dreary British ghost story about a couple who buy a yacht before realising it is haunted. From Anglo-horror director Vernon Sewell.
Ghost Town (2008)
Man That Can See Ghosts Comedy
Director/screenwriter David Koepp proves that comedy is not his forte in this light fantasy in which Ricky Gervais emerges from anaesthesia to find that he can now see ghosts
Good Omens (2019)
Biblical End Times/Antichrist Comedy
TV mini-series based on the Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett novel that spoofs The Omen and Biblical End Times prophecies. The series is very close to the book as though it didn’t want to edit any precious gag
The Halfway House (1944)
Haunted Inn
A very nicely made British Wartime film about an ensemble of varied characters gathered at a ghostly inn that comes to have an effect on all of them
Haunted Mansion (2023)
Haunted House Comedy
The second attempt to spin a film off from the Disney theme park ride, this comes in a more serious tone than the prior Eddie Murphy film but still emerges as lightweight in terms of horror
The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)
Haunted House/"True Story"
Another supposed true-life ghost story, an early case by Ed and Lorraine Warren. The film exists as a progression of pop-up scares that through the need to keep producing effect produces no effect at all.
The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia (2013)
Haunting/"True Story"
The Haunting in Connecticut was a reasonable success in the claim to being a true story ghost story stakes. This is a sequel, seemingly unaware that Connecticut and Georgia are about a thousand miles apart
Hellboy (2019)
Demon Superhero/Comic-Book Adaptation
Reboot of the Hellboy series promisingly comes from Neil Marshall but is also made by Millennium Films who have a habit of buying up previously successful properties and churning out cheaper spinoffs
Hereafter (2010)
Perspectives on the Afterlife
Clint Eastwood tackles the afterlife in a drama following multiple storylines. A film made with earnest serious ambition but one where Eastwood finds surprisingly little to say about the issue
Host (2020)
Internet Seance
The first major genre film made during the Covid lockdown, a modestly effective work that borrows the basics of Unfriended for a story about a séance being held over a Zoom call
The Illusionist (2006)
Enigmatic Stage Magician
This came out the same year as The Prestige and has a very similar plot with Edward Norton as a stage magician in 19th Century who may have real powers and the rivalry over a woman
Insidious (2010)
Haunting/Astral Projection
On a pure plot level, this is largely a generic haunted house story but director James Wan creates an eerie atmosphere and manages to undeniably jangle the audience’s nerves on a number of occasions
Insidious Chapter 2 (2013)
Haunting/Possession
James Wan proves himself one of the finest directors in the horror genre with this sequel to his 2010 film. The plot is trimmed to deliver an effective scare show and Wan again produces a series of eerie and unworldly jumps
Insidious Chapter 3 (2015)
Haunting/Possession
This doesn’t have James Wan directing and is a far less interesting ghost story before doing a repeat venture into the beyond. On the plus side, incoming director Leigh Whannell does generate a fair degree of eerie tension
Insidious: The Last Key (2018)
Paranormal Investigation
After two fairly good initial entries, the Insidious series began its downward slide. Here new director Adam Robitel’s clumsy jumpshocks are a far cry from the eerie effects James Wan pulled off
Jack Be Nimble (1993)
Psychically Linked Brother-Sister
An over-the-top New Zealand-made Gothic horror with Alexis Arquette and Sarah Smuts-Kennedy as psychically connected brother and sister who set out on a quest to find their parents, killing all in the way
Juliet of the Spirits (1965)
Woman Blurs Reality and Fantasy
A Federico Fellini film in which Fellini’s wife Giulietta Masina plays a housewife whose grasp starts to slip over until it is taken over by hallucination and fantasy
The Kingdom (1994)
Haunted Hospital/Black Comedy
Danish tv mini-series co-directed by Lars von Trier set in a haunted hospital. This comes with a blacker-than-black sense of humour in its interwoven character strands plus moments that are genuinely eerie
The Kingdom II (1997)
Haunted Hospital/Black Comedy
Follow-up to Lars von Trier’s haunted hospital mini-series The Kingdom. The story is continued, although the plot seems rickety and either drops elements or veers off on other tangents as though it is being made up as people go along
The Kingdom: Exodus (2022)
Haunted Hospital/Black Comedy
Lars von Trier returns to finish off his haunted hospital saga The Kingdom after a 25 years absence, despite the death of several principals, and again milks the same darkly hilarious vein
Lake Mungo (2008)
Australian Haunting Found Footage Film
An Australian Found Footage film about a haunting. Rather than the intense spookiness of Paranormal Activity, this is more a mockumentary that is constantly turning what we expect is going on on its head
The Last Broadcast (1998)
Found Footage/Mysterious Backwoods Deaths
One of the very first Found Footage films, predating The Blair Witch Project, although this is less people running around the woods with cameras than an investigative mockumentary
Late Night With the Devil (2023)
Demonic Possession Live on TV
This conducts a perfect simulation of a 1970s tv talkshow with David Dastmalchian as a host who tries to expose/debunk a demonic possession before things go wrong live on air
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
Magic in the Moonlight (2014)
Possibly Fake/Real Medium Comedy
One of Woody Allen’s slighter films about rationalist Colin Firth who is debunking medium Emma Stone but becomes convinced of her powers as romance sparkles
The Manitou (1978)
Reincarnated Indian Medicine Man
The one moment of triumph from director William Girdler who takes a work that sits just on the threshold of schlock and transforms into something incredibly eerie with an injection of H.P. Lovecraft and American Indian mysticism
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
My Winnipeg (2007)
Surreal Documentary
Guy Maddin was hired by the Documentary Channel to make a documentary about his hometown Winnipeg and turns it into a surreal confabulation of fact and tall tale
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
Nightmare Alley (1947)
Fake Clairvoyant/Predestination
Classic film starring Tyrone Power as an ambitious carnival barker who has success with a mind-reader act. Filled with great film noir atmosphere and a doomed sense of fate at play
Nightmare Alley (2021)
Fake Clairvoyant/Predestination
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, Guillermo Del Toro’s remake of the 1947 film noir tale about a fake clairvoyant is an exquisite piece of mood and design
Nightmare Cinema (2018)
Horror Anthology
A above average entry in the recent trend of horror anthologies featuring episodes from different directors, including Joe Dante and Mick Garris, featuring at least a couple of standout entries
Nightmare Sisters (1988)
Possessed Scream Queens
An 80s Scream Queen film featuring Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens and Michelle Bauer as sorority girls who become possessed. From director David DeCoteau
The Ninth (2019)
Occult Murders in 19th Century St Petersburg
Visually stunning Russian film with a clairvoyant and a police inspector teaming up to solve a series of occult murders in 19th Century St Petersburg
Odd Thomas (2013)
Eccentric Clairvoyant-Medium/Dean R. Koontz Adaptation
At first glance, Stephen Sommers and Dean R. Koontz seem strange bedfellows, but oddly enough it works – Koontz gives Sommers more story than he is used to working with and surprisingly it is the likeable characters and mind-boggling quirks of plot at the forefront rather than Sommers’ usual CGI bombast
The Oracle (1985)
Cursed Ouija Board
From cult director Roberta Findlay, this is a film about a haunted ouija board. What is going on doesn’t make a lot of sense but Findlay serves up a series of bizarre deaths that prove entertainingly absurd
The Orphanage (2007)
Ghost Story
A Spanish ghost story that effectively eschews modern jumpshock tactics in favour of subtle old-fashioned scares
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
Over Her Dead Body (2008)
Ghostly Ex Comedy
Unfunny comedy in which Eva Longoria dies and returns as a ghost to make life miserable for fiance Paul Rudd as he becomes involved with another woman
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
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
ParaNorman (2012)
Stop-Motion Animated Children's Film/Kid Sees Dead People
Stop-motion animated children’s film from Laika that demonstrates a willingness to be scary. The film starts to move out of the amiably likeable after around the halfway point when it begins to play a number of horror tropes against expectation to deliver a reasonable message about fear and prejudice
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
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 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
Red Lights (2012)
Psychic Debunkers
Strong, well-written film from Buried director Rodrigo Cortes about investigators of psychic frauds encountering a possibly real example. This takes a welcomely sceptical, rationalist perspective, has a great cast and fine build-up but alas falls apart in a lame twist ending
The Remains (2016)
Haunted House
The haunted house genre is one that has become thoroughly exhausted by overuse in recent years. This puts the elements together with a professional assemblage but is essentially no different to the 347 other haunted house films that this site has seen in the last twelve months
Rest in Peace (1982)
Haunted Mausoleum
Forgotten 1980s horror where Meg Tilly accepts a dare to spend a night in a mausoleum as a powerful psychic returns to life
Sator (2019)
Folk Horror/Mysterious Happenings in the Woods
A strikingly original work of folk horror that creates an incredibly haunted and uncanny atmosphere of mysterious things lurking in the backwoods
Seance (2000)
Medium/Kidnap Thriller
Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa conducts a remake of the British thriller Seance on a Wet Afternoon. Where the original was a mundane film that depicted a kidnap scheme involving a fake medium, Kurosawa builds this out as an actual ghost story
Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)
Medium/Kidnap Thriller
Standout thriller with Kim Stanley as a medium who fakes a child kidnapping with husband Richard Attelborough to prove her powers
The Secret of Crickley Hall (2012)
Ghost Story
Ghost story BBC mini-series adapted from a novel by horror writer James Herbert that unfolds between two different eras. With an amazing cast of Before They Were Famous names.
6 Degrees of Hell (2012)
Haunted Halloween House of Horrors
A horror film set around a haunted house attraction that is made with near-total amateurishness. The film seems to have multiple plots happening all at once and becomes impossible trying to figure out what is happening
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Child Medium
The film that made the name of M. Night Shyamalan and still a strong and spooky story despite the variability of Shyamalan’s offerings since then. What made the film a classic was its twist ending, something that has been relentlessly copied by numerous genre films since
Something Weird (1967)
Psychic Powers
One of Herschell Gordon Lewis’s film, this features a totally demented plot involving a man who develops psychic powers and his encounters with witches and LSD trips
Stir of Echoes (1999)
Man Develops Mediumistic Abilities
Enormously underrated directorial effort from screenwriter David Koepp in which Kevin Bacon gains the ability to see the dead. A film filled with some genuinely spooky moments
Stir of Echoes: The Awakening (2007)
Gulf War Vet Receives Visions
Stir of Echoes was a spookily effective film. Alas in this sequel, we go from Kevin Bacon as a medium to Rob Lowe as a haunted Iraq War veteran amid a series of routine pop-up scares
Suburban Gothic (2014)
Middle-Class Satire/Haunting
From the director of Excision, another film that satirically digs its claws into middle-class values but there is the feeling we have seen all of this before and the film fails to provide anything funny. Added to this is a barely scary ghost plot the film occasionally remembers to get back to
Supernatural (1933)
Possession by a Murderer's Spirit
Carole Lombard plays an heiress who becomes possessed by the spirit of an executed murderess. From the Brothers Halperin who were behind >i>White Zombie
The Survivor (1981)
Haunting/Deathdream
Australian-made adaptation of a James Herbert novel with Robert Powell as a airline pilot who is haunted following a crash. In the director’s chair, actor David Hemmings kills all atmosphere
Tales from the Hood 2 (2018)
African-American Horror Anthology
Tales from the Hood was the novelty of an African-American made horror anthology. 23 years later the principal talents (including producer Spike Lee) reunite for a sequel
Talking to Heaven (2002)
True-Life Medium Biopic
A Hallmark tv mini-series based on the life of the supposed true-life medium James Van Praagh
The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960)
Criminal Mastermind
The third film about the title criminal mastermind from Fritz Lang. Here Lang returns to a radically different Germany to the one he fled in the 1930s, the West Germany of the Cold War, to deliver a creepily paranoid work about the surveillance society
Trauma (1993)
Giallo Psycho-Thriller
Another giallo thriller from Dario Argento filled with all the wild bursts of imagination, bizarre plot twists and set-pieces we have come to expect from him
The Unquiet (2008)
Haunted Building/Rival Paranormal Investigators
There is a certain potential to the concept of two rival teams, parapsychological debunkers and a tabloid tv crew, researching a reputedly haunted prison. Only a couple of years later, this would have been mandatorily made as a Found Footage film but suffers from a director with no aptitude for atmosphere
Vibes (1988)
Psychic Powers Comedy-Adventure
Psychic powers comedy made in the aftermath of Ghostbusters where Jeff Goldblum is upstaged by a kooky Cyndi Lauper
We Are Still Here (2015)
House of Lurking Evil
Solidly atmospheric effort concerning a middle-aged couple who buy a house with sinister forces lurking in the basement. This builds to an admirably gore-drenched climax
White Noise (2005)
Communications from the Dead
Ghost story about so-called Electronic Voice Phenomenon with Michael Keaton as a widower being contacted from beyond by his late wife. A film that achieves some quite reasonable spooky effect
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)
Grand Old Dame Thriller
From the great and overlooked Curtis Harrington, a Grand Old Dames film with Shelley Winters going mad in the Baby Jane vein. This also becomes a modernised retelling of Hansel and Gretel
Winchester (2018)
Real-Life Haunted House
Winchester House with its eccentric designs and strange history is reputedly one of America’s most haunted locales. From Australia’s Spierig Brothers who made the likes of Daybreakers and Predestination, this attempts to tell its story but emerges as far less than it could have been