15 Horror Movies Only Adults Will Understand

Decades ago, most horror movies were intended for grown-ups. Movies like 1973’s The Exorcist and 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby considered far too terrifying and too sophisticated for younger audiences. The Exorcist was not a gory exploitation movie by any stretch, but a terrifying look into what frightens an adult woman (seeing her child decay in the hands of Heaven-knows-what), and the despair that flagging faith can bring. Rosemary’s Baby is about the fear a not-all-that-young couple goes through when trying to conceive a child. These are films that are about fear, loss, family, faith, and other concerns that your average teenager may not be able to relate to. 

Thanks to a solid 15 years or so of slasher movies, however, horror movies soon moved widely into the purview of teen audiences. Slasher movies – a genre which has its own crown jewels as well as its turkeys – were more about the immediate, visceral fear of being stalked by a killer with a knife. These were not earnest examinations of adult fears like loss of family, loss of a job, the crumbling of a friendship, losing one’s identity. They were playful death fantasies.

Check Out: The 50 Scariest Movies of All Time

 

The most powerful horror movies are, one might agree, the ones that deal with sophisticated adult fears. It’s actually easy to shake off the fright one encounters in slasher movies, because we so rarely find ourselves in a position where we have to outrun a zombie with a machete. This is a simple, sensual fear masked in fantasy. The horror movies that really seek to rattle, to unnerve, to unravel the psyche, are the ones that look at adult life, look at what’s valuable to adults, and then proceed to destroy it. Horror movies for adults are not about blood or gore, they are about unmasking anxiety. And not necessarily exorcizing it.

CraveOnline has delved through the pits of despair and produced the following list of excellent – and emotionally harrowing – horror movies for adults.

A note to teens: You’ll understand these fears someday.

 

Slideshow: 15 Horror Movies for Adults


Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.

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