Best Haunted house Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of haunted house cinema — measured across 2,421 indexed frames from 33 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Haunted house films over-index on flashlight, house and staircase — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)
James WanDP John R. LeonettiIMDb 6.6TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →
How deep into the darkness will you go to discover the truth? The terrifying sequel to Insidious follows the haunted Lambert family as they seek to uncover the mysterious childhood secret that has left them dangerously connected to the spirit world. They must rely on familiar allies to exile the demons that follow them and unearth the secret before the evil continues its deadly rampage.
- 2
Monster House (2006)
Gil KenanDP Xavier GrobetIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →
13-year-old DJ is observing his neighbor Nebbercracker on the other side of the street in the suburb that destroys tricycles of children that trespass his lawn. When DJ's parents travel on the eve of Halloween and the abusive babysitter Zee stays with him, he calls his clumsy best friend Chowder to play basketball. But when the ball falls in Nebbercracker's lawn, the old man has a heart attack, and soon they find that the house is a monster. Later the boys rescue the smart Jenny from the house and the trio unsuccessfully tries to convince the babysitter, her boyfriend Bones and two police officers that the haunted house is a monster, but nobody believes them. The teenagers ask their video-game addicted acquaintance Skull how to destroy the house, and they disclose its secret on the Halloween night.
- 3
The Conjuring (2013)
James WanDP John R. LeonettiIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →
In 1971, Carolyn and Roger Perron move their family into a dilapidated Rhode Island farm house and soon strange things start happening around it with escalating nightmarish terror. In desperation, Carolyn contacts the noted paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, to examine the house. What the Warrens discover is a whole area steeped in a satanic haunting that is now targeting the Perron family wherever they go. To stop this evil, the Warrens will have to call upon all their skills and spiritual strength to defeat this spectral menace at its source that threatens to destroy everyone involved.
- 4
Gil KenanDP Javier AguirresarobeIMDb 4.9TMDB 5.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Legendary filmmaker Sam Raimi and director Gil Kenan reimagine and contemporize the classic tale about a family whose suburban home is invaded by angry spirits. When the terrifying apparitions escalate their attacks and take the youngest daughter, the family must come together to rescue her.
- 5
The Orphanage (2007)
J. A. BayonaDP Óscar FauraIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Laura, a former orphan, raises her adopted son Simón together with her husband Carlos in an old house and former orphanage where she was raised. While at the orphanage Simón tells Laura that he has five invisible friends which she believes are a product of his active imagination. Laura decides to reopen the orphanage to cater for disabled children and throws a party. During the party Simón tries to persuade Laura to go and take a look at his friends cabin but she's too busy. Later on she sees a mysterious masked boy and realizes that Simón has also disappeared. Laura feels the presence of other people in the house and months later Laura invites a team of parapsychologists to try to unravel the mystery.
- 6
The Amityville Horror (1979)
Stuart RosenbergDP Fred J. KoenekampIMDb 6.2TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Based on a true story that was claimed by writer Jay Anson, The Amityville Horror is about a large house on the coast of Long Island where newlyweds George and Kathy Lutz and their three children move into the house that they hope will be their dream house which ends up in terror. Despite full disclosure by the real estate agent of the house's history, George and Kathy buy the house. George says, "Houses don't have memories," but they turn to their family priest Father Delaney who believes the house is haunted and performs an exorcism on the house. But satanic forces in the house causes him to become blind and makes him very sick. With the help of another priest Father Bolen and a police detective, George and Kathy face the fears of the house, but not knowing the forces are planning to possess George and then the children.
- 7
Mama (2013)
Andy MuschiettiDP Antonio RiestraIMDb 6.2TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Jeffrey Desange, senior partner of an investment brokerage, has a breakdown after a financial collapse and kills several co-workers and his estranged wife and kidnaps his two young daughters, Victoria and Lily. When they're found five years later, they're taken in by their uncle (their father's twin brother) and his girlfriend. Macabre events soon make the new guardians suspect that a supernatural evil force named Mama has attached itself to the girls.
- 8
Jack SholderDP Jacques HaitkinIMDb 5.5TMDB 5.8See in full on FrameThrower →
A new family moves into the house on Elm Street, and before long, the kids are again having nightmares about deceased child murderer Freddy Krueger. This time, Freddy attempts to possess a teenage boy to cause havoc in the real world, and can only be overcome if the boy's sweetheart can master her fear.
- 9
Haunter (2013)
Vincenzo NataliDP Jon JoffinIMDb 5.9TMDB 6.1See in full on FrameThrower →
SPOILER: In 1985, on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Lisa discovers that she is stuck in time, living the same day over and over with her parents Bruce and Carol and her little brother Robbie. Soon she learns that they are dead and trapped on the day that they were murdered but she finds that she can contact other people. Out of the blue, a stranger comes to her house telling that he is going to fix the telephone line but indeed to threaten her to stop the contacts. Lisa finds that she is contacting victims of the killer in different timelines including the future, and the killer's name is Edgar. Will be possible to Lisa to stop the evil Edgar?
- 10
André ØvredalDP Roman OsinIMDb 6.2TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →
It's 1968 in America. Change is blowing in the wind...but seemingly far removed from the unrest in the cities is the small town of Mill Valley where for generations, the shadow of the Bellows family has loomed large. It is in their mansion on the edge of town that Sarah, a young girl with horrible secrets, turned her tortured life into a series of scary stories, written in a book that has transcended time-stories that have a way of becoming all too real for a group of teenagers who discover Sarah's terrifying tomb.
What haunted house films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a haunted house frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — flashlight is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- flashlight5.0×
- house3.8×
- staircase3.3×
- wallpaper2.8×
- boy2.7×
- child2.6×
- door2.5×
- doorway2.1×
How haunted house films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate haunted house from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 26%dayvs 42% baseline
- 29%naturalvs 43% baseline
- 58%low keyvs 40% baseline
- 62%nightvs 43% baseline
- 27%closeupvs 21% baseline
What breaks the pattern
Phantom of the Paradise (1974) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 2,421 frames from 33 films carrying the haunted house label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/haunted-house
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