In the real world, there are people who face true horror every day when they face and struggle to cope with the unimaginable loss of a loved one. I believe that many of the best horror movies are the ones that attempt to capture this kind of experience, funneled through themes of a more heightened or supernatural means. The following are some of my picks for the most acclaimed and frightening thrillers that deeply and tastefully incorporate the topic of grief into their stories.
The A Quiet Place Movies (2018-2024)
Director: John Krasinski, Michael Sarnoski
Starring: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Lupita Nyong’o
What they are about: The presence of vicious extraterrestrials that hunt their prey with sound forces the human race into silence.
Why they are great horror movies about grief: Each installment of this acclaimed, apocalyptic horror movie franchise – including the Abbott Family’s struggles in A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part II and the New York-set prequel spin-off, A Quiet Place: Day One – boasts strong themes of loss and the struggle to cope in a place where you feel you have no voice.
How to watch the A Quiet Place Movies
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Stream | Rent/Buy | DVD/Blu-ray | Header Cell - Column 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Quiet Place (2018) | Stream A Quiet Place on Paramount+ | Rent A Quiet Place on Amazon | Get A Quiet Place on Blu-ray on Amazon | Row 0 - Cell 4 |
| A Quiet Place Part II (2021) | A Quiet Place Part II on Paramount+, A Quiet Place Part II on Netflix | Rent A Quiet Place Part II on Amazon | Get A Quiet Place Part II on Blu-ray on Amazon | Row 1 - Cell 4 |
| A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) | Stream A Quiet Place: Day One on Paramount+ | Rent A Quiet Place: Day One on Amazon | Get A Quiet Place: Day One on Blu-ray on Amazon | Row 2 - Cell 4 |
Lake Mungo (2008)
Director: Joel Anderson
Starring: Rosie Traynor, David Pledger
What it’s about: A family speaks to a documentary crew about the strange occurrences in their home that have led them to believe their deceased teenage daughter is trying to reach them.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: The underrated Australian found footage horror movie favorite Lake Mungo is a rare example of a thriller in which the characters hope they are being haunted after experiencing an untimely tragedy.
How to watch Lake Mungo
No One Will Save You (2023)
Director: Brian Duffield
Starring: Kaitlyn Dever
What it’s about: A lone young woman experiences a close encounter with beings from another planet.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: The ominous title of Hulu’s inventive alien invasion film, No One Will Save You (which is dialogue-free and brilliantly relies on its sound design to create tension), not only refers to the protagonists’s quarrel with otherworldly creatures but also her solitary, ostracized existence following a harrowing incident.
How to watch No One Will Save You
Anything For Jackson (2020)
Director: Justin G. Dyck
Starring: Sheila McCarthy, Julian Richings
What it’s about: Audrey and Henry discover a way to bring back their grandson by kidnapping a young woman and inserting his soul into her unborn child.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: The lengths a person would go to reunite with a deceased loved one are explored in Anything for Jackson – a chilling twist on demonic possession movies that is also available with a Shudder subscription.
How to watch Anything for Jackson
- Stream Anything for Jackson on AMC+
- Rent or buy Anything for Jackson on Amazon
- Buy Anything for Jackson on Blu-ray on Amazon
Antichrist (2009)
Director: Lars Von Trier
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg
What it’s about: After their infant son’s death, a couple tries to repair their relationship at an isolated woodland retreat.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: Another thriller with satanic themes that follows the devastating effects of losing a child is Antichrist – a bizarre and shocking movie that was, according to NPR, inspired by Lars Von Trier’s own experience being hospitalized for anxiety.
How to watch Antichrist
The Final Girls (2015)
Director: Joshua John Miller
Starring: Taissa Farmiga, Malin Akerman
What it’s about: A young woman is (sort of) reunited with her late actor mother when she and her friends are transported into the world of the ‘80s slasher movie, Camp Bloodbath, and meets her mom’s character.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: The only horror-comedy movie on this list is The Final Girls, which, according to Creative Screenwriting, Joshua John Miller based on the experience of watching his own late father, Jason Miller, in the 1973 classic, The Exorcist.
How to watch The Final Girls
The Babadook (2014)
Director: Jennifer Kent
Starring: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman
What it’s about: A widowed mother suspects she and her son are being preyed upon by a ghastly storybook character.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: What makes the eponymous entity from The Babadook one of modern horror’s greatest villains is how it could be interpreted as a manifestation of the main character’s pain and resentment, which she must learn to live with by the end of the film.
How to watch The Babadook
- Stream The Babadook on Netflix
- Stream The Babadook on Pluto TV
- Rent or buy The Babadook on Amazon
- Buy The Babadook on Blu-ray on Amazon
The Changeling (1980)
Director: Peter Medak
Starring: George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere
What it’s about: A music professor rents a Seattle mansion that is also occupied by the spirit of a boy needing his help to reveal the mystery behind his death.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: Arguably, the most horrifying scene from the haunted house classic The Changeling is its first, in which John Russell witnesses his wife and daughter’s death – a tragedy he attempts to cope with by helping the ghost haunting his house.
How to watch The Changeling
- Stream The Changeling Tubi
- Rent or buy The Changeling on Amazon
- Buy The Changeling on Blu-ray on Amazon
The Descent (2005)
Director: Neil Marshall
Starring: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza
What it’s about: On a cave-diving expedition, a group of friends become trapped in unexplored territory with vicious nocturnal creatures.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: Also beginning with the death of the main character’s spouse and child, The Descent is considered one of the best horror movies of the 2000s for the way the underground maze symbolizes grief's seemingly inescapable nature – made more apparent in Neil Marshall’s unrated director’s cut, featuring a more unsettling, heartbreaking, and widely preferred alternate ending.
How to watch The Descent
Don't Look Now (1973)
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Starring: Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland
What it’s about: Following their young daughter’s fatal drowning, a married couple takes time away in Venice, but the painful memory only continues to haunt them through logic-defying circumstances.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: Grief can lead to (or even be a form of) obsession and both are central themes of one of the best horror movies of the 1970s, Don’t Look Now – a mind-bending, Hitchcockian nightmare based on Daphne Du Maurier’s story.
How to watch Don’t Look Now
- Stream Don't Look Now on Pluto TV
- Rent or buy Don’t Look Now on Amazon
- Buy Don’t Look Now on Blu-ray on Amazon
A Ghost Story (2017)
Director: David Lowery
Starring: Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara
What it’s about: The spirit of a deceased composer, literally dressed in a white sheet, continues to haunt his wife in the years after his death
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: The conceit of the acclaimed A24 movie A Ghost Story sounds a bit comical from a visual standpoint but this interpretation of the afterlife achieves a transcendent, deeply thought-provoking exploration of the need to preserve one’s legacy beyond life and the healing power of time.
How to watch A Ghost Story
- Stream A Ghost Story on Max
- Rent or buy A Ghost Story on Amazon
- Buy A Ghost Story on Blu-ray on Amazon
The Invitation (2016)
Director: Karyn Kusama
Starring: Logan Marshall-Green, Tammy Blanchard, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Michiel Huisman
What it’s about: Years after he and his former wife lose their son, a man attends a dinner party hosted by his ex and her new lover where he becomes overwhelmed with the feeling that something is wrong.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: The insurmountable challenge to accept one’s grief is explored in one of the greatest horror movies from a female director, The Invitation – a scintillating masterpiece of slow-burn horror praised for its brazen depiction of desperation’s potentially dangerous influence.
How to watch The Invitation
- Stream The Invitation on Amazon Prime
- Stream The Invitation on Tubi
- Buy The Invitation on Blu-ray on Amazon
Hereditary (2018)
Director: Ari Aster
Starring: Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Gabriel Byrne
What it’s about: Following a horrific tragedy, a woman and her family’s struggle to cope escalates to increasingly damaging levels.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: Sometimes, the struggle to process grief stems from a strained relationship with a deceased loved one, which Hereditary initially addresses before evolving into a hopeless downward spiral that is considered one of the best A24 horror movies ever.
How to watch Hereditary
Midsommar (2019)
Director: Ari Aster
Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor
What it’s about: Longing for comfort from her longtime boyfriend, a grief-stricken young woman follows him and his friends to Sweden for a seemingly idyllic cultural festival.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: Ari Aster further cemented himself as a modern trauma auteur with his sophomore effort, which wastes absolutely no time establishing the source of our protagonist’s grief, only to show her finally achieve solace in a most unsettling way in the bittersweet (emphasis on “bitter”) Midsommar ending.
How to watch Midsommar
The Night House (2021)
Director: David Bruckner
Starring: Rebecca Hall, Sarah Goldberg, Vondie Curtis-Hall
What it’s about: A widowed teacher’s own uncertainties about the afterlife make it difficult to cope with her husband’s suicide, until she begins to suspect his spirit lingers in their lakeside home.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: CinemaBlend's Eric Eisenberg chose The Night House as the best horror movie of 2021 for its profound symbolization of the darkness people struggle to overcome in the wake of tragedy, as expressed in its chilling final reveal which Hall requested to have changed from the original script.
How to watch The Night House
The Orphanage (2007)
Director: J.A. Bayona
Starring: Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayo
What it’s about: A woman searches for her missing son, whom she believes was abducted from the home for orphaned children where she grew up.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: From producer Guillermo del Toro, the Spanish-language thriller The Orphanage sees our protagonist’s desperate search go as far as calling – something parents of missing children have been known to do in real life – which results in some dark discoveries.
How to watch The Orphanage
Pet Sematary (1989)
Director: Mary Lambert
Starring: Dale Midkiff, Denise Crosby, Fred Gwynne
What it’s about: A doctor loses his young son not long after learning a burial ground that can resurrect the dead lies near his new home.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: Stephen King’s 1983 novel Pet Sematary, which was first adapted for film in 1989, sees the grieving protagonist make a decision that may seem unimaginable to some, but sympathetic to others who may wonder if they would do the same despite its dire consequence.
How to watch Pet Sematary
- Stream Pet Sematary on Paramount+
- Stream Pet Sematary on Pluto TV
- Rent or buy Pet Sematary on Amazon
- Buy Pet Sematary on Blu-ray on Amazon
Run Rabbit Run (2023)
Director: Daina Reid
Starring: Sarah Snook, Lily LaTorre
What it’s about: Single mother Sarah tries to understand why her daughter, Mia, suddenly prefers to be called “Alice.”
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: Writer Hannah Kent told HorrorBuzz that Run Rabbit Run, one of the best horror movies on Netflix, is about the uncomfortable topics that some parents are forced to confront and how they can be linked to painful memories or mistakes.
How to watch Run Rabbit Run
We Are Still Here (2015)
Director: Ted Geoghegan
Starring: Andrew Sensenig, Barbara Crampton
What it’s about: When a married couple senses a spiritual presence in their new home, they immediately suspect it is their son, who recently died in a car crash.
Why it is a great horror movie about grief: While the spiritual presence in We Are Still Here is not the one its main couple hopes for, their hope to reunite with their son gives the indie ghost story an unexpected level of depth and heart.
How to watch We Are Still Here
- Stream We Are Still Here on Amazon Prime
- Stream We Are Still Here on Tubi
- Buy We Are Still Here on Blu-ray on Amazon
For me, the best kind of scary movies are the ones that address real, uncomfortable topics amid the escapist fantasy elements. As such, I consider these horror films that address grief to be among the strongest.
