Horror movies are highly subjective from the start. A film that scares the heck out of an entire audience could end up hated by another audience for being generic, repetitive, or too intense. What scares one person could disgust another and bore another, and what one person thinks is lame horror could send another into a state of panic.
That fact makes the scores on Rotten Tomatoes so crucial for fans of horror because it takes the average rating of a movie based on both critics and audiences and allows a person to see if the majority of fans were scared and thrilled or bored to tears from the latest horror flicks. Here is a look at the 10 best horror movies of the decade, according to Rotten Tomatoes scores.
THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (2012) - 91%
Released in 2012 by director Drew Goddard and writer Joss Whedon, The Cabin in the Woods was a horror movie that subverted fan's expectations in a good way. The film was a love letter to horror movies and had teens head to a cabin in the woods only to find themselves hunted by monsters.
It turned out that the entire cabin was set up by an organization that held different monsters and creatures captive and set them off after defenseless kids as a sort of experiment. Reviews called the meta-movie funny, strange, and scary.
US (2019) - 93%
Jordan Peele has two movies on this list, and the lower-ranked came in 2019 with Us. The film starred Lupita Nyong'o as a survivor of a scary experience at a carnival as a child only to find that the past had caught back up with her when her family's doppelgangers show up to try to kill them.
Things then went crazy when other doppelgangers came out and started to kill their duplicates, and society began to break down completely. While some critics said it was a step down from Get Out, it was still considered "inventive" and "ambitious."
A QUIET PLACE (2018) - 95%
Office alumni John Krasinski pleasantly surprised audiences when he directed the 2018 horror movie A Quiet Place. The film starred Krasinski and his real-life wife Emily Blunt as parents who are trying to keep their three children alive when aliens arrive on Earth that are blind, but hunts and kills based on sound.
When one of their children dies, they scramble to keep their family together despite a new baby being on the way and the monsters closing in. With an almost silent soundtrack, this is a movie that digs its nails in and won't let go until the end.
WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (2015) - 96%
Moving over to a horror movie from New Zealand, What We Do In the Shadows was one of the funniest and crazily inventive horror films of the past decade. This was a mockumentary directed by Jermaine Clement and Taika Waititi about several vampires who live together in a flat and invite a documentary film crew into their home.
The low budget film was a financial success and ended up gaining a lot of fans in the United States, where it ended up remade as a television series on FX. Critics called it "smart," "fresh," and "bloody good fun."
IT FOLLOWS (2015) - 96%
Released in 2014, It Follows was a small indie horror movie that ended up with a massive cult following. The film, directed by David Robert Mitchell, follows a teenager named Jay who has sex with a boy and then learns that he passed on a curse through intercourse, and she will die if she doesn't pass it on herself.
The film was considered one of the scariest since the evil entity took the form of nightmarish visions and only ambled after the victims, never allowing them to escape and showing their inevitable fate if they don't pass the curse on to someone else. Critics called is smart, original, and terrifying.
A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT (2014) - 96%
One of the best horror movies of the decade, based on Rotten Tomatoes scores, is one that many people missed out on. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is an Iranian vampire western. Any horror fan who has never heard of this movie but read that description should be sold on it immediately.
The film follows a young man who cares for his father and has to deal with threats from a local drug dealer. When a vampire kills the drug dealer, it sets up a series of events where the young man and vampire meet and begin to fall in love. This horror film is as unconventional as they come.
THE LOVED ONES (2012) - 98%
The Loved Ones is an Australian horror movie by Sean Byrne, for which he won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival for the Midnight Madness category. This horror film received its limited theatrical release in the United States in 2012, receiving rave reviews.
The Loved Ones tells the story of a young man who accidentally killed his father in an auto accident and has become withdrawn and suicidal. When he rejects the advances of a girl named Lola for an invitation to the prom because he already has a girlfriend, she kidnaps him and has a demented prom of her own in her house.
THE BABADOOK (2014) - 98%
The Babadook was another Australian horror movie, this one taking the world by storm in 2014. Instead of using cheap horror scares, The Babadook succeeded in scaring audiences with a disconcerting and scary horror tale of a woman who was widowed and raised her son alone.
When her son begins to fear a monster called the Babadook, strange events start to occur in the house. By the end of the movie, the allegories of mental illness and parents wanting to kill their children, fighting that monster inside, are scarier than any supernatural being.
GET OUT (2017) - 98%
The second Jordan Peele movie on this list is Get Out, one of the top critically acclaimed horror movies of the decade, with 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and an Oscar nomination for Best Picture under its belt.
The film was also slightly controversial as it approached the often ignored liberal racism where white people feel they need to "help" others. The film has an interracial couple visiting the white girlfriend's parents with the young man getting a lot more than he bargained for when they set out to help him.
UNDER THE SHADOW (2016) - 99%
Not only is Under the Shadow one of the best horror movies of the decade, but it was almost unanimously loved on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 99% fresh rating out of 88 professional film critics. Even the one rotten vote said it was a movie to be admired.
Under the Shadow was a 2016 horror movie from Iranian horror director Bobak Anvari. It takes in the war-torn post-revolutionary Tehran where a Djinn arrives and haunts a former medical student and her daughter as the war rages around them.