Revenge movies can be some of the most horrifying and fear-inducing in the horror movie genre. These movies can also take many different forms, from horror thrillers and suspense horror movies to slashers and torture porn. In recent years, they have also been elevated to the level of critically acclaimed masterpieces.
Many revenge movies live in a world of action thrillers, such as Death Wish and Peppermint, while others are just gruesome exploitation efforts like I Spit on Your Grave. However, some revenge movies are so scary that even innocent viewers might be keeping a light on in the room after watching them.
Ma (2019)
Blumhouse knows how to make movies that will make money and entertain audiences. In 2019, it released none of its low-budget horror movies with an Oscar-winning actress in the lead role. In Ma, Octavia Spencer rejoined the director of The Help in a movie where she played a woman whose nickname was "Ma." After buying some underage kids some alcohol, she then gives them a place to party. It was all a devious plan, as these kids' parents humiliated her when they were teens, and now she is seeking revenge against them through their children.
Carrie (1976)
One of the ultimate revenge movies is based on the debut novel by a horror writer named Stephen King. Carrie follows the life of a teenage girl named Carrie White. Her mother has tortured her for years, and her classmates bully her to no end. No one knows that Carrie is developing telekinesis, and when the kids pull a prank at the prom to humiliate her, she unleashes her powers on everyone who ever hurt her.
Audition (1999)
In 1999, Takeshi Miike directed the revenge film Audition. This was a very different type of revenge horror. A widower's son convinced his dad to try to start dating again. Not knowing a good way to meet women, he made the poor decision to hold a fake casting call for a movie to try to find a new girlfriend. He found one, but it turned out to be the worst choice he ever made as she targeted him and began systematically to break him down in the most violent ways possible.
Mandy (2018)
Nicolas Cage has begun to take part in more off-the-wall movies than anyone other former major Hollywood superstar. Many of these movies are exploitation films, whether grind-house, horror, B-grade thrillers, or more fantasy-driven affairs.
For Mandy in 2018, Cage played a logger named Red whose girlfriend was murdered by a cult, burned alive in front of Red. After this trauma, Red finds his crossbow and goes hunting for the killers, taking them out one by one.
Drag Me To Hell (2009)
Sam Raimi returned to horror in 2009 with the movie Drag Me to Hell. While it doesn't get spoken of in the same breath as his Evil Dead trilogy, it has remained a beloved horror film, certified fresh at 92-percent. The movie stars Alison Lohman as a bank employee who turns down an older woman an extension for her mortgage. However, that woman then placed a curse on the girl that would torture her for three days and then send her to Hell for all eternity.
The Ring (2002)
The Ring hit in 2002, part of the United States' craze in remaking the ghost horror movies from Japan. It was the most successful of the remakes, and both the American and Japanese versions were major hits. The storyline was simple. A videotape was passed around. Anyone who watched it would see an image of a girl climbing out of a well and then die seven days later. The entire premise was based on a girl named Samara, who was murdered and thrown into a well, and now seeks vengeance.
Us (2019)
The fact that Us is a revenge movie is a slight spoiler for the ending of the movie. In the film, a family is enjoying their time at a vacation house when doppelgangers show up and attack. What turned out to be a case of one family in danger turned out to be something happening everywhere at that specific time.
This turned out to be a revenge plot for one girl left behind by her family, replaced by her own doppelganger years before. The doppelganger grew up to become a "real person," and the girl was raised underground by other doppelgangers, where she became a leader and set off for revenge against the world that left her behind.
Friday The 13th (1980)
Much like Us, the first Friday the 13th movie was not seen as a revenge movie until the film's final twist. This movie did not include a monstrous slasher killer named Jason Voorhees killing kids, as the rest of the franchise presented. Instead, this movie had the killer as Pamela Voorhees. She was Jason's mother and wanted revenge against the people she blamed for her son's apparent death years before — camp counselors who cared more about having fun than they did in protecting the kids.
The Invisible Man (2020)
A surprising 2020 release, The Invisible Man reversed the trend of the Universal Monster movie remakes flopping. While efforts to reboot the Dracula, Wolf-Man, and Mummy movies were seen as critical and commercial failures, The Invisible Man was a huge success thanks to the entry of Blumhosue into the production of the film. Elizabeth Moss was a woman who escaped from a bad marriage only to find her ex turned himself invisible and set out for revenge.
Black Christmas (2019)
The first Black Christmas movie from the '70s was a basic slasher movie. It predated Halloween and set the stage for the slasher boom that would rage on for the next decade. However, the remake in 2019 was a very different beast. Instead of girls in a sorority house terrorized by a slasher killer, this new version saw the women take the bull by the horns. Instead of running for their lives, the girls here set out to take out the killer, getting revenge for him killing their friends.