Horror movies need a great concept to succeed, but having an interesting premise is far from a guarantee for quality in the genre. Perhaps more so than any other film genre, horror movies experiment with high-concept ideas, allowing for unbridled room for creativity. As great as some loglines for horror movies might sound on paper, poor execution can still muddle them just like any other movie, leading to some painful missed opportunities for greatness in the world of scary entertainment.
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Horror movies can be subject to the same bad filmmaking pitfalls as any other movie, including disappointing performances, poor cinematography, awkward editing, and stunted writing, just to name a few. Films in the genre admittedly get more leeway than other types of movies, especially with a great concept. But no matter how creative a premise, a bad execution can bring down what might have been a life-changing horror movie to a forgettable misfire.
You are watching: 10 Horror Movies With Great Concepts, But Poor Execution
10
The Nun
Fumbles the major appearance of a terrifying demon
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The Nun
R
Horror
Supernatural
Thriller
5/10
3/10
Release Date
September 7, 2018
Runtime
96 Minutes
Director
Corin Hardy
Writers
James Wan, Gary Dauberman
Sequel(s)
The Nun II, The Conjuring 2
Cast
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Bonnie Aarons
-
Charlotte Hope
The Nun is a supernatural horror film by director Corin Hardy. When a young nun inexplicably takes her own life in a Romanian monastery, the Vatican sends a priest with a haunted past and a nun on the threshold of her final vows to investigate. Together, they uncover the order’s unholy secret. Risking not only their lives but their faith and very souls,
Franchise(s)
The Conjuring
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After her first appearance as the surprise twist villain pulling the strings of The Conjuring 2, Valak, also known as The Nun, became one of the most terrifying demons in the lore of the Conjuring universe. Her unsettling visage and clever jumpscares meant that she was destined for a solo movie appearance, and that’s exactly what the franchise delivered with The Nun. This prequel explores Valak’s origins as a malevolent entity with a history of scares dating all the way back to World War II.
The logic behind Valak’s methods of murder and how one might go about banishing her from the Earth left a lot to be desired.
Sadly, The Nun doesn’t have a strong story to go with its intriguingly spooky antagonist. The logic behind Valak’s methods of murder and how one might go about banishing her from the Earth left a lot to be desired, and the film relies far too heavily on the jumpscares the series has become known for, creating a by-the-numbers ebb and flow to the horror that can be almost mathematically predicted. The Nun herself is still a terrifying-looking demon, but her solo movie failed to properly flesh out her backstory or develop her creep factor further.
9
Lights Out
Simply isn’t scary enough to back up its creativity
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Lights Out
PG-13
Horror
6/10
Release Date
July 22, 2016
Runtime
81minutes
Director
David F. Sandberg
Writers
Eric Heisserer
Cast
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-
Billy Burke
-
Lotta Losten
The 2016 horror movie Lights Out sees Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) face the evil entity that torments her little brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman) with the power of literal darkness playing against her. Lights Out is director David F. Sandberg’s feature film debut, made possible by the success of his 2013 short film of the same name.
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A horror movie might be perfect in every other regard, but if it isn’t scary, it can still be considered a failure. This is the fate of Lights Out, a cleverly written and conceived story that doesn’t go far enough to actually frighten its audience. The film centers on a young woman who has to protect herself and her half-brother from a vengeful spirit attached to her family. The gimmick is that the poltergeist can only manifest itself in the absence of light, making any shadow a possible threat.
Lights Out is quite creative with the ways it’s able to play with various light sources hiding or revealing the dreadful Diana, who has an enjoyable mystery to her origins to uncover. Despite all of these strengths, Lights Out simply doesn’t find any good scares barring the opening scene, falling back on tired and predictable horror movie clichés and revealing too much of Diana’s so-so design, which works better as a silhouette. Pepper in a controversial ending, and Lights Out might have been better off staying a short film.
8
Before I Wake
A rare miss from a veritable horror master
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Before I Wake
PG-13
Horror
Documentary
Fantasy
Thriller
Release Date
April 7, 2016
Director
Mike Flanagan
Writers
Mike Flanagan, Jeff Howard
Cast
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-
Jay Karnes
-
Thomas Jane
-
Scottie Thompson
-
Jacob Tremblay
Before I Wake is a 2016 supernatural horror film directed by Mike Flanagan. The story follows a young couple, played by Kate Bosworth and Thomas Jane, who adopt an orphaned boy named Cody. They soon discover that Cody’s dreams manifest physically while he sleeps, bringing both wondrous and nightmarish consequences. The film explores themes of loss, fear, and the power of imagination.
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Helmed by visionary horror director Mike Flanagan, the success of 2016’s Before I Wake should have been a done deal. The film centers on a couple who adopt a child after the death of their own son, only to learn that their new charge has supernatural abilities that allow him to manifest his dreams into reality while sleeping. This starts off as a wonderful gift, but things devolve into chaos as his nightmares seep into real life to terrorize his new parents.
A horror movie that explores dreams might have limitless potential, but Before I Wake is painfully limited in scope for how wide the possibilities are.
The film has some great performances, but they aren’t enough to balance out the single lame antagonist that haunts the troubled Cody’s nightmares, “The Canker Man”, who is defeated in an anticlimactic friendship-is-magic deus ex machina. While Before I Wake might have Mike Flanagan’s signature directorial mastery, it isn’t creative enough to fully mine the genius premise.
7
Horns
Doesn’t live up to the thrills of the book
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Horns
r
Horror
Thriller
Release Date
October 30, 2014
Runtime
123minutes
Director
Alexandre Aja
Writers
Keith Bunin
Cast
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Daniel Radcliffe
Daniel Radcliffe stars in Horns as Ig Perrish, a man who grows a pair of horns that make people confess their deepest secrets and uses them to uncover the truth about the murder of his girlfriend. The 2013 horror comedy features Max Minghella, Joe Anderson, and Juno Temple in supporting roles.
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Movies based on literary source material frequently have to battle with the supposition that the latter is always better, even in cases where it isn’t true. Sadly, Horns is definitively on the losing side of the argument, failing to recapture what made the novel by Joe Hill of the same name such a success. The story concerns a young man who becomes the prime suspect of his girlfriend’s murder despite his innocence. More importantly, he’s suddenly grown two devilish horns on his head that allow him to unearth the deepest, darkest secrets of other people.
Using these powers to attempt to prove his innocence, Daniel Radcliffe’s Ig Perrish presents an enjoyable protagonist with a rock-solid performance from the Harry Potter star. Sadly, the performances are the only great thing about Horns, which fails to craft an intriguing mystery and over-relies on cheap dark humor. None of the book’s penchant for genuine depravity shines through as well in the film’s totally uneven tone, fumbling the tricky balancing act a black comedy requires.
6
Brightburn
Misses an opportunity to dive deeper into the Superman mythos
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Brightburn
R
Horror
Sci-Fi
Drama
5/10
6.3/10
Release Date
May 24, 2019
Runtime
90 Minutes
Director
David Yarovesky
Writers
Mark Gunn, Brian Gunn
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Steve Agee
-
Emmie Hunter
The 2019 horror film Brightburn puts a dark spin on the Superman mythos by following a young boy with superhuman powers who uses them for evil instead of good. Directed by David Yarovesky and produced by James Gunn, the film stars Jackson A. Dunn, Elizabeth Banks, and David Denman.
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Long before he was producing films for the hotly-anticipated DCU, comic book savant James Gunn was throwing his name behind lesser-known superhero movies like Brightburn. A totally original horror movie, Brightburn centers on a story similar to that of Superman, featuring a human-like alien boy crash-landing on Earth before being found and raised by a pair of loving parents. Just like Clark Kent, the young Brandon soon discovers he has incredible gifts, but uses them for evil instead of good.
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The concept of a killer child Superman is an interesting one indeed, even if multiple takes on an evil version of the hero have been done before and since. But beyond failing to establish its antagonist as truly unsettling, Brightburn misses an interesting opportunity to question the idea of nature vs. nurture. Brandon suddenly turns evil after the ship he arrived in unlocks some hidden programming in his consciousness. However, it would’ve been far more exciting for him to have simply been a bad apple, despite how loving his foster parents might have been.
5
Don’t Breathe
Gets bored of its intriguing premise far too quickly
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Don’t Breathe
R
Horror
Thriller
7/10
10/10
Release Date
August 26, 2016
Runtime
88minutes
Director
Fede Alvarez
Writers
Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues
Cast
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-
Stephen Lang
-
Katia Bokor
In Don’t Breathe, three friends looking to escape their lot in life decide to act on information that could change their fortunes forever; a blind veteran with hundreds of thousands of dollars lives alone in a deserted neighborhood. When the trio decides to perform the heist on his home, who they thought to be a feeble aging man with no sight turns out to be far more dangerous and capable than they could have anticipated.
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Two years before A Quiet Place, Don’t Breathe was already forcing its protagonists to stay silent as though their lives depended on it. The film centers on a group of dastardly criminals who invade the home of a lonesome blind man. The tables soon get turned when their victim turns off the lights, hunting down the would-be burglars one by one in his pitch-black house. Sadly, the tense cat-and-mouse chase through darkness this idea implies lasts for far too short a time.
The rest of the film’s runtime is devoted to a kidnapping which hopes to horrify via sheer shock factor. The actual scares of Don’t Breathe are tragically weak, and the exciting core idea the film sold audiences on is done away with too soon. The movie eventually devolves into a kidnapping escape from the world’s most persistent and vicious seeing-eye dog in broad daylight. Besides that, the protagonists of Don’t Breathe are perhaps too hard to sympathize with as their plans for home invasion are filed.
4
The Purge
A weak start to a storied series
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The Purge
TV-MA
Horror
Action
Drama
Release Date
2018 – 2018
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Gabriel Chavarria
-
Derek Luke
-
Hannah Emily Anderson
-
Max Martini
The Purge is a dystopian horror series created by James DeMonaco. Set in a near-future America, the show follows various characters as they navigate an annual 12-hour period during which all crime, including murder, is legalized. The series explores themes of violence, social inequality, and the survival instincts of individuals in extreme situations.
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Even if the original movie managed to spawn an entire universe of The Purge sequels, if it wasn’t for the spin-offs, the initial film would have left the titular concept tragically underdeveloped. The famous premise of The Purge imagines that an increasingly fascist United States government allows its citizens to break the law with no consequences for 12 hours one night of the year. Apparently, most people end up being total psychopaths only kept in check by precious laws, and the night soon becomes a fervent rage of pent-up aggression between neighbors.
Over-the-top performances on behalf of the villains are more silly than scary, totally robbing The Purge of any horrific urgency.
The first Purge movie confines itself to being a simple home invasion thriller that doesn’t make use of the fascinating concept at all. Over-the-top performances on behalf of the villains are more silly than scary, totally robbing The Purge of any horrific urgency. The second film, The Purge: Anarchy, is at least able to get better mileage out of the clever concept of a lawless night.
3
In A Violent Nature
Puts too much emphasis on nature
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In a Violent Nature
R
Drama
Horror
Thriller
6/10
6.4/10
Release Date
January 22, 2024
Runtime
94 Minutes
Director
Chris Nash
Writers
Chris Nash
Cast
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Lauren-Marie Taylor
-
Andrea Pavlovic
In a Violent Nature is a 2024 horror-slasher film written and directed by Chris Nash that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024. A group of campers in the middle of the wilderness stumble across a fire watchtower and discover a locket buried beneath its charred ruins. However, by unearthing the locket, they’ve invited the wrath of its prior owner and now must survive the rampage of a supernatural killer looking to retrieve his possession.
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In a Violent Nature is one of the most derivative ideas for a slasher movie ever, telling the story of the strong, silent Johnny, a reanimated corpse who slaughters a group of young partiers who disturb his grave. The novelty that makes the film interesting is the fact that Johnny himself is actually the protagonist, making the film perhaps the first slasher to ever take place largely from the perspective of the killer. Indeed, In a Violent Nature is certainly a unique idea with some creatively barbaric kills to be enjoyed for gore fans.
Sadly, where the film literally stumbles is in its pacing and editing. In addition to the camera following Johnny, it rarely cuts away as it lumbers through the forest along with him for painfully long and boring stretches at a time. Much like Johnny’s victims, huge portions of the film truly should have been left on the chopping room floor. As it stands, In a Violent Nature is surprisingly peaceful for huge swathes of its runtime despite its title.
2
World War Z
Shouldn’t have eschewed book accuracy
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World War Z
PG-13
Horror
Adventure
Action
6/10
7.5/10
Release Date
June 21, 2013
Runtime
1h 56m
Director
Marc Foster
Writers
Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, Damon Lindelof
Franchise(s)
World War Z
Cast
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Brad Pitt
-
Daniella Kertesz
Based on the novel by Max Brooks, World War Z tells the story of a world ravaged by a zombie virus. Former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) braves the apocalypse in search of a cure. He is tasked with finding the point of origin of the virus in order to synthesize a vaccine, reluctantly doing so in exchange for his family’s safety. His search takes him around the world, where he witnesses all the devastation of the apocalypse.
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World War Z, the original novel by Max Brooks, is an incredibly influential piece of zombie media that chronicles a global outbreak of flesh-eating zombies from a realistic historian’s perspective. On paper, a film adaptation of the novel should have become one of the most iconic zombie movies ever put to screen. Unfortunately, Brad Pitt’s World War Z opted to almost completely disregard the book of its namesake, crafting a far less interesting disaster movie that fails to live up to its potential.
Rather than follow the book’s example in following a fictionalized version of the author as he gathers reports on the global outbreak of zombies from various corners of the globe, World War Z centers on a single character, brought to dreary life by one of Brad Pitt’s most uninspired performances ever. The zombies themselves are also quite different from the books, running together as a big tidal wave of bodies that stack up on top of one another in ridiculous proportions. The resulting bland action thriller is a pale imitation of the book’s mastery.
1
Antlers
Doesn’t commit to a direction
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Antlers
R
Horror
Fantasy
Thriller
6/10
Release Date
October 29, 2021
Runtime
99 Minutes
Director
Scott Cooper
Writers
Scott Cooper, Nick Antosca, C. Henry Chaisson
Cast
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-
Jesse Plemons
-
Amy Madigan
From producer Guillermo Del Toro, Antlers centers on a middle-school teacher and a sheriff of a small town who realizes one of her students is experiencing horrifying encounters with an ancestral creature. Crazy Heart and Black Mass director Scott Cooper helm the film with a cast consisting of Keri Russell, Jesse Plemons, and Jeremy T. Thomas.
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Co-produced by the legendary Guillermo del Toro, Antlers makes a strong case for a classic dark re-telling of a well-known folk tale. The film follows a school teacher in rural Oregon who tries to intervene in the lives of one of her students after she picks up on signs of abuse and neglect. However, it’s soon revealed that the boy isn’t just suffering from familial problems, but his being harassed by a dark spirit from Native American folklore, the Wendigo.
Antlers never fully commits to being a psychologically-charged supernatural thriller or a classic creature feature, straddling the line between two different directions for its titular beast. As a result, it fails to exceed in either category, leaving the entire film a middling experience with too many moving parts that overshadow the simplicity of horror. Add in the lackluster First Nations representation and the fact that Wendigos don’t even have antlers in actual Native American mythology, and Antlers is a total misfire of a horror film despite a promising idea.
Source: https://dinhtienhoang.edu.vn
Category: Entertainment