Evil Dead Rise just hit theaters, and since the new film takes place in an apartment lets count down the best apartment horror films.
Sam Raimi is changing up the evil Dead movies. The other films were usually set in the usual places like a cabin in the middle of the woods, a medieval castle, or a retail store’s storage room. This time, the evil Necronomicon is plopped down in the middle of a city, inside an apartment building. This brings an interesting take on the new film Evil Dead Rise. How do you escape the evil when you’re confined to a single apartment? Let’s see if they took some notes from some of the best apartment horror films.
This film stars an Oscar winner! The one and only Leonardo DiCaprio plays Josh. Before returning home to the big city, his family stops at a rest area. They don’t know that some newly hatched Crites have stowed away in their vehicle. Once they return to their apartment building, the new creatures take over and chow down on anything they can get their mouths on. The residents of the building have to find a way to fend off the balls of teeth until Charlie the bounty hunter can capture them.
A killer terrorizes an apartment building. He can get into their apartments and kill them off with the use of standard tools. The residents begin to wonder if the killer could be someone living among them. This film is the usual slasher exploitation film that was starting to become popular during the era. It just missed out on the slasher boom that would happen in the wake of Halloween, which came out just a few months later. It was remade in 2004 and directed by horror master Tobe Hooper.
A news reporter is covering a series of murders in Miami. Soon she begins to think a creepy man in an apartment building across from hers is the killer. She becomes the target of her attention as her reports gain popularity on TV. Quickly she begins to worry about the safety of herself and her blind younger sister that lives with her. An interesting slasher film that has a young Jennifer Jason Leigh as the blind sister. It will make you wary of anyone you pass in your apartment hallway.
In the third entry in the franchise; the action is moved from California to the Hancock Building in Chicago. Carol Anne moved in with her aunt and uncle to escape the chaos she experienced in the first two films. Little does she know that Kane has followed her. The film makes excellent use of the city-building setting. There are multiple scenes set in the parking garage and building pool. The varied locations within one building help keep the story from getting stale. It is considered a bad film in the series but worth re-evaluating by horror fans. When you think of the best apartment horror films, this movie immediately jumps to mind.
A young woman moves into a building that has a blind priest living on the top floor. As she moves in, she meets the eccentric characters that live there. The young woman begins to have strange dreams and feels uneasy in the building. It turns out there may be more going on than she realizes. The cast is filled with great actors like Burgess Meredith, Chris Sarandon, Beverly D’Angelo, Christopher Walken, and Ava Gardner. The weirdness is something Evil Dead Rise definitely learned from this movie.
David Cronenberg brought us this tale about an apartment building on an island that aims to be self-sufficient. It has its own grocery store, gym, and offices. Soon a parasite moves among the residents, turning them into sex-crazed maniacs. As the infection spreads, the survivors begin to run out of places to hide. They start trying to fight off the infected while also escaping from the enclosed apartment building. Easily one of the best apartment horror films since the whole thing takes place inside this self-sustaining complex.
In this horror classic, a woman begins investigating a series of murders in a Chicago housing project. She finds that it all connects to an urban legend of a being named Candyman. If you say his name five times into a mirror, he comes to kill you. As she digs deeper, she finds that there is some truth to the legend. She spends a lot of time inside the housing project and finds hidden rooms deep within parts of the building.
It doesn’t matter which version you pick, as they both play out pretty much the same, but I always try to stick with the original before any remake. A news reporter is doing a night where she rides along with the fire department on their emergency calls. They get a strange call to an apartment building. When they arrive, they find multiple people dead and bleeding. Others seem to have been infected with something that makes them go feral and attack people. As they try to leave, they find the army has blocked off all the exits and will kill anyone that attempts to leave the building. Having it so the characters can’t leave the building seems like something Evil Dead Rise learned from.
A group of residents in an apartment building throw a birthday party. The birthday girl is upset and locks herself in her room. She turns on the TV and becomes possessed by a demon shown in the movie. As she rampages through the building, more and more residents become infected. This seems to have the most in common with Evil Dead Rise just based on the trailers released so far. It should be a fun comparison when it debuts.
A young couple hoping to start a family soon moves into an old apartment building. They find their neighbors are somewhat eccentric but enjoy the company. When Rosemary gets pregnant, she starts to notice that she is being cut off from her friends and family. As the baby’s birth nears, things start to get weird, and she begins to believe her neighbors are behind it. When she learns the truth, it will be too late. Classic tale of a woman driven to insanity by those she trusts.
What do you consider the best apartment horror films? Let us know in the comments.