The horror genre is all about shocking an audience, being subversive, trying new and risky things. Sometimes this means that the best horror movies are the ones you’ve missed.
For every The Sixth Sense there’s a corresponding The Thing, only appreciated well after its initial release. Whether they weren’t marketed correctly by the studio, weren’t understood by audiences in their time, or are just better than you remember them being ten or 20 years ago, plenty of great horror movies have simply been missed.
That’s why, for this list, we’ve chosen 13 movies from the current century — so, anything after the year 2000 — that we consider underrated an worth checking out, either for the first time or given another chance. We’ve sifted through two decades of horror movies to find some well-known but disregarded failures, a couple that have already gained cult status, and some underseen gems that are sure to terrify and delight.
There’s a little bit of everything: A great studio superhero movie from the time before the MCU, two surprisingly good remakes that revamp their original material in creative ways, an underappreciated vampire movie, a cringey found footage duology, an alien movie, a shark movie, and an alligator movie that will have you on the edge of your seat (and dreading hurricane season). We hope you’ll find something here to terrify you in ways you never expected.
The 13 Most Underrated Horror Movies of the 21st Century
Whether they weren’t understood by audiences in their time, or are just better than you remember them being ten or 20 years ago, plenty of great horror movies have simply been missed.
Gallery Credit: Emma Stefansky
READ MORE: The 25 Best Horror Movie Posters Ever
Movies That Were Originally Supposed to Have Much Darker Endings
These movies were originally intended to end on down notes. Somewhere along the way, that definitely changed…