Every horror recommendation list is written by someone trying to prove they're unshakeable. This one is sorted by what you actually want out of an evening, which is usually not to be destroyed.
If you want the aesthetic more than the scares
The Craft is the obvious one and it deserves it — it invented a look that people are still copying thirty years later. The Hunger, for vampires who are unbearably stylish and barely bother being scary. Interview with the Vampire for the same reason with better costumes.
Suspiria, either version, but for opposite reasons: the original for colour so saturated it's almost aggressive, the remake for cold grey dread and a genuinely upsetting final act. Watch the original first.
If you want fun
Jennifer's Body, which everyone got wrong on release and has correctly been re-evaluated since. Fright Night, the 1985 one, which is funnier than you expect. The first Scream, which is still the smartest of them.
These are the ones to put on with other people. They're horror where nobody has a bad night afterwards.
If you actually want to be disturbed
Hereditary, which is the best of the modern lot and which I will not be watching again. Audition, where the first hour pretends to be a completely different film. Martyrs, which I'm listing with a genuine warning attached rather than as a recommendation.
Do not put these on as background. They don't work as background and you'll just be in a bad mood.
The one everyone should see once
Nosferatu, 1922. It's silent, it's over a hundred years old, and it still contains the shot that every vampire film since has been imitating.
Put good music on with it and watch it properly. It's short. It's also the closest thing this whole aesthetic has to a founding document, and almost nobody who dresses like this has actually sat through it.
Pick by mood, not by how scary something is supposed to be. The best horror night is the one where you chose correctly for what you actually had in you that evening.
I take film requests on my page. Frequently bad ones.
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