The 41 Best Horror Movies of the 2000s

• Directed By: Greg McClean
• Starring: John Jarratt, Greg McLean, Andy McPhee, Kestie Morassi

Directed by Greg McClean and based on a true story, 2005's Wolf Creek centered around the story of three individuals on a road trip to remote Australia who's goal was to hike the Wolf Creek National Park in the Australian Outback. The trio, all of whom are in their twenties, meet a local bushman when they run into car troubles, and let's just say it's downhill from there. Dangerously downhill. Psychopathic torture downhill. Yeah, very creepy and disturbing considering that it's actually based on real-life events.

• Directed By: Andrew Traucki
• Starring: Maeve Dermody, Diana Glenn, Andy Rodoreda, Ben Oxenbould

Looking back, the original ratings for Black Water weren't that fair in our opinion. Here was the deal. A pregnant woman, her sister, and her boyfriend decide they are going to embark on a boat tour of a mangrove swamp. Why they made that decision exactly? We don't know. Were they not aware that crocodiles sometimes decide to make swamps their habitat? Apparently not. If you guessed that a random killer crocodile becomes a problem for them, you guessed right. As for what happens next, you'll have to watch the movie for that.

• Directed By: Hans Horn
• Starring: Niklaus Lange, Susan May Pratt, Eric Dane, Richard Speight Jr., Cameron Richardson, Alexandra Raach

If you want a horror film from the 2000s that is absolutely maddening, we present to you 2006's Open Water 2: Adrift. Here's what makes the film so frustrating. For starters, you have a group of six friends, all of whom decide to jump off a yacht. Now here's where it gets tricky, not one of those six individuals had the foresight to lower the ladder before they jumped. Not one. This presumably leads to disaster—a disaster you're going to have to watch first hand to see how it all turned out.

• Directed By: Zev Berman
• Starring: Elissa Dowling, Christian Behm, Cassandra Church, Patrick Faucette

2007's Borderline is actually a very interesting story as it's about three American college students head to Mexico to party. One of their friends disappears after a wild night of partying, leading the remaining two to join forces with an ex-cop to search for him. As if that isn't bad enough while looking for the friend, they encounter a human-sacrificing cultist group along the way. Some pretty creepy stuff here.

• Directed By: Courtney Solomon
• Starring: Donald Sutherland, Courtney Solomon, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood

Set in 1800s Tennessee, 2005's An American Haunting covers the case of a spirit that's haunting a family between the years of 1818 to 1820. Personally, we would have had to move, but this family decided to stick it out, and it unfortunately results in the spirit killing one of the family members. Of note: this is the only documented case in US history in which a spirit is verified to have caused a persons death.

• Directed By: Courtney Solomon
• Starring: Michael Reilly Burke, Bot Bliss, Tom Savini

This movie right here is based on the true story of documented serial killer Ted Bundy. That alone should tell you everything you need to know about the levels of creep and disturbing in this film, and we will leave it exactly at that. Personally we can't handle these types of horror films, but if you can, folks have said that this is a solid film.

• Directed By: Mark Pellington
• Starring: Richard Gere, Mark Pellington, Laura Linney, Will Patton, Debra Messing

There's several notable names in 2002's The Mothman Prophecies such as Richard Gere and Debra Messing for example. The film itself was about a grieving journalist struggling to pick up the pieces after the death of his wife. Shortly before her passing in a car accident, she was experiencing visions of a strange moth. Fast forward a couple of years later, the journalist is on assignment in a remote town, and soon finds out that the town has been haunted by something called the "mothman."

• Directed By: Michael Katleman
• Starring: Orlando Jones, Dominic Purcell, Brooke Langton

2007's Primeval is based on a veteran reporter and his team who gets sent out by his station to the African country of Burundi to capture a crocodile. Why exactly this decision was made by the station remains a head-scratcher. Nonetheless, the team is out there dealing with this hellacious crocodile, and that isn't even the worst of their problems. The crew has also got to deal with a very angry and even more dangerous African warlord who's more than happy to welcome them.

• Directed By: Bong Joon-Ho
• Starring: Song Kang-ho, Hae il Park, Bae Doona, Byun Hee-Bong

If you haven't already seen The Host, we recommend giving the film a shot as it's an excellent and got phenomenal ratings. The movie is about a few members of the American military careless dumping chemicals into South Korea's Han River. All appears well until some years later when a jaw-sinking creature emerges to start terrorizing people. This creature is super powerful and has the ability to literally take people by force, which is exactly what he does with a local residents daughter. This is apparently a true story too, which makes the film even more mind-blowing.

• Directed By: Tommy O'Haver
• Starring: Catherine Keener, Elliot Page, James Franco, Bradley Whitford

2007's An American Crime is another maddening film, but one that serves the important lesson of being extra careful who you entrust to watch your children. The movie centers around a divorced mother of several children agreeing to watch the daughters of a couple who are going to travel with a carnival. The woman begins torturing one of the daughters, literally locking her in a basement. Very frustrating, but again a lesson can be learned from this because the film was based on a true story.

• Directed By: Albert Hughes, Allan Hughes
• Starring: Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, Ian Holm, Robbie Coltrane

2001's From Hell sees a young Johnny Depp taking on the role of inspector Fred Abberline, who's on a mission in East London to capture the serial killer Jack the Ripper who's responsible for a series of brutal murders in the area. If you want to see Johnny Depp is one of his finest (and most underrated in our opinion), you've absolutely got to check out From Hell.

• Directed By: Gregory Wilson
• Starring: Blythe Auffarth, Jack Ketchum, Daniel Manche, Blanche Baker

2007's The Girl Next Door is an unbelievably sad horror film based on Jack Ketchum's 1989 novel of the same name. The movie is about a teenage girl being abused at the hands of her caretaker and a bunch of neighborhood boys. Many elements of the film were in line with the novel, which itself was based on the real-life killing of Sylvia Likens, whom the movie is dedicated to.

• Directed By: Darren Lynn Bousman
• Starring: Donnie Wahlberg, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Erik Knudsen, Dina Meyer

Set exactly a year after the events of the first film, SAW II sees Detective Eric Matthews (Wahlberg) and his team on the hunt for Jigsaw. This go-round, Jigsaw is taking the torment to another level as he's got eight people (one of which is Detective Matthews' own son Daniel) trapped in an abandoned house, and is essentially testing them to see who can take the dangerous nerve gas being pumped throughout the house. SAW II was a pretty good sequel actually.

• Directed By: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
• Starring: Jeremy Renner, Robert Carlyle, Imogen Poots, Rose Byrne, Mackintosh Muggleton, Idris Elba

The 2007 sequel to 28 Days Later took place six months after the events of the first film (which saw the entire population of the British Isles almost wiped out completely). With the U.S. Army making the official declaration that it is safe to return to normal operations, the soldiers arrive to start assisting with the reconstruction, only for one of the soldiers to be carrying the secret that the virus is not just back, but stronger and bigger than what it ever was before.

• Directed By: Michael Dougherty
• Starring: Quinn Lord, Anna Paquin, Dylan Baker, Brian Cox

There's five interwoven stories at the center of 2007's Trick 'r' Treat, all of whom show there to be a connection with the very real ghosts and goblins the small town they live in is facing. This film will take you through each story individually, which will show you the life of a high school principal who has a double life as a serial killer, what happens when you extinguish a Jack-o-Lantern before midnight, and a run-in between grumpy hermit's encounter and a trick-or-treater with ulterior motives. Trick 'r' Treat was an interesting take on the way horror movies are traditionally approached, and it worked out well.

• Directed By: Mary Harron
• Starring: Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Reese Witherspoon, Samantha Mathis, Jared Leto, Chloë Sevigny

There's a whole new generation that got to experience the brilliance of 2000's American Psycho thanks to a clip from the movie going viral on TikTok earlier this year. The cult-classic is set in late 1980s NYC, and stars Christian Bale living a double life as a serial killer. This film will captivate you from start to finish as it takes you into the investigation of the serial killer and how those around him begin to expect that something may be off. Like we just said, this film is a cult-classic, that means if you can't officially claim yourself as a horror lover if you haven't seen it.

• Directed By: Dennis IIiadis
• Starring: Sara Paxton, Garret Dillahunt, Tony Goldwyn, Monica Potter, Aaron Paul

The Last House on the Left is another cult-classic from the 2000s that is a must-watch if you are a lover of the horror genre. Released in 2009, the film starred Sara Paxton as an unsuspecting young woman on her way to a holiday trip at a lake house who gets kidnapped and left for dead along with her friend. The woman escapes and makes her way back home, only to find out that her parents have offered hospitality to the very same individuals that kidnapped her. The Last House on the Left is another film that is a bit maddening at times, but still very much a good watch.

• Directed By: Jaume Collet-Serra
• Starring: Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Paris Hilton, Jared Padalecki

2005's House of Wax is an entertaining film about a group of college students who get stuck with a flat tire while on their way to school football game. The only place available for them to seek help is this local wax museum that appears to be abandoned, and they soon find out that the displays in the museum aren't really...displays. In fact, what the group is about to discover is that the museum is actually being haunted by the rather crazy twin brothers who run it. This movie is so unbelievably 2005, but that's part of what makes it a fun watch.

• Directed By: Zack Snyder
• Starring: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Ty Burrell, Kevin Zegers

You had to be around in the year 2004 to know the true impact of Dawn of the Dead. If you weren't, then the next best thing is to watch the film for yourself so you can see what mid-2000s horror was like. Dawn of the Dead centers around a zombie neighbor (Polley) who escapes and finds out that her neighborhood is basically zombieland/the walking dead. The girl teams up with a local policeman (Rhames), and the pair heads to take refuge at the mall where they join forces with the other uncontaminated peeps to fight the "dead." You had to be there...you had to be there.

• Directed By: Brad Anderson
• Starring: David Caruso, Peter Mullan, Stephen Gevedon, Brendan Sexton III

Taking it back to 2001, Session 9 is a film that still has folks mystified as it's about an asbestos cleaning crew working inside an abandoned insane asylum. Apparently this is a place that people avoid like the plague in the Danvers, Massachusetts area, and the group is about be greeted by some new visitors from the past that makes their tensions rise even more. If this sounds like a living nightmare, this indeed, Session 9 is a film about a living nightmare for some individuals.

• Directed By: Jaume Collet-Serra
• Starring: Isabelle Fuhrman, Vera Farminga, Aryana Engineer, Peter Sarsgaard

Another good horror movie that came out at the tail end of the 2000s is Orphan, which stars Isabelle Fuhrman as an adopted girl named Esther. The couple/new parents of Esther are at first very taken with her, but began to suspect there's way more to this child then meets the eye when dangerous activities begin happening around them. Needless to say, Esther isn't the sweet innocent child they originally thought her to be, which makes Orphan a solid watch.

• Directed By: Olatunde Osunsanmi
• Starring: Milla Jovovich, Will Patton, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Elias Koteas

Also from 2009 is The Fourth Kind, which stars Milla Jovovich as a psychologist who's investigating the large amount of population who's gone missing in and around Nome, Alaska since the 1960s. No answer has ever been found despite the FBI being involved in the investigations at one point, that is until the doctor discovers alien abduction has been at play while treating her one of her patients. Another good watch for the Halloween season if you haven't already seen it.

• Directed By: James Wan
• Starring: Ryan Kwanten, Joan Heney

2007 was also a good year for horror films, and one of those movies to come out of that period was Dead Silence. Starring Ryan Kwanten and Joan Heney, Dead Silence is a man named Jamie Ashen (Kwanten) who returns to his hometown to investigate the murder of his wife. While there, he encounters upon the legend of a murdered ventriloquist (Heney) whose presence is still haunting the town. Ashen is about to find out that this hometown is haunted, and if he isn't careful, he's about to become the latest victim.

• Directed By: James Wan
• Starring: Leigh Whannell, Cary Elwes, Monica Potter, Makenzie Vega

And since we're on the topic of James Wan, now would be a good time to refer back to the original Saw from 2004 where we get introduced to Jigsaw by way of him trapping a photographer (Whannell) and an oncologist (Elwes) in an absolutely disgusting (and we do mean disgusting) bathroom. Not only that, but Jigsaw is also forcing the oncologists wife and daughter to watch his torture through a video as a means to satisfy his sadistic pleasures. This first film from 2004 is what kicked off the four-part franchise.

• Directed By: Neil Marshall
• Starring: Rhona Mitra, Malcolm McDowell, Lee-Anne Liebenberg, Bob Hoskins

Something called the Reaper Virus is at the center of 2008's Doomsday, which first made an appearance 25 years earlier. Now it's two-plus decades later, and the virus has re-emerged in London. Led by Maj. Eden Sinclair (Mitra) and her comrades, the team actively looks for a counteragent against the virus, which is quickly taking over London and looking to establish a new dark age that will threaten the future of humanity.

• Directed By: James Watkins
• Starring: Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender, Jack O'Connell, Finn Atkins

2008's Eden Lake is your average late 2000s slasher film that hones in on young couple taking on a romantic weekend break at a lake house. As we all know, lake houses seem to be a prime target point for criminals, ghouls, ghosts, zombies, and anything else evil you can think of, and the couple end up in a fight for their lives when they are terrorized by a group of vicious delinquents seemingly for no good reason at all other than the fact that these individuals are looking for someone to take their evil fantasies out on.

• Directed By: Matt Reeves
• Starring: Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Odette Yustman

2008's Cloverfield is about a group of young New Yorkers having the time of their lives at a party, completely oblivious to what's ahead for them. What is next for them you ask? Well, only the most terrifying night of their lives as a very large creature takes over NYC with death and destruction on his mind. Is Cloverfield a little bit on the ridiculous side at time? Absolutely, but aren't all horror movies to some extent?

• Directed By: Tarsem Singh
• Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Vincent D'Onofrio, Vince Vaughn, Jake Weber

Starring Jennifer Lopez, 2000's The Cell is basically a deeper look into the mind, psyche, and thought process of a serial killer, except the psyche is what holds the key to saving the killer's final victim who is by a miracle still alive. The person tasked with trying to figure out this madness is psychologist Catherine Deane (Lopez), who has essentially figured out how to tap into the unconscious mind of an individual. Can she use her methods to save the final victim? That's for you to watch and figure out.

• Directed By: John Erick Dowdle
• Starring: Jennifer Carpenter, Steve Harris, Jay Hernandez, Joey King

Quarantine probably hits a little too close to home considering the events we've experienced to start the 2020s, so completely understand anybody who wants to skip this one. That said, the film is still regarded as one of the best horror-wise from the 2000s as it zeroes in on a reporter and a camera man investigating a Los Angeles apartment they later find to have been sealed by the CDC. What's more, they get attacked by a woman while on the scene which leads to deeper questions as to what's really been going on and what the CDC has been hiding.

• Directed By: Bill Paxton
• Starring: Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, Powers Boothe, Matt O'Leary

2001's Frailty is kind of a wild film that's slightly hard to explain. We'll give it our best shot though. The movie is basically about a man that suddenly becomes compelled to become a serial killer as a method of destroying anybody that is revealed to him as being "demon." The man has two sons, one of which respects his cause, and the other who just can't accept what his father is doing. Years later the latter confesses to the police about his father's crimes, which leads to even more twists and turns. Yeah, there's a lot to follow here. Still a good movie however.

• Directed By: Guillermo del Toro
• Starring: Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones, Ariadna Gil

Set in the year 1944, Pan's Labyrinth is about a group of soldiers in Spain being sent to a remote forest to deal with Allies that have invaded Nazi-held Europe. At the middle of this story is the 11-year-old stepdaughter of a captain who has born witness to her stepfather's sadistic ways, and is thus drawn into the magical mythical world of Pan's Labyrinth. Side note: The cinematography on this film is beautiful—it looks like it fits right into the year of 2023.

• Directed By: Christophe Gans
• Starring: Sean Bean, Radha Mitchell, Jodelle Ferland, Laurie Holden

2006's Silent Hill stars Radha Mitchell as a mother who decides to take her daughter to a faith healer as a final attempt to save her dying daughter. On the way to the healer, the mother and daughter wind up in a creepy town called Silent Hill, which is a town surrounded by darkness to say the least and fighting survivors to save the least. Let's just say, there's a reason why this place is called Silent Hill, and it lives up to its reputation.

• Directed By: Marcus Nispel
• Starring: Jessica Biel, Mike Vogel, Jonathan Tucker, Andrew Bryniarski

2003's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a solid remake of the original classic in which a group of young travelers encounter an isolated home in Texas while passing through. The exact reason why you should leave places like these alone, this house just so happens to belong to a bunch of killers, the most notable of which is a masked killer known as Leatherface (Bryniarski). Now the group of friends have to got to fight for their lives in battle for survival. Once again, this is why you leave abandoned spots alone.

• Directed By: Bryan Bertino
• Starring: Alex Fisher, Peter Clayton-Luce, Scott Speedman, Liv Tyler

In 2008's The Stranger, Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman play a couple wanting to enjoy a relaxing weekend at the family vacation home, but as expected the weekend turns out to be anything other than relaxing as they have to deal with a dangerous woman who arrives on their doorstep. From there, the situation spirals downward which includes accidentally killing a friend, and having to deal with three masked intruders that are out to kill them. The weekend from hell that's for sure.

• Directed By: Ryuhei Kitamura
• Starring: Bradley Cooper, Vinnie Jones, Lesile Bibb, Roger Bart

Starring Bradley Cooper, 2008's The Midnight Meat Train sees Cooper starring as a struggling photographer named Leon Kaufman. When Kaufman meets an art gallery director things seem to be looking up for him professionally, but the events turn in the wrong direction when he encounters a serial killer on the subway. Now this isn't the typical serial killer chasing a victim horror story, Kaufman gets pulled into the killer's world, and begins to spiral down a dark direction.

• Directed By: Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig
• Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Isabel Lucas

2009's Daybreakers stars Ethan Hawke as a vampire hematologist named Edward that develops a blood substitute to solve issue of a blood shortage after a plague has turned most of the world into vampires. Along the way, Edward meets two fugitives with the claim to have a possible cure for the problem, and he joins forces with them to try and save the world. Does it work? You'll have to see how it plays out.

• Directed By: Eli Roth
• Starring: Eli Roth, Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Barbara Nedeljáková

Eli Roth and Derek Richardson star as two best friends, Josh and Paxton, who decide they are going to embark on a backpacking trip across Europe to enjoy their summer across college. While in Amsterdam, they meet another backpack traveler from Iceland, and together they wind up investigating a Slovakian hostel where they become engrossed in a dangerous world.

• Directed By: Gore Verbinski
• Starring: Naomi Watts, Daveigh Chase, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman

2002's The Ring is a highly regarded film from the early 2000s that sees Naomi Watts as a newspaper reporter investigating the mysterious death of four teenagers that was foreshadowed by a videotape predicting the event the week before. Apparently anybody that watches the tape has one week to live, and once the reporter watches the tape, it leaves her with exactly one week to figure out the mystery.

• Directed By: James Wong
• Starring: Ali Larter, Devon Sawa, Tony Todd, Kerr Smith

Some consider Final Destination to be a horror film, whereas others think it's strictly a thriller without the horror. Whatever the case may be, Final Destination is about a man who experiences a premonition about a plane exploding shortly after take off. He and several others get off the plane which indeed explodes after take off, and while they have escaped death for the time being, their's a grim reaper that's out to get them.

• Directed By: Iain Softley
• Starring: Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, Peter Sarsgaard, Joy Bryant, John Hurt

Starring Kate Hudson as a nurse living in New Orleans that quits her job at a hospice to become a house nurse for an elderly woman, 2005's The Skeleton Key is a whirlwind as the nurse discovers a bunch of strange artifacts in the woman's house, and realizes that not only does the house hold a bunch of mysteries, but that the woman she's watching may not be as innocent and nice as she proclaims.

• Directed By: Karyn Kusama
• Starring: Megan Fox, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Brody, Johnny Simmons

Of course we had to save the best for last! If you were wondering what horror movie it was exactly that I actually wanted to see first, it was none other than 2009's Jennifer's Body, the film that stars Megan Fox as a teenage girl who gets possessed by demon and starts eating the male population in the school. One of these days we will put official respect on Jennifer's Body being one of the best horror films to come out of the 2000s, and an absolute cult classic.