The 10 Best Slow-Burn Horror Movies of All Time

- The Witch (2015)
- Director: Robert Eggers
- A Puritan family faces sinister forces in 1630s New England
- Hereditary (2018)
- Director: Ari Aster
- A family unravels dark secrets after the death of their secretive grandmother
- The Shining (1980)
- Director: Stanley Kubrick
- A writer’s descent into madness while caretaking an isolated hotel
- Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
- Director: Roman Polanski
- A young wife suspects her neighbors have sinister plans for her unborn child
- It Follows (2014)
- Director: David Robert Mitchell
- A teenager is pursued by a supernatural entity after a sexual encounter
- The Babadook (2014)
- Director: Jennifer Kent
- A single mother and her son are terrorized by a mysterious presence
- Let the Right One In (2008)
- Director: Tomas Alfredson
- A bullied boy befriends a mysterious girl with a dark secret
- The Wicker Man (1973)
- Director: Robin Hardy
- A police sergeant investigates a missing girl on a remote Scottish island
- The Others (2001)
- Director: Alejandro Amenábar
- A mother protects her photosensitive children in a seemingly haunted house
- Midsommar (2019)
- Director: Ari Aster
- A couple’s trip to a Swedish midsummer festival takes a sinister turn
These slow-burn horror films build tension gradually, creating an atmosphere of dread and unease that lingers long after the credits roll.