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The Silence of the Lambs is iconic for many reasons, one of which is that it forever holds the title of being the first horror movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
But how well does the movie hold up in 2026? Is it just as scary as it was back in 1991?
Ultimately, The Silence of the Lambs is still a fantastic psychological thriller with unforgettable performances from Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins.
However, Watch With Us would counter and say we’ve got three movies that handily surpass the movie in terms of creepiness.
Argue all you want, but these are our choices.
‘Pulse’ (2001)
When a college student is found hanged in his apartment, a strange, tech-connected plague begins sweeping over the city of Tokyo. Young people experience unsettling visions that seem connected to their computers, and as more people begin to disappear, it becomes evident that something sinister is spreading via the internet and consuming everything it touches. In Pulse, the stories of Michi (Kumiko Asô), Ryosuke (Haruhiko Katô) and Harue (Koyuki) eventually meet as they struggle to find the source of the unseen evil.
After The Matrix made turn-of-the-century tech anxiety into an action-packed hero’s journey, Pulse went and turned it into pure nightmare fuel. The seminal J-horror flick creates a palpable atmosphere of dread free of blood and guts, with director Kiyoshi Kurosawa specializing in drawing fear from simple suggestion. Ultimately, looking back at Pulse’s fantastical interpretation of the evils of the internet now feels unsettlingly prescient.
‘Oddity’ (2024)
An escaped mental patient named Olin Boole (Tadhg Murphy), a recently released patient of Ted Timmis (Gwilym Lee), is assumed to have murdered Ted’s wife, Dani (Carolyn Bracken). One year late and still grieving Dani’s death, Dani’s twin sister, Darcy (Bracken), receives Olin’s glass eye from Ted and uses it to see the final moments of her sister’s death. Armed with new information, Darcy returns to Ted and Dani’s rural country house, the scene of the crime, accompanied by an unnerving plus one: a life-size wooden golem from her collection of supernatural weapons.
Oddity is a highly underrated Irish horror film from 2024 that deserves to reign as one of the most disquieting modern horrors of the past few years. Despite being only 98 minutes, Oddity is a patient, unhurried movie that manifests a compelling sense of suspense through its smart script and cinematography that uses light and space to make viewers feel vulnerable and ill at ease. What’s more, the film is so elegantly constructed that it deploys jump scares that really scare you.
‘Suspiria’ (1977)
Young ballerina Suzy Bannon (Jessica Harper) arrives at the prestigious Tanz Akademie dance school in Germany on a dark and stormy night, where she witnesses another student named Pat (Eva Axén) fleeing the school in a frenzied hurry. Little does Suzy know that both Pat and her friend have been killed by a shadowy figure. Suzy attempts to adjust to her new life at the school but struggles due to frequent nausea, visions and strange sounds that she hears through the halls. Together with her new friend Sara (Stefania Casini), Suzy uncovers the deadly secrets that the school’s instructors are hiding from their students.
Before Suspiria became an austere and unwieldy remake from Luca Guadagnino starring Tilda Swinton and Dakota Johnson, it was a simple, effective giallo that finds its lingering scares through its very simplicity. Less focused on plot or themes, Suspiria feels like gliding through the most beautiful nightmare; pop-art cinematography and candy-colored lighting complement the equally lurid gore, and the iconic score by prog rock band Goblin only enhances the feeling of being caught in a place between worlds.
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