10 Terrifying Movies Like The Conjuring You Must See

It’s possible that Movies Like The Conjuring is James Wan’s best and most perfectly performed horror movie to date. It came out the same year as Wan’s follow-up to Insidious, which is one of the scariest PG-13 horror movies ever. It beat out the creative, colorful, and creepy follow-up with classic techniques, hair-raising tension, and blood-chilling scares. The movie is just plain scary. It was a classic in a time of found-footage movies. It was Wan’s first R-rated movie since Dead Silence (2007) and his first horror movie without writing partner Leigh Whannell since his first movie as a director in 2000.

After eight years, The Conjuring has inspired three main series movies, a spin-off trilogy, an origin story, and a Hispanic folklore horror movie that is only loosely linked. There are still several more related movies in the works. Except for The Exorcist, they all have certain people, ideas, and colors in common. Things that are cursed, faith that is used as a weapon, and possessed people are common themes. These are tried-and-true supernatural horror structures that are very interesting when the artists can communicate clearly through the medium.

Here are a few movies that are similar to the 2013 hit in terms of being scary, having great special effects, and being about ghosts. All of these scary stories have parts of what made movies like The Conjuring so great. Some have similar strengths, and some have similar tones.

10 Terrifying Movies Like The Conjuring:

1. The Exorcist (1973):

The Exorcist is about a girl named Regan, who is 12 years old, and starts acting in strange and unpredictable ways. After trying all of the medical options, her mother asks two priests to help her perform an exorcism when it becomes clear that Regan is possessed by a demon.

The Exorcist is a true classic in every sense of the word. Movies Like The Conjuring, it’s about religious leaders fighting mysterious beings who have taken over people’s bodies. They have all had a big impact on the horror genre and have tense, suspenseful scenes with demons.

2. The Amityville Horror (1979):

It’s a slow-burning movie from the 1970s that feels a movies like The Conjuring. It’s hard not to think that it had an effect on the modern horror goliath because of how similar the styles are. Both movies were made in the same era, which helps with the visual and atmosphere similarities. However, while The Amityville Horror chooses to be quiet, The Conjuring chooses to be loud. There is no opening scene with Annabelle to set the mood in Amityville. The story builds slowly, with a focus on how the Lutz family’s inexplicable problems make them lose their minds. The Amityville Horror, like many other great horror movies, knows that less is more and that what you don’t know is scarier than what you can measure.

Of course, Ed and Lorraine Warren went to the Lutz’s house after they had left. This is set up in The Conjuring and shown quickly at the beginning of The Conjuring 2. Between seeing The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2, you could watch The Amityville Horror. It would make The Conjuring Universe better and scary.

3. Insidious (2010):

Not only did James Wan and Leigh Whannell work together on Saw, but they also made the Insidious series, which has five movies: Insidious, Insidious: Chapter 2, Insidious: Chapter 3, Insidious: The Last Key, and Insidious: The Red Door. These scary movies, which also star Patrick Wilson from “The Conjuring” and Rose Byrne (before she gives up the role to Lin Shaye’s character as a demonologist), are about ghosts and other scary things that happen at night. And James Wan directed the first two!

4. The Pact (2012):

The Pact is about a woman who goes back to the house she grew up in after her mother dies and starts to experience a number of strange and scary things. You can find out about her family’s dark secrets with the help of a detective and a psychic, but they take on too much.

In both movies like The Conjuring and The Pact, there is a haunted house story where sins from the past cause ghosts to appear in the present. In both movies, characters try to understand and stop strange events by getting help from outside sources, like the Warrens in The Conjuring and a detective and a psychic in The Pact.

5. The Beyond (1981):

The Beyond is the first movie in Lucio Fulci’s The Gates of Hell series to make the list. It is a crazy, supernatural, and brutal Giallo horror movies like The Conjuring in more ways than one. Like any good Italian horror movie, the way it was shot, the colors it uses, and the fast pace all add to the scares and deaths. A young woman, played by Catriona McColl, gets a haunted hotel in Louisiana. The plot is a mess, but that’s what the movie is about in general. The people who are fixing up the place have bad luck and misery until a blind psychic tells them the dark past of the evil presence that is killing the living. The movie has some flaws, like silly dubbing and strange cutting, but it still manages to scare everyone who sees it. Body horror, possession, bugs, spiders, jump scares, the dead, and even execution are just some of the horrible things that happen in The Beyond. There’s a reason for all that blood: it builds up each new hell to a climactic, surreal, and rewarding eruption. This Giallo classic will always be valuable thanks to its great score, great practical effects, and nonstop pace.

6. Sinister (2012):

It’s the story of Ellison, a true crime writer, who moves his family into a house where a terrible crime happened. There are a lot of scary and suspenseful times when he finds a box of home movies that put his family in danger.

Because they are curious and look into things, the main characters in both movies accidentally put their families in danger, which makes for a very tense watch.

7. Dead Silence (2007):

One of the pictures on this list that doesn’t have much to do with the others. Fans of James Wan will enjoy seeing Mary Shaw (Judith Roberts) and her scary dolls, which were used as a model for the bad guys in both the Insidious and The Conjuring movies. Not a story about a haunted house, but about a whole town that is being terrorized by killings that no one can explain. Police are chasing Ryan Kwanten’s character, Jamie Ashen, as he looks for the person who killed his wife. Dead Silence is a product of its time. It has an overpowering blue filter and editing that reminds me of the Saw series, which makes sense since James Wan started that franchise too. But the supernatural part of the story, the killer ghost in black with a pale face, and Wan’s style all give signs of what he and writer Leigh Whannell can do in this subgenre.

8. Lovely Molly (2011):

Lovely Molly, directed by Eduardo Sánchez, is about Molly, who just got married and moves into the country house where her father used to live. While she’s there, terrible memories start to come back to haunt her.

Movies Like The Conjuring, Lovely Molly is about a woman who has supernatural events in a house that has something to do with her past. They both look at the idea that personal pain can show up as supernatural events, showing how hard it was for her to stay sane.

9. Deliver Us From Evil (2014):

More than any other movie, this one uses Christianity as a kind of white magic to fight evil. The main idea is that evil can affect people like a virus and pass from one person to another, and the only way to get rid of it is through faith in a supernatural way. What comes next is about as high-class as horror movies get; after all, it was made by Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean). It has a lot of fight scenes, exorcisms, and glass that goes off. This movie is similar to the ones on this list because it has a strong cast, good jump scares, a family love story, and a religious theme. Deliver Us From Evil is different, for better or worse, because it tries to be more than just another big-budget horror movie. Like Seven, it mixes genres and plays with the “based on a true story” trope.

10. Dead Silence (2007):

Dead Silence is directed by James Wan, who also made The Conjuring. It’s about a man who has lost his wife and goes back to his hometown to find out what happened. He is determined to find out if it has anything to do with the ghost of a ventriloquist who was killed.

Since both movies were directed by James Wan, it makes sense to put them on this list. In both movies, supernatural beings are linked to items, like a doll in The Conjuring and a ventriloquist’s dummy in Dead Silence. The stories behind these beings are also explored.

Conclusion:

These ten scary movies are the perfect next step if movies like The Conjuring gave you chills and made you want more scary experiences. The 2013 masterpiece by James Wan has many of the same themes: haunted houses, possessions by demons, cursed items, and the constant fight between good and evil. Everyone who likes horror movies will find something here they like, whether they like the creepy mood of The Amityville Horror, the constant tension in Sinister, or the stylish gore in The Beyond.

All of these movies have one thing in common: they all make the supernatural seem real, they use exciting plots, and they look at fear that comes from both the supernatural and the mental. If you movies like The Conjuring dealt with faith, family, and fear, you have to read these scary stories. They will keep you up at night and make you worry about every creak in your house.

Don’t just settle for one scary movie—get lost in these classics of horror and find out how far the rabbit hole of fear goes.

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