Believe it or not, horror films have been thrilling audiences for over 125 years. Considered to be the first horror film ever made, House of the Devil was made in 1896 and featured Mephistopheles, an evil foot soldier of the devil who conjures up some demons to terrify two men who enter his domain — a spooky castle.
The film heralded the start of one of the most beloved genres of film, one which continues to captivate audiences around the world to this day. So-called gore horror movies (or splatter films) have always been a favorite among fans of the genre. They never seem to fade away no matter how disturbing and even gross they can get. In fact, over the years, gory horror movies have tended to keep pushing boundaries when it comes to bloody deaths, mutilation, and every other type of gore filmmakers can think of to include in them.
When used in conjunction with great plots, scripts, and casts, many horror movies have used gore with great effect to create some truly unsettling and terrifying moments in film. However, whether they were great movies or not, this list focuses on the gore alone. Here’s a look at what we think are the goriest horror movies ever, ranked.
Spoiler Alert: Many of the following descriptions contain explicit details of famous scenes from the movies they describe.
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15 Day of the Dead
United Film Company
This 1985 zombie movie was the third movie in the Night of the Living Dead franchise. As gory and intense as the first two movies were, Day of the Dead took these elements to new levels. Since the film centers around a zombie apocalypse, like its predecessors, Day of the Dead had a wealth of opportunities to throw in lots of violent scenes. While it wasn’t universally loved by critics in comparison to the first two movies, Day of the Dead featured more than enough gore to satisfy even the most ardent fan of it.
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Some of its most intense scenes featured people being torn apart, shootings, severed heads, brains, and faces being ripped off. In one of the most disturbing scenes, a character is shot before having his stomach torn open, and is torn limb from limb. All of this intense gore culminates in a long, bloody, and intense final battle scene.
Subsequent remakes of the movie between 2005 and 2018 failed to capture the original movies acclaim. In 2021, a sTV series based on Day of the Dead was released and enjoyed a relatively successful first season. However, at the time of this article, a second season had not yet been confirmed.
14 Saw
Lionsgate Films
This cult classic made in 2004 was an instant hit and a breakout film for the now acclaimed James Wan. His directorial debut, Saw’s popularity saw it go on to spawn an entire franchise that included eight more movies to date.While the movie arguably wasn’t as gruesome as other notable gore horror classics, its unique plot and stellar directing made it an incredibly uncomfortable and suspenseful watch.
That isn’t to say that there was no gore at all. In the movie’s most famous scene, one of the main characters who shares a claustrophobic bathroom cell after being abducted and chained up has to eventually saw of his own leg to escape. The chilling moment creeps under the skin of viewers as it forces one to contemplate being stuck in the same situation.
In many of the sequels, the levels of gore and violence are pushed much further. However, Saw makes the list for its brilliant plot and sheer creepiness that added masterful layers of suspense to the gore, making it one unbearably disquieting film at the time. The franchise’s popularity means it’s been green lighted for a 10th installment in 2023.
13 Zombie 2
Variety Distribution
Horror movies featuring everyone’s favorite undead monsters often provide the best opportunities to add in some gore. This particular classic from Lucio Fulci has a bit of a confusing title, because it’s not actually a sequel. Due to misleading marketing, the Italian film was advertised as a sequel to Dawn of the Dead (which was titled Zombie in Italy). Regardless, the acclaimed 1979 movie Zombie 2 (or Zombi 2) redefined Italian horror cinema in the 1980s through its popularity.
The film featured some pretty intense gore scenes, including an infamous eye-gouging one. It also showcased a scene in which a zombie attacks a shark. Seeing as this was way back in 1979 when CGI wasn’t available, this made for some pretty inventive filmmaking. The movie was rated 18 due to its extreme violence and was also classified as a ‘video nasty.’
12 Martyrs
Wild Bunch
An extreme revenge film, the French horror movie Martyrs polarized audiences and critics for its dark and graphic nature. Deeply psychologically disturbing, the film portrays the horrific revenge plot metered out by a woman and her friend after they track down the family that tortured her as a child.
It features some truly unsettling torture scenes, shootings, and brutal fights to the death. When the film was screened at the Marché du Film(a famous film market in France), it resulted in many people walking out. During other infamous screenings, the film caused people to collapse and throw up due to its highly gory nature and psychologically chilling tropes. While it was categorized as an extremely divisive film, it still received generally good ratings from critics. In 2015, an American remake of the film was released by Anchor Bay Films but was a critical failure.
11 Society
Wild Street Pictures
Society was a 1989 horror movie that featured the tale of a rich kid from Beverley Hills who learns that his family belong to a murderous cult. While it was shot and completed in 1989, the movie had to wait another three years to be released in the USA. Also falling into another subgenre of horror known as body horror, the movie is infamous for some wildly over-the-top gore scenes and extreme body mutilations (not to mention a demonic, blood-soaked orgy).
While many critics categorized it as not being an overly serious film, it was still highly rated in some circles and even cracked some lists for the top 100 greatest horror movies in history. The film was also recognized for its effects and make up. Its most famous scene features a “shunting” or extreme mutilation and deformation of a human body.
10 Hellraiser
Entertainment Film Distributors
Hellraiser is a cult classic based on Clive Barker’s disturbing novella The Hellbound Heart, and tells the dark and twisted tale of a hedonistic man named Frank Cotton who unwittingly unleashes unimaginable pain on himself. By opening a mysterious puzzle box while on a quest to attain new levels of carnal pleasure, Frank summons the Cenobites, a monstrous race of creatures for whom pleasure and pain are indistinguishable.
The Cenobites unleash extreme forms of sadomasochism on Frank and the results make for some often ridiculously gory torture scenes. The film was originally rated X and had to be shortened to have its most explicit and graphic scenes cut in order to be released. The film has spawned multiple follow-up movies. In 2022, the franchise received a reboot also named Hellraiser, which featured a newly imagined crop of Cenobites.
9 Evil Dead (2013)
Sony Pictures
The original Evil Dead movie was released in 1981 and was directed by Sam Raimi. This movie was so gory that it was banned in Britain for many years. However, it also spawned a franchise that has seen multiple follow-up movies. While all of its installments feature extreme levels of gore, the 2013 version of Evil Dead was so violent it had to be cut to ensure it achieved it’s contracted rating which was still an R rating.
Packed with bloody and scary scenes, the movie is highly disturbing and proved to be a worthy reboot of the original, managing to extend on the original’s taste for extreme violence. The upcoming installment titled Evil Dead Rise is scheduled for an April 2023 release date and is slated to be its most extreme version to date.
8 Hostel
Lions Gate Films
The first in a trilogy of gruesome tales of torture for entertainment, Hostel took gore to some chilling heights when it was released back in 2005. The movie, from famed horror director Eli Roth, featured no demons, ghosts, or monsters, and this was perhaps what was most unsettling about it. The plot revolves around two American friends traveling through Europe when they are seduced by two beautiful women but are ultimately trafficked to an international ring that abducts people to be tortured by wealthy clients, who pay for the pleasure of it.
What makes the movie so unsettling is the fact that it delves into the darkest realms of human nature and the willingness of people to harm others for their own gain. In one particularly gory scene, a woman is severely burnt on her face with a blowtorch, leaving her eyeball dangling from its socket, and it’s later cut off with a pair of scissors — truly gruesome stuff.
7 Piranha 3D
The Weinstein Company
As gruesome and bloody as this movie gets, it’s often categorized as a horror-comedy. Despite featuring scenes with plenty of blood, mutilation, and gory deaths, there is a comical edge that runs throughout, often resulting in the audience welcoming the horrific deaths of some characters.
Loosely based on the original Piranha film from 1978, Piranha 3D offered a new entry in the Piranha franchise. It revolves around a host of different characters who all encounter massive schools of prehistoric piranha fish that are released when an Earthquake causes a whirlpool. The vicious creatures wreak havoc on people who are visiting a large lake in Arizona. The deaths and injuries caused by them are often portrayed in comical ways, although the blood and gore value of these scenes are still very high throughout.
6 The Green Inferno
High Top Releasing
Underpinning the often brutal and horrific scenes of cannibalism is the eerie truth that such practices do occur, and are even still prevalent in some parts of the world. Keeping this mind, the graphic depictions of violence, genital mutilation, and cannibalism are extreme and certainly not for sensitive viewers. In one of the most chilling scenes, one of the victims, a vegan, is forced to eat something that she later realizes is meat from on of her own friends.
5 High Tension
Lions Gate Entertainment
High Tension is a French slasher movie from 2003. The movie was later picked up by Lionsgate Entertainment and dubbed into English. It deals with two college students who get stranded at a farmhouse with a serial killer. The movie’s original version was so intense that many scenes had to be cut out in order to secure a suitable rating for American audiences.
It features some pretty inventive death scenes that are graphically depicted. The movie additionally features some pretty disturbing scenes that many audiences found to be in poor taste. Despite Lionsgate Entertainment’s hope for it, the movie was a commercial failure in the USA, but has become a nasty cult classic over the past two decades.
4 Maniac
Analysis Film Releasing Corporation
Maniac was a 1980 serial killer movie that featured a low budget but rose to some prominence and even cracked the list of greatest horror movies of all time by some major publications. It centers around the story of a man whose mother was a prostitute, causing him to become a serial killer as an adult.
The movie’s gore meter ranks here due to the extreme methods that the main character uses to kill his victims, usually by scalping them and displaying their hair on mannequins. The film was remade in 2012 and starred Elijah Woodas the main character.
3 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Bryanston Distributing Company
This iconic franchise features nine movies that all began with the original film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974. The movie was deemed too graphic and banned in many countries due to excessive complaints over the violence it depicted. It is widely regarded as one of the most influential horror movie franchises and the original was a huge commercial success despite all the controversy that surrounded it.
Featuring the now infamous and iconic character, Leatherface, the original movie is known for its disturbing killing scenes that become the overarching theme of the franchise. Leatherface’s weapon of choice is of course a chainsaw and the chilling sound of it will forever be etched into the psyches of audiences everywhere, as it was used to great effect and created some epically suspenseful moments.
2 Terrifier
Bloody Disgusting
This 2016 movie became a cult classic soon after it was released and was followed up in 2022 with Terrifier 2. The main villain from Terrifier is seemingly an ordinary man dressed in a creepy clown outfit and known as Art the Clown. While he never really speaks, he often comically mimes out scenes and uses gestures and expressive antics to mock and taunt his victims.
Behind this goofy image, however, the character is a ruthless killer that uses extreme and inventive ways to murder and mutilate victims, often torturing them too.It’s difficult to pick which of the two movies are more gory as both feature some memorably violent scenes that get under the skin in spine tingling ways. The movies have also been praised for their ability to combine chilling suspense, comedic elements, and gratuitous violent to great effect. With the movies’ popularity only growing, it seems likely that a new and enduring franchise has been born from them.
1 Braindead (AKA Dead Alive)
New Zealand Film Commission
This 1992 Zombie classic frequently tops most lists for being the goriest horror movie of all time. The fact that it was directed by Peter Jackson of Lords of the Ring fame only heightens its appeal. Braindead A.K.A Dead Alive takes place in Jackson’s home country of New Zealand during a zombie attack, brought on a by a plague-infested Sumatran rat-monkey.
What ensues offers chaotic bags of extreme gore and violence that goes down in history as probably the goriest film ever made, even if the buckets of blood are basically comical. Despite the poor taste of combining extreme violence with comedic overtones (Jackson previously made a nasty horror movie called Bad Taste, after all), the movie was a critical success and Jackson received a lot of praise for it. Of course, this splatter-fest is a far cry from his later Hollywood films, but it’s so well-directed that it spins gold from a highly clichéd plot. Whatever one says about Braindead, it’s hard to deny how utterly disgusting, gory, and blood-soaked the film is.
