Cinema’s Scariest Haunted Houses, Reluctantly Ranked From Worst To Best

Australian director James Wan’s The Conjuring was one of the most successful horror movies of all time. This was partly because the film was sort of an Ultimate Fighting Champion of horror movies; it had everything in the playbook to appear to the broadest of audiences. There was a good ol’ fashioned haunted house, plus multiple possessions, ancient curses, an exorcism, demons, witches, spirits, apparitions, an evil doll, a swarm of birds, a psychic dog, creaking floorboards, spooky children, found footage, flashbacks, a murder mystery, paranormal detectives, church conspiracies, and even The Pope.

I actually found its relentlessness somewhat off-putting, but like any self-respecting horror fan, I wasn’t going to miss its sequel. Thankfully, The Conjuring 2 is not just a rare horror film to match its predecessor, but in fact betters it. No longer needing to set up its paranormal paramours, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, it’s faster-paced with niftier scares — like the one in which a childhood toy manifests itself right before our eyes that actually had me curling up into a ball in my seat. Fun times.

Taking its plot from the real Enfield Poltergeist case of the late 1970s wherein an 11-year-old girl reportedly became the vessel for the ghost of a man who once lived there, it also takes heavy inspiration from The Exorcist and is just as chock-full of horror standards as the original. This time they have added paranormal bite-marks, scary furniture, fatal premonitions, ominous children’s toys and, for added heretic fun, there’s also an evil demonic nun.

It’s one of the better haunted house movies out there. And there are many, so we did what comes naturally. We decided to rank them.

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Kind Of Haunted (Probably By Casper)

The Amityville Horror (1978-2015)

The Conjuring 2 actually opens with the horrors of the Lutz family and their home in Amityville, New York in a sort of Scream-inspired sequence. Sadly, despite being the definitive haunted house, Amityville has never produced a half-decent movie! The 1978 original is remarkably silly, and the less said of its sequels the better. The only memorable thing about the 2005 remake is that it gave us Ryan Reynolds without a shirt on.

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House 2: The Second Story (1987)

“Last year, audiences everywhere thrilled to the horrors of home ownership” announces the trailer. And then they went and did it again. I know ghosts have little concept of property law, but Beetlejuice this ain’t. A horror comedy that’s neither scary or funny. Even its title is a barely amusing pun.

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Cubbyhouse (2001)

Were you aware they once made a film about a haunted cubbyhouse starring one of the guys from The Blair Witch Project and Craig McLachlan? Well they did. And I am here to tell you that you do not need to see it to believe it.

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Ghosthunting With Girls Aloud (2006)

Yes, this is a real thing and it is marvellous. Watch British pop music royalty Girls Aloud visit some of the most haunted places in England with host Yvette Fielding. At one point they wisely decide to use a Ouija board in an abandoned sanatorium’s morgue and they all get rocks thrown at them in the basement. It’s 90 minutes of glorious stupidity. See also, Ghosthunting with Coronation Street and Ghosthunting with McFly.

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Quite Haunted (Why Don’t They Just Leave?)

Poltergeist (1982)

Being produced by Steven Spielberg, and with a house of ghouls and ghosts who start out rather benign by building towers out of dining chairs and sending paranormal signals through the TV (“theeey’re heeeerrre”), it’s easy to underestimate this 1982 movie. However, the promo material reads “it knows what scares you” and isn’t entirely wrong. The film is quietly terrifying and ultimately gets under the skin knowing that your darkest fears could be manipulated and turned against you. Like clowns. God damn, clowns.

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Burnt Offerings (1976)

You know what? If I were ghost, I would also want to come back and hang out with Karen Black, Bette Davis, and Oliver Reed. But then again, this 1976 film doesn’t actually have ghosts. Instead, it is actually very nifty: an old dilapidated house that regenerates itself by feeding off the pain of its new inhabitants. It sounds silly, but you’d be surprised how much mileage a film can get by simply not being the same ol’ demonic possession stuff.

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Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

Speaking of more demonic possessions! Anybody who underestimates the tension-building skills of an oscillating fans clearly hasn’t seen Paranormal Activity 3 — the best of this six-wide franchise. Famous for its origins as a super low-budget ‘found footage’ flick that went on to make the biggest profit of all time, it has since spawned some pretty decent sequels and last year even went 3D. Third time was the charm and the scares and thrills of this entry from the directors of Catfish hasn’t been bettered.

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The Changeling (1980)

It’s amazing how consistent ghosts can be. No matter who or what they are, they can always be relied upon to rattle window frames, open and close doors on a whim, and let in a draft in the middle of winter. In The Changeling, Oscar winner George C. Scott’s wife and child die in a car accident and so, as one typically does, he moves into a big ol’ mansion and holds a séance.

This Canadian mystery works surprisingly well because it’s more than just a malevolent ghost and is instead a mystery with a ghost using its tricks with window frames and doors to get the attention of the house’s new owner. Also, I think we can all agree anybody who owns a rocking chair and a music box in such a house deserves to be spooked.

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Very Haunted (Yep, Get The Hell Out)

The Innocents (1961)

Even if this British gothic horror didn’t have the literary backbone of its original text (Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw), all of its elements would have likely resulted in something scary and classic. The original trailer for The Innocents blatantly acknowledges that this a grown up’s haunted house and it’s true that many audiences used to high-octane blood and gore will likely find it downright dull. That just means the rest of us can get our fright on in quiet alongside Deborah Kerr as she battles with the ‘innocent’ children she’s been hired to protect.

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The Others (2001)

Taking atmospheric inspiration from The Innocents, this box office hit is still highly effective as a ghost story thanks to Nicole Kidman’s excellent Golden Globe and BAFTA-nominated performance and the unnerving mood that is only enhanced by the film’s meticulous design and attention to detail. The film about a mother taking care of her two sunlight-sensitive children — both of whom see a family of interlopers claiming the house is theirs — works even if you know the twist ending. Which, if you’ve seen it and remember it, puts a whole new spin on the classic concept of the haunted house.

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Insidious and Insidious 2

Insidious 2 is clearly the superior film out of this pair — it makes the neat switch of having not a haunted house, but a haunted child. Not only does the sequel not have a naff, ultra-low budget third act made entirely out of dry ice, but it also does have possessed Patrick Wilson throwing a kettle at Rose Byrne, which is some unexpectedly messed up crap. Still, the original Insidious — also directed by James Wan — gave us this deliciously terrifying moment and who are you to say I didn’t actually scream when it first happened?

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NOOOOOOOOOOOOPE

Ghostwatch (1992)

Inspired by the same events as The Conjuring 2, this infamous British TV movie was so realistic that it was subsequently banned from being aired ever again. Mistaken as a real live Halloween night investigation into a real haunted house featuring real British TV personalities like Michael Parkinson, this documentary approach to uncovering the ghostly happenings in the British suburbs played like a modern version of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds hoax. It is also one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen. If nothing else, you’ve really got to admire the gall of killing a famous children’s TV host on a ‘live’ broadcast!

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The Haunting (1963)

Sure, nobody was screaming out of anything but disgust when this spooky classic was remade with Owen Wilson, Liam Neeson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones, but that doesn’t stop the original from still chilling audiences to the bone more than 50 years later. The Haunting is made even better by the fact that director Robert Wise made it in-between winning Oscars for West Side Story and The Sound of Music. Indeed, the hills are alive with the sound of my screeching in terror. According to Martin Scorsese, it’s the scariest movie ever made.

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The Shining (1980)

It’s not very often you see pure unbridled terror on screen, but that’s what you get in the performance of Shelley Duvall in The Shining. She cops a lot of flak because, presumably, she has some interesting facial expressions and many feel she over-acts, but if your husband was hunting you down with an axe trying to kill you and your son — not to mention poor ol’ Scatman Crothers! — you’d probably hyperventilate too.

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The Conjuring 2 is in cinemas now.

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Glenn Dunks is a freelance writer from Melbourne. He also works as an editor and a film festival programmer while tweeting too much at @glenndunks.