Movies You Should Never Watch Alone

Generally speaking, friends make life better. With them around, you laugh harder, smile wider, and can finally see the bright side of that one really embarrassing moment that had you subconsciously cringing for weeks on end. They even elevate the film-watching experience to greater heights, transforming chuckle-worthy comedies into all-out giggle riots; dramas that would normally leave you only misty-eyed now have you in a puddle of tears. But sometimes, a friend, a partner, or even a parent is absolutely vital to make it through a movie. Whether it's to commiserate with you over a super-sad pick or to remind you that spooky forest witches don't really exist when you're watching a horror film, there are certain movies that you should never watch alone.

Despite the decidedly dated piece of technology at its center, this movie about a haunted videotape has actually become even more acutely unsettling since its release in 2002. Back then, you'd have to deliberately put the tape in your VCR and press play; but since the advent of digital media, you could end up watching the whole accursed horrifying thing on the internet before you knew what hit you. (It's like a rick-roll that ends in death!) Plus, if you watch The Ring, you have also by definition seen that video. Watch this with a trusted friend to keep the fear at bay... or watch it with a group of people you loathe just to make sure that little Samara has multiple murders on her to-do list, giving you a better shot at survival.

Down we go further into the rabbit hole of blood-chilling terror, with the aptly-titled adventure-horror The Descent. Released in 2005 during the height of the grisly Saw franchise's reign, this British-American film tells the tale of a few adventurous young women gearing up for a spelunking trip in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. All goes well, and even seems slightly cutesy, as the girls pack their bags and settle into a quaint cabin in the woods–never a good accommodation in a horror flick. All goes sour when they drop into the cave with no way out. Bathed in pitch-black darkness and surrounded by warped humanoid creatures known as "crawlers" that are hungry for flesh and blood, the women are forced to find a way to climb out of the hole into which they descended.

Dark and deeply unsettling, The Descent is a "chick flick" gone terribly wrong, and its twist ending will pull the breath from your lungs. Just like a cave expedition, watching the The Descent is something you should never do alone.

Daniel Radcliffe plays a baby-faced barrister who uncovers a sinister secret in this historical horror movie, which features a creepy gothic mansion, an old-school grudge, and a vengeful ghost with an uncanny gift for convincing kiddos to kill themselves. There's nothing like a good, old-fashioned haunted house story to give you the heebie-jeebies when you watch it alone, but The Woman in Black ups the ante by imbuing every creaking door, every warping floorboard, and every ordinary household object with a sense of freaky foreboding. (And lord help you if you have a cache of dolls or stuffed animals on a shelf in your bedroom; you'll never look at your American Girl collection the same way again.) Even if you don't end up spotting the titular femme fatale in her Victorian veil lurking in a corner, the shadowy walk through your dark house post-viewing is one you won't want to make solo.

Silly name, spooky story. The Babadook, written and directed by Aussie triple-threat Jennifer Kent in her directorial debut, centers around a mother and her son stalked by the titular character, a pop-up book monster named Mister Babadook who threatens multiple murders if anyone denies his existence. Following a series of febrile seizures, violent hallucinations, insomnia-induced blackouts, and acts of physical aggression, all caused by the Babadook, Amelia and Sam try valiantly to vanquish the beast once and for all. Though initial attempts prove fruitless, the journey toward possible success is an nailbiter through and through. It also isn't without its underlying non-horror themes, the most prominent of which are the taboos of parenting and mother-child resentment.

Quite possibly the scariest film released in recent years, The Babadook isn't one to catch alone—and the critics agree. Julia Alexander at Polygon says you'll absolutely need an extra body to hold on to during the film's run: "A brilliant take on the sometimes stale haunted house subgenre, it's genuinely difficult to get through this movie without covering your eyes or grasping onto the arm of the person next to you." Told you so.

An opportunistic break-in goes terribly wrong in this film by Fede Alvarez, as a trio of small-time teen crooks try to burgle a blind man who turns out not to be quite as easy a target as he originally appeared. The tables turn almost instantly, leaving the would-be thieves trapped in the dark, unfamiliar house where a misstep or cough will bring a killer coming—and Alvarez keeps the tension at an unceasing fever pitch for the full duration of the movie. Though the terror of this one doesn't linger after the credits roll (unless of course you're an aspiring cat burglar, in which case it'll make you rethink your career choices), you'll still want company while you watch, if only to have a second set of fingernails to bite down to the quick.

Thirty-five years after its original release, Poltergeist is still a who's who of terrifying tropes: ghosts reaching out through the scrambled signals on your TV, man-eating trees lurking outside your window, evil clowns hiding under your bed, and a portal to another dimension casually stuffed into the closet. And no matter how long it's been since you first saw it (or how certain you are that you haven't disturbed any ancient native burial grounds to dig your in-ground pool), it's still got that certain je ne sais quoi that makes even the most cookie-cutter suburban tract house—not to mention your big-screen TV—feel like it might be full of otherworldly threats. Without a friend by your side, you'll be too creeped out to continue on by the first time little Carol Anne says, "They're heeeere!"

Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe star in this experimental horror flick—one of the most polarizing movies of 2009, thanks to its twisted narrative, obscure plot, and viscerally disturbing sexual content. Centered on a couple grieving the death of their son, the movie starts out with a graphic sex scene and delves into some seriously dark places as it explores themes of motherhood, grief, misogyny, and sexual violence. Viewed solo, Antichrist is just a little too much like weird porn—the kind that leaves you feeling confused, alarmed, embarrassed, and vaguely ashamed of yourself for having watched it. But if you organize a screening with a few friends, then you can officially call it a "film salon" followed by a "group discussion" of the movie's "thematic depiction of eroticized self-loathing." Doesn't that sound fancy?

2014's horror darling It Follows sparked a new wave of smartly scary flicks—and understandably so, as it's a film unlike any other in its genre. Directed by David Robert Mitchell, this movie simmers with traditional elements of the supernatural and the psychological that have been skewed in a suburban setting. It replaces blood-filled slashings with an overwhelming, constant sense of dread and impending doom, and breaks free from the usually restricting themes of teenage horror films. Maika Monroe as Jay, Keir Gilchrist as Paul, and Olivia Luccardi as Yara are a fantastic trio that play the somewhat naive teenagers with laser precision, and the mysterious entity, "it," that tracks them down will have you triple-checking over your shoulder the next time you hear even the faintest of footsteps behind you. (You might even be slightly wary of sex ... you'll see why.)

It Follows strings you along, leaving you sweaty and skeptical but wholly satisfied, and will follow you long after its final scene.

There may never be another body horror film as thoroughly, utterly repulsive as The Human Centipede...except maybe the Human Centipede sequels, which are just like The Human Centipede, but grosser. In this first entry in the series (known colloquially as "First Sequence"), a demented scientist kidnaps three people and surgically attaches them mouth-to-anus to create the titular "centipede"—a procedure touted in the movie's promotional materials as "one hundred percent medically accurate." Despite a broad consensus that The Human Centipede is profoundly disgusting and lacking in all respects except a unique premise, it still rated decently with critics. But much like its central, monstrous surgical creation, this movie just doesn't work as a solo undertaking.

The only thing freakier than a group of masked intruders invading your home is a group of intruders who aren't wearing masks at all, for obvious reasons—and that's what makes Funny Games such a damned unsettling piece of cinema from the get-go. Director Michael Haneke has almost too much fun with his sadistic premise, complete with a fourth-wall-breaking moment that comes just in time to make you realize how hard you were pulling for a ridiculous, impossible happy ending. Honestly, it's just mean. But with a few horror movie aficionados watching alongside you, you can put your feelings aside sooner to appreciate the manipulative artistry of it all.

Thrillers meant to shake you to your very soul are often framed as a "true story" or inspired by events that "totally happened, guys." And even more frequently, audiences brush it off as a little white lie, a part of the total package of selling a scare. This one is different. The Chaser (2008) is a South-Korean crime-thriller genuinely based on the real-life mass murderer Yoo Young-chul, a backstory that makes for an all-killer, no-filler fight to the finish.

Strapped for cash, Joong-ho, a morally corrupt former police detective turned pimp, puts his prostituting ways on pause for a brief moment as he goes back to his old ways to track down his missing pack of girls—all of whom vanished before resolving their debts to him. As the sprinkling of clues begins to form one giant web around him, Joong-ho connects his lack of funds to one particularly sadistic client with a taste for blood. The Chaser blends serial-killer suspense, the gritty neo-noir landscape of Seoul, and breakneck pacing that begs you to read between the lines. It's creepy, criminal, and oh-so cool.

As the film fights against the ticking clock and nears its end, you'll need one friend to yell profanities over the plot with and another to keep your heart rate at a normal level.

When it comes to this original torture-porn premise, revenge is a dish best served cold—and shared with as many friends as possible. Whether you watch the original 1978 version or the updated, equally-disturbing 2010 reboot, I Spit on Your Grave is far more enjoyable if you can get together a group of fierce (and ideally feminist) friends to cheer on Jennifer Hills as she exacts meticulous, gruesome vengeance on the group of vile hillbillies who gang-raped her and left her for dead.

What's the worst thing that could happen when you have unprotected (and questionably consensual) party sex with a random stranger? Contracted thoroughly answers that question, and oh man, it's so much worse than an STD. This movie combines a pair of old-school horror tropes—zombie pandemics plus sex-equals-death—into something a little fresher... or, uh, maybe that's not quite the right word considering what happens to the protagonist over the course of the film. Pro tip: Don't watch this movie alone, but don't queue it up for date night, either.

A bromantic river-rafting trip turns into an all-out, life-ruining nightmare in this classic from 1972, starring Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds back in their heyday as chiseled leading men. Deliverance was a multiple Oscar nominee the year it was released, which makes it a damn fine movie by all accounts. But thanks to That Scene (no, not the one above with the banjo kid; the other one for which the movie is famous), it makes for damn uncomfortable solo viewing. Like a trip down the Cahulawassee River, the narrative journey of Deliverance is one better taken with a few close friends.

This underrated Aussie horror flick is a suspenseful slow burn from start to finish, as it tells the story of a family consumed by grief in the wake of their teenage daughter's death. Shot documentary-style and with lots of creepy tension stemming from barely-glimpsed threats and unseen things that go bump in the night, Lake Mungo spends nearly every one of its 89 minutes building to an incredibly freaky climax that'll scare you half to death while also leaving you with many, many more questions than answers—which is why you'll need someone to turn to as the credits roll to discuss WTF just happened.

If ever there was a movie best watched with half a dozen of your closest pals, it's Unfriended, in which six teenagers on a group chat find themselves being picked off one by one by an unseen, Skype-based entity that might or might not be the ghost of their dead friend. Unfriended is an original horror story for the social media age, and it's definitely meant to be a group experience—not just because the movie's most shocking moments are much more fun with friends, but because its weak spots stand out pretty starkly if you don't have a raucous crowd to help keep the mood going. Feeling extra bold? Make it a virtual get-together and watch it with your besties on a Google hangout... and hope that nobody experiences any, ahem, technical difficulties.

Like many of our don't-watch-it-alone entries, Them (or Ils, depending on how French you want to be about it) centers on the horror of having the safety and sanctity of your home violated by malicious intruders—but this one includes a peculiar twist that's pure nightmare material. The plight of Lucas and Clémentine, whose scary story begins with a few small, ominous signs that they're not alone (a tap left running, a car moved), ramps up into an expertly-paced game of cat-and-mouse that concludes with a memorable and deeply disturbing ending... which is capped off with the unsettling claim that it's based on "true events." If Them happened to them, it could happen to you.

What happens when a burglar breaks and enters a home that's already been targeted by another, more sinister kind of criminal who's there to take lives instead of things? That's the central question in The Collector, yet another riff on the tried-and-true home invasion thriller. In this one, the twist comes in the form of dueling felons plus a host of creative death snares that turn the entire house into a series of kill rooms. You might be able to make it through this one alone—despite having originally been envisioned as a prequel to the Saw franchise, it's not especially gory—but you'll still want someone there afterward to help you check your home for booby traps, just in case.

Before she earned raves for playing Juno MacGuff or walked through walls as Kitty Pryde, Ellen Page cut her teeth on a very different kind of role as the sadistic, iron-hearted Hayley Stark in Hard Candy. A 14-year-old who has "victim" written all over her at the start of the film, Hayley quickly turns the tables on Jeff (Patrick Wilson), the 32-year-old photographer and probable predator she met on the internet; after inviting herself to his home, she drugs him and tortures him in a series of brutal scenes that seem to go on forever. Between its killer suspense and dark subject matter, Hard Candy isn't a comfortable viewing experience, but it's ever so slightly more bearable if you have a companion to share the squick.

If you thought those movies were intense, you haven't seen anything like Green Room. An all-out raucous horror picture framed around a dimly lit hardcore punk show, this Jeremy Saulnier film edges on torture porn but spins toward absurdity with elements reminiscent of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and zooms in on a keen portrayal of what the punk subculture is all about.

The band at the center of the story is The Ain't Rights, featuring the late Anton Yelchin as the bassist Pat and Alia Shawkat on guitar as Sam. They open their set list with a cover of the Dead Kennedy's "Nazi Punks F–k Off" and later find the body of a girl backstage. Realizing she'd been murdered by a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads (led by a chilling Patrick Stewart as Darcy Banker), the members of The Ain't Rights attempt to notify authorities but are themselves attacked by the killers and are forced to fight their way out of the room that once marked a milestone in their career.

While many critics and fans have praised this film for its uniqueness, it's definitely not one to see solo. Even Entertainment Weekly's creative director Tim Leong agrees: "Pro tip: Don't watch Green Room when you're home alone on a Saturday night."

What can compare to a mother's love? Well, that's exactly what the 2013 Guillermo del Toro-produced movie Mama aims to answer. Starring Interstellar's Jessica Chastain as the hesitant but well-meaning Annabel and Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau in a double role as the financially devastated, homicidal Jeffrey Desange and his grief-stricken twin brother Lucas, this supernatural flick delivers both a myth buried in maternity and a whole truckload of scares. From the shadowy figure that lingers over Lucas' two young nieces (who are also feral due to living in the forest with no human interaction for over five years) to the final reveal that's equally as haunting, this film is definitely one worth watching, just not on a one-man mission. (Seriously, having someone, even your own mother, beside you for this one is a must.)

Robots and red lights and rebellion, oh my! You've likely heard of this Alex Garland-helmed film, or at least seen Oscar Isaac donning a full beard and tearing up the dance floor to Oliver Cheatham's "Get Down Saturday Night." (We know you better than that!) Though that clip is, admittedly, quite hilarious on its own, Ex Machina isn't a film you should see sans company. Weaving the elements of sleek sci-fi with scathing psychological horror, the machine-oriented movie warns of the possible dangers of sentient artificial intelligence and what can happen when you give humans more power than they deserve.

Garland makes his directorial debut with this film—which also stars Star Wars: The Force Awakens actor Domhnall Gleeson and the newest Lara Croft, Alicia Vikander—but you wouldn't know it. Thought up in an all-too-relevant way, Ex Machina is sinister and spooky speculative fiction that feels uncomfortably close to reality, truly a pulp thriller at its best. You'll likely never look at a piece of technology the same way again after giving it a watch, so it's best to have someone by your side to remind you that yes, humans do still exist.

2017's Annabelle: Creation is the horror movie about a possessed doll that reminded audiences everywhere why horror movies about possessed dolls are so terrifying–and why you should never, ever journey into a room in a creepy old house you've specifically been told to stay out of.

In this David F. Sandberg-directed film, which sets up the events of 2014's Annabelle, Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto star as dollmaker Samuel Mullins and his wife Esther, who are struggling to come to terms with the accidental death of their seven-year-old daughter Annabelle (a.k.a "Bee"). It's not until 1955, 12 years after Bee's tragic passing, that the Mullins appear healed, having opened their home to nun Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) and her group of orphans–all girls, not much older than Bee was when she died. Seemingly taken by her new surroundings, the polio-stricken orphan Janice (Talitha Bateman) goes against the Mullins' strict orders and enters Bee's old bedroom–where she discovers an eerie possessed doll that unleashes a ruthless demon on the house. Janice's findings unspool a string of brutal killings, horrifying revelations, and the creation of an entity far more petrifying than the porcelain princess in the closet.

Let's just put it this way: you're going to need a friend hand to hold during the movie and to help you wipe your scare-sweat-covered face after it's over. 

Don't Breathe is a horror film in which people must escape a blind killer who can hear practically every sound. Hush is a horror film in which one woman must escape a killer that she can't hear, and it's exactly as creepy as it sounds. Kate Siegel (who co-wrote the film with her husband, director Mike Flanagan) turns in a captivating and thrilling performance as Maddie, a deaf-mute woman alone in a house as a masked killer stalks her, well aware that she can't hear him and she can't scream for help. 

The tension just keeps ratcheting up in the film, from the first meeting of the two adversaries to the final moments of carnage, and it's all helped along by Maddie's particular talent for being able to imagine every possible outcome before it happens. It creates an edge for her in fighting her attacker, but if you're watching the film it only adds to your fear, because you find yourself looking around the house and thinking of every possible dangerous thing that could happen to you the moment the movie ends. Add in the threat of a killer you can't hear, and it's definitely not a movie made for lonely nights at home.

You're Next is a home invasion thriller in which a family gathered together for a celebration is systematically and brutally attacked by a group of masked killers who seem to have thought of everything, from choreographing kills to preventing escapes to even blocking the use of their victims' cell phones. It's the kind of movie that immediately kickstarts the darkest parts of your imagination, particularly if you live in the middle of nowhere. You'll be unable to stop thinking of the ways in which the right group of people could simply brutalize you if they decided to, and that alone is a good enough reason to watch it with a group. 

The good news is that, for all its home invasion scares, You're Next is not an entirely grim movie. It's packed with booby traps, wild twists, and dark humor in a way that lends itself to watching it with a crowd just so everyone can react at the same time. By the time the final scene hits, you'll all be gasping and screaming together.

Jordan Peele's Us is, at its core, a new take on the home invasion subgenre of horror, and it does it very well. The shot of the family of "Tethered" standing in silhouette in the driveway, motionless and wordless, is enough to send you running to wake up your roommate so you don't have to be alone. Then the film turns into a double home invasion thriller, and by the time the characters get to the second house, Peele has ratcheted up both the brutality and the comedy, and suddenly you want to watch with others not just because it's scary, but because it's a blast.

Then comes the film's ambitious and twist-filled third act, in which the motives behind the earlier attacks are explained even while more questions are raised. By that point, you're going to want friends around to react with, but you're also going to want people to hang around after the movie is over so you can debate the many, many big ideas at work.

When you strip away the mystique of Michael Myers and get down to the primal scares of that first film, Halloween is a movie about a group of babysitters who are stalked and killed by a masked murderer while all the adults are either gone or too late to the party to help anyone. As the film goes on, the dread that builds as Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) figures out something is wrong in her seemingly quiet neighborhood is enough to make anyone place themselves in that situation. The 2018 sequel, also titled Halloween, takes that same dread and transforms it into the stuff of legend while once again placing Laurie into a situation in which no one believes her. 

But despite all that dread, both of these films are permeated with a sense of fun that makes them ideal of party viewing, particularly on Halloween night when you're taking turns receiving trick-or-treaters at the door. The fear is definitely there, but the films are also peppered with a festive sense of spooky fun that make them worthy of their holiday namesake.

A college student in desperate need of cash takes a babysitting job. It's in the middle of nowhere, she has to get a ride from a friend, and the guy who's offering the job seems very shady. Nevertheless, she really needs the money for a new apartment, so she agrees. What should be a quiet night in with a pizza instead turns into a nightmare, and she discovers she's meant to be part of a Satanic sacrifice. 

Ti West's The House of the Devil is a deliberate and lovingly-crafted homage to "babysitter in danger" films and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. It's so evocative that whether you're a former or current babysitter you'll be hitting pause and checking every room in the house to make sure you're really the only adult in the house. The film's great at conveying that dread that comes with every new sound in a supposedly empty home, but it's perhaps even better at getting across that sense of the early freedom of young adulthood that's interrupted when you realize someone's stalking you while you're just trying to eat a slice of pizza.

A storm blows into a small town. The day after it's passed, a man and his son go to a local grocery store to get supplies, even as a strange mist seems to be closing in. When they arrive, the mist blankets the supermarket, and the people inside soon discover that strange and deadly creatures are lurking with in. A fight for survival ensues, and the people on the inside quickly prove to be as dangerous as the monsters on the outside. 

The Mist is not a movie about the fear of being alone. It does not exploit the idea that you'll be by yourself and unable to call for help if the mist comes to get you. It's not even particularly claustrophobic, despite being mostly set in a single location. So, why should you never watch it alone?

Because The Mist has two modes: fun survival horror and incredibly bleak survival horror. In the beginning, you'll want to watch it with friends just so you can all gasp at the scary parts and nod in agreement when a character you've come to hate gets killed off. By the end, you'll be glad you're watching it with other people just because you need someone to hug when it finally reaches its grim-as-hell conclusion.

Mandy's plot is deceptively simple. A logger named Red (Nicolas Cage) and his lady Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) live a quiet life in the woods that's disrupted when a deranged cult leader (Linus Roache) takes notice of Mandy and decides she must be his. Desperate for revenge, Red embarks on a quest to take down the psycho bikers who took Mandy, carving his way up to the cult leader himself. 

In the hands of writer/director Panos Cosmatos, this relatively simply-structured revenge tale erupts into a fantastic spectacle of violence and drug-fueled, high-contrast emotion, all anchored by Cage's manic performance. It's a horror film, but it's not packed with the kind of jump scares that make you want to check your front door. Instead, this is the kind of movie you don't want to watch alone because you simply must make sure that all of your friends see it. Mandy deserves to be the kind of movie that gets shown at Friday movie nights every single October. It's a perfect party movie, a perfect midnight movie, and a perfect "watch with friends so you can see their eyes get bigger and bigger" movie. Don't keep this one all to yourself.

Hereditary is a film rooted in the desperate, unshakable pain that comes with losing a loved one, and that pain resonates throughout Ari Aster's story of a family haunted by supernatural and seemingly coincidental terrors in the wake of death. It's there in the film's visual symbolism, in its biggest scares, and in the primal, magnetic performance given by Toni Collette as a woman whose world seems to be crumbling. That alone is enough to make it the kind of movie you don't want to watch alone, because it never stops twisting that knife. You want your loved ones in the room with you if only as proof that nothing bad will happen to them other than the scares in the film. 

The brilliance of Hereditary is Aster's ability to portray that universal fear in all its realism while also ratcheting up the supernatural elements of the movie to maddening heights by the end. You'll be so invested in the grief and potential recovery of the characters that you forget darker forces are also at work, and the final 20 minutes create a sense that you genuinely can't tell what's about to happen next. It's enough to make you sleep with the lights on.

A group of friends get together for a dinner party, but their hosts and their new friends are acting strange. That's the basic hook of The Invitation, a film that's determined to milk the suspense it sets up for as long as it possibly can until finally revealing what's really going on. Director Karyn Kusama builds a sense of dread like she's slowly cranking up the tension on a wire, and with every crank you expect the wire will snap. The friends dig up traumatic memories, a houseguest is acting strange, someone just isn't showing up, and no one's phone seems to be working. It all creates an atmosphere of dread while also constantly showing us ways in which all of this fear is imagined. It's a fantastically tense experience, and when the real reason for the invitation is revealed it's almost a relief... until it turns out to be just as utterly horrifying. 

So no, you shouldn't watch this film alone, but if you watch it with friends you should also be prepared to look at each other suspiciously after the film is over.

Let the Right One In is a movie about loneliness. It's about the loneliness of being the bullied kid at school, the loneliness of having no siblings to play with, and the loneliness of feeling like the kind of creature that no one can understand. Director Tomas Alfredson peppers the film with images of loneliness, which particularly come to life on a snow-covered playground in the middle of the night. It's a film that will make you feel lonely if even you're not alone, and will make you feel even lonelier if you're already by yourself. So yes, it's best to watch with friends.

Aside from this loneliness and the bittersweet bond that forms between the two lonely people at the center of the story, Let the Right One In is about a boy who befriends a child vampire. When the horror elements kick in, the solitude is interrupted by bright splashes of blood and other terrors that will make you question the nature of your neighbors. So, rather than fearing them, invite them over to watch a movie.