5 Best Ghost Movies Nobody Talks About Anymore

When it comes to movies about ghosts and the supernatural, most people are familiar with the popular and acclaimed titles. "The Sixth Sense," "Poltergeist," "The Innocents," and the Japanese and American versions of "The Ring" are among the ones that rest at the top of "best of" lists (and we even tried our hand at naming the 50 greatest ghost movies of all time). However, there are also quite a few films that linger at the bottom of such lists — many of which are franchise entries or remakes like "The Haunting" or "One Missed Call" (the latter of which made our list of the 15 worst horror movies of all time).

Between these two poles lay dozens of supernatural-themed horror movies that are sleepers lacking praise or infamy, but remain intriguing watches for genre fans. Some are international pictures that never found stateside audiences, and some are indie projects that earned limited viewership. Others were deemed failures at their time of release but found a cult following years — or even decades — later. You'll find all of those and more in this list of five ghost movies that no one seems to talk about anymore, but remain worth your time all the same.

Before writing and directing his 2024 hit "Longlegs" (which we deemed overhyped in our review), Osgood Perkins oversaw a string of lesser-known but critically praised horror films like "The Blackcoat's Daughter," "The Girl in the Photographs," and 2016's icy supernatural thriller, "I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House." Essentially a showcase for stars Ruth Wilson (who played Mrs. Coulter in "His Dark Materials") and Paula Prentiss, "Pretty Thing" concerns a live-in nurse (Wilson), who discovers a gruesome connection between a popular novel written by her employer (Prentiss) and the original owners of her house. The couple disappeared on their wedding day, but may continue to linger on the property.

While all the films on this list are slow burns to one degree or another, "Pretty Thing" operates on a particularly low flame throughout its running time, which may account for its modest critic and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes (62% and 24%, respectively). But for Perkins completists and those who like horror with an unnerving pace and literary bent – The Village Voice called it "the most atmospherically faithful adaptation ever of a [Shirley] Jackson book that never existed" — "Pretty Thing" offers a shivery, dread-steeped atmosphere, a unsettling ghost (Lucy Boynton), and a particularly creepy denouement.

Restless spirits and dark deeds haunt "The Deeper You Dig," an indie thriller by a family of filmmakers who deliver a memorably unnerving ghost story with a small budget, few special effects, and no major players. "Deeper" hinges on a fatal encounter between small-town teenager Echo (played by co-director and camera operator Zelda Adams) and an inebriated Kurt (co-writer, director, and composer John Adams, who's also Zelda's dad), who accidentally runs over Echo while driving at night. Kurt panics and manages to bury the body — a difficult task in frozen ground — but not rid himself of Echo's persistent, restless spirit. Complicating matters is Echo's mom Ivy, a tarot reader played by John's wife and Zelda's mother Toby Posner, who also co-wrote, co-directed, and produced the film.

The Adams family wisely draws on the complicated emotions that fuel rash and tragic decisions, as Echo, Ivy, and Kurt are grappling with economic insecurity before the accident. They also manage to create some indelible images, like a bereft Ivy sitting in the forest while Echo hovers unseen in the air above her. "It's a brooding, atmospheric piece of work that points up unforeseen and perhaps unforeseeable consequences to having that one last drink," said Eye For Film's Jennie Kermode. This led to a string of impressive subsequent horror films from the family, including "Hellbender" and the recent "Mother of Flies."

In "Even the Wind Is Afraid," a recurring nightmare about a hanged woman prompts Claudia (Alicia Bonet) and her friends to investigate a forbidding tower at their school, where the dream appears to take place. They discover that the dreams are somehow connected to a deceased fellow student, who appears to be using Claudia as a sort of conduit to reveal the terrible truth about her death.

Again, this 1968 Mexican feature, written and directed by genre specialist Carlos Enrique Taboada, is no Blumhouse-style scare engine. There are few marquee scare moments (though the dream is unnerving); rather, it's the persistent sense of dread hanging over the film that makes it notable. Effective Gothic atmospherics — like the deep shadows and striking color of Agustín Jiménez's cinematography, and the seemingly ceaseless moaning wind — do much of the heavy lifting, but there's also a palpable streak of tragedy elevating the material beyond its haunted house trappings. Though a celebrated title in Mexican horror circles, "Wind" was largely unknown to English-language audiences until its U.S. release on Blu-ray in 2020.

Many folklore traditions involve stories about supernatural creatures that kidnap human infants and leave one of their own children, called a changeling, in its place. The changeling at the heart of Peter Medak's 1980 film of the same name is an orphan chosen to replace the ailing son of a politician who murders his own child to preserve the family inheritance. George C. Scott plays John Russell, a composer grieving his own tragic loss and rents the politician's former house, unaware that the boy's spirit remains there, desperate to reveal the truth behind his death.

"The Changeling" is another slow-boiling shocker, reliant on the dead boy's fate to generate its deepest horrors. But Medak (who was initially slated to direct Stephen King's "Cujo") also delivers some show-stopping setpieces, which range from subtle creeps (the red ball, owned by John's late daughter, which bounces down a flight of stairs on its own, still wet from the river he threw it in) to full-blown panic (the boy's empty wheelchair, which pursues Trish Van Devere's Claire down a narrow staircase). This blend of major and minor shocks helped earn "The Changeling" the top spot on a 2024 list of the best haunted house films by Entertainment Weekly.

The 1968 Japanese horror fantasy film "The Snow Woman" is based on a story by American author Lafcadio Hearn, who introduced Japanese folklore tales to Western audiences in the late 19th and early 20th century. This particular story has dozens of different variations, but all concern a yōkai (creature) or yūrei (spirit) called the Yuki-onna, which appears as a woman during snowstorms. In some versions, she freezes people to death, but in others, she's a more sympathetic and even remorseful figure. The Yuki-onna in director Tokuzō Tanaka's film is a little of both: a vengeful embodiment of winter danger who is transformed, albeit briefly, by the love of a man she spares.

There are many media adaptations of "The Snow Woman" and other Yuki-onna stories, most notably the Oscar-nominated "Kwaidan," one of the best Japanese films of all time (as well as numerous games, anime, and manga). Though the latter is notable for its hallucinatory visuals, Tanaka's take stands out due to its own eerie look — all winter outdoor scenes were filmed on soundstages to heighten a sense of the uncanny — and Shiho Fujimura's performance, which is both terrifying and heartbreaking. The emotional element is perhaps the most affecting part of the film; Snow Woman learns to put aside her murderous nature in order to help those she has come to love, but only at great personal loss. "It's as much a tragic love story as it is a horror film, and its final few scenes are both heart-wrenching and haunting," wrote Slant Magazine.