10 Underrated British Horror Movies That Deserve A Second Look

Halloween might be half a year away but it's never too early to lose yourself in the deep, dark depths of the horror genre. Once you've entered this creepy corner of cinema, you're never quite sure what you'll find. When it comes to British horror movies, there are some genuine left-field scares lurking in the dark.

Filmmakers on the other side of the pond are far from unfamiliar with film frights: Hammer Horror gems like "The Mummy," "The Revenge of Frankenstein," and countless "Dracula" movies helped to make Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing legends of the genre. Since then, a new generation of filmmakers and actors have stepped up to push horror forward in new and unexpected ways.

So many exciting new creators have entered the fold in recent years that it can be difficult to keep up to date with everything and separate the wheat from the chaff. For every lauded hit like Edgar Wright's "Shaun of the Dead" or Danny Boyle's sprinting zombie game-changer "28 Days Later," many other British horror movies fly under the radar and remain largely undiscovered by wider audiences. With that in mind, we've gathered 10 underrated nail-biters that originate from the United Kingdom and are more than worthy of repeat viewings.

One of the most prominent names in new and underrated British filmmaking, in general, is Ben Wheatley. Landing on the scene with his 2011 paranoid terror "Kill List" (more on that later), this Essex-born filmmaker has gone from strength to strength ever since — balancing prominent features like 2015's "High Rise" with Tom Hiddleston and the Martin Scorsese-produced "Free Fire," with smaller gems.

His third feature film, "Sightseers," also stars Alice Lowe, but this time she acts opposite Steve Oram. Together they star as Tina and Chris, a bit of an oddball couple who embark on a very British pastime: the caravan holiday. What follows is a thoroughly English road trip movie where this weird couple visits various scenic spots and cultural points of interest around the country (Keswick Pencil Museum, anyone?) while engaging in an increasing number of haphazard murders, killing people who rub them up the wrong way.

Sandwiched between Wheatley's trippy "Kill List" and even trippier "A Field in England," "Sightseers" was many viewers' first glimpse at the darkly humorous side of this filmmaker's personality. Splicing random violence with subtly dark comedy moments, it's a film that should be added to your viewing list if you're only familiar with Wheatley's more celebrated features.

Director Neil Marshall burst onto screens with 2002's "Dog Soldiers," a film that has since developed a cult following. Three years later, he was back in terror territory with "The Descent," a film that did for those struggling with claustrophobia what "Dog Soldiers" did for people who hate dogs.

"The Descent" follows a group of tenacious young explorers who venture out on a trip to a new cave system. After falling boulders block their exit, they become trapped. As arguments about who's responsible for leading the group into an undocumented underground maze heat up, so do glimpses of mysterious creatures lurking in the dark. With few options left, the six women embark on a perilous escape. They attempt to avoid the attacks of an animalistic species of cave-dwelling monsters that have a taste for human flesh.

While not as cult-fan gathering as "Dog Soldiers" or headline-grabbing as Marshall's 2019 ill-fated "Hellboy" reboot, "The Descent" is worth revisiting for its edge-of-your-seat tension and slow-building terror. Citing films like "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" as inspiration, Marshall explained: "We really wanted to ramp up the tension slowly, unlike all the American horror films you see now. They take it up to 11 in the first few minutes and then simply can't keep it up. We wanted to show all these terrible things in the cave: dark, drowning, claustrophobia. Then, when it couldn't get any worse, make it worse."

It's rare that a horror sequel ever manages to outdo its predecessor. While "28 Weeks Later" doesn't quite manage that feat, it comes admirably close. Whenever British zombie movies are mentioned, director Danny Boyle's 2007 infection terror "28 Days Later" always tops the bill. However, fewer accolades are aimed at its 2007 follow-up helmed by Spanish filmmaker Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and starring "Trainspotting" actor Robert Carlyle.

As its title suggests, Fresnadillo's sequel picks up 28 weeks after the initial outbreak of a virus that leaves victims in a constant state of animalistic rage. By this point, many of the infected have succumbed to starvation. The army has regained some form of control, with uninfected members of the public living inside a quarantined district. It's here where we find Dom (Carlyle) a survivor who has reached safety but only by abandoning his wife Alice during an attack. However, when his wife unexpectedly returns, she's an asymptomatic carrier of the rage virus. She brings it back to District One, resulting in some bloody chaos in their once safe haven.

While lacking Boyle and part one star Cillian Murphy, "28 Weeks Later" packs a bite and features some innovative zombie death scenes. The original will always get the bulk of the praise — and rightly so — but its sequel is certainly worth a watch.

In 2012, director Peter Strickland used his second film to prove that what we hear is just as terrifying as what we see in "Berberian Sound Studio." Set in the 1970s, it follows Gilderoy (Toby Jones), a mild-mannered audio engineer working on a movie. He travels to Italy under the belief that he'll be recording sound for a tame movie about horses, and he discovers that the actual job will be nothing of the sort. Instead, he's required to create the squelching, smashing, and blood-curdling audio for a grizzly Italian Giallo horror film. As the more psychologically torturous elements of the story intensify on-screen, his grasp on reality off-screen slips.

One of the most interesting things about "Berberian Sound Studio" is its ability to keep you flinching while not showing you much. Audiences primarily see reaction shots from an increasingly concerned Gilderoy, distressed at having to watch the frightening images play out. Strickland has fun playing around with his fragile reality, blurring the lines, and serving up an almost meta-entry into the Giallo horror genre.

Upon its release, the film turned heads and has since cultivated a healthy legacy — so it's hardly underappreciated. However, with so much nuance in Jones' wide-eyed performance and ambiguity in Strickland's storytelling, it's a British horror film that rewards multiple viewings.

Claustrophobia and psychological terror combine in 2013's "In Fear," a British horror film that feels like a clammy-palmed fever dream. Directed by Jeremy Lovering, it stars "Agents of SHIELD" actor Iain De Caestecker and Alice Englert ("The Serpent") as Tom and Lucy, a young couple driving across rural Ireland to a music festival. Despite not knowing each other well, the pair start off in good spirits. But after a tense encounter with locals at a pub, things quickly turn sour.

From there, things get progressively worse. Tom gets lost and sends the duo in a constant circular loop that defies logic. With a mysterious figure tormenting them from the roadside, the arrival of Max (Allen Leech) initially seeds ideas of hope before we learn of his real motives.

While filming, Lovering didn't let his stars see a finished script. Instead, he shared the basic plot before putting them into situations blind, resulting in compelling performances that encourage repeat views. As De Caestecker explained, "There would be a lot of times in between takes for a long period of time where we wouldn't talk to each other. We were also filming out in the middle of these country roads in the middle of the night for weeks so that instantly creates an atmosphere," he explained. "It created a tension between us, which had to be real."