10 Horror Movies To Watch After Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

This post contains major spoilers.

So you've just watched "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" and found yourself won-over by its overt horror slant. You can mostly thank director Sam Raimi for that, as he's been one of the genre's eminent filmmakers ever since he burst onto the scene with his breakout feature "The Evil Dead" in 1981. Like any genre-obsessed director worth their salt, Raimi stuffed his "Doctor Strange" sequel with a ton of callbacks to some of horror's gnarliest kills and thrills. While the film is far from the best Marvel Studios has churned out in its 28-film run (honestly, it's not even the best multiverse movie currently out in theaters), it is certainly the most horror-oriented.

Let's celebrate Raimi's horror-helming hand and delve into some of the influences behind the latest Marvel flick. If you liked the new "Doctor Strange" movie, you simply have to check these classics out.

The film all subsequent witch movies have been derived from, Italian director Mario Bava's 1960 gothic horror film "Black Sunday" is an essential watch if you liked the "Doctor Strange" sequel. It features vengeful witches, undead doppelgängers, and seemingly star-crossed lovers who find love in the face of unfathomable evil. There's also a familial element to "Black Sunday," though it's admittedly much more twisted and sexually charged than Wanda's pursuit of a life with her twin sons. Either way, it's a classic that effectively breathed life into the concept of modern-day horror witches — horror history at its finest and most visually sumptuous.

Speaking of specific kills in "Doctor Strange 2," the first one that really makes the audience go "eww" is the giant, one-eyed octopus demon who gets its eye ripped out by a street post. If you've now developed a twisted fascination for eye-gouging kills, look no further than any Lucio Fulci film. Another Italian genre icon, Fulci is renowned for including gory eye details in all his films, and "The New York Ripper" is certainly no exception. Featuring a moment where a beautiful young woman's eye meets a razor blade, it's an anguishing, slow watch. While Fulci's ocular fixation runs a wide gamut, "The New York Ripper" has the distinction of being set in the then-sleazy city that never sleeps, paralleling Doctor Strange's constant defense of the Big Apple.

As far as the multidimensional approach of the "Doctor Strange" sequel, the 2013 horror-thriller "Coherence" managed to distill the terror of the cosmic possibility on a comparatively shoestring budget. When an already disastrous dinner party turns deadly after the passing of Miller's comet, an alternate house with doppelgängers of each dinner guest appears. Using the theory of quantum decoherence, the film grapples with scientific concepts while also delving into universal absurdity. It's a thrillingly original watch, an option that might be refreshing for those who found themselves underwhelmed by the uninspired proliferation of the Marvel machine.

For those who absolutely loved Doctor Strange's ability to "dreamwalk" using a corpse of himself from an alternate dimension, Stuart Gordon's "Re-Animator" took the concept to new horror heights. When a medical student begins experimenting with a revitalizing serum on cadavers, he effectively plays God by bringing people back to life, beginning with his dead professor. The "zombies" in the film are uncannily strong and recklessly violent, putting a spin on the genre trope that usually portrays the undead as slow-moving frail corpses hungry for brains. While Strange's revived corpse definitely gives off a vibe of Billy Budd from "Hocus Pocus," Sam Raimi was certainly playing with the strength and vitality of the "Re-Animator" ghouls, especially when considering Strange's ultimate victory.

The Jessica Alba vehicle "The Eye" — a remake of a Hong Kong-Singaporean movie of the same name — is by no means a "good" horror movie. But for those of us who grew up fostering our first fears in the late aughts, it certainly feels like a touchstone of sorts. When a blind woman named Sydney (Alba) undergoes a corneal transplant that finally grants her vision, she begins to see terrifying visions of people dying. If anything, Strange's spontaneous acquisition of a third eye during the film's conclusion is really the only thing connecting the two films. But hey, as we've already covered with Lucio Fulci and "The New York Ripper," even the most middling of eye-based horror is enough to cause audiences to squirm. And for that, we must thank Sam Raimi for imbuing "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" with the most distinct horror streak the MCU has ever — and probably will ever — see.