Few film genres have proven as consistently popular and resilient as horror – a testament to the sheer passion and enthusiasm of its fans.<\/p>\n
And while most horror films tend to announce themselves one way or another, sometimes you might find yourself watching something that’s categorically not\u00a0a horror film, and yet realise that with just a few small tweaks it’d easily fit the bill.<\/p>\n
That’s absolutely the case with these 20 non-horror films, yet which are undeniably\u00a0horror-coded in basically every fibre of their being.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There’s a fundamental adherence to the tropes and tricks of horror that might not be consciously noticed by everyone, and yet to the keen-eyed of viewers, it’s easy to see how things could’ve bent in a far darker direction without too much effort.<\/p>\n
While many of these films are incredible, even close-to-perfect movies that made every “correct” creative choice, one can’t help but imagine what they’d look like if the filmmakers actually let their horror flag fly.<\/p>\n
In their most core fundamentals, each of these films is splashed with the DNA of the horror genre, and we love them for that…<\/p>\n
For anyone who says the Academy has a bias against horror movies, here’s a horror-tinged western-thriller that went on to win Best Picture back in 2008.<\/p>\n
The Coen Brothers’ masterful No Country for Old Men may at first glance seem like a gritty crime yarn, but it nevertheless follows the basic narrative structure of a slasher film.<\/p>\n
After all, Javier Bardem’s terrifying antagonist, Anton Chigurh, stalks through the movie like a spectral merchant of death, dispassionately eliminating anyone who gets between him and the briefcase of cash he’s been sent to acquire.<\/p>\n
This isn’t the first time the Coens have trojan-horsed horror elements into a neo-noir – their 1984 debut Blood Simple bears many hallmarks of the genre, for sure – but it’s certainly their most successful to date.<\/p>\n