Highest-Rated Movies about 'Haunted Houses', Sort by Popularity

The Uninvited (1944), Salem's Lot (1979), Clive Barker's Book of Blood (2008), Beetlejuice (1988), The Conjuring (2013), The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Cat and the Canary (1939), The Frighteners (1996) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Haunted Houses movies.

#1. The Uninvited (1944)

Storyline: While vacationing on the English coast, composer Rick Fitzgerald (Ray Milland) and his sister Pamela (Ruth Hussey) find an an abandoned 18th-century house and decide to buy it. The owner, Commander Beech (Donald Crisp), associates it with the tragic death of his daughter and is willing to part with it despite his granddaughter Stella's (Gail Russell) objection. The Fitzgeralds move in and soon find themselves, with the help of Stella, battling it out with two very prickly ghosts.

Plot Keywords: composer, sister, commander, nurse, daughter, ghost, eerie ...

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#2. Salem's Lot (1979)

Storyline: Based on the Stephen King novel, Ben Mears (David Soul) has returned to his hometown of Salem's Lot to write a book about the supposedly haunted Marsten House that resides on a hill overlooking the small town. His project is curtailed, however, when he finds out that someone has bought the long-empty property. But when people around the Marsten House start dying mysteriously, Mears discovers that the owner of the mansion is actually a vampire who is turning them into an army of undead slaves.

Plot Keywords: vampire, writer, teenager, doctor, priest, love interest, dark ...

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#3. Clive Barker's Book of Blood (2008)

Storyline: Mary Florescu (Sophie Ward) and Reg Fuller (Paul Blair), experts in the supernatural, are enlisted to probe strange happenings at a family's home. Joining them is Simon McNeal (Jonas Armstrong), a young student who has a gift for interacting with the spirit world. After staying the night in the eerie dwelling, they discover indecipherable writing on the walls, and Simon finds strange scars all over his body. As their investigation continues, the nightmare deepens.

Plot Keywords: professor, expert, student, young man, partner, writer, suspenseful ...

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#4. Beetlejuice (1988)

Storyline: Adam and Barbara are a normal couple...who happen to be dead. They have given their precious time to decorate their house and make it their own, but unfortunately a family is moving in, and not quietly. Adam and Barbara try to scare them out, but end up becoming the main attraction to the money making family. They call upon Beetlejuice to help, but Beetlejuice has more in mind than just helping.

Plot Keywords: ghost, husband, sculptor, daughter, wife, quirky, amusing ...

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#5. The Conjuring (2013)

Storyline: In 1971, Carolyn and Roger Perron move their family into a dilapidated Rhode Island farm house and soon strange things start happening around it with escalating nightmarish terror. In desperation, Carolyn contacts the noted paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, to examine the house. What the Warrens discover is a whole area steeped in a satanic haunting that is now targeting the Perron family wherever they go. To stop this evil, the Warrens will have to call upon all their skills and spiritual strength to defeat this spectral menace at its source that threatens to destroy everyone involved.

Plot Keywords: investigator, demon hunter, husband, wife, ghost, daughter, frightening ...

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#6. The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966)

Storyline: Luther Heggs aspires to be a reporter for his small town newspaper, the Rachel Courier Express. He gets his big break when the editor asks him to spend the night at the Simmons mansion that 20 years before was the site of a now famous murder-suicide. The case has aroused local interest not only because of the anniversary but because the family heir, Nick Simmons, has returned to Rachel planning to tear the mansion down. Luther's account of his wild, ghost-ridden night in the house leads Simmons to sue for libel, but with the aid of his friend Kelsey, they determine what exactly happened that night long ago and the identity of the real killer.—garykmcd

Plot Keywords: reporter, editor, love interest, wealthy man, coward, lighthearted, madcap ...

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#7. The Cat and the Canary (1939)

Storyline: Ten years have passed since the death of millionaire, Cyrus Norman. Cosby, Cyrus' attorney, has gathered Cyrus' 6 remaining relatives to his New Orleans' mansion for Cyrus' "reading of the will". To the others disappointment, Joyce is the sole heir, but, due to a streak of insanity running in the family, a second will has been made in case Joyce falls victim to it. This puts Joyce in danger. Suddenly, Miss Lu, Cyrus' maid, appears and warns them that the spirits have told her that one of them will die that night. Following this, Hendrick, a prison guard, warns them that, "The Cat", a homicidal maniac has escaped. This sets up Cyrus' relatives with a night filled with murders, mysteries and intrigue.—Kelly

Plot Keywords: relative, friend, attorney, housekeeper, maniac, playful, creepy ...

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#8. The Frighteners (1996)

Storyline: After a car accident in which his wife, Debra, was killed and he was injured, Frank Bannister develops psychic abilities allowing him to see, hear, and communicate with ghosts. After losing his wife, he then gave up his job as an architect, letting his unfinished "dream house" sit incomplete for years, and put these skills to use by befriending a few ghosts and getting them to haunt houses in the area to drum up work for his ghostbusting business; Then Frank proceeds to "exorcise" the houses for a fee. But when he discovers that an entity resembling the Grim Reaper is killing people, marking numbers on their forehead beforehand, Frank tries to help the people whom the Reaper is after!

Plot Keywords: architect, con artist, wife, murderer, widower, fbi agent, hilarious ...

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#9. The Cat and the Canary (1927)

Storyline: Rich old Cyrus West's relatives are waiting for him to die so they can inherit. But he stipulates that his will be read 20 years after his death. On the appointed day his expectant heirs arrive at his brooding mansion. The will is read and it turns out that Annabelle West, the only heir with his name left, inherits, if she is deemed sane. If she isn't, the money and some diamonds go to someone else, whose name is in a sealed envelope. Before he can reveal the identity of her successor to Annabelle, Mr. Crosby, the lawyer, disappears. The first in a series of mysterious events, some of which point to Annabelle in fact being unstable.—Ron Kerrigan

Plot Keywords: nephew, niece, lawyer, guard, doctor, killer, chilling ...

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#10. The Old Dark House (1932)

Storyline: Seeking shelter from a pounding rainstorm in a remote region of Wales, several travellers are admitted to a gloomy, foreboding mansion belonging to the extremely strange Femm family. Trying to make the best of it, the guests must deal with their sepulchral host, Horace Femm and his obsessive, malevolent sister Rebecca. Things get worse as the brutish manservant Morgan gets drunk, runs amuck and releases the long pent-up brother Saul, a psychotic pyromaniac who gleefully tries to destroy the residence by setting it on fire.—Doug Sederberg <vornoff@sonic.net>

Plot Keywords: host, butler, chorus girl, veteran, industrialist, religious person, offbeat ...

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#11. The Canterville Ghost (1944)

Storyline: In the 1600s, cowardly Sir Simon of Canterville flees a duel and seeks solace in the family castle. His ashamed father seals him in the room where he is hiding and dooms him to life as a ghost until one of his descendants performs a brave deed. Simon believes he may be saved when he meets Cuffy Williams, an American kinsman stationed with a troop of soldiers at the castle in 1943. Will this blood relative save the family honor, or will his blood be as yellow as the rest of the Cantervilles?—Daniel Bubbeo <dbubbeo@cmp.com>

Plot Keywords: ghost, soldier, young girl, father, amusing, winsome, lighthearted ...

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#12. The Legend of Hell House (1973)

Storyline: A team consisting of a physicist, his wife, a young female psychic and the only survivor of the previous visit are sent to the notorious Hell House to prove/disprove survival after death. Previous visitors have either been killed or gone mad, and it is up to the team to survive a full week in isolation, and solve the mystery of the Hell House.

Plot Keywords: scientist, wife, medium, spiritualist, millionaire, ghost, creepy ...

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#13. Oculus (2013)

Storyline: The twenty-one-year-old Timothy "Tim" Allen Russell is discharged from a mental institution by his psychiatric Dr. Shawn Graham completely healed from a childhood trauma where his father purportedly tortured and killed his mother before being killed himself by Tim. His sister Kaylie welcomes him in the parking area and brings him home. Then she tells that they need to destroy an ancient mirror that she has found through working at an auction house. She then steals the mirror and the reluctant Tim follows his sister and has fragmented recollections from their childhood, going back to when his father Alan buys a mirror for the home office of their new family home. Kaylie and Tim see a woman with their father in his office and the behaviors of Alan and Marie change, ending in a family tragedy. Kaylie blames the mirror and now she wants to destroy it with Tim. Will they succeed?

Plot Keywords: brother, evil spirit, mother, father, sister, doctor, chilling ...

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#14. Burnt Offerings (1976)

Storyline: Ben and Marian Rolf rent a grand old country mansion as a summer getaway for themselves, their twelve year old son Davey, and Ben's Aunt Elizabeth. They feel they can't turn down the rent deal offered to them by the house's owners, siblings Roz and Arnold Allardyce, despite some reservations. First amongst those reservations, they are to take care of the house on their own, which Ben feels is too big a job, especially for Marian and the interior housekeeping. In Marian's words, the large size of the house is a "waste". And second and perhaps more important amongst those reservations, the Allardyces' aged mother will be staying in her room at the house, the Rolfs who are to provide a tray of food left outside her room three times a day, which Marian vows to take care of on her own, with no other members of the family to go into that isolated wing of the house so as not to disturb Mrs. Allardyce's peace. Upon their arrival at the house for the first day of their stay, they find a note from Roz and Arnold stating that they had to leave on an emergency, only with the necessary keys enclosed with no address or telephone number where they can be reached. As the summer progresses, the family members individually begin to exhibit unusual and unexplainable behavior, and unusual and unexplainable things start happening around the house. The strongest behavior ends up being Marian's total focus on renewing the house into what she says she wants it to be, or so she implies she is doing. These occurrences threaten both the loving family dynamic as well as the individual lives of the four. The answers to what is happening may be who or what lies behind the closed and often locked door of Mrs. Allardyce's bedroom.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: husband, wife, son, aunt, brother, tenant, creepy ...

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#15. Scared Stiff (1953)

Storyline: Nightclub singer Larry Todd breaks off his romance with a beautiful showgirl when he realizes she's the girlfriend of a murderously jealous gangster. While on the run, Larry mistakenly believes he kills one of the mobsters and is helped to escape police by heiress Mary Carol, who smuggles Larry and partner Myron to Cuba. Mary has inherited a haunted castle on an isolated island and, ignoring ominous warnings and threats, decides to take possession. While there, the trio hunt for a hidden treasure and encounter a ghost, a zombie, and a mysterious killer.—duke1029

Plot Keywords: busboy, nightclub employee, singer, lawyer, mobster, love interest, cheeky ...

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