10 Chilling International Horror Movies Directed by Women

That being said, there have always been female directors working in horror — all over the world — who have shattered the glass ceilings above them (and subsequently used those shards of fractured glass to slice metaphorical throats). Here is a fiercely feminine collection of just some of the monumental horrors that were helmed by women. All of these gifted directors come from abroad, and this is just a sampling of their international horror gems.

10 'The Shadow Within' (2007) — Italy

With the methodically-paced The Shadow Within, Italian director Silvana Zancolò presents a chilling, period ghost story, where the creep factor is dialed all the way up. It’s a pensive piece, raising more questions about the paranormal and the afterlife than it attempts to answer. Shot in spooky shadows within mysterious nooks, this movie is eerie and quietly unsettling.

Set during the Great War, Marie (Hayley J. Williams) lives in seclusion with her little son, Maurice (Laurence Belcher). The piccolo ragazzo seems to have the uncanny ability to commune with the deceased, specifically, his dead twin fratello. The drawbacks of this film are primarily focused on the somewhat low-grade CGI, but because of its relatively low budget, these sins are easily forgivable. What stands out most is the story (with a script co-written by Zancolò), which explores the often strained but always loving relationship between a mother and her quite special son.

9 'Blood and Chocolate' (2007) — Romania

Is there a historically creepier country for scary movies than Romania? German director Katja von Garnier doesn’t seem to think so, as her romantic horror film Blood and Chocolate is set in Bucharest, and uses the city’s Gothic backdrop with aplomb. Starring Agnes Bruckner, as Vivian, and Hugh Dancy, as her new beau, Aiden, the story is fairly straightforward. Aiden, a graphic artist, comes to Romania to research werewolves, as one typically does.

Aiden ends up encountering Vivian (who works in a chocolate shop), a beautiful girl with a secretive backstory (spoiler: she’s a lycanthrope). Vivian’s lineage does indeed date back to ancient times, and her species is a breed of shapeshifters, separate from humans (luckily for Aiden, you can't "catch" werewolfism). Vivian runs with a modern pack of furries who do not take kindly to strangers, so the conflict and stakes are high. Swapping vampires for werewolves, this movie is both inventive and sensuous. Von Garnier takes the source material, a book by Annette Curtis Klause of the same name, and turns it into a strikingly visual, sumptuous film.

8 'The Uninvited' (2003) — South Korea

In true Korean horror film fashion, this is a weird and wild one. Director Lee Soo-yeon takes the audience on an express locomotive ride through the supernatural, with twists and turns burrowing deep into the mind. Dealing with themes of memory, guilt, and the repression of trauma, this is a thought-provoking work of dreary art.

The story is centered around a man, Kang Jung-won (Park Shin-yang), who discovers the bodies of two dead girls on a train. Their spirits soon present themselves to Kang, and he, naturally, contacts a psychic, Yun (Jun Ji-hyun), who has the ability to commune with the dead as well (also, she’s a narcoleptic, so hang sessions require a lot of coffee). The direction of this film is stellar throughout, but the way Soo-yeon handles “reveals” is masterful (the first time the dead girls’ ghosts are seen, sitting at opposite ends of Kang’s kitchen table, suspended halfway backwards in perfect unison, is horridly divine).

7 'Organ' (1996) — Japan

Organ harvesting is inherently one of the scarier things a person can conceive of, and Japanese writer/director Kei Fujiwara certainly does this topic poetically gruesome justice. Her film Organ takes a truly horrifying crime and meshes it into a story that is at times phantasmagorical, and always gut-wrenchingly audacious. She leads the audience on an awful, blood-splattered trek through the Tokyo underworld, stirring emotions with bold visuals, rather than humdrum expository action.

This precursor to the “torture porn” body horror sub-genre (made notorious by Eli Roth), is centered around two cops who go undercover to try to bring down the underground organ thievery market. Not so easy, since it is run by the Japanese organized crime syndicate, the Yakuza. Their journey naturally is a disturbing, blood-soaked one, where Fujiwara doesn’t hold a single punch. Her salient point seems to be this: this is a baffling, disgusting “business,” and needs to be presented as such.

6 'Trouble Every Day' (2001) — France

Au revoir French New Wave, and bonjour New French Extremity. That’s ostensibly the mentality of the intrepid director and co-writer of Trouble Every Day, the brazenly talented Claire Denis. In this psychosexual, explicitly bold body horror, Denis delves deep into themes of desire, love, repression, and aggression, all while dazzling the viewer with shockingly intense imagery.

The story follows Shane Brown (the often problematic and always intriguing Vincent Gallo) and his pulchritudinous new bride June Brown (Tricia Vessey) on their jubilant honeymoon in Paris, the City of Lights. However, things take a decidedly dark turn, as Shane mingles intimacy with cannibalism. It’s because he’s developed a “disease” in which he craves human flesh, in every possible, disconcerting way. Throw in Shane’s old pal, Léo (Alex Descas), and his dangerously seductive wife, Coré (the fabulously fierce and stunning Béatrice Dalle), who also has the sex = murder urge, and things really begin to boil. At the end of the (troubled) day, Denis still finds a way to make this brutal, bloody tale somehow relatable, even if it's un petit bleak.

5 'Tiger Stripes' (2023) — Malaysia

Going through puberty is pretty rough on most kids. Add to the usual awkward changes one’s body undergoes, some truly gruesome, burgeoning cat-like features, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for an unforgettable body horror. Director Amanda Nell Eu’s odd coming-of-age story, Tiger Stripes, integrates ancient Malaysian lore with modern tween hijinks, and the end result is a furiously furry film that has serious bite.

The storyline centers around Zaffan (the talented Zafreen Zairizal), a girl who is the first of her peers to menstruate. This is seen as a shameful thing, in her overly conservative school, and Zaffan becomes a pariah of sorts. Then, things take a turn for the weird, as she develops predator-like jaws and tufts of tiger hair — and her fingernails fall off. Cue, more bullying and disgrace. Obviously, this is all a metaphor for the real-life tortures girls go through as they grow up, and Nell Eu’s handling of the sensitive material is exquisite. The real interesting thing is how Zaffan eventually learns to accept her transformation, and finds an inner peace; a motivating lesson for the youngsters out there.

4 'Slash/Back' (2022) — Canada

That fact that Slash/Back was Nyla Innuksuk’s debut film can make anyone feel like an underachiever (she also co-wrote it). This whip-smart sci-fi-horror-comedy is like the whimsical Stranger Things (but with a cadre of all-girl protagonists) unceremoniously mashed together with the terrifying The Thing. Centered around this little crew of sci-fi-adoring underdogs, in the remote region of Nunavut, Canada, Slash/Back is an alien movie that somehow manages to incorporate indigenous folklore and myths in a highly digestible way.

Innuksuk’s fun film succeeds on virtually every level. The kids (Jesse, played by Alexis Vincent-Wolfe, Uki, portrayed by Nalajoss Ellsworth, Leena, played by Chelsea Prusky, and the tough-as-nails standout Tasiana Shirley as Maika) all give great performances. The special effects are rad, the ingenuity employed in battling the evil, shape-shifting space invaders is amusingly clever, and the soundtrack is perfect (a blend of 80s synth electronica and throaty, traditional Inuit songs). Fans are eagerly awaiting Innuksuk’s next thriller, In the Heart of the South, as she explores similar cultural themes and will definitely deliver snarky commentary.

3 'Medusa' (2021) — Brazil

Some satirical films swing for the fences, and a small percentage of those hit home runs into the parking lot. This is definitely the case with Medusa, the stylish dystopian horror-fantasy directed (and co-written) by Anita Rocha da Silveira. Shot in Rio de Janeiro, the harsh yet beautiful backdrop of the city is utilized magnificently, as the splendor, grit, and extreme religious undertones all come under fire. Oh, and there are choreographed dance numbers, too.

The film, which is about a pack of masked women who rove the urban streets doling out their own brand of moral justice, examines a host of intellectually stimulating social issues. Rocha da Silveira takes a microscope to Catholicism, the patriarchy, and a wide swath of women’s issues, all while delivering an ironically humorous and spooky spin on often tragic circumstances. The lead character, Mariana (Mari Oliveira), is a truly fleshed-out, complicated person, who reels you in with her charms and keeps you engaged with her strange story. Mariana questions everything in her life; she even thinks she is demonically possessed, as women with “M” names have historically been cursed. Overall, this is a sleekly crafted, alarming film that needs to be seen (and no, you won't turn to stone by viewing it).

2 'Huesera: The Bone Woman' (2022) — Mexico

This Mexican folkloric tale has a truly terrifying premise: a faceless, demonic woman attacks and causes a new mom-to-be’s bones to break (or so she thinks). Arguably about the physical manifestation of the bone-crushing responsibilities of motherhood, this frightening film examines some major maternal topics — all while scaring the audience silly.

Michelle Garza Cervera’s direction of Huesera: The Bone Woman is phenomenal, and definitely bone-chilling. She also gets one heck of a raw, unflinchingly brave performance out of her lead, Natalia Solián, as Valeria. Indeed, the trials and tribulations that Valeria goes through, first being pregnant and then as an actual mom (one truly feels her postpartum agony), are not only bone but soul crushing. Her ineffectual husband, Raúl (Alfonso Dosal), doesn’t seem too concerned about Valeria’s pleasure in any true sense; her only moments of joy come when she reconnects with a former lover, Octavia (Mayra Batalla). Without spoiling too much, Valeria must fully “crack” apart to really come back together as her true self; eventually, she’s even seen drinking from a Kintsugi mug. Ultimately, Cervera doesn’t need jump scares to instill dread; with the use of eerie imagery (the faceless woman is really hard to erase from your mind), creaky sound design (limbs cracking - yikes) and a slithering sense of the unknown, she simply understands how to scare — no bones about it.

1 'Relic' (2020) — Australia

Relic is one of the best films to ever tackle the heartbreaking topics of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia — and how these tragic illnesses affect older relatives. Natalie Erika James combines the real-life horrors of these afflictions with a supernatural embodiment of the grief, melancholia, and especially, guilt that patients and caregivers/loved ones feel. The whole, darkly-lit, foreboding film is an in-depth study of complex human emotions — that really makes the viewer’s skin crawl.

James, whose cinematic sensibilities are off the charts, gets knockout performances from her whole cast. The always quirkily enchanting Emily Mortimer plays a daughter, Kay, who’s been tasked with managing her mother’s rapidly deteriorating mental state. Her guilt-ridden portrayal is a joy to behold. Kay’s mom, Edna (Robyn Nevin), is so perfectly macabre and creepy when asked to be, and touchingly loving and high-spirited the rest of the time she is on-screen. All in all, Relic is absolutely terrifying on many psychological and visceral levels. Not even counting the sheer scariness of the disease itself, the way James weaves together the family’s troubled history with the monster of the moment (eventually revealed to be a demon-ish creature with tar-like skin that the whole family must embrace) is a thing of disturbing beauty.