Halloween countdown: The scariest movies about cults

A cult is scary and it can make any movie 10 times more frightening. What are the scariest movies about cults?

Cults are nothing new. They’ve been around since the beginning of civilization and yet, they remain one of the scariest and most obscure things about human culture.

Although the term is hard to properly define, a “cult” generally describes a social group with unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or a common interest. It’s been theorized that they usually arise spontaneously around novel beliefs and practices and are typically made of people looking for some sort of external or internal empowerment.

Which movies about cults do you find the most frightening? Below, we share some of our favorites.

Movies about cults to stream this Halloween

5. Hereditary

Hereditary, the film debut of director/writer Ari Aster, is all about the problems passed down through families and it’s got nothing to go with genetics.

Annie Graham (Toni Collette) is a woman that suffers from many family tragedies and when her secretive mother dies, she has a hard time coping. The loss causes her to doubt her own sanity, as her entire family suffers from mental illnesses that she believes resulted in their deaths.

While Annie is struggling, her daughter Charlie (Molly Shapiro) dies in a freak accident that her son Peter (Alex Wolff) feels responsible for. Tensions get high and then, like a cancer feeding on their fear, the presence of Annie’s dead mother gets stronger.

No matter how much terrorizing freaky cult stuff there is, Hereditary would be nothing without Collette’s and Wolff’s masterful performances.

4. Borderland

Based on the true story of Adolfo de Jesús Constanzo and the horrific murder of Mark Kilroy, a student from the University of Texas. Constanzo was a drug Lord that led a cult called The Naro-Satanists that practiced human sacrifice as part of voodoo rituals.

Borderland changes the story up a bit by removing Constanzo and his Narco-Satanists and instead replaces them with a serial killer (Sean Astin) and drug smugglers that practice Palo Myombe. The group practices human sacrifice to get the power of Nganga, which they believe will make their drugs invisible to the border guards when smuggled into the US.

3. Rosemary’s Baby

Based on the book by Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby, directed by the now-shamed Roman Polanski, is a deep dive into the modern nightmares of women and their roles of a “mother”. Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her irritating husband Guy (John Cassavetes), move into a new apartment beside the friendly Castevets, who quickly advise the young couple to have a baby.

2. Midsommar

New horror mastermind, Ari Aster wrote and directed the most disturbing folk horror film about Pagans since The Wicker Man. Midsommar is about a group of friends who travel to Sweden for an obscure festival and find themselves the unlucky victims of a cult.

Following a traumatic family tragedy, Dani (Florence Pugh) and her emotionally distant boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) get invited to a midsummer celebration at one of their friend’s ancestral commune, the Hårga, in Hälsingland. At the festival, strange things start happening and Dani’s personal traumas begin manifesting in horrific images as the cult’s true intentions take shape.

1. Wicker Man

The Wicker Man, the movie that made me fear Christopher Lee, is a British horror film directed by Robin Hardy that made people everywhere weary of Neo-Druidism and Burning Man.

Once hailed the Citizen Kane of horror movies, the film was inspired by David Pinner’s novel “Ritual” (now retitled “The Wicca Woman” in eBook) about a detective that goes to the isolated island of Summerisle in search of a missing girl. Detective Neil Howie (Edward Woodward), a devout Christian, becomes unsettled by the inhabitants’ practice of Celtic Paganism.

While on the island he encounters a seductive woman named Willow (Britt Ekland) and the mysterious Lord Summerisle (Lee) who challenges his faith. They seem friendly, but they also work very hard at prolonging his investigation.

The Wicker Man is frightening in a way that most horror films can’t mimic. It’s not dark nor grotesque but beautiful and haunting in the realistic fears it displays.

Which of these movies about cults will you be watching this Halloween season? Did we miss any great ones?