There’s no translation needed for a scream. And when someone’s being attacked with a ridiculously large knife, their nationality doesn’t make the situation any less terrifying. Not to mention other countries seem to understand that real horror isn’t about the jump-scares or extreme gore (something we’re finally seeing a little less of in recent films like Goodnight Mommy, The Babadook, and It Follows). So we had no trouble curating this list of the best foreign horror films, except maybe in limiting ourselves to only ten. This Halloween, if you thought subtitles might distract from suspense, check out any of these titles and find yourself spookily proven wrong.

10 Must Watch Foreign Horror Films For Halloween

#10. Nosferatu (1922 – Germany)

F.W. Murnau’s silent classic Nosferatu floods the mind with inky, dreamlike visions that never release their grip. The film haunts me to this day because the monster at its center isn’t treated as a movie monster at all, but a demon that lurks and stalks us from the shadows of our world. He’s embodied by German actor Max Schreck, whose performance is freaky as hell, not operatic and sexy (don’t call him Dracula). Our hero, Hutter (Alexander Granach), uncovers pieces of vampire lore via mysterious letters and occult symbols and barely evades the gangly Nosferatu himself as a wave of doom and dread rolls over us. The film’s most famous scene, involving a shocking coffin reveal, is as chilling as ever. Murnau’s film is now nearly 100 years old but is scary in a way that modern films can’t reproduce—with the absence of sound, Nosferatu‘s onscreen horrors appear all the more nightmarish, leaving a sonic vacuum in the air meant to be filled with our blood-curdling screams. [Bernard]

#9. Ringu (1998 – Japan)

Based on a novel by Kôji Suzuki (Japan’s answer to Stephen King), Ringu, from director Hideo Nakata, is a chilling film made effective by its own simplicity, both in construct and in execution. The premise, in the form of an urban legend propagated by teens, is simple: watch a certain VHS tape, die seven days later. That’s it. This simplicity of fate is what makes the tale so effective. Unlike most “something is coming for you” horror films (think everything from classics like Halloween to indie sensations like It Follows), there is no boogeyman to run away from, no executioner to plead to for mercy, no chance of dodging demise—nobody can hide from time. When the reporter (Nanako Matsushima) investigating the legend watches the tape herself, the story shifts from “What will happen next?” to “Something will happen soon,” adding to the film’s already great tension. Then, the story doubles-down in the form of the reporter’s young son happening across the tape, thus starting his own clock, that tension exponentially increases. This is what makes the film work so well. Ringu is more terror than horror, like an old-time ghost story that relies very little on visual scares, instead captivating viewers with great suspense, overwhelming atmosphere, and unsettling anticipation. [Michael]

#8. [REC] (2007 – Spain)

Before Paranormal Activity kicked off a found footage trend that we’re still going through, directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza cooked up this fun and chaotic zombie film (or is it?). Plucky reporter Angela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) is following a group of firemen working the night shift for a TV show when there’s a call about a situation at an apartment building. Angela and her cameraman follow the firemen inside, only to discover that some sort of virus is spreading through the building, turning people into crazed cannibals (similar the rage virus from 28 Days Later). By the time they realize something’s wrong the government shows up to quarantine everyone inside the building, and from there it’s a battle for survival as each tenant either gets devoured or succumbs to the disease. Balaguero and Plaza waste no time getting to the good stuff; exposition is minimal, and within 15 minutes the blood starts flowing. The cramped setting of the building, combined with the fact that the protagonists are actually trapped (and it’s worth mentioning that [REC] gets bonus points for providing a legitimate reason why the camera needs to keep rolling), makes [REC] a nail biter, and the film is brilliantly structured in the way it escalates the tension at an exponential rate. And the finale, a shocking sequence that plays out in night vision, wouldn’t feel out of place in a list of the scariest scenes of all-time. [C.J.]

#7. Kwaidan (1964 – Japan)

There’s something to be said about the power of folktales. Unlike the bulk of modern horror that draws on certain influences, but ultimately strives for a wholly new mythology, the act of bringing ancient stories to the big screen carries the potential for a far more affecting experience. It’s about sharing lessons, fears and cautionary narratives that have endured for hundreds of years and if done right, the result can be deeply resonant. Kwaidan is just such a film. Masaki Kobayashi’s three-hour anthology tells four tales from Japanese folklore united by the common thread of ghostly encounters. A poor young swordsman makes an ill-fated bid for higher social status, a woodcutter holds a promise of dubious consequences to a wintry spirit, the ghosts of a royal family request the talents of a blind musician and a writer sees a grinning face in a cup of tea. All four stories unravel at an appropriately deliberate pace set against a background of vibrant artificial scenery and highly expressive sets. Rather than being a horror film fueled by big scares, Kwaidan impresses with its subtly chilling atmosphere and its evocative rendering of a delusive, spiritually rich world. [Byron]

#6. Eyes Without A Face (1960 – France)

If ever there was any doubt that Georges Franju’s 1960 bastion of plastic surgery was a legitimate horror film, just think of the title it premiered with in the States in 1962: The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus. Of course, it’s only today’s audience who’d look at a horror cult classic like Eyes Without A Face and question its legitimacy for scares. Never forget how desensitized we’ve become over the years, but even if the film doesn’t scare us today as it surely did audiences back in the ’60s, the creeps it exudes still raise hairs on the back of the neck. Pierre Brasseur plays the mad doctor who attempts to re-create the physical beauty of his once-beautiful daughter, Charlotte (Edith Scob, mostly covered in the iconic white mask but piercing with emotions through eyes you’ll drop into and a voice that’ll break the fall). A sickly atmosphere that festers in the imagination. The triptych of psychological, emotional, and physical terror. Overarching gothic overtones. Alida Valli’s cold-blooded assistant (the Igor to Brasseur’s Dr. Frankenstein), all exterior beauty and interior grotesquerie. All these elements conspire with Franju’s taut direction and Eugen Schüfftan’s vivid cinematography to make for, arguably, the most poetic (but no less haunting) of all horror films. In my opinion, the heterograft scene stands as one of the genre’s defining moments. [Nik]

#5. I Saw The Devil (2010 – South Korea)

One of the greatest serial killer films ever made, Kim Jee-woon’s I Saw the Devil is a bonafide masterpiece. Mirroring what would happen if James Bond set his sights on Hannibal Lector, the film is a fast-paced epic that is filled with emotion and satisfying payoffs. Excellent performances from Choi Min-sik and Lee Byung-hun keep tensions high from start to finish, and some absolutely barbaric sequences of action and suspense raise the stakes in an honest and believable fashion. It’s the revenge element, though, is what truly propels I Saw the Devil to the next level. Soo-hyun (Byung-hun) is so personally invested in avenging the death of his murdered fiancée, who was killed by Kyung-chul (Min-sik), that the vengeance becomes his only motivation in life. Jee-woon and screenwriter Park Hoon-jung study the psyches of both the hero and the villain with equal interest, which makes I Saw the Devil one of the most character-driven tales of revenge ever made. [Blair]

#4. The Devil’s Backbone (2001 – Spain)

Like a little history and a whole lot of atmosphere to go with your horror? There’s no greater director more masterful at combining all of the above than Guillermo del Toro. Set during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, The Devil’s Backbone follows a group of orphaned boys at a home in the country. One new boy, Carlos, starts to see the ghost of a boy in the orphanages dark stone passageways and does his best to uncover what the dead boy’s story is. Like many of del Toro’s best films (Pan’s Labyrinth being another great example), the supernatural elements of this world are almost never as scary as the ill intentions of the living. Carlos and his companions must face the war-torn reality of their world while finding a way to reconcile the last wishes of the dead. Del Toro’s signature attention to eery detail—not to mention his penchant for lingering on his creepy creations allowing each horrifying detail to sink in—and his ability to craft unrelentingly evil characters are what make The Devil’s Backbone a mood-filled and satisfying ghost story. [Ananda]

#3. Diabolique (1955- France)

Diabolique is a classic of the horror genre which deserves its place alongside the likes of Psycho and The Exorcist. Gorgeously shot and incredibly tense throughout, Henri-Georges Clouzot crafts a horror film that is sure to sit with you for days. Following the story of a murder gone wrong, Christina (Vera Clouzot) and her husband’s mistress (Simone Signoret) conspire together to kill an abusive husband (Paul Meurisse), but once they do nothing is as it seems. Saying anything more about the story would spoil some of the most thrilling sequences ever put to film. It’s been said that Alfred Hitchcock lost out on the film rights to Diabolique by just a few hours, still it’s hard to imagine anyone, even the Master of Suspense himself, outdoing Clouzot here. [Ryan]

#2. Audition (1999 – Japan)

Prolific Japanese filmmaker, Takashi Miike, who is known for his transgressive social commentaries and cartoonish violence, released in 1999 what might be the most graphic and frightening film about romantic relationships ever committed to celluloid. The plot of Audition focuses on a widow by the name of Shigeharu Aoyama who, with the help of a fellow film producer, arranges a faux-audition for a non-existent movie in order to find himself a prospective bride. Unfortunately, his gaze falls upon the wrong woman. Asami Yamazaki, the seemingly harmless apple of his eye, is (to say the least) not at all who she appears to be. With Audition, Miike shows more directorial restraint than usual, which might be the film’s most commendable attribute. The majority of the runtime is spent exploring the growing intimacy between Shigeharu and Asami, interspersed with abrupt and very brief sequences hinting at something sinister developing within Asami’s psyche. It isn’t until the latter half of the third act that the film shifts gears completely and erupts into a state of unexpectedly extreme mayhem. But in order to find out the specifics of what transpires, you’ll have to experience the film for yourself—just don’t say you weren’t warned. [Eli]

#1. Let The Right One In (2008 – Sweden)

In the same year that obnoxiously popular teen vampire series kicked off (we won’t even mention its name), came a small film out of Sweden that turned the overplayed genre on its head. Beautifully shot, with a tender story and one hell of a mean streak, Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In is a special film. By creating its monster in the form of a little girl, the film is able to cleverly play with many of the most traditional vampire myths—especially the role of the human servant, which is the most tragic theme of the film. Alfredson is an incredibly patient filmmaker (something that works extraordinarily well in moody horror films), knowing just how much information, thematic and visual, to show the audience. His craft shows particularly well in the breathtaking final scene, one of the best staged horror sequences of all-time. While that mainstream vampire series was capturing young audiences with sparkly skin and sexual repression, Let the Right One In showed that vampires could still be cool while actually having a complex and resonant dramatic story. And it’s actually scary. Let the Right One In also has the distinction of inspiring an above-average American remake (which can’t be said for too many other films on this list), Let Me In from Cloverfield’s Matt Reeves. [Aaron]

The fine folks over at Cinema Guild have recently released Lisandro Alonso’s Jauja, one of our Must See Indie picks, in theatres, and we’re not the only ones throwing high praise around. Jauja stars Viggo Mortensen as Captain Gunnar Dinesen, who travels to the Argentinian desert with his teenage daughter Ingeborg to work for the army. Dinesen is extremely protective of Ingeborg due to his coworkers not hiding their attraction towards her, but his attempts to shield her fail; she runs off with a young soldier in the desert, and Dinesen heads into the vast landscape to find her.

It sounds like a standard set-up for a mystery/drama, but what makes Jauja so wonderful is where it ends up. Without getting into too much detail, Dinesen’s search in the desert brings him to a time and place that comes out of nowhere, and suddenly the tale of a man trying to reunite with his daughter becomes something more magical and transcendental. It’s one of the boldest cinematic moves I’ve seen in recent years.

Just don’t call what happens in Jauja a plot twist, though. A better term might be plot explosion. Everything changes in the last act of Alonso’s film, to the point where it seems like a completely different movie has come out of nowhere. It’s a risky move, but when it works it can defy expectations in the best way possible. It’s natural to settle into a one track mindset while watching a film, implicitly trusting that a movie will stay within the boundaries it establishes from the start. So when something successfully shatters a viewer’s expectations, it can provide a jolt of adrenaline that elevates the experience to another level.

Jauja, along with the movies listed below, are films that successfully redefine themselves into something else entirely. Through the element of surprise, they transform from one kind of film into a completely different one, and in doing so create an unforgettable experience. To varying degrees, they all serve as reminders that the cinematic possibilities are truly endless.

Warning: There will be SPOILERS for the films mentioned throughout. You’ve been warned.

L’Avventura

It’s hard to understate the importance of Michelangelo Antonioni’s feature, considering how influential it’s been since its 1960 premiere at Cannes. At the time, audiences did not take kindly to the film; there was booing throughout, with people yelling ‘Cut!” at the screen if a scene felt especially long. The volatility of the screening made Antonioni and star Monica Vitti leave the theatre, but an impassioned response by the film’s defenders after the premiere turned the tides in L’Avventura’s favour, and at the end of the festival Antonioni wound up walking away with a prize. Today, L’Avventura is considered one of the greatest films of all time.

Why did people react to the film with such hostility? Because Antonioni deliberately used cinematic conventions and expectations to trick viewers. L’Avventura starts out as a mystery, when a woman’s disappearance during a boating trip causes her friend (Vitti) to start searching for her. But Antonioni has no interest in explaining the whereabouts of the missing woman. Slowly but surely—with an emphasis on slowly—the film drifts away from the mystery, instead focusing on the decadent, bored lifestyles of Vitti and her friends. Watch almost any film that Cannes lauds now, and you can see Antonioni’s ghost lingering somewhere in the frame (Jauja premiered at Cannes, and its similarities to L’Avventura are easy to notice). L’Avventura starts this list because it was the first film to defiantly change itself into something far deeper and more impacting than its initial plot would suggest. With L’Avventura, Antonioni kicked open the door that the rest of the films on this list wound up going through.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Everyone knows how influential and brilliant Kubrick was, and 2001 has rightfully earned its place as one of the best films ever made. Most films on here redefine themselves once, but 2001 slams its fist on the reset button multiple times as it goes from the dawn of man to humankind’s next stage of evolution. But the key turning point for Kubrick’s masterpiece would obviously be “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite,” the final section of the film, where astronaut David (Keir Dullea) takes a psychedelic journey across the universe, ending up in a room where he sees himself age over a matter of minutes. Only Kubrick could make such a vast, large-scale film and insert what was essentially an avant-garde short in the middle of it, and get audiences to eat it up. Kubrick didn’t just redefine his own film; he managed to redefine cinema itself.

Anguish

Bigas Luna’s 80s cult horror film certainly doesn’t hold a candle to the likes of L’Avventura or 2001, but this deceptive little movie is brilliant in its own right. Luna’s film starts off as an ultra-silly, yet highly entertaining piece of cheese, with an optometrist (Michael Lerner) telepathically commanded by his mother (Zelda Rubenstein) to murder people and keep their eyeballs as souvenirs. It comes across as a fun throwback to B-movies, until Luna throws in a complete curveball: it turns out the film is actually “The Mommy,” a movie that the real main characters are watching inside a theatre. From then on, Luna cuts between the film and the film-within-a-film until a crazed theatregoer begins slaughtering everyone in the screening.

It’s a hell of an audacious choice by Luna’s part, and it amazingly pays off because of the way he juxtaposes the two films. In “The Mommy,” Luna throws plenty of style and over the top camera tricks, but the theatre massacre is filmed in a realistic, straightforward manner. The combination of both styles makes the violence far more disturbing, especially when the two films start showing parallels between each other. It’s a fascinating look at the way horror films and reality mutually influence each other, and a brilliant transition from popcorn cheese to the something truly unnerving.

Audition

For those brave enough to get through Takashi Miike’s mortifying film, this selection shouldn’t come as a surprise. Audition’s switch between the mundane and the horrific isn’t exactly a shock, but only because Miike throws one scene in early on hinting at what’s to come. Even then, it’s impossible to get prepared for the stomach churning final act. Audition starts off as a bit of a romantic dramedy; Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) hasn’t gotten over his wife’s death, which triggers his friend to come up with the brilliant idea of holding an audition for a new wife. Aoyama finds himself stricken with the quiet Asami (Eihi Shiina), even though everyone warns him not to bother with her.

Since this is a horror film in disguise, Aoyama finds out the hard way that people were right about his new love. Audition isn’t too bold in its switch from drama to horror given its foreshadowing, but it makes up for it by going full-blown batshit crazy; druggings, needles, pedophilia, decaptiations, flapping severed tongues, piano wire and vomit eating are just a few things Miike throws on-screen within the final half hour. The fact that everything leading up to this is a gentle, human story about a man trying to find true love only makes the graphic content hit even harder. If you know it’s a horror film going in it’s easy to get prepared; Miike prefers to let viewers figure it out while watching, which makes the switcheroo hit like a bag of hammers. Miike’s shift from romance to nauseous horror is so jarring, it can feel like a betrayal.

The Loneliest Planet

Last year, Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure became an arthouse hit, but Julia Loktev beat that film to the punch 3 years earlier. And while Ostlund quickly starts his film with the main character’s selfish act during a life-threatening crisis, Loktev takes her sweet time. The film starts with engaged couple Alex (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Nica (Hani Furstenberg) taking a backpacking trip through the country of Georgia. For the first half of The Loneliest Planet, nothing really seems to happen. Alex and Nica travel around the Caucasus Mountains with their travel guide, and Loktev lets the absolutely stunning location carry her film along.

But then Alex and Nica bump into a man with a loaded rifle, and in a miscommunication the man points his gun directly at Alex. Alex immediately grabs Nica,  putting her in front of him as a shield, and with that single act everything changes. Once the scene ends, Loktev goes back to the quiet, slow-moving style from the first half, except now every moment of silence sounds deafening. There’s little communication between Alex and Nica for the rest of the trip, and Loktev lets every wordless moment between them linger with a thin layer of tension and discomfort. It’s astounding to see how one tiny action can have such a pronounced influence over an entire film.

Romancing in Thin Air

Every film on this list has made a bold, defiant and risky change, but this film, which is slowly becoming one of my favourite Johnnie To movies, changes itself so gracefully it almost feels natural. To, a master of efficiency, quickly sets the story through an opening montage: A-list movie star Michael Lau (Louis Koo) gets dumped at the altar by his fiancée, and after a drunken bender winds up at an old resort high up in the mountains. Sau (Sammi Cheng), the resort’s owner, finds Michael, and decides to let him stay so he can get over his breakup.

It starts off as an absurd setup for a romantic comedy, with Michael awkwardly adjusting to the high altitude as he falls in love with Sau. But then To slowly reveals Sau’s tragic history—her husband went missing several years ago—and throws in several clever twists to the story. By the halfway point, Romancing in Thin Air has gone from a quirky romcom to a graceful, moving meditation on loss. But that switch doesn’t even begin to prepare for the emotional final act, where Michael finds a way to give Sau the exact thing she needs to move on with her life. Romancing in Thin Air opens up in the most beautifully unexpected of ways, as it slowly turns itself into a celebration of the power of film. Many movies have celebrated the way films can move us, but To takes it a step further; he suggests that film can be therapeutic, and a tool to help people better their own lives. It sounds a bit schmaltzy, but in To’s hands it’s impossible for any film lover to not get choked up by the time the credits roll.