12 Best Horror Movies That Start With R (2024)
Have you ever chilled yourself to the bone with a creepy movie title that begins with the letter R? Horror films encompass every corner of the genre, including this A-list featuring cursed videotapes and haunted houses.
In this article, I will guide you through a list of some of the most iconic horror movies that begin with the letter R and which have been scaring audiences for decades and briefly introduce you to some movies that may not have been on your radar. I hope this list gave the veteran horror fan something to ponder over after reading and helped get the newcomers into the series a good scare as well.
Well, ready for the risky dare? Grab your popcorn, turn off the lights and let’s get candid to the wonderful dimensions of R-Rated Horror Films!
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List of Horror Movies That Start With R: Top Horror Films
Here is the list of horror films starting with R:
1. The Ring (2002) – Psychological Horror
- Director: Gore Verbinski
- Cast: Naomi Watts (Rachel Keller), Martin Henderson (Noah Clay), Brian Cox (Richard Morgan)
- Runtime: 115 min
- IMDb Rating: 7.1
A young journalist named Rachel Keller, in search of what happened to her niece, Katie, stumbles upon a mysterious VHS tape that is rumored to be cursed. This is a movie in which, at the end of every episode, the viewer receives a phone call which results in their death within seven days—something straight out of a scream-inducing franchise.
The lightning strikes and kill them both Rachel watches the tape herself never to intervene and save her or her son from the same fate. Desperate to solve the curse, she reduces the time left, trying to find the truth with the help of an ex-husband and vague Videocentric.
Besides the simple plot of the person doing something bad and getting a certain amount of time to repent, there’s the story of the growing romantic relationship between Rachel and Tommy, where Rachel is trying to stop a vengeful spirit from killing her and her son before it’s too late.
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Rosemary’s Baby (1968) – Psychological Horror
- Director: Roman Polanski
- Cast: Mia Farrow (Rosemary Woodhouse), John Cassavetes (Guy Woodhouse), Ruth Gordon (Minnie Castevet)
- Runtime: 136 min
- IMDb Rating: 8.0
It is the story of a young couple Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse who recently moved into an apartment with a dark history. They Moreno become friendly with their peculiar neighbors, Roman and Minnie Caste vet, who pay a rather more than than necessary attention to the couple’s willingness to have a child.
Rosemary gets pregnant after being given a strange drink by an old woman she met at a dinner you know where from. One night ago, she overhears some ominous dialogues by her neighbors and starts believing that they are Satanists who want to make recourses of her unborn child, turning her life into a living nightmare.
Feeling more and more alone and surrounded by danger, which is personified in her husband’s clear evil intentions, Rosemary makes her last attempt to find out the truth and save her baby.
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2. Repulsion (1965) – Psychological Horror
- Director: Roman Polanski
- Cast: Catherine Deneuve (Carole Ledoux), Yvonne Mitchell (Helen Ledoux), John Fraser (Colin)
- Runtime: 105 min
- IMDb Rating: 8.3
Carole Ledoux is a young woman with a twofold nature and she is from London but she has a sister called Helen. When Helen goes away on a holiday, Carole is left alone to cope with predicaments of loneliness and sexual instabilities.
She becomes more delusional and hallucinated, and there are dark thoughts and ideas in her mind, feelings of exclusion increase. In the apartment, the setting becomes even more claustrophobic, and Carole becomes more psychotic, with episodes of trashing the furniture.
The main and discussed topic is solitude, abstinence, and the process of losing one’s marbles.
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3. Rear Window (1954) – Suspense, Thriller
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Cast: James Stewart (L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies), Grace Kelly (Lisa Fremont), Wendell Corey (Thomas Doyle)
- Runtime: 112 min
- IMDb Rating: 8.9
B. “Jeff” Jefferies is a famous photojournalist who is a quadriplegic because of a broken spine due to an accident, and now has spent annulled days as a prisoner in his apartment in New York. Not being able to escape the solitude, he indulges in surveillance, catching glimpses of his neighbors across the courtyard through a telephoto lens.
They have secret lives with overhead strings of normality that the covert observer watches them interact with their neighbors, and witness what seems to be a string of suspicious incidents in the apartment across the way.
A salesman goes missing and then a saw comes in the wee hours of the night and then a man drags something really heavy. When Jeff grows obsessed with a serial killer, he finally begins to think that his neighbor is actually guilty for committing murder. To his girlfriend Lisa and detective Doyle he maybe has some doubts but Jeff does not want to let the truth remain hidden.
He decides to consult his sister, Lisa and with her assistance, they follow the suspect and place their selves in a very compromising position all in a bid to nail a potential killer.
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4. Ringu (1998) – Psychological Horror
- Director: Hideo Nakata
- Cast: Nanako Matsushima (Reiko Asakawa), Miki Nakayama (Yuko Kawai), Hiro Kanagawa (Ryuji Takayama)
- Runtime: 96 min
- IMDb Rating: 7.1
Reiko Asakawa, a pretty and aspiring young journalist, gets on a mission of uncovering the truth behind the bizarre deaths of young people in their late teens. The tape contains disturbing images and a chilling message:
The next day he got a chance to watch it and it was said that the person who watchers this video will die after seven days. Initially, she doubted the video, but seeing the dead teenagers who watched the kedamono.
Thus, the narrative shows that Reiko is a determined woman ready to free herself and her son from the curse by investigating the origin of the infamous tape. She finds out that there is a curse made by a vengeful spirit that gets trapped in the tape, which attacks us who are watching the video. With time running out the audience follows Reiko as she desperately seeks a solution to the tragedy, a solution to prevent her own death and appease the spirit.
As a technological horror movie it depicts negative sides of the technology, power of suggestion and immortality of the spirits seeking revenge.
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5. REC (2007) – Found-Footage Horror
- Director: Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza
- Cast: Manuela Velasco (Ángela Vidal), Ferrán Terraza (Pablo), Jorge Yamam (Sergio)
- Runtime: 78 min
- IMDb Rating: 7.4
Ángela Vidal is a TV SC reporter and her colleague is a cameraman, named Pablo, they accompany a team of firefighters to an apartment house with a routine intervention call.
Upon reaching the place, they are met by a senile old lady, cramped in her house who behaves erratically and violently to the bewilderment of the protagonists. This is a shocking climax that prompts the authorities to shut the building to curb the spread of the virus and everyone is stuck inside. As tension rises, the people stone the house and attack Lugard ferociously as if under the influence of an evil spirit.
Ángela and Pablo survived the shocking events and, in their attempt, to flee the building and anonymize the received footage, they become its direct witnesses and denouncers.
The picture adds the fragmented element of the documentary movement in the shakiness of the camera work and conveys the sensation of being trapped and the feeling of being in its elementary way.
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Even after the events of Exorcist, it is still not clearly defined what the specific menacing of the demonic presence entails causing the audience to wonder and fear what may follow.
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6. Rosemary’s Baby (1968) – Psychological Horror
- Director: Roman Polanski
- Cast: Mia Farrow (Rosemary Woodhouse), John Cassavetes (Guy Woodhouse), Ruth Gordon (Minnie Castevet)
- Runtime: 136 min
- IMDb Rating: 8.0
Next, a young couple, Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse after being wed for some time, seek to adopt a child as they desire to begin a family and move to an apartment at the Bramford, a scary New York City apartment building known for mysterious occurrences.
However, this historical account of endless warfare has ended; they take their belongings and move into the new house, although the surrounding feels and sounds creepy and some creepy things even happen. This doll-filled home befriends their strange next-door neighbors: the elderly, sinister-sounding Roman and Minnie Castevet, who are far too interested in the couple’s wish for a child.
During a dinner at the Castevet’s, Rosemary gets pregnant for a strange experience is witnessed during the dinner. Frank then resigns, and a number of more eccentric incidents occur, which cause her to doubt the nature of the Caste vets. Fears in this movie rise as Rosemary feels the restrictions befriending her and becomes fully combative on Guy who appears to lack the empathy required to understand and comfort her worries.
Suddenly, she buys into notion that the Caste vets are devil worshippers who plan to use her baby for some malevolent deed. Rosemary tries her best to uncover the facts, however the distinction between what is real and the onset of paranoid schizophrenia demands the audience to determine whether the baby needs protection from horrifying events in the story or not.
Manipulation, gaslighting, and the submitted position of women, particularly during their pregnancy, are given much attention in the film.
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7. Repulsion (1965) – Psychological Horror
- Director: Roman Polanski
- Cast: Catherine Deneuve (Carole Ledoux), Yvonne Mitchell (Helen Ledoux), John Fraser (Colin)
- Runtime: 105 min
- IMDb Rating: 8.3
Carole Ledoux, a young Belgian woman who lives in London with her extroverted sister Helen, shows a limited interaction with others and a developing fear of men as well as any physical touch.
Through attending Helen’s vacation in Italy Carole is left to face her loneliness and her increasing sexual phobias. There is a growing sense of claustrophobic discomfort, and the apartment has become tainted with grotesque images and the narrator’s reflections. Carole’s signs of madness.
The move into madness is manifested in Carole’s decit, a sequence of disturbing fantasies is amplified by a sense of isolation. She develops violent cravings and starts having visions.
Having a black and white cinematography supports the demonstration of a gradual psychological decline of the protagonist with the spectators being in doubt as to whether the events occurring are real or not.
This work is a highly original and cold-blooded depiction of themes such as loneliness and sexual frustration leading to psychotic behavior.
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8. Retribution (2006) – Japanese Mystery Horror
- Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
- Cast: Kōji Yakusho (Detective Yoshioka), Manami Konishi (Harue Nimura), Yûrei Yasuda (F18)
- Runtime: 104 min
- IMDb Rating: 6.8
Story: It is a story of Detective Noboru Yoshioka, looking into the circumstances of an unidentified woman, who died due to drowning in a red dress.
As for spoilers, perhaps the most intriguing twist is when the witness at the crime scene can only point at him as the possible murderer. He cannot recall the incident and the following days the woman in red haunts his thoughts and dream.
Gradually, the element of mystery emerges when Yoshioka later discovers that the case is a series of what appears to be unrelated murders, which were all drowning incidents and the victims wore red outfit.
He immersed himself in personal PTSD issues, becomes a paranoiac and questions if there are repressed memories. The borders between the shows’ internal and external worlds become intertwined and the protagonists find themselves in the surreal world where Yoshioka descends into obsession — the pursuit of the truth and the figure in a red dress.
Please note: There may be more than one film of this title This insight originates from the movie “Retribution” a Japanese film in the year 2006 Sakebi.
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9. Raze (2013) – Action Horror
- Director: Adam Green
- Cast: Zoe Bell (Rachel), Sherilyn Fenn (Elizabeth), Tracie Lords (Sabu)
- Runtime: 100 min
- IMDb Rating: 5.4
Rachel wakes up naked in a cold concrete cell only to realize she can be killed by the guards and if she is not killed, then she has to kill other women in the coliseum-like room. Her initial state and knowledge of how she get there or who is behind the sadistic game is gone.
Having sens, no money and herself is backed into a corner of thirst to live, she has to fight her opponents and use all her talents to survive in the deadly game.
The movie is a rape-revenge flick with a powerful female protagonist experiencing the force at its grittiest in an unforgiving environment. It contains elements by disturbing violence Towards women and may be violent for some viewers.
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10. Ringu (1998) – Psychological Horror
- Director: Hideo Nakata
- Cast: Nanako Matsushima (Reiko Asakawa), Miki Nakayama (Yuko Kawai), Hiro Kanagawa (Ryuji Takayama)
- Runtime: 96 min
- IMDb Rating: 7.1
Reiko Asakawa, a young and famous investigative reporter, gets interested in a recent puroposal direction that has claimed the lives of four teenagers. It reaches a point where a group of seven people die within a week after viewing some videos on a VHS, and the experience is akin to a waking nightmare.
At first she is skeptical about them, and, after her niece receives the cursed tape too, Reiko starts to dig deeper. The tape contains disturbing images and a chilling message:
It says that you will die seven days after watching it. Nearing the end and aware of the curse, Reiko is intent on saving her niece and finding out more about the tape. She learns a curse story of the ghost of Sadako Yamamura, a creepy psychic who was chased and murdered before being buried alive in a well.
The well echoes her anger and hatred, and the cursed tape delivers her evil curse on the characters who dared to watch it. Sadako asks Reiko and her niece to die on the last day of her 44 days of vengeful spirit after promising her a human to die on her behalf on the 44th day, and Reiko struggles to find a way to save herself and her niece and stop Sadako’s spirit from killing more people.
Ringu also looks at the effects of scientific advancement and how these ideas are breathtaking, may lead one to death and show how vengeful spirits are immortal. This is a 1998 Japanese movie and has been remade in the US in 2002 with the title “The Ring”.
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11. Relic (2020) – Psychological Horror
- Director: Natalie Erika James
- Cast: Emily Mortimer (Edna), Robyn Nevin (May), Bella Heathcote (Sam)
- Runtime: 109 min
- IMDb Rating: 6.7
In this horror movie an old lady, frail and very old, gets lost in her dilapidated house; a house that certainly illustrated her state of life. They only knit-pick their own member, estranged daughter, Kay and her granddaughter, Sam embark to the isolated place to investigate.
As they arrive at home, they meet Edna back from her work but she is strange, distant and aloof. Thus, the house appears to have an actually evil aura; one gets the sense of fear and its presence even dominates the atmosphere. In their attempts to find out more as Kay and Sam convinced, a mystery manifests itself in the form of a mold all over the house.
They quickly come to discover the mold tends to control not only the Gedo Sen no Denki but Edna as well, changing her memories and starving her. The movie provides probing insights into issues of aging, dementia, and the multifaceted dynamics of mother-daughter narratives.
It is even less graphic than Grehan’s film, as it aims more at the characters’ breakdown and the impossibility to escape the horrible, which is death, than at making the viewers scream in terror.
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12. Raw (2016)
- Genre: Psychological Horror, Body Horror
- Director: Julia Ducournau
- Cast: Garance Marillier (Justine), Ella Rumpf (Alexia), Rabah Nait Ouerram (Ahmed), Laurent Lucas (Dad)
- Runtime: 99 minutes
- IMDb Rating: 7.5
In this horror movie Justine, a young vegetarian born in a family of veterinarians, decides to attend a veterinary school and, one day, she is forced to endure a hazing practice.
The real of the ritual consists in consuming a raw rabbit kidney. Specified syndromes are observed in the plot when after eating raw meat, Justine feels the sick, unnatural and uncontrolled desire for flesh. This new desire for meat interferes with her vegetarianism and unveils an unfamiliar aspect of her home.
It deals with themes like body horror, sexuality, the unspoken Бfamily Б, and the conflict of individuality. The suspense wriggles out of Justine as she assumes the role of a cannibal, this is shocking and rather disturbing. Raw is a dark, harrowing as well as innovative unflinching film that demands to be seen.
Please note: There are a number of images of viciousness and body abomination in the movie, which making it not so appropriate for everybody.
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Last Thoughts
That wraps up the list of the top horror movies starting with r; we are sure there is a new scary gem here for you to enjoy. Just be weary that horror is not always defined by zombies and jump scares. These films do not only portray great action but they carry meaning and go into exploring deeper issues beyond man’s fear.
So, the next time you’ll find yourself in search of some adventurous fun, don’t shy away from dipping into the grown-up horror genre, reminiscent of iconic films like However, make sure that the lights are turned on; just do not turn them off on the visitor or not, if you dare Bebrging yourself If you’re brave enough! You may watch these movies on Netflix.
FAQs
Q: What is the scariest R-rated movie?
A: With the topic of ‘amen’ saying that the first video is the scariest there can’t be one as fear is relative. One person may experience fear, while the other remains indifferent to the same thing.
This list offers a variety of R-rated horror films with different elements that might terrify you: emotional horror (Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby), spooky supernatural (Ringu), gross-out body terrorism (Raw), and tense, watchful exposition (Rear Window).
Q: What is an R-rated horror movie?
An R-rated horror movie refer to a movie that has been classified as ‘Rated R’ by the Motion Picture Association (MPA). This rating suggests that the content could be considered against the interests of society and involves scenes that are appropriate for those above 17 years of age and deemed appropriate for viewing by parents.
Movies that are categorized as horror R- rated usually contain elements such as violent scenes, bloodshed, scenes that can scare the viewer, scenes that include swearing and scenes that depict sexual settings or actions.
Q: Is Scary Movie 5 Rated R?
Indeed, Scary Movie 5 has an R rating in the MPAA rating scale, and has become noticeable for parody and slapping humor, but also features elements with rating-violating violence, profanity and sexual references.
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Q: Is Scary Movie 1 Rated R?
A: Yes, Scary Movie 1 is also an ‘R’ rated movie. Like the Scary Movie 5, the ‘R’ rated feature uses violence, sexual references/sex scenes, and abusive language.
Q. What are some horror movies that start with “R” that involve alien themes?
One of the notable horror movies starting with “R” and having alien themes is “Return of the Living Dead,” a cult classic from 1985.
Q. Can you provide a synopsis for a favorite horror movie starting with the letter “R”?
Sure! A popular horror movie starting with “R” is “Return of the Living Dead,” which follows a group of characters dealing with a zombie outbreak at a vampire camp in 1975.
Q. Are there any anticipated sequels in the horror genre starting with the letter “R” coming out in 2022?
Yes, horror fans can look forward to the release of “Reborn,” the highly awaited sequel to a found footage horror film, set to premiere in 2022.
Q. Where can I find a list of top 15 horror movies that start with the letter “R”?
You can easily find a curated list of the top 15 horror movies start that with R on popular horror movie websites or dedicated forums.
