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Ghosts of Europe

• Genre(s): Documentary
• Release year: 2016
• Running time: 46 min
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Attila Kaldy

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Six Australian paranormal explorers investigate some of the most controversial locations in Europe., Six Australian paranormal explorers investigate some of the most controversial locations in Europe.

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20 European Horror Films From The 21st Century You Must Watch

Hollywood horror is now an endless stream of remakes, sequels and general lack of originality. There are some exceptions – It Follows while being reminiscent of classic horror makes ordinary people a reason to be fearful, which is to be admired – but these are few and far between. The other side of the Atlantic is Europe: the land of Grimm’s fairytales, Vlad the Impaler, and Mary Shelly.

It is a fertile soil for Horror films, and has been since the beginning – French innovator Georges Méliès is credited has having created the first film with horror elements, The Devil’s Castle in 1896 (Pre-dating his sci-fi masterpiece A Trip to the Moon by 6 years). A lot has happened since then – sound, colour, practical effects, CGI, digital, HD, 4K and beyond – but Europe is still scary as ever and being out of reach of Hollywood taste-makers it can create its own unique brand of scares.

The following list is 20 of the most note-worthy European horror films since the year 2000. It covers home-invasion, found-footage, torture-porn, pastiche, body-horror, New French Extremity, ghost stories, zombies, vampires, werewolves, trolls and the occasional thriller. Shaun of the Dead is exempt as everyone has seen Shaun of the Dead, (if you have not, go watch Shaun of the Dead) but anything else vaguely horrific made in Europe in the last 15 years is fair game. Enough with the foreboding, tension-filled set-up – here is the list.

20. Anatomie (2000, Germany)

An entertaining German Scream-alike fascinated with the gruesome idea of awaking during an operation and being able to see the process happen first hand. Starring Run Lola Run’s Franka Potente as a promising surgical student, the plot revolves around an anti-Hypocratic society that is dissecting terminal patients while they are still alive for the purposes of research. There is a through-line to Nazi experimentations, and while the film as a whole is fairly spotty there are enough good jump scares, photo-realistic gore and heads in Aldi bags to keep Anatomie from falling apart.

Compared to the stoic dramas for which Germany is now most known (The Lives of Others, Downfall) the film’s humour is a welcome addition. There’s nothing wrong with an occasional dissected penis joke. That Anatomie is one of few German Horror films of any merit from the last fifteen years is sad and somewhat surprising considering their pre-war calibre with all-time classics like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, M and proto-vampire film Nosferatu.

Possibly after the real-world horrors of the Holocaust, horror for entertainment’s sake seem in bad taste. Either way – try to find a version of Anatomie with subtitles opposed to the unintentionally hilarious dubbing. There is a sequel, with the same director but with different actors and less spark.

19. Them (2006, France/Romania)

Cinema at its most elemental has everything to do with light. Without light there is no picture. But in absolute darkness, and in the darkest shadows, the human mind imagines the worst terrors. What is hiding in that shadow, that flicker to complete darkness? In this way Them uses light, and lack of light, to highly frightening effect – claustrophobia-inducing tunnels, semi-transparent hung plastic sheeting and a lone television illuminating a room are some of the best examples. A threadbare home-invasion scenario is all the plotting directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud need to hang their intensely suspenseful and thrilling film.

Despite the coincidental title Them is not an European remake of the classic U.S. 1950’s B-Movie Them! which revolves around giant mutant ants. The French/Romanian Them is much more sinister; less a judgement of nuclear weaponry, more a statement about how desensitized to violence children are now. Based around an apparently true story where a group of Romanian schoolchildren brutally murdered a husband and wife, their defence being that “they didn’t want to play with us”. Within an exceptionally efficient 72 minutes Them creates a thriller all the more effective for how close it is to reality. This could be your life or death.

18. Night Watch (2004, Russia)

A hyper-stylised Russian thriller where supernatural beings walk the streets of modern day-Moscow – like the Underworld films if they were not terrible. Writer/director Timur Bekmambetov creates this fantastical world around a plot so complex that another couple of films were needed to completely tell the saga, but generally boils down to a centuries old feud between the beings of light and darkness and the battleground between night and day.

The Matrix-inspired action sequences and a canny combination of CGI and practical effects accompany some of the most fun realisations of vampires and werewolves in recent memory, with a creativity in world-building comparable to The City of Lost Children’s Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

Originally commissioned as a four-part mini-series until the powers that be decided the material deserved the cinematic treatment, Night Watch became a record-breaking box office hit in Russia. While sometimes slipping into the realms of all-out action, the touches of gore and horror mythology are what makes the film stand out. Though the characterisations are fairly faceless, Konstantin Khabenskiy’s Anton plays a very convincing put upon protagonist, shrugging off his plot responsibility in a pair of lopsided shades. Night Watch is proof that whatever Hollywood can create, Russia will create a darker, and more idiosyncratic version.

17. Taxidermia (2006, Hungary/Austria)

Characters, if characters are written well, should have wants and desires: To get the girl, to win the thing, to defeat evil. In Taxidermia the girl is a pig corpse, the thing is a eating competition and the evil is the character’s morbidly overweight father. Despite the outlandish and repulsive acts and imagery on screen they are always grounded in reality, and are there to hold a mirror up to society and its sex, image and success obsession.

A grimy, grotesque film – more a black comedy with shockingly graphic and vile imagery than a thriller. Focusing on a trilogy of disgust – the separate stories of a sexually frustrated World War II soldier, a world-champion Cold War-era eater, and a present day taxidermist joined by the loose theme of being equally disgusting.

Non-mainstream acts of bestiality, paedophilia, necrophilia, pyrophilia, extensive gluttony, hyper-obesity, dismemberment, and obviously taxidermy all feature to repulse and educate the viewer. The nearest US comparison for uneasy laughs would be Todd Solondz’ Happiness, but Taxidermia is far more concerned with the amount of bodily fluids it can splatter on screen – blood, faeces, vomit, sweat, semen, urine all play their part, small or otherwise. Not recommended while eating, for those with a strong stomach.

16. Let Us Prey (2014, Ireland)

A supernatural, religious-bent horror in which a bearded trench-coated man is found wandering the streets of a small Irish village, with a murder of crows in-tow. The majority of the film is set in a local police station: A teacher, a doctor, a hoodlum and a squad of police personnel, all with their own grisly guilty secrets. From first time director Brian O’Malley, Let Us Prey revels in its Irish accoutrements: the small town rural setting, jagged accents, dry humour and blatant Catholicism criticism.

Grounding the more fantastical elements of Let Us Prey is the acting – particularly from survivor Pollyanna McIntosh and the mysterious man in cell six, Liam Cunningham. The creepy simplistic electronic score is reminiscent of John Carpenter’s soundtrack work, which is fitting considering that the setting and plot is identical to Assault on Precinct 13 – the sergeant’s name is even cribbed from Kurt Russell’s character in The Thing. Plus it has some creative gore to marvel at – a table leg forced into an eye-socket, a face made to kiss a shoe-buffer, and a broken window decapitation are some highlights. Brian O’ Malley: one to watch.

15. Kill List (2011, UK)

An allegory for the current British recession, Ben Wheatley’s Kill List is an bile filled, reactionary black mass of a film. Neil Maskell’s Jay is an husband and father whose been without work for eight months, money is low and tempers are high. A barely restrained dinner party ends in domestic discourse, but also a deadly job offer for Jay – the titular Kill List. A priest, a teacher and an MP all symbolising the apparent downfalls of society that need to dealt with in the least subtle fashion possible.

With a cast culled from the best of British television talent, and using mostly residential settings, Wheatley creates a micro-budget horror that never looks cheap. What elevates the film from a standard thriller is how unsettling everything is: the jarring jumps and cuts to black, the droning score, the abrupt leaps into violence all keep the viewer unsure and uneasy. The film’s signature hammer execution is only a preface for the depraved shocks to come. The similarly sinister Sightseers and A Field In England continue Wheatley’s particularly British set of horrors, but Kill List wins out by sheer bloody-mindedness.

21 Replies to “20 European Horror Films From The 21st Century You Must Watch”

Nice list! I would however use the original titles when you make an “exotic” list like this one. For instance High Tension’s real title is Haute Tension and most Americans call it Switchblade Romance.

Besides that I agree with most of the list and definitely with the number 1, that one’s a no-brainer. One movie I didn’t get (although I wanted to) is Berberian Sound Studio. I really tried, but found it plain boring.

Thanks, I kept going back and forth with the name thing, but you are probably right – if people are wanting to watch European films they won’t be scared off by foreign titles.

Berberian Sound Studio is probably the least instant of the films listed, first time I watched it I didn’t quite understand what I’d seen, but knew I wanted to, so I gave it another try. I think its list worthy due to how different it is, but not everyone will agree.

might try that myself. didn’t really know what I watched

High tension is just fine, I know more folk that use that title than haute, and I never hear switchblade romance other than the first time I viewed it

Antichrist? Berberian Sound Studio? The Skin I live In? Horror flicks? I know film is subjective, but dayum….Dustin Hoffman was right.

I can see TSILI being the most horrific of those three and Kill List really didn’t impress me as horror–gripping yes, but horror no.

Dead Snow belongs on the list, not just as an honorable mention.

An Indian film which I was impressed by called FIRED, really was a mind bender. check the trailer and my review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cydxJaBkz90

http://mjsimpson-films.blogspot.com/2013/03/fired.html

Very nice list! Having seen just 6 of the movies yet, I’m looking forward for the rest. However, since opinions are like something everyone has, I made up a Top 10 by myself. Here we go… (for dramatic reasons from 10 to 1)

10. The Woman In Black (UK, 2012) I know, not everyone favourite. But I’m kinda into the Victorian age set-up. Reminds me somehow of the good old Hammer style.

9. 28 Days Later (UK, 2002) An essential zombie flick. The author of the article above has said many right things about it!

8. Rammbock (Germany, 2010) Now this is an insider tip! This intimate play style German zombie movie turn out really chilling.

7. L’étrange couleur des larmes de ton corps / The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears (Belgium, 2014) One hell of a trip of a movie! Maximum over-styled, hard to follow and still having you on the edge of your seat. I really can’t describe it. You have to experience it.

6. Let us prey (Ireland, 2014) Very underrated. I’m glad the author put it in the list.

5. Berberian Sound Studio (UK, 2012) Same here.

4. Argento’s Dracula 3D (Italy, 2012) OK, that’s an arguable one. 2 title I already mentioned have clear and open Argento references (#7 and #5) – so here come the original! This late work from the old master received some very bad reactions, but that shouldn’t stop anybody from giving it a try! But you got to be willing to expose yourself to something very different. I think many viewers mistake the overly artificial approach with bad movie making.

3. Shaun of the Dead (UK, 2004) Yeah, I know, comedy and so. But it really works very good as a horror flick! And it’s just great, how much love they put in it, making it a real treasure for zombie film aficinados.

2. Only Lovers Left Alive (Somewhere in Europe, 2013) I really miss that one on the original list. Don’t say it’s not horror enough – you got Antichrist and The Skin I Live In on it!

1. Låt den rätte komma in / Let the right one in (Sweden, 2008) Not having seen Martyrs, I simply agree with the author on that on. 😛

Hope you have some fun with my small list!

You certainly love vampires and zombies! The Woman in Black was briefly in my list, but knocked out for Berberbian, while I didn’t realise that Only Lovers Left Alive was a German, UK, French and Greek co-production until your mention.

I am yet to see Body’s Tears or Argento’s Dracula, I don’t doubt the former’s greatest (Amer is lush), but I fear Dracula will ruin my opinion of Argento who I adore but as yet I’ve still not seen anything of his past Opera, but with your recommendation I might give it a try. Good list.

Please, please, please: it’s “Profondo Rosso”, NOT “Profundo Russo”!!!

[…] Izvor: tasteofcinema.com […]

Really hope that there is a sequel to Let Us Prey that opening was brilliant and what followed was superb.

fuck the spoilers

TOO MUCH SPOILERS

Calvaire (The Ordeal) 2004, Enter the Void, Just Another Love Story … these should by on the list too!

Enter the void?

There are many movies on this list that are not horror like a Serbian film that is more like a statement against censorship, or amer that is more like a atmospheric experimental thing. Kill list is the most predictable movie ever!! It’s bad. Many of these movies has gray suspense but are not really horror. Movies like death snow should have been here

Frontiers and calvaire

There’s is huge difference between horror and gore porn. Gore porn is not scary. It just disgusting. Good horror builds tension and makes audiences feel uncomfortable based on fear and the element of surprise.

The first REC is an great example of a “horror” movie. Every move the main character made felt unsafe and the tension NEVER ended. I was at the edge of my seat from beginning to end.

Where’s Good Night, Mommy??

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Screen Rant

10 best horror movies from eastern & central europe you should watch.

Horror movies aren't limited to the U.S. and Europe has definitely dug its heels into the genre. These are the best from Eastern and Central Europe.

Former Soviet, Central, and Eastern European countries have a long and rich cinematic history that does not receive enough recognition, at least not globally. They also have their particular brand of horror that will be explored. It’s significant to mention that Eastern and Central European horror films do not automatically align with the American concept of horror.

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Their horror pictures are deeply affected by eerie folk tales, as well as bizarre relations with technology, systems of governance, authority, religion, and personal relationships. Uncanny nameless forces and mistrust are often, but not always, the main “ghosts” of especially Eastern European horror cinema .

Poland: Nobody Sleeps In The Woods Tonight (2020)

This movie may have not garnered the best reviews, but it was extremely enjoyable – also, extremely gory. Truth be told, the well-orchestrated and nicely over the top gore was the best thing about this film. The origin story of the villains was tenuous and did not make a lot of sense, considering that it introduced sci-fi elements that were not elaborated on or referenced later in the film. Nevertheless, it was a good slasher that will keep people on their toes.

SFR Yugoslavia: Variola Vera (1982)

Variola Vera is an ‘82 Yugoslav movie by Goran Marković. The film is a mix of true, dramatized, and fictional elements relating to the 1972 smallpox epidemic in Yugoslavia, more precisely the events which led to the outbreak and the ensuing lockdown at Belgrade’s General Hospital. While inspired by a true story, the film includes strong elements of horror. The movie’s name comes from the Variola Vera virus, a.k.a. smallpox. The movie trails the voyage of a Kosovo Albanian pilgrim on his way back to Belgrade, who has the smallpox, which starts spreading through his hospital and then the city.

Poland: The Lure (2015)

This film was released in the US by the Criterion Collection in 2017. This genre-defiant horror-musical fusion was the feature film debut of Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska. Two mermaid sisters with a taste for humans go onto land to discover life in an alternative 1980s Poland.

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Their enticing siren melodies and ethereal qualities make them instant hits as club singers in the glamorous, but decaying world of Smoczyńska. This is a brutal, dark feminist turn on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” in which the women’s tie is tried and their existence jeopardized after one sister falls in love with a handsome bassist.

Czechoslovakia/CSSR: The Ninth Heart (1979)

This horror-fantasy mix brings elements of fairy tales and horror together . The wandering student Martin takes up an offer for a mission to restore princess Adriana to health, whom a peculiar kind of disease ails. He could in no way know or expect that princess Adriana is under the spell of the formidable sorcerer Andlobrandini, who is concocting a revitalizing potion whose main ingredient is the blood of the hearts of nine young children.

Ukraine: Stranger (2019)

This Ukrainian Lovecraftian sci-fi horror film was director and writer Dmitriy Tomashpolskiy’s first attempt at straight-up genre filmmaking. A synchronized swimming team has vanished in the pool while they were doing a routine. An inpatient at a water-therapy facility also vanished during his usual hydrotherapy. What is the unseen link between these disappearances and where does a doll with actual human hair come in? A detective with zero unresolved cases in her book will have to study these mysterious incidents. She must also discover the truth about her own identity.

Hungary, Austria, France: Taxidermia (2006)

This film is quite graphic and can be on occasion very hard to watch, but it is also visually striking and approaches tough issues with wittiness. The narrative follows three generations of a family of Hungarian men, each one with his own struggles that are vented through extreme, and often perverse, methods. Military orderly Morosgoványi, who suffers under the boot of his lieutenant, sleeps with the latter’s wife, who becomes pregnant.

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The lieutenant murders Morosgoványi and raises his son, Kálmán, as his own. Kálmán grows up to be a champion speed-eater who is obsessed with food and has a son of his own, Lajoska, who has his own weird fixation: taxidermy. The film won the Silver Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival and was nominated at Cannes.

Slovenia: Morana (1994)

Morana was chosen as the Slovenian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 67th Academy Awards, but unfortunately it did not make the shortlist. In this classic Slovenian slasher, a group of nine friends take a trip to the mountain of Triglav in Upper Carniola in search of Morana, the pagan Slavic goddess associated with death and rebirth or the progression of the seasons. But there, the friends find more than they bargained for, as they get murdered one by one.

Russia: The Contact (1992)

After a woman and her baby are killed in a murder-suicide case, Detective Andrey Konstantinovich is brought to deal with all the red-tape and to attempt to figure out the woman’s motive. However, when Andrey encounters the late woman's lover, he advises Andrey to not get implicated. There are seemingly paranormal forces at play that pushed the woman over the edge. Soon, Andrey encounters Marina, the woman's stunning sister, and he falls for her, but his newborn love is accompanied by a fresh horror. Marina is haunted by the spirit of her father, as was her sister.

SFR Yugoslavia: The Rat Savior (1976)

An unfortunate author realizes that a species of rats has teamed up to disguise as humans and displace them unobserved, in a method evocative of Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros , or the underground scheme of pod-people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers .

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This film was an adaptation of a novel by the Soviet author Aleksandr Green/Grin. Lauded as one of the finest Yugoslav/Croatian films of all time by critics in 1999, The Rat Savior was Yugoslavia’s entry at the 49th Academy Awards for the Best Foreign Language Film category, but in the end, it didn’t make the cut.

Soviet Russia/RSFSR: Viy: Spirit Of Evil (1967)

This classic Soviet horror masterpiece by Konstantin Yershov and Georgi Kropachyov was based on the novella of the same name by Nikolai Gogol, who was in turn inspired by Russian folktales. An assembly of theology students leave school for summer vacation, drunkenly roaming the country. When they get lost, they spend the night at a farm owned by an old woman, who they soon discover is a witch . A fight begins and a student named Khoma (Leonid Kuravlyov) kills her. However, he discovers he actually murdered a stunning landowner's daughter (Natalya Varley); he is forced to remain with her corpse in the church over three days, defending it from demons.

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50 Best Ghost Movies Ever Made

From spine-chilling horror flicks to classic comedies, our ultimate list of ghost films has something for everyone.

Whether you're looking for something scary, funny — or yes — even romantic, our ultimate list of the top ghost movies has something for everyone. There are, of course, plenty of classic horror movies and bone-chilling psychological thrillers that will keep you up all night (and even get you in the spirit for Halloween !). But for those who can't handle their horror, there are also some lighter picks that feature poltergeists and phantoms — like comedy movies , supernatural dramas and even kid-friendly scary movies that keep the frights a little more PG. The good news is: Whichever ghost flick you pick, you'll be in for a truly great watch featuring all the best specters and spirits around.

The Shining (1980)

Often considered one of the greatest horror films of all time, Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel — about an aspiring writer named Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) who becomes the caretaker at an isolated hotel — delivers on all the psychological horror and ghostly terror.

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A Ghost Story (2017)

For those looking for a more offbeat, unconventional ghost tale, this acclaimed A24 film centers around a recently deceased man who returns as a ghost (yes, white sheet and all) to the house he shares with his widowed wife. It's a poignant film about loss, grief and time that you won't forget.

WATCH ON AMAZON

Poltergeist (1982)

Strange occurrences start to happen to a young family living in a California suburban home, as 5-year-old Carol Anne begins to communicate with ghosts through a television set. Be prepared for plenty of unnerving suspense from this Steven Spielberg horror-thriller.

WATCH ON HBO MAX

The Conjuring (2013)

What's more terrifying than a ghost story inspired by true events? Based on a real-life paranormal investigation, The Conjuring will certainly give you chills with a story about a family who moves into a secluded old farmhouse — only to discover it's haunted.

WATCH ON HBOMAX

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Ghost (1990)

Because who doesn't love a ghost romance? If you haven't yet watched this '90s movie about the ghost of a murdered banker who teams up with a psychic to save his lover, you've probably at least seen that iconic scene with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore cozying up at the pottery wheel.

Ghostbusters (1984)

We couldn't forget a true classic! This iconic supernatural comedy about parapsychologists who start a ghost-hunting business in New York City started a huge franchise for a reason.

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Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)

Of course, after watching the original Ghostbusters, you'll also have to watch the 2016 reboot — a hilarious take on the classic — starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones as New York City's four ghost-hunters.

The Devil's Backbone (2001)

If you liked The Shape of Water and Pan's Labyrinth , try director Guillermo del Toro's gothic horror masterpiece from 2001. Set during the Spanish Civil War, this mournful Spanish-language film follows a boy who uncovers the secrets of a haunted orphanage.

WATCH ON APPLE TV

A Tale of Two Sisters (2003)

This acclaimed Korean film blends psychological thriller, drama and horror into one truly gripping, eerie story about two sisters who return from a mental hospital to their country home, where strange incidents begin to occur.

RELATED: The 22 Best Korean Movies to Add to Your Watchlist

The Sixth Sense (1999)

Considered one of M. Night Shyamalan's greatest works (it even earned a Best Picture nomination, a rare occurrence for a horror film!), The Sixth Sense is a chilling thriller about a child psychologist (Bruce Willis) who discovers a young boy's dark secret: He can talk to the dead.

Beetlejuice (1988)

If you're looking for something more light-hearted, you can't go wrong with this '80s cult classic from Tim Burton. Centering around two ghosts who haunt their former home, Beetlejuice will definitely play up both the laughs and the scares.

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Candyman (1992)

A horror film that also examines issues of race and social class, Candyman follows a Chicago graduate student researching the urban legend of a murderous ghost summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. Plus, if you enjoy this one, you can also watch the 2021 sequel by Jordan Peele afterward.

Personal Shopper (2016)

If you're looking for a haunting ghost story that perfectly mixes horror with drama, try this critically acclaimed thriller which stars Kristen Stewart as a personal shopper in Paris who tries to communicate with her dead brother and starts to receive mysterious messages from an unknown source.

The Haunting (1963)

Craving an old classic? You'll love this 1963 horror film based on Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House , which follows a group of guests participating in a paranormal study in a haunted mansion.

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Coco (2017)

Sure, it may not be what you immediately think of when you hear "ghost movie," but this popular Pixar movie does center around a boy who finds himself transported to the Land of the Dead, where he meets the spirits of his ancestors. Who says ghost stories can't be cute and heartwarming?

WATCH ON DISNEY+

The Changeling (1980)

In this terrifying psychological horror flick that's often considered one of the best horror films of all time, a composer who recently lost his wife and daughter to a tragic accident retires to a secluded mansion only to experience supernatural occurrences.

Paranormal Activity (2007)

Known for its found-footage horror scenes, the first of the Paranormal Activity franchise follows a couple who moves into a suburban home and sets up video cameras in the house after becoming disturbed by what appears to be a supernatural presence.

Field of Dreams (1989)

Ghosts and baseball, who knew? This Academy Award-nominated sports fantasy drama film is not your typical ghost story — it's about a farmer (Kevin Costner) who becomes convinced by a mysterious voice to build a baseball field, which attracts the ghosts of baseball legends.

The Others (2001)

Nicole Kidman stars in this gothic supernatural film set in the 1940s about a mother who moves with her two children to the English coast during World War II. She begins to suspect their secluded mansion is being occupied by mysterious “others."

The Frighteners (1996)

Be prepared for both laughs and scares in this supernatural comedy horror flick from director Peter Jackson, best known for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, that follows an architect (Michael J. Fox) with the ability to communicate with ghosts after his wife's death.

Hannah Jeon is an Associate Commerce Editor at Prevention, where she covers expert-driven commerce content for all things health, beauty, and wellness. Previously the Editorial Assistant at Good Housekeeping, she earned her bachelor’s degree in creative writing and psychology from Johns Hopkins University. When she’s not on the hunt for all the best products online, you can often find her trying out new food spots in New York City or clicking away behind a camera.

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10 great European horror films

Huddle around this Halloween with our list of 10 of the best horror movies from across the continent.

31 October 2019

By  Anton Bitel

Europe was the birthplace not just of cinema but also of the world’s first horror film:  Georges Méliès ’ The Haunted Castle (1896). Méliès and  Segundo de Chomón  made many ‘trick films’ on horror themes, while  Alice Guy-Blaché  (the first female director) adapted Faust and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Regarded as the world’s first blockbuster,  Francesco Bertolini ,  Adolfo Padovan  and  Giuseppe de Liguoro ’s L’I nferno (1911) depicted the architecture of Dante’s hell.

With  The Student of Prague  (1913) and  Der Golem  (1915),  Paul Wegener  and his collaborators were spearheading a German horror movement that, after the First World War, morphed into Expressionism (as seen, for example, in F.W. Murnau’s  Nosferatu , 1922), while  Victor Sjöström ’s Swedish  The Phantom Carriage  (1921) and  Benjamin Christensen ’s Swedish-Danish  Häxan  (1922) would also influence the tropes and imagery of horror cinema.

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Britain’s golden age of horror arrived in the mid-1950s with production houses like Hammer and Amicus. In Italy,  Mario Bava ,  Sergio Martino ,  Dario Argento  and  Lucio Fulci  championed the stylised murder mystery of giallo, while sometimes mixing in the supernatural (eg Argento’s  Suspiria , 1977). Spanish horror was dominated by  Paul Naschy ’s idiosyncratic gothic and the prolific  Jesús Franco ’s libertine psychedelia and sadoerotica. In France,  Jean Rollin  slyly steeped genre in poetry and politics, while this century has brought a New Extremity and introduced female directors like  Marina de Van , Julia Ducournau and  Lucile Hadžihalilović .

The following 10 highlights of Euro horror, spread across different countries and decades, represent something of the continent’s rich contribution to the genre.

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920)

Director: Robert Wiene

In this story of sleepwalking, serial killing and psychiatry, Franzis ( Friedrich Fehér ) tells of his encounters with mysterious showman Dr Caligari ( Werner Krauss ) and his somnambulant sidekick Cesare ( Conrad Veidt ) – before a final reveal reconfigures these characters’ connections. Robert Wiene ’s six-act  silent  was extraordinarily innovative and influential. With angular, painted studio sets designed in a graphic style by  Hermann Warm ,  Walter Reimann  and  Walter Röhrig , the film’s deep shadows and distortions of perspective introduced to cinema the psychedelic techniques of German expressionist painting and architecture, launching a homegrown film movement and inspiring the stylisations of American horror and film noir.

The twist that all these grotesque vistas represent the delusions of a patient in Caligari’s insane asylum, sleepwalking his way through a reality beyond his mental grasp, paved the way for a psychological brand of narrative ambiguity that would creep into much subsequent horror (and even, recently, into Todd Phillips’  Joker , 2019).

Vampyr (1932)

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer

Hermann Warm returned as art director to  Carl Theodor Dreyer ’s first talkie, although, unlike Caligari, all of  Vampyr  was shot on location. This grounded reality is disrupted by a range of disorienting effects, by director of photography  Rudolph Maté  filming everything through gauze, and by a narrative structure that frames what we see as a dream but never expressly marks the point at which that dream ends. And so the viewer, no less than protagonist Allan Gray (played pseudonymously by the film’s aristocratic financier Nicolas de Gunzburg), is never reawoken from the irrational nightmare.

Loosely adapted from parts of  Sheridan Le Fanu ’s collection In A Glass Darkly, but more akin to the surrealist experiments of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s  Un chien andalou  (1929) than to any straightforward horror melodrama, Vampyr was not initially successful, even inspiring a riot in Vienna when a cinema refused to refund disappointed viewers. It has since been reclaimed as a masterpiece of unease.

The White Reindeer (1952)

Director: Erik Blomberg

The pure whites that dominate Dreyer’s work have bled their influence into  Erik Blomberg ’s snowy Sámi saga, based on the folk song with which it opens, and coming with an ethnographic attention to regional practices and rituals.

Left alone at home by her new husband, bored, horny Pirita (played by the director’s co-writer and wife  Mirjami Kuosmanen ) becomes a shapeshifting deer under guidance from her village’s drunken shaman, and vampirically seduces and preys upon local male hunters. While Pirita’s predations mark her as a monster, she is also, as a “child of Lapland”, an embodiment of the indigenous pagan past, pitted against encroaching Christianity and patriarchy. A spirit of aggressive sexual agency and female independence, she will eventually be tamed by her husband’s cold, iron phallic spear. So  the film  allegorises Sámi culture’s shift towards modernity as a triumph on the surface, while concealing tragedy beneath its icy drifts. 

Eyes without a Face (1960)

Director: Georges Franju

Half menacing, half jaunty, the manic hurdy-gurdy three-step of  Maurice Jarre ’s score sets the unhinged tone of a film unfolding where the gothic horror of  Frankenstein  (1931), the fairytale lyricism of  La Belle et la Bête  (1946) and the charnel-house realism of  Georges Franju ’s own previous documentary,  Le Sang des bêtes  (1949), all shockingly collide.

Arrogant, pioneering plastic surgeon Dr Génessier ( Pierre Brasseur ) kidnaps and butchers young women in his hope of finding a viable face transplant for his innocent daughter Christiane ( Edith Scob ), horrifically injured in a car accident and now haunting the country villa like an insubstantial ghost in a mask. The graphic medical scenes are offset by the strange poetry that Christiane’s doe-eyed, floating presence brings, as Franju’s mannered, expressionist, even noirish  work  cuts surgically along the line where the concrete rigours of modern science intersect with the abstractions of youth, beauty and ephemerality.

Who Can Kill a Child? (1976)

Director: Narciso Ibáñez Serrador

“As always, the worst affected by the tragedy are the children,” says the voiceover accompanying monochrome newsreels of various global struggles, civil and otherwise. This introduction contextualises in geopolitical reality the full-colour atrocities that follow, as English couple Tom ( Lewis Fiander ) and pregnant Evelyn ( Prunella Ransome ) head off to a Spanish island, still bickering over his desire that she get an abortion. In different ways,  the title ’s question has already been answered by the film, at both a societal and individual level.

What then happens on the island is a fantasy of intergenerational revenge, free-floating somewhere between  Village of the Damned  (1960) and  Night of the Living Dead  (1968). For the children, infected with a contagious disease, have turned on all the adults around them, and only the terrified couple stands between them and the mainland. This is sunlit horror at its most morally discomfiting and bleak.

Possession (1981)

Director: Andrzej Zulawski

Nominated for the Palme d’Or, yet banned in the UK as a ‘video nasty’,  Andrzej Zulawski ’s singularity attracted respect and revulsion alike, reflecting its focus on characters with riven identities in a divided Berlin. Mark ( Sam Neill ) is a recently returned double-agent, while his wife Anna ( Isabelle Adjani ) leads a double-life two-timing Mark with Heinrich ( Heinz Bennent ). Yet as Mark seeks comfort in the arms of Helen (also Adjani), Anna gives monstrous expression to her own conflicted desires as wife, mother and lover in the tentacles of an inchoate creature that gradually assumes Mark’s form.

Intense and deeply irrational, this body(-snatching)  horror  is an unnatural hybrid of the personal and the political, the physical and the psychological, the human and the bestial, the erotic and the alienating, the intimate and the apocalyptic, exposing the divisions and duplicities that exist in any marriage, or indeed any nation.

Dellamorte Dellamore (1994)

Director: Michele Soavi

Adapted from a novel by  Tiziano Sclavi , and starring  Rupert Everett  (whom Sclavi’s most famous comic-book creation, Dylan Dog, is said to resemble),  Michele Soavi ’s horror curio concerns  Dellamorte Dellamore , impotent caretaker in a cemetery where the dead keep returning to life, and where reality itself keeps shifting. The film’s generic boundaries prove equally unstable, as what starts as a conventional zombie film soon becomes necromantic comedy, giallo-esque slasher and hallucinatory psychodrama. 

Inscribed in the protagonist’s very name, love and death are key themes here, eternally returning in a hermetic loop without end, as the deceased never stay that way long, and even the lovelorn eventually find their mojo restored to life. An elegantly eccentric folly that’s also an infernal nightmare in a damaged brain, Soavi’s film elaborates its paradoxical puzzles as though translating the enigmatic entrapments of  Last Year in Marienbad  (1961), or the snow-globe of  Citizen Kane  (1941), into genre’s scuzzier dialects.

Let the Right One In (2008)

Director: Tomas Alfredson

In 1981, amid news that a Soviet submarine has violated Sweden’s borders, 12-year-old loner Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is engaged in his own escalating Cold War against vicious school bullies, when he effectively summons out of nowhere his new neighbour, friend and protector Eli (Lina Leandersson), who teaches him to stand up for himself. Eli is presented as an unageing, asexual vampire, served and fed by an older/younger minion ( Per Ragnar ), but the film leaves the door open to reading the newcomer as a projection of Oskar’s own darkly aggressive revenge fantasies.

Unexpectedly but assuredly helmed by comedy director  Tomas Alfredson , these pre-adolescent rites of passage show a disarming compassion for the very worst of characters (including bullies and even stone-cold killers), and although  Hoyte van Hoytema ’s beautiful wide lensing keeps us at a distance, it still lets in, along with the autumnal chill, a surprising amount of human warmth.

Amer (2009)

Directors: Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani

Around a family villa whose walls are festooned with portraits of staring male ancestors, we see three critical stages in the life – and maybe death – of Ana: her hallucinatory first childhood encounter, figured as Svankmajer-esque freakout, with sex and death; her first tentative walk on the wild side as a teenager whose burgeoning sexuality arouses her mother’s jealousy, presented as Tinto Brass erotica; and the middle-aged, thoroughly repressed Ana’s return to the crumbling villa, and to a giallo-like psychodrama of razor-sharp cat and mouse.

These three faces of Ana (Cassandra Forêt, Charlotte Eugène Guibeaud, Marie Bos) offer a dizzying, hyper-sensual kaleidoscope of perverse images and amplified styles, showing simultaneously an internalised attraction and undercutting resistance to the male gaze. Belgium-based couple  Hélène Cattet  and  Bruno Forzani  push their loving pastiches of passé genres into the realm of fetish, while interpenetrating their neurotic feminised vision with homegrown Magrittean surrealism.

Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

Director: Peter Strickland

Peter Strickland ’s mannered meta-horror pays heavily qualified homage to a bygone European genre of film and filmmaking, as English sound engineer Gilderoy ( Toby Jones ) works on a film’s postproduction in a 1970s Italian studio. The film-within-a-film, a witches-and-torture horror called The Equestrian Vortex, is never actually seen (apart from its opening credit sequence), but rather conjured through fruity foley work, sound effects and postsynchronised screams – yet its misogynies bleed into the studio space as a succession of female dubbing artists are exploited and abused by the key male crew. A stranger in a strange land, Gilderoy tries to hide behind his English reserve, but gradually is confronted with his own implication in the unfolding nightmare.

Exquisitely evoking the analogue production methods and giallo stylings of the past, this is a sophisticated if accusatory journey through a mind in deep denial about the causes and effects of on-screen violence against women.

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50 Of The Best Ghost Movies

My favourite ghost-themed horror movies! Every film on this list I'd rate at least a 7/10. I guess the list is in a vague order, but don't pay too much attention to it. There's quite a few highly regarded asian films I've not seen, so if they're not on this list that's probably why. Quite a few ghost films (especially English-speaking ones) didn't make my cut of the 50 best, so here are some other recommendations of good (but not great) ghost films: Pulse (2001), Wind Chill, The Uninvited (2009), The Bunker, Grave Encounters 2, A Tale Of Two Sisters, They Wait, Ghost Ship, The Haunted (1991), White Noise, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, House On Haunted Hill (1959), Death Ship, Half Light, Mama, Haunted (1995), What Lies Beneath, The Woman In Black (1989), The Innkeepers, Crimson Peak, Below (2001), The Awakening and The Entity.

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• IMDb Rating
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• Release Year

1. The Shining (1980)

R | 146 min | Drama, Horror

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.

Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Jack Nicholson , Shelley Duvall , Danny Lloyd , Scatman Crothers

Votes: 1,075,012 | Gross: $44.02M

Arguably the best ghost movie - if not the best horror movie - of all time.

2. The Changeling (1980)

R | 107 min | Horror, Mystery

After the death of his wife and daughter in a car crash, a music professor staying at a long-vacant Seattle mansion is dragged into a decades-old mystery by an inexplicable presence in the mansion's attic.

Director: Peter Medak | Stars: George C. Scott , Trish Van Devere , Melvyn Douglas , Jean Marsh

Votes: 38,456

Genuinely unsettling. A must see classic.

3. The Others (2001)

PG-13 | 104 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

In 1945, immediately following the end of Second World War, a woman who lives with her two photosensitive children on her darkened old family estate in the Channel Islands becomes convinced that the home is haunted.

Director: Alejandro Amenábar | Stars: Nicole Kidman , Christopher Eccleston , Fionnula Flanagan , Alakina Mann

Votes: 383,770 | Gross: $96.52M

A modern classic, one that earns its place among the all time great ghost movies. A creepy old mansion, set in 1920's England, an intriguing mystery and a creepy kid - it ticks all the boxes! The twist is a highlight, so loses a little punch on a second viewing, but that's common with most ghost movies.

4. Ringu (1998)

Not Rated | 96 min | Horror, Mystery

A reporter and her ex-husband investigate a cursed video tape that is rumored to kill the viewer seven days after watching it.

Director: Hideo Nakata | Stars: Nanako Matsushima , Miki Nakatani , Yûko Takeuchi , Hitomi Satô

Votes: 75,137

Some say the American remake is actually a little better, and it is good, but it's a tiny bit too glossy for my taste, the original just has that grittier *edge* If you're not keen on subtitles then absolutely go for the American remake!

5. The Haunting (1963)

G | 112 min | Horror

Hill House has stood for about 90 years and appears haunted: its inhabitants have always met strange, tragic ends. Now Dr. John Markway has assembled a team of people who he thinks will prove whether or not the house is haunted.

Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Julie Harris , Claire Bloom , Richard Johnson , Russ Tamblyn

Votes: 41,477 | Gross: $2.62M

Has set the standard for all haunted house movies since it's release. It's creepy now, so this must have been terrifying back in 1963!

6. It Follows (2014)

R | 100 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

A young woman is followed by an unknown supernatural force after a sexual encounter.

Director: David Robert Mitchell | Stars: Maika Monroe , Keir Gilchrist , Olivia Luccardi , Lili Sepe

Votes: 259,558 | Gross: $14.67M

Such a simple concept, but utterly terrifying. You have to see this movie. Not a traditional ghost movie by any means, but I still consider it part of that sub genre. You can run away, but it will never stop following...

7. The Devil's Backbone (2001)

R | 106 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller

After Carlos - a 12-year-old whose father has died in the Spanish Civil War - arrives at an ominous boys' orphanage, he discovers the school is haunted and has many dark secrets which he must uncover.

Director: Guillermo del Toro | Stars: Marisa Paredes , Eduardo Noriega , Federico Luppi , Fernando Tielve

Votes: 69,705 | Gross: $0.75M

Made when Guillermo del Toro was at his peak, and a film that earned him his stripes on the international scene, way before Pan's Labyrinth. A great story that doesn't lose anything by his later overuse of CGI. A classic.

8. Lake Mungo (2008)

R | 87 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

Strange things start happening after a girl is found drowned in a lake.

Director: Joel Anderson | Stars: Rosie Traynor , David Pledger , Martin Sharpe , Talia Zucker

Votes: 26,993

Combining a realistic documentary-style format with found footage elements interspersed throughout, this film is a slow burning mystery with a terrifying payoff. Good luck sleeping after seeing this! A masterclass in the found footage genre.

9. The Fog (1980)

R | 89 min | Horror, Thriller

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Hollywood loves a ghost movie. These are the best ones to watch this Halloween

A g-g-g- ghost!

That — spluttering and all — was the usual reaction to Casper, the Friendly Ghost. Ghosts scare people. Even if, like Casper in the old cartoons, they just want to be your friend.

Ghosts, as a matter of fact, often have more on their minds than just saying "boo!"

Sometimes, as in "Macbeth," "Julius Caesar," and "Hamlet," they come back to scold, warn, prod. Sometimes, as in "A Christmas Carol," they do interventions.

And sometimes — as in "Ghostbusters" — ghosts just wanna have fun.

At Halloween, our annual festival of fear, they'll always have a place of honor — if only because their costume is a gift to the lazy. White sheet, two holes, done. Coincidentally, ghosts are also among the simplest of Hollywood's special effects. Double exposure is as old as film itself.

Maybe that's why ghosts have haunted movie theaters for 120 years — ever since Georges Méliès made "The Apparition" in 1903. And Halloween is a great time to catch up with the best of them. Here are some of our favorites.

Never fear! There are over 100 scary Halloween things to do, read and see in North Jersey

With this caveat: Hollywood's ghosts, like all ghosts, have mixed motives. Not every ghost movie is meant to scare you.

Some movie ghosts are wistful. Or romantic. Or funny. Or even thought provoking.

But others? BEWARRRRRE!!!!!!

'A Ghost Story' (2017)

There are sad ghosts, just like there are sad clowns. Casey Affleck, for instance — killed in a crash, who comes back to his old home to haunt his grieving wife, Rooney Mara. Ludicrously, wistfully, he looks exactly like a trick-or-treat ghost — the sheet with two eyes. This minimalist meditation on time, grief and memory, from writer-director David Lowery, is slow, unsettling. Haunting, in a word. Vudu, Amazon Prime, YouTube, Google, Apple.

'The Others' (2001)

The other whats? Not humans, for sure, in this moody tale of a woman (Nicole Kidman), her photo-sensitive children, and her servants, in an isolated house in the Channel Islands where — it turns out — they are not quite so alone after all. Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, Vudu.

'Sixth Sense' (1999)

"I see dead people." And there's a reason for that, in M. Night Shyamalan's much-discussed thriller featuring a psychologist (Bruce Willis), a disturbed and disturbing child (Haley Joel Osment), and a famous "shock" ending that we won't spoil — though you probably know it already. Peacock, Apple TV, Vudu, Amazon Prime.

'Ghost' (1990)

The ghost: Patrick Swayze. The widow: Demi Moore. The medium: Whoopi Goldberg. The revelation: pottery. Who knew it was sexy? This iconic '90s film may or may not be a classic of supernatural love. But it's certainly Hollywood's greatest advertisement for ceramics class. Max, Roku, Spectrum TV, Prime Video, Vudu, Apple TV, Redbox.

'Beetlejuice' (1988)

Leave it to Tim Burton to tell a ghost story from the ghost's point of view. In this case, about a ghostly couple (Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis) who hire an ectoplasmic exterminator (Michael Keaton) to rid their house of its human pests. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice! There, we've said it. Amazon Prime, Vudu, Apple TV.

'Ghostbusters' (1984)

Who could resist Slimer, Zuul, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? Apparently only Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd — which is why they had to be called in in the first place. This monster hit earned a place in comedy history, but — heretical opinion — we prefer "Ghostbusters II" (1989), with its demonic spirit Vigo (Norbert Grupe), a sort of ectoplasmic Vlad the Impaler, and his nutty enabler Dr Janosz Poha (Peter MacNicol, borrowing the Polish accent of his "Sophie's Choice" co-star, Meryl Streep) who warns the heroes that to Vigo "you are like the buzzing of flies!" USA Network, OXYGEN, SYFY, Bravo, E!, Prime Video, ROW8, Apple TV, Vudu.

'Poltergeist' (1982)

This Tobe Hooper/Steven Spielberg shocker goes a bit over the top in the last act. But the early scenes, involving a nice suburban daddy (Craig T. Nelson), his nice normal family, and his sweet little daughter (Heather O'Rourke), who gets sucked into the TV set, are notably creepy, and Zelda Rubenstein is unforgettable as the medium with the happy message: "All are welcome in the light!" Max, Philo, Prime Video, Apple TV, Vudu or Redbox, or on TCM 12:30 a.m. Oct. 18.

'The Shining' (1980)

Just because you're dead, doesn't mean you don't have to earn a living. In "The Shining," Stanley Kubrick's epic rendering of the Stephen King novel, the ghosts include butler Grady (Philip Stone) and bartender Lloyd (Joe Turkel), who do their best to make homicidal Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) comfortable as he plots to murder his wife and child in an empty, snowbound hotel. Kubrick brought a new twist to ghost movies: all the scary stuff happens in broad daylight. Which makes it worse. Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu.

'The Fog' (1980)

"It's not the fog. It's what's in the fog!" Carcinogens? No — it's the ghosts of an evil ship's crew lurking within the creepy mist that blankets Point Reyes, California. John Carpenter's flashlight-in-the-face ghost yarn, starring the inevitable Adrienne Barbeau and Jamie Lee Curtis, is good spooky fun. Prime Video, Apple TV or Vudu.

'The Haunting' (1963)

Even ghosts gotta live somewhere. Hence, the Haunted House — one of Hollywood's favorite pieces of real estate. This one is especially nasty, with its middle-of-the-night pounding, cold spots, and a memorably unstable spiral staircase. Naturally, the 1999 remake (both are based on Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House") upped the shocks — and naturally, no one talks about it. Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, Apple TV, or on TCM 1:30 a.m. Oct. 21.

'Carnival of Souls' (1962)

This unique low-budget chiller, featuring a haunted amusement pier, has a twist that out-Shyamalans M. Night Shyamalan. Recommended. Amazon Video, Google Play, YouTube, Vudu, Microsoft Store, Apple TV.

'The Innocents' (1961)

Two sweet children. A spunky governess. But this isn't "The Sound of Music." Because these kids are haunted by evil spirits. Or else the governess is losing her mind. And either way, this gorgeously photographed, subtly spooky rendering of Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" is probably the best ghost movie ever made. Deborah Kerr's performance is a tour de force. Netflix, Amazon, Vudu.

'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir' (1947)

Is a ghost your ideal mate? eHarmony might not think so. But Hollywood has occasionally thought otherwise. The best of all the otherworldly love stories is probably this one — about an independent-minded widow (Gene Tierney) circa 1900, who is romanced by the ghost of a cranky sea captain (Rex Harrison). It sounds trite — but the movie has a depth and melancholy that is hard to forget. A lot of it has to do with the seaside setting, and Bernard Herrmann's exquisite music. Prime Video, Apple TV or Vudu or TCM 8 p.m. Oct. 20.

'Dead of Night' (1945)

This omnibus film of the uncanny — a sort of dry run for "The Twilight Zone" — includes several ghost stories. Best of all is the convalescing patient, and the ghostly hearse driver who calls up to him: "Just room for one inside sir!" Guess who, a week later, is driving the bus to take him home from the hospital. iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Vudu.

'The Uninvited' (1944)

It sounds like a problem for Miss Manners. But it's actually a problem for Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey, whose lovely seaside house on the Cornwall coast is plagued by ghostly sobbing, inexplicable cold drafts, and the scent of Mimosa that was associated with the murderess who lived there years before. Hollywood's first attempt at a "serious" ghost movie — though mild by today's standards — still holds up pretty well. TCM 11:45 p.m. Oct. 20.

What is Hamas, and why did it attack Israel now?

An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Hamas’s aim as the creation of a Palestinian state along the borders that existed before the 1967 war. Hamas does not recognize the existence of Israel and is committed to replacing it through armed struggle with a Palestinian state stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. In addition, an earlier version of this article inaccurately characterized Qatar's relationship with Hamas. Qatar works with Hamas to provide humanitarian assistance to civilians in the Gaza Strip, but it does not directly support the group. The article has been corrected.

Israel declared war against Hamas on Sunday, following a surprise attack by the Palestinian militant group based in Gaza that included the taking of civilian hostages at a music festival, where at least 260 bodies have been recovered. Israeli security forces, caught off guard, have pounded the Gaza Strip with retaliatory strikes, and U.S. officials said they expect Israel to soon launch a ground incursion into the enclave as violence escalates in the conflict-ridden region.

Israel is searching for more than 100 hostages, including Americans, believed to have been taken to Gaza by Hamas. President Biden labeled the actions of Hamas as “beyond the pale” in a speech Wednesday.

Since winning legislative elections in 2006, Hamas has repeatedly attacked Israel with rockets and mortars, emerging as a defiant adversary. Israel has retaliated with its superior firepower and a punishing blockade, restricting imports and the movement of civilians in a strategy of collective punishment. The blockade and recurring Israeli strikes have contributed to Gaza’s poor infrastructure and living conditions. Israel declared a full siege of the enclave on Monday, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promising “no electricity, no food, no fuel” and calling Hamas militants “savages.”

The Gaza Strip and its history, explained

Here’s what to know about Hamas and the latest violence .

Israel-Gaza war

President Biden said Egypt would allow up to 20 trucks with aid through the Rafah border crossing into Gaza. Meanwhile, U.S. and Israeli officials said the Gaza hospital strike appeared to come from a failed rocket launch by a terrorist group in Gaza. Follow the latest news and read more on what’s behind the Israel-Hamas war .

Hostages: Israeli officials say Hamas militants abducted about 200 hostages in a highly organized attack on Israel . Among those abducted from their homes or seized from a music festival are a mother, her two young daughters , a restaurant manager and a DJ. Here’s what we know about the hostages taken from Israel .

Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Here is a timeline of the decades-old conflict and what to know about the more recent violence in Israel and Gaza . The Hamas -controlled Gaza Strip has a complicated history , and its rulers have long been at odds with the Palestinian Authority , the U.S.-backed government in the West Bank.

Americans killed: At least 31 U.S. citizens have been killed. Here’s what we know about how the United States is getting involved in the Israel-Gaza war and how other foreign nationals were affected . This is how world leaders are reacting to the war .

Ghosts of Europe

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