10 Great Horror Movies You Have To Watch In Silence

Horror movies have been terrorizing people for decades, finding various ways to scare their fans. In recent years there has been a sort of influx in trying to find new twists to the average horror film, and one popular concept that scary movies have been experimenting with is keeping things quiet, literally.

This eerie atmosphere makes for easier and more effective jump scares and forces the audience to pay rapt attention. While some films may not have a plot focused on staying silent, like A Quiet Place 2, the idea behind death coming for those who make any noise appears quite often in horror movies.

10 A Quiet Place (2018)

A Quiet Place takes the idea of silence equaling survival very literally, as this movie follows a family living in the aftermath of an alien invasion. The aliens in this film are blind and hunt solely based on sound, which leads to the survivors living their lives quietly to avoid being hunted down.

The film follows a family as they deal with the aliens as well as coping with the wife and mother’s final stage of her pregnancy. Fans watching A Quiet Place were met with dead silence in the theater, essentially immersing them in this post-apocalyptic world where noise almost always means certain death.

9 Bird Box (2018)

Bird Box focuses on a group of survivors who have gone into hiding after an influx of mysterious monsters that have the power to cause anyone who looks at them to kill themselves. The story follows Sandra Bullock’s character as she is trying to find a safe place for her and the two children she’s caring for to hide.

While the movie focuses more on seeing rather than hearing, the movie still has a lot of moments where the character is walking around blindfolded and in silence, causing viewers to sit at the end of their seats and holding their breath until the characters make it away from the monsters.

8 The Descent (2005)

Playing upon the idea of quiet and extreme claustrophobia, The Descent follows a group of friends who go cave exploring and find much more than they bargained for.

What was originally supposed to be a fun escape from their personal life and troubles quickly turns into a fight for survival as these nasty predators (that are thankfully fictional) start to hunt them down. The characters spend long periods of time in tight spaces, forcing themselves not to make a sound so they can stay hidden while the monsters lurk around, listening for any sudden movement.

7 Alien (1979)

This cult classic is one of the leaders in this subgenre of horror movies, as it was one of the first and best at getting its audience to hush and pay attention. The movie focuses on a group of space explorers who encounter aliens that use humans as incubators.

These aliens grow over the course of the movie and turn into savage killers, often lurking around and listening for their prey. Alien is a master class in a nearly-soundless slow-burn film.

6 The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)

Another cult classic horror movie, The Silence Of The Lambs is one of those films that manages to still be relevant in today’s discussions of the genre. The movie follows a rookie FBI agent who works alongside an eerily intelligent and eternally quotable serial killer/cannibal named Hannibal Lecter to find someone who is kidnapping and skinning young girls.

When the FBI agent locates the man and his hidden basement, he quickly shuts off the lights and puts on night-vision goggles. The scene then continues with Foster walking around blindly in the dark, listening for any noise, while the killer watches and follows along, causing fans to hold their breath for as long as they can.

5 The Silence (2019)

The Silence starts with an archaeology team uncovering a hidden cavern that releases a group of bat-like monsters that kill and eat anything in their path. They quickly spread throughout the world and force people to go into hiding and keep silent, since they are attracted to any noise.

While the film gained some criticism due to the fact it essentially follows the same plot as A Quiet Place and came out after it, The Silence still tries to be original. One of the special things they do is have a group of fanatics who will make noise solely to use the monsters to their advantage and kill whoever they want dead.

4 Quarantine (2008)

Following a news team reporting on late-shift firefighters that tags along on a call, Quarantine has the main characters forcibly trapped in an apartment building while a zombie-like virus quickly spreads.

The characters do what they must to survive and try to find a way out, but unfortunately, the army is keeping them locked in “for now.” They soon realize there is no escape, and they are essentially sentenced to die. The end of the movie has the reporter as the sole survivor, hiding in the dark attic with only a night-vision camera and silence to keep her safe.

3 The Strangers (2008)

The Strangers has managed to scare almost anyone who watches it due to the terrifying story that unfolds, and the horror movie has a frighteningly realistic plot. The film follows a young couple who are staying in a secluded cabin together while they are being tormented by a group of masked villains.

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The characters spend a lot of time hiding and trying to stay quiet so they’re not discovered by the killers. Fans of the movie will often follow suit, as The Strangers requires a good amount of attention.

2 Don’t Breathe (2016)

What should have been an easy robbery goes extremely wrong in this horror thriller movie that follows a group of young burglars who are being hunted down by the blind veteran they were robbing. Most of the movie takes place in both the dark and silence, as the veteran is trying to level the playing field.

The movie quickly takes a turn as, in a bizarre and somewhat weak twist, the surviving characters discover the veteran is keeping a young woman chained up in the basement and forced to carry his child. Fans unsurprisingly spend the movie holding their breath along with the main character.

1 Hush (2016)

Hush was a surprise hit for Netflix in which fans follow the main character, a deaf writer living in a secluded cabin in the woods so she can focus on her work. She goes through her day completely normally, but fans are able to see and hear what she can’t, which in this case is a serial killer watching her.

The movie will occasionally cut sound so fans get an immersive experience, but since the movie follows a deaf character, most of the movie revolves around the fact she can’t hear and the killer will often silently stalk her, even sending her photos of herself from when he was standing right next to her.

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