Best Spanish-Language Horror Movies Ranked by Tomatometer
Here you’ll find scary selections from Mexico (Cronos), Spain (The Orphanage), Uruguay (The Silent House), Chile (The Wolf House), and Argentina (Cold Sweat). Inside each film, an underworld teeming with our favorite monsters. Zombies in [rec]! Mad scientists in The Skin I Live In! Vampires in Dracula! (Yep, there was another version to the Universal classic.) Creepy kids in The Orphanage! And In the Devil’s Backbone, maybe something beyond…
We gathered virtually every Spanish-language horror movie we could find, separating the Fresh, the Certified Fresh, and the Rotten. If you’re wondering about the decided lack of chucapbras and La Llarona on this list, it’s because there hasn’t been a critically-noted movie made yet. Though KM 31 comes closest with its take on Mexican folklore.
And most recently we’ve added the Certified Fresh films When Evil Lurks, Huesera: The Bone Woman, Piggy, and The Count. See where they place with our guide of the Best Spanish-Language Horror Movies by Tomatometer!
#1
Critics Consensus: Tigers Are Not Afraid draws on childhood trauma for a story that deftly blends magical fantasy and hard-hitting realism - and leaves a lingering impact.
Synopsis: When a girl's mother disappears leaving her on her own, she goings a gang of street children, leading to a
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#2
Critics Consensus: A blunt yet visceral depiction of society's treatment of the elderly, The Amusement Park sees George A. Romero exploring a different -- yet still chilling -- type of terror.
Synopsis: Recently discovered and restored 46 years after its completion by the George A. Romero Foundation and produced by Suzanne Desrocher-Romero,
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#3
Critics Consensus: A bone-chilling body horror, Huesera offers genre fans a twisted take on What to Expect When You're Expecting.
Synopsis: Valeria's joy at becoming a first-time mother is quickly taken away when she's cursed by a sinister entity. As danger
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#4
Critics Consensus: La Llorona puts a fresh spin on the familiar legend by blending the supernatural and the political to resolutely chilling effect.
Synopsis: Alma is murdered with her children during a military attack in Guatemala, but when the general who ordered the genocide
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#5
Critics Consensus: Surreal, unsettling, and finally haunting, The Wolf House is a stunning outpouring of creativity whose striking visuals queasily complement its disturbing story.
Synopsis: A young woman takes refuge in a strange house in the woods after escaping from a German colony in southern
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#6
Critics Consensus: Good Manners adroitly juggles disparate tonal shifts while taking a uniquely smart and sensitive look at female relationships.
Synopsis: A mysterious and wealthy woman hires a lonely nurse named Clara to be the nanny of her soon-to-be born child.
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#7
Critics Consensus: A hard-hitting horror film whose surface-level frights are just as engaging as its thematic concerns, When Evil Lurks marks a viscerally unsettling addition to the possession horror canon.
Synopsis: When brothers Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) and Jimmy (Demián Salomón) discover that a demonic infection has been festering in a nearby
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#8
Critics Consensus: Pan's Labyrinth is Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups, with the horrors of both reality and fantasy blended together into an extraordinary, spellbinding fable.
Synopsis: In 1944 Spain young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her ailing mother (Ariadna Gil) arrive at the post of her mother's
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#9
Critics Consensus: George A. Romero's debut set the template for the zombie film, and features tight editing, realistic gore, and a sly political undercurrent.
Synopsis: A ragtag group of Pennsylvanians barricade themselves in an old farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls
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#10
Critics Consensus: Creepily atmospheric and haunting, The Devil's Backbone is both a potent ghost story and an intelligent political allegory.
Synopsis: After losing his father, 10-year-old Carlos (Fernando Tielve) arrives at the Santa Lucia School, which shelters orphans of the Republican
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#11
Critics Consensus: Brought hauntingly to life by Laura Galán's committed performance, Piggy deftly deploys genre thrills in service of sharp social commentary.
Synopsis: With the summer sun beating down on her rural Spanish town, Sara hides away in her parent's butcher shop. A
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#12
Critics Consensus: Smart, suspenseful, and visually distinctive, Julia's Eyes marks another modern Spanish thriller that quickens the pulse while engaging the mind.
Synopsis: The closer she gets to solving her sister's death, a woman (Belén Rueda) with a degenerative eye disease becomes increasingly
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#13
Critics Consensus: Plunging viewers into the nightmarish hellscape of an apartment complex under siege, [Rec] proves that found footage can still be used as an effective delivery mechanism for sparse, economic horror.
Synopsis: A reporter (Manuela Velasco) and her cameraman record the horrifying outbreak of a disease that turns humans into vicious cannibals.
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#14
Critics Consensus: Timecrimes is a low-budget thriller that's well-crafted and loaded with dark humor and bizarre twists.
Synopsis: Nacho Vigalondo's time-travel thriller opens with Hector spying on a beautiful woman undressing in the woods near his property. Investigating,
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#15
Critics Consensus: Those unfamiliar with Alejandro Jodorowsky's style may find it overwhelming, but Santa Sangre is a provocative psychedelic journey featuring the director's signature touches of violence, vulgarity, and an oddly personal moral center.
Synopsis: In Mexico, the traumatized son (Axel Jodorowsky) of a knife-thrower (Guy Stockwell) and a trapeze artist bonds grotesquely with his
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#16
Critics Consensus: Guillermo del Toro's unique feature debut is not only gory and stylish, but also charming and intelligent.
Synopsis: Antique dealer Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi) stumbles across Cronos, a 400-year-old scarab that, when it latches onto him, grants him
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#17
Critics Consensus: Deeply unnerving and surprisingly poignant, The Orphanage is an atmospheric, beautifully crafted haunted house horror film that earns scares with a minimum of blood.
Synopsis: Laura (Belén Rueda) has happy memories of her childhood in an orphanage. She convinces her husband to buy the place
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#18
Critics Consensus: Full of creepy campfire scares, mock-doc The Blair Witch Project keeps audiences in the dark about its titular villain, proving once more that imagination can be as scary as anything onscreen.
Synopsis: Found video footage tells the tale of three film students (Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael C. Williams) who've traveled to
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#19
Critics Consensus: The Untamed attempts some ambitious tonal juggling between fantastical and disturbing -- and draws viewers in with its slippery, inexorable pull.
Synopsis: A couple in a troubled marriage locate a meteorite, initiating an encounter with a mysterious creature. Their lives are turned
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#20
Critics Consensus: A darkly delirious satire rooted in real-life horror, El Conde finds Pablo Larraín revisiting familiar themes without losing their provocative power.
Synopsis: El Conde is a dark comedy/horror that imagines a parallel universe inspired by the recent history of Chile. The film
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#21
Critics Consensus: The Skin I Live In lacks Almodovar's famously charged romance, replaced with a wonderfully bizarre and unpredictable detour into arthouse ick.
Synopsis: Ever since his beloved wife was horribly burned in an auto accident, Dr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas), a skilled plastic
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#22
Critics Consensus: While it may feel muddled at times, The Platform is an inventive and captivating dystopian thriller.
Synopsis: In the future, prisoners housed in vertical cells watch as inmates in the upper cells are fed while those below
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#23
Critics Consensus: Visually striking and aggressively confrontational, We are the Flesh may prove as difficult to watch as it ultimately is to forget.
Synopsis: After wandering a ruined city for years, two siblings enter a building and find a man who makes them a
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#24
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: After visiting a crime scene, an ambitious and insensitive tabloid crime photographer falls victim to a mysterious illness that makes
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#25
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: An invisible monster torments a boy living with his father, brother, and sister in a house in the woods; the
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#26
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Soon after beginning work for Conde Dracula (Carlos Villarias), the clerk Renfield (Pablo Alvarez Rubio) learns that his employer is,
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#27
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Aitana returns home for Christmas for the first time in three years, only to find that her parents have replaced
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#28
Critics Consensus: A smart homage to genre filmmaking, The Similars is a fun and frightening film that balances socio-political issues with aplomb.
Synopsis: Eight people experience a strange phenomenon while waiting for a bus at a remote station on a rainy October night.
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#29
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A virus spreads throughout the city, causing the infected to become vicious hunters. Iris and her daughter become caught in
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#30
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Monte's agoraphobia keeps her secluded in her apartment until a young man is injured in a stairwell and crawls to
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#31
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In the mountains, a preacher known as The Lord begins to lose credibility after promising his naive followers that he
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#32
Critics Consensus: The strong lead performance, clever plot turns, and the unsettling ending makes Sleep Tight worth stalking.
Synopsis: César is the superintendent of an apartment building and keeps very close tabs on the tenants. He secretly enjoys inflicting
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#33
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Jesús and Maria love each other, endlessly, magnificently, even though they sometimes just don't notice. But hey, now that their
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#34
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In post-war Spain, Narcisa (Aria Bedmar), a young novice with supernatural powers, arrives at a former convent, now a school
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#35
Critics Consensus: The Last Matinee is a blood-soaked homage to classic slasher cinema that delivers thrills, style, and spectacular gore.
Synopsis: The audience attending the last showing of a horror film in a small downtown cinema are terrorized by a murderer
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#36
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Deep in the Andalusian countryside, Eladio (Victor Clavijo) works as the groundskeeper of a hunting estate owned by the powerful
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#37
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A young woman travels into a jungle to find a mystical plant to help her dying father.
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#38
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In a small village in Leon, Spain, María José prepares to end her life after failing to get over the
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#39
Critics Consensus: Dark, nasty, and delightfully subversive, Witching and Bitching is gross-out genre fun with a heaping helping of warped comedy for good measure.
Synopsis: Jewel thieves flee into the Basque forests and are captured by a coven of witches.
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#40
Critics Consensus: Filled with wild splatter slapstick, Juan of the Dead also deftly uses its zombie premise as an undead Trojan horse for insightful political commentary.
Synopsis: When the dead rise and attack the living, Juan starts a zombie-killing business, until he has to save his small
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#41
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Paranormal researchers investigate strange events in a neighborhood in Buenos Aires.
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#42
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A Spanish film student (Ana Torrent) finds a videotape showing the torture and murder of a missing coed.
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#43
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: March 2020. On the first day of the state of emergency, two detectives are called to a small mining town
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#44
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A blacksmith holds a demon in captivity, torturing it as revenge for his troubles. One day, an orphan girl stumbles
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#45
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A female psychologist who has stopped practicing medicine decides to take the case of Veronica de la Serna, a young
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#46
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A heavy-metal fan (Santiago Segura) and a psychic (Armando De Razza) help a priest (Alex Angulo) seek the infant Antichrist
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#47
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Cowled skeletons of Spanish knights ride again, blinded by crows for their 13th-century savagery.
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#48
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: After a couple finds a traumatized child of unknown origins, wife Paula must decipher the girl's strange behaviors to unlock
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#49
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Andrea, a university student in present-day Madrid, lives a seemingly normal life, until one day when her boyfriend is killed
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#50
Critics Consensus: We Are What We Are is elevated horror that combines family drama and social politics, with plenty of gore on top.
Synopsis: When his father dies unexpectedly, Alfredo (Francisco Barreiro) must step up and become the man of the house, providing for
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#51
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Lucía is a dancer in a techno disco in Madrid. One night, after one of her shows, she steals a
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#52
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: After the strange death of his young son at their new home, Daniel hears a ghostly plea for help, spurring
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#53
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A bus driver, his helper, a priest, and two policemen fall victim to a mysterious spell and end up lost
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#54
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: The tranquility of a family that lives isolated from society is suddenly disturbed by a horrific creature that would put
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#55
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A group of strangers sharing a ride have their trip interrupted when the driver hits a woman hiking in the
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#56
Critics Consensus: Shot in a single take, The Silent House may be a gimmick movie, but it's one that's enough to sustain dread and tension throughout.
Synopsis: Laura and her father stay in a house overnight, but a mysterious noise makes her very frightened.
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#57
Critics Consensus: After a lackluster third entry, [REC] 4 gets the series back on track, at least to the level of the first sequel.
Synopsis: Survivors of a strange contagion which turns humans into ghouls find themselves aboard a ship where a doctor is trying
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#58
Critics Consensus: It lacks the surprising jolt of the first installment, but [REC] 2 almost maintains the original's chilling momentum -- and proves not all horror sequels were made equal.
Synopsis: A doctor and a SWAT team enter a quarantined building where a virus has turned the residents into a pack
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#59
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Years after committing atrocities as a torturer of interned children during the Holocaust, Nazi doctor and certified pedophile Klaus (Günter
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#60
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A young man's search for his missing ex-girlfriend leads him to an old house filled with stolen explosives and two
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#61
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Spanish police find film footage that documents a vacationing family's fatal encounter with a terrifying urban legend.
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#62
Critics Consensus: Poorly conceived, clumsily executed, and almost completely bereft of scares, House at the End of the Street strands its talented star in a film as bland as its title.
Synopsis: In search of a fresh start, divorcee Sarah (Elisabeth Shue) and her daughter, Elissa (Max Thieriot), find their dream house
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#63
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: In a boarding school, the dammed soul of an old student possesses a young woman's body.
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#64
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A lonely young girl falls under the spell of a domineering classmate who has aspirations of becoming a witch.
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#65
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A supernatural thriller from the creators of Netflix's The Kirlian Frequency. It's '60 minutes to Midnight's' last broadcast, the most
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#66
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A team of soldiers arrives at the foot of a mountain base and discovers that something sinister lurks in the
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#67
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#68
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: A housekeeper involved in the black arts, Sara (Isabela Corona), shows her goddaughter, Elena (Dina de Marco), her grisly fate
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#69
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
Synopsis: Ingrid is an untraceable killer whose power comes from another world, slowly making her less human. When smuggler Melville hires
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#70
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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