James Wan started as a small-time horror director but he has since risen to the ranks of such luminaries as Wes Craven, John Carpenter, George Romero, Sam Raimi, and the list goes on. Horror is his bread and butter but it’s not the only genre he has had a hand in. He has directed superhero movies likeAquamanand even action movies likeFurious 7.
He’s a man of many talents and besides directing, Wan has also produced a lot of good movies. So, whether he directed them, produced them, wrote them, or all three, these horror movies are classics. To celebrate his new project,The Monkey, lets go through the best and rank their overall quality.
Demonic is a good mystery with a twist that just happens to be a horror movie. Things begin with a detective stumbling upon an old haunting house where he finds the hero, John, zoned out of his mind. The movie goes back and forth between John explaining his story in the present and flashbacks to him arriving at the house with a paranormal investigation team complete with found footage. It’s a good blending of genres and even though viewers may think they figured it out, they haven’t. Wan produced this one with directing going to a relatively unknown director, Will Canon, who sadly seems to haven’t done much.
Dead Silenceis not the most original horror movie out there as ithas unsettling dolls. Its featured puppet, Billy, also looks like Slappy from theGoosebumpsseries. Borrowed ideas aside, the movie opens with an all-out banger of a kill. When the hero, Jamie, steps out to get food, he finds his wife Lisa brutally murdered next to a doll that mysteriously showed up on his doorstep. To find answers, he returns to his hometown and things only get stranger from there including the world’s most incompetent detective and tongue trauma that is too hard to explain.
Lights Outshould be talked about more in the higher tiers of Wan movies even though he just produced it. It was a team-up between him and David F. Sandberg who directed it as his first theatrical movie and who most notably is adapting thePlayStation game,Until Dawn, into a movie soon.Lights Outstars Rebecca who is a woman at the end of her ropes. The movie prays upon everyone’s worst nightmare at one point or another: the dark.
In the darkness, Rebecca starts to see a clawed woman who goes away near the light. The revelation as to what’s going on will make viewers think they just watched a standout episode ofThe X-Fileswhich is a compliment.
Sawwas Wan’s first theatrically released movie but it wasn’t his first. That honor would go to a film calledStygianwhich is floating around the Internet somewhere waiting for fans to find it. Saw is vastly different from the rest of the series, which blew up probably too much, trying to constantly outdo itself.Sawwas simple featuring two men chained together in a creepy room with a dead body on the floor close by. How did they get there? How can they get out? It’s a good mystery and there are not as many intense gore scenes as the series quickly became known for.
Malignantwas Wan’s last huge investment into horror from the three main aspects of directing, producing, and writing even if he wasn’t alone. It came out at both the best time and the worst time. Best time because it wasstreaming on HBO Maxwhile everyone was stuck inside during Covid, putting more eyes on it. Bad because it couldn’t do as well at the box office due to pandemic restrictions. Malignant could have been bigger but either way, the product that came out is a wild good time featuring a woman going stir crazy and having dreams about murder. What’s really going on is completely unexpected. The only hint that will be teased is that Wan must have seenBasket Caseas a kid.
The Monkeywins 2025’s most brutal film so far and that’s saying something with other great horror movies likeHeart EyesandCompanionout there.The Monkeyisbased on a Stephen Kingshort story and follows two twins, Hal and Bill Shelburn, as they witness many murders throughout their lives thanks to a toy monkey that belonged to their father.
Is it actually the monkey doing it or is there a trick of the camera to make viewers believe? That won’t be spoiled here but it is a road that will have viewers guessing until the end along with laughing at all of the absurd kills and cameos. The one involving horses, let’s say, is a tad too excessive but fun all the same. Wan only produced this one, giving the reigns to Osgood Perkins who has proven himself to be a horror master in the making between this andLonglegsrecently.
Fans tend to argue about what is Wan’s best-directed movie betweenInsidiousandThe Conjuring. It’s easy to mix both franchises up because they feature families haunted by a presence in their homes and also both feature Patrick Wilson as a star. No matter where personal taste falls, Insidious is a creepy movie and one well worth watching above its many sequels. The aforementioned Wilson plays Josh Lambert, who used to witness paranormal activities as a kid before that side of his brain was sealed up. After his family is terrorized by an entity, it becomes clear he needs to reach into his past to solve issues in thepresent, and time, overall, is not what it seems.
The Conjuringis the first movie of Wan’sto feature Ed and Lorraine Warren, two real-life paranormal investigations. It’s as Kai the first movie with Annabelle with a quick introduction to the fool before shifting focus to the main family at hand, the Perrons. They’re a large traditional family who just moved into a country house and things aren’t feeling right. Bertie’s are seen in the darkness, furniture moves at night, and noises haunt their dreams. That’s when the Warrens are called in to investigate. It’s a creepy haunted house scenario with a bit of levity thrown in. It still may go down as his creepiest-directed movie.
