10 Awesome Horror Movies Under 80 Minutes

Brevity is the soul of wit, or so the saying goes, and while cinema is certainly full of great feature-length films, all but the most confident filmmakers are advised to respect the audience’s time as much as possible.

After all, it’s much harder to hate a short film that flies by without making the audience really feel its length, and sometimes, directors are able to produce absolute cinematic gold on such a limited canvas.

While there may be merits in horror films that let viewers soak up their atmosphere over a more extended two-hour running time, shorter horror fare can also have an appealingly dreamlike quality, coming and going before the audience really has time. edit what he wants. you are watching.

And so, we come to these 10 horror movies that all clock in at under 80 minutes.

Whether recent exercises in the lower-budget genre or horror classics from an entire century ago, each of these films came in and out with maximum efficiency, yet without sacrificing an iota of atmosphere or artistry. This is the achievement…

Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s 2007 film found [REC] remains one of the genre’s best efforts to date: a dizzying Spanish horror where a reporter, Angela (Manuela Velasco), ends up trapped inside an apartment complex with a group of firefighters while a viral infection spreads.

With a duration of only 78 minutes, [REC] is a perfect example of a horror film that gets to the point quickly and doesn’t let it go until the finish line.

There’s not an ounce of fat in this thing, fueled by both a fast-paced mystery and deftly executed suspenseful set pieces, culminating in one of the creepiest finales of any horror film of the last 15 years.

It’s horror concentrated in its most effective form, and its direct sequel isn’t bad. You probably don’t need to bother with the English remake Quarantine, though, which was basically a retelling but 11 minutes longer and… less good.