All sin begins with temptation, and all horror begins with sin.
Every monster in the genre is a salesman. That is the uncomfortable truth sitting underneath horror movies about temptation, and once you notice it you cannot stop noticing it. Nobody in these films gets dragged screaming towards their doom. They walk. They reach out and take the thing, fully aware it is going to cost them, and that willingness is what separates temptation in horror from every other flavour of fear. Black Phillip does not force anything on Thomasin in The Witch.
He simply asks whether she would like to live deliciously. Frank opens the puzzle box in Hellraiser because he has run out of ordinary appetites. Louis carries his son up to the burial ground in Pet Sematary knowing exactly what comes back down. Candyman needs you to say the name five times, and you always do.
Christine takes the cursed button in Drag Me to Hell because she wants a promotion. The genre keeps handing us the same mirror and we keep looking into it anyway. So we sat down to build a list of the best temptation horror films ever made, which turned out to be a far bloodier exercise than expected, because the shortlist was basically the whole genre.
Horror Movies About Temptation: The Five Films That Know Your Sins: A Fright Club Special
All sin begins with temptation and all horror begins with sin. Who tempted us first? It was that clever snake. From sexual satisfaction as the real monster to greed and ambition dressed up in a very expensive suit, these five films know exactly what you want and exactly what it will cost you.
5. The Untamed (2016)
Sexual frustration leads to a lot of bad choices, but sexual satisfaction may be the real monster in Amat Escalante’s wild scifi/horror flick.
Alejandra (Ruth Ramos) is one of the sexually frustrated. Veronica (Simone Bucio) is not. Angel (Jesus Meza) is making bad choices. But there was this meteor, and it landed out by this isolated farm. What if the answer to all their problems is there?
Taking direct inspiration from Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession, Escalante reframes the taboo-defying frenzy of unbridled sexuality. Where Zulawski’s surreal, antiseptic environment suggested absurdism, Escalante grounds the fantasy in profoundly ordinary and relatable human drama. The result is horrifying.
4. Jennifer’s Body (2009)
The central premise in this succubus horror: Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them. Better still, lure them to an isolated area and eat them, leaving their carcasses for the crows. This is the surprisingly catchy idea behind this coal-black horror comedy.
In for another surprise? Megan Fox’s performance is spot-on as the high school hottie turned demon. Director Karyn Kusama’s film showcases the actress’s most famous assets, but also mines for comic timing and talent other directors apparently overlooked.
Amanda Seyfried’s performance as the best friend, replete with homely girl glasses and Jan Brady hairstyle, balances Fox’s smolder, and both performers animate Diablo Cody’s screenplay with authority. They take the Snaps conceit and expand it – adolescence sucks for all girls, not just the outcasts.
3. The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Who tempted us first? It was that clever snake. And who better to turn Bram Stoker’s abysmal novel The Lair of the White Worm into a blasphemous, hedonistic blast than Ken Russell?
Hugh Grant’s unibrow! Amanda Donohoe’s serpentine strap on! Peter Capaldi’s impenetrable accent! It’s all here, with as much subtlety as you might expect from Russell. Campy fun from the opening credits (that font!), this one’s a hoot!
2. The Devil’s Advocate (1997)
Al Pacino is subtle as ever as the devil himself, here to tempt Keanu Reeves with power. Though carnal temptation does make a number of visits, it’s greed and ambition that drive this film.
Is this Taylor Hackford vehicle a campy act of excess? It is! Gloriously, absolutely ridiculously so! The acting is over-the-top, though Reeves is characteristically cardboard. But both Charlize Theron and Connie Nielsen are exceptional and the wretched excess is a kind of joy.
1. Raw (2016)
In a very obvious way, Raw is a metaphor for what can and often does happen to a sheltered girl when she leaves home for college. But as writer/director Julia Ducournau looks at those temptations and the excesses committed on the cusp of adulthood, she creates opportunities to explore and comment on so many upsetting realities, and does so with absolute fidelity to her core metaphor. She immediately joins the ranks of Jennifer Kent (Babadook) and Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night) – all recent, first time horror filmmakers whose premier features predict boundless talent.
So there you have it, the best temptation horror films we could fit in one list before the guilt set in. Five stories in which nobody, at any point, decides that the sensible option is a nice cup of tea and an early night. Instead we get a meteor as a marriage counsellor, a cheerleader with a food intolerance for the entire first eleven, Hugh Grant’s unibrow going toe to toe with a giant worm, Al Pacino chewing scenery like it owes him money, and a vet student discovering that fresher’s week can be quite the eye opener. If these horror movies about temptation teach us anything, it is that the snake was clearly working on commission.
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