This article is part of a directory: Game Rant's Ultimate Guide To Horror Movies
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The majority of horror movies are set at nighttime, and this is for good reason: darkness is scary. Blind to what's right in front of us, our mind looks for what information it can get and often comes to the worst conclusions: the coat hanging on the door is an old man; the noise coming from outside is a monster, and so on.

Horror plays on this universal fear to great effect, but too much of the same thing can become boring. Fortunately, these movies found other ways to frighten audiences; keeping their scares in broad daylight, they ditch the darkness whilst managing to keep the dark themes.

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The Wicker Man (1973)

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The Wicker Man is a British folk horror movie based on the 1967 novel Ritual by David Pinner. Directed by Robin Hardy, this cult classic stars Edward Woodward as Neil Howie, a police sergeant who's sent to a small Scottish island in search of a missing girl. Here, in Summerisle, he is met with claims that the girl never existed and witnesses strange pagan rituals by the locals. A devout Christian, Howie is horrified by the island's practices, but that is the least of his problems. Still searching for the missing girl, on May Day Howie finds himself at the mercy of the townsfolk and their leader Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee).

Set mostly in the daytime, The Wicker Man is no less creepy for it. In fact, the warm and sunny atmosphere makes it all the more unsettling as it evokes fever dream-like visuals which mask the horrors occurring. Something is off, but you'd never guess what from the islanders' high spirits or Harry Waxman's cinematography alone.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

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Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is another cult classic that has spawned several remakes — its most recent of which will be released later this month. The low-budget 1974 slasher centres on Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) who, along with her paraplegic brother and two friends, visits her grandfather's grave following reports of vandalism and grave robbing. Taking a second trip to the family's old homestead, they pick up and abandon an unstable hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) who, unbeknownst to them, belongs to a cannibalistic family. He, his brother Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen), and Grandpa Sawyer (John Dugan), later torment the group in brutal, bloody ways.

Whilst the movie is stereotypically violent and has its fair share of jump scares, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre doesn't need darkness to be scary. Stranded in rural Texas, the sinking feeling comes from the groups' isolation. With no one around to save them, they are only visible to the people trying to kill them.

Goodnight Mommy (2014)

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Goodnight Mommy is an Austrian psychological horror directed by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala. Set in an isolated lakeside house, it follows twin boys Elias and Lukas (Schwarz) who grow increasingly suspicious of their mother (Susanne Wuest) after she returns home from reconstructive surgery. Unrecognizable from her bandages, the woman also behaves strangely and treats her sons markedly different than before.

Unlike the previous movies, most of the events in Goodnight Mommy happen behind closed doors. At the beginning of the movie, it's daytime outside, but the woman has closed the blinds so only a fraction of light seeps in. A sense of entrapment is felt and later confirmed when — in an unexpected turn of events — the boys make their mother a prisoner in her own home.

A Quiet Place (2018)

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Directed by John Krasinski, A Quiet Place is a post-apocalyptic horror about a family desperate to survive the blind but noise-sensitive monsters that have killed most of the population. Krasinski and his real-life wife Emily Blunt star as Mr and Mrs Abbott, with Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe playing their onscreen children. Audiences meet the family sometime after the world's ruin, where they are living on an isolated farm. They've not yet been found by the monsters, but their luck is about to run out.

With its terrifying premise, A Quiet Place needn't rely on scare tactics — or even its monsters — to instil fear. Rather, the movie's lack of dialogue encourages audiences to become hyper-vigilant and afraid of noise itself, as the family's fate rests on how quiet they are.

Midsommar (2019)

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Ari Aster's Midsommar is one of A24's most touted productions. Similar to The Wicker Man, it is a folk horror about a cult that additionally explores the effects of trauma. Following a tragic murder-suicide in the family, Dani (Florence Pugh) struggles with her mental health and feels her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) growing distant. When she learns of Christian's plan to celebrate Midsummer with Swedish friend Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) and co at the latter's ancestral commune, she tags along and is welcomed with open arms.

Midsommar is probably the most obvious example of a horror movie set in broad daylight. As per Aster and cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski's wishes, Midsommar is distinctively vibrant, with many of its scenes bordering on over-exposure. The result is a visual treat that, paired with terror and tragedy, leaves a sickly taste.

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