Movies In Which Creepy People Hide In A House Without Anyone Knowing So They Can Watch
Vote up the creepiest creepers in a movie.
One of the most skin-crawling things you can experience is the feeling that you're being watched. Movies have utilized this idea to great effect over the decades. In particular, they have often explored the absolutely terrifying notion of a creepy person hiding in a house, covertly watching its inhabitants.
These films are about people initially unaware that somebody is stowed away in the attic, the basement, or even behind the walls, watching their every move. Part of what makes these movies effective is that they send you away with paranoid fears that a lunatic could be spying on you in your own home. And isn't generating paranoia part of what good horror movies are supposed to do?
- 148 VOTESPhoto: 20th Century Studios
Barbarian starts as a Hitchcockian thriller. Tess Marshall has rented an Airbnb in Detroit. When she arrives, it turns out the place has been double booked. A guy named Keith is also staying there. He invites Tess inside so they can sort the issue out. The question becomes whether Keith is benevolent or a creep with sinister motives.
Eventually, both discover a secret door in the home's basement, which is where Barbarian's true terror resides. The owner, AJ, shows up and also discovers it. Behind the door is a series of rooms and tunnels where a psychopath once kept women he abducted. One of them, “the Mother,” has spent much of her life down there. She wants Tess and AJ to be her “children,” at one point even thrusting a filthy old baby bottle at them. Deprived of her life above ground, the Mother now toils underneath the house, waiting to fulfill her maternal instincts.
- 234 VOTES
I See You
Photo: Saban FilmsA child abduction is at the center of I See You. A 10-year-old boy has gone missing, and Greg Harper is the detective on the case. Harper's wife, Jackie, recently had an affair. Not long after this revelation, their home is beset by inexplicable activity, including items disappearing and a repairman claiming to have spoken to a daughter they do not have.
What Harper doesn't know is that two houseless individuals, Alec and Mindy, have been secretly squatting in his home, with Alec trying to make Harper think he's going crazy. His motivation is simple: Harper is actually the kidnapper, and Alec is a former abductee looking to dole out a little revenge.
- 344 VOTESPhoto: Universal Pictures
Director Wes Craven delivered one of his wildest, weirdest works with the 1991 horror comedy The People Under the Stairs. It's the story of two adult robbers and a young boy called Fool whom they coerce into helping them. The trio targets a creepy old house where a pair of siblings allegedly hide a stash of gold coins.
What they find is surprising. The siblings, who call themselves “Daddy” and “Mommy,” have a caged-in area of the basement where they keep abducted children locked up. One of them, a little girl named Alice, follows the imposed rules her “parents” have established and is, therefore, free to roam the house, including spaces behind the walls, where she can see what the robbers are doing. Alice enlists Fool to help take down Mommy and Daddy so the children can be freed.
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- 459 VOTESPhoto: STX Entertainment
The Boy is about a young woman named Greta who is hired to be the nanny for what she thinks will be a little boy. In reality, her employers task her with caring for a life-sized porcelain doll named Brahms. She discovers that the doll is essentially a replacement for the couple's actual child, who died in a fire two decades prior. Strange things begin happening not long after she starts, including items disappearing and weird noises coming from various parts of the home.
During the big climax, it's revealed that the real Brahams didn't die after all. He escaped the fire and has been living inside the walls for years. Even creepier, the now-adult Brahams hopes to make Greta his romantic partner - an idea seemingly suggested to him by his parents.
- 553 VOTESPhoto: Neon
The Oscar-winning Parasite follows the Kims, a low-income family whose members successively con their way into service jobs working for a wealthy clan, without revealing they're related. When their employers are away, they come out to play, taking advantage of the luxurious home and all the fancy food and drink. It seems like a pretty good setup - for a while, at least.
About halfway through, the movie makes a shocking revelation: A hidden entrance in the basement leads to a large chamber. Inside, the previous housekeeper has been hiding her husband from the loan sharks looking for him. She wants to keep him there, but upon realizing the Kims have conned the homeowners, she threatens to expose them, leading to a violent confrontation between all involved parties.
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- 630 VOTESPhoto: IFC Midnight
The Pact finds a young woman named Annie trying to uncover the mystery of her missing sister. One of the clues is a photograph of their mother standing next to a second woman in a floral dress. None of it makes sense, and the puzzle becomes even more confusing upon the discovery of a hidden room in her childhood home - a room she previously knew nothing about.
She and some cohorts go into that room, where they discover the corpse of the mystery woman suspended above them. With the help of an Ouija board, Annie determines that this is the body of Jennifer Glick, one of the victims of a serial killer known as “Judas.” Even more shocking is the revelation that Judas is Annie's uncle, who is hiding inside the house, hoping to continue his reign of terror.
- 716 VOTES
Aftermath
Photo: Quiver DistributionAftermath finds the couple Natalie and Kevin trying to salvage their marriage. To get a fresh start, they move into a home they get cheaply because a murder-suicide once took place there. Shortly after moving in, Natalie sees visions of a creepy man looming around, but Kevin thinks she's imagining things.
She isn't. A man named Otto lives inside the walls and secret passageways of the home, which was designed by his married lover so that he could be nearby without her husband knowing. When she chose to break things off, he killed both of them, then continued to stick around.
- 816 VOTESPhoto: IFC Films
The Rental is a thriller that revolves around two couples who take a weekend trip to a vacation home they've jointly rented. It's supposed to be a time of fun and relaxation. Instead, creepy occurrences begin taking place, including two characters finding a tiny camera hidden in the shower head. The group starts to suspect they're being watched.
The movie's big reveal comes at the very end when a masked man who has been prowling around is revealed to be a serial killer with a unique modus operandi: He installs surveillance equipment in rental properties so he can spy on and eventually murder the tenants.
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- 930 VOTESPhoto: Ambassador Film Distributors
The yuletide horror classic Black Christmas takes place in and around a sorority house. The sisters there are continually tormented by obscene phone calls from an unknown figure they dub “the Moaner.” Then the young women are murdered one by one. Nobody can figure out how the Moaner is getting inside without being detected.
An answer arrives when police trace one of the calls and discover it's coming from inside the house. The killer, whose real name is Billy, has long been hiding in the attic, coming down occasionally to stalk his prey. Although no direct motivation is ever given, Black Christmas offers suggestions that he's acting out a violent holiday fantasy, perhaps driven by anger toward his mother. The movie ends with Billy still lurking in the attic, having fooled the cops into thinking his deeds were committed by someone else.
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- 1023 VOTESPhoto: ABC
The title Bad Ronald refers to a socially awkward character subjected to constant bullying and teasing by his classmates. During one such incident, he pushes a girl making fun of him, causing her to fatally hit her head on the concrete. Ronald doesn't want to go to jail, and his mother helps him avoid it.
The two wall up one of the bathrooms, thereby creating a small hidden area where he can hide from the cops, who are told he has run away. Problems arise when Ronald's mother dies suddenly and a new family moves in. He watches them through peepholes, emerging occasionally to steal food and other items. His presence doesn't stay secret forever, and Ronald becomes violent when his security is threatened.
- 1119 VOTES
Marrowbone
Photo: Universal PicturesMarrowbone opens with a woman named Rose escaping her abusive husband by moving her four children to the spacious Maine home she grew up in. When Rose's health deteriorates, she makes her eldest son Jack promise that he will take care of his siblings. He agrees, even hiding her eventual death from the authorities so as not to break up the family. All of them repeatedly see and/or sense what they believe is a ghost hovering around. It is often glimpsed in mirrors.
There's more going on than meets the eye in Marrowbone. The “ghost” is actually Rose's husband, a serial killer who followed her to Maine. During a confrontation, he murdered all the children except for Jack. The distraught young man bricked his father into the attic in retaliation, then had a psychotic break, making himself believe his siblings were still alive. Bad Dad has been rotting away up there ever since.
- 1223 VOTES
Within
Photo: Warner Bros.Within has a conventional horror movie premise: A family moves into a new home, and, almost immediately, they begin hearing strange noises and pictures inexplicably fall off the walls. It soon emerges that another family was previously murdered there, leading to the possibility that the house is haunted.
Rather than a ghost, the place is haunted by someone still very much alive. The previous owners had a son with severe psychological illness, including agoraphobia and homicidal tendencies when presented with significant life changes. They were about to have him committed to an institution when he killed them. Ever since, he's been hiding inside the walls and moving through the air ducts.
- 1319 VOTESPhoto: Alameda Entertainment
The main character in Housebound is Kylie, a troublemaker who has just been sentenced to house arrest at the home of her mother and stepfather. She must wear an ankle bracelet, thereby making her unable to leave the premises. Kylie comes to believe the house is haunted when frightening events occur, including a hand grabbing her out of nowhere in the basement.
With the help of a security contractor assigned to monitor her incarceration, she begins to investigate. It turns out that the neighbor's adopted son Eugene has long been dwelling in hidden passageways nobody knew the house possessed. He's a savant with few social skills. Although mostly harmless, Eugene's disheveled appearance and awkward manner are enough to render him initially eerie.
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- 1447 VOTES
Disney's Encanto spawned a song called “We Don't Talk About Bruno” that became a viral sensation. In the film, Bruno is the uncle of the heroine, Mirabel. His ability to foresee the future spooked the family and villagers, leading him to be exiled. He hasn't been seen in a very long time. As the song suggests, it's verboten to even speak his name.
Mirabel eventually learns the shocking truth that Bruno is still around. He dwells inside the walls of the family home. Bruno had a vision of Mirabel either saving the home or causing its destruction, so he chose to hide away until one prophecy or the other came true. Even though nobody talked about him, he was right there, observing everything they did.
- 1515 VOTES
Hider in the House
Photo: Vestron PicturesMost movies about people secretly hiding in houses focus on those being watched. In Hider in the House, the main character - escaped mental patient Tom Sykes - is the guy hiding. Sykes carves out a secret spot in the attic of a newly built home belonging to Julie and Phil Dreyer.
Using electronic equipment, Sykes can spy on them. He becomes fixated on Julie, peeping on her as she swims and planting evidence to make it seem like Phil is cheating on her. When the two become separated because of that phony evidence, Sykes comes fully out of the attic and attempts to integrate himself into Julie's life.
- 1610 VOTESPhoto: Filmax
No one in their right mind would want to live in the apartment building at the center of Sleep Tight. That's because concierge César breaks into tenants' units to mess with their minds. Among other things, he kills their plants, unleashes roaches, and even injects allergens into one woman's makeup.
The film's story kicks in when an adolescent in the building figures out what César is doing and attempts to blackmail him. Sleep Tight presents a man who gets a weird kick out of covertly making other people's lives miserable. When he's put in a bad position himself, the way he responds is chilling.
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- 1710 VOTESPhoto: Empire Pictures
Crawlspace takes place inside an apartment building run by Mr. Gunther, whose newest tenant is Lori Bancroft. She becomes acquainted with a man who has a grudge against Gunther and may be interested in exposing a dark secret he possesses. This launches the owner into a murderous rampage.
Even before that, Gunther is visibly a creep. He only rents to attractive young women so he can secretly spy on them from crawlspaces tucked away behind the walls and in the ceilings.
