10 Horror Movies Designed to Terrify You | Alien, Halloween, Nosferatu & More

What makes a horror movie set genuinely frightening?

Emmy-winning Set Decorator Kim Wannop and Emmy-winning Production Designer Adam Rowe each chose five horror films for the other to watch through the lens of production design and set decoration.

Together they break down the sets of Rosemary’s Baby, Halloween, Alien, When a Stranger Calls, Poltergeist, Copycat, The Others, Midsommar, Hereditary and Nosferatu (2024).

Why does the perfectly normal suburban world of Halloween make Michael Myers more frightening? Why does Rosemary’s cheerful apartment feel so different from the darkness next door? How did Alien create a science-fiction world that still feels completely believable? And how can the murals, furniture, windows, lighting and even the placement of a television quietly tell us that something is wrong?

Adam also shares lessons from working on darker projects including Criminal Minds and Dexter, where practical design choices — working locks, doorways, shadows, mirrors and lighting — become essential pieces of suspense.

This is a designer’s-eye look at horror: not simply what scared us, but how the filmmakers designed the spaces to make us scared in the first place.