Horror films have a reputation for being bloodbaths, more so than any other genre. And it's fair enough, as horror movies tend to put their characters in disturbing, violent, and often deadly situations. With a high level of threat and an even higher body count, it's only natural that things are going to get a little bloody.
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That means the horror genre is probably the least appealing one out there to those who are squeamish. If you want to avoid blood and guts but still want to experience some good horror, then there are films out there for you. They contain little to no graphic violence, or at the very least, far less than what you'd expect. They all find ways to be psychologically terrifying or just plain creepy without relying on gore. If you don't like the sight of blood, you may still be terrified, but at least you won't feel sick.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre sounds like it should be a bloodbath. Indeed, it has a story that involves a group of young people stumbling across a group of bizarre, cannibalistic family members, one of whom wields a chainsaw.
It sounds like a recipe for a very gory horror movie, and its sequels live up to that, being extremely violent. But the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre sheds surprisingly little blood, though the tension is high throughout, and it's overall very unsettling. When something violent happens, it usually does so quickly and without much gory detail, meaning it's a surprisingly good pick for horror fans who might happen to be squeamish.
COLLIDER VIDEO OF THE DAYStanley Kubrick's classic psychological horror film about a writer who takes his family to stay at a large, possibly haunted hotel during the off-season isn't completely bloodless. There's one on-screen murder with an axe, and of course, there's the iconic image of blood pouring out of an elevator.
Those moments aside, The Shining isn't a very violent horror film. There's a lot of death around the halls of The Overlook Hotel, but those figures all died long ago. In nearly two and a half hours, there's little bloodshed. It's still terrifying, though, thanks to the unsettling premise, and the mix of the supernatural with the psychological, which makes viewers question how much is genuinely happening, and how much is just imagined by the characters.
World War Z presents a zombie film on a scale unseen before, and not seen since. It does its best to live up to the "World" part of its title, with its zombie outbreak breaking out worldwide.
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What's surprising, then, is that while it could arguably be the biggest zombie movie, it's also one of the least bloody. The dead walk and attack any humans who are still alive, but they do so without much on-screen carnage. Similarly, zombies don't really burst apart when destroyed the way they might in other grittier zombie movies. It might make for a disappointing watch for hardcore zombie fans, but for anyone who's queasy and wants to see what the zombie fuss is all about, this could work as a decent watch.
The original Halloween is a defining film in the slasher genre (still going strong in the 21st century), with its simple but popular premise about one mysterious serial killer slashing his way through a group of teenagers until there's just one girl left. Despite that, the kills here aren't very brutal.
A series like Friday The 13th, which took clear inspiration from Halloween, became popular for elaborate, bloody kills. While the Nightmare on Elm Street series was more fantastical, it also had its share of over-the-top kills. But Halloween, the film that inspired both (and many others) doesn't go for that. It knows it can be scary with just a man in a mask hunting teenagers down in a familiar setting. Bloody kills weren't needed to terrify multiple generations of viewers here.
1954's Godzilla is the original film that started it all. Its premise is simple compared to many later entries in the series: the titular radioactive monster rises from the ocean to cause havoc in Japan, and those in power struggle to stop it.
Without any other monsters to fight, this is one of the least violent Godzilla films, as monster skirmishes later in the series could get surprisingly bloody. However, it remains one of the scariest entries due to the serious tone and the numerous scenes of destruction that are played for horror.
One of the defining found-footage horror movies, The Blair Witch Project, doesn't concern itself with showing violence or disturbingly graphic kills. Instead, the terror comes from the realistic (for the time) way the events are depicted, with the naturalistic acting and handheld camera giving the impression these were real people getting lost in the woods and encountering supernatural forces.
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Because of its imitators, and because the technology used is old-fashioned, it may not be as scary today as it was over 20 years ago. But it remains a notoriously effective horror movie that managed to scare without using gore, and so for that, it's potentially suitable for the faint of heart.
Birdemic is technically a horror film. Taking heavy inspiration from Hitchcock's The Birds, Birdemic is a very low-budget horror film that depicts a group of people trying to survive against an army of murderous birds.
Viewers may find the special effects and other technical aspects more horrifying than the intended horror elements, though. It might be that the lack of blood is just a budgetary limitation more than anything, and what mildly bloody deaths might happen here don't look too convincing anyway. It's a safe bet that the violence and destruction here won't disturb any viewers.
The original Japanese film (that later had an American remake, The Ring) is notoriously creepy. There are several images in the film that have become iconic within the horror genre, and the premise of a cursed videotape that tells anyone who watches it they'll die within seven days is still an unsettling and intriguing one (even though no one uses videotapes anymore, of course).
Ringu manages to terrify its viewers by crawling deep under their skin and building up tension, punctuated with an eerie image or sequence here and there to keep its audience on their toes. This is supernatural horror at its best, and the idea of something otherworldly attacking and causing terror within a space as ordinary as a living room is scarier than any amount of blood and guts could ever be.
If Halloween defined the slasher genre as it's now known, Psycho laid the groundwork for it to do so. The central killer here doesn't rack up quite the body count of Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, but they do enough to cement Psycho as a landmark exercise in terror and suspense.
Of course, it's not entirely bloodless. The two on-screen murders were decently gruesome by 1960s very tame standards, but in the infamous shower scene, for example, there's still a lot more implied than shown. As such, Psycho now stands as a watchable horror movie even for more cautious viewers, though it still packs enough of a creepy punch, and its historical importance remains undeniable.
One of the first high-profile vampire films concerns the most famous vampire of all: Dracula. Bela Lugosi's depiction of the title character here became iconic, defining, and often parodied, and it's a hugely influential early monster movie overall.
It's also perhaps one of the least violent vampire movies. There was only so much that could be shown in the 1930s, and so even while the titular character drinks blood to stay alive (and also maybe just for fun), there's very little of it shown on-screen. Later takes on the character would show far more, but this 1931 version stands as a good vampire movie for those who don't like the sight of blood.
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