17 Beautifully Creepy Horror Movie Homes We’d Actually Like to Live In Inline
Photo: Courtesy of Miramax Films1/17The Others (2001)
Set in post-WWII Europe, Nicole Kidman plays a mother cooped up with two mysteriously photosensitive children and three spooky servants in a remote country house. It’s the kind of place that seems fit for a quiet weekend in the country—wood paneling, cozy fireplaces, leaded-glass windows, and wingback chairs made for curling up with a book—so long as you’re okay with it maybe being haunted.
Photo: Everett Collection2/17The Omen (1976)
This film is all about the demonic child, appropriately named Damien, terrorizing his family. But he happens to do it in a glorious mansion filled with stunning architectural details—like the ornate balusters in the famous railing scene. Just remove the child from the picture and the house becomes quite livable.
Photo: AF Archive / Alamy3/17The Awakening (2011)
Set in England circa 1921, a young expert on supernatural hoaxes accepts a case exploring the unexpected death of a pupil at a boys’ boarding school. And the school is every bit of what you’d hope for: a grand stone manor full of paneling, dramatic winding staircases, frieze-covered walls, and, for the detail-obsessed: really striking octagonal doorknobs.
Photo: Everett Collection4/17The Haunting (1963)
This is one scary movie that is really all about the house: a Neo-Gothic mansion, to be exact, that a group visits to explore alleged paranormal activity. Even though the wallpaper morphs into eerie faces, the walls seem to talk, the spiral staircase in the conservatory is essentially a death trap, and the house itself is trying to kill the inhabitants, oh what a beautiful house it is.
Photo: AF Archive / Alamy5/17The Addams Family (1991)
A home that includes a bottomless pit, swamp, and quicksand would be unappealing to most, but when the house in question is the Addams Family mansion, those just become quaint quirks to overlook in favor of appreciating the home’s finer points—namely the floor-to-ceiling shelves in the study, two-story fireplaces, ornate dark-wood paneling throughout, and the basement lagoon perfect for romantic gondola rides.
Photo: AF Archive / Alamy6/17The Shining (1980)
Rather than a dusty, aging interior to conjure up terror, Stanley Kubrick relied on grand rooms, long halls, and lonely empty spaces. And while the entire hotel was crafted to instill unease and fear in the viewer, it’s still quite a stunning property with its striking geometric carpeting, the grand lodge-like fireplace with mural in the Colorado Lounge, the enormous green bathroom, and the glowing bar. Perhaps all it needs is a few more guests to help keep Jack from becoming a dull boy.
Photo: Courtesy of Warner Bros.7/17Beetlejuice (1988)
There are essentially two homes in this film: the charming country home of Barbara and Adam Maitland, and the modern creation of the Deetz family after the original owners’ untimely demise. While viewers are clearly supposed to pine for the floral wallpaper and country furnishings of the Maitlands, one must still give props to Delia Deetz for her willingness to go flat-out crazy-modern with her renovation.
Photo: Alamy8/17The Orphanage (2007)
Laura had such happy memories of her childhood in the titular remote country orphanage that she convinces her husband to purchase the building and convert it into a home for sick children. With its long paneled corridors, period wallpaper, inlaid floors, peaked windows, and curving staircases, it’s no wonder that Laura loved the property. But unfortunately, it also comes with a creepy masked child named Tomás who haunts the family. Every property has its downsides, right?
Photo: Alamy9/17The Amityville Horror (1979)
This Dutch Colonial house in the film has charm for days, ocean views, multiple bedrooms and, unlike most of the properties on this list, is based on a real home located in Amityville, New York. The film (and book of the same name) were inspired by the hauntings reported by the first family to move into the home after the previous tenants’ son murdered his entire family. That real-life horror story would put off most people, but the original has since had a string of owners who are apparently unfazed by the history (though the famously slanted “demonic” attic windows have been swapped out).
Photo: Courtesy of 20th Century Fox10/17The Innocents (1961)
Partially filmed in the Gothic mansion at Sheffield Park and Garden in East Sussex, this psychological thriller centers around a governess who comes to believe the house is haunted and the two children in her charge are possessed. Perhaps someone less easily spooked by an old house could appreciate the property’s stunning stonework, sculpture-lined walkways, leaded-glass windows, and turreted roofline.
Photo: Alamy11/17Rebecca (1940)
Alfred Hitchcock’s first American film—and the only one of his movies to win the Best Picture Oscar—tells the story of Maxim de Winter moving back to his ancestral home on the Cornish coast with his new bride. The home is grand: made up of large imposing rooms, ornately carved walls, enormous fireplaces, crystal chandeliers, coffered ceilings, and all of the trappings of a proper estate. It’s quite a dream, until it (inevitably) turns into quite a nightmare for the couple.
Photo: Courtesy of International Classics12/17Suspiria (1977)
The plot seems straightforward enough: An American ballet student transfers to a renowned German dance school that actually houses a coven of witches. But at least the witches have amazing taste. The ballet school is a series of visually stunning spaces: think trompe l’oeil walls, futuristic murals, colorful stained glass, Gaudí-esque windows, and angular inlaid floors.
Photo: Courtesy of Columbia Pictures13/17Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
While the horrors that befall Lucy Westenra in her London home are quite terrifying, the house itself is a thing of late Victorian-era dreams: lush gardens, floor-to-ceiling windows, pooling drapes, a four-poster bed, and a dreamy claw-foot tub.
Photo: AF Archive / Alamy14/17Underworld (2003)
This stylized vampire flick makes the “underworld” look mighty tantalizing, not least of all for the palatial building that the vampires call home: grand rooms, sweeping staircases, lots of space for entertaining your fellow bloodsuckers, flickering candles throughout, and red velvet galore. It’s certainly not subtle, but it is basically a Goth dream home.
Photo: Alamy15/17The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
On the outside, the mansion is beautiful, imposing, and you might think you have an idea of what lies behind the doors. But once past the somewhat typically ornate foyer and dining room (minus the exceedingly creepy dining table), the true freaky-kitschy soul of the home is exposed: the lab housing Rocky’s birth tank, the canopied bedrooms, Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s cabaret, and grand rooms with ample space to do the Time Warp. Let’s just say it’s a home with a lot of character.
Photo: United Archives GmbH / Alamy16/17The Sixth Sense (1999)
The beautiful red doorknob (and its implications) aside, the home of Dr. Malcolm Crowe is the picture of suburban comfort: soft colors, traditional molding, inlaid floors, leaded-glass double doors, English roll-over arm sofas, subway tile, traditional wallpaper—you name it. No wonder he didn’t want to leave.
Photo: Alamy17/17What Lies Beneath (2000)
The idyllic lakeside Vermont home shared by the Spencers is a dream—it’s the kind of set that Nancy Meyers might design if she were to try her hand at horror. Even the bathroom, site of many spooky scenes, is so welcoming that one might be tempted to take a bath, ghosts and all.
