10 Horror Movies China Loves That America Doesn’t

— and 10 the other way round. Ranked by the gap between Douban and IMDb, across every film in our catalog with at least 5,000 ratings on both.

WhatScares · September 2026 · Recomputed from the catalog on every build

Douban is China’s IMDb — and for horror, often the bigger one: 844,887 people have rated A Chinese Ghost Story there, against 12,819 on IMDb. Every film on WhatScares carries both scores. This page is the two tails of that comparison — the films the two audiences disagree about most, in each direction.

The rules. Both platforms score out of 10. The gap is Douban minus IMDb. A film needs at least 5,000 ratings on both to appear, because below that a single fan club moves the number — Bhool Bhulaiyaa sits at −1.3 on 333 votes, which is not an opinion, it is a rounding error. 208 of our 304 dual-scored films clear the bar. Across all 304, the mean gap is +0.07: on average, the two audiences agree. The tails are where the taste lives.

What China loves more

• Dead Silence — James Wan’s ventriloquist film has 3 times as many ratings on Douban as on IMDb. Mary Shaw is a household name in one country and a footnote in the other.
• Rigor Mortis — Juno Mak’s elegy for the Hong Kong vampire film, with Mr. Vampire alumni in the cast — 230,170 Douban ratings against 7,060 on IMDb.
• A Chinese Ghost Story — Leslie Cheung, a Tsui Hark production, and the most-rated film in this table on Douban: 844,887 ratings. IMDb has 12,819.
• Bedevilled — A Korean island revenge film that Douban places with the K-horror canon — 310,675 ratings there, 19,723 on IMDb.
• Mr. Vampire — Lam Ching-ying’s Taoist priest, and the hopping-corpse film that launched a genre. 8.5 on Douban.
• Confessions — Tetsuya Nakashima’s revenge film, from Kanae Minato’s novel — 752,967 Douban ratings and an 8.8.
• Orphan — A mainstream American thriller with 539,600 Douban ratings and an 8.2 there. IMDb: 7.
• Dead of Night — The 1945 Ealing anthology, and the oldest film on either list. A small Douban count (9,979) but a full 1.2 points.
• Saw — 8.7 on Douban with 623,400 ratings, against 7.6 on IMDb.
• Insidious — One of 3 James Wan films in this ten. Chinese audiences rate his haunted-house mode about a point higher than Americans do.

What America loves more

• A Quiet Place — 328,110 Douban ratings, so this is not a sample-size problem: Chinese audiences saw it and gave it a 6.3.
• Nosferatu — Eggers’ remake: 7.1 on IMDb, 5.9 on Douban.
• Mandy — Panos Cosmatos’ neon revenge film — the lowest Douban score on either list, 5.4.
• Longlegs — Neon’s 2024 hit: 6.5 on IMDb, 5.5 on Douban.
• Halloween — Carpenter’s slasher, and the oldest film on this side. Douban voters give it a 6.8.
• Green Room — Jeremy Saulnier’s siege film. Only 7,248 Douban ratings — hold this one loosely.
• Talk to Me — A24’s possession hit. Douban is cooler on A24 across the board: a mean gap of −0.19 over 14 films.
• Tumbbad — Indian folk horror that IMDb rates 8.2 — the highest IMDb score on either list and Douban 7.5. The gap is IMDb’s enthusiasm, not Douban’s doubt.
• When Evil Lurks — Demián Rugna’s Argentine possession film: 6.9 against 6.2.
• The Ring — The American remake of Ringu. Douban gives the original 7.6 and the remake 6.5.

What the two lists say

The first list is a home game. 4 of the 10 are Hong Kong, Korean or Japanese films, and 3 of the rest are by James Wan. The vote counts say why: A Chinese Ghost Story has been rated 66 times more often on Douban than on IMDb. A canon that is mainstream in one hemisphere is a footnote in the other, and the scores follow the crowd that actually watched.

The second list is the last decade of Western horror. 8 of the 10 came out in 2015 or later; the only films older than 2010 on this side are Halloween and The Ring. The 2020s run −0.17 over 45 films — the lowest of any decade in the catalog, and A24 runs −0.19 over 14. Marketing moments and “elevated horror” discourse do not cross the Pacific; the film arrives on its own, months later, and gets graded as a film.

Questions people actually ask

Which horror movies do Chinese audiences rate higher than IMDb?

By the Douban−IMDb gap, with at least 5,000 ratings on both: Dead Silence (+1.7), Rigor Mortis (+1.7), A Chinese Ghost Story (+1.5), Bedevilled (+1.4), Mr. Vampire (+1.3). 4 of the top 10 are Hong Kong, Korean or Japanese films.

Which horror movies does IMDb rate higher than Douban?

A Quiet Place (−1.2), Nosferatu (−1.2), Mandy (−1.1), Longlegs (−1.0), Halloween (−0.9). 8 of the 10 were released in 2015 or later.

Do Chinese audiences rate horror differently from American audiences?

On average, no: across 304 films with both scores the mean gap is +0.07. The disagreement is concentrated — Hong Kong horror runs +1.01 over 8 films, and 2020s releases run −0.17 over 45.