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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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The Best Horror Movies of 2020

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2020 has been a tough year for cinema with theaters forced to close and release dates delayed. It’s a real rough break for filmmakers whose work was due to get a wide theatrical release and instead launched on PVOD or streaming services.

A double shame for horror since 2020 has been an excellent year for the genre in terms of quality, including a handful of exceptional debut films that in any other year would have been lauded in the same way as Hereditary, It Follows or The Babadook.

Den of Geek staff and contributors voted on their favorite horror movies of 2020 to produce this list – each is a gem worth seeking out.

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10. The Mortuary Collection

The problem with most horror anthology movies is there’s usually at least one segment that pales in comparison to the others, which tends to dampen your enjoyment of the whole thing somewhat, but The Mortuary Collection truly avoids suffering from the same malady.

In this debut feature from writer-director Ryan Spindell, beloved Highlander and Carnivale star Clancy Brown plays an eccentric mortician called Montgomery Dark who encounters a pretty young drifter looking for work. As Dark guides her through the strange inner workings of his mortuary, he decides to recount several unique and grisly tales that have all culminated in the need for his post-mortem services. Of course, all is not what it seems.

The Mortuary Collection immediately caught the eye of genre vet Sam Raimi, who poached Spindell for this year’s 50 States of Fright series over on the now-defunct Quibi streaming service, and it’s easy to see why: these macabre tales are all immaculately created to give horror fans the best anthology experience they’ll have had in years. – KH

9. The Wolf of Snow Hollow

Some might say that there’s only so much you can do with werewolf movies these days. Someone gets bitten, they get cursed, they’re doomed to kill innocents, and they’re mercifully done in by someone they love. Roll the credits. But Jim Cummings’ The Wolf of Snow Hollow breaks from that formula effectively while still remaining true to the spirit of the genre.

Cummings, who wrote and directed the film, also stars as a cop in a ski town overrun with a rash of brutal murders. A recovering alcoholic with anger issues, Cummings’ John Marshall is the son of the town’s ailing sheriff (the wonderfully warm Robert Forster in his final role), and John finds himself trying to come to terms with the fact that there may or may not be a werewolf in their midst.

The film’s oddball approach and deadpan humor can be a little jarring, especially when contrasted with the truly grisly aftermath of the werewolf attacks. But The Wolf of Snow Hollow paints such a sympathetic picture of its characters, and effectively builds its tension through them rather than an over-reliance on werewolf tropes, that it’s a must for anyone who needs a little more lycanthropy in their life. – MC

8. Freaky

The Friday the 13th franchise has been dormant for more than a decade. Which is just fine if we can get movies like Freaky, the best horror slasher we’ve ever seen set on that date. Stuffed with loving homages to both the Jason Voorhees franchise, as well as Disney’s own classic Freaky Friday brand, Christopher Landon’s Freaky is a wild genre mashup every bit as whacky as his previous Blumhouse high concept, Happy Death Day. Except just so, so much gorier.

Filled with slapstick kills and splatter, the movie’s real life blood comes from the dual performances by Vince Vaughn as the Blissfield Butcher and Kathryn Newton as Millie, the shy teenager he accidentally swaps bodies with. Both actors have a lot of fun playing very against type, but Vaughn’s commitment to depicting a neurotic teenage girl is especially satisfying because he so earnestly leans into it. A winking throwback with teeth, it gives new meaning to the phrase ‘gut-buster’. – DC

7. Synchronic

Synchronic is the fourth feature film from the directing/writing/producing (and sometimes acting) team of Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson. It’s also their most ambitious yet in terms of the scope, genre, and the pair’s working with bankable Hollywood names.

Anthony Mackie stars as Steve, a single, alcoholic New Orleans paramedic who learns he has six weeks to live just as he and his partner Dennis (Jamie Dornan) respond to a series of bizarre deaths linked to a new designer drug called Synchronic. Where Synchronic comes from, what it does, and how it affects these friends propel them on a reality-shattering journey.

The two chief aspects of Synchronic that make it work so well are the overall correctness of the story at hand and the compassion that flows throughout the tale and its characters. Moorhead and Benson have addressed the themes of addiction and time in all three of their previous features, but here they mesh them together seamlessly. In some ways, the eerie Synchronic is a transitional film for Moorhead and Benson: working with Hollywood talent and more resources than they’ve had before, it may also be their most easily accessible and mainstream film to date. – DK

6. The Lodge

As a movie that’s been unfairly overlooked, even before the pandemic, Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’s The Lodge is one of 2020’s hidden gems. The follow-up to the directors’ Goodnight Mommy, The Lodge is the rare horror movie where you don’t know where it’s going, and if you can trust anything or anyone you see.

The film works as both generational conflict between stepmother-to-be Grace (Riley Keough) and the new children in her life (Jaeden Martell and Lia McHugh), and as something of a ghost story. Once they’re snowed into a cabin, and one strange disaster follows another, the gnawing realization grows that more than one party could be unwell, and that nightmares from the past walk among them. The cataclysmic ending is rhapsodic in its despair. – DC

5. Relic

This very personal story about three generations of women is the debut of Australia-Japanese filmmaker Natalie Erika James. It’s story about dementia turned into a supernatural body horror and haunted house movie with a very distinct visual style.

Emily Mortimer stars as Kay, a woman returning to her childhood home with her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) when her mother Edna (Robyn Nevin) goes missing for several days and can’t recall where she was. Edna flips between indignant independence and vulnerable confusion – the true horror of the film is in the idea of watching someone you love lose their sense of self. However this is very much a horror and not just a drama and the third act takes us into very dark territory turning the house into a labyrinth and dazzling us with some deeply unsettling imagery.

Relic is compassionate and very female horror which has things in common with The Babadook, not least the emphasis on production design – it’s a gorgeous looking movie peppered with horrific moments, with a shocking but tender conclusion. – RF

4. Host

The defining movie of 2020 is a horror that runs under an hour set entirely during a Zoom chat. This feature debut from Brit director Rob Savage is absolutely one for the archives. Made in just 12 weeks from inception to its Shudder release, starring actor friends of Savage who were already close mates, Host follows a group of pals who undertake a seance via Zoom. As hokey as that might sound, the film really isn’t. In fact it’s very scary and employs some ambitious stunt work, though the heart of the movie is in the performances. Semi-improvised and extremely naturalistic, the group already has a shorthand in place so that bits of backstory can be drip fed or implied without exposition. These are people you’d want to hang out with.

A lockdown movie (rather than a pandemic movie) of the moment, details like face masks and elbow touches make this the epitome of 2020 in film form. Savage and writers Jed Shepherd and Gemma Hurley have already inked a multi-picture deal with Blumhouse and production on their next project has already begun. A rare and well deserved good news story for the year. – RF

3. His House

Ghost stories can be scary. More often though they’re thrilling; a bit of escapist camp about what goes bump in the night. Not so in Remi Weekes’ directorial debut, His House. There is a supernatural presence in the dilapidated public housing that refugees Bol and Rial Major (Sope Dirisu and Wunmi Mosaku) are crammed into. But long before the ghosts go bump, the terror of the refugee trail between Sudan and the United Kingdom is made manifest.

Technically Bol and Rial are two of the lucky ones, a pair of Sudanese survivors who crossed the Mediterranean by boat. Yet memories linger. As does the cruelty and judgment of a strange land that begrudgingly welcomes them, but also threatens to deport them if there are any complaints about their home—and there are. How can there not be when the ghosts they left behind whisper between their floorboards?

It’s a somber parable that couches real world nightmares into a genre one, teasing out that the greatest horror doesn’t need spirits to be haunting. – DC

2. Saint Maud

One of the best films of the year of any genre is this feature debut from Brit director Rose Glass. In it, newly pious young palliative care nurse Maud (Morfydd Clark), comes to believe saving the soul of her dying patient Amanda (Jennifer Ehle) is her divine calling. Set against the faded glamour and squalor of a seaside town Saint Maud is social realism through a religio-horror lens, with some truly terrifying images, not least the utter gut punch of the final shot which will leave you reeling.

This is an extraordinarily confident debut which explores the disconnects between the mind, body and soul. Ehle is terrific as the glamorous former dancer whose body is letting her down in illness, but this is Clark’s movie. Buttoned up and prim, with a fierce temper underneath, Maud believes she is on a mission from a God who talks directly to her, but glimpses of her past suggest something more troubling is going on.

Part body horror, part possession movie, part psychological thriller and part mental health drama, Saint Maud is beautiful, scary and sad and puts Glass on the map as one of the most exciting filmmakers to watch going forward. – RF

1. The Invisible Man

It’s been more than 70 years since the original cycle of Universal Monsters ended. And it feels like almost as long since Universal Pictures first began attempting to reimagine the creatures. The last decade alone saw three false starts at reboots. But that all changed with The Invisible Man. Writer-director Leigh Whannell, alongside producer Jason Blum, had the novel idea to lean into the horrific aspect of H.G. Wells’ original 1897 text, and in so doing make it terrifying for a new age.

By reworking that novel’s concept, as well as James Whale’s 1933 classic, the film pivots from following a mad scientist turned invisible to instead focusing on the woman he wants to possess. In the process, the dread of staring into the film’s deep focus corners and margins becomes overwhelming, and the concept lends itself eerily to our post-#MeToo moment.

Elisabeth Moss is devastating as protagonist Cecilia Kass, who begins the movie escaping her tech CEO boyfriend (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) by the skin of her teeth. She then must look over shoulder the rest of the film. Experiencing as much a reimagining of Gaslight as The Invisible Man, Cecilia knows she’s being stalked by her supposedly dead ex, and when no one will believe her, she’s left to take extreme measures to finally break free. It’s a harrowing showcase for Moss, and a brilliant cover of an old standard.

It revives centuries-old nightmares and finds they look exactly like our modern demons. – DC

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cloakedsparrow · 8 years ago

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With the impending release for “Injustice 2” slated for May, fans of the series will be getting an added bonus: an “Injustice 2” comic. The “Injustice: Gods Among Us” comic launched originally as a video game tie-in, but surprisingly blossomed into one of the best alternate worlds for DC characters on the page yet.

Initially written by Tom Taylor and drawn by Mike S. Miller, the series was full of deep moral conundrums, flashy fights and above all, heart-wrenching deaths. No hero held plot armor in “Injustice,” making everyone (good or bad) fair game in the harsh new world under Superman’s tyrannical rule. We at CBR count down some of the most chilling demises we saw in the first series, as we hold out hope for the remaining character’s fates in the sequel.

CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ALL YEARS OF “INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US”

15. LOIS LANE

This is the one that started it all. The Joker kidnaps a pregnant Lois Lane and, with Harley, surgically implants a trigger to a nuclear bomb within her. Superman arrives on the scene, but breathes in some of Scarecrow’s fear toxin, and suddenly sees Doomsday appear. The Man of Steel panics and tackles the creature, flying him into outer space. Superman notices that there are two heartbeats coming from “Doomsday” and snaps out of it, seeing the lifeless body of his wife floating before him. Lois’ heart stops and triggers the nuclear bomb hidden in Metropolis, killing millions.

Even though her death was dubbed a “fridge” moment by many fans, Lois’ demise still carried a major impact on the series. It was her passing that managed to tip Superman over the edge, snapping his resolve and making him the cold, sympathetic alien many people believed him to be. He severs his friendship with Batman, whom he holds responsible since he never killed the Joker, and begins his brutal rule of forcibly stopping what and whomever he deems a threat. Superman begins his tyranny from the moment of Lois’ death, which has its own horrifying consequences.

14. BIZARRO

Everyone’s favorite Superman clone didn’t arrive until a bit later in “Injustice.” After Lex Luthor creates him in attempts to combat the tyrannical Man of Steel, Bizarro escapes. He befriends Trickster and does his best to emulate the actual hero for a stint before returning to Luthor. Panicked that the creature may remember his lab origin and rat him out to Superman, Lex commands the mind-controlled Doomsday to kill Bizarro. Both Superman and Doomsday thrown down with the clone, but Bizarro is eventually defeated and gets his neck snapped by the villain.

The death of this super clone is upsetting, as he genuinely poses a threat to Superman’s now longstanding regime. Bizarro himself sees Clark as a hero and doesn’t understand why he would be so quick to attack him. Even more chilling is the quickness with which Luthor is willing to have his experiment murdered just to cover his own tracks. Bizarro was one of the few innocent characters in the books, beholden to no side in the conflict between Batman and Superman, and was caught in the crossfire.

13. JESSE QUICK

The fallout (pun intended) of Joker’s plan to blow Metropolis to kingdom come with a nuclear bomb spread across much of the DC Universe in “Injustice.” It is discovered after a month that Lex Luthor was alive in the city, hidden in a fortified bunker. Turns out the billionaire inventor had hired a speedster to run him to his shelter in such an event. The hero delivered Luthor to safety, but went back out to save more people. Unfortunately she couldn’t outrun the blast and is literally incinerated mid-stride.

Even though she is never formally identified by the characters in the comic, the speedster’s identity is largely believed to be that of Jesse Quick. Her death is simply downright chilling to see on the page. Miller’s art feels reminiscent of the “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” scene wherein Sarah Connor similarly gets obliterated by a nuclear blast in a dream sequence. One panel has the hero screaming in fear as she runs away, the next her skeletal form appears, seemingly frozen in step.

12. HUNTRESS

When Batman’s squad of rebels do their best to mount a last stand in Year 3 of the series, Huntress and Batwoman team up against Superman in a long overdue punch-up. The two get the drop on the Kryptonian, temporarily knocking him out, but Wonder Woman comes to his defense. She admonishes the duo as they trade blows, saying that they are fighting for a foolish cause. Huntress calls Superman’s regime full of tyrants, to which Diana refutes her claim and attempts to catch her with the Lasso of Truth. The rope wraps around Huntress’ neck, Wonder Woman tugs it taut and unceremoniously snaps the vigilante’s neck.

What’s so unsettling about the death of Huntress is how quickly it comes to pass. One minute she’s denouncing Wonder Woman’s role in Superman’s dictatorship, the next she’s dead on the ground. There’s no forewarning, no tearful goodbyes, she’s simply killed with a literal flick of Diana’s wrist.

11. BEAST BOY

An explanation as to why the Teen Titans were nowhere to be found during the events of “Injustice: Gods Among Us,” the Year 3 annual delves into yet another set of victims from the nuclear blast in Metropolis. Beast Boy and Superboy are flying through the city, discussing lunch plans and Nightwing leaving the team, before they suddenly see a giant blast being detonated below them. Within seconds, the two are enveloped in the explosion, as Superboy attempts to shield Beast Boy with his body. Once the smoke has cleared, Kon-El weeps as he holds the brutalized and burned body of Gar in his arms.

Granted, Kid Flash also gets vaporized during the blast, but there’s literally nothing left of him to witness afterwards. Beast Boy’s death hits hard because Superboy’s attempt to save him failed. The hero’s body is left in shambles, and the rest of his team are absolutely devastated. Even more upsetting is that, despite their loss, the Titans still uphold their ideals of justice; the same that Superman abandoned in his reign. Beast Boy’s demise is just another example that, no matter what powers you have, sometimes they’re not enough to save a person.

10. NIGHTWING

Another character that bites the dust rather early in the conflict, Nightwing sees his end at the hands of Damian Wayne. As Superman plans to move Arkham Asylum patients into a much less hospitable secret prison, Batman and his team jump into action to prevent it. Robin gives up the Dark Knight’s strategy to undermine Clark’s scheme, thus leading to a huge battle between Team Superman, Team Bats and the Arkham inmates. During the chaotic fight, Damian angrily chucks an escrima stick at Nightwing, who is too preoccupied to see it coming. The baton knocks Grayson out and he falls onto a stray piece of rubble, tragically breaking his neck.

This death is another sudden one and affects Batman in a heart-wrenching way. All of the heroes on either side are horrified at the turn of events, while Robin panics at the realization of what he’s done. Batman carried a lot of guilt over Nightwing’s death, shattered by the loss and despising his biological son for causing it. It just goes to show that no matter what universe or timeline, Damian will always be an intolerable little turd.

9. JIMMY OLSEN

Even though Lois’ death was the symbolic kickoff to the “Injustice” conflict, Jimmy Olsen was actually the first to get offed in the series. The reporter and her trusty photographer get a tip on a juicy story and go to investigate, but something’s off. Jimmy readies his camera to snap a few photos, but his lens is met with the barrel of a gun. The revolver is being held by the Joker and he fires straight through, putting a bullet right between the eyes of The Daily Planet’s finest photographer.

Jimmy is only the first in the pile of bodies that would amass during “Injustice’s” run, but his loss is an upsetting one. Blindsided by the Joker, Olsen literally saw his death coming. It was sad when Superman later finds his body, with a shattered camera and bloodied Joker card beside him. Olsen was one of hero’s fondest friends and arguably the start of Clark’s downward spiral into despair before he finally snapped. Poor Jimmy, though, died the way he lived: looking through the lens of his camera.

8. GUY GARDNER

Guy was never in the business of making friends, and that certainly didn’t change in the alternate universe of “Injustice.” After John Stewart is killed in battle, Hal Jordan (now a member of the Sinestro Corps) demands to know who was responsible. Sinestro predictably misdirects him into thinking that Guy Gardner accidentally did it during the fracas. Jordan confronts Gardner, whom tells him that he is being deceived (which is true), but Hal is hearing none of it and rips Gardner’s arm off. Without his powers in the aerial fight, Guy plummets to his death.

Perhaps most unsettling about Guy’s death is the absolute vitriol Hal has behind it. Yes, Sinestro essentially plays an Iago and whispers falsehoods in Jordan’s ear, but nonetheless, Hal easily eats it up. The yellow ring amplifies previous distrust and irritation with his former comrade as a quick excuse for explaining Guy’s actions as intentionally diabolic. Even worse, Jordan doesn’t end Gardner quickly, opting for him to suffer a terrifying fall before finally meeting his end.

7. CAPTAIN ATOM

Captain Atom was one of the few characters in “Injustice” that actually had Superman on the ropes and died valiantly instead of tragically. Atom puts the beat down on the Man of Steel as an order from his superiors in the Pentagon. The Captain attempts to give Superman an opportunity to surrender, but when the Kryptonian refuses, he lays down the law. Atom punches Superman into submission, but Wonder Woman breaches his neck with her sword. Now threatening to go nuclear, the hero takes the red-caped crusader with him to explode in outer space as a last stand. Atom dies, Superman lives.

This hero’s death comes with a mixture of emotions. As he fights Superman, he admonishes the Kryptonian, calling him out on his selfishness. Atom describes his understanding of sacrifice and seeing the bigger picture, something that Superman has clearly gone blind to. Perhaps most upsetting is the genuine chance Atom had at killing the tyrant, but the world of “Injustice” is cruel and sees Superman not only live, but ignore the captain’s last words entirely in favor of ruling another day.

6. JOHN STEWART

Remember our earlier entry talking about Guy Gardner getting wrongly accused of killing John Stewart? Well, there’s another story to that. John is on Superman’s side, but as a protector, doesn’t want anyone to fight. When the Green Lanterns wage war as part of Batman’s resistance, the Sinestro Corps answer in kind on behalf of Superman. Stewart dives into the fray, trying to put a stop to it for either side, but to no avail. Sinestro stops him and attempts to sway him permanently to Superman’s side, stating that the Green Lanterns don’t care about his world. As John struggles with his choice, the rogue suddenly stabs him in the back, killing him almost instantly.

It’s upsetting to see Stewart die because of his stance within the “Injustice” conflict. He wanted to avoid what he felt was unnecessary bloodshed and protect whomever he could. He saw the points of both Superman and Batman’s positions, but also the ugly truths that lay behind either of them. Maybe he was a bit naive, or simply too afraid to commit to one side, but John only wanted what was best for Earth until his dying breath.

5. KYLE RAYNER

Poor Kyle never stood a chance in the harsh world of “Injustice.” After being deployed to a mission out in deep space, effectively missing the first year of conflict between heroes on Earth, Rayner is happy to be going back home. He flies through space, intent on finally asking a cute girl on a date upon arriving, when he is set upon by Sinestro and his comrades. Rayner is subdued by their powers as the rogue cuts off his ring. Kyle is de-powered in the middle of space, literally drawn and quartered by the villains.

Rayner was the first of many Green Lanterns to bite the dust in “Injustice,” but his death is so quietly brutal it’s disarming. He was so hopeful for new chances after being away, only to be dispatched in the crossfire of a fight he didn’t even know was happening. Coupled with the manner in which he is killed, Kyle’s demise in the comic is just downright unsettling. Rayner was one of the many collateral pieces that piled up as Superman built his regime.

4. J’ONN J’ONZZ

There were many voices of reason that attempted to stop Superman before it was too late, and J’onn J’onnz was chief among them. The martian attempts to “show” Clark the feelings of helplessness he suffered when his planet was overrun by tyrants; the same emotions that Superman is on track to inflict upon others should he continue his selfish ways. Wonder Woman steps in and J’onn shapeshifts into a substance that can enter her eyes an ears, suffocating her from within. Superman uses his heat vision on Diana, effectively burning the martian alive, while Wonder Woman remains intact.

J’onn’s demise is chilling in a number of ways, from his terrifying end (being flambéed), to his heartfelt last stand in an attempt to bring Superman back from the brink. The martian knew just what was in store for the people of Earth should the red-caped crusader continue on his bloody path, and didn’t wish the helplessness he suffered on anyone else. J’onn’s reasoning seems to start getting through before Diana stepped in, so the martian might have even stopped Superman if he had had more time.

3. JAMES GORDON

The Commissioner of Gotham’s police department certainly wanted to do his best in attempting to stop Superman; the best chance he thought he had was taking pills that gave him super strength and resistance. In this world, however,Gordon was suffering from lung cancer, and the pills were accelerating its spread. James mounts a solo assault on the Watchtower in order to avoid Oracle and Batman’s location being traced by Cyborg. He manages to knock the hero offline using the last of his strength. Gordon contacts Oracle and reveals he’s always known it was really Barbara. He says a tearful goodbye before falling silent on his comms.

Gordon’s death may have been less brutal than some others, but it was a sincere gut-punch on the page. Ever the protective father, he sacrifices his last vestiges of life to prolong Batman’s fight and hide his daughter from Superman’s grasp. It was a battle he desperately wanted to see through, but could only manage to play a small role in what would turn into a five-year war.

2. ALFRED PENNYWORTH

As Superman’s brutality and iron rule gained strength, Alfred only became stronger in his resolve. He took care of Wayne Manor after Bruce is forced to go underground in order to avoid detection. Victor Zsasz infiltrates the Batcave one day, demanding Pennyworth call Batman to reveal his location. Alfred refuses, throwing down with the psychopath in hand-to-hand combat. After trading a few blows, the inmate reveals that he was sent by Superman and slices the poor butler across the stomach. Alfred is left to bleed out on the floor of the Batcave alone.

Alfred’s role in the series was more than just the doting servant. He played a strong father figure to Bruce throughout the early years of the conflict, literally beating the snot out of Superman (thanks, super pills!) and helping Batman through rehab for his injuries. Alfred was unwavering in his belief in the cause, knowing that the road to defying a tyrant was easily tread. Nevertheless, Pennyworth walked the line with his head held high until his last breath.

1. GREEN ARROW

For all those heroes using super pills to even the playing field against Superman’s more powerful allies, Batman’s team of rebels had to procure the prototype capsules first. The group broke into the Fortress of Solitude, where Green Arrow located the pills and, not-so-coincidentally, the Kents. Superman warns him to leave, and Oliver fires an arrow that gets deflected off the Kryptonian and into dear old Pa Kent’s shoulder. Clark snaps, zeroing in on Green Arrow and beating him to death with his bare hands.

Before his demise, Oliver fires his last arrow throw the roof of the fortress with a super pill attached to it. Green Arrow’s death is so chilling because he is murdered at the literal hands of Superman. The Kryptonian brutalizes poor Oliver, holding nothing back in his fit of rage. Green Arrow knew his death was inevitable and made his last act count for the rest of the resistance. Of all the heroes to die in “Injustice,” Oliver certainly was one of the hardest to see go.

Which death do you think was the most shocking in “Injustice?” Are you looking forward to the new game? Let us know in the comments!

“Injustice 2” will be released for the PS4 and Xbox One on May 16, 2017.

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timeflies1007-blog · 6 years ago

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Doctor Who Reviews, Season 2, Part 2

Note: These reviews contain many spoilers for season 2 and occasional spoilers for later seasons. There are also a few references to plot points from the classic series.

Rise of the Cybermen: Like “New Earth,” this episode gives us the opportunity to see a different world, although in this case one that aligns quite closely with ours, but it’s again a pretty meager effort—some technology upgrades, some zeppelins in the sky, the end. (The ability to travel between universes is also established in a fairly underwhelming way; there’s a lot of drama about how the TARDIS is dead, and then she isn’t, just a few minutes later, and I don’t know what it means for the Doctor to fix the problem by giving up ten years when he doesn’t generally die of old age.) The low-key approach to world-building might have worked well in service of a more engaging plot, but the Cybermen story never quite finds a way to make the metallic monsters interesting. The first scene at least goes to an entertaining Frankensteiny place, but after that, in spite of his constant references to his impending demise John Lumic just sort of feels like walking exposition, necessary because we need someone who isn’t a Cyberman to explain the plan. I’ve liked Roger Lloyd Pack in other things, but he’s one of the least convincing evil genius figures I’ve seen on this show, and without a charismatic human presence to move their story along, the Cybermen just don’t make enough of an impact—especially since they’re stuck with trying to take over the world via evil earpieces. The scene in which a bunch of homeless men are converted while “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” covers the sound is a brilliant piece of darkness, but the episode never otherwise manages to make them look more than moderately intimidating.

This could have been a disastrous episode if it relied too heavily on the Cybermen narrative, but, fortunately, it devotes a lot of time to Rose’s and Mickey’s parallel world families. It’s a fairly brief scene, but Mickey’s reunion with his grandmother—now dead in our universe—is the clear highlight of the episode, and continues with the work that “School Reunion” did to give Mickey more depth. His interactions with Rickey and his band of revolutionaries are also strong scenes, although while Noel Clarke does a great job as Mickey in this episode, he overacts Ricky to the point where he becomes comedic—it’s unclear whether or not this was intentional. Rose seems to have moved on completely from the abandonment that happened in the previous episode, which is frustrating, but she does have some memorable interactions with the Doctor. The look that she gives him in an attempt to get him to investigate this universe’s Pete and Jackie is the most directly flirtatious behavior that we’ve seen from her, and they are really adorable in their undercover guise as waitstaff at the party. (The Doctor’s reaction to tiny lapdog Rose is especially cute.) Rose’s attempts to get to know this version of her dad are really nicely depicted here, and it’s lovely to see a slightly different version of Pete. I am a bit put off, though, by what this story does to Jackie. It’s a different universe and, therefore, a different version of Jackie, but Mickey treats his grandmother as basically the same person as the one in his universe, and Pete winds up being seen as a substitute for this universe’s Pete, and that makes the portrayal of Jackie seem like a commentary on the main version of this character as well. She has moments of seeming like our Jackie, but her shallowness and snobbery are played up so much here that we’re left with the suggestion that if she were a rich, childless woman instead of a poor single mother, she’d lose all of her good qualities. The whole character just feels like we are being asked to laugh at Jackie by magnifying her flaws, and it seems mean-spirited to me. It also sort of seems like she was written as unlikeable for the purpose of making it easy to get her out of the way so that our Jackie can be with Pete at the end. This does set up a great moment in the finale, but the whole episode plays into the critics who find Jackie shrill and overbearing, and she’s way too good for that.

There is a lot to dislike in this episode, including the lackluster parallel universe, the Cyberman plot, and the treatment of Jackie Tyler. The interactions between Rose and the Doctor help, though, and Mickey and Pete are so good here that they mostly save the episode. I wish it had been linked to a more engaging narrative, but I really appreciate that the show is giving Mickey a lot of good material before (temporarily) writing him off of the show. B-

The Age of Steel: “He takes the living, and turns them into those machines.” “They cut out the one thing that makes them human.” In the Davies era of the show, this is what the Cybermen are. The fact that they were once human is lamented, but there’s definitely nothing human about them anymore. The precise nature of the Cyber identity has been somewhat ambiguous throughout their long history on the show, but this is one of its most disappointing formulations. The notion that Cybermen have had their emotions removed is completely consistent with what we know from the classic series—it’s integral to these monsters that their emotions have been deleted because they see emotion as weakness and uniformity as strength. Ideally, this can provoke interesting questions about what it means to have a human brain (even if it’s been programmed by Cyber control) while the human body and emotions have been replaced. Out of all of Who’s monsters, they are in some respects the closest to us because of this retention of this human brain, and that gives these figures the ability to be truly unsettling and uncanny.

The show’s approach to the Cyber identity has varied a lot over the years. In the classic series, many of the most interesting moments with the Cybermen came in the form of resistance to certain elements of Cyber design and control. “The Tomb of the Cybermen” lets us see a character resist the effects of partial conversion, for instance, while “The Invasion,” (the best Cyberman story) gives us essentially weaponized emotion, in which Cybermen suffer from having emotion gradually re-infused. Once Moffat takes over, human nature becomes tied so closely to the intellect that a Cyberman with a human brain has only had part of its humanity cancelled, which gives us terrifying encounters with machines who are still sort of human. (Granted, it takes him a while to find a logical balance between these elements, but I would say he gets there eventually.) Here, it’s not that humanity is permanently unavailable to these Cybermen, but it’s completely dependent on the fairly straightforward piece of mechanics that is the emotional inhibitor. This device, which appears to be linked to the nervous system, suggests that one’s humanity is entirely dependent on whether or not one’s emotions are physically operational. The Cyberman whose human form was about to get married is heartbreaking, but her humanity is reduced to an on-off switch. Functioning emotional inhibitor=not human. Broken emotional inhibitor=human again. When Tennant says that he gave the Cybermen their souls back by turning their emotions back on, he’s not kidding; the perspective here is genuinely that the soul and emotional experience are completely synonymous.

My issue with this is not so much that it is a dull exploration of what it means to be a Cyberman, and more that it is a dull exploration of what it means to be human. To be fair, emotion is probably our most important characteristic, but reducing the human soul to a question of whether or not your feelings button is turned on makes human nature look one-dimensional—there are lots of things that define our humanity, and feelings are central among them, but they’re not alone. It doesn’t help that the solution to the problem completely undercuts the episode’s apparent message. The Doctor insists that human individuality is important, and that grief, rage, and pain are intrinsic to the human experience. Then, once he returns to the Cybermen their “souls,” they all do basically the same thing, with only very slight variation. This uniform action involves being destroyed by their emotions, including their grief and pain, and while I understand that realizing what you had become could easily kill a person in this situation, it’s a bit odd to have a big speech about grief and pain being qualities that are important to humanity and then follow it by having everyone commit suicide because of these qualities. There’s a really effective shot of a Cyberman looking with horror at its reflection in a mirror, but watching the emotionally-restored Cybermen continue to behave with almost total uniformity and be completely unable to handle negative emotions works so directly against the themes of this episode that I’m just confused about what anyone was thinking when they put together this story. If we’d just had a few outliers—someone saying “I’m in a lot of pain, but at least I can stomp on my enemies now,” or someone determined to hold on to life and consciousness in spite of the reasons to let go of them, or someone trying desperately to call for re-conversion back to full humanity—this would at least let us see what the Doctor is saying about the importance of individuality and emotional experience. Instead, while there is some variation in terms of the gestures that they make, from what I can see they just wander about dying en masse.

Lumic gets even worse in this episode; his interactions with the Cybermen early in the episode are so awkwardly written that they almost seem unscripted. His final showdown with the Doctor is mostly forgettable, even if it does give the Doctor a few good lines. (I particularly liked his sarcastic, ““I’ve been captured, but don’t worry, Rose and Pete are still out there, they can rescue me!”) The Doctor’s speech about the need for grief and pain doesn’t really work well within the Cyberman narrative but is a nice moment in an episode that sees Rose lose Mickey, get rejected by this version of her father, and see the death of this version of her mother. While he’s going on about the human imagination, it’s delightful. He moves pretty quickly into self-satisfaction, though, and he never seems to think through how he might actually convince Lumic, whose death is dull and silly. There’s some fun running around and some entertaining action-movie stuff here, but overall the plot is just completely misguided.

Fortunately, a few characters get such good material that they elevate the episode well above the mediocre Cyberman plot. Mrs. Moore is a terrific character and makes a great temporary companion for the Doctor. In spite of dying pretty quickly, she’s a well-rounded, believable character, and her death seems like a meaningful loss. (I would love it if someday the show let us see the Mrs. Moore equivalent in our universe.) I also continue to enjoy Pete, although the episode kind of wastes the very good idea of having Rose and Pete pretend to be completely emotionless in order to get past the Cybermen in order to rescue Jackie. Watching Rose, by nature a fountain of emotion, fight off the need to express her fear and grief would have made for some excellent drama, but we don’t get to see that because they immediately find out that Jackie has already been converted and then they just stop pretending. Still, I love that Pete has been working as a spy, passing information about Cybus Industries to the Preachers. His final scene, in which he learns that Rose is his daughter from another world but rejects her because he needs to take down the rest of the Cybermen, is beautifully underplayed and really painful to watch, but even that gets overshadowed by Mickey’s decision to stay in the parallel world. This two-parter has maybe slightly overdone the whole “Rose and the Doctor treat Mickey as the tin dog” thing in preparation for this moment, and his magical hacker skills have never seemed plausible to me, but he gets an absolutely marvelous exit. His determination to both take Ricky’s place in fighting the Cybermen and to take care of his Gran is a great motivation for him to leave, and his last conversation with Rose is perfect in its simplicity. “We’ve had a laugh, though, haven’t we—seen it all, been there and back” isn’t the most poetic dialogue the show has ever had, but it’s exactly right for the moment. Then, when Rose and the Doctor have gone so that Rose can go give Jackie a gigantic hug, Mickey gets one more fantastic moment in his confidence that he can take down the Cybermen from a van because he “once saved the universe with a big truck.” Aw, Mickey Smith. You were really boring for a while but you got awesome eventually. B/B-

Idiot’s Lantern: Even if sometimes the stories themselves don’t completely work, Mark Gatiss is generally very good at writing a convincing Victorian-era setting, which is one of the reasons why “The Unquiet Dead” was so enjoyable. His efforts to convey the 1950s are a lot less specific: there’s some period-appropriate clothing and a general sense of patriarchy, and that’s pretty much it. It’s fun to see the Doctor and Rose in fifties garb, and I like that Rose continues to make use of stuff she knows just from being a human with a family—her flag knowledge from Jackie’s sailor boyfriend and her immediate suspicion of the number of televisions because of stories she’s heard from Jackie demonstrate that her human perspective is quite useful. It’s only useful for a brief period of time, though, because she quickly gets her face and brain sucked out and spends much of the episode trapped. (Rose has less than usual to do in this episode, “Fireplace,” and “Love and Monsters,” and I just don’t understand the concept of having Billie Piper on your payroll and not making as much use as possible of her talents.)

The plot, in which the television is sucking out people’s brains, is an overly literal depiction of the fear of technology, and the only really creepy moment is the visual of the faces trapped in TV screens. The Wire is eerie enough when she is keeping up the persona of the television host, but just sounds silly when yelling things like “Hungryyyy!!” or “Feeeed meee!” The domestic disharmony in Tommy’s family isn’t a terrible plot, but the father’s over-the-top performance and the dialogue’s heavy-handedness about how he’s exactly like the fascists he fought against render it pretty forgettable until the last few minutes. Rose’s insistence that Tommy go after his dad, and her wistful look in their direction, give us a nicely underplayed reminder of what she lost in the last episode, which is important in a season that tends to make Rose come across as forgetful. Although, given what we’ve seen of the dad’s temper, I’m a little concerned that she’s sending the kid into a situation where he’s going to be abused. It’s good that she’s still thinking about Pete, but this father seems like a very different model.

It’s the only really memorable piece of an awfully by-the-numbers episode, though, and one of Gatiss’s weakest contributions to the show. In general, I tend to like Gatiss as a writer of (relatively) realistic drama more than I like him as a sci-fi writer; I loved “An Adventure in Space and Time” and consider “The Hounds of Baskerville” to be the most underrated episode of Sherlock (where he’s a fantastic Mycroft), but when he writes for Doctor Who he tends to lean a bit too heavily on B-movie horror tropes. Old-timey, cheesy speculative fiction is an important influence on this show, but I think most of the other writers blend these influences more thoroughly with humor and character-driven drama than Gatiss does, and this episode is one of the most in need of an effort to reinterpret some of its influences in a more imaginative way. What we’re left with isn’t a terrible story, but it’s pretty pointless. C+/C

The Impossible Planet: The first part of this story isn’t quite as exhilarating as the near-perfect second part, but it’s a terrific piece of setup and a marvelous example of how well the Tenth Doctor/Rose pairing can work. A lot of episodes this season are let down by some combination of the setting, the monsters, and the minor characters, but this episode knocks it out of the park in all three respects. For the most part, the setting is ordinary Outer Space done very well—the endless series of sliding doors isn’t especially original, for instance, but it’s used very effectively. At times, though, the setting goes well beyond being a fun, slightly Star Trek-y space and becomes genuinely fascinating. The untranslatable writing immediately lends a compelling sense of mystery, the revelation of the somehow non-deadly black hole is astonishing, and the lost civilization is just gorgeous. The music is perhaps even more important than the visual—it’s lovely throughout the episode, and the brief sequence set to “Bolero” is an especial highlight. The Ood are among the best new monsters of the Davies era; they’ve got a striking appearance, and they create an intriguing perspective on what this future is like. They show not only a dark side of humanity’s future, but also a sense of how humans are attempting to justify that dark side—while it’s ultimately unconvincing, particularly in light of Season 4’s more in-depth look at the Ood, I can fully believe a future society using the idea of a species’ natural subservience as an excuse for exploiting them. Among the minor characters, Scooti is basically canon fodder, Danny is forgettable, and Toby never really interests me other than as a vessel for the Beast, but Ida, Zachary, and Jefferson seem like fully-rounded human beings within seconds.

Rose is just delightful here; she’s having a good time in spite of being trapped extremely far away from the Earth, and she’s trying to connect with the Ood, who remind her of the hopelessness she once felt. She also starts to have a real conversation with the Doctor about the possibility of living together on whatever planet they get dropped off on, and I wouldn’t have any objection to the Doctor/Rose romance if it always looked like this. Their conversation is hesitant and awkward, but it’s really sweet, and I love Rose’s amusement at the thought of the Doctor getting a mortgage. The Doctor himself is at his most jubilant here, and his impulse to hug the captain because of humanity’s obsession with exploration is a particularly nice moment. Everyone is just so loveable here that I spend more time basking in the wonderfulness of the characters and setting than actually taking in much of the plot, but there is some good setup for the next episode, particularly in the moments in which the Beast’s consciousness starts to come through. There’s a fair amount of exposition here, and most of the very best things happen in part two, but this is a glorious start to a terrific story. A/A-

The Satan Pit: This is generally a pretty highly-regarded episode, but I still think it’s massively underrated—I would put it in my top five. While it’s not as emotional as the finale, I would say it’s the best treatment of the Rose/Doctor relationship, and it’s also arguably the most fun episode of the entire reboot.

Both pieces of the story—the Doctor and Ida, Rose and the rest of the crew—work impeccably well on their own and dovetail together nicely. While I think that the Doctor’s adventures are a bit stronger, Rose gets a lot of great scenes with the crew, who continue to be extremely engaging minor characters. The crawling through the tunnels is claustrophobically terrifying, and Jefferson’s death is genuinely really tragic—at this point, it feels like he’s been in the last five episodes at least. The mysterious references to guilt about his wife give him a real sense of depth, and the actor does a stupendous job of making a man who could seem mindlessly violent truly likeable. Zachary is very well-written and acted throughout this episode; he could easily come across as a one-note character, but his capability in spite of guilt and uncertainty comes across very clearly. The script is nicely attentive to the ways in which the power structures in this time and place are allowing some of the problems to happen—I really like the fact that they’re having trouble tracking the Ood because the computer doesn’t register them as life forms. This is also the one episode this season in which I really believe that Rose’s personality has substantially shifted because of her time with the Doctor. She takes control in much the same way that the Doctor would, and she even sort of imitates some of the Doctor’s mannerisms in the way that she talks to the crew. Yes, she is basically suicidal in her attempted insistence on staying to wait for the Doctor instead of fleeing with the rest, but otherwise she is a terrific leader throughout this story.

The Doctor himself gets an even better adventure. His complicated feelings for Rose are woven throughout the narrative in a way that serves the story and their relationship; his initial retreat from the chasm is pretty clearly motivated by his need to get back to Rose, and it’s a beautiful expression of just how much of an impact she has on him. His almost-declaration of love for her, which he declines to actually say, because “Oh, she knows” is also a strong portrayal of the strength of both his feelings and his sense of hesitation. Ida isn’t quite as fully realized a character as Jefferson or Zachary, but she’s likeable and she works well as a foil for the Doctor’s religious musings. The old civilization looks amazing, and the elegiac music that accompanies their exploration of it is just perfect.

The Doctor doesn’t just wander about in this lovely little world, though, because the Beast has directed his attention toward ideas that are fairly unusual for this show. Doctor Who doesn’t often deal with faith in a religious sense—although it will do so much more frequently once Moffat takes over—and the Doctor really seems to struggle to articulate his own here. Early in the episode, he resists the notion that anything could come from before the universe, and the Beast’s response—“Is that your religion?”—seems like a pretty good reading of what the Doctor believes in. What his long run of speeches in the pit shows, though, is that he doesn’t cling to his beliefs, but rather looks for things that will challenge them; he wants to find things that will break the rules that inform his understanding. It’s a fascinating portrait of what faith looks like to him, and it’s entirely believable for someone who has had his lifespan and his adventures. This would have been a worthwhile look at the Doctor’s mind even if it had stopped here, but we also get a lot of attention to what he believes about humans. He is particularly enthusiastic here about human nature and about the specific humans that he encounters, and I especially like his ability to rewrite the Beast’s very negative reading of Rose and the crew in positive terms. He’s aware, though, of human failings as well, which takes its most interesting shape in his argument that humans don’t have an innate need to jump but rather one to fall. The mysterious pit gives him the opportunity to emulate that piece of human nature, and his descent into unmeasurable depths is a wonderful physical rendering of the more spiritual and psychological leaps of faith that he makes elsewhere in the episode.

His most dramatic analysis of humans comes, predictably, in response to the possibility of losing Rose. The entire scene of the Doctor versus the Beast is just splendid in every respect, even if it is sort of an unusual approach for this show to make. Meeting a trapped creature who could be the origin of all of the Satan (and other ultimate evil) myths across the universe is possibly branching out past science fiction into fantasy, and the idea that smashing the urns breaks the prison sounds like something out of a fairytale. The use of the black hole does give the story more of a science fiction basis, but it’s still a very different story from the rest of the season, and one that puts the Doctor in the rare position of coming into the situation with very little relevant knowledge and having to work to piece things together. His conversation with the Beast—who functions more as an inspiration of interesting behavior in other characters than as a compelling focal point himself—is really more of a monologue, but it’s an absolutely sublime one. His joy at gradually putting together the truth plays out beautifully, and his reaction to the thought of losing Rose is an excellent follow-up to his earlier unwillingness to verbalize his feelings. What he says here isn’t exactly a profession of love, but it’s a statement of the nature of his feelings for her: out of all of the universe, and the many wonders he has seen, she is what he has the most faith in. It is a sort of statement of love, rewritten in terms that make sense for a wanderer who is cut off in some ways from normal human experiences. The Doctor burning up a sun to say goodbye to Rose in “Doomsday” might be the popular choice for the most memorable portrayal of their relationship, but his exuberant exclamation of “I believe in her!” is the highlight of the Doctor-Rose pairing for me.

The rest of the scene is lovely as well, again thanks in part to the fantastic musical score. One could find some logical flaws here; the Doctor’s concerns about the rocket losing orbit if he destroys the urns could be satisfied by waiting a reasonable amount of time, until the rocket has had time to get past the gravitational force of the black hole, but this scene is such a burst of goodness that I don’t really care. Rose killing Toby and thereby getting rid of the mind of Satan is nicely in line with the characterization of Rose that appears in this episode, although the “Go to hell” line is a bit overly quippy. The music, the Doctor’s monologue, and Rose’s embrace of her role as hero in what she thinks are her last moments all work perfectly together until the tremendous moment in which the music triumphantly goes “Da-da-dahh!!!” because the Doctor has found the TARDIS. The death of all of the Ood gives a somber note to the otherwise joyous ending, but Zachary’s seriousness toward their deaths—putting all of them into the records individually—creates a sense of hope that this set of humans, at least, might start to recognize the problems with how the Ood race is treated. To be sure, using the TARDIS as a tow truck is a bit odd, but the universe has rarely looked more beautiful than it does in this scene, and the Tenth Doctor’s enthusiasm has rarely seemed more convincing. This Doctor is jubilant so often that his expressions of joy can sometimes seem diminished in effect, as if that joy is too easily won. Here, his determined outburst of positivity as he stares down Satan and faces the prospect of losing Rose portrays that sense of joy as something fought for and completely earned, and that makes this scene one of the Tenth Doctor’s very best moments.

This episode was written by Matt Jones, who never wrote for the show again, but I’ve read that it was heavily rewritten by Davies; it’s sort of a shame that he didn’t get a writing credit here, because I honestly think it’s his best work. “Midnight” is also a brilliant exploration of the Doctor’s mind and soul, but it’s a very bleak one; this episode manages to do a lot of serious, insightful work about the Doctor (and, to a lesser extent, about Rose as well) while maintaining the sense of optimism and enthusiasm that is so central to the Tenth Doctor. It shows that serious episodes and fun episodes don’t have to be completely separate categories, and as such it’s a pretty much perfect combination of everything that is good about this show. A+

#doctor who #female doctor #season 2 #tenth doctor #david tennant #rose tyler #billie piper #russell t davies #reviews

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Best Modern Horror Movies

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Every once in a while, someone likes to declare that the horror genre is dead, and so far, every one of those predictions has been wrong.

Horror movies have been around almost as long as filmmaking itself, and while the genre has always been cyclical in nature –dipping, sometimes drastically, in both quality and quantity from time to time — all it usually takes is a well-timed box office hit, a fresh new angle or a hot young filmmaker to reanimate it again.

The 21st century has been, overall, an extremely healthy one for horror. There’s been the usual amount of dross, of course, but the genre has branched out in a number of interesting new directions as well. We had absolutely no problem tallying the initial batch of movies for this article, and have just continued to update it ever since, starting with the newest and going back in time from there.

So here are over 50 terrifying favorites that you can use for your own personal Halloween film festival — and we promise that this lineup delivers. Brace yourselves for a look at the best horror movies of the 21st century.

These are the very best modern horror movies…

Saint Maud (2020)

As our own Rosie Fletcher said in her review, Saint Maud is “a strange, gorgeous, and deeply disturbing chiller which mixes psychological, religious, and body horror to form something that feels utterly original.” She added that the film “messes with your perceptions of what’s real and what isn’t and comes with an ending that’s so simultaneously euphoric and horrific it feels like a punch in the heart.”

She’s right on the money. Morfydd Clark is outstanding in the title role, a private nurse who believes she can speak directly with God and decides it’s her mission to save the soul of the dying, debauched professional dancer (Jennifer Ehle) she is caring for. Maud lives right on the knife’s edge between spiritual ecstasy and mental illness, and director Rose Glass’ debut feature captures the surreal, horrific netherworld that is this tormented young woman’s life.

Saint Maud is out in theaters in the UK now.

Relic (2020)

The horror film at its best allows us to experience our deepest real-life fears in metaphorical terms, which is what the excellent Relic does with specificity, empathy, and atmosphere to spare. Emily Mortimer plays Kay, a workaholic single mom who gets a call from the police that her elderly mother Edna is missing from her home in the Australian countryside. When Kay and her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) drive out from Melbourne to the house, Edna (Robyn Nevin) reappears after two days–but cannot recall where she’s been.

Edna’s house–untidy, dark, and littered with odd notes and markings–and behavior lead Kay and a local doctor to surmise that the headstrong Edna is slowly sinking into the grip of dementia. But something else is at hand — an unseen presence that can seemingly bend reality — and the feature debut of director Natalie Erika James works so well because of its complete cohesion between characters, theme and imagery. Grief and loss ooze from every frame of the film, along with an impending sense of dread and claustrophobia.

Watch Relic on Amazon

SpectreVision

Color Out of Space (2020)

Color Out of Space adapts what legendary horror author H.P. Lovecraft considered his personal favorite short story, “The Colour Out of Space.” Although the film is set in the present, it is faithful to the original 1927 narrative, in which a family is both driven to madness and altered physically by the presence of an alien entity that has landed on their farm in a meteorite.

Starring a typically unpredictable Nicolas Cage, Color Out of Space is flawed in many ways, but is distinguished by three things: the return of director Richard Stanley (Hardware) after too many years away from features, a plethora of eerie and downright disturbing imagery, and an overall atmosphere that comes damn close to that of Lovecraft himself.

Watch Color Out of Space on Amazon

Neon

The Lodge (2020)

The Lodge stars an excellent Riley Keough as Grace, a troubled young woman in love with Richard (Richard Madden) a journalist who wrote a book about the suicide cult she is the only survivor of. Their relationship triggers Richard’s estranged wife (Alicia Silverstone) to commit suicide, leaving the former couple’s two children devastated.

Six months later, Richard, Grace and the children head up to Richard’s remote winter lodge in an effort for all of them to heal. But a series of unexplained events occur that may be tied to Grace’s past or the death of the children’s mother — or both. Directed by Austrian filmmakers Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (the harrowing Goodnight Mommy), The Lodge reeks with dread and leads to a thoroughly unsettling finish.

Watch The Lodge on Amazon

Wounds (2019)

This Hulu original stars Armie Hammer as Will, a New Orleans bartender whose discovery of an abandoned mobile phone in his place of business portends the arrival of an unspeakable evil, a malevolence that infects him, his girlfriend (Dakota Johnson) and almost everything in his life.

British-Iranian director Babek Anvari (2016’s supremely eerie Under the Shadow), creates an atmosphere of extreme dread and rot here, from the cockroaches Will is constantly killing behind the bar to the frightening images and sounds that keep appearing on that damn phone. Based on a novella called The Visible Filth by acclaimed horror writer Nathan Ballingrud, Wounds leaves much unexplained but that’s kind of the point: horror is often most effective when it can’t be rationalized.

Watch Wounds on Hulu

Tigers Are Not Afraid (2019)

There’s a reason why no less a maestro than Guillermo Del Toro is a fan of this deeply felt and moving film: it covers much of the same territory that he has explored in some of his greatest works like The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth — the place where imagination, childhood innocence and real world corruption intersect in a surreal, dangerous yet fantastical landscape.

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Best Horror Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

By Alec Bojalad and 3 others

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Best Horror Movies on Hulu

By Alec Bojalad and 1 other

After her mother goes missing in the latest cartel rampage through an unnamed and anarchy-plagued Mexican city, a young girl (Paola Lara) finds herself living on rooftops with a small band of little boys and haunted by an apparition that may or may not be her mother. Director and writer Issa Lopez wrings emotion, humor and even minor triumphs out of this dark scenario, while not shying away from its more disturbing implications.

Watch Tigers Are Not Afraid on Amazon

Ready or Not (2019)

Darkly funny and subversive, Ready or Not is an out-of-nowhere surprise that deftly weds (pun intended) an acidic black comedy about income inequality and the politics of marriage to a more gruesome thriller about being chased around an old, dark house by a deranged family of Satanists. If that doesn’t pull you in, nothing will.

Samara Weaving is an appealing lead as the young woman who marries into a clan of vast wealth and privilege, only to find out where they came from and what the family must do to maintain them. Weaving is excellent at both the comedy and horror, while Andie MacDowell and Henry Czerny lead a sparkling supporting cast of cracked characters. It may not be especially scary, but ready or not, this one’s a real crowd-pleaser.

Watch Ready or Not on Amazon

Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

Who would have thunk that the third time would be the charm for this popular Conjuring spin-off series? First-time director Gary Dauberman — who wrote all three entries in the sub-franchise — rises to the challenge and brings a wonderful sense of atmospherics and dread to the proceedings that was lacking in the earlier films. Anyone who channels the lighting schemes of horror legends like Mario Bava is all right in our book.

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By Daniel Kurland

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Annabelle: Real-Life Haunted Dolls to Disturb Your Dreams

By Aaron Sagers

Annabelle Comes Home also proves to be the sharpest-written of the bunch, as four girls — one of them the daughter of Conjuring ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, who cameo here) — try to fight off the evil title doll as she unleashes hell on them over the course of one night. The cast is given depth and agency, which makes us care all the more when Dauberman turns the movie into a full-on monster mash. This one’s old school fun.

Watch Annabelle Comes Home on Amazon

Midsommar (2019)

Ari Aster blew everyone away in 2018 with his writing and directing debut, Hereditary (see below), a frightening tale of family dysfunction, grief, memory and naked witches summoning an ancient demon (Was that a spoiler? Sorry). His follow-up, Midsommar, wears its direct influences on its sleeve and tries a little too hard to signal its own importance, but it’s supremely eerie in its own way and quite nasty in what it shows and what it hints at.

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A24 Horror Movies Ranked From Worst to Best

By David Crow and 3 others

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Midsommar: Florence Pugh Considers Ending Theories, May Queen Fandom

By David Crow

Four college friends — including disintegrating couple Dani (Florence Pugh) and Christian (Jack Reynor) — are invited by an exchange student to Sweden, where they’ll visit the reclusive commune in which he was raised. Fans of films like The Wicker Man will have a pretty good sense of what’s coming, even if Aster doesn’t quite answer all the questions he raises. What he does do, however, is chill the blood with both the way the travelers turn on each other and how the Harga find spirituality and transcendence in their deeply disturbing rituals.

Watch Midsommar on Amazon

Us (2019)

The second feature from Get Out writer/director Jordan Peele still cleverly uses the horror genre for social commentary, but the focus is less directly on race this time and more on class and privilege. Lupita Nyong’o is outstanding as Adelaide, whose well-off family is terrorized by savage doppelgangers intent on murdering them. Who those duplicates are, and what they mean, provides for a biting commentary on the haves and the have-nots.

Some of the story logic is fuzzier this time around, but Peele is still adept at creating a genuine atmosphere of dread while deploying well-worn horror tricks in unique new ways. He also gets tremendous performances out of his cast, including Black Panther’s Winston Duke and The Handmaid Tale’s Elisabeth Moss, in what is ultimately a solid sophomore outing for the director.

Watch Us on Amazon

Halloween (2018)

After years of mostly lackluster sequels and reboots, director David Gordon Green (and his co-writer Danny McBride) take this horror icon both back to the roots and into the future. The result is a direct sequel to the original that ignores all the other films and concentrates, with stark precision, on two ideas: the concept of Michael Myers as a primal force of evil and the theme of PTSD as exemplified by Jamie Lee Curtis’ powerful performance as a permanently damaged Laurie Strode.

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Halloween: Timeline Explained for Horror Movie Franchise

By Daniel Kurland

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Halloween III: Season of the Witch Deserves Another Look

By Jim Knipfel

Both a thrilling rollercoaster ride and a chilling exploration of an unknowable psyche, the new Halloween is also relevant to what’s happening in 2018 — making The Shape a valid and still scary vessel for whatever metaphor you want him to represent.

Mandy (2018)

Dream-like, surreal and hypnotic — when it’s not screaming with rage — Mandy may be more interested in atmosphere and imagery than story (the plot is admittedly far too simple for the movie’s two-hour length) but is an unnerving experience nonetheless.

At the center of this boldly experimental assault from director Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow) is a primal performance from Nicolas Cage, whose reputation for gonzo performances does a disservice to the raw emotion he can still deliver as a lumberjack out for vengeance against a frightening cult. Mandy might try your patience, but its visual poetry and uncaged (ha ha) star are never dull.

Watch Mandy on Amazon

Hereditary (2018)

It’s still hard to believe that this is the first feature ever from writer/director Ari Aster, who brings a literal parade of horrors to his terrifying exploration of a family’s complete breakdown from forces within and without.

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Toni Collette is off-the-charts stunning as the mother who tries to hold her clan together even in the face of unspeakable tragedy and the knowledge that her own family history is working against them. Harrowing and thoroughly unsettling, Hereditary is perhaps the best example yet of a new wave of genre films that are about something while still scaring the living shit out of you.

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The Endless (2018)

Two brothers (played by Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead, who also directed, produced, edited and wrote the film) return to the cult they once belonged to as youths, each carrying different memories of their time there and different expectations of what they’ll find in the present. But neither sibling is prepared for the inexplicable events that occur once they arrive.

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Following their features Resolution and Spring, the Benson/Morehead team once again prove themselves adept at creating believable, atmospheric, dread-infused horror with limited resources. These guys clearly know what they’re doing, and the eerie The Endless is a strong next step for them.

Watch The Endless on Amazon

A Quiet Place (2018)

Who knew that mild Jim Halpert from The Office would end up directing one of the most acclaimed and outright scary movies of the past few years? In his third outing behind the camera (which he also co-wrote and stars in), John Krasinski uses silence — which can be deployed to great effect in horror movies — in the most ingenious manner possible. He, Emily Blunt and their three children live in a near-future world overrun by hideous, blind creatures that use their superior hearing to track prey by sound, thus necessitating that the human survivors remain as quiet as possible.

The result is a thriller in which literally every footstep is suffused with dread and a rusty nail becomes an object of extreme terror. While the script creaks a bit and could have used some better development, there’s no doubt that Krasinski directs this for maximum tension while getting terrific work out of himself, his wife and the kids. A Quiet Place is not just compelling horror, but a loud announcement of an outstanding new directorial talent.

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It (2017)

It’s been a long time since a Stephen King screen adaptation really got the author’s work and intent right, but It does so and then some. Full of heart and warmth for its seven young main characters — all of whom are perfectly cast — It sets them against an insidious evil in the shape of Bill Skarsgard’s unforgettable Pennywise the Clown.

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Director Andy Muschietti’s take on King’s masterpiece is humane, moving and even funny — a coming-of-age story that also happens to be an engrossing and unsettling monster tale. It’s very rare that a truly “epic” horror movie is released, but It can stand proudly in that rarefied category.

Watch It on Amazon

It Comes at Night (2017)

Was this movie mismarketed? Or did audiences just reject its overwhelming, unrelenting bleakness? Either way it’s one of the overlooked horror gems of the past few years. Writer/director Trey Edward Shults is not interested in the whys or hows of his post-apocalyptic setting — he just puts regular, fearful human beings into the aftermath and lets us watch them as any chance for survival slowly unravels.

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Understated, incredibly claustrophobic (the house is a character itself) and stocked with great performances from Joel Edgerton, Carmen Ejogo, and the rest of the cast, It Comes at Night is as naturalistic as a horror movie gets — and is all the more terrifying for it.

Watch It Comes at Night on Amazon Prime

Split (2017)

This was the film we had the toughest time deciding whether or not to include on this list. Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan gives it the structure, atmosphere and tone of a horror movie, yet it’s clear now that it’s also an origin story for a comic book-style supervillain and a de facto sequel to his Unbreakable.

But for most of its running time, Split is a harrowing, darkly humorous psychological thriller anchored by an incredible performance from James McAvoy as a man with 24 different personalities in his brain — as well as a monstrous 25th that is about to emerge.

Watch Split on Amazon

The Girl with All the Gifts (2017)

Not just one of the best horror movies of 2017, The Girl with All the Gifts was one of the best movies of that year. Moving and compassionate while at the same time frightening and dread-inducing, the movie puts a fresh spin on the zombie genre and creates memorable, empathetic characters who grapple with questions of not just what it means to be human, but what it means to be alive.

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Stars Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine and Glenn Close give top-shelf performances, but the movie belongs to young Sennia Nanua as the flesh-eating yet fully sentient Melanie, who may be a forerunner of a new, unexpected step in the evolution of whatever the human race ends up becoming. Gripping from start to finish.

Watch The Girl with All the Gifts on Amazon

Raw (2017)

Deeply graphic and disturbing, yet also rich with symbolism and subtext, Raw is both as grisly and sophisticated as horror movies come. The movie also touches on gender politics and family dynamics in its tale of two sisters at a French veterinary school who awaken to the power of their own bodies as well as primal, vicious hungers neither one of them thought possible. Director/writer Julia Ducournau stages the film in gritty, intimate style, making the gnawing on human flesh all the more horrific to watch. Raw is a movie that lives up to its name.

Watch Raw on Amazon

Get Out (2017)

The directorial debut of comedy writer/actor Jordan Peele is a sharp, funny and creepy horror satire on race relations, white liberal hubris and socal justice. It’s also a genuinely suspenseful thriller, albeit with nods to earlier movies like The Stepford Wives, and proves that horror continues to be an effective genre through which to tell culturally and socially relevant stories.

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Daniel Kaluuya plays Chris, a young African-American photographer who heads to the country with his white girlfriend (Alison Williams) to meet her parents for the first time. The meeting does not go well as Chris realizes that the seemingly nice yet awkward Armitages (led by an excellent Catherine Keener) are not what they appear to be at all. Get Out is thrilling, refreshing and a nice change of pace for the genre.

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Under the Shadow (2016)

International cinema has been exploring genre with great success in recent years, and this intimate yet mournful thriller, set in 1980s Tehran during the ongoing and brutal war between Iran and Iraq, is one of the more thoughtful and unique horror movies to emerge from that creative wellspring.

Iranian politics and social mores are woven carefully into the plot, which follows a woman and her daughter who are haunted by a djinn (an evil spirit) that may have been unleashed when their apartment building is shelled. The metaphor of the evil set free by war is fairly on the nose, but director Babak Anvari still constructs an atmosphere of slowly ascending terror and macabre imagery.

Watch Under the Shadow on Amazon

Train to Busan (2016)

Just when you thought the zombie genre had been utterly exhausted, someone comes along and reinvigorates it. Director Yeon Sang-ho’s South Korean production brought something back to the genre that had been gradually draining out of it: humanity.

Sure there’s a bit of sentimentality too in this story of a father trying desperately to get his daughter to her mom by train as a zombie plague breaks out, but the movie’s well-drawn characters, subtle social commentary (some on the train feel they are more worthy of survival than others) and frightening action sequences add up to a thrilling and emotionally powerful ride.

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The Wailing (2016)

South Korea struck again with this epic-length (156 minutes!) story of possession and exorcism in a small village from director Na Hong-jin. Once again a father must fight to save his daughter’s life: in this case he is a cop (Kwak Dowon) investigating a series of mysterious and violent deaths, only to discover that they have a supernatural cause that soon infects his family.

Despite odd moments of humor here and there, The Wailing is almost unremittingly bleak and its imagery is thoroughly unsettling. Deliberately paced and building an atmosphere of unspeakable dread, The Wailing is a standout of Asian horror.

Watch The Wailing on Amazon

The Invitation (2016)

This intense little psychological thriller from director Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body) starts off as a weirdly off-kilter domestic melodrama and shifts disquietingly into outright paranoia as it explores the dynamics of grief, modern relationships and how well we really know our friends and neighbors.

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Kusama’s deft handling of the material and setting (an angular and eventually sinister L.A. house), as well as a superb cast (led by Logan Marshall-Green and Tammy Blanchard, with support from the always creepy John Carroll Lynch) elevate the standard dinner party thriller into something a bit more special. And the final scene is a knockout.

Watch The Invitation on Amazon

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

The Conjuring 2 is a rare example of a horror sequel equaling or even surpassing the original. This time the focus is more directly on paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) as their skills, courage and faith are tested by England’s famous Enfield Poltergeist.

Director James Wan once again proves himself a master at using negative space, sound (or lack thereof) and period detail to wring goosebumps out of even the most jaded viewer, and the deeper characterizations make the stakes that much higher as well. There are few horror “epics,” but The Conjuring 2 comes close to being one.

Watch The Conjuring 2 on Amazon

The Witch (2016)

A stunning feature film debut from director Robert Eggers, The Witch tells the story of a 17th century Puritan family who are excommunicated from their village and build their own farm on the edge of a vast forest — only to be preyed upon by an ancient, malevolent witch who lives deep in the woods. Touching on themes of religious persecution and mania, sexual awakening and humanity vs. nature, The Witch is a fully immersive and wholly terrifying experience.

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Director Robert Eggers maintains astonishing control of mood and texture throughout, and the entire cast — including newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy as the family’s teen daughter — seems eerily snatched out of the past. The Witch is classic supernatural horror.

Watch The Witch on Amazon Prime

The Visit (2015)

M. Night Shyamalan began a welcome and long-overdue comeback with this quirky and creepy little found-footage experiment, which focuses on a teen brother and sister who make an unforgettable and eventually terrifying trip to visit the grandparents they’ve never met.

Shyamalan seems comfortable working within the lower-budget confines of the Blumhouse scream factory, and he manages to inject both a nice streak of morbid humor and enough of his trademark character touches to keep us off-balance. The movie has an unsettling tone throughout and, for the first time in a long time, the “twist” is well-earned and shocking.

Watch The Visit on Amazon

It Follows (2014)

One of the best horror films of the past couple of years is, like all the genre’s standout entries, rich in metaphor and subtext – is the curse passed through sex among the movie’s characters a stand-in for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, or is the sex act itself a way to affirm life or at least postpone the inevitable onset of death? Writer/director David Robert Mitchell keeps it ambiguous – much to some viewers’ chagrin – and instead focuses on the movie’s overall atmosphere and tone, which is dream-like and full of dread.

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Lead actress Maika Monroe is a star in the making, but the most unforgettable thing about It Follows is its implacable walking phantoms, who cause your flesh to crawl every time they enter the frame.

Watch It Follows on Amazon

The Babadook (2014)

An instant classic upon its release, this Australian shocker is, astoundingly, the debut film from writer/director Jennifer Kent, who retains the kind of complete and unwavering grip on her story, themes and tone that you would expect from a much more seasoned filmmaker. Essie Davis is outstanding as Amelia, a widowed mother still reeling from the loss of her husband Oskar as she does her exhausted best to raise their troubled six-year-old son Sam (Noah Wiseman), who was born the night that Oskar died.

Enter the Babadook, the subject of a frightening storybook that Sam finds and an entity that is soon terrorizing mother and child. Thoroughly frightening and unnerving, The Babadook is also quite profound as it touches on the nature of grief and parenthood, hinting that both can drive a person to the edge of madness — or into the clutches of the Babadook.

Watch The Babadook on Amazon

Oculus (2014)

Following his ultra-low-budget indie debut Absentia, writer/director Mike Flanagan expanded his short student film into this striking tale of supernatural and psychological terror. Karen Gillan (Doctor Who) stars as a woman who believes that an antique mirror has been responsible for the tragic history of her family, and sets out to destroy it by any means she can. The mirror, however, has other plans.

Set in two parallel timelines that eventually intersect, Oculus is original, creepy and filled with mounting tension; the film is steeped not just in the atmosphere of ‘70s horror cinema but also modern supernatural literature. With more features to his name since (including Ouija: Origin of Evil, his adaptation of Stephen King’s Gerald’s Game, and Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House) Flanagan is a talent to watch.

Watch Oculus on Amazon Prime

You’re Next (2013)

Home invasion movies can kind of be formulaic after a while, but director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett (The Guest) find a way to freshen it up by turning You’re Next into a macabre soap opera as well. In the meantime, however, there’s a ton of suspense and bloody mayhem to satiate fans of visceral horror, and the family dynamics at work make for a nice counterpoint to the terror.

The cast is terrific, a mix of horror vets (Barbara Crampton, Larry Fessenden) and mumblecore regulars, and Sharni Vinson is outstanding as the dinner guest with a secret of her own.

Watch You’re Next on Amazon

The Conjuring (2013)

A film about real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren had been in development for nearly 20 years — outlasting Ed himself — before finally coming to fruition in 2013 as The Conjuring. Based on a case the Warrens investigated concerning the haunting of a family farm by a witch, the film afforded director James Wan the change to take the horror skills he had honed on his previous project, Insidious, and apply them to a larger scale Hollywood production.

The result was a genuinely scary experience with plenty of atmosphere and just enough empathy for the family and the Warrens to elevate the movie about the usual shock tactics. It was also a major box office hit, making it that rare genre entry that was enjoyed by both critics and audiences.

Watch The Conjuring on Amazon

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Both a deconstruction of the genre and one of the 21st century’s best horror movies in its own right, The Cabin in the Woods could only be the work of Joss Whedon (co-writer) and Drew Goddard (co-writer and director), whose love and understanding of both the genre and the wider pop culture context around it make this one of the smartest satires in recent memory. Proposing that the standard template for a horror film is what keeps the real horrors at bay, the movie turns that formula on its head yet works it to maximum effect.

Goddard is assured in his directorial debut, the cast (including a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth and a brilliant Richard Jenkins as one of the weary “technicians” pulling the strings) is game, and the movie nails its meta premise perfectly.

Watch Cabin in the Woods on Amazon

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

Adapted from Lionel Shriver’s novel and directed by Lynne Ramsay, We Need to Talk About Kevin is the perennial “evil child” story disguised as an arthouse film. But the combination works, thanks to Ramsay’s striking direction and imagery and two knockout performances by Tilda Swinton as the mother and a frightening Ezra Miller as Kevin. Swinton’s anguished portrayal deepens the film’s themes and offers a searing and complex picture of a parent’s occasional ambivalence toward their own child.

Yet the movie doesn’t skimp on its horrors either, both psychological and physical, and stretches the boundaries of what can be considered a horror movie.

Watch We Need to Talk About Kevin on Amazon

Kill List (2011)

With just one feature to his credit before this (Down Terrace), director and co-writer Ben Wheatley hits his second film clear out of the park, fashioning it into a mash-up of gritty crime thriller and chilling Lovecraftian horror tale. The result is a unique movie that’s not quite like anything else on this list and will you leave you shaken to the core. Two former British soldiers turned hit men (Neil Maskell and Michael Smiley) take a job in which they must kill three people — a priest, a video archivist, and a member of Parliament — but soon find out that they have gotten involved with something far beyond their experience and understanding.

The somber mood, ambiguous plot (Wheatley deliberately and correctly leaves much unexplained) and almost unwatchable bursts of violence come to a boil in the truly horrifying and enigmatic climax.

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Insidious (2011)

After one hit (Saw) and a couple of misses (Dead Silence and Death Sentence), writer/director James Wan and his writing partner Leigh Whannell scored with this tiny ($1 million budget) indie that became a huge hit (and sadly spawned two lousy follow-ups). But Insidious deserved its success: it’s a genuinely scary film, with Wan displaying a tremendous talent for utilizing the camera frame, darkness and silence to create an oppressive atmosphere of dread only enhanced by some truly bizarre manifestations.

In pulling tricks from all eras of horror, Wan came up with something original, terrifying and entertaining – a horror ride that all fans could enjoy.

Watch Insidious on Amazon

I Saw the Devil (2010)

Director Kim Ji-Woon (A Tale of Two Sisters) sends an intelligence agent (Lee Byung-hun) on a mission of vengeance against a sadistic serial killer (Choi Min-sik) in this shocking and stunningly depraved cat and mouse thriller in which all notions of morality go out the window along with numerous bloody body parts. Yet Kim keeps you invested in the characters as well, and this Korean epic has an undertone of sadness that’s hard to shake. Kim holds it all together masterfully, creating a horrifying experience like nothing else we saw the year it came out.

Watch I Saw The Devil on Amazon

The House of the Devil (2009)

Indie auteur Ti West’s homage to the horror movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s is replete with stylistic touches from both decades, ranging from the old-school opening credits to the use of zoom lenses to the 16mm film stock meant to look retro. But this isn’t just a pastiche: while The House of the Devil is the definition of a “slow burn” film — which may leave some viewers impatient — the payoff is worth it as babysitter Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is subjected to a night of Satanic horrors that will leave you shaken.

West is an expert at leading us along and then tightening the screws hard, and if you told me that The House of the Devil had actually come out around 1981 or so, I just might have believed you.

Watch House of the Devil on Amazon

Paranormal Activity (2009)

For better or worse, Oren Peli’s homemade, shoestring thriller kicked off a tidal wave of films using the “found footage” or “faux doc” style of moviemaking, an esthetic that has proven increasingly confining and exhausted. But there’s no denying the strength of a few early contenders, starting with this. Peli shows us almost nothing in terms of visual effects, which only heightens the experience: you can’t help but feel a powerful sense of dread every time his camera sits and stares into the shadowy abyss of the couple’s bedroom while they sleep.

Tons of sequels, rehashes and rip-offs later, Paranormal Activity remains authentically frightening and deserves its berth on a list of the century’s best horror movies.

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Let the Right One In / Let Me In (2008/2010)

In an era of endless bloodsucking YA hotties, leave it to an 11-year-old girl to create the best and eeriest vampire seen on the screen in years. Based on a novel by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist and directed by fellow Swede Tomas Alfredson, this is the story of the friendship that grows between lonely, bullied 12-year-old Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) and the little girl who lives in the apartment next door, Eli (Lina Leandersson) — an ancient vampire inside the body of a child. Let the Right One In is scary, funny, romantic and also quite mournful, tackling themes of youth, sexuality, loyalty, loss of innocence and love within a terrific and haunting vampire tale.

The two child actors are outstanding, with Leandersson projecting an otherworldliness and weariness far beyond her years. Credit is also due to the English-language remake by director Matt Reeves, who stayed largely faithful to the original while tweaking its meaning slightly (his actors, Chloe Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee, are fine if not quite as good as the Swedish cast).

Watch Let the Right One In here and Let Me In here!

Martyrs (2008)

Brutal and almost unwatchable, Martyrs represented perhaps the apex of the French extreme horror movement. A young woman (Morjana Alaoui) finds herself the subject of vicious “tests” by a secret society, aimed at creating a “martyr” whose suffering can give them a transcendental glimpse into the afterlife. The ordeal she goes through is just the grand finale of a nihilistic exercise in depravity. Director Pascal Laugier’s plunge into unrelieved sadism is given context by its powerful, eerie climax — if you can make it to the end.

Watch Martyrs on Amazon Prime

The Strangers (2008)

Writer and director Bryan Bertino made quite a splash with his debut feature, which relied more on a mounting sense of dread and escalating suspense than violence and gore. The story is a simple, straightforward home invasion narrative, but Bertino keeps it creepy and unsettling throughout thanks to some eerie imagery and his three terrifying antagonists. Bertino has directed some features since – the direct-to-video found footage thriller Mockingbird and The Monster – but The Strangers remains an impressively chilling calling card.

Watch The Strangers on Amazon

Trick ‘r Treat (2007)

Michael Dougherty’s Halloween-themed anthology sat on the shelf for nearly two years until finally (and criminally) getting just a direct-to-home-video release, but the wait was worth it. Dougherty wrote and directed a loving homage not just to the year’s most haunted holiday, but to horror movies and ghost stories in general, delivering four interconnected tales that each serve as a nasty, creepy and thoroughly entertaining exercise in traditional horror, with just the right amounts of atmosphere, scares and gore.

A lot of the best horror movies of this century aim to get under your skin in an unpleasant way, whereas Trick ‘R Treat just wants to have fun – and does.

Watch Trick ‘r Treat on Amazon

[REC] (2007)

This nasty shock to the system from Spanish horror specialist Jaume Balaguero uses the “found footage” style in logical fashion, as it’s told from the point of view of a news team that accompanies a fire brigade to a call at an apartment building. Things quickly take a turn not just for the bad but for the unspeakable as our heroes confront a zombie plague of a horrific nature, and [REC] rubs your nose in every nightmarish moment. The building itself is a spectacular, claustrophobic setting, and what [REC] lacks in meaningful character development it makes up in relentless terror and dread.

Take a good, stiff drink before watching.

Watch [REC] on Amazon

The Mist (2007)

A faithful and pretty great Stephen King adaptation, The Mist is terrifying not just for the macabre monsters that come streaming out of the title cloud to lay siege on a small group of people trapped in a supermarket, but for the way those people turn so quickly on each other as well.

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Writer/director Frank Darabont, nailing his third King-based adaptation after The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, innately understands that King’s stories are often so disquieting because of the human monsters in them as well as the slimy, tentacled ones. In this case the threat is Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), a religious fanatic who quickly does her best to divide the supermarket into two hostile camps — I’ll let you work out the metaphors.

Beyond that, however, The Mist is a genuinely scary monsterpalooza, with one of the bleakest endings ever. When you go even darker than the King original, that’s saying something.

Watch The Mist on Amazon Prime

The Orphanage (2006)

The debut feature from Spanish director J.A. Bayona (The Impossible) was produced by his friend Guillermo Del Toro, and frankly feels like it. It certainly has many of the hallmarks of Del Toro’s own Spanish-language horror films, with its focus on children, its marvelously atmospheric setting, its short bursts of shocking violence and its ghostly apparitions.

Either way, it’s a rich, beautifully crafted film that becomes unexpectedly and powerfully emotional at the finish. Belen Rueda is sensational as Laura, who returns to her childhood home — an old orphanage — with her husband and adopted son, only to find that it is not exactly empty. An English-language remake was planned for a long time, but perhaps fortunately, it has not happened.

Watch The Orphanage on Amazon

The Descent (2005)

Six women go exploring an unmapped cave system, with tragic and terrifying consequences, in writer/director Neil Marshall’s (Dog Soldiers) riveting horror hit. Marshall subverts the genre with his strong all-female cast (not a male hero in sight), refusing to dumb them down, but then puts the screws to them by introducing the blind humanoid inhabitants of the caves, surely one of the most horrific monster creations of the decade.

The movie is unstoppably scary, showing no mercy to the characters or the audience (one shock early in the film makes this writer jump to this day), but also examines how far people will go to survive in seemingly impossible circumstances. The Descent is a harrowing, suffocating masterpiece.

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Shaun of the Dead (2004)

This loving homage to the films of George A. Romero — the father of the modern zombie movie — and to the horror genre in general launched the careers of director Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost outside of the U.K. And deservedly so: Shaun is a near-perfect blend of horror and comedy, energized by Wright’s visceral style of directing and flavored with clever pop culture and genre references that are even more delicious if you’re a fan.

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Pegg and Frost are perfect as two slackers who must contend with a zombie apocalypse — two of the least likely but most endearingly goofy heroes you’ll ever meet.

Watch Shaun of the Dead on Amazon

Saw (2004)

Saw is now so closely associated with the torture porn genre that its numerous sequels almost singlehandedly gave birth to that people often don’t remember that the original is more of a suspenseful police procedural and genuinely gripping puzzlebox than an outright exercise in sadism. Not that Saw is a sitting-room drama either: there are plenty of visceral moments in the film, and even in his feature debut, director James Wan (The Conjuring) displays a surprising amount of control and confidence in his handling of the horrors.

Saw may or may not be a truly great film, but its influence is enormous and it still packs one of the best endings the genre has ever seen.

Watch Saw on Amazon

28 Days Later (2002)

Looking at Danny Boyle’s revisionist zombie film now, its grimy handheld video esthetic is getting perhaps just a wee bit dated — but even that fails to dilute the sheer aggressive energy of Boyle’s take on the horror genre.

The movie, like its spiritual forefather Night of the Living Dead, is also rich in political and social subtext, while balancing moments of outright terror with passages of almost poetic reflection. Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland expertly reinvigorated a subgenre that had been nearly moribund, paving the way for both the superb (The Walking Dead) and the silly (the film version of World War Z).

Watch 28 Days Later on Amazon

The Ring (2002)

It was a foregone conclusion that the Japanese horror smash Ringu (1998), after becoming an underground sensation internationally, would be the subject of a big-budget Hollywood remake. But who imagined it would be this good? Director Gore Verbinski and writers Scott Frank and Ehren Kruger retain the original’s focus on atmosphere and creepy imagery over cheap scares, while Naomi Watts — fresh off her sensational turn in Mulholland Drive — is excellent as the reporter and mother who discovers the haunted videotape that causes viewers to die in seven days.

The American version fleshes out a few more narrative points that the Japanese film left ambiguous, but never wavers from its tone of quietly mounting terror. There have been plenty of J-horror remakes in the wake of The Ring, but it remains the first and the best.

Watch The Ring on Amazon

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Debate rages (even now, between this writer and his editor) over whether Mulholland Drive is actually a horror movie, but the simple truth is that filmmaking legend David Lynch has incorporated elements of horror into many of his films. No one comes as close to capturing the essence of a nightmare on screen, and Mulholland Drive contains two of the century’s most skin-freezing scenes: the infamous diner sequence and the discovery of a decomposing corpse in a darkened apartment.

Even if the plot didn’t invoke the genre in other ways — including a supernatural force at work in Hollywood and the Repulsion-like disintegration of a young woman’s mind — those two scenes would be enough to earn a spot on this list.

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The Others (2001)

Alejandro Amenabar (Open Your Eyes) wrote and directed this elegant ghost story. Nicole Kidman is superb as Grace, who relocates herself and her two small children to a remote country estate in the aftermath of World War II. Their highly structured life — the children are sensitive to sunlight and must stay in darkened rooms — is shattered by mysterious presences in the house. Amenabar relies on mood, atmosphere and a few well-placed scares to make this an excellent modern-day companion to classics like The Haunting and The Innocents.

Watch The Others on Amazon Prime

Session 9 (2001)

“Location, location, location” is what makes this tiny independent chiller from writer/director Brad Anderson (The Machinist) work so well and keeps its reputation intact. A five-man asbestos abatement team is hired to clean out the abandoned Danvers State Mental Hospital in Massachusetts, but the crew, led by the stressed-out Gordon (Peter Mullan), soon finds itself at the mercy of both personal tensions and an unseen force inside the facility.

Anderson shot the movie at the real Danvers, and the empty treatment rooms and labyrinthine underground tunnels create an undeniable atmosphere of disquiet and uncertainty. The nearly gore-free movie is a model of how a fantastic setting, a solid cast and an almost complete lack of jump scares can make for a thoroughly haunting viewing experience.

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The Devil’s Backbone (2001)

Guillermo Del Toro has made several great movies in his career so far, but for our money this remains his best, scariest and most profoundly affecting work (Pan’s Labyrinth is a close, close second). The Devil’s Backbone is a ghost story set during the waning days of the Spanish Civil War, at an orphanage for boys where an unexploded bomb is embedded in the courtyard and a spirit is wandering the halls at night.

The movie is drenched in both a heavy atmosphere of dread and a blanket of sadness; its mournful elegance counterbalances some of its more chilling scenes of terror. This is dark supernatural storytelling at its finest and a marvelous example of just how high the horror genre — so often maligned by critics — can reach.

Watch The Devil’s Backbone on Amazon

Kairo (2001)

Films like Ringu and Juon were the cornerstones of the Japanese horror explosion of the late ‘90s, but for my money, Kairo is the pinnacle of that era. Director/writer Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film is one of the most unnerving exercises in surreal horror ever made, with one frightening image after another washing onto the screen. Although the movie’s central idea – -that the realm of the dead is infiltrating our world through the internet – is original and compelling, its presentation is somewhat murky. But Kurosawa doesn’t necessarily feel the need to spell things out: he wants to instead lure you into a living nightmare – which Kairo accomplishes over and over again.

Watch Kairo on Amazon

That’s our list — did we miss any of your favorites that you’d like to add? Let us know below!

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