A majority of the movies that get made are horror movies for two main reasons: 1) With some imagination and a solid team you can make one on a very limited budget and 2) There’s such a large built-in fanbase starving for new horror that even hot garbage usually makes a little money. They’re the safest bet, in or out of Hollywood, for producers to turn a nickel into two dimes. But so many come out every week that it becomes nearly impossible to keep up with the bad ones, let alone the insanely rarer great ones.
This list only has nine new-ish horror movies and one pre-code classic that I don’t think enough people have seen. It’s mostly new because horror fans are so obsessive that older films normally, eventually get discovered — so don’t take the lack of ’70s and ’80s spookies to mean anything other than most of you sickos have discovered all of the lost greats already. In fact, I doubt there’s a single one on this list the real die-hard horror nerds haven’t already watched, so I guess this one goes out to the normies. Enjoy!
“Session 9” (2001) I’ve watched this psychological thriller at least once a year since it came out in 2001 and I’m still discovering creepy little burrows to unpack. “Session 9” follows a group of asbestos removal workers who are hired to clean up an abandoned mental hospital and slowly succumb to paranoia, jealousy, maybe a ghost or two and the slow, creeping dread of their deepest fears manifesting in person. Filming in the actually abandoned Danvers State Insane Asylum added a texture and vibe to the film that no amount of filmmaking magic could replicate. Simple, quiet and chilling.
“The Strings” (2020) Nothing much happens in “The Strings” that immediately makes you think it’s a horror movie, but then after around an hour you realize that something is now crawling under your skin. What at first feels like a straightforward, low-budget indie movie about a musician staying at her aunt’s remote cottage on the ocean while searching for inspiration to record new music instead becomes a subtle riff on cosmic horror and a treatise on the loneliness inherent in making art. While “The Strings” isn’t necessarily “scary” in the broadest sense of the word, like the best horror, it manages to upend the safety you feel when surrounded by the mundane, everyday act of existing.
“The Empty Man” (2020) Bonkers. A 137-minute supernatural horror flick about disappearances in a small town that was taken away from its director and released in what he considered his “rough cut” form. Big, epic, flawed and unforgettable, “The Empty Man” feels like the pilot to an HBO horror series, the first film in a massive horror trilogy and a big-budget exercise in fearless studio filmmaking, while also not being any of those things at all. I hope we get director David Pryor’s finished cut of the film one day, but this is truly what we talk about when we talk about a cult classic. Two or three genuinely terrifying moments I still think about constantly.
“The Wailing” (2016) A series of murders and mysterious illnesses overtake a remote South Korean village and turn this bone-chilling creeper into a blend of body-horror, serial-killer mystery and zombies into a truly original work of art. This isn’t just a great horror movie, but one of the gold standards of South Korean cinema and another bit of proof that South Korean cinema is innovating motion pictures more than any other country on Earth. I’m not sure any other film on this list induces dread so wholly and soul-swallowingly as “The Wailing.”
“Lake Mungo” (2008) A pseudo-documentary about an Australian family suffering from the accidental drowning of their daughter and the very real possibility that she’s now haunting them. Directed and acted with such nuanced skill that it genuinely feels like a real documentary, “Lake Mungo” frightens gently, making you question mortality and the afterlife in ways most horror films won’t touch. Another unforgettable gem.
“I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House” (2016) A gothic ghost story from the director of “Longlegs” that feels conjured out of one of Shirley Jackson’s most haunting dreams. Quiet, tender and deceptively minimalist, most people will find this to be too much of a slow burn, but director Oz Perkins nails the atmosphere so flawlessly that you’ll find yourself wandering the halls along with the ghosts before you know it. Singular in execution and in how it subtly trains the viewer to be creeped out by simple changes of tone and texture.
“Resurrection” (2022) True psychological horror starring the criminally underrated Rebecca Hall (also amazing in the little-seen creeper, “The Night House”) as a composed businesswoman who starts losing control after running into an abusive ex, played by the always astonishing Tim Roth. While a lot of horror films have used trauma as their thematic touchstones over the last decade, “Resurrection” does so in ways that actually honor those affected by abuse and inherited scars. The last 10 minutes are so insane I could write a thousand words about the single scene and still not unpack all the nuance and meaning.
“Cure” (1997) Definitely my favorite horror movie on this list and in my top 25 of all time, “Cure” is Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s greatest work (which is saying a lot) and one of the most intelligent and deeply unsettling movies of the last century. On its surface it follows a detective hunting a serial killer who makes other people do his killings seemingly at random, but it also manages to put words to feelings of existential dread I’m not sure any film has managed before or since. Very deliberately paced, it might be too slow for some viewers, but for those with patience, the rewards are bottomless.
“The Old Dark House” (1932) From James Whale (he made this between “Frankenstein” and “Bride of Frankenstein”) and starring the great Boris Karloff, “The Old Dark House” is the perfect Halloween movie to throw on for people not really into getting too scared. Extremely funny, random and strange while also having a great spooky mansion to explore with interesting characters, “The Old Dark House” remains one of the most underrated horror classics in history.
“Strange Darling” (2024) Brand new, this one, and a genuinely original take on the serial killer/cat and mouse genre that takes the non-linear structure of “Pulp Fiction” and does something exciting with it. Willa Fitzgerald is so insanely great that it feels like watching someone become a movie star in front of you, and the direction is so bold and assured (with stellar cinematography by Giovanni Ribisi), that, for only being a few months old, it already feels like a modern classic.
This article appears in Source Weekly October 31, 2024.
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