A New York native, Joe graduated from an avant-garde theater school upstate, where he was obsessed with sketch comedy. There, he and his lunatic friends founded The Sketchies — which still lives on at Skidmore College today. Living in New York City, a screenwriter friend of his then taught him how to write for film. This awakened a new passion in Joe. Since then his scripts have garnered over 200 festival selections, nominations, and wins all over the globe (including the BlueCat Best Feature award). Several of his screenplays have been made into feature films — some of them not that bad! Overall, he loves to create unique, hilarious, touching, and bizarre stories.
With the emergence, and then prevalence, of digital technology, films over the last twenty years have gotten a lot easier to produce. With this outpouring of new movies, of course, came a slew of heebie-jeebies-inducing works: horrors. In this timeframe, horrors have seen a dramatic rise in popularity, to boot. Thus, with so many stellar creepy films out there (and a massive swath of “terrible for the wrong reasons” ones), many quality horrors have been overlooked; relegated to the dank, dark corners of countless streaming services. So here, presented for your eerie pleasure, are the best horrors from the last two decades that you probably didn’t even know existed.
With horror, (un)naturally, there are a haunting host of sub-genres to choose from. Some of these gory gems fit into the fun campfire folkloric tale category, like You Are Not My Mother, whereas other gruesome flicks are deemed body horror-slashers, such as Dolly. No matter how you slice ‘em, all these frighteningly fierce horror films scream out for a fresh viewing (even if it’s with your hands over your eyes).
Kicking off this shudder-inducing list is a rather unique film, XX. It’s a feature-length movie that is composed of four different short films. The unifying thread is that they are all directed by women, and this horror anthology doesn’t hold anything back.
The first (and really, the best one), written and directed by Jovanka Vuckovic, is The Box. It’s about a family that is randomly given a “gift box” by a weird old dude. It’s no ordinary package, as it causes the son to stop eating. The mom (Susan Jacobs) is left distraught and baffled as her whole family eventually withers away, for seemingly no reason… Next is Annie Clark’s delightful horror-comedy The Birthday Party. When the patriarch of a family perishes right before the daughter’s big day, the mom (Melanie Lynskey) desperately tries to conceal the corpse, so as not to disrupt the fest. Then there’s Don’t Fall by Roxanne Benjamin, a friends’ desert-trip that goes wrong when an evil, ancient spirit is awakened. Closing the quartet out is Karyn Kusama’s sinfully wicked Her Only Living Son (a clever homage to Rosemary’s Baby), where a woman realizes that her child may just be the spawn of the Devil (aka Beelzebub’s Boy, Satan’s Son, Lucifer’s Lad). The four segments are woven together with a stop-motion (more on this later…) sequence by Sofia Carrillo that takes us through the life of a special little doll; it’s delightfully unsettling. All in all, this collection of spooky shorts is very impactful and thought-provoking, as shared themes of trauma, maternity, responsibility, guilt, and the general anxiety of the unknown are on full display.
Ah, show business. The lights, the glitter, the glamour…the devil. In writer-directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer’s film about literally selling your soul to the industry, Starry Eyes, the obvious but still relevant and well-thought-out themes of self-corruption, male-dominated institutions, wanton desire, and the superficiality of pride are all viscerally felt. Fame as a metaphor for damnation is brilliant.
Struggling actress Sarah (Alexandra Essoe, in a role that feels written specifically for her), just can’t catch a break. That is, until one fateful day, when she auditions for a part…and is subsequently offered a very hard-to-turn down role…that of a minion to the Dark Lord, of course. Sarah goes through a (fairly revolting) bodily transformation as she “blossoms” fully into demon-hood, and slays all in her way. This scathing look into all that is seedy and downright devious in Hollywood is truly a fun ride. The ending is sublime, too, with just the right amount of sly commentary mixed in with vibrant visuals and hair-raisingly horrific Mephistopheles motifs.
The older a country or society is, the further back their luscious lore goes. In Ireland, there’s a pot o’ gold worth of cool old myths and legends. One of the creepiest is that of the “changeling.” This is a creature that can take the form of a person — and typically has rather nefarious intentions. In writer-director Kate Dolan’s fab folklore horror You Are Not My Mother, a chimera of this nature is expertly used to illustrate how substance abuse and mental illness can rob a person of their true self, leaving a whole other, hollowed-out brand of monster in their wake.
Char (Hazel Doupe) is a teen in a bit of a predicament. Her mom, Angela (the versatile Carolyn Bracken) is borderline certifiable, with a prescription drug dependency and a crippling depression that bogs down her entire life. Naturally, some nasty little bullies at school mock Char for this (including Kelly, the girl you love to hate, played by Katie White). Things only get way worse when Angela wanders into the woods one night…and comes back, well, as a completely different “person.” Char beseeches her grandma, Rita (Ingrid Craigie), to let her know what’s really going on, and the truth behind the madness is even more upsetting. Cashing in on standard horror set pieces, but with a folky, Irish twist to them, this film punches well above its weight class. The tale culminates on Halloween in a dazzling array of terrifying images of ancient things brought back to life. There is a supremely satisfying redemption here, too, making this a can’t-miss folk horror (maternity denying) masterpiece.
Killing off your star early has become a tried and true device, made famous in Psycho, and further explored in Scream. It is surprisingly and effectively employed in Dolly, as Seann William Scott is dealt an absolutely brutal, awful death in the first act…or so it seems. Co-writer/director Rod Blackhurst plays into the rest of the typical slasher tropes in his movie, but the preterite filming style, replete with grainy, disquieting celluloid, creates an utterly unique (if queasy) viewing experience.
The heroine, Macy (Fabianne Therese), is a bit ambivalent about her beau, Chase (Scott), but elects to go on a little camping excursion with him anyway. Soon they come face-to-mask with one of the scariest slasher figures in years. Hello…Dolly (infamous wrestler Max the Impaler). She’s huge and terrifying, yet regressed and ultimately sad. Dolly received mixed reviews, and that’s certainly understandable, as it’s such a specific breed of twisted horror, that it inevitably was bound to turn some people off (as it turned their stomachs). But there’s something so quirkily distinctive, and, simultaneously, comfortingly familiar about this well-crafted wretch fest, that it’s hard to look away…
Gumby aside, stop-motion animation of any sort is usually creepy as all hell. Here it’s used as not only a device designed to scare the audience, but also as a metaphor for being slowly, painstakingly controlled. In Stopmotion, co-writer/director Robert Morgan utilizes an inventive script to take the viewer on an excruciating journey through the psyche of his main character, and the result is a neat little indie that is sure to leave you motionless with fright.
The plot focuses on Ella Blake (the ferociously talented Aisling Franciosi), a tortured young woman chasing the success of her mother, Suzanne (the appropriately curt Stella Gonet), who is a titan in the industry of stop-motion film-making. Routinely caving into the pressure to succeed, Ella’s mind begins to unravel. A “Little Girl” (Caoilinn Springall, who, for a dang kid, is scarily good), materializes and pesters Ella relentlessly. Eventually, it’s revealed who this child really is, and, wow, the movie ends with a real doozy of a mind-melting sequence. So, stop, and give this smart, budget-conscious film a whirl.
Every once in a while, a horror film comes around that inverts and reinvents the form. The incredibly trippy We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is a prime example of this, subverting expectations at every turn. Born out of a world where reality is warped on a daily basis (thanks, internet), Jane Schoenbrun’s film explores contemporary anxieties and conceptualizes “catfishing,” digital manipulation, and stalking in a terrifyingly accessible manner. “Psychologically disturbing” doesn’t even begin to cover the extent of this highly inventive, modern creep-o-rama.
The story is centered on Casey (Anna Cobb, in her breakout performance), a somewhat morose teen, who gets sucked into playing an interactive online game. It’s part Bloody Mary, part social cult, and part Sims on acid. As she posts her trials and tribulations of the game, others do as well; the kids compare and contrast their seemingly supernatural experiences and revel in the weirdness. Things spiral out of control when Casey connects with one of the alleged participants of the game, JBL (Michael J Rogers). He is scary for entirely different reasons altogether… This film is Schoenbrun’s precursor to the much bigger-budgeted I Saw the TV Glow, and while the two films explore similar themes of alternate realities spurred on by faux personas and stifled identity, this one has an eerie factor that, while phantasmagorical, somehow feels real.
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
Period horror films set in the 80s just have a cool quality to them. When the filmmakers use actual, throwback aesthetics and bygone camera and film techniques, they’re all the more delicious. In (now famous horror) director Ti West’s visually and thematically sumptuous The House of the Devil, all these devices are used masterfully, and the end result is a vintage-style film that will scare your pants clean off.
The story follows Samantha Hughes (Jocelin Donahue), a broke as a joke college student looking to make some quick cash. She answers a babysitting ad, but lo and behold, it’s the old “bait and switch.” When she arrives at the house, on a full-moon-lit night, the homeowner, Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan, in yet another creeper role), informs Sam that she actually will be taking care of his infirm mother. Uh, girl, get out now. The rest of the night devolves in a cat-and-mouse date-with-the-devil game of wits. No scurrilous spoiling, but in the end…Sam goes out with a real bang. Overall, this is a very fun nail-biter, where the eerie atmosphere is exploited to the max. Plus, it even has Greta Gerwig in it (as Sam’s zany pal, Megan), upping its quirky-factor by several degrees.
Disturbing. Unsettling. Terrifying. These are just a few of the words that come to mind when thinking about Daddy’s Head. An import from the U.K., this story explores the familiar themes of loss and anxiety in a whole new light (or, rather, dark), and it’s a head above its peers. Superbly written and directed by Benjamin Barfoot, every frame here is utilized to its fullest. He takes the viewer on a murky journey that is equal parts disquieting and exhilarating. The cinematography is stellar, capturing shadows in a way that chills you to your core. The subtle sound design and crisp editing also combine masterfully, rendering each scene tension-packed and brimming with subtext and evil undercurrents. And we haven’t even gotten to the creature…
The story is a sad one. A boy, Isaac (Rupert Turnbull), visits his father in the hospital after a horrific accident. The dad passes, and the poor kid is left (at least temporarily) in the custody of his beautiful, young stepmother, Laura (Julia Brown). Nothing too nefarious so far… Then, at night, Isaac is visited by a shadow figure that beckons him to join it in the forest. Yet, the darnedest thing; the obscure entity has the semblance of his father’s visage. This bugger is no joke. Barfoot teases the viewer with fleeting shots of the horrid thing, which only pique the audience’s morbid sense of curiosity. Young Turnbull gives a hell of a performance, as does Brown, as they both wrestle with the loss of a major loved one, but in their own ways. A supporting turn by Nathaniel Martello-White, as the (actually, yeah, supportive) Robert, really rounds out the cast and elevates things to a super crafty, psychologically deranged level. Daddy may be dead, but his head lives on…
Imaginary friends can be fun, right? No. No, they can not. That’s what director and co-writer Brandon Christensen seems to think, and he does a damn good job of convincing the audience of this. Z is a tremendous indie film, made for pennies on the dollar of other, big studio films. It’s a spine-tingling look at the way children see things, and what exactly happens to those kids and their worldview as they mature (spoiler: it ain’t good).
The harrowing tale commences with a little tyke named Joshua (Jett Klyne) who one day befriends an imaginary mate. It’s a rascal named Z, and this impish son of a gun seems to occupy a lot of Joshua’s headspace. Eventually, the boy begins to act somewhat devious, and his mother, Beth (Keegan Connor Tracy, in a role that she just nailed), blames the invisible entity. The dad, Kevin (Sean Rogerson), annoyingly doesn’t want to indulge in this jabberwocky, and conflicts between the parents abound. When Z starts to psychically manifest (and, whoa – yikes) and really cause a commotion, Beth remembers something from her past, and has the epiphany that Z is actually connected to her. Things really unravel then, and the final payoff is succulently sweet (not only a great plot twist, but a splendid showcasing of Keegan Conner Tracy’s talents). With shocking imagery, spine-tingling sound design, and solid performances, this underrated horror deserves a good watch. Seriously, it’s great from A to…Z.
There are some movies that give you a couple of good, fun scares — popcorn horror movies, if you will. Then, there are a rare breed of films that terrify on such a visceral, deep, intellectual and emotional level that you will never fully jettison them from your brain. The Dark and the Wicked is exactly that kind of film.
The plot is more or less straight-forward…it initially seems. A somewhat estranged daughter Louise (Marin Ireland, who is always reliable for her vast range, but goes above and beyond on the emotional scale here), is called back home, to the ranch, as it were, to help out with her ailing parents. Her father (Michael Zagst) is basically in hospice, and it’s obviously quite a grim situation. Her brother, Michael (Michael Abbott Jr., also wonderful) sometimes returns to the ranch, as he seems to bear the brunt of the burden. When Louise arrives, though, she doesn’t have an inkling of the bone-chilling carnage about to unfold. Without spoiling too much, a demon of sorts has infiltrated their home, and it’s not the prankish, mischievous type. It’s pure evil. Director Bryan Bertino does such a phenomenal job of crafting the spookiest atmosphere of any film in recent years. He also handles the pressing themes of unmitigated guilt, past familial trauma, and abject fear of loss that are crucial to the story. There are too many disturbing moments and eerily impactful images to name in this stunning Southern Gothic masterpiece; but these aren’t even what make it so good. It’s the sense of dread that is prevalent for the entire runtime of the movie — you feel it on a marrow-deep level. Throw in a couple of perfectly-timed jump scares, and you’ve got the scariest movie of the last two decades. Stream this gem now…it’s a wicked good time.
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