- Hereditary (2018)
The first half of this movie contains some of the most disturbing filmmaking I’ve ever seen. Movies don’t shake me often, but the gruesome and hallucinatory imagery in Hereditary’s first act stuck with me for days.
Plenty of other movies feature intense body horror, but few resonate like this one. In fact, director Ari Aster concocted visuals with similar shock value in his follow up, Midsommar (2019), but that film left little impact on me. I think the difference is that the horror of Hereditary has huge emotional weight. Every horrific event has enormous emotional significance, because every event has enormous family significance, and so many of our greatest fears involve our families. Perhaps Aster’s sum statement is how precarious our family relationships really are.
Any discussion of the greatest movie acting of the decade has to include Collette’s raging, hysterical performance here. Plenty of other critics have said the same. In a genre that often showcases up-and-coming actors, her work in Hereditary shows the impact a veteran can make.
- It Follows (2014)
Another one that should go right into the horror canon, It Follows leans on a nightmarish antagonist that George Romero would be proud of. But whereas Night of the Living Dead (1968) eventually settles on the terror of numerical disadvantage, of being swarmed, director David Mitchell keeps his film planted in the peculiar, uneasy horror of that very first zombie—the one that just won’t stop.
And the horror of It Follows rests within an insightful coming of age story. The two lead characters as they enter adulthood learn to accept the permanent presence of…something. To explore what exactly would necessitate a full-length essay. But it has a lot to do with the prospect of death: the slow, marching figure behind them destined to one day close the gap.
It’s no accident that the creature is linked with sex, the activity of adulthood and the thing that creates life. Losing their virginity and now potential parents themselves, the characters of It Follows lose the protected feeling of childhood: they become aware of the always-present dangers—and the inevitable ending—of life. That’s what the creature represents. And director Mitchell effectively conveys the mood of that realization, which is, yes, part horror—but also part triumph.
- Get Out (2013)
By far the most popular movie here, this one probably doesn’t need me to sell you on it. The sometimes-awkward experience of interracial dating typically supplies material for comedies. Jordan Peele had the stroke of genius to realize that it could do that and fuel a great horror flick at all once. My favorite scene: Mr. Armitage (Bradley Whitford), who spends his free time removing the cerebral cortexes of Black people, volunteering that he would have voted for Barack Obama a third time: “Best president of my lifetime.”
- Cam (2018)
I came across this movie on Netflix one night with no prior knowledge of it and expected a typical Netflix production: half-baked, provocative, pointless. Upon watching it, my only question was why I hadn’t heard of it before. This is one of the best Netflix movies I’ve seen, and I recommend it to everyone.
It’s not the most ambitious film ever made, but its psychological undertones grip you. I don’t invoke his name lightly, but David Lynch is the major influence for the concept and, at times, the execution. Think Lost Highway-lite. (Okay, very lite.) There’s no Toni Collette-caliber acting in the low budget Cam. But Madeline Brewer holds steady in a legitimately strong performance as a young woman who tries to regain control of her webcam channel from a malicious, demonic imposter.
Few movies to my knowledge have seriously engaged with the bizarre, surreal experience of social media exhibitionism—an experience that, by now, most young people can relate to. This movie undertakes that engagement honestly. Sometimes the allegory is facile; sometimes it’s complex. But what better subject for a horror movie? The terror of seeing yourself on-screen and feeling no connection to what you see, of losing control of your own image—again, Lynchian preoccupations—that’s scary stuff.
- We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Some might argue that this doesn’t belong on a list of horror films. I disagree. While raising a bratty kid usually gets comedic treatment in moviemaking, this film, like Get Out, has the guts to highlight the scary side of something long laughed at. Rosemary’s Teenager.
And more than a nightmare about parenting, We Need to Talk About Kevin functions as a convincing nightmare of suburbia in general. Persuaded to move there for the benefit of her fussy baby, Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton) finds that no one in her new environment understands or even listens to her, including her husband. Everyone around her has lost themselves in the fantasy of the bucolic suburban ideal. They’re blind to all evil. Only she can see the truth, and she’s first chastised for observing it and later wrongfully blamed for it. She lives in a Twilight Zone world of illogic and ignorance.
The film tempts us with the guise of social commentary, but I don’t think it contains much of value, other than the vision of suburbia I just described. Don’t expect Bowling for Columbine. Still, with its paradoxic claustrophobia—the open space of the suburbs suffocates and destroys Eva—this is probably the darkest film on the list. Only the ending, which I won’t spoil, finally points toward goodness, and it’s a quick pointing. An unpleasant movie that I don’t plan to re-watch any time soon—but that I recommend for a unique horror experience.
–Jim Andersen
For more on horror movies, check out my selection and analysis of the greatest slasher movie ever.
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