A few months ago, I asked for some horror movie recommendations. I received a little over 250. Over the course of the past little while, I have watched 100 of your suggestions (and do eventually plan to get around to watching a few more). I’d say about 25 were good movies. The rest ranged from average to terrible. I took that solid list of 25 and applied a five point criteria to each movie:
Did this movie entertain me?
Was it scary?
Did it make sense?
Was it unique?
Did it surprise me?
After weighing them accordingly, I narrowed down the list.
Here are my Horror Marathon Top 10 Movies…
#10. Caveat (2020) – Ireland
A lone drifter suffering from partial memory loss accepts a job to look after a psychologically troubled woman in an abandoned house on an isolated island.
My thoughts: Once you get past the somewhat preposterous set-up, it’s a deliciously diabolical descent into Irish gothic horror.
#9. Cam (2018) – United States
When her account is stolen by a look-alike, a cam girl sets out to unmask the mysterious woman and get her identity back.
My thoughts: A surprisingly smart psychological thriller that explores the disturbingly vulnerable aspects of our online lives.
#8. Thelma (2017) – Norway
A college student starts to experience extreme seizures while studying at a university in Oslo, Norway. She soon learns that the violent episodes are a symptom of inexplicable, and often dangerous, supernatural abilities.
My thoughts: Incredible performances in this character-driven coming-of-age tale that proves both haunting and heartbreaking. The horror is a slow build, more surreal than visceral, but some of the imagery is shockingly inventive. Ultimately ambiguous, but satisfying nevertheless.
#7. Tumbbad (2018) – India
A man and his son encounter a legendary demon while searching a decaying castle for hidden treasure in 19th-century India.
My thoughts: Visually rich and refreshingly unique, this Indian gothic tale mines some spooky mythology in its exploration of greed, family, and colonialism. Well worth a watch.
#6. Once Cut of the Dead (2017) – Japan
Things go badly for a hack director and film crew shooting a low budget zombie movie in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility, when they are attacked by real zombies.
My thoughts: 30 minutes in, I was dubious – and then it all comes together in surprisingly clever fashion. I laughed out loud several times. Loads of fun.
#5. The Innocents (2021) – Finland
During the bright Nordic summer, a group of children reveal their dark and mysterious powers when the adults aren’t looking. In this original and gripping supernatural thriller, playtime takes a dangerous turn.
My thoughts: A terrific little that film confirms my long-held conviction that kids are creepy and inherently evil. A little slow off the top but fantastic once it gets going. And it really sticks its landing. Docking it a half mark for animal abuse though.
#4. Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) – United States
In 1967 Los Angeles, a widowed mother and her daughters add a new stunt to bolster their seance scam business by inviting an evil presence into their home, not realizing how dangerous it is.
My thoughts: Smart and scary with a standout performance by a young Lulu Wilson as a chaotically creepy kid. Jeff Howard and Mike Flanagan at their absolute best.
#3. Saloum (2021) – Senegal
In 2003, a trio of mercenaries escaping a coup in Guinea-Bissau take refuge in a hidden region on the Saloum river of Senegal. But something from beyond the grave awaits them there.
My thoughts: Action and adventure, rogues and revelations, suspense and the supernatural – this movie has it all. An absolute blast.
#2. Speak No Evil (2022) – Denmark
A Danish family visits a Dutch family they met on a holiday. What was supposed to be an idyllic weekend slowly starts unraveling as the Danes try to stay polite in the face of unpleasantness.
My thoughts: A slow-burn gem that quietly and creepily builds from disquieting to disturbing to deeply dark.
#1 Atterados/Terrified (2017) – Argentina
Paranormal researchers investigate strange events in a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires.
My thoughts: Ho-ly! This one doesn’t pull any punches, delivering some great jump scares in a shocker that dares go where most Western horror fears to tread.
***
Honorable Mentions: The Autopsy of Jane Doe, The Belko Experiment, The Devil’s Backbone, Happy Death Day, Impetigore, The Last Matinee, The Sadness, Sleep Tight.
So, seen any good horror films you would recommend?
Thank you! This will give me some reading material tonight to review.
My son bought the new season of Rick & Morty. Have you watched any of those? I was worried the feel of the show would be different but it seems to capture the original show’s vibe.
Anybody checked out del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities?
Or The new series Peripheral? Is it worth the watch?
Thanks to a generous neighbor I’ve regained access to Netflix and Amazon.
Albeit, my free time is in much shorter supply these days so I’d be interested in hearing your impressions first. I’m not really a horror fan beyond the silly older flicks.
i.e The Blob. Frankenstein, Vincent Price movies. … But if I recall correctly? A bunch of del Toro’s stuff is more about playfulness and story telling and isn’t strongly focused on blood and gore or causing the audience to wake up in a cold sweat from bad dreams for days following the experience.
Ok. Now it’s official. Musk has taken over twitter.
What I don’t get is why the press isn’t talking about the larger elephant in the room and who will be trampled by it. The bigger elephant isn’t the several thousand developers and customer service workers who are about to lose their jobs.
Nor is it the number of AI, bots, that have twitter accounts.
It’s the larger megaphone and financial swaying influence his questionable co owners will have on Twitter now that there will no longer be a voting board or any public shareholders who would become outraged and begin loudly raising their voices to prevent it.
The co owners are:
The Prince Of Saudi Arabia. The Prince apparently put up the most money so he now has a bigger voice than the other co owners and now has much greater power of persuasion than when he was just an individual twitter board member.
Ken Griffin, who is the not always so ethical owner of a major hedge fund/securities company called Citadel.
Larry Ellison who is a Trump supporting, yacht, airplane & multi real estate owning, billionaire. Also someone of questionable character who apparently no woman can tolerate for very long. He’s been divorced 4 times. He owns Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and sits on the board of Tesla.
The Crypto company Binance also has co ownership now via 500 million dollar investment.
They all plan to push Crypto big time on twitter and I’m fairly certain Elon plans to regularly cash out and use the increase in Crypto values to pay his bank loans over the next couple years while he works on making twitter financially profitable, to keep him from having to sell more shares in Tesla, Neuralink and Boring Co.
The people who will be financially hurt by this are the little guy who really cannot afford to lose 500 dollars at a time in crypto but become convinced by Musk & co owners mass output of hype that crypto is currently a worthy investment. The truth is -Crypto will more than likely remain unstable and continue to get a great deal of push back from governments and mainstream banks for a few years to come. Those who are already financially wealthy will certainly do okay with the long game. And a small handful of very quick, clever, average middle class investors will reap some short term profit. Albeit, The much much much larger portion of average investors won’t realize they’ve been duped until it’s too late and their money is gone. And it really won’t matter if Musk posts a disclaimer reading “All investments carry risk and you shouldn’t invest more than you can afford to lose” because his cohorts will make it appear so appetizing. And, unfortunately, all too many people seriously feel like they are running out of options these days in trying to rebuild the nest egg/savings they’ve been forced to live on over the last couple years.
Yes. Replacing one opportunistic band of decision-makers for another. More of a sideways move.
Thanks for the top ten! I will try to watch them (although I struggle with subtitles!).
I listen to the Ty & That Guy podcast (https://www.youtube.com/c/TYandThatGuy/videos) and they’ve recently been doing some horror deep dives. So I’ve watched “Halloween”, “The Fog”, “Nope” and “Suspiria”. Perhaps I have a short attention span but I found all of them quite slow. “Halloween” was probably the most suspenseful but with nearly an hour between the first and second kills I was looking at my watch wondering how much longer the movie had to run. I’ve got “The Black Phone” queued up to watch next.
I recommend Hellraiser and Hellraiser II, and possibly III. The rest, not really. Except the recent remake, which I haven’t seen yet but hear was an improvement. It had Clive Barker himsef involved, which the other sequels didn’t. His films Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions are also worth watching, especially as the director’s cuts.
“A terrific little that film confirms my long-held conviction that kids are creepy and inherently evil.”
So how did you feel when you were a kid?
Jodelle played many of these types, of course.
Was a big Clive Barker fan growing up, but didn’t like any of his movies.