You simply cannot stop horror movies. The love of a good scare dates back to cinema’s earliest days and while the genre has certainly evolved from era to era, it always remains a constant source of cathartic entertainment. Citizens groups have rallied against the genre throughout its history, studios have pulled films after public uproar, heck, governments have even banned horror movies over graphic content, but yousimply cannot stop horror movies. Fans continually showed up to the box office, tracked down hard-to-find second-hand VHS copies, and after the internet came along, developed one of the most active and interconnected communities of movie lovers out there. Folks always find their way to a good scare. which is probably why horror cinema has held up so well this year in a time when the film industry has been rocked by unprecedented disturbance.
The infrastructure was already there and despite theater closures and paused productions around the world amid the COVID-19 pandemic, horror movies thundered on in 2020 as they always do, delivering all the cathartic frights and brushes with mortality audiences crave from the (dis)comfort of our own homes. We may have to scream inside our hearts if we ride roller coasters now, but horror movies have been helping us do that since the dawn of cinema.
That said, with studios forced to sit on many of their biggest horror releases for the time being, this year’s bunch is looking like a distinct and diverse variety, without many of the familiar franchise names that tend to dominate the discussion. You won’t find much in the way of slashers, sequels or traditional haunted house scares in 2020, which is fitting of a year that’s been anything but average. Instead, the best horror movies of 2020 so far are mostly pensive indies and genre-bending oddballs. You do, in fact, love to see it.
After Midnight
After Midnightis often more of a yearning love story than a monster movie, but when itisa monster movie, it’s a unique and pretty dang effective one. If you caughtJeremy Gardner’s previous genre-benderThe Battery, which reimagined the classic zombie movie as a slow-burn bromance drama, then you have a pretty good idea of what you’re in for withAfter Midnight. While we’re on the subject of credentials, the film was also produced bySpringandThe EndlessfilmmakersAaron MoorheadandJustin Benson(Benson also co-stars,) so if you’re not familiar withThe Batteryand like their signature dialogue and tone-driven take on the genre,After Midnightwill probably be in your wheelhouse. Gardner co-directs withChristian Stellaand also stars as a man tormented by a dissolving relationship with the woman he loves who also happens to be pretty sure there’s a monster attacking his house at night. Sweet, sad, and sometimes scary,After Midnightboasts a wonderfully unusual creature design and an extended stay of patience that pays off in one of the best, most effective jump scares in recent memory.
Color Out of Space
We had to wait and wait andwaitfor it, butRichard Stanleymade his long-awaited return to horror worth every delayed minute.Color Out of Spaceis merciless. It’s madness. It’s fucking Lovecraft, man. Honest to god, straight from the tap Lovecraft (you know, minus the rampant racism) that turns the wonders of the cosmos and the expanse of the human mind against you with a breathtaking display of the universe’s infinite indifference. It also happens to be funny as hell on occasion thanks to a killer cast led byNicolas Cage(firing at about a 7 on the Full-Cage scale), the welcome if somewhat inexplicable presence ofTommy Chong, and Stanley’s own twisted but earnest sense of humor. Best of all,Color Out of Spaceaccomplishes what so few Lovecraft adaptations have managed to over the years, it makes the Old Ones damned scary.
Come to Daddy
Come to Daddyexists in a strange genre no man’s land. It’s a comedy, but I’d be reluctant to share it with someone who was just looking for a bust-up laugh. It’s a slyly touching drama, but it’s too brutal to recommend to someone looking for a cathartic cry. And itisbrutal, but it’s not quite scary enough to be a straight-up horror movie. But hell, horror fans are a welcoming bunch, and the movies that resist easy labels are often the ones that stand out, so let’s just call it horror-adjacent and agree that it is one wild, unpredictable, and fearlessly fucked movie about overcoming your daddy issues.Elijah Woodstars as a man who treks to an unknown remote cabin to bond with his long-estranged father, only to find a real cantankerous son-of-a-bitch (Stephen McHattie) who seemingly wants nothing to do with him, much less patching up old wounds. I’d say the rest of the movie is like a roller coaster, but it’s really more like one of those 3D simulation rides, where the whole world shifts around you without warning, and you just kind of sit there awestruck at the journey you just took while sitting still.Turbo KidproducerAnt Timpsonmakes his directorial debut with this outrageous oddity, immediately demonstrating impressive command of tone and one wicked sense of humor.
Extra Ordinary
Completely charming, laugh-out-loud funny, and occasionally quite creepy,Extra Ordinaryis a ghost-busting good time that lovingly embraces the hallmarks of the haunting genre and repackages them as a rom-com. Directed by Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman, the Irish horror-comedy starsMaeve Higginsas Rose Dooley, a gentle and kind, if a bit lonely, woman who happens to have powerful (and sometimes terrible) paranormal gifts. Usually, that leads her to some pretty quotidian ghosts who just need a little help passing over, but all that changes when she takes a gig helping a local man named Martin (Barry Ward) get rid of his angry deceased wife’s spirit and the sinister has-been rock star Christian Winter (Will Forte) rolls into town with a devilish plan to find his way to new glory. Higgins and Ward make for a positively delightful duo and their easy charm helps ease you right intoExtra Ordinary’s joyful oddball romance-meets-exorcism riff.
Gretel & Hansel
OsgoodPerkinsis a filmmaker who makes movies that are Extremely My Shit, but I also completely understand why they’re not for everyone. Drenched in mood and nightmare logic, Perkins first to filmsThe Blackcoat’s DaughterandI Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the Housewere stylish, meditative reinventions of familiar genres (satanism and ghosts, respectively) that sneak up on you and settle in. WithGretel & Hansel, Perkins revisits one of the best-known stories of all time, tapping into a tale that has terrified children for generations with a keen eye and intelligent homage to the bleakness of the original Grimms' Fairy Tales. Perkins wanted to make a PG-13 horror movie that wasalmosttoo scary for kids, and while there’s a part of me who wishes this was hard-R and ditched the requisite YA voiceover, there’s something incredibly charming about going Extreme Aesthetic on a horror movie for kids. And yeah, this movie would have wrecked me in my youth, just as Perkins' first two movies wrecked me as an adult. If you skippedGretel & Hanselover the initial wave of subpar reviews but you’re a big fan of ambient chills, lush visuals, and the ageless horrors of temptation, transgression, and punishment of fairy tales, you should give it a shot because this is one of those under-the-radar gems that feels destined for cult classic status – or at the very least, Halloween favorite status. AndAlice Krigemakes one creepy-ass witch.
Hey guys, I’m thinking betweenJokerandThe Hunt, we shouldn’t descend into a hysterical social panic about movies we haven’t seen yet. Dunno, just a theory. After one of the most bizarre trailer backlashes in movie history, culminating in the actual President of the United States condemning Hollywood as violent racists based on a movie he had not seen,The Huntfinally hit theaters this year. And it turned out to be a pretty toothless semi-satire rooted in the well-worn human-hunting tradition ofThe Most Dangerous Gamethat had absolutely no controversial opinions (“everyone sucks” is a bumper sticker not a thesis). But it has two very good reasons for earning a slot on this list. 1) Vapid politics aside, it’s an entertaining and well-made action-horror with some of the best old-fashioned gore of the year and a couple of bonafide banger fight scenes. 2)Betty Gilpin,bitch!
We hear a lot about “elevated horror” and “social thrillers” when it comes to celebrating the best performances in genre. This is not that. This is an actor committing to a full-Grindhouse, balls-to-the-wall, leave it all on the table performance, the likes of which is rarely seen.Choices. Gilpin is a performer who owns her space and makes big, bold choices. Whether she’s shouting “Bitch!” like it’s a warcry or mugging to the camera in a way that shouldn’t work but absolutely does, Gilpin carries this movie and I’ll watch it over and over again just to see her do it.The Huntmight not have much to say, but that’s ok, because Betty Gilpin’s sneer says it all.
The Invisible Man
The Invisible Manwas one of the last movies I saw in theaters before the shutdown and I’ll likely cherish that memory for quite some time, because there are few movies more tailor-made for the communal viewing experience.Leigh Whannell’s reimagining of the classic movie monster lays a thick air of tension on the audience from the first scene and never lets up, punctuated by impeccably constructed moments of shock that rippled through my screening like an orchestra of gasps. But don’t worry, if you missed this one in theaters, it plays just as well at home, thanks to a reliably tremendous performance fromElizabeth Moss, who wields every twitch of her mouth and flick of her eye to keep you side-by-side on Cecilia’s journey. And of course, Whannell’s clever, masterfully composed direction.
Moss stars as a woman who escapes a horrific life with her abusive partner (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), only to discover he killed himself after she left and suddenly, there’s an invisible malicious presence stalking her through every step of her attempt to rebuild a new life. And he’s vicious. Whannell has no interest in humanizing his villain, instead, turning him into a faceless, fearsome menace by weaponizing the camera against the audience. With her tormentor in tow, Cecilia is ever alone in the frame but never truly alone, a fact Whannell reminds us of with increasingly dangerous and devastating outbursts of violence. It’s brilliantly constructed filmmaking and it’s damned effective, teeing you up for a big scream before it knocks the wind out of your lungs.
The Lodgeis, without question, the most unapologetic mean-spirited horror movie of the year so far. FromGoodnight MommyfilmmakersSeverin FialaandVeronika Franz, the domestic horror is a bleak blast of ice-cold despair wrapped in a curious combination of grief-induced cruelty, cultist mystery, dream imagery, and vintage-grade problematic depictions of mental illness.Riley Keoughgives a tremendous performance as a young woman spending the weekend with her future children-in-law (Jaeden MartellandLia McHugh) in the wake of a devastating family tragedy. Tucked away at an isolated, frigid cabin, the trio makes for ill company, a bad vibe that gets much worse when things start to get weird, blurring the lines between nightmare and reality, terror and tragedy. Straight up, I don’t have a lot of patience for children so this one didn’t work as well on me as it did for much of the horror community, but I have to commend the craftsmanship in the composition ofThe Lodge’s cold fury, and there’s no denying that when it gets nasty, it goes straight for the guts.
The Platform
The Platform’s concept is so strong, the rest of the movie absolutely did not have to go as hard as it does. But here we are,The Platformgoes HAM for pretty much its entire runtime, easily shooting towards the top of the list of Netflix’s best original films to date. The Spanish film starsIvan Massaguéas a man who agrees to spend a year in a government experiment in return for his degree and realizes too late that he’s signed up to be a part of a monstrous, cruel system that devours the people inside of it.
The set-up is simple. You wake up on an unknown floor of a seemingly endless tower of stacked cells, each with a giant rectangular hole in the ceiling and the floor. Once a day, a platform full of food descends from the top to the bottom, which means the folks on top feast like kings while the people below starve on scraps. The problem? You could be on top one month and down below the next, never knowing where you’re gonna wake up when the time comes. You might be thinking, “Hey, that sounds like a pretty good metaphor for life.” And you would be correct.The Platformfires on all cylinders as a piece of political allegory, but it’s also an excellent set-up for a horror film and directorGalder Gaztelu-Urrutiawastes no opportunity to stoke up terror, tragedy, disgust and despair as he explores the highs and lows of life in a system that was built to keep you hungry, helpless, and trapped in a cage waiting for a better tomorrow.
Just go ahead and fuck me all the way up,Natalie Erika James. In her feature film debut, the Australian filmmaker delivers a fearsome contender for the best horror movie of the year withRelic, a monster movie-meets-domestic drama that turns tenderness into the most terrifying thing of all. Inspired by her personal experience watching her grandmother go through Alzheimer’s, James’ horror story is so powerful because it comes from a place of love - and the dread of watching the people you love become what terrifies you.
Robin Nevin,Emily Mortimer, andBella Heathcotestar as a three-generation mother-daughter trio who wind up back in their old family home under disturbing circumstances when Edna (Nevin) goes missing and her daughter (Mortimer) and granddaughter (Heathcote) find her somehow changed after she’s found. As Edna’s condition worsens, James walks a fine line between the already horrific reality of watching a loved one crumble into decay and the suggestion of somethingmore. Something other. The slow-burn character drama and surreal nightmare imagery coalesce into a finale that’s as brutal as it is lovely, a potent combination that knocked me square on my ass, sobbing like the grief was my own. That’s, of course, because it is. There are few things more universal than the fear of losing the people we love and few films that have captured how sense of mortality settles in like rot and the sudden awareness of a constant current that can never be turned back.
