Halloween is a week away and horror movies have been thriving at the box-office again this year. Not just that, but arthouse horror is still very much at the forefront of American cinema, with filmmakers such as Robert Eggers, Ari Aster and Jordan Peele leading the way.
I noticed that Slant Magazine has just published its list of the Best Horror Films of the 21st Century. We’ll be getting many lists like this one being published in the coming days. Some recommendations are in order.
Let’s up the ante and name our own best horror of the 21st Century. And there’s so much to choose from, it’s a genre that keeps reinventing itself and refuses to age with time. These are the 15 films I keep coming back to, released between 2000-2023, in chronological order:
Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
The Others (Alejandro Amenábar)
28 Days Later (Danny Boyle)
Frailty (Bill Paxton)
The Descent (Neil Marshall)
The Mist (Frank Darabont)
Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar)
The Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard)
It Follows (David Robert Mitchell)
The Witch (Robert Eggers)
Get Out (Jordan Peele)
A Quiet Place (John Krasinski)
Climax (Gaspar Noe)
Hereditary (Ari Aster)
The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell)
Five from the 2000s and seven from the 2010s. Paxton’s “Frailty” is one of the most severely underrated movies of the last two decades years. If you haven’t seen it, please do. It questions our own roles in religion, family and society. A very disturbing piece of cinema.
The first time I saw “Hereditary” was at its first and very memorable Sundance screening. I immediately went to my room and wrote a rave review for it. A24 picked it up and quoted me in the film’s trailer and poster. It was one of the most exciting discoveries of a new talent I had ever experienced. I still don’t think Aster has topped this one.
A year earlier, the same thing occurred, at Sundance again, with Jordan Peele’s “Get Out,” which was a very late addition “surprise” screening to the fest. It was the discovery of a bright new talent who expertly knew how to turn the screws of horror on his audience.
Then there’s David Robert Mitchell’s minimalist and sexually questioning, “It Follows.” The film refused to adhere to the conventions of 21st-century horror. Mitchell delivered this stunningly authoritative movie — a blend of the surreal with the very real. Every scene in Mitchell’s film was filled with unbearable dread, bringing to mind early Carpenter and the soundtrack does hint at the master’s style. Scene after scene, the viewer is engulfed in an inescapable nightmare.
There were so many more films to choose from. I love this genre so much and these are some of the other major highlights for me this century:
Pearl, The Invitation, Pulse, Lights Out, The Wailing, Don’t Breathe, Hush, Sinister, It, Talk to Me, Crimson Peak, Goodnight Mommy, The House That Jack Built, Let the Right One In, I Spit On Your Grave, Mandy, Raw, You’re Next, Attack the Block, Midsommar, Us, Cam, Possessor, The Guest, Drag Me To Hell, Paranormal Activity, Antichrist, Cabin Fever, Joy Ride, Piranha 3D, The Devil’s Rejects