MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
7 Midsommar
A24
Ari Aster is no stranger to the unsettling genre of horror, with his 2018 film Hereditary gripping audiences. His 2019 sophomore feature, Midsommar, follows Dani (Florence Pugh), a young and depressed woman, as she goes on a trip with her boyfriend and his friends to an isolated village in Sweden. With the hopes of experiencing the Midsommar Festival, a celebration that happens every 90 years to mark the beginning of summer, they rapidly discover that the celebration isn’t all that they thought it would be as they find themselves in the clutches of a Scandinavian pagan cult.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
Ari Aster is undoubtedly known for completely hypnotizing audiences with his films, and with the pagan rituals performed, this movie has certainly remained embedded in the audience’s mind. Midsommar has become one of the most popular and disturbing folklore horror films for its portrayal of the dangers of cult workings and predatory focuses on grief and depression, where the audience is given a horrifying insight into how cults can be extremely and dangerously deceptive in a gruesome and graphic manner. Ari Aster has once again, completely mastered terrifying us, this time through ritualistic violence, graphic nudity, and strong sexual content.
6 Sinister
Summit Entertainment
Sinister, a supernatural horror film released in 2012, explores the horrific consequences of crime writer Ellison Oswalt’s (Ethan Hawke) chilling discovery of a series of super-8 movies in his attic displaying numerous gruesome murders. While it’s obviously subjective, according to a scientific study, Sinister has been crowned the scariest movie ever made. At the time of its release, Sinister was ambitious and definitely terrifying. It was successful in its jump scares, and the audience felt genuinely scared for Ellison and his family, with a high amount of uncertainty about what would happen with the tapes. While the suspense and anxiety slowly build up throughout the movie, we know something horrible is just around the corner. We are left with a horrifying, unexpected, twisted ending, and Sinister, to this day, remains haunting and definitely stands by its title because it is, without a doubt, one hundred percent sinister.
5 The Silence of the Lambs
Orion Pictures
One of the most iconic and classic horror movies, starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs is uncomfortable and unsettling, yet absolutely brilliant and a landmark in the horror genre. Hannibal Lecter is one of the most popular villains to grace our screens, and Hopkins portrays the cannibalistic serial killer to such a convincing and engaging level. The story follows a young FBI trainee, Clarice Starling (Foster), as she must seek advice from an imprisoned Hannibal (Hopkins) in order to catch another serial killer, Buffalo Bill.
The relationship between killer and detective is a key factor of why Silence of the Lambs has been labeled as one of the greatest and most influential films of all time, along with its psychologically disturbing and bone-chilling storyline. The presence on screen that Hopkins creates, and the way he brings Hannibal to life is spine-tingling, and he creates a truly unnerving atmosphere, enough to scare anyone. For horror fans, this iconic psychopathic cannibal (and the human-skin-wearing Buffalo Bill) is completely captivating, horrifying, and still gives us that cold, anxious feeling that we love today.
4 The Taking of Deborah Logan
Eagle Films
The movie is powerful in evoking nothing but empathy from the audience when we see Deborah’s condition at the beginning of the movie, though slowly begins to feed us jump scares and horrifying, graphic behavior that us true horror lovers crave. Using the found footage technique added tension and suspense to Deborah’s tragic story and, although it is fiction, following the crew through the terrifying scenes felt as though we were watching real-life footage. This contributed massively to why the found footage technique is powerful and is becoming increasingly popular; this, combined with the supernatural and psychological aspects of the movie, is why we’re so brilliantly creeped out by The Taking of Deborah Logan.
3 Us
Universal Pictures
Director Jordan Peele, also known for his brilliant Get Out and as writer of Candyman (and who is set to scare us again in his upcoming movie, Nope), terrified everyone who laid eyes on his 2019 film, Us. This horror movie is a deeply layered, metaphorically rich film, which left audiences shocked by its plot twist ending and requires repeated viewings to fully appreciate its greatness.
Peele’s unique talent was demonstrated in Us by his creation of creepy villains, The Tethered, a large group of doppelgängers in red jumpsuits, who set out to murder their counterparts, causing chaos across America. Interestingly, the inspiration for this movie came from Peele’s own childhood fear of dopplegängers, which makes the movie all that more captivating and personal to watch. Us is now described as the most out-of-the-box horror film of the past decade and no matter how many times you have to watch it, it is truly terrifying, and unnerving; intuitive rather than explicatory, the film leaves you in a horrific way that has you looking out for your own doppelgängers.
2 Escape Room
Sony Pictures Releasing
We tend to relate escape rooms to a fun activity to do with your friends or family, but director Adam Robitel (whose aforementioned Taking of Deborah Logan is also terrifying) had something different in mind with his 2019 horror movie, Escape Room. The movie follows six strangers who find themselves in a situation out of their control - a series of escape rooms where they must, as literally stated, “find the clues, or die!” Not only do they have to survive the challenges, but each room is detailed to traumas in everyone’s past, which makes it even more difficult.
An exciting part to this movie is the mystery and puzzle-box element which enables us as viewers to sit and contemplate whether we’d be able to complete the challenges and survive. That, alongside the horror and gruesome deaths, makes it even more interesting and tense to watch. As an audience, we feel the frustration along with the characters as they desperately fight for their lives, uncertain of who is behind it all. The movie was such a terrifying hit, a sequel, Escape Room: Tournament of Champions was released last year, which is just as horrifying and brilliant.
1 The Wailing
20th Century Fox
In a small village in South Korea, a series of unexplained, horrifically violent murders occur, which are linked to a disease that overtakes you with a nasty rash, followed by a violent, murderous outrage and eventually, death. It is believed to be possession caused by a mysterious man who lives deep in the secluded mountain. The Wailing not only provides horror lovers with a great mix of violence and gore, but also fills us with an overwhelming sense of dread in every single scene, and it is guaranteed that viewers are not prepared for how unsettled it makes them. The Korean film industry has produced countless amazing horror masterpieces, so there was no doubt that this horrifying movie gained recognition, with a 99% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s a truly creepy slow-burn that is culturally interesting, viciously entertaining, and masterfully composed all at once.
