#10 'The Final Girls'
As an intergenerational summer camp slaughterfest, this meta-slasher flick has remarkably little interest in homage (faithfully recreating the atmosphere of films like The Burning isn't a focus), and even less in using its movie-within-a-movie as a comment on tropes and cliché. Instead, director Todd Strauss-Schulson's stylish film (written by M.A. Fortin & Near Dark actor Joshua John Miller) is a delightful party that sneakily reveals an emotional punch, as a daughter is reconnected with her late actress mother via the latter's most famous role. Who ever thought a hyperactive horror-comedy would make us tear up to Kim Carnes?
#4 'Spring'
After the death of his mother, ambitionless loner Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci) heads to Europe to do some soul searching, and seems to find it in the loins of a mysterious woman named Louise (Nadia Hilker). But Spring ain't no romcom, and Evan soon discovers his dream girl is harboring a monstrous secret. This dark fable wisely eschews the tired clichés of the indie horror scene and manages to deftly straddle both the horror and romance genres — not to mention a heaping helping of junk science — without ever collapsing into melodrama. Plus: lurid Lovecraftian weirdness abounds!
#3 'What We Do in the Shadows'
Found-footage horror is anything but effortless, though it's in serious danger of hitting the diminishing-returns critical-mass point. Enter Taika Waititi and Flight of the Conchords' Jemaine Clement, who've concocted a faux documentary on a den of bloodsuckers living the student life in New Zealand and ended up making the funniest horror-comedy of the year. The co-directors/stars play ingrained vampire lore, werewolf rivalries and arterial spray against beta-male culture gags, all with a heaping helpful of gore and laughs. That's not to mention a showstopping funhouse sequence in the center, and our finest cinematic nod to another fangs-favorite, The Lost Boys.
#2 'Goodnight Mommy'
Austrian directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala's unnerving movie has the hallmarks of a Gothic thriller, but it's set in a chilly, modernist world. Two twin boys play around their remote, sleek, modern house while their mother, her face wrapped in bandages, recovers from some unnamed procedure. The relationship between the three of them alternates between cruel, needy, and downright confrontational – with only the slightest hints of (awkward) tenderness. Who are these people? Is mother who she says she is? Are the boys? What about all those blurry pictures on the walls? You might guess the ending before the big reveal, but this is an unusually disturbing movie – a film not so much of big gotcha jump-scares as of gnawing psychological tension
#1 'It Follows'
Can an incredibly scary slasher flick also serve as a post-modern treatise on the very nature of the film image? David Robert Mitchell's indie-frightfest phenomenon is predicated on the fact that a zombie-like state can be passed on by sexual contact from one person to the next, like a chain letter or a haunted J-horror videotape. (You may insert your think piece on social-issues symbolism here.) And the killer can often be anybody lurking somewhere in the background; once possessed, they start walking towards you, often in a straight line from the depths of the frame. It's like the very medium is revolting against us: Wes Craven meets Luigi Pirandello. But perhaps what makes Mitchell's film so effective isn't just its novel scares but its surprisingly well-drawn characters. For once, we actually don't want to see anybody die on screen, and by tempering our own bloodlust, the film ups the ante on our terror. This is a movie we'll be talking about for years to come.
#9-#5 at the SOURCE
its worth checking out the source imo they have some good picks!
what was your fave horror movie this year ONTD? ty
