By C. Ramsay
31. 哭悲 (The Sadness) (2021) | ★
- Primarily follows a separated couple attempting to reunite, as well as multiple peripheral characters, as a mysterious illness breaks out and rapidly spreads. The infection draws out a gleeful indulgence in sadistic violence, but where this poses a threat both physically and sexually is for the most part only utilized to stylize and progress the current set piece rather than serving to analyze the dominant social structures of modern society. Fantastically gruesome practical effects are mostly dampened in favour of shock value, and issues of misogyny and sexual violence are regularly evoked without any attempt at commentary.
30. Wolf Blood (1925) | ★★
- A higher-up at a logging company is attacked by members of a rival company and given an emergency transfusion of wolf blood, leading to him believing he is experiencing lycanthropy. One of the earliest werewolf films and possibly the oldest to still survive. Beautiful locations are full of untapped potential for creating a more immersive atmosphere, and the pacing is slow and often feels like it emphasizes the less interesting or important parts of the film. Never commits to in-depth exploration of the themes it sometimes hints at.
29. Panic in Year Zero! (1962) | ★★½
- A family leaving Los Angeles for a vacation witness it being destroyed by a nuclear attack and must suddenly adapt to surviving amidst anarchy. Commercializes on the nuclear paranoia of the 1960s to dissect the fear of the Other, of societal fracturing, and of isolation. Moral hypocrisy runs rampant and contributes to the further decay of civilization as it was once known. Never quite gets as interrogative as it could or should, and suffers under conflicted atmosphere and surface-level writing as a result.
28. Razorback (1984) | ★★½
- A giant wild boar terrorizes a community in the Australian outback. Quite humorous and full of fun practical effects, but struggles in finding the right atmospheric balance as well as in effectively using the boar animatronic to consistently convey its ferocity. Cinematographer Dean Semler (Apocalypto, Dances with Wolves, The Road Warrior) is the easy standout, maximizing the beauty of the landscape when needed and further accentuating it through some pretty spectacular lighting choices.
27. Blood Quantum (2019) | ★★½
- The Indigenous community of the Mi’kmaq reserve of Red Crow realize they’re immune to a zombie outbreak happening around them. Includes some gorgeous cinematography but struggles in consistently using camerawork to help with visual exposition rather than relying on verbalizing everything, and the characterization falters as a result. The choreography of the action is well done but most of the sequences around it feel unrefined, and the acting is sometimes overly stoic regardless of the sentiment of the scene. Incorporates some really great practical effects and many unique ideas, but struggles to round out the parts between them.
26. Black Mountain Side (2014) | ★★½
- A group of archaeologists become trapped and increasingly isolated at a remote dig site in northern Canada after uncovering an ancient structure. Extremely slow-paced for the majority of its runtime and overly iterative of its predecessors in the same subgenre. The film also places high emphasis on shock value and can’t make up its mind between spoon-feeding plot beats to the audience or immersing viewers into a more timeless, untethered atmosphere. However, the locations are beautiful, the set design is great, the lighting is accomplished, and there’s an impressive oner that stands out against much of the earlier camerawork.
25. Salem’s Lot (1979) | ★★★
- A writer returns to his hometown only to learn of multiple mysterious deaths linked to the supposedly haunted house he’d been planning to write his next book on. Originally a made-for-TV movie divided into two episodes, the cumulative runtime can result in some excessively slow moments and some wonky pacing. The makeup and costuming of the vampires is unique, with some of the budgetary limitations actually working to enhance the creature design, and the small details of the film end up being the most unsettling and memorable.
24. The Exorcist (1973) | ★★★
- A distraught mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her 12-year-old daughter from a demonic possession. A film loaded with physically challenging performances that centre on the plight of a parent panicked over the suddenly deteriorating condition of their child, with dread building sometimes more in sequential cuts than it does in narrative fluidity. An interrogation of the idea of God’s abandonment of us, of why good people are exposed to bad things, and of who is willing to provide support to strangers in need at great personal cost.
23. Paperhouse (1988) | ★★★
- Anna, a young girl, conjures a dream world to which she regularly escapes, where she also ends up befriending an ill boy her age. The set design of Anna’s drawn world is effectively sparse, containing in faithful detail only what few components have been marked to paper by her. The film creatively explores the logic of the dream realm in multiple ways, and visually pulls most notably from Terry Gilliam’s style of practical effects. Examines how dreams, memories, experiences, and fears can blend seamlessly, particularly from the perspectives of children.
22. I Am Legend (2007) | ★★★½
- The assumed last man on Earth and his dog fight to survive in a derelict New York City, working on a cure for a virus that has facilitated mass death and turned other living people into mutated zombie-vampire hybrids. The film has solid pacing for most of its runtime and blends expository scenes with rich set design and implicit communication to deliver a style of storytelling that supports deeper analysis than one might expect at first glance. Practically antithetical to Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel of the same name, the two end up pairing well as polar examinations of conservative traditionalism.
21. [REC] (2007) | ★★★½
- While shadowing firefighters for an assignment, a TV reporter, her cameraman, and the group they’re working with become trapped in a quarantined apartment building after responding to an emergency call. Operating under the found footage subgenre, the audience is forced into the point of view of Pablo, the cameraman, for the duration of the film, and is often made to feel like a barrier between the dangers encountered and the frantic characters we’re situated with due to the camera’s positioning. Smartly uses a combination of muted set design and costuming, as well as quick cuts and shaky cam, to accentuate the gore and horrific elements to maximum effect.
20. It Comes at Night (2017) | ★★★½
- One family hesitantly welcomes another within their secured home amidst the ruination that has occurred due to an undisclosed but seemingly highly contagious disease. Uses a light multimedia approach with the help of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Triumph of Death painting to inform how viewers should be understanding character motivations as well as how we should be feeling within certain visual perspectives throughout the film. A quiet, slow-paced character study that has become surprisingly relevant to the hyper paranoia that has festered since the arrival of COVID-19.
19. The Endless (2017) | ★★★½
- Two brothers return to a cult they’d previously fled and gain unexpected insight. Has a slow, overly amateur-ish start, but builds off of Lovecraftian inspiration to develop some really interesting ideas and sequences that are likely to stick with viewers keen on theorizing about time and space. Features multiple standout supporting performances and enough of an innovative story to minimize any issues.
18. The Blob (1988) | ★★★★
- Follows a variety of characters trying to survive and protect others from a viscous alien form that absorbs whatever it comes into contact with. Equally funny as it is claustrophobic, the film shares some of the same visual effects crew involved with Cronenberg’s The Fly, providing set piece after set piece of creatively stylized violence and body horror. Each character feels three-dimensional, and the different settings are fresh and unique while pulling the entirety of the city together as a cohesive whole. Has a bit of the same style of self-aware, deconstructive teen slasher writing that would become so popular less than a decade later with the start of the Scream franchise, which helps set the general tone of the film.
17. Night of the Living Dead (1968) | ★★★★
- A group of mostly strangers find themselves boarded up together inside a Pennsylvania farmhouse during the sudden onslaught of flesh-eating, reanimated people. A defining work in the zombie subgenre, the film is balanced between the visuals it includes and what is left up to the imagination. Acting as a microcosm of American society, the narrative is a reflection of how people react when facing crisis in communal situations.
16. The Most Dangerous Game (1932) | ★★★★
- An experienced hunter manages to make it to a mysterious island after being shipwrecked off its coast, where he then finds himself to be the human prey of Count Zaroff, who enjoys hunting people for sport. Though being from 1932, the film does not shy away from the gruesomeness of its subject matter. Uses effective stunts and makes action sequences the punctuation of scenes rather than the stuffing for them. Colonialism and Indigeneity are central themes, perhaps ultimately less explored than they could be but still present enough to influence audience takeaways.
15. Cat People (1942) | ★★★★
- Irena, A Serbian woman still fairly new to Manhattan, fears she has been cursed to turn into a black panther when aroused by physical intimacy. Experiencing a multi-faceted sense of isolation, Irena spends most of her time performing for the satisfaction of others, including her new husband, to her own detriment. Slow-paced with poignant moments of dread and a creative use of contrast, the film uses its narrative structure and visual cues to dissect the sense of self, the desire to belong, gendered expectations, and sexuality.
14. La frusta e il corpo (The Whip and the Body) (1963) | ★★★★
- A gothic, psychosexual melodrama centered around a disowned nobleman suddenly returning to his family’s estate, consequently displeasing the majority of its current residents and leading to reignited passion with a former lover. Imposition is a major focus of the film, both directly through the characterization and more passively in how the environments and cinematography are handled. Sexuality and perversion are also closely entangled with the aforementioned, sometimes made to be indistinguishable, resulting in desperate longing that has ramifications for all involved.
13. Def by Temptation (1990) | ★★★★
- A succubus in the form of a Black woman seduces and kills Black men in New York City, leading to an eclectic group teaming up to try to stop her. Features immense talent throughout, though the film itself is considered a small-scale production. Cynthia Bond, who plays the succubus, is impressive in her physical performance and in her ability to believably suit the personalities of her victims as well as she does. An examination of community, struggle, and a range of temptations, all of which use the succubus as a singular point of contention to draw everything together.
12. Das deutsche Kettensägenmassaker (The German Chainsaw Massacre) (1990) | ★★★★
- Taking place around the reunification of Germany, East Germans find themselves under attack by cannibalistic West Germans after crossing what used to constitute the border. Primarily satirical of its subgenre and political setting, the film also uses historical context to deepen characterization since the runtime is so short. Explores the societal rifts exacerbated through physically enforced division and the exploitation of certain groups as a means to foster the growth of others.
11. Mandy (2018) | ★★★★
- A uniquely metal, acid-fueled, phantasmagorical nightmare that cycles through the stages of grief. Has the right balance of being hyper-stylized but not to the point where the gravity of the circumstances cannot be felt. Creative in its use of technical aspects such as lighting, focusing predominantly on how it can be used to affect the atmosphere of a scene rather than only using it realistically. Andrea Riseborough and Nicolas Cage both give excellent and devastating performances that thrive in being complementary through how they contrast.
10. Veneno para las hadas (Poison for the Fairies) (1986) | ★★★★
- Two young schoolgirls, lonely in their own ways, befriend each other and bond over witchcraft. Both eager to impress the other and therefore stake out more control within their relationship, the girls feign experience and knowledge in disastrous ways. A sometimes melodramatic Mexican gothic tale that holds the audience purely in the perspective of the children, constantly maintaining empathy for the situations they find themselves in.
9. The Outwaters (2022) | ★★★★½
- A group of friends working on a music video deep in the Mojave Desert are suddenly confronted by indescribable horrors. An indie, surrealist work of found footage along the lines of The Blair Witch Project, The Outwaters falls short in many ways during its first half only to be more than made up for once the trip starts to escalate. Sound is relied on to communicate much of the horror, and the visuals are scariest in their abstractness. Using a variety of evidence peppered throughout the film to support an array of theories as to what’s going on, the viewer is ultimately given no idea about who to root for, who to be afraid of, or what might be concretely happening, all of which works in the story’s favour.
8. Spoorloos (The Vanishing) (1988) | ★★★★½
- A couple on vacation drop by a busy rest stop where one of them is abducted in broad daylight. A quiet, slow-burning character study that has no concern over concealing the killer or his motives. Nihilistically anthropological, the film is most interested in feelings of obligation and compulsion, and the various ways they are exerted.
7. The Stepford Wives (1975) | ★★★★½
- A woman, her husband, and their children uproot from New York City to begin a new, quieter life in the small town of Stepford, Connecticut. The film is a hazy, dreamy, slow-burning portrait of a picturesque community in which the wives seem to be unusually devoted to their husbands. A glaring and at times satirical depiction of patriarchy, white supremacy, and the enforcement of the nuclear family as being akin to the correct practice of all-American values. Follows the perspective of Joanna, the liberal wife and mother in the newly transplanted family, as her growing concerns about the women in the community lead her to try to enact change.
6. Angst (1983) | ★★★★½
- A killer breaks into a house at random to terrorize the family within. Based on true events, this film is not for the squeamish. Featuring uniquely disorienting camerawork and an unrelenting narrative from the killer, the film is nauseating on multiple levels. An avant-garde approach to attempting to achieve some degree of understanding around how the mind of a psychopath might function.
5. We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021) | ★★★★½
- A lonely teenager seeks connection in an online horror role-playing community. Full of melancholic nostalgia, World’s Fair is a multi-sensory, layered, at times even experimental approach to conveying the mental health issues that can become exacerbated through extensive, unsupervised Internet access as a neglected teenager. Quiet, tense, and poignant, the horror of this film is highly relative to the experiences of the individual viewer, though there are likely moments of relatability for most audience members.
4. Вий (Viy) (1967) | ★★★★★
- Three seminary students become lost in the country and inadvertently anger a witch. Generally considered to be the only feature-length horror film from the USSR, this is a morality tale wrapped in folk horror. Blends surrealism, absurdism, and humour to create a gorgeous nightmare culminating in a finale full of impressive practicals.
3. The Wizard of Oz (1939) | ★★★★★
- A young girl is swept away to the land of Oz by a tornado, where she meets many new people and creatures, both friends and foes, in her attempt to make it back home. A technical marvel in filmmaking that is equally impressive to adults as it is to children. While widely considered to be of the fantasy/adventure genre and family-friendly, there is an argument to be made about viewing the film through the lens of horror, and it has served as inspiration for many darker works, including those by David Lynch.
2. Rosemary’s Baby (1968) | ★★★★★
- A married couple move into a new apartment in New York, unaware of the ties other residents have to the occult. Relies as much on visual storytelling as it does verbal, and features one of the all-time classic horror performances from Mia Farrow as the titular Rosemary. Uses body horror and lingering, mounting futility to explore the sense of control that others feel they deserve to have over an individual’s pregnancy, and by proxy examines the sphere of domesticity and the gender roles enforced within it.
1. The Devils (1971) | ★★★★★
- Follows a priest in the city of Loudun in 1634 France and a sister of the city’s Ursuline convent, intertwining religious fanaticism and mass sexual deviancy. A frenzied descent into sacrilegious hedonism with gorgeous costuming and extensive sets. A core component of the film is the examination of the overlap of religion and state affairs, as well as the underlying political maneuvering that uses this overlap to conceal the quelling of dissent and of nonconformity.