40. “Train To Busan” (2016)
With the undead completely omnipresent in contemporary horror, a film either needs to take a wildly different approach with your zombie film to stand out —as with “Pontypool” above— or you need to execute the fuck out of your zombie film, as “Train To Busan” director Yeon Sang-ho did. The film’s set in or around the titular high-speed train from Seoul to Busan, which pulls out of the station just as an outbreak of high-speed, utterly vicious zombies gets underway. Yeon, a first-time live-action director, handles the action with real muscle and propulsion, pulling off moments that put the somewhat similar “World War Z” to shame on a fraction of the budget. But he’s just as good with character: his humans might be depicted broadly, but you grow to truly care for them by the end, and the “Snowpiercer”-ish class subtext brings the zombie genre back to the social satire that George Romero originally intended. No wonder it’s one of the breakout genre films of this year.
39. “Crimson Peak” (2015)
So Guillermo del Toro is insistent that this film is not a horror but a “Gothic romance,” but perhaps that’s his way of warning hardcore genre purists away. But while it may not be scary in a jump-out -of-your skin-boo! way, “Crimson Peak,” in its meticulously macabre production design and deliciously doom-laden performances (particularly by Jessica Chastain, whose face is a haunted cathedral herein) is horror of a different order. Shot through with a very del Toro-ian melancholy, ultimately it’s a tragic story of thwarted, impure love and the corrupting influence it can have on the soul, and of course it’s operatic and over the top —all Gothic melodramas are— and at times the elaborate costuming and hyper-detailed sets feel so densely constructed as to be suffocating. But it’s still a film of grand ambition and immense beauty, and nothing can dampen the blazing brilliance of Chastain on such deliciously twisted form.
38. “Ginger Snaps” (2000)
Sometimes a simple inversion is all that’s needed to freshen up a stale genre, and John Fawcett‘s “Ginger Snaps” does just that, delivering a female-slanted riff on the traditionally masculine werewolf subgenre. Fascinated by the idea of pubescent female sexuality, especially this weaponized version, it’s a fine example of re-framing old myths in a way that seems so peculiarly right that you can’t believe no one attempted it before. After all, werewolves and moons and blood and menstrual cycles all seem like they belong in the same movie, right? It’s not the most polished film on this list, though the inexperienced female cast acquit themselves well (Katherine Isabelle plays the infected Ginger, while Emily Perkins plays her sister), and it’s somewhat let down by a ending that resolves in a visually splattery but thematically too-neat climax, yet “Ginger Snaps” is the rare movie that is as strong a metaphor as it is an effective horror.
37. “Orphan” (2009)
Dark Castle Entertainment, the genre production arm formed by “Tales from the Crypt” principals Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis and Gilbert Adler, started off by making above-average remakes of films originally produced by the king of gimmicky thrillers William Castle. Eventually the studio started to produce different types of films, and “Orphan,” an original chiller co-produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, might be the company’s very best film. Helmed by Spanish stylist Jaume Collet-Serra, the film is an endlessly fascinating take on the “evil child” horror sub-genre, this time centered around a young couple (played by Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard) who following the stillborn birth of their third child, decide to adopt an odd Russian girl named Esther (a haunting Isabelle Fuhrman). At 123 minutes, the movie is a decidedly slow burn, but it ramps up to a rare (and essentially unguessable) twist that doesn’t totally discredit the rest of the movie. Even if you’re not a fan of this particular subgenre, it’s hard to argue with the effective, stylistic verve of “Orphan.” And even before the twist blows your mind, chances are you’ll already be shaken up.
36. “The Invitation” (2015)
Everyone loves a comeback, and “The Invitation” provides a hell of one for director Karyn Kusama. She made her name with Sundance hit “Girlfight” but her studio followups “Aeon Flux” and “Jennifer’s Body” were hardly fitting successors. But this whip-smart, beautifully made horror chamber piece should put her back where she deserves to be. The film sees a still-grieving father (Logan Marshall-Green, finally emerging from the shadow of ‘wait, that’s not Tom Hardy?’) go to a dinner party at the house of his ex-wife (Tammy Blanchard), whose charismatic new husband (Michiel Huisman) has introduced her to a self-help group that might have more sinister intentions. Even if the set-up feels a little contrived in places, the film’s slow-burning charms and excellent ensemble (also including Emayatzy Corinealdi, Lindsay Burdge and John Carroll Lynch) swiftly win you over, resulting in a horror/thriller that feels atypically rich and grown-up.
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35. “Baskin” (2015)
In terms of countries that you associate with horror cinema, Turkey probably doesn’t come near the top of the list. But if the recent “Baskin” is anything to go by, you should keep an eye out for the country’s output a lot more. Directed by Can Evresol, it sees rookie cop Arda (Gorken Kasal) accompany four corrupt colleagues on a call to a nearby town, with increasingly portentous warnings leading them to The Father (Mehmet Cerrahoglu) and a place that might just be hell. Handling a fairly meager budget beautifully, Evresol masterfully builds up the tension in the first half, with a skill belying his status as a first-time director (though it is admittedly an expansion of his short film). And then the bloodletting begins —and boy does it begin, with gruesome violence equal parts Lucio Fulci and “Hellraiser”— and while it’s derivative to some degree, there is a real level of imagination at work and a pleasingly nightmarish feel to the whole thing.
34. “The Conjuring” (2013)
Presently perhaps the most successful horror director of this century (especially if success is measured in how many franchises you spawn), James Wan turned to the haunted house genre and delivered “The Conjuring.” A classed-up ghost story that bears even less resemblance to Wan’s career-making (but also somewhat pigeonholing) “Saw” than his prior film “Insidious,” this film stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren as they come to the aid of a couple (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor) living in a haunted Rhode Island farmhouse. Beautifully photographed and heavy on mood and period detailing rather than gore (though still gaining an R-rating purely for scariness), it’s easy to see why it spawned a sequel (which is also far better than it ought to be): this is the kind of horror that in these unsubtle times post-“Saw” people say doesn’t get made anymore.
33. “Under The Shadow” (2016)
One of the most startling horror debuts of this year, “Under The Shadow,” by British-based Iranian director Babak Anvari, shows fearsome levels of craft for a new director, and uses genre tropes to investigate a world that might be unfamiliar to many horror-heads. In post-revolution Tehran during Saddam Hussein’s 1980s bombing of the city, Shideh (Narges Rashidi), who’s recently been denied the chance to return to medical school, stays in the city with her daughter (Avin Manshadi) while her doctor husband is drafted to work with the military. After an unexploded missile kills a neighbor upstairs, her daughter begins to become convinced that a djinn is coming for them. The film drew comparisons with ‘The Babadook,” and both films crossover on a key parenting theme, but Anvari has more on his mind, with the film’s spirit helping to serve as a metaphor for the oppression of women in the country and for the spectre of death during conflict. The all-purpose nature of the allegory doesn’t complete satisfy, but the craft is so good that you still walk away deeply impressed (and terrified).
32. “Drag Me To Hell” (2009)
After a long spell as custodian of the megabucks ‘Spider-Man‘ franchise (which, let’s not forget, spawned one of the greatest comic book movies of all time in “Spider-Man 2“), Sam Raimi went back to his horror roots. It seemed at the time like he was hitting the reset button, though the turgid and bloated “Oz the Great and Powerful” suggests his change of heart was temporary. And that’s a shame, because despite some rather ropy CG effects, “Drag Me To Hell” proved that there was life in the old dog yet (and the reverse proves to be true for the film’s cat). It follows Alison Lohman‘s mild-mannered bank clerk as she falls victim to an ancient Gypsy curse, and as a jump-scare-laden, ludicrously plotted, tongue-in cheek horror, it might not quite measure up to the high watermark of “Evil Dead II.” But it’s a huge amount of playful fun nonetheless, right up to its mischievously downer ending.
31. “A Tale Of Two Sisters” (2003)
As resonant as its American remake “The Uninvited” is forgettable, Kim Jee-woon‘s “A Tale Of Two Sisters” is based on a famous Korean folk story and follows creepily devoted sisters Su-yeon (Moon Geun-young) and Su-mi (Im Soo-jung), the latter of whom has recently been released from a mental facility, as they become suspicious of their new stepmother (Yeom Jeong-ah). Certainly until this year’s”The Age of Shadows,” ‘Tale’ was Kim’s most complete film, an unfeasibly scary story of ghosts and psychosis and menstruation (the most unsettling use of period blood as a harbinger of terrible things since “Carrie“). It’s more artful than the average horror, slower and less graphic, but that’s not to suggest squeamishness. Rather, Kim is aware that the more frightening territory is on the edge of our peripheral vision, in the background detail you suddenly notice, or a flutter of movement in darkness where nothing is supposed to be. Those imagined spaces are where the film lives.