The 2. 5 best horror movies since 2. Ask horror- movie buffs to name their favorite decade for the genre, and you’ll likely receive a variety of answers. The ’3. 0s had several of Universal’s classic roster of monsters. The ’4. 0s had Val Lewton. The ’7. 0s had zombies, and giant sharks, and Texas chain saw massacres. Classics take time to solidify, reputations take a minute to build, and hindsight is 2. Plus, you know, Uwe Boll. But looking over the 2. United States sometime before today and after January 1, 2. Perhaps more than any other genre, horror operates as a mirror of our anxieties—a warped reflection of everything that’s eating away at us as a culture or keeping us all up at night. A horror film is a movie that seeks to elicit a physiological reaction, such as an elevated heartbeat, through the use of fear and shocking one’s audiences.And there’s been plenty to lose sleep over these past 1. SARS. The list below could easily double as a guide to the fears and phobias of modern life. Its eclecticism is a testament to just how many different ways we’ve been freaked out since Y2. K. Sixteen contributors submitted ranked ballots of their favorite horror movies released in the United States since the year 2. These are not the scariest films of our new millennium, but simply the greatest that happen to occupy the horror genre. As such, we tried to be fairly strict with the definition; films that feel like horror but wouldn’t necessarily be classified as such by IMDB or Netflix—like David Lynch’s two post- 2. Pan’s Labyrinth, or Requiem For A Dream—were excluded. What would your ballot look like? Did we miss anything crucial? Sound off in the comments below. There are those who find Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs to be one of the most unsettling and provocative horror films ever made, and then there are those who haven’t seen it yet. But unlike other extreme horror that relies on shock value and repugnance for its notoriety (A Serbian Film, Human Centipede II), Martyrs isn’t particularly grisly, nor does it wallow in depravity for exploitative button- pushing. The film is almost two movies in one. Depicting a fragile young woman’s efforts to support her friend, who seeks revenge for her abuse as a child, the first half is horror at its simplest and most frightening. But a late and unexpected turn in the story pushes things into utterly new territory, at which point the film becomes horrifying for wholly different reasons. It’s difficult, transcendent, riveting, and never anything but nerve- shredding. And the ending is one for the ages. ![]() The genre can be very regressive in its gender politics, if not grotesque and loathsome in its sexism, but the sly Canadian horror- comedy Ginger Snaps cleverly subverts that tradition by positing lycanthropy as an allegory for a girl’s sexual and physical maturation. The film is empowering in its depiction of a world where female sexuality is a potent, violent, and righteous force. And the film inspired a slew of feminist- leaning horror films that addressed gender forthrightly and smartly, including a memorable segment in the horror anthology Trick ’R Treat. The masked assailants trying to gain entry into the vacation home of an unhappy couple (Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler) aren’t particularly memorable; the film’s bare- bones narrative insists upon that anonymity. No, what makes Bryan Bertino’s film seethe with nail- biting tension is the masterful use of space and silence. The home becomes a sieve, a place where a threatening presence can intrude upon the frame from any angle. The best source for the latest horror movie news, videos, and podcasts. Watch scary movie trailers, and find the top streaming horror movies. The best horror movies ever made, chosen by horror film experts. Best Ever and Famous French Films from France, Canada, Belgium, Luxembourg and the rest of the French speaking world: movie details, background and Reviews. AFI's 100 Years.100 Heroes & Villains is a list of the 50 top movie heroes and 50 top movie villains of all time. We always add reviews on Classic Hollywood Movie, Classic Family Movies & Classic Comedy Movies at classicmovies.org. On the Best classical movies & all time hits. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was voted the best science fiction film of all time with 73 votes in a 2014 poll of 136 sci-fi experts, filmmakers, science fiction. There are no fancy camera tricks or complicated plot twists, just a slowly building sense of dreadful inevitability. Always hanging back, Bertino lets his two leads stand exposed, the large open spaces behind them always promising to release more terrors. It’s a perfect rejoinder to those who value originality over everything. Going back to basics can reap petrifying rewards, too. Nicole Kidman gives one of her best performances as a widowed mother named Grace, who lives with her two sickly children in an elegant European country house in the mid- 1. WWII. The arrival of eccentric new servants coincides with the family’s increased awareness of some kind of inexplicable presence in the manor, which Grace tries her best to ignore until she’s eventually forced by circumstance to investigate. Writer- director Alejandro Amenabar teases out the mystery and uses old- fashioned effects to give viewers the creeps; but his best asset is Kidman, whose dawning awareness of what’s happening around her helps turn The Others into a poetic portrait of soul- sick grief. Although most of the U. K.’s monsters have now starved to (re)death, and despite the fact that part of London has been successfully turned into a militarized safe zone overseen by the U. S., no one is secure in this horror show. That’s apparent from the film’s masterful intro, wherein a terrified husband (Robert Carlyle) is forced to flee his rural enclave—and abandon his loved ones in order to save himself—and continues once the action shifts to those living under American armed- forces protection, which falters after another undead outbreak. Frantic blasts of cannibalistic action set to squealing guitars generate adrenalized terror, though more chilling still is the overarching allegorical portrait of a United States failing to maintain control over a rabid, rampaging horde of infected- by- madness enemies. May (Angela Bettis) navigates her lonely world with her mother’s voice in her head—“If you can’t find a friend, make one”—assuring her that ending her isolation is simply a matter of will. But finding a friend is easier said than done for a mousy, awkward woman with a misaligned eye, an obsession with antique dolls, and too much enthusiasm for the bloodier aspects of her veterinary gig. By the time May takes her quest for human connection to gory extremes, writer- director Lucky Mc. Kee has already laid a sound foundation of empathy. May is a slasher flick with an inverted perspective, as if Friday The 1. Wolf Creek comes alarmingly close. Greg Mc. Lean’s pitiless Aussie shocker sends a trio of attractive, uncommonly likable twentysomethings into the outer reaches of the Outback, where they’re set upon by a smiling psychopath in a Crocodile Dundee hat. One of a small handful of films to ever earn a straight “F” from Cinema. Score voters, Wolf Creek has proven just a little too sadistic for plenty of viewers. But there’s an unlikely elegance to its construction, Mc. Lean engendering affection for his sacrificial lambs in the long, tension- building hour before they’re led to the slaughter. Unfairly lumped in with the likes of Saw and Hostel, this backwoods gauntlet owes its nightmarish power not just to the “charms” of its cackling human monster (John Jarratt), but also to the unforgiving sprawl of the Australian wilderness. This is the second of three contract killings that form the black heart of British director Ben Wheatley’s one- of- a- kind feature, so of course there’s no shortage of blood here. But this chimera of a film—part naturalistic marital scream- fest, part on- assignment buddy movie, and, most important for our purposes here, part sticks- and- stones conclave in the Wicker Man mode—is most remarkable for its atmosphere of slow- building menace. Paring down the exposition, Wheatley keeps the audience aligned with his in- the- dark hired guns, though every dread- filled frame cries that something’s amiss. Lo and behold, it emerges that what they’ve taken on is, almost literally, the job from hell. In some respects, The Host is Bong’s version of a Godzilla movie; in particular, it boasts a similar origin story, with the monster accidentally created by an American military advisor who cuts corners by pouring 2. In lieu of the lumbering beasts familiar from Japanese monster movies, however, Bong and his effects team fashioned a slimy, fast- moving fish with legs, able to wreak havoc on a smaller, more thrilling scale. And yet it’s arguably the least of the hero’s problems, given the outrageous institutional negligence and incompetence on display throughout the movie. Come for the virtuosic mayhem, stay for the bitter political commentary. Here was an emerging auteur seemingly turning from a serene arthouse aesthetic to make a blood- soaked tale of quasi- cannibals in Paris. Trouble, however, fits neatly into Denis’ preoccupations with examining the limits of human relations. She takes a honeymoon story and plunges it into depravity, uncannily capturing the beauty of dark corners. The film is at times appalling (an act of cuniligus turns carnivorous) but it’s no shock- and- awe ploy. The discomfort that lingers at the end doesn’t just stem from what’s seen on screen but from the all- too human question the film poses: What does it mean to be consumed by desire? Set in an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War, the story ostensibly revolves around a young boy’s attempts to uncover the mystery of the ghost of another child. But even without the specter of a drowned boy skulking the hallways, the whole movie is permeated with dread and the potential for violence. The orphanage is remote and isolated, appearing more as a mausoleum than a refuge. An arid wind blows through every scene, hinting at the inevitable arrival of the war. And despite the Catholic idols that dot the compound, none can overshadow the place’s true patron saint: a massive, diffused bomb that sits in the middle of the courtyard. Del Toro continued his wartime exploration of the tension between fantasy and reality in Pan’s Labyrinth. But the intimacy and fatalistic sadness of The Devil’s Backbone remains unique. The Cabin In The Woods lands closer to the Scream end of the spectrum in that it’s both of and about its genre. Director/co- writer Drew Goddard and co- writer Joss Whedon call out plenty of horror- movie tropes (threatened characters inexplicably splitting up; stereotypical teenagers; a creepy gas station attendant) without subjecting them to snide derision. The movie accumulates clich. Horror film - Wikipedia. A famous scene from the 1. German horror film Nosferatu. A horror film is a movie that seeks to elicit a physiological reaction, such as an elevated heartbeat, through the use of fear and shocking one’s audiences. Inspired by literature from authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley, the horror genre has existed for more than a century. The macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes. Horror may also overlap with the fantasy, supernatural fiction and thriller genres. Horror films often deal with viewers' nightmares, fears, revulsions and terror of the unknown. Plots within the horror genre often involve the intrusion of an evil force, event, or personage into the everyday world. Prevalent elements include ghosts, extraterrestrials, vampires, werewolves, demons, satanism, gore, torture, vicious animals, evil witches, monsters, zombies, cannibals, psychopaths, natural or man- made disasters, and serial killers. The Cave of the Demons, literally . In 1. 90. 8, Selig Polyscope Company produced Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Paul Wegener's The Student of Prague (1. The Golem trilogy (1. Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1. 92. 0), Arthur Robison's Warning Shadows (1. Paul Leni's Waxworks (1. The first vampire- themed movie, Nosferatu (1. Bram Stoker's Dracula. Other European countries also, contributed to the genre during this period. Some notable examples include The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1. The Phantom of the Opera (1. The Cat and the Canary (1. The Unknown (1. 92. The Man Who Laughs (1. Many of these early films were considered dark melodramas because of their stock characters and emotion- heavy plots that focused on romance, violence, suspense, and sentimentality. Directors known for relying on macabre in their films during the 1. Maurice Tourneur, Rex Ingram, and Tod Browning. Ingram's The Magician (1. Tod Browning's Dracula (1. James Whale's Frankenstein (1. The Old Dark House (1. Some of these films blended science fiction with Gothic horror, such as Whale's The Invisible Man (1. German films. Frankenstein was the first in a series of remakes which lasted for years. The Mummy (1. 93. Egyptology as a theme; Make- up artist. Jack Pierce was responsible for the iconic image of the monster, and others in the series. Universal's horror cycle continued into the 1. B- movies including The Wolf Man (1. The once controversial Freaks (1. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Paramount, 1. Jekyll's transformation before the camera. Both appeared in three of Val Lewton's atmospheric B- movies for RKO in the mid- 1. The Body Snatcher (1. Two subgenres began to emerge: the Doomsday film and the Demonic film. Japan's experience with Hiroshima and Nagasaki bore the well- known Godzilla (1. House of Wax (1. 95. D film to draw audiences, while The Tingler used electric seat buzzers in 1. Filmmakers continued to merge elements of science fiction and horror over the following decades. Considered a . The film conveyed the fears of living in the Atomic Age and the terror of social alienation. During the later 1. UK emerged as a major producer of horror films. The Hammer company focused on the genre for the first time, enjoying huge international success from films involving classic horror characters which were shown in color for the first time. Drawing on Universal's precedent, many films produced were Frankenstein and Dracula remakes, both followed by many sequels. Other British companies contributed to a boom in horror film production in the UK during the 1. Released in May 1. British psychological thriller Peeping Tom (1. Michael Powell was the first . France continued the mad scientist theme, while Italian horror films became internationally notable. American International Pictures (AIP) made a series of Edgar Allan Poe–themed films. Films in the era used the supernatural premise to express the horror of the demonic. The Innocents (1. Henry James novel The Turn of the Screw. Meanwhile, ghosts were a dominant theme in Japanese horror, in such films as Kwaidan, Onibaba (both 1. Kuroneko (1. 96. 8). Rosemary's Baby is a 1. American psychological horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1. Ira Levin. Another influential American horror film of this period was George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1. Produced and directed by Romero on a budget of $1. An Armageddon film about zombies, it began to combine psychological insights with gore. Distancing the era from earlier gothic trends, late 6. Low- budget splatter films from the likes of Herschell Gordon Lewis also gained prominence. The Exorcist (1. 97. Robert Wise's film Audrey Rose (1. Alice, Sweet Alice (1. Catholic- themed horror slasher about a little girl's murder and her sister being the prime suspect. Another popular occult horror movie was The Omen (1. Antichrist. Invincible to human intervention, Demons became villains in many horror films with a postmodern style and a dystopian worldview. Another example is The Sentinel (1. Hell. During the 1. Italian filmmakers Mario Bava, Riccardo Freda, Antonio Margheriti, and Dario Argento developed giallo horror films that became classics and influenced the genre in other countries. Representative films include: Black Sunday, Blood and Black Lace, Castle of Blood, Twitch of the Death Nerve, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red, and Suspiria. Don't Look Now, a 1. British- Italian film directed by Nicolas Roeg, was also notable. Its focus on the psychology of grief was unusually strong for a film featuring a supernatural horror plot. Another notable 1. The Wicker Man, a British mystery horror film dealing with the practice of ancient pagan rituals in the modern era. It was written by Anthony Shaffer and directed by Robin Hardy. The ideas of the 1. Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (1. The Last House On The Left (1. Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1. Romero satirized the consumer society in his zombie sequel, Dawn of the Dead (1. Meanwhile, the subgenre of comedy horror re- emerged in the cinema with The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1. 97. 1), Young Frankenstein (1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1. An American Werewolf in London (1. Also in the 1. 97. Stephen King began to be adapted for the screen, beginning with Brian De Palma's adaptation of Carrie (1. King's first published novel, for which the two female leads (Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie) gained Oscar nominations. Next, was his third published novel, The Shining (1. Stanley Kubrick, which was a sleeper at the box office. At first, many critics and viewers had negative feedback towards The Shining. However, the film is now known as one of Hollywood's most classic horror films. This psychological horror film has a variety of themes; . This type of film is an example of how Hollywood's idea of horror started to evolve. Murder and violence were no longer the main themes of horror films. During the 7. 0s and 8. Another classic Hollywood horror film is Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist. Poltergeist is ranked the 2. Chicago Film Critics Association. Both The Shining and Poltergeist involve horror being based on real- estate values. The evil and horror throughout the films come from where the movies are taking place. John Carpenter created Halloween (1. Sean Cunningham made Friday the 1. Wes Craven directed A Nightmare on Elm Street (1. Clive Barker made Hellraiser (1. This subgenre would be mined by dozens of increasingly violent movies throughout the subsequent decades, and Halloween became a successful independent film. Another notable '7. Bob Clark's Black Christmas (1. Sleepaway Camp (1. The boom in slasher films provided enough material for numerous comedic spoofs of the genre including Saturday the 1. Student Bodies (1. National Lampoon's Class Reunion (1. Hysterical (1. 98. Some films explored urban legends such as . A notable example is When a Stranger Calls, a 1. American psychological horror film directed by Fred Walton starring Carol Kane and Charles Durning. Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1. Orca (1. 97. 7) and Up from the Depths (1. Jaws is often credited as being one of the first films to use traditionally B movie elements such as horror and mild gore in a big- budget Hollywood film. In 1. 97. 9, Don Coscarelli's Phantasm was the first of the Phantasm franchise. Alien, a 1. 97. 9 British- American science- fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott was very successful, receiving both critical acclaim and being a box office success. John Carpenter's 1. The Thing was also a mix of horror and sci- fi, but it was neither a box- office nor critical hit, but soon became a cult classic. However, nearly 2. The 1. 98. 0s saw a wave of gory . A significant example is Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies, which were low- budget gorefests but had a very original plotline which was later praised by critics. Vampire horror was also popular in the 1. Fright Night (1. 98. The Lost Boys (1. Near Dark (also 1. In 1. 98. 4, Joe Dante's seminal monster comedy Gremlins became a box office hit with critics and audiences, and inspired a trend of . The slasher films A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 1. Halloween and Child's Play all saw sequels in the 1. Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1. Silence of the Lambs (1. New Nightmare, with In the Mouth of Madness (1. The Dark Half (1. Candyman (1. 99. 2), were part of a mini- movement of self- reflexive or metafictional horror films. Each film touched upon the relationship between fictional horror and real- world horror. Candyman, for example, examined the link between an invented urban legend and the realistic horror of the racism that produced its villain. In the Mouth of Madness took a more literal approach, as its protagonist actually hopped from the real world into a novel created by the madman he was hired to track down. This reflective style became more overt and ironic with the arrival of Scream (1. In Interview with the Vampire (1. The horror movie soon continued its search for new and effective frights. In 1. 98. 5's novel The Vampire Lestat by the author Anne Rice (who penned Interview..'s screenplay and the 1. The 5. 0 best horror movies ever, Feature . To prepare, we've summoned up with the ultimate list of the greatest, scariest and most spine- rippingly horrific horror movies in cinema's long history. Caligari to It Follows, this is a compendium of scary movies to span the ages. Abandon all hope all ye who enter here.. The Devil’s Backbone (2. Director: Guillermo del Toro. Cast: Fernando Tielve, Eduardo Noriega, Federico Luppi, Marisa Paredes. The “male” companion piece to Guillermo del Toro’s later female- centric Pan’s Labyrinth, The Devil’s Backbone is a classic ghost story set in an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War. Like Pan it’s explicitly political, and there’s a clever metaphor at work comparing ghosts to unexploded bombs (an example of which sits ticking in the orphanage’s courtyard). But it’s also less fantastical than its successor: an elegant supernatural yarn that compares favourably to the classic likes of The Innocents and The Haunting. Stream The Devil’s Backbone now with Amazon Video. Kill List (2. 01. Director: Ben Wheatley. Cast: Neil Maskell, Michael Smiley, My. Anna Buring Kill List begins like a fairly straightforward thriller. Two hit men take on an assignment. They have the kill list. They have to kill them. Bish bash bosh. But as you watch, small hints of the film’s true nature slowly appear. An odd symbol is scratched on a bathroom mirror. A doctor offers bizarre, medically dubious advice. The soundtrack broods like a rumbling storm cloud overhead. Ben Wheatley’s masterful grip on slow- building tension – informed by his love of 1. Brit folk- horror – crescendos to an almost unbearable, shocking finale. Wheatley has never been better. Watch Kill List online now with Amazon Prime – 3. The Evil Dead (1. Director: Sam Raimi. Cast: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker“The ultimate experience in gruelling horror” proclaimed the end credits. Some commenters believed the remake wasn’t funny enough, but the laughs in the Evil Dead franchise only really arrive with the splatstick sequel. Here, first time out, what we have is an unrelenting and often genuinely frightening aural and visual assault, with only the occasional easy- to- miss quip to defuse the tension (“We can’t bury Shelly, she’s our friend,” muses a shellshocked Bruce Campbell, surveying a still twitching, dismembered corpse). The miniscule budget and claymation effects only add to the unsettling atmosphere. Stream The Evil Dead now with Amazon Video. Audition (1. 99. 9)Director: Takashi Miike. Cast: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina. The film that broke director Takashi Miike internationally doesn’t initially seem like a horror film at all. We follow a widower’s attempts to get back in the dating game with a younger squeeze, via the rather dodgy and disingenuous audition process to which the title refers. And it’s only when we realise the object of his desire has literally been waiting by the phone for days – apparently in an apartment empty apart from something ominous in a sack – that we begin to realise something is very, very amiss. And then there’s the foot- sawing and the eye- needles. Kiri, kiri, kiri. The Devil Rides Out (1. Director: Terence Fisher. Cast: Christopher Lee, Paul Eddington, Charles Gray, Rosalyn Landor. The Devil Rides Out marked a new direction for Hammer, swapping classic gothic horror/fantasy for a Dennis Wheatley occult potboiler. Richard Matheson’s cracking screenplay streamlines and improves the novel; the pacing and dialogue are sharp; and the performances, particularly from the incomparable Charles Gray and, as always, from Christopher Lee, are top notch. The studio would return to Wheatley with To The Devil A Daughter a couple of years later, but they missed a trick by never bringing back Lee’s Duc de Richleau: the paranormal investigator – who brings hell down on his unsuspecting friends here – featured in 1. His cases could have run and run. Buy The Devil Rides Out now on Amazon. Cat People (1. 94. Director: Jacques Tourneur. Cast: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Tom Conway With Universal knocking out horror films like there was no tomorrow, RKO tasked producer Val Lewton with creating some similar action. The results were not what the studio expected. Far from the monster mash they’d asked for, Cat People – directed by Jacques Tourneur – opted for more psychological chills, and a still surprising concept centred on a woman who’s afraid to consummate her marriage because of her belief that sexual climax will turn her into a panther. Paul Schrader’s '8. FX and erotica, but Tourneur’s more subtle scares are all about stalking and shadows. Stream Cat People now with Amazon Video. Day Of The Dead (1. Director: George A. Romero. Cast: Richard Liberty, Lori Cardille, Sherman Howard. George Romero originally conceived this as . No matter, the doyen of the undead merely served up another chewy allegory for humanity's doom laden with gory moments enhanced by Tom Savini's majesterial make- up designs. Following on from Dawn Of The Dead with the world in the grip of a full- scale zombie infestation, the survivors head south (in practically every sense) to a bunker in a swampy corner of Florida. There, a crazed doctor tries to turn the shufflers . The subtext, again, is clear: the zombies are the least of our problems in a world driven by violence and greed. Stream Day Of The Dead now with Amazon Video. Drag Me To Hell (2. Director: Sam Raimi. Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver. Cue a curse to end all curses: visitations from a demon called the Lamia. While the punishment doesn't seem entirely proportionate, the results offer a wild, raw and wickedly entertaining ride with Sam Raimi at his funhouse best throughout. Justin Long, the loyal hubbie on the other side of Lohman's hellish bubble, takes on the horror staple role of disbelieving agnostic. You'll want to shake him by the end. Stream Drag Me To Hell now with Amazon Video. The Skin I Live In (2. Director: Pedro Almodovar. Cast: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet. Something like a Frankenstein fable, The Skin I Live In is nevertheless fed through Pedro Almodovar’s idiosyncratic filter to become. Based on Thierry Jonquet’s novel Tarantula, it’s the story of a scientist’s illegal human experiments, ostensibly into an artificial skin to be used for burn victims. The upshot is kidnap and sexual reassignment, in a disturbing two hours described by the director as a “horror without screams or scares”. Plenty to keep you awake though. Also significant as the reunion of Almodovar with his frequent former star Antonio Banderas. The pair hadn’t worked together since Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! 2. 1 years earlier. Buy The Skin I Live In now on Amazon. Dracula (1. 95. 8)Director: Terence Fisher. Cast: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough. Directed by the incomparable Terence Fisher, written by Jimmy Sangster, pairing Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (with Lee getting actual lines for the first time), and going all out for colour, glamour, sex and blood, Hammer’s Dracula aligns the elements and distils the formula that powered the studio for the next two decades. Sangster’s bold screenplay at once eviscerates Bram Stoker’s novel and sets the narrative free. With the locations transposed and limited to Romania and half the dramatis personae excised, we’re left with a lean adventure. The Lugosi film is a creaky slow- burn, but Hammer’s is a swashbuckler. Lee, of course, gets to be urbane and darkly seductive, but there’s also genuine savagery to the moments when he gets to bare his teeth. Stream Dracula now with Amazon Video. The Blair Witch Project (1. Director: Eduardo S. It's instructive to see how little Adam Wingard's surprise sequel deviates from the set- up and formula of the original (bunch of kids head into the Black Hills, record the results on the shakiest of shakycams) 1. At the time, it sparked a revolution in the genre. Since then have come dozens of imitators, although even the best of them fall short of replicating Project's disorientating chills. Twigs and bits of foliage have never been so scary. Stream The Blair Witch Project now with Amazon Video. The Babadook (2. 01. Director: Jennifer Kent. Cast: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman. Slightly mis- sold by a trailer that made it look like a standard – though impressive – monster movie, The Babadook’s greatest trick is in not really being about the titular thing at all. Rather, it’s a film about a mentally unravelling mother’s difficult relationship with her young son. Subverting expectations, the film seems to set up Amblin- style hijinks from a resourceful kid, but those elements never come to pass, and his backpack of tricks is ultimately useless. The rules are right there in creepy storybook: you can’t get rid of the Babadook. The eventual solution for its defeat – but not eradication – is something like genius. Stream The Babadook now with Amazon Video. Bride Of Frankenstein (1. Director: James Whale. Cast: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Elsa Lanchester, Ernest Thesiger. James Whale’s sequel to his own original Frankenstein reunites the director with Boris Karloff’s classic monster and with Colin Clive’s hapless scientist: this time tasked with creating a mate for the creature. As before, there’s immense pathos in the monster’s plight – ultimately rejected by his stunning, shock- haired “bride” Elsa Lanchester. But there’s more mischievous wit in the second outing, largely thanks to Ernest Thesiger’s cherishably waspish Doctor Pretorius. Frankenstein (1. 93. Director: James Whale. Cast: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive. Jack Pierce created several iconic make- ups for Universal in the '3. Frankenstein’s Monster of a thousand subsequent parodies. It took Boris Karloff, however, to inhabit the make- up as a tangible character, acting his way out from behind the greasepaint and mortician’s wax to deliver a nuanced portrait of a child- like creature, prone to rage but also capable of great tenderness. You need only compare Karloff’s monster to the later versions attempted by Lon Chaney Jr.
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