10 new horror flicks you'll love to death
Planning a Halloween movie marathon? Check out these recent releases
The horror movie genre has been a bit of a mixed bag this year.
On one hand, fright fans witnessed the release of one of the most thrilling horror films in years.
But on the other hand, viewers got a bunch of sequels — including a goodly number worth watching — as well as some fairly fresh takes on old ideas.
And on yet the other hand — since we are taking horror here and monsters can have as many hands/claws as they want — there was a seemingly never-ending parade of (at best) macabre mediocrity and (more often than not) horribly bad films.
I've combed through a huge number of these flicks and have come up with a list of some of the top horror releases of the year. Try mixing some of these new offerings in with your old favorites (“Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Let the Right One In,” “Zoltan Hound of Dracula,” etc.) during your own scary movie marathons in the days and nights leading up to Halloween.
I limited my picks to ones that are all available to stream/ rent/download, which means some of the more recently released gems won't be found here. Also, the picks are ranked from (very, very) best to, yeah, possibly still worth your time if you don't have any other plans.
1. `Talk to Me'
after the end credits roll.
5. `The Boogeyman'
The film is wonderfully unsettling, slowly building a nightmare scenario that feels both surreal and right around the corner. It's based on a 1973 Stephen King short story of the same name. And when it comes to the wildly varying quality of King adaptations, “Boogeyman” is closer to “It” than “Dreamcatcher.”
It's not, however, recommended late-night viewing for all parties, given that the film might leave you questioning whether you're actually hearing something moving in your bedroom closet as you turn off the light, and rethinking whether you need to check under the bed just one more time.
I actually got a bit of the shivers just from writing that last paragraph, which further underscores the effectiveness of this Rob Savage-directed supernatural horror flick addressing the thing “that comes for your kids when you're not paying attention.”
6. `The Blackening'
I tend to steer clear of the intentionally funny horror-movie lampoons — including most of the “Scary Movie” flicks — preferring instead to get laughs from horror films that aren't trying to be funny. That's why “Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest” is by far my favorite in that franchise.
Yet, this lampoon, specifically skewering how Black people have long been portrayed in horror films, is a definite keeper. The film, which tells of a reunion of friends for a Juneteenth getaway in a cabin the woods, is smart, funny and well-acted and produces more legitimate scares than one typically gets in these types of horror lampoons.