A Comprehensive Guide to the Best Horror Movies and Reviews
We all have personal curses and uncomfortable things that we have to live with. In this way, the horror genre functions as a free-form area in movies where we may explore and let our unique, societal, and moral concerns roam and combine into many horrifying forms that audiences can identify with.
Due to the growing demand for low-budget horror films, the genre is expanding both artistically and thematically. This article aims to encompass the best horror movie lists and reviews but also a summary of those that have, in one way or another, stood out from the crowd or marked a turning point in the genre whether it be a slow, eerie atmosphere or an intense, gory action movie.
1. Kill Lust
We are aware that there is a 2005 thriller with Ray Liotta of the same name. However, we believe that “Slow Burn” would be a more fitting title for director Ben Wheatley’s crime psychological thriller than “Kill List,” as the latter’s seemingly straightforward plot fails to fully convey the intense, suspenseful, and unpredictable thrill ride it ultimately becomes.
Kill List goes beyond its homevid/VOD impressions in many ways, and embodies or follows the traditions of three sub-genres:
- a dark and creepy drama set in a kitchen sink;
- a crime drama and character study replete with the sincere banter of a buddy movie; and
- an intense and suspenseful “shoot-em-up” whose ending endures long after the credits have rolled.
2. Martyrs
While some consider Martyrs to be simply torture porn, others consider it to be among the greatest horror movies of the twenty-first century. Of course, if Pascal Laugier’s opportunistic horror movie wasn’t so polarising among audiences, it wouldn’t be recognized as a symbol of New French Extremity, a series of violent, provocative films by French filmmakers from the 21st century.
Martyrs’s greatest accomplishment is not how many clever, graphically violent scenes there are; rather, it is how Laugier and both actresses portray a guilt-ridden, humane tact that compels the audience to empathize with Anna’s acts of assault, mutilation, and literal dehumanization. In this sense, Martyrs wants to emotionally, if not spiritually, exhaust the audience rather than elicit fulfillment or even a rush.
3. The Witch
The Witch by Robert Eggers is most appreciated for its exquisitely created atmosphere, which permeates the whole movie and has a spooky, scary, and unsettling quality. This folktale centers on an exiled Puritan family on the brink of self-destruction, and highlights Eggers’ masterful use of cinematography, score, costume, and production design to create a supernatural horror film with a deeply rooted psychological ambiguity that is only equaled and literalized by its minutely detailed.
In the film, The Witch, a family experiencing emotional breakdown is shown realizing the pointlessness of their religious beliefs in the face of unidentified horrors. Building upon the concept of the dehumanization of movies Eggers uses the historical context—the backdrop of the thriving period of starvation and diseases, as well as the witch hunts—as a microcosm of humanity’s inevitable depravity in the face of spiritual despair.
4. Get Out
Get Out, Jordan Peele’s genre-bending debut film, mixes humor and terror to uncover racism and cultural appropriation beneath post-Obama America in a way that is reminiscent of the spooky allegories to real-life horrors found in It Follows and The Babadook. Peele is more concerned with exposing the hidden prejudices, small aggressions, and ignorance that frequently exist in interracial relationships between Black and White people than in vocalizing his hatred of racism.
Under Peele’s direction, Get Out emerged as one of the most innovative horror movies to become widely popular and it appears that this versatility works best for the movie. The film effortlessly transitions from comedy, best represented by Lil Rel Howery’s portrayal of Chris’s friend Rod, a far-fetched conspiracy theorist TSA agent, to bizarre, twisted art-house scenes reminiscent of “Under the Skin,” featuring Chris plunging into a mesmerizing chasm, and finally, a graphic fight scene akin to artists Adam Winguard and Ti West.
Final Words
The best horror movie lists and reviews can be found in this article, which also provides insights into some of the best movies that have redefined the genre, such as “Get Out” by Jordan Peele, “The Witch,” “Kill List,” and emotionally draining movies like “Martyrs.”
