| Title |
Year |
Rating |
Rank |
Review |
| American Psycho | 2000 | 100 | 1 | (full review) - It is wild, brilliant work that marked a talent preparing for big things. |
| Exorcist, The | 1973 | 100 | 1 | (full review) - For evocative, nerve jangling, demonic horror, you will not find better than The Exorcist. |
| A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night | 2014 | 95 | 3 | (full review) - I promise the image of a vampire on a skateboard will stay with you. |
| A Tale of Two Sisters | 2003 | 95 | 3 | (full review) - A Tale of Two Sisters is saturated with bold colors and family troubles. |
| Audition | 2000 | 95 | 3 | (full review) - Nearly unwatchable and yet too compelling to turn away from, Audition is a remarkable piece of genre filmmaking. |
| Calvaire | 2004 | 95 | 3 | (full review) - His film is a profoundly uncomfortable, deeply disturbing, unsettlingly humorous freakshow that must be seen to be believed. |
| Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer | 1986 | 95 | 3 | (full review) - It’s a uniquely awful, absolutely compelling piece of filmmaking. |
| Hereditary | 2018 | 95 | 3 | (full review) - Aster takes advantage of a remarkably committed cast to explore family dysfunction of the most insidious type. |
| Midsommar | 2019 | 95 | 3 | (full review) - Midsommar is a bold vision and wholly unnerving experience (emphasis on experience) |
| Night of the Living Dead | 1968 | 95 | 3 | (full review) - As the first film of its kind, the lasting impact of this picture on horror cinema is hard to overstate. |
| Nosferatu | 2024 | 95 | 3 | (full review) - It makes you grateful that Eggers was not intrigued by Stoker’s elegant aristocrat and his tortured love story, but drawn instead to the repulsive carnality of Nosferatu. |
| Nosferatu (1922) | 1922 | 95 | 3 | (full review) - Best vampire ever. |
| 28 Days Later | 2002 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - The vision, the writing, and the performances all help him transcend genre trappings without abandoning the genre. |
| Cabin in the Woods, The | 2011 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - As smart as Scream, as much fun as Evil Dead, this film is as thoroughly enjoyable a horror flick as anything you’ll find. |
| Candyman | 2021 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - It is a film that honors its roots but lives so vibrantly in the now that it makes you view the 1992 original from an urgent new angle. |
| Dawn of the Dead | 2004 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - His feature is gripping, breathlessly paced, well developed, and genuinely terrifying. |
| Funny Games | 2007 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - The bored sadism that wafts from these kids is seriously unsettling, as, in turn, is each film. |
| Funny Games | 1997 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - His teen thugs’ calm, bemused sadism leaves you both indignant and terrified as they put the family through a series of horrifying games. |
| Get Duked! | 2019 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - What does one homeschooled teen and three high school ne’er do wells in trouble for blowing up a lavatory have in common? Impending doom. |
| Goodnight Mommy | 2015 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - There is something eerily beautiful about Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’s rural Austrian horror Goodnight Mommy (Ich seh, Ich seh). |
| Housebound | 2014 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - You’re nervous, you’re scared, you’re laughing, you’re hiding your face, you’re screaming – sometimes all at once. |
| I Saw The Devil (Akmareul boatda) | 2010 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - You might even notice some really fine acting and nimble storytelling lurking inside this bloodbath. |
| It Follows | 2014 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - The shape shifting entity itself appears in a variety of forms, each a more lurid image direct from some nightmare. |
| Joker | 2019 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - His presence is completely transfixing, always convincing you that he is here to fulfill this legendary character’s destiny. |
| Mad God | 2022 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - It’s like a Bosch painting and a Tool video accusing each other of being too lighthearted. |
| Martyrs | 2008 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - It holds some gruesome imagery, and though the climax may not be pleasing, it certainly doesn’t disappoint. |
| Mist, The (2007) | 2007 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - Regardless, it’s the provocative ending that guarantees this one will sear itself into your memory. |
| One Cut of the Dead | 2017 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - The manic comedy proves as infectious as the zombiism on the screen |
| Open Water | 2003 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - Kentis boasts not just an ear for realistic dialogue and an ability to draw authentic performances. |
| The Beta Test | 2021 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - It’s a deceptively layered performance at the center of a biting piece of social commentary. |
| When Evil Lurks | 2023 | 90 | 13 | (full review) - This is a magnificently written piece of horror, and Rugna’s expansive direction gives it an otherworldly yet dirty, earthy presence. |
| A Quiet Place | 2018 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - A Quiet Place works your nerves like few films can. |
| A Quiet Place: Day One | 2024 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Any time you can watch a film with giant extra-terrestrials bearing ear drums where a face should be and you find yourself fully believing anything, you’re watching a pretty good movie. A Quiet Place: Day One is a pretty good movie. |
| All About Evil | 2010 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - It’s community theater bad, but in the best way. |
| American Mary | 2013 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - The images are bright, crisp and classy and at the same time so very wrong – just like Mary. |
| Attachment | 2022 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Attachment delivers slow-burn horror that repays close attention but never falls to gimmickry. |
| Azrael | 2024 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - There’s nuance and depth for those who invest, but at 85 minutes and boasting almost constant action and bloodshed, Azrael is a solid choice for even those with a limited attention span. |
| Blink Twice | 2024 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - What Kravitz delivers instead is a seductive, tense, satisfying thriller. |
| Bones and All | 2022 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Finding Maren’s way to that epiphany is heartbreaking and bloody but heroic, too. |
| Coming Home in the Dark | 2021 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Coming Home in the Dark offers a spare but unblinking span of gritty, punishing thrills. |
| Conjuring, The | 2013 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Yes, this is an old fashioned ghost story, built from the ground up to push buttons of childhood terror. |
| Cooties | 2014 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - One: It is often laugh out loud funny. Two: It is willing to indulge the subversive fantasy of (possibly all) school teachers. |
| Crimes of the Future | 2022 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Crimes of the Future is so Cronenberg it’s almost meta. |
| Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead | 2014 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Wirkola balances comic timing with action pacing well enough to deliver a thrill a minute gore spattered laugh riot. |
| Don't Breathe | 2016 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Alvarez makes excellent use of what little we know about the characters to keep us anxious. |
| Double Walker | 2021 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - He casts a spell with his feature debut and it’s hard not to wonder what both he and Mix might do next. |
| Evil Dead Rise | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - In fact, he uses disorienting angels and shots throughout the film to beautifully bewildering effect. |
| Falling Stars | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - There’s a levelheaded authenticity, a lived-in superstitious normality that pervades the film and gets under the skin. |
| Final Cut | 2022 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - How charmingly insane is it that the writer/director behind the 2011 surprise Oscar winner The Artist has remade Ueda’s shoestring zombie insanity One Cut of the Dead? |
| Flux Gourmet | 2022 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Strickland wallows in his own very specific preoccupations. But he does so with such panache that it’s tough not to let him convert you. |
| Freaky | 2020 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - It’s a bloody riot, and Vince Vaughn hasn’t been this much fun since Old School. |
| Huesera: The Bone Woman | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - While it toes certain familiar ground – the gaslighting of Rosemary’s Baby, for instance – what sets Huesera apart from other maternal horror is its deliberate untidiness. |
| Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - The pathos in Luis-Seize’s film benefits from both a widespread undercurrent of suicidal thought—both as a parent’s nightmare and a child’s misguided salvation—and an understated theme of neurodivergent love. |
| Immaculate | 2024 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Immaculate digs into the way organized religion constrains, punishes, silences, bullies, vilifies and oppresses women and then unleashes glorious fury. Fearless, cathartic, bloody, beautifully sacrilegious fury. |
| In Fabric | 2019 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Strickland’s audacious anti-consumerism fantasy must be seen to be believed. |
| Infested | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Vanicek makes excellent use of these spaces, and he shows solid instincts for creature FX—when to go practical, when to show little, when to show lots (and lots and lots). But his film succeeds on the lived-in world of these neighbors and friends. |
| Infinity Pool | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Goth proves once again to be a seductive menace and a force to be reckoned with. |
| Inside | 2007 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Holy shit. Inside is not for the squeamish. |
| Invader | 2024 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Invader delivers a spare, nasty, memorable piece of horror in just over an hour. It will stick with you a while longer. |
| It | 2017 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Muschietti’s approach to plumbing your fear has more depth than that and he manages your rising terror expertly. |
| La llorona | 2019 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Bustamante’s film is a slow boil as interested in those who’ve tacitly accepted evil as it is in those who’ve committed it. |
| Little Monsters | 2019 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - But the pace is quick, the bowels are spilling, and I’ve never enjoyed Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off more. |
| Longlegs | 2024 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Perkins shines as bright as ever, too. As always, his shot selection and framing evoke dark poetry. His use of light and shadow, architecture and space is like no one else’s. |
| Lovely, Dark, and Deep | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Sutherland’s film is a bit of a slow burn, but once it hits its stride, she throws an unsettling assortment of hellish visions at you. |
| Mandy | 2018 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Mandy offers a commitment to vision above all. |
| Martyrs Lane | 2021 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Gough’s understated frailty is the unease that haunts the film from its opening, a feeling that blossoms into dread as the tale wears on. |
| Men | 2022 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - If you can make peace with ambiguity, Men is a film you will not likely forget. |
| Mom and Dad | 2017 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - But this may be the most amusing way to spend 90 minutes watching people try to murder their own children. |
| Moon Garden | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - https://maddwolf.com/new-in-theaters/sentimental-journey-home/#sthash.vZDhKVRI.dpbs |
| Mother! | 2017 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - an allegorical descent into hell, meticulously crafted and deftly told |
| Oddity | 2024 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - But there’s no denying Mc Carthy’s talent for creating an atmosphere where anything can happen. |
| Overlord | 2018 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Plus, Nazi zombies, which is never not awesome! |
| Perpetrator | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Perpetrator swims in blood and gore and humor and terror and feminism galore. |
| PG (Psycho Goreman) | 2021 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - How much fun is this movie?! |
| Resurrection | 2022 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - The fact that both Hall and Roth take the story seriously, never play it for laughs, and remain so understated in their performances creates a diabolical atmosphere. You’re as unmoored as Margaret. |
| Saloum | 2021 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - There is no denying the stylistic mastery of Jean Luc Herbulot’s Senegalese horror Saloum. |
| Satanic Hispanics | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - But the collection absolutely boasts some inspired talent having a blast, and when is that ever a bad thing to witness? |
| Scream | 2022 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - It’s a standalone blast. But if you grew up on these movies, this film is like a bloody message of love for you. |
| Sissy | 2022 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Dee works wonders as a woman trying to practice what she preaches, earn from what she practices, and find fulfillment in online followers when friends IRL are less welcoming. |
| Speak No Evil | 2022 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Speak No Evil is a grim trip, but there is no question that it’s well made. |
| Stopmotion | 2024 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - The dual storylines—live action and animation—are both well told, but the real pleasure is in the gruesomely tactile movie Ella is making. |
| Suitable Flesh | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - A game cast and a bit of 80s inspired lunacy ensure a good time is had by all. Plus, that’s a great title. |
| The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - But there’s no denying the power he wrung from the source material. |
| The Attachment Diaries | 2021 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - The Attachment Diaries is a dark, bizarre mystery thriller that flirts with B-movie status in a way that somehow makes the experience richer than it had any real right to be. |
| The Eternal Daughter | 2022 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - But none of it feels gimmicky. Rather, it all creates the space for Hogg to rework facts in order to tell difficult, universal truths. |
| The Innocents | 2021 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - The Innocents is a film that sneaks up on you, rattles you, and sticks around for a while after the credits roll. |
| The Sacrifice Game | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - The film looks fantastic, and though the storyline itself is clearly familiar, Wexler’s script, co-written with Sean Redlitz, feels consistently clever. |
| The Vourdalak | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Beau’s film delivers stagy fun that’s utterly hypnotic, using dance, melodrama, even puppets as well as more traditional genre imagery to spin a bizarre and captivating horror. |
| Things Will Be Different | 2024 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - Thanks to sharp writing, stylish direction and a couple of well-crafted performances, he further separates his time travel fantasy from the scores of others and keeps you guessing until the last, powerful frame. |
| Where the Devil Roams | 2023 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - It’s a gorgeous movie, the filmmakers creating the beautifully seedy atmosphere ideal to the era and setting. |
| You Won't Be Alone | 2022 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - His fractured storytelling suits his purposes of exploring gender identity and the nature of humanity. |
| You'll Never Find Me | 2024 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - The third act doesn’t entirely deliver on the promise made earlier in the film, but Bell and Allen have crafted an unsettling and spooky feast for the senses. |
| Your Monster | 2024 | 85 | 32 | (full review) - But it’s Lindy’s crafty subversion of all those tropes, and her game cast’s spot-on characterizations within this genre mashup, that makes the film—and, in particular, the final scene—so wickedly satisfying. |
| 15 Cameras | 2023 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - There’s nothing groundbreaking about 15 Cameras, but what it does, it does well. |
| 8 Found Dead | 2023 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - 8 Found Dead, the Airbnb etiquette horror from Travis Greene, brings the goods when it comes to villains. |
| A Banquet | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - For all it has going for it, A Banquet answers none of the questions it asks and leaves you wanting. |
| A Wounded Fawn | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - The final image – unblinking, lengthy, horrible and fantastic – cements A Wounded Fawn as an audacious success. |
| Abigail | 2024 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - It’s fun, though. And when it decides to finally get bloody, it may not leave a lasting impression, but it definitely makes a mess. |
| Achoura | 2020 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Children in peril, cool creature design and a monster that still feels new, even though it’s centuries old. |
| Alone with You | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - But the reason it works as well as it does is because Alone with You becomes a cagey allegory. |
| Antebellum | 2020 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - There are stumbles getting to the fireworks, but for sheer heroic tit for tat, Antebellum delivers the goods. |
| Antiviral | 2012 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Visually chilly – all washed out whites with splashes of blood red – and emotionally distant, the world of Antiviral is as antiseptic as a hospital ward. |
| Becky | 2020 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - The film is bloody, angry and, even for its fairly formulaic premise, unpredictable. |
| Beetlejuice Beetlejuice | 2024 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Each set piece is an imaginative, ghoulish delight and O’Hara could be booked with larceny for as many scenes as she steals. |
| Birth/Rebirth | 2023 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - All of it pulls the psychological scabs of exhausted parenting. |
| Blood Relatives | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - The entertaining Blood Relatives delivers a savvy family comedy. |
| Brooklyn 45 | 2023 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Goeghegan delivers some jump scares and some gore, but what his film finds scariest is what lies in a beating human heart. |
| Burial | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - It’s an understated effort more interested in kicking around how toxic hateful leaders can be once they strike a chord with like-minded populations. |
| Candy Land | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Candy Land is a tough film to recommend for a number of reasons, but it’s worthwhile viewing if only because Swab upends every expectation, instead taking us inside a horror grounded in something surprisingly human. |
| Devil's Workshop | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - That demonologist is played by Radha Mitchell, who’s both wonderful and evidence that von Hoffman has something unusual up his sleeve. |
| Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman | 2023 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - There’s a weird charm to it that might particularly delight those who like their scary movies not too scary. |
| Faceless After Dark | 2023 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - But as a showcase for Kanell’s charisma, and an often satisfying reaction to the rampant misogyny in cinema and particularly in fan culture, it’s fun. |
| Get Away | 2024 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - et Away quickly veers into Wicker Man territory by way of Midsommar, director Steffan Haars has already established the darkly humorous vibe that will permeate the film. |
| Good Madam | 2021 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - It’s a savvy, satisfying subversion of history and horror. |
| Happy Death Day | 2017 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Rothe boasts strong comic timing and a gift for physical comedy, a skill that transitions nicely to the demands of being repeatedly victimized by a slasher. |
| Hellbender | 2021 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - These people are the real deal and I look forward to their next effort. |
| Horror Noire | 2021 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Taken as a whole, there’s variety enough in style and substance to promise something for everyone. |
| Humane | 2024 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - An intriguing premise buoyed with darkly comedic performances, plus a brisk 90 minute runtime keep Humane entertaining, but it’s hard not to feel a bit disappointed. |
| It Chapter Two | 2019 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Does Chapter Two improve the finales of the novel and TV version? Most definitely. |
| It's a Wonderful Knife | 2023 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - It’s not as raucous as Kennedy’s Freaky nor as badass as MacIntyre’s Tragedy Girls, but it is a bloody slice of Christmas fun. |
| Leave | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Herron’s atmosphere makes the safe look seedy and the dangerous appear benign, but there is more depth to the tale than that. |
| Legions | 2023 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - At its core, Legions is a fantasy about regaining the respect of your adult children, and because of that, it’s both relatable and touching. |
| Maggie | 2015 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - It’s a small film that explores something relatable and intimate, even if it chooses an unusual setting to do it. |
| Malum | 2023 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Equal parts Assault on Precinct 13 and The Shining by way of Charles Manson, Anthony DiBlasi’s Malum is a quick, mean, mad look into the abyss. |
| Mandrake | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - The two performers play on their opposing look and vibe not to illustrate differences but to unveil sympathies. |
| Master | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - While her story tells of a history of racism that’s clearly alive and well, the filmmaker’s comment on institutional and historical contempt for women is more sly but ever-present. |
| Moloch | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Close attention to detail allows a rich understanding of the story Moloch tells. Whether you devote that kind of attention to the film or not, Moloch gets its point across. |
| Mother, May I? | 2023 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Writer/director Laurence Bannicelli’s thriller feels like a premise born of either a therapy session or a bad relationship – or, more likely, a bad relationship born of group counseling. |
| Nanny | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - But, even for its diabolical sirens and eight-legged tricksters, it’s Nanny’s naked honesty that makes it so scary. |
| Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever | 2023 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - If you loved the original (or ‘97s solid remake with Ewan McGregor), Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever delivers bittersweet closure. But it’s an entertaining if not fantastic watch for thriller fans new to the franchise as well. |
| Orphan: First Kill | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Orphan: First Kill goes in unexpected places, many of them an absolute hoot. |
| Out Come the Wolves | 2024 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Though small cast plus limited location generally equals low budget, Out Come the Wolves boasts impressive production values. |
| Pandemonium | 2023 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Quarxx is bound to hit on at least one tale that will appeal to every horror fan. It’s not a seamless approach, but it’s never less than compelling. |
| Satan's Slaves 2: Communion | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Yes, the ideas and even some images are pulled from other films, but the final concoction is utterly Anwar. |
| Slash/Back | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Innuksuk has a lot of fun reconsidering John Carpenter’s The Thing – the tale of an invasive species and the terrifying havoc it can wreak – from the perspective of four indigenous teens. |
| Smile | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Smile an easily recognizable marriage of It Follows and The Ring. |
| Sting | 2024 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Here he channels affection for a wide range of creature features (he really loves Alien) but still manages to create something decidedly his own. |
| Take Back the Night | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Fitzpatrick delivers something raw and believable, anchoring the fable with realism. |
| The Advent Calendar | 2021 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - It’s a clever sleight of hand, Ridremont taking advantage of our familiarity with his subgenre when he needs to, while still leaving behind the tangy taste of mystery. |
| The Black Phone | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - He’s about eight different kinds of creepy, every one of them aided immeasurably by its variation on that mask. |
| The Blazing World | 2021 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Creepy twin stuff, Udo Kier, alternate realities—yes, The Blazing World. I am in. |
| The Damned | 2025 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Desperate, wintery isolation fosters paranoia, and soon it’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t, but everything seems supernaturally sinister. |
| The Devil's Bath | 2024 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - The Devil’s Bath opens provocatively, leaving you with a question. The ensuing two hours pointedly answers that question, and then asks: Are you sure you would do it differently? |
| The Harbinger | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - What he sees is the way lockdown, hivemind, misinformation and isolation made people forget who they were. |
| The Seeding | 2024 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Clay reexamines an existential nightmare addressed many times (I’m Not Scared, John and the Hole) and turns to a mixed bag of horror tropes to limit its impact. |
| Unhuman | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - There’s real cynicism lying under the viscera, although the surface-level laughs and shocks help Unhuman masquerade as simple bloody levity. |
| V/H/S/99 | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - A new crop of filmmakers seems to channel their own childhoods for five short films capturing the era. |
| What Josiah Saw | 2021 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Just when you think you know where director Vincent Grashaw’s Southern Gothic What Josiah Saw is going, you meet Eli. |
| When I Consume You | 2021 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - This mostly works, creating a film that echoes with haunting attempts to break a cycle. |
| Who Invited Them | 2022 | 80 | 94 | (full review) - Who Invited Them isn’t flawless, but it is an anxious bit of fun. |
| Abandoned | 2022 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - Sadly, Abandoned quickly reestablishes itself as the predictably middling supernatural thriller you knew it was from its opening minutes. |
| Alien | 1979 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - Gracey distracts from formula with a CGI primate, although he might have been just as successful relying on his own impressive instincts for staging a musical number. |
| Army of the Dead | 2021 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - It still delivers the goods here and there, but it won’t stick with you. |
| Birdeater | 2024 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - Like Ted Kotcheff’s unhinged 1971 Outback classic, Birdeater seeks to upset you as it digs into Australian ideas of masculinity. |
| Bloody Hell | 2020 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - It’s mean funny, sometimes tone-deaf mean and not so funny, but the often joyously dark humor almost makes up for that. |
| Color Out of Space | 2020 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - Lovecraft fans, though, have reason to be excited. |
| Destroy All Neighbors | 2024 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - It’s definitely not a great horror movie. But it’s a light, weird, gentle reminder that you may be all that’s holding you back. (And also, loud neighbors kind of suck.) |
| Frankie Freako | 2024 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - Writer/director Steven Kostanski simultaneously mocks and embraces the inanity of each of those movies and delivers a spirited bit of comedy fun. |
| Ganymede | 2024 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - The filmmakers, working from Holt’s script, juggle societal pressure, family trauma and damaging fundamentalist beliefs with a genuine tenderness for adolescence. |
| Hocus Pocus 2 | 2022 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - But mainly it offers campy, scrappy, bland but amiable fun. |
| John Dies At The End | 2013 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - “You don’t choose the soy sauce. The soy sauce chooses you.†|
| MaXXXine | 2024 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - On its own, the film fits nicely into the role of a competent urban thriller. But when cast as the final piece of a potentially iconic horror trilogy, MaXXXine ends up limping to the finish. |
| Mind Body Spirit | 2023 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - Bartholomew shoulders what is at least 75% one-person-show and does it with enough tenderness that Mind Body Spirit never loses your attention. |
| Saw X | 2023 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - It’s not the reawakening it may want to be, but for fans of the franchise, it’s finally an installment worth watching. |
| Scare Package II: Rad Chad’s Revenge | 2022 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - Being in on the joke, as always, makes the gag more satisfying. But that’s the basic premise of every story told in this collection. |
| Street Trash | 2024 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - This gooey mess may just be the healing balm we need right now. |
| The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It | 2021 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It takes on the legal system but unfortunately abides by the law of diminishing returns. |
| The Man in the White Van | 2024 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - Interestingly, there’s something about this particular falseness and the sloppiness in the script that actually reflects Seventies horror, which is kind of fun—sort of the The Town that Dreaded Sundown era, before tropes dug in and determined every story beat. |
| The Scary of Sixty-First | 2021 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - The Scary of Sixty-First will not land with most audiences. But it’s a wild vision and I’m not sorry I caught it. |
| The Seed | 2021 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - Walker wades into dark comedy/satire territory for the first two acts, then abandons it entirely for a dusty, predictable, humorless finale. |
| Werewolves | 2024 | 75 | 151 | (full review) - And if you got full moon fever as soon as you heard “Grillo’s in a werewolf action flick,” Werewolves won’t disappoint. |
| Crimson Peak | 2015 | 70 | 172 | (full review) - Gorgeous period pieces drip with symbolism and menace, creating an environment ideal for the old fashioned ghost story unspooling. |
| Virus :32 | 2022 | 70 | 172 | (full review) |
| You Are Not My Mother | 2022 | 70 | 172 | (full review) |
| House of Darkness | 2022 | 65 | 175 | (full review) - Worse, the point rings hollow, like a disingenuous, cash-grab reversal of In the Company of Men. |
| Nocebo | 2022 | 65 | 175 | (full review) - It’s not the body horror promised by the catalyst, either. Instead, it’s a muddled if well-performed tale that leans heavily on an idea that needs to die. |
| Ouija: Origin of Evil | 2016 | 65 | 175 | (full review) - He lets the appealing performances and family dynamic do most of the heavy lifting. |
| Revealer | 2022 | 65 | 175 | (full review) - It could have been a really fun short. |
| The Nun II | 2023 | 65 | 175 | (full review) - It’s fine. It’s rated R, so that’s a start, although I’m not certain how it was deemed so problematic as to deserve the “keep the kids away” rating. There are a few creative deaths, almost elegantly macabre. |
| Wyrmwood: Apocalypse | 2022 | 65 | 175 | (full review) - The inspired lunacy of Roache-Turner’s original is gone, replaced with entertaining if forgettable fun. |
| 47 Meters Down | 2017 | 60 | 181 | (full review) - For a mindless, squirmy summer shark fest, though, it’s a fun time-waster. |
| Annabelle: Creation | 2017 | 60 | 181 | (full review) - But there are jumps aplenty and a couple of very freaky images in the third act. |
| Antlers | 2021 | 60 | 181 | (full review) |
| Annabelle | 2014 | 55 | 184 | (full review) - Annabelle never comes close to the near-classic status The Conjuring reached, but it’s a fun seasonal flick. |
| Black Christmas | 2019 | 55 | 184 | (full review) - Takal threads some audacious take downs of bro culture throughout a film with a lot of insight. It’s just not a very good movie. |
| Horns | 2013 | 55 | 184 | (full review) - It’s a fascinating mess. |
| As Above, So Below | 2014 | 50 | 187 | (full review) - Dowdle and crew can’t quite piece together enough quality moments to deliver a memorable chiller. |
| Baghead | 2023 | 50 | 187 | (full review) - The plot—co-written by Christina Pamies, Bryce McGuire and the short film’s writer, Lorcan Reilly—becomes needlessly complicated. Worse, Corredor undermines the excellent production value of his locations with gimmicky and weak VFX. |
| Night of the Hunted | 2023 | 50 | 187 | (full review) - just another horror movie made by men in which the female lead has no purpose or value until she finds her maternal instinct |
| Oculus | 2014 | 50 | 187 | (full review) - Flanagan has some real skill weaving the rational world with one full of madness |
| Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones | 2014 | 50 | 187 | (full review) - Slow in spots and hardly groundbreaking, The Marked Ones still manages to entertain and startle. |
| Terrifier 3 | 2024 | 50 | 187 | (full review) - If you dug the previous Art the Clown films, you will find endless entertainment in the newest. You’ll also find mediocre acting and dumb plotting but really excellent practical effects. |
| The First Omen | 2024 | 50 | 187 | (full review) - And yet, for all the Omen specificity Stevenson sews into her antichrist apocalypse tapestry, the movie still feels for all the world like a neutered Immaculate. |
| The Watchers | 2024 | 50 | 187 | (full review) - But it doesn’t hold up to the great Irish horror that came before it. |
| The Wrath of Becky | 2023 | 50 | 187 | (full review) - In fact, every character makes a series of choices that defy the very storyline the film itself is trying to establish. Once or twice is forgivable, but eventually this lapse in internal logic becomes a real burden. |
| Trap | 2024 | 50 | 187 | (full review) - Trap is a miss. It’s not his worst, just middle of the pack, but a disappointment nonetheless. |
| Dark Phoenix | 2019 | 45 | 197 | (full review) - Okay, some of the mutant vs. alien throwdown on a moving train has zip, but it’s too little, too late. |
| Dead & Beautiful | 2021 | 45 | 197 | (full review) - Verbeek lenses a gorgeous late-night cityscape — never sinister, never forbidding, just pretty and mainly empty. Like his film. |
| Haunted Mansion | 2023 | 45 | 197 | (full review) - If Justin Simien can’t do it and the Muppets can’t do it, it’s probably time to give up. |
| Jurassic World | 2015 | 45 | 197 | (full review) - It’s basically The Lost World with more volcano and less Vince Vaughn. |
| Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension | 2015 | 45 | 197 | (full review) - Let’s hope this really is their final effort. |
| A Cure for Wellness | 2017 | 40 | 202 | (full review) - A Cure for Wellness slides images at you, but it never lays out any cohesive narrative to bring them together. |
| Escape Room | 2019 | 40 | 202 | (full review) - The film’s predictable climax and disappointing waning moments are bound to leave you feeling that this movie could have been better. |
| JeruZalem | 2016 | 40 | 202 | (full review) - It’s just a waste of a great idea. |
| Spiral: From the Book of Saw | 2021 | 40 | 202 | (full review) - And it isn’t clever, it isn’t fun, it isn’t gory, it isn’t scary. |
| Brahms: The Boy II | 2020 | 35 | 206 | (full review) - Who would have guessed that director William Brent Bell could drive his lackluster 2016 scary doll flick The Boy to a sequel? |
| Cabin Fever | 2016 | 35 | 206 | (full review) - Cabin Fever is an adequate remake of a perfectly serviceable horror film, but there’s something to be said about beating a dead horse here. |
| Dracula Untold | 2014 | 35 | 206 | (full review) - For anyone interested in a lucid film, first time screenwriters Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless leave you with more questions than answers. |
| Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey | 2023 | 35 | 206 | (full review) - Whatever the film’s many – almost countless – flaws, Frake-Waterfield deserves tremendous credit for seeing an opportunity and seizing it. |
| Devil's Due | 2014 | 25 | 210 | (full review) - https://maddwolf.com/new-in-theaters/werent-we-due-a-little-something/#sthash.8Mlz1tEc.dpbs |
| Mufasa: The Lion King | 2024 | 5 | 211 | (full review) - The CG animation is mainly very impressive and there are camera movements and choices that feel like new ideas in an old tradition. But tradition wins out, not just in the look but in the storytelling. ( |
| She Will | 2022 | 5 | 211 | (full review) - She seamlessly blends styles and ideas into a singular vision – no minor feat for a first-time director. |
| The Strangers: Chapter 1 | 2024 | 5 | 211 | (full review) - So, if you have not seen the 2008 treasure that grounds this franchise, then Harlin’s Chapter 1 is sure to please. It’s an extremely conventional, competent horror movie. As if that’s enough. |
| V/H/S/85 | 2023 | 5 | 211 | (full review) - This is the strongest set of shorts in a V/H/S installment in a while. It’s fun, gory, creepy and bite sized – ideal for the season. |
