Editorials
10 Must-See Studio Horror Films of 2016!
Happy Belated New Year everyone! As most of you already know, a new year means a new crop of horror films to look forward to! We went through the calendar year and picked out 10 studio horror films getting a wide release this year* that we are most looking forward to! The original goal was to pick 12 films (one for each month), but unfortunately May and November don’t have a major studio horror release on the schedule yet. So without further ado, here are 10 studio horror films that you can look forward to in 2016!
*These release dates are subject to change. As you may recall, studios are fond of postponing horror films at the last minute. Will we ever see a new Friday the 13th film?
The Boy (STX Entertainment) – January 22nd
STX Entertainment got off to a strong start in 2015 with The Gift (my review), but ended the year with the disappointing Secret in Their Eyes. Let’s hope they have a stronger 2016 (and it looks like they will) with The Boy, the new creepy doll thriller starring The Walking Dead’s Lauren Cohan. January is typically known as the “dump month” so it’s understandable to be cautious of this film, but if the trailer is any indication we could be in for a moody, atmospheric creep-fest that has the potential to be the sleeper hit of the winter.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Screen Gems) – February 5th
Much like January, February is also a popular “dump month” for lesser quality studio horror films. Adapted from the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has been pushed back more than a few times which is usually never a good sign, but the trailer shows that the film has a sense of humor about itself and the zombie setting in 19th century England lends itself to plenty of unique and fun moments. I was fortunate enough to catch a test screening of the film last month, and while I cant delve into specifics, I can say that it is definitely worth seeing in a theater (look for my review in a few weeks!).
The Other Side of the Door (20th Century Fox) – March 11th
Horror has no shortage of creepy ghost children movies, and The Other Side of the Door, starring another alum of The Walking Dead (Sarah Wayne Callies) hopes to earn its place among the more memorable films of that sub-genre. In the film, Maria (Callies) struggles to cope with the loss of her son and performs a ritual to speak to him again. Except when the wise elderly woman explicitly tells her not to open the door during the ritual, she does it anyway. Ghost child mayhem ensues.
Amityville: The Awakening (The Weinstein Company/Dimension Films) – April 15th
Who knows what to think about this one? After being pushed from it’s original January 2015 release, Amityville: The Awakening is receiving a much more confident April release. It doesn’t hurt matters that the film boasts an impressive cast in Bella Thorne (Scream: The Series, The Duff), Cameron Monaghan (Shameless, Gotham) and Academy Award nominee Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight, Single White Female). The trailer is pretty by-the-numbers for a haunted house film, but the cast is the selling point in this case. Also, there arguably hasn’t been a really good Amityville movie ever made (say what you will about the original, but it’s a real snoozer), so the bar is set pretty low for this one.
The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist (Warner Bros./New Line Cinema) – June 10th
Perfect timing! The trailer for The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist was just recently released! James Wan returns to bring us another terrifying chapter in his third successful horror franchise (the first two being Saw and Insidious) and brings Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson back with him. The first Conjuring was a surprise hit back in 2013, so expectations are high for this sequel, which chronicles the Hodgson family (which includes Frances O’ Connor) as they deal with paranormal activity at a council house in the London borough of Enfield. If the trailer is any indication, we are in for plenty of scares this summer!
The Purge 3 (Universal Pictures) – July 1st
The 2014 sequel The Purge: Anarchy was a huge surprise in that it completely blew 2013’s The Purge out of the water in terms of quality and box office. Can The Purge 3 do the same thing? Little is known about the sequel, but sources say the plot revolves around an anti-Purge presidential candidate (Lost’s Elizabeth Mitchell) who becomes a target for assassination when she refuses to go into hiding at the start of the titular event. Let’s hope the franchise continues its trend of increasing returns!
A Man in the Dark (TriStar Pictures) – August 26th
Since Ash Vs. Evil Dead put the kibosh on any possible Ash and Mia meetup in Fede Alvarez’s now defunct Evil Dead 2, he has moved on to something different and hopefully just as good. While not much is known about his new film (starring Evil Dead’s Jane Levy and Goosebumps’ Dylan Minnette), the official synopsis sounds like a doozy:
“Three teens get away with perfectly planned home robberies as they set out for their final, and biggest, heist. But when they break into the home of a reclusive blind man, the tables are turned and they find themselves fighting for survival against a psychopath with secrets of his own.”
Jane Levy in 2013’s Evil Dead remake, directed by Fede Alvarez.
A Cure for Wellness (20th Century Fox) – September 23rd
Gore Verbinski returns to the horror genre with A Cure for Wellness, a supernatural thriller in which Dane DeHaan’s (character goes to rescue his boss from a European wellness spa being run by the nefarious Jason Isaacs (forget Lucious Malfoy, just watch this guy in The Patriot). Verbinski proved he knew how to scare people back in 2002 with The Ring, so here’s hoping he knocks it out of the park again!
The Bye Bye Man (STX Entertainment) – October 14th
STX Entertainment is at it again! Based on the short story The Bridge to Body Island, Stacy Title’s The Bye Bye Man tells the story of three college students in 1990s Wisconsin (including Big Love’s Douglas Smith and Scream Queens’ Lucious Laviscount), move into an off-campus house and come face-to-face with the “Bye Bye Man,” played by none other than the Pale Man (and the Gentleman) himself: Doug Jones! Plot details are being kept under wraps for this one, but needless to say it could be supremely creepy. It sounds like the Slender Man, and if the film is half as terrifying as the tales surrounding that figure then we may be in for a treat! 
The Strangers 2 (Relativity Media) – December 2nd
This one is kind of a cheat, since we really don’t know if this is happening or not. Relativity Media set the December 2nd, 2016 release date, but ever since the company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in July of last year, the future of all their films is called into question (the Kate Beckinsale thriller The Disappointments Room, originally set for release in March, is facing a similar conundrum). There is very little word on the potential of a sequel to the fantastic 2008 original, but we’re far enough out that it could still make its December 2nd date, so we’re including it here just in case.
Which horror movies are you looking forward to this year? Let us know in the comments below or shoot me a Tweet! Be on the lookout next week for my list of independent horror films to look forward to in 2016!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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