Editorials
This Year’s 10 Best Horror Films You Might Have Missed
*Keep up with our ongoing end of the year coverage here*
In terms of box office numbers, 2017 has been a landmark year for horror. Starting off in January, a wasteland for theatrical releases, M. Night Shyamalan’s Split raked in over $100 million in domestic grosses by February. Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out charmed both audiences and critics alike, earning a massive profit and award nominations. Blumhouse further proved their knack for low budget horror with October’s release of Happy Death Day recently passing the $100 million mark worldwide on a $5 million production budget. Annabelle: Creation also made a strong showing in theaters. Yet, none of these films hold a candle to the juggernaut of the R-rated It, shattering records and raking in impressive numbers.
All of this to say that while sales have been declining in the film industry, horror seems to be as strong as ever, keeping the flame burning brightly at the box office. But it’s not just the box office where horror continues to prove its mettle. There’s been a wave of excellent genre films quietly released onto VOD and streaming services throughout the year.
If you’re looking to catch up on great horror from 2017 that you might have missed, these are the ten best that should be watched immediately…
Better Watch Out
Released in limited theaters and VOD on October 6th, before arriving on Blu-ray December 5th, this yuletide terror gives a darkly refreshing twist on the home-invasion sub-genre. For Ashley (The Visit’s Olivia DeJonge), a night of babysitting in the quiet suburbs turns dangerous when intruders break in and terrorize her and Luke (Levi Miller), the twelve-year-old boy she’s babysitting. That’s all you need to know going in. Don’t read anything else about this movie. Trust me. It’s intense, suspenseful, extremely demented, and DeJonge and Miller deliver incredible performances. Better Watch Out will not only become a holiday classic for horror fans, but it will also make you seek out director Chris Peckover’s other work.
Tragedy Girls
After premiering at this year’s SXSW Film Festival in March, co-writer/director Tyler MacIntyre’s comedic spin on the slasher film became a huge crowd favorite during the festival run before slipping into limited release in October. Starring Brianna Hildebrand (The Exorcist TV series, Deadpool) and Alexandra Shipp (X-Men: Apocalypse) as two social media obsessed teens with an ambition to achieve modern horror legend fame, Tragedy Girls brings equal parts biting wit and a delightfully large, violent body count. MacIntyre does a great job playing with the tropes of slashers while taking it in twisted, new directions, making this one destined for cult classic status. A lighthearted horror comedy that succeeds at its goal to entertain makes this a rare gem amidst the current trend of super serious genre films.
The Bar
Without any fanfare, Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia’s latest dropped onto Netflix this September. Unlike his previous film, the fun horror-comedy Witching & Bitching, The Bar is an uncomfortable watch. What begins as a sort of quirky comedy, in which a group of people become trapped inside a Madrid café thanks to a sniper gunning down anyone who dares step outside, becomes a psychological thriller that coils tighter and tighter as it casts an unflinching eye on the darkness of humanity. Not only can the characters be brutal, but there are serious moments of gross squeamishness that I’ll leave for you to discover for yourselves. If you’re a fan of Iglesia’s work, or just want something particularly dark, this one shouldn’t be overlooked.
The Transfiguration
Writer/Director Michael O’Shea’s horror drama reads like a modern telling of George A. Romero’s Martin, in that it revolves around a young man that believes himself to be a vampire. Young Milo is obsessed with vampires, and studies vampire movies religiously. Living in a housing project with no parental figure save for a mostly absent older brother in New York City, the narrative keeps it mostly ambiguous as to whether Milo uses vampirism as escapism or if he really is a member of the blood-sucking undead. Everything changes when he meets Sophie, though, setting Milo on a confrontational collision path with his relationship to vampires. It’s eerily quiet, and dramatically paced. It’s also as uncomfortable as it is heartbreaking. The Transfiguration quietly made its way to Netflix this year.
The Girl with All the Gifts
Based on a novel of the same name by M.R. Carey, this post-apocalyptic zombie film made its way onto digital during the first quarter of 2017, and still remains largely unnoticed. While it doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel, it does a lot of things well; centering the plot around Melanie, one of a group of hybrid zombie children after a fungal outbreak decimated most of the population, and her bond with her human teacher, Helen, gives an emotional core that endears the audience. Sennia Nanua is amazing as Melanie, but Glenn Close as the ice cold scientist Caroline Caldwell isn’t to be missed. If you’re a fan of The Last of Us video games, or just a fan of unique zombie films, this one is for you.
Boys in the Trees
More dark fantasy with horror elements than outright horror, Nicholas Verso’s coming-of-age, ‘90s set tale is a modern Halloween classic deserving of more love. Set on Halloween in 1997, two estranged skater friends take a haunting, surreal journey through their fears, dreams, and their memories as they walk home. Tales of werewolves, evil spirits, and death himself against a super catchy ‘90s soundtrack and the stunning cinematography by Marden Dean makes this worth watching; but it’s the devastating friendship between teens Corey and Jonah that will give you the feels. The best part of all is that Boys in the Trees is hiding in plain sight on Netflix.
Thelma
Joachim Trier’s supernatural thriller, released in limited theaters earlier in November, was Norway’s official submission for the Oscar Foreign Language race, which is every bit indicative of how good the film really is. Sharing similarities with Carrie, the plot sees sheltered Thelma going away from home for the first time for college, only to discover she has strange powers as she falls in love for the first time. Trier asks thought-provoking questions on morality while parceling out the mystery of Thelma’s childhood, all while making you really feel for her struggle with self-discovery. Beautifully shot with a haunting score, Thelma deserves a spot in the Oscar race.
Seoul Station
One of 2016’s surprise hits was the Korean zombie feature Train to Busan, by writer/director Yeon Sang-ho. So perhaps it’s no surprise that one of 2017’s best is the animated prequel by the same director, Seoul Station. Yeon Sang-ho plays with social commentary on Seoul’s homeless population at the train station, which is ground zero for the zombie outbreak. The animated feature follows a runaway, her boyfriend, and her father as they all struggle to reunite amidst the chaos of the outbreak. The director lulls the viewer with well-worn tropes before delivering the emotional gut punch viewers have come to expect with Train to Busan. Who knew one of horror’s best in 2017 would be animated? Yeon Sang-ho, of course. You can catch this one on Shudder.
The Lure
What if the original Hans Christian Andersen version of The Little Mermaid, in its bloody glory, was set in the 1980s in a Polish cabaret? Oh yeah, and it’s a musical. That’s the concept behind Agnieszka Smoczynska’s stunning film featuring mermaid sisters Golden and Silver, who come ashore and wind up getting adopted by a local nightclub band. One seeks love and the other seeks to devour human flesh. Smoczynska’s narrative isn’t always the most coherent, but it’s so visually arresting that it makes up for that. Besides, pointy-toothed flesh eating mermaids who always sing catchy disco songs is a thing you didn’t know you needed to see. But you do. Even Criterion thinks so, as The Lure was released as part of the Criterion Collection in October.
Hounds of Love
Writer/Director Ben Young makes one doozy of a debut feature with his fictional story loosely based on multiple true crimes. Set in the 1980s in Perth, Australia, John and Evelyn White are one demented couple with a penchant of luring then kidnapping teen girls so they can be viciously assaulted and tortured before John disposes of their bodies in the woods. Their latest victim, Vicki, must drive a wedge between the couple if she has any hope to survive. By no means is this an easy watch, as the subject matter is harrowing and intense, but that’s also precisely why it’s a must-see. Young also frames his feature through both women’s perspectives, as both women are polarizing victims of John’s abuse. Stephen Curry is downright frightening as John, but it’s Emma Booth’s portrayal of the broken Evelyn that makes this as gripping as it is. Released in May, and still awaiting a Blu ray release, Hounds of Love delivers the year’s most uncomfortable, breathtaking and nail-biting, yet rewarding watch.
Due to a complex series of anthropological mishaps, the Wayans Brothers are a huge deal in Brazil. Around these parts, White Chicks is considered a national treasure by a lot of people, so it stands to reason that Brazilian audiences would continue to accompany the Wayans’ comedic output long after North America had stopped taking them seriously as comedic titans.
This is the only reason why I originally watched Michael Tiddes and Marlon Wayans’ 2013 horror spoof A Haunted House – appropriately known as “Paranormal Inactivity” in South America – despite having abandoned this kind of movie shortly after the excellent Scary Movie 3. However, to my complete and utter amazement, I found myself mostly enjoying this unhinged parody of Found Footage films almost as much as the iconic spoofs that spear-headed the genre during the 2000s. And with Paramount having recently announced a reboot of the Scary Movie franchise, I think this is the perfect time to revisit the divisive humor of A Haunted House and maybe figure out why this kind of film hasn’t been popular in a long time.
Before we had memes and internet personalities to make fun of movie tropes for free on the internet, parody movies had been entertaining audiences with meta-humor since the very dawn of cinema. And since the genre attracted large audiences without the need for a serious budget, it made sense for studios to encourage parodies of their own productions – which is precisely what happened with Miramax when they commissioned a parody of the Scream franchise, the original Scary Movie.
The unprecedented success of the spoof (especially overseas) led to a series of sequels, spin-offs and rip-offs that came along throughout the 2000s. While some of these were still quite funny (I have a soft spot for 2008’s Superhero Movie), they ended up flooding the market much like the Guitar Hero games that plagued video game stores during that same timeframe.
You could really confuse someone by editing this scene into Paranormal Activity.
Of course, that didn’t stop Tiddes and Marlon Wayans from wanting to make another spoof meant to lampoon a sub-genre that had been mostly overlooked by the Scary Movie series – namely the second wave of Found Footage films inspired by Paranormal Activity. Wayans actually had an easier time than usual funding the picture due to the project’s Found Footage presentation, with the format allowing for a lower budget without compromising box office appeal.
In the finished film, we’re presented with supposedly real footage recovered from the home of Malcom Johnson (Wayans). The recordings themselves depict a series of unexplainable events that begin to plague his home when Kisha Davis (Essence Atkins) decides to move in, with the couple slowly realizing that the difficulties of a shared life are no match for demonic shenanigans.
In practice, this means that viewers are subjected to a series of familiar scares subverted by wacky hijinks, with the flick featuring everything from a humorous recreation of the iconic fan-camera from Paranormal Activity 3 to bizarre dance numbers replacing Katy’s late-night trances from Oren Peli’s original movie.
Your enjoyment of these antics will obviously depend on how accepting you are of Wayans’ patented brand of crass comedy. From advanced potty humor to some exaggerated racial commentary – including a clever moment where Malcom actually attempts to move out of the titular haunted house because he’s not white enough to deal with the haunting – it’s not all that surprising that the flick wound up with a 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite making a killing at the box office.
However, while this isn’t my preferred kind of humor, I think the inherent limitations of Found Footage ended up curtailing the usual excesses present in this kind of parody, with the filmmakers being forced to focus on character-based comedy and a smaller scale story. This is why I mostly appreciate the love-hate rapport between Kisha and Malcom even if it wouldn’t translate to a healthy relationship in real life.
Of course, the jokes themselves can also be pretty entertaining on their own, with cartoony gags like the ghost getting high with the protagonists (complete with smoke-filled invisible lungs) and a series of silly The Exorcist homages towards the end of the movie. The major issue here is that these legitimately funny and genre-specific jokes are often accompanied by repetitive attempts at low-brow humor that you could find in any other cheap comedy.
Not a good idea.
Not only are some of these painfully drawn out “jokes” incredibly unfunny, but they can also be remarkably offensive in some cases. There are some pretty insensitive allusions to sexual assault here, as well as a collection of secondary characters defined by negative racial stereotypes (even though I chuckled heartily when the Latina maid was revealed to have been faking her poor English the entire time).
Cinephiles often claim that increasingly sloppy writing led to audiences giving up on spoof movies, but the fact is that many of the more beloved examples of the genre contain some of the same issues as later films like A Haunted House – it’s just that we as an audience have (mostly) grown up and are now demanding more from our comedy. However, this isn’t the case everywhere, as – much like the Elves from Lord of the Rings – spoof movies never really died, they simply diminished.
A Haunted House made so much money that they immediately started working on a second one that released the following year (to even worse reviews), and the same team would later collaborate once again on yet another spoof, 50 Shades of Black. This kind of film clearly still exists and still makes a lot of money (especially here in Brazil), they just don’t have the same cultural impact that they used to in a pre-social-media-humor world.
At the end of the day, A Haunted House is no comedic masterpiece, failing to live up to the laugh-out-loud thrills of films like Scary Movie 3, but it’s also not the trainwreck that most critics made it out to be back in 2013. Comedy is extremely subjective, and while the raunchy humor behind this flick definitely isn’t for everyone, I still think that this satirical romp is mostly harmless fun that might entertain Found Footage fans that don’t take themselves too seriously.
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