Editorials
Meagan Shares Her Picks For 10 Best Horror Moments of 2017
*Keep up with our ongoing end of the year coverage here*
Horror has had a tremendous year, especially when it comes to box office success. While horror has always been a healthy, profitable genre of film, the massive box office victories from just Get Out and IT alone have really made the general public take notice. It’s not just the mainstream triumphs of horror that’s worth celebrating, but also the simple fact that 2017 ushered in a ridiculous amount of great horror movies. From major theatrical releases to smaller, independent offerings, 2017 has made it extremely difficult to narrow down the best horror films of the year. Instead, let’s look back at horror’s best moments of the year. Warning; there will be some spoilers, but I’ll keep them out of titles and images so you can skip them. From explosive scenes of brutality or overwhelming surprises of fan service, here are horror’s 10 best moments of 2017:
Split – The Final Scene
After a string of not so well received films, M. Night Shyamalan revitalized his career by teaming up with Blumhouse Productions, a production company with an uncanny ability to take a low budget horror film and make massive profits. This also happened to be the case with Split, released in January, a month known as a sort of wasteland for theatrical releases. Casting James McAvoy as lead antagonist Kevin Wendell Crumb, a disturbed man suffering dissociative identity disorder with 23 distinct personalities, was a stroke of genius. McAvoy’s performance was worth the price of admission. But even if you were feeling lukewarm on the film, it was the final scene after the narrative wrapped that landed one of horror’s biggest surprises of the year: Bruce Willis reprising his role as David Dunn from Unbreakable. Shyamalan just unleashed a secret sequel to his hit from 2000, and none of us knew until the final reel. Brilliant.
Get Out – The Police Lights
There are so many great moments in Jordan Peele’s directorial debut that it’s tough to hone in on just one. The imagery, the symbolism, and the amazing cast made for one of the year’s best films. Catherine Keener’s Missy sending Daniel Kaluuya’s Chris to the Sunken Place was a tough contender, as were any of Betty Gabriel’s scenes as the tortured Georgina. Throughout all of them, the audience remained in enraptured silence, a rarity for the theater-going experience these days. It wasn’t until Chris gained the upper hand over his treacherous girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) that hope deflated the moment the police lights started flashing on the quiet road. That is, until Lil Rel Howery’s Rod emerges, along with the reveal that it wasn’t the police but a TSA patrol car. It was the moment the audience erupted in cheers, receiving the most cathartic ending possible for both viewers and Chris. It wasn’t Peele’s original ending, but I’m so glad this was the one he ultimately went with.
Better Watch Out – Home Aloned
Chris Peckover’s demented Christmas set home invasion film never takes the expected route, a sort of rarity in the sub-genre. In fact, there’s a point in the story where the entire set up, in which teen Ashley babysits 12-year old Luke only to find themselves victims of intruders, is completely yanked out from under the viewer. From there, it gets extremely dark and twisted. While Levi Miller and Olivia DeJonge’s performances as Luke and Ashley, respectively, would warrant them award nominations in any other context, it’s the scene in which the film Home Alone becomes a verb. Spoiler: The scene where Luke tries to demonstrate how Kevin McCallister’s booby trap involving a swinging paint can would really work in real life makes for one of the most shocking, memorably violent scenes of the year.
Cult of Chucky – That Exclusive Blu-ray Post Credit Scene
Don Mancini’s latest in the franchise dropped on Netflix in October, which is likely where most people caught up on what happened to Nica after the events of Curse of Chucky. The Netflix version still offered that fun reunion of sorts, bringing Nica, Chucky, Tiffany, and Andy Barclay together in one bold sequel. But watching it on Netflix meant missing out on a lot of great gore. Most importantly, it meant missing out on one of the biggest surprises of fan service of the year. The post credit scene, offered exclusively for home release, brought one more important franchise character back into the mix; Christine Elise’s Kyle from Child’s Play 2.When things seemed dire for Barclay, Kyle brought a thrilling beacon of light. The continuity is fantastic, but even more exciting is the prospect of seeing more of a beloved character I’d never thought I’d see again. Well done, Mancini.
Victor Crowley – Adam Green Pulls a Fast One
In August, a special anniversary screening was held to celebrate the 10th year of director Adam Green’s slasher Hatchet. The swamp-dwelling killer, played by fan favorite Kane Hodder, met his final end in Hatchet III, where Green announced he’d finished with this particular franchise, much to the dismay of a rather fervent fan base. Yet it was George A. Romero that convinced Green that Crowley wasn’t finished. Somehow, Green managed to pull off an incredibly difficult secret to maintain, working on a new sequel in the series. For the lucky fans that thought they were seeing an anniversary showing of the original Hatchet were the first to lay eyes on Victor Crowley, instead, with the cast and crew in attendance. That no one knew or suspected the sequel was in the works made for one of the best, most memorable moments in horror this year.
IT – Rock Fight
There’s so much that made IT such a monstrous hit at the box office. Bill Skarsgard’s take on Pennywise surely inspired a new generation of coulrophobics, and the various ways in which It terrified its child prey was the stuff of nightmares. What really made Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of Stephen King’s beloved novel, though, were the Losers Club and the actors who portrayed them. While Pennywise handled all of the scares, it was the main core of kids that really made you care. So in a film full of standout, chilling scenes, it’s the rock-throwing showdown between Henry Bowers and his bully gang versus the Losers Club. Why? Not only is it ridiculously satisfying to see the group pay Bowers back, but it’s the first time the group becomes whole. It’s not only a major bonding incident, but a crucial practice run for working together to defeat Pennywise.
Annabelle: Creation – Setting up the True Dark Universe
This summer brought a prequel/sequel to less than well-received spinoff of The Conjuring, Annabelle. Luckily, with David F. Sandberg at the helm, this prequel far surpassed its predecessor in terms of quality, story, and scares. Oh, so many scares. As fun and as terrifying as this entry is, it’s the small scene where Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) shows Samuel (Anthony LaPaglia) a photo of her and her fellow nuns at her old convent. Samuel points out a fifth, creepy nun that Sister Charlotte hasn’t seen before. That nun, of course, is the very same one from The Conjuring 2, in a set up for the upcoming spinoff. This small nod is hugely significant, because this is the precise moment where it hits home that The Conjuring universe is the exact Marvel-like equivalent in horror that the Dark Universe was hoping to achieve, starting with The Mummy.
Gerald’s Game – That Cringe-Inducing Scene
Whether you loved or hated the epilogue at the end of Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of the “unfilmable” Stephen King novel, there’s no denying that you’ll ever forget that scene once you see it. There are a number of creepy moments, especially thanks to Carel Struycken’s Moonlight Man. But the scene that steals the entire show is that in which Carla Gugino’s Jesse uses broken glass to cut deep into her wrist, use her own blood to lubricate, and slowly pull her hand free from the handcuffs, skin and all. The slow, excruciating peeling of her skin, in a brutal de-gloving, was enough to cause actual fainting during its premiere at Fantastic Fest, in Austin, TX.
The Devil’s Candy – Jesse Takes Zooey to School
In a year of insane moments of gore and scares, the moment in which Jesse (Ethan Embry) drives his daughter Zooey (Kiara Glasco) to school, bonding over metal the entire way, seems like a rather bland scene. It is, and it isn’t. It doesn’t offer much in the way of anything remotely shocking, but it does manage to achieve something that most films don’t bother with much; character development. The relationship between father and daughter in director Sean Byrne’s highly anticipated follow up to The Loved Ones was so relatable and endearing that it made you completely invested in their plight. Jesse and Zooey bonding over a mutual love of heavy metal was affectious, but more importantly, it made the stakes extremely high.
Raw – Bikini Wax from Hell
Julia Ducournau delivered one powerhouse debut with her coming of age cannibal tale. Part body horror, part cannibal horror, and all parts awkward journey into self-discovery, Justine’s first semester in veterinary school is one I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. After breaking her lifelong vegetarianism in a hazing ritual, Justine’s hunger for meat becomes insatiable. But the most memorable moment in her story comes when her older sister Alexia attempts to give her a bikini wax. When the wax gets stuck on Justine’s skin, Alexia wants to try and cut it off with sharp scissors. Justine’s flight or fight kicks in, literally, knocking Alexia over, causing her to accidentally cut off her own finger in the process. Alexia faints at the sight. Justine does the proper thing by calling an ambulance, but then hunger takes over and poor Alexia is left without a finger to reattach at the hospital. It’s twisted and shocking, and handled with a wry sense of humor that makes this scene one for the ages.
Here’s what we know about Longlegs so far. It’s coming in July of 2024, it’s directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), and it features Maika Monroe (It Follows) as an FBI agent who discovers a personal connection between her and a serial killer who has ties to the occult. We know that the serial killer is going to be played by none other than Nicolas Cage and that the marketing has been nothing short of cryptic excellence up to this point.
At the very least, we can assume NEON’s upcoming film is going to be a dark, horror-fueled hunt for a serial killer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five disturbing serial killers-versus-law-enforcement stories to get us even more jacked up for Longlegs.
MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)
This South Korean film directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is a wild ride. The film features a handful of cops who seem like total goofs investigating a serial killer who brutally murders women who are out and wearing red on rainy evenings. The cops are tired, unorganized, and border on stoner comedy levels of idiocy. The movie at first seems to have a strange level of forgiveness for these characters as they try to pin the murders on a mentally handicapped person at one point, beating him and trying to coerce him into a confession for crimes he didn’t commit. A serious cop from the big city comes down to help with the case and is able to instill order.
But still, the killer evades and provokes not only the police but an entire country as everyone becomes more unstable and paranoid with each grizzly murder and sex crime.
I’ve never seen a film with a stranger tone than Memories of Murder. A movie that deals with such serious issues but has such fallible, seemingly nonserious people at its core. As the film rolls on and more women are murdered, you realize that a lot of these faults come from men who are hopeless and desperate to catch a killer in a country that – much like in another great serial killer story, Citizen X – is doing more harm to their plight than good.
Major spoiler warning: What makes Memories of Murder somehow more haunting is that it’s loosely based on a true story. It is a story where the real-life killer hadn’t been caught at the time of the film’s release. It ends with our main character Detective Park (Song Kang-ho), now a salesman, looking hopelessly at the audience (or judgingly) as the credits roll. Over sixteen years later the killer, Lee Choon Jae, was found using DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence for another murder. Choon Jae even admitted to watching the film during his court case saying, “I just watched it as a movie, I had no feeling or emotion towards the movie.”
In the end, Memories of Murder is a must-see for fans of the subgenre. The film juggles an almost slapstick tone with that of a dark murder mystery and yet, in the end, works like a charm.
CURE (1997)
If you watched 2023’s Hypnotic and thought to yourself, “A killer who hypnotizes his victims to get them to do his bidding is a pretty cool idea. I only wish it were a better movie!” Boy, do I have great news for you.
In Cure (spoilers ahead), a detective (Koji Yakusho) and forensic psychologist (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) team up to find a serial killer who’s brutally marking their victims by cutting a large “X” into their throats and chests. Not just a little “X” mind you but a big, gross, flappy one.
At each crime scene, the murderer is there and is coherent and willing to cooperate. They can remember committing the crimes but can’t remember why. Each of these murders is creepy on a cellular level because we watch the killers act out these crimes with zero emotion. They feel different than your average movie murder. Colder….meaner.
What’s going on here is that a man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is walking around and somehow manipulating people’s minds using the flame of a lighter and a strange conversational cadence to hypnotize them and convince them to murder. The detectives eventually catch him but are unable to understand the scope of what’s happening before it’s too late.
If you thought dealing with a psychopathic murderer was hard, imagine dealing with one who could convince you to go home and murder your wife. Not only is Cure amazingly filmed and edited but it has more horror elements than your average serial killer film.
MANHUNTER (1986)
In the first-ever Hannibal Lecter story brought in front of the cameras, Detective Will Graham (William Petersen) finds his serial killers by stepping into their headspace. This is how he caught Hannibal Lecter (played here by Brian Cox), but not without paying a price. Graham became so obsessed with his cases that he ended up having a mental breakdown.
In Manhunter, Graham not only has to deal with Lecter playing psychological games with him from behind bars but a new serial killer in Francis Dolarhyde (in a legendary performance by Tom Noonan). One who likes to wear pantyhose on his head and murder entire families so that he can feel “seen” and “accepted” in their dead eyes. At one point Lecter even finds a way to gift Graham’s home address to the new killer via personal ads in a newspaper.
Michael Mann (Heat, Thief) directed a film that was far too stylish for its time but that fans and critics both would have loved today in the same way we appreciate movies like Nightcrawler or Drive. From the soundtrack to the visuals to the in-depth psychoanalysis of an insanely disturbed protagonist and the man trying to catch him. We watch Graham completely lose his shit and unravel as he takes us through the psyche of our killer. Which is as fascinating as it is fucked.
Manhunter is a classic case of a serial killer-versus-detective story where each side of the coin is tarnished in their own way when it’s all said and done. As Detective Park put it in Memories of Murder, “What kind of detective sleeps at night?”
INSOMNIA (2002)
Maybe it’s because of the foggy atmosphere. Maybe it’s because it’s the only film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography he didn’t write as well as direct. But for some reason, Insomnia always feels forgotten about whenever we give Nolan his flowers for whatever his latest cinematic achievement is.
Whatever the case, I know it’s no fault of the quality of the film, because Insomnia is a certified serial killer classic that adds several unique layers to the detective/killer dynamic. One way to create an extreme sense of unease with a movie villain is to cast someone you’d never expect in the role, which is exactly what Nolan did by casting the hilarious and sweet Robin Williams as a manipulative child murderer. He capped that off by casting Al Pacino as the embattled detective hunting him down.
This dynamic was fascinating as Williams was creepy and clever in the role. He was subdued in a way that was never boring but believable. On the other side of it, Al Pacino felt as if he’d walked straight off the set of 1995’s Heat and onto this one. A broken and imperfect man trying to stop a far worse one.
Aside from the stellar acting, Insomnia stands out because of its unique setting and plot. Both working against the detective. The investigation is taking place in a part of Alaska where the sun never goes down. This creates a beautiful, nightmare atmosphere where by the end of it, Pacino’s character is like a Freddy Krueger victim in the leadup to their eventual, exhausted death as he runs around town trying to catch a serial killer while dealing with the debilitating effects of insomnia. Meanwhile, he’s under an internal affairs investigation for planting evidence to catch another child killer and accidentally shoots his partner who he just found out is about to testify against him. The kicker here is that the killer knows what happened that fateful day and is using it to blackmail Pacino’s character into letting him get away with his own crimes.
If this is the kind of “what would you do?” intrigue we get with the story from Longlegs? We’ll be in for a treat. Hoo-ah.
FALLEN (1998)
Fallen may not be nearly as obscure as Memories of Murder or Cure. Hell, it boasts an all-star cast of Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini, and Elias Koteas. But when you bring it up around anyone who has seen it, their ears perk up, and the word “underrated” usually follows. And when it comes to the occult tie-ins that Longlegs will allegedly have? Fallen may be the most appropriate film on this entire list.
In the movie, Detective Hobbs (Washington) catches vicious serial killer Edgar Reese (Koteas) who seems to place some sort of curse on him during Hobbs’ victory lap. After Reese is put to death via electric chair, dead bodies start popping up all over town with his M.O., eventually pointing towards Hobbs as the culprit. After all, Reese is dead. As Hobbs investigates he realizes that a fallen angel named Azazel is possessing human body after human body and using them to commit occult murders. It has its eyes fixated on him, his co-workers, and family members; wrecking their lives or flat-out murdering them one by one until the whole world is damned.
Mixing a demonic entity into a detective/serial killer story is fascinating because it puts our detective in the unsettling position of being the one who is hunted. How the hell do you stop a demon who can inhabit anyone they want with a mere touch?!
Fallen is a great mix of detective story and supernatural horror tale. Not only are we treated to Denzel Washington as the lead in a grim noir (complete with narration) as he uncovers this occult storyline, but we’re left with a pretty great “what would you do?” situation in a movie that isn’t afraid to take the story to some dark places. Especially when it comes to the way the film ends. It’s a great horror thriller in the same vein as Frailty but with a little more detective work mixed in.
Look for Longlegs in theaters on July 12, 2024.
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