Editorials
10 Best Horror Films You Might Have Missed in 2018!
*Keep up with our ongoing end of the year coverage here*
Thanks to limited theatrical releases, streaming services, and video on demand, it can be extremely difficult to navigate the overwhelming number of movie selections at our disposal. Especially for the more independent films without much of a marketing budget. Some movies are lucky enough to amass a loud enough word-of-mouth reputation that can’t be ignored, like Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy, while many fall into quiet obscurity after a successful festival run. For those looking for great horror that exists at the edges of the genre or simply slipped under the radar, these 10 releases are 2018’s best.
Cold Hell
Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky, who helmed the underseen but fantastic horror film Anatomy, Cold Hell blends giallo with action in this underseen stunner that arrived quietly on Shudder in March. A serial killer is on the loose in Austria, targeting prostitutes and murdering them in slow, gruesome fashion. When taxi driver Özge (Violetta Schurawlow) inadvertently witnesses one of the murders from her apartment window, she becomes the killer’s next target and the police are of no help. Rich visuals with an emphasis on vivid colors and dark shadows work in conjunction with the sleazy murder mystery that makes Cold Hell a modern giallo, but Özge’s take no prisoners attitude and intense action sequences evokes retro action-brawler fare that makes this one something wholly new and exciting.
Mom and Dad
Nicolas Cage’s performance in Mandy has earned a lot of praise and attention, for good reason. His portrayal of Red isn’t as over the top as reputed, but an authentic exploration of a man caught deep in the throes of grief after witnessing the brutal demise of his soul mate. In other words, it’s much more sedate than what people have come to expect from the actor. If you want over the top Cage, in the best possible way, then you want Mom and Dad. The premise revolves around a mysterious virus that renders parents homicidal toward their own children exclusively, and as infected dad Brent, Cage really lets loose. Selma Blair holds her own against the actor as the mom that’s equally unhinged, and the two are the sole reason to watch this B-movie romp. It’s entertaining and funny, and Cage and Blair really bring the repressed rage of parental frustrations.
Wildling
Co-writer/director Fritz Böhm’s feature debut is a new spin on a coming-of-age horror story that follows Anna, a young teen who spends most of her life sheltered by her overprotective father until tragedy shoves her out into the real world. Anna then has to learn how to exist in society while uncovering dark truths about her childhood and who she really is. Brad Dourif gives another great performance as Anna’s father with a twisted secret, and Liv Tyler is serviceable as the sweet cop that just wants to help. But it’s Bel Powley as Anna that makes Wildling rise above its flaws. This coming of age creature feature isn’t perfect, but it’s engaging and genuine just the same.
The Cured
For those still clamoring for a continuation of 28 Weeks Later, The Cured may be as close as we’ll ever get. As the title indicates, it’s set in a world where the zombie population has been cured, but the once-infection zombies are still discriminated against by both their families and society- neither having forgiven them for the devastation incurred during the outbreak. It leads to heavy tension and social issues that causes the military to intervene. Ellen Page stars as Abbie, a single mother who lost her husband to the zombies but finds herself sheltering one of the cured. Though this focuses far more on the drama and heavy-handed social metaphors, there are moments of startling horror and a third act that submerses fully into genre fare. It’s a rare glimpse beyond the initial outbreak.
Let the Corpses Tan
A caveat; this one is most certainly not for everyone. As with Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s previous films Amer and The Strange Color of Your Body’s Tears, the filmmaking duo are less interested in following a traditional, coherent narrative and more about a sensory onslaught experience steeped in vintage Italian filmmaking pastiche. Whereas their previous films were gialli, Let the Corpses Tan pays respects to the ‘70s Italian spaghetti western. It’s as grotesque as it is beautiful, and it does go to some horrific places. A gang of thieves hideout at a remote village in the desert-like cliffs of the Mediterranean, inhabited by an eccentric artist and her followers, after stealing a truckload of gold. It’s all going well enough until a pair of cops show up, and the entire island erupts into a hallucinatory shootout that endures all night. It’s strange, surreal, and bloody.
Tumbbad
A visually rich allegory for greed, Tumbbad hails from India and really delivers on the horror. A dark, gothic fairy tale, Tumbbad spans generations as it follows Vinayek Rao from childhood well into adulthood and the curse that surrounds his family. Opening with heavy exposition that explains the mythology at the center of the Vinayek family curse, it’s a story of the corruptive power greed can have and just how deep it takes root. Although it plays out much more dark fairy tale, the horror elements are downright terrifying. Early scenes were young Rao discovers his cursed grandma, locked away and demonic, is pure terror.
Possum
This psychological horror film doesn’t offer much in the way of clear-cut answers, but it does provide creeping dread and nightmarish imagery. Sean Harris stars as Philip, a disgraced puppeteer that returns to his childhood home and is forced to confront his childhood traumas. Though Possum prefers ambiguity, it’s crystal clear why Philip’s last paying gig caused him to run home in shame; his puppet, Possum, would terrify anyone let alone an arachnophobic. With an arachnid body and monochromatic human head, Possum elicits some extremely creepy moments. Harris also nails his performance as the socially isolated man descending into madness. This character study will likely be too slow for some, but boy is it creepy.
Thoroughbreds
Anya-Taylor Joy stars as Lily, an upper-class teen that connects with Olivia Cooke’s Amanda in the hope of recruiting her to assist in the murder of her stepfather. A darkly funny story in the vein of Heathers or American Psycho, Lily and Amanda’s burgeoning friendship is fully of surprises, laughs, and even horror. Both have perfected masks that hide their inner darkness, but which one is worse? The emotionally self-destructive girl who hates her mean stepfather, or the disconnected girl with a host of extreme personality disorders that renders her unable to feel emotion? This is for those that like their horror much closer to reality and with biting wit. Anton Yelchin also stars in a supporting role as the town’s resident drug-dealer.
The Clovehitch Killer
Set in a small town nestled in the Bible Belt, teen Tyler begins to suspect his own father might be the infamous Clovehitch Killer responsible for murdering 10 women a decade ago before disappearing. The crimes were so vicious that memory of the Clovehitch Killer never faded from the town’s memory, and Tyler stumbles onto proof that the killer has started anew. Dylon McDermott plays Tyler’s father, a squeaky-clean church-goer and doting family man. But there’s an underpinning of danger there, and the more Tyler begins to dig into the Clovehitch Killer, the creepier dad gets. It’s because of McDermott’s performance that this coming of age story meets terrifying serial killer cat and mouse game is as captivating as it is horrific.
Good Manners
Written and directed by Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas, Good Manners is a horror meets fable story about lonely nurse Clara and the unexpected bond she forms with her wealthy employer Ana. Ana hires Clara to be the nanny for her unborn child, and despite coming from very different backgrounds, the pair form a strong bond that’s forever altered on one fateful night of terror. Playing out in two distinct narrative halves connected by that fateful night, the less you know about Good Manners going in the better. This dark fairy tale is a beautiful and often bloody entry in a beloved sub-genre, and offers many heartfelt and heart wrenching surprises.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
You must be logged in to post a comment.