Editorials
Brad Picks the Best Horror Films of 2019!
*Keep up with our ongoing end of the year coverage here*
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I had to pinch myself to prove I was awake. I feel slightly repetitive in saying this but, god damn, what another amazing year for horror!
It wasn’t always like this, and the constant suffering of us horror fans used to be very real. It used to be a struggle to put together a top ten list, and a trip to the theater would typically yield less than pleasing results. In fact, most of the gems would find their way onto video store shelves thanks to companies like Lionsgate or Dimension Films. However, the last few years have been good to us – really, really good to us. It’s been so fruitful that there’s been heavy discourse as to the different kind of horror that exists. Which subgenre are you supporting? It’s become slightly contentious between the fan that enjoys arthouse horror and ones that want to see ultraviolence and blood splattered across the screen. Truth is, no other genre casts a net as wide as horror and even films like Joker – like it or not – are “horror adjacent”. This shouldn’t be causing a divide, and instead should bring us closer together.
There is so much fucking content out there that we should be celebrating the fact that there’s a little something for everyone. Shit, I counted 30+ movies that I wanted to write about on this list. While they weren’t all “top ten worthy”, I found something in each that I enjoyed. That’s a lot of films in a single year.
And with that, it was incredibly difficult to narrow this list down. While I could shuffle the following in various ways, and could have even made vastly different selections, these are the ten that spoke to me the most.
Honorable Mentions:
Ant Timpson’s Come to Daddy
Independent filmmakers delivered in spades this year and it killed me to leave these off my top ten. Adam Egypt Mortimer announced himself with the hallucinogenic Jacob’s Ladder-esque Daniel Isn’t Real; producer Ant Timpson’s directorial debut Come to Daddy was a surefire crowd-pleaser that’s as shocking as it is funny; Josh Lobo made his mark on the horror scene with his micro I Trapped the Devil, a moody, dark and colorful modern spin on the “Twilight Zone” episode “The Howling Man”; Babadook director Jennifer Kent returned with The Nightingale, a brutal, shocking and heartbreaking revenge tale that I wasn’t and will never be prepared for; and then there was Jordan Downey’s impressive micro-indie The Head Hunter, a gorgeous do-it-yourself period horror covered in grit and grime that features impressive practical monster effects and nonstop tension perpetuated by minimal dialogue and an outstanding performance by Christopher Rygh.
And then there was Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, finally a movie about a man living in an attic done right. A family wanting a taste of the good life get themselves twisted in a web of lies that boil into a shocking and violent finale. While this is easily one of the best films of the year, it felt too horror *adjacent* for inclusion on the following list.
10. Escape Room (d. Adam Robitel; Columbia Pictures)
Adam Robitel directed the first surprise of the year, a thoroughly entertaining thriller that can only be described as Saw meets Final Destination. Cashing in on the popularity of escape rooms, the film boasts stunning set design that offers up both eye candy and scares.
The only major issue I had is the paradoxical conundrum of exposition, though it’s a necessary evil in a film like this.
Escape Room set the stage for the beginning of a franchise and I welcome that with open arms. There are more stories to tell thanks to this new horror film that’s rich in ideas and mythology. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
9. The Perfection (d. Richard Shepard; Miramax/Netflix)
The aptly-titled The Perfection quietly screened under the radar at last year’s Fantastic Fest to a handful of rave reviews. Netflix quickly snatched it up and dropped it on unsuspecting horror fans this past May. Those unaware of its existence were slapped awake by a string of shocking and unexpected sequences that will be talked about for years to come.
The Perfection actually nears horror perfection as it does everything in its power to surprise even the most seasoned viewer – just when you think you’ve got a grasp on the narrative, director Richard Shepard throws another curveball.
Shepard is unrelenting and delivers more than a handful of unapologetic haymakers that all lead up to one final shot that will be burned into your brain for the rest of your life.
8. Bliss (d. Joe Begos; Dark Sky Films)
I saw Bliss a long time ago but it has truly resonated with me. Easily my favorite work of Joe Begos and his motley crew, the film is a fucking gnarly, gross, and extremely ultraviolent trip – it’s maybe even one of the bloodiest vampire movies ever made?
The film is equally gorgeous, carrying a colorful homage to Abel Ferrara’s The Driller Killer and Bill Lustig’s Maniac. And all eyes on Dora Madison‘s captivating performance as a struggling artist, which carries heavy subtext about the pressures of working in today’s Hollywood.
Bliss is straight-up punk rock, the kind of do-it-yourself indie horror goodness that horror fans are continually begging for. I suspect it’s going to become a cult classic. Don’t sleep on this hallucinogenic trip and take some Bliss with all your friends.
7. Lords of Chaos (d. Jonas Åkerlund; Gunpowder & Sky)
Lords of Chaos is the most insane metal story you’ve probably never heard. Jonas Åkerlund’s film tells the true story of a teenager’s quest to launch Norwegian Black Metal in Oslo in the early 1990s that results in a very violent outcome.
Ignoring the lack of authentic accents, Rory Culkin and Emory Cohen put on stellar performances as two remarkably unlikable teenagers who push each other to nasty extremes from church burnings to murder.
There isn’t an ounce of fun in Lords of Chaos, which is nothing short of a bleak and mortifying movie that’s impossibly hard to watch. Ironically, it’s a must-see and one of the most chaotic and disturbing stories I’ve ever watched unfold. While it’s easily one of the best genre movies of the year, it’s also one I hope to never see again.
6. Climax (d. Gaspar Noé; A24)
Gaspar Noe’s Climax plays out like an experimental film that’s essentially a transgressive hallucinatory nightmare.
In the film, a dance troupe is drugged with LSD and have the worst night of their lives. Infused with nonstop energy, Climax digresses from high octane fun to insanity and unadulterated madness. It’s the equivalent to getting the “spins” and trying to keep one foot on the floor, while also talking yourself down from uncontrollable madness.
Climax is anything but a slog with Noe’s single-shot camerawork injecting enormous energy into an already chaotic turn of events, highlighted by stunning cinematography and an energized score by Daft Punk and Aphex Twin. This is one helluva “good” trip.
Up Next: My Top 5 Horror Films of the Year
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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