The 2010s were a great decade for horror movies. There were Babadooks and evil nuns, and the rise of the A24 horror movie showed audience that, yes, Toni Collette is a scream queen. There were so many amazing horror films in the 2010s that we know you missed some of the most critical indie horror movies of the decade.
What did the horror genre mean in the 2010s? For these underseen horror movies, it meant watching your own paper, doing what you want without worrying about anyone else. The horror movies here range from classic exploitation films to ghost stories, and there's even a meta take on slashers.
The following films are all daring, grotesque, and truly scary (many of them also star Pat Healy) - which of them are required viewing? Vote up your favorites to have your say.
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Director: Todd Strauss-Schulson
Synopsis: This meta horror-comedy pokes fun at '80s slasher tropes while still finding the heart in the oft-maligned genre. The film follows Max Cartwright and her college chums as they're literally sucked into a screening of the fictional 1986 slasher film Camp Bloodbath, starring her mother. Max has to figure out how to save her friends, escape the film, and come to terms with her mother's death, all in about 90 minutes.
Best Scene: There are so many great scenes to choose from, but for our money, the film's finale, which features some deft machete action set to "Bette Davis Eyes," is one for the ages.
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Director: Jon Watts
Synopsis: As if the world needs another reason to hate clowns, this film features a cursed clown costume that fuses to the wearer.
When Kent McCoy, a dad who just wants to make his son happy on his birthday, puts on an old clown suit he finds in the basement of his house, he discovers he's literally turning into a creepy, child-eating clown. The suit fuses to his body and takes him from mild-mannered real estate agent to a thing of nightmares.
This is a fun movie with a great downer of an ending that's also somehow satisfying; no wonder the MCU tapped the director to direct Spider-Man: Homecoming (another film about a guy who gets stuck in a suit, only to have it change his life for the worse).
Best Scene: When Kent gives into his new clown lifestyle, he decides to fill up on children at his local Chuck E. Cheese. There's nothing quite like watching a child disappear beneath the surface of a ball pit before the tube slides turn red with blood.
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Director: Ben Wheatley
Synopsis: Kill List is Ben Wheatley's mind-bending thriller about a hit man who's put through the wringer during a "routine" assignment. This drama heads into thriller, then horror territory once it becomes clear that a cult is involved and poor, sad-sack hitman Jay is their latest target.
Best Scene: In the film's final moments, Jay is pitted against a cloaked foe and armed with a dagger as he's forced into armed combat with the assailant. The outcome is brutal and includes a soul-destroying revelation.
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Director: Mike Flanagan
Synopsis: This pre-Netflix Mike Flanagan joint is a super creepy crowdfunded film that follows a pregnant woman who's former husband has been declared deceased in absentia. However, on the day she's supposed to sign his death certificate, he shows up covered in blood. Fans of Flanagan's eerie take on family dynamics and loss will eat this up.
Best Scene: There's an extremely unsettling sequence in which a freaky little bug creature drags a man down a set of basement stairs and into a hole in a wall that leads to a mysterious tunnel. It's very weird and genuinely creepy.
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Director: Greg McLean
Synopsis: This film becomes more prescient with each viewing. It sticks the audience in the middle of a white-collar Battle Royale scenario in which office workers are forced to fight to the death for their bosses' amusement. With a script from James Gunn, there's a lot to love about this gory and unapologetic B-movie.
Best Scene: The absolutely brutal fight between Mike, a work-a-day office drone, and his COO, Barry is a stand-out. These two go at it with all manner of office equipment before one man ends up as little more than a blood stain on the floor.
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6Possum
Director: Matthew Holness
Synopsis: Brought to you by one of the twisted minds behind Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Possum is a film bereft of comedy and filled to the stitches with cringeworthy moments that audiences won't soon forget.
This psychological horror film follows a sad-sack puppeteer as he returns home to face something that's been haunting him since childhood. What he finds is both bleak and disturbing.
Best Scene: The film's climax makes a quick jump from psychological horror to nail-biting thriller when the puppeteer finally faces the monster that's been following him since childhood.
As he mourns the untimely loss of his parents, the puppeteer comes face to face with someone from his past who quite literally jumps out of the shadows to continue terrorizing him. The scene ends with one of the most brutal onscreen deaths in recent memory.
A must-see?
