Historical vampires in the Deep South, neighbourhood disappearances with a supernatural edge, and fairy tales reinvented as feminist body horror – it’s been a hell of a year for horror.
With its ability to unsettle, provoke, and carry more emotional and even political meaning than it is often given credit for, horror is a brilliant genre for all types of film-makers and styles – and there’s something about the feeling of going to the cinema and having the bejesus scared out of you that makes horror audiences more game than any other.
This year has seen some of the most shocking, imaginative and bold horror film-making, and just in time for Halloween, here are my favourites:
Weapons
Writer-director Zach Creggar’s ambitious follow-up to his twisty, terrifying Barbarian is about a cult conspiracy in wholesome small-town America. When an entire classroom of primary school children vanishes into thin air – every child seemingly running from their bedrooms in the middle of the night – their baffled teacher (the great Julia Garner) becomes the subject of a local witch hunt.
The film chops up timelines between various perspectives, with a sleazebag local policeman (Alden Ehrenreich) and a determined, clue-sifting father (Josh Brolin) among them, until eventually the horrible, supernatural truth is revealed.
The film occasionally overexplains itself where more ambiguity might work, but its villain is genuinely terrifying – the over-made-up, red-wigged creepy “auntie” Gladys, who has a few secrets up her sleeve. Bloody, compelling, and with some serious shocks to the system (let’s not talk about those needles or that vegetable peeler), Weapons is one of the creepiest films of the year.
Available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Prime Video and Sky Store
The Ugly Stepsister
In Norwegian director Emilie Blichfeldt’s debut film, she tackles the Cinderella story from a bleak, unpredictable, and feminist angle: ugly stepsister Elvira (Lea Myren) and beautiful, scornful favourite Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss) compete for an erstwhile prince, while their cruel stepmother devises all manner of vicious “beauty” treatments for Elvira to improve her appearance.
Blichfeldt employs some grim body horror to interrogate what women are willing to do to themselves – and each other – to achieve princess-level beauty and get the prince. (Very apposite in the era of weight-loss jabs and invasive aesthetic treatments.) Set in the grim 19th century, when tapeworms were used for extreme dieting, this is a gruesome watch, but a pointed one.
Streaming on Shudder. Available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Prime Video and Sky Store
Together
Is there anything scarier than being trapped in a toxic co-dependent relationship? Real-life married couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco star as an increasingly estranged millennial duo who find – after stumbling upon the ruins of a possible cult massacre outside their new, isolated country home – that they are literally merging together into one. They are physically unable to detach – even when they make love and realise their most sensitive regions have begun to stick together as if with glue.
Together has a simple and fantastically gnarly premise. It’s a body horror, a relationship drama, and weirdly touching even as it excoriates the habits and flaws of long-term partnership. Also, it’s gross.
Available to rent or buy on Apple TV and Prime Video
Sinners
Michael B Jordan stars in a dual role as tough twin 30s gangsters in Ryan Coogler’s smart, poignant horror film that became one of the year’s big box office surprises. Part blues flick, part vampire thriller, it’s set in the historical Deep South, and follows a ragtag group of jazz and blues musicians looking to start up a Black juke joint without running into any trouble from the racist whites around them. But things take a turn when opening night is crashed by a mysterious white folk trio (memorably led by the devilish Jack O’Connell).
Funny, charming, heartbreaking and violent, Sinners is a brilliant exploration of historical racism, the role of Black music as a form of resistance and resilience, and the evils without – and even within – an oppressed group.
Available to rent or buy on Sky Store, Apple TV and Prime Video
Companion
This is a smart and deeply uncomfortable riff on our relationship with tech, AI and sex. Writer-director Drew Hancock takes us on a weekend trip to a friend’s country house with apparently loving couple Josh (Jack Quaid) and Iris (an excellent Sophie Thatcher).
Iris feels like an outsider among her boyfriend’s pals, and through an abrupt outburst of violence, discovers why: she is an outsider. Or more specifically, she is a “companion” robot, essentially a glorified sex doll whose intelligence, voice and other features can be adjusted on her boyfriend’s phone, and who is programmed as unable to lie.
Iris manages to reconfigure her coding and seeks revenge on the humans who have manipulated and used her, providing a clear allegory about abusive relationships, coercive control, and modern misogyny that’s as nasty as anything that goes bump in the night.
Available to rent or buy on Sky Store, Apple TV and Prime Video
V/H/S/ Halloween
The quality of the films in the VHS franchise – a “found-footage” based horror anthology – varies wildly. Some segments and films are unforgettable and even scream-out-loud scary; others near-laughable in their silliness. The latest instalment turns its attention to the theme of Halloween itself. Riffing on the proverbial trick-or-treat tale of the razorblade in the apple, it focuses on endangered kiddies and childhood innocence brutally spoiled. If you’re not into the deeply disturbing, look away now.
Streaming on Shudder
Frankenstein
In Guillermo del Toro’s epic Netflix adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel, he casts heartthrob Jacob Elordi as The Creature and Oscar Isaac as the misguided genius Victor Frankenstein. Offering a beautiful, twisted Gothic canvas of snow-covered fields, castle spires, gnarled forests and corpse-littered laboratories, this is true cinematic horror in the old-school sense, but it has enough modern scares to keep you guessing. Familiar though the story may be, del Toro’s unique aesthetic and passionate – often very sad – depiction of the struggles of being human are powerful indeed.
In select cinemas now. Streaming on Netflix from 7 November
