JANUARY 7 — I’ve never done this before, but sometimes it’s good to welcome the new year with something totally unexpected, especially when 2016 turned out to be a truly stellar year for horror films in particular, and genre films in general.
So here I am, writing my first-ever favourite horror films list, mostly because in previous years it was a challenge to even draw up a Top 5 list when it came to horror or genre films, but not this year.
In addition to the 10 (plus 1) films that made my list, there’s another five excellent ones that I only had room to put in as Honorable Mentions, and since I’ve already put in The Greasy Strangler and The Shallows in my favourite films of 2016 list, it wouldn’t be fair for me to again put them here.
Even with all that, I still didn’t have enough room to fit in some mainstream horror flicks I liked such as Lights Out, The Purge: Election Year and The Conjuring 2.
So yes, it’s been a pretty sweet year for horror fans and if horror’s your game and you haven’t checked out some of the films here, then you’re in for a real treat!
Baskin
Hands down the best horror film of 2016, this Turkish surprise from debuting writer-director Can Evrenol is the kind of exciting and must-see horror film that comes only once in a while.
And what I mean by once in a while is Clive Barker’s Nightbreed and Hellraiser kind of once in a while.
A seemingly simple plot in which a group of cops answer a call for backup, only to find themselves dealing with forces that leave them way out of their depth, Evrenol’s debut has got it all — a tricky narrative, some truly virtuoso and visionary depictions of nightmarish hell, blood and gore galore, and that rare ability to stay inside your mind long after the film’s finished. Wow.
Don’t Breathe
If Baskin is a virtuoso display of outlandish and nightmarish imagination, then Fede Alverez’s second film Don’t Breathe is its flipside — a humble yet virtuoso display of outrageous skill and craftsmanship in terrorising its audience without needing to have a single ghost or supernatural being in sight.
A sort of reverse home invasion thriller in which the home invaders are the ones that are being terrorized, Alverez mercilessly stages one breathtakingly suspenseful set-piece after another here, leaving the audience gasping for air and almost feeling physically violated by the film.
And I think I can safely say that not many films out there can leave you with that feeling.
Southbound
What’s a year in horror movie-going without an anthology or omnibus horror flick, right? With distinguished recent predecessors like the V/H/S films, The ABCs Of Death films, Trick ‘r Treat and Tales Of Halloween, a newbie like Southbound has a lot to live up to, which it did with real aplomb.
In fact, it might even be that rare omnibus film where every single segment is an unqualified home run, both creatively and in terms sending shivers down your spine, so much so that picking out a favourite (in my case, it has to be the segment with the accident and the ensuing 911 call) can be quite a daunting exercise.
Ouija: Origin Of Evil + Hush
Okay, I’m cheating a bit here, but only because 2016 has turned out to be the year when horror fans finally took notice of and memorised Mike Flanagan’s name.
Outrageously, Flanagan actually had three films released in 2016, one of which, Before I Wake, had some distribution rights problems and only opened in some countries but not yet in the USA.
Most horror fans understandably swore by his Netflix film Hush, a home invasion thriller that’s actually just as good as Don’t Breathe, if not better.
But there’s something about the elegant and earnestly emotional way that Flanagan went about making the Ouija sequel, Ouija: Origin Of Evil, that made me feel that it’s the most perfect nugget out of the three gems that he’s managed to unleash upon us this year.
In my mind, Ouija: Origin Of Evil is everything that The Conjuring 2 should have been, and more, which is really something considering that it’s a sequel to a crappy movie that was based on a board game!
Green Room
After his rich and cerebral take on the revenge thriller with Blue Ruin, director Jeremy Saulnier, now elevated to Cannes-approved status, has decided to just serve us straight up with a lean, mean and no-nonsense siege thriller that will surely have the Hollywood studios come a-calling for his services.
Imagine Assault On Precinct 13 with neo-Nazi skinheads as villains, Green Room is tense, brutal and totally engrossing, with Patrick Stewart stealing the show as the terrifyingly calm leader of that neo-Nazi gang. No multiple layers of meanings necessary here.
The Mind’s Eye
Talking about pure, simple, horrific pleasure, you won’t get anything much purer than the ones served up in up and coming writer-director Joe Begos’ second feature film, The Mind’s Eye.
Hailed by some quarters as the best Scanners sequel we never got, The Mind’s Eye is like a glorious combination of Scanners and Brian De Palma’s outrageously over the top The Fury, which means that this is a film where characters with dangerous psychokinetic abilities duel with each other using only their minds, tearing people to pieces or blowing them up just by willing such things to happen. I don’t know about you, but that’s the kind of thing that just rocks the hell out of my world!
I Am Not A Serial Killer
An adaptation of the first in a series of young adult novels by Dan Wells, I Am Not A Serial Killer is reminiscent of the great Spring in that it is nominally a horror movie for a lot of its running time, yet is still very much one by the time you finish watching it.
How it goes from nominal to actual horror, I’ll leave it for you to discover, but what I can say is that this is an astute, restrained and psychologically fascinating exploration of a teenager’s precarious mental state, a young dude who’s so obsessed with the methods of serial killers that he might just have it in him to actually be one if he isn’t careful.
Max Records (who starred in Where The Wild Things Are when he was a kid) is simply sensational here.
The Wailing
If you want your horror films tidy and simple, with a relatively easy resolution, then The Wailing is quite plainly not the film for you, for Korean writer-director Na Hong-Jin (of The Chaser and The Yellow Sea fame) has crafted a sprawling and epic two and a half hour ride that will challenge not only your patience, but also your perception of the world.
Combining seemingly everything under the horror sun, the film is at once a thriller, a police procedural, a ghost story, a possession film and an exorcism film to make for a beautifully messy and unforgettable whole.
Blair Witch
Ignore what you may have heard about this 2016 reboot, designed to breathe new life into the Blair Witch saga. If Star Wars: The Force Awakens can get away with recycling (maybe even remaking) the plot of Star Wars: A New Hope, why can’t Blair Witch recycle the plot points of The Blair Witch Project?
There’s a reason these things are called reboots, you know? What’s more important is that Blair Witch answers the most important question in horror — is it scary? — with a resounding “yes.”
Personally, I think it’s an even bigger “yes” than the original film. So what if it’s another film about annoying young people with cameras getting lost in the woods? It’s terrifying. And that is all that matters.
Summer Camp
The year’s biggest horror surprise for me was this unheralded little gem from Spain, the debut directing effort of experienced horror producer Alberto Marini (he produced the [REC] films and Sleep Tight among other things), and that experience really shows.
On paper it seems normal enough, sort of like a zombie movie set in the world of summer camp slasher flicks. But having produced his fair share of horror films, Marini must have consciously tried to put a fresh spin on as many things in the film as he could, which he does with delightful ease as he keeps on subtly subverting your expectations at so many turns, not to mention the fresh new twist that he brought to the zombie movie genre here, that you can’t help but feel that you’ve just witnessed something fresh and special.
Honorable mentions: Demon, Under The Shadow, 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Invitation, Sweet Home.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
