WORDS JORDAN FARLEY, MATT GLASBY, JAMIE GRAHAM, KEVIN HARLEY, SIMON KINNEAR, LEILA LATIF, MATTHEW LEYLAND, JAMES MOTTRAM, RAFA SALES ROSS, KIM TAYLOR-FOSTER
THE HORROR GENRE IS KILLING IT AT THE BOX OFFICE AND PENETRATING MORE EYEBALLS THAN EVER BEFORE THANKS TO THE RISE OF STREAMING PLATFORMS. THE GENRE THAT DEALS IN DEATH IS, YOU MIGHT SAY, IN THE RUDEST HEALTH OF ITS LIFE. DON'T BELIEVE US? THEN CHECK OUT THIS LIST OF...
For numbers 51-100, see pages 62-63.
50
RELIC 2020
Dementia haunts Australian writer/ director Natalie Erika James’ affecting debut, robbing a poor matriarch (Robyn Nevin) of her memories, as her daughter (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter (Bella Heathcote) try to intervene. Taking cues from The Shining, James gives the family home a malevolent character of its own, the walls creaking and choked with mould.
BEST BIT Heathcote gets trapped in a labyrinth without end.
49
THE OTHERS 2001
Before Nicole Kidman played Grace in Lars von Trier’s seminal Dogville, she played Grace in Alejandro Amenábar’s skin-tingling suspenser about a mother living with two photosensitive children on a haunted Victorian estate. Weaving themes of religion, subservience and disability, The Others is aptly described by its director as a ‘story about human ghosts… and that can be even scarier.’
BEST BIT Grace finds the Book of the Dead…
48
STARRY EYES 2014
‘Mulholland Drive meets Rosemary’s Baby, with gnarly body horror’ might have been the pitch for a film that tracks struggling actress Sarah (Alex Essoe) as she sells body and soul to land a role, then falls apart – mentally and physically. ‘I was ravenous to be a part of it,’ said Essoe, which is all rather meta. Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer landed studio horror Pet Sematary off this low-budget stunner. BEST BIT Vomiting maggots.
43
THE LIGHTHOUSE 2019
‘Nothing good happens when two men are trapped in a giant phallus,’ quipped director and co-writer Robert Eggers. His film is clear evidence to the contrary. Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson star as a pair of 19th-century ‘wickies’ driven insane by isolation, their full-bore commitment a perfect match for Eggers’ exquisitely ornate dialogue.
BEST BIT ‘Hark Triton, hark!’ Thomas Wake blows up over an indifferent review of his lobster.
42
THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL 2009
‘I wanted it to feel like this is something that could have really happened,’ said writer/director Ti West of his babysitterin-peril flick. Against her better instincts, cash-strapped teen Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) agrees to spend the night looking after a spooky old lady called Mother, the slow-burn set-up building to a gratifyingly gonzo climax.
BEST BIT Samantha meets Mot
