At this point, it's pretty much an indisputable fact that we're living in a new golden age of horror cinema. 2016 was incredible, 2017 was even better, and 2018 has been a horror show through and through, with exceptional on-screen nightmares to match the real-life tumult and discord dominating the airwaves worldwide. It's no secret that horror thrives during the dark times, offering people a safe outlet to hash out their anxieties and demons on screen, and this year, we saw some of the most vital creative voices in filmmaking turn their attention to the genre, from established industry heavy-hitters to extraordinary first-time directors.
We got witches, zombies, monsters, cults and Nazis. Hell, we even got the return of Michael Myers. And it was good! (More on that later.) There were historical ruminations and internet-age fables, big-budget and independent, cheeky B-movies and unapologetic art films. Regarding themes, it was a major year for family-fueled thrills -- in particular, the horrors of parenting -- and an even bigger year for women's stories. The only bad thing about horror movies in 2018 is that the year has to end eventually. With that moment upon us, I'm looking back at the best of the best in a year that seemingly had a boundless wellspring to give.
Two obvious but necessary statements to get out of the way. 1) Horror is one of the most personal genres out there -- everyone's phobias and reactions are different when such primal matters are on the line, so obviously what works for me may not work for you and vice versa. 2) Ranking movies in inherently silly, but it's just how these things are done darling, so as always, take them with a grain of salt. I've been working on this list for weeks and the rankings have shifted more times than I care to admit. Of course, none of that's the point -- the point is to put a spotlight on the best and scariest horror movies I loved this year.
But first, a few honorable mentions because I had to cap the list at a certain point: Apostle, Satan's Slaves, The Clovehitch Killer, Tumbbad, The Ritual, and that one pool scene from The Strangers: Prey at Night are welcome in my home any time. Then there's The House That Jack Built, which deserves its own category as a film that I respect almost as much as I dislike. Now, without further ado, the best horror movies of 2018.
15. Cam
It's so easy to lose yourself online. Identity theft, cat-fishing, cyber-bullying and all the other dark wonders of the internet age have made online life a slippery realm where fantasy and reality clash in the scariest ways. Director Daniel Goldhaber and screenwriter Isa Mazzei channel all that anxiety into their stylish and effective doppelgänger thriller, Cam. Madeline Brewer throws herself into a career-best performance as Alice, a cam girl who finds her sense of reality slipping after she tries to log on one day to discover she's been replaced by an identical copy of herself. Cam thrives as an existential thriller, but it's even better as a tale of self-empowerment and unerring ambition in a young woman determined to claw her identity back from the online presence that threatens to consume her. Boasting refreshing sex-positivity and denying every opportunity for exploitative indulgence, Cam is a welcome new voice in the horror world that tackles the terrors of here and now, our dismal dystopian reality where online life always threatens to overtake the real thing, and turning those terrors into a colorful, entertaining trip down and back up through the rabbit hole.
14. Possum
This little psychological drama is weird as hell and can go toe-to-toe with any other title as the darkest, bleakest story to hit theaters this year. Possum stars Sean Harris, channeling his gift for playing villains and broken men as Philip, a disgraced children's puppeteer who returns to his hometown to face down the demons of his past -- which take the horrifying form of a spider-like puppet from his childhood he just can't seem to destroy. Not for lack of trying, but the disgusting and unnerving sucker just keeps coming back, with its spindly legs and horrible human head, no matter what Philip does. Possum is slow and tirelessly dreary with rich atmosphere that hangs over the viewer like a toxic cloud, threatening to suffocate you at any moment. Writer-director Matthew Holness steers clear of obvious scares and thrilling set-pieces, opting instead for an oppressive slow burn that feels like a concerto of rising dread. Not a lot happens in Possum, but don't let that make you think it's a boring movie, because Holness knows how to make every image and sound pierce through logic into gut horror. That damn puppet is nightmare fuel in design alone, but in Holness' hands, it's more unnerving than you can imagine, and it's hideous face will haunt you almost as much as Philip by the time the film's over.
13. Anna and the Apocalypse
Zombie movies don't get more delightful than Anna and the Apocalypse, the Christmas high school zombie musical mashup you didn't know you needed in your life, but you definitely do. Director John McPhail does great work walking the line between all the tonal demands of combining so many genres, leaning heavy on laughs and upbeat musical numbers in the first half, before conjuring a surprising amount of emotional heft to bring it all home. But between the snowman suit zombies and candy cane bludgeoning, the biggest joy of Anna and the Apocalypse is the relentlessly catchy soundtrack. I waited over a year to listen to those songs at home after catching Anna at Fantastic Fest last year, and you can bet that they've climbed to the top of my Spotify ranks since the soundtrack finally dropped last month. Anna and the Apocalypse is a heartfelt, humorous zombie comedy that will have you humming along and tapping your toes between the moments of zombie action. And it'll get you in the Christmas spirit too -- what more could you ask?
12. Unsane
Steven Soderbergh went and made a movie on an iPhone, and perhaps it's not totally surprising that it looks better than most of the studio horror movies that boast ten times the budget. It's Soderbergh, after all. The auteur and patron saint of indie cinema tries his hand at horror for the first time with Unsane, and it turns out he's damn good at making your skin crawl, using the intimacy of the iPhone to drop the audience in an inescapable paranoid anxiety attack. The Crown breakout Claire Foy stars as a young woman institutionalized against her will when she starts seeing her former stalker everywhere again. Is it real or all in her head? Soderbergh has some fun with that for a while, but Unsane isn't just a head-trip gimmick, it's a razor-sharp examination of gender and mental healthcare in a capitalist medical system, that also descends into outright nasty, visceral survival horror in the final act. Soderbergh doesn't hold back on the anxiety-fuel, leaning into America's history of institutionalized control over women's bodies and making a ferocious psychological thriller that drags the audience into a spell of madness alongside its characters.
11. Overlord
Oh man, we did Overlord dirty. This non-Cloverfield Bad Robot gem should have been a box office smash, but audiences missed the boat on the explosive Nazi mutant picture, which saddles up the tropes of horror movies and action-packed war epics side-by-side. Julius Avery kicks off his crowd-pleasing popcorn movie with a stunning aerial action sequence that perfectly tees up the horrors of war before dropping his troupe of soldiers into a deliciously pulpy horror show of mutants and the undead in a Nazi laboratory that's every mad scientist's dream. Avery has a killer grasp on merging the genre elements in his film, and it's no surprise that he's already been tapped for his next potential blockbuster (Avery is set to direct Fox's new Flash Gordon movie.) Boasting a great ensemble cast that includes standout performances from Wyatt Russell and John Magaro, not to mention the genre finesse of the folks at Bad Robot, Overlord builds a non-stop thrill ride through multiple genres without ever losing the thread.
10. Halloween
They actually pulled it off. From the folks who brought you [checks notes] Eastbound & Down and Your Highness comes the best Halloween sequel in the franchise's long history (and I say that as someone who unironically adores Halloween: H20.) Teaming with the John Carpenter and the folks at Blumhouse, David Gordon Green and Danny McBride successfully relaunched the iconic horror franchise by wiping out the entire mythology from the existing sequels and going back to basics as a direct followup to the original -- including the oh-so-welcome return of Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode. Oh, and Michael Myers is scary again, praise be. Though I think Halloween struggles with some tonal inconsistency, it's a proud return for the slasher icon, who has perhaps never been more terrifying; depicted here as an absolutely brutal force of violence, murder incarnate, with all the gore Carpenter famously withheld in his 1978 original. Gorgeously shot with a tangible sense of devotion to the style of the original film, Halloween packs in fantastic kill sequences with a thoughtful continuation of Laurie's story oh and an absolute banger of a score from the OG maestro himself. The slasher genre has been dormant for a long time, but Halloween proves there's still life there yet, marking a triumphant return for the godfather of slashers and setting the stage for what could be one of the best runs in the franchise.
9. The Endless
I've written about my love for Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's ingenious little cult horror so much over the last year and a half, it's a shock that I still have so much passion for it. But here we are all these months later, and I still can't get enough of the mythology and mysteries of The Endless. Benson and Moorhead (who wrote, directed, produced, shot, edited and starred in the film) return to the concepts they introduced in their 2012 festival hit Resolution and manage to build an enormous and enchanting world despite their limited means using the power of suggestion and puzzling imagery. It's clear that Benson and Moorhead know every angle in their landscape of Lovecraftian horror, but they only give us glimpses at the whole, letting the audience glean the details through well-placed hints and reveals, creating a delightful puzzle to solve that's more rewarding with each revisit. The Endless has the fantastic combination of wry humor and raw emotion that makes Benson and Moorhead's films so enjoyable to watch, but its superpower is that it just feels so wholly original, with an eerie quality that's almost impossible to put your finger on, surprising set-pieces, and genre-bending concepts. With The Endless, Benson and Moorhead have lowkey created one of the most intriguing franchises out there and, if you need me, I'll just be over here praying that they get to get to explore it even further one day.
8, A Quiet Place
Pretty much every modern blockbuster filmmaker follows some version of a template set by Steven Spielberg in their career, but few manage to capture the seminal filmmaker's sense of wonder, geography and pacing as well as John Krasinski does in his horror hit A Quiet Place. Krasinski didn't play coy with the fact that he was pulling from the Spielberg playbook in his monster thriller/family drama, and he should be proud, because he channels those qualities with confident style. A Quiet Place has one of the catchiest concepts of the year -- a silent post-apocalyptic world invaded by deadly alien creatures who hunt by sound -- and Krasinski does great work milking the inherent thrills for all they're worth with perfectly deployed set-pieces built on the dynamics of a family you can't help but love. In addition to his impressive directing work, Krasinski gives one of the best dramatic performances of his career alongside his real-life wife Emily Blunt, who takes on the meatiest and most demanding role in the film with all the grace and grit we've come to expect from the excellent actress. The film has some massive logic gaps that keep me from full-tilt loving it the way a lot of y'all do, but A Quiet Place easily earns its spot on the list with some of the most expertly-paced, anxiety-inducing sequences of the year and a heartfelt hook into the terror of parenting.
7. Terrified
This aptly titled gem flew under a lot of radars this year, but this one alone is worth the subscription to Shudder (not to mention the other Shudder Exclusive titles on this list). From the from the balls-to-the-wall cold open in the film's very first minutes, Terrified is a relentlessly scary and well-executed paranormal mystery bolstered by some disturbing imagery that will stay seared in your brain when you try to go to sleep at night. Set in a neighborhood where the boundaries of reality are blurring in horrifying fashion, Terrified follows the various chilling encounters experienced by the neighbors there, from a woman who hears voices in her sink to a man who swears there's a monster under his bed. The film has a smart structure, though it's strongest in the anthology-like first half before all the stories bleed into one another, and though the explanation of the film's mythology falls a little short, it's still an unnerving and engrossing piece of paranormal horror. It's no surprise that the film has already been snatched up for an English language remake with Guillermo Del Toro producing, but the biggest testament to the film is the fact that I'm gonna stop writing this blurb right now because thinking about it too much is creeping me out.
6. Mandy
Ah, Mandy, you beautiful, brazen thing. Panos Cosmatos delivers the film of his career with the B-movie/art film hybrid that your friends just couldn't stop talking about. Yes, the unhinged Nicolas Cage coke rail, giant chainsaw fights, and mutant bikers are a smorgasbord of genre delights, and yes, Benjamin Loeb's cinematography is a dazzling wonder to behold, but above all, Mandy is so effective and so damn good because it's a striking portrait of searing grief and rage in a man with nothing left to lose. But yeah, it's also one hell of a kickass revenge movie that's a stunner to look at with some killer performance. Cage is as good as you've heard, and Cosmatos knows just how to channel the heights of his operatic performance, but lest we forget Andrea Riseborough, who carries the film's quieter first half. Cosmatos has given us an all-out banger here, gorgeously made with flourishes of brilliant sensory exploration and a heartbreaking story that hits right where it hurts.
5. Revenge
Coralie Fargeat's thrilling, blood-soaked survival horror strips the rape-revenge genre of its creepiest exploitation instincts and transforms it into a candy-colored story of a woman's rebirth in her darkest hour. Mathilda Lutz gives a breakout performance as Jen, a self-designed sexpot who heads to the desert with her married boyfriend for a risqué getaway and winds up in a fight for her life when her beau's creepy hunting partners show up early, setting off a relentless chain of violence. Fargeat denies the baser instincts of the rape-revenge film and drains the assault of all eroticism, translating the horror the experience through bracing imagery, and showing off one hell of a sense of style. From there, each new bloody encounter is more brutal and more satisfying as Jen proves herself more capable and hardcore than she ever could have known. Fargeat packs her film with style and breathless action beats, culminating in some painfully exquisite showdowns that are as cathartic as they are entertaining and stomach-turning.
4. Upgrade
Leigh Whannell's got all the bonafide horror cred you could ask for as the co-creator and co-star of the Saw and Insidious franchises, but for some reason, I didn't think I was getting into a horror movie with his fantastic passion project Upgrade. But perhaps the joy of the film is the way its horrors unfold slowly, starting out as a traditional sci-fi revenge thriller, before dipping into moments of extreme gore and ultimately a Rod Serling-esque descent into subtler psychological horror. A fantastic combination of high concept and low budget that hinges its best set pieces on an outstanding physical and emotional performance from Logan Marshall-Green, Upgrade showcases a real knack for (bloody) action from Whannell, and as usual, a sharp sense of humor and intelligent storytelling.
3. Annihilation
Alex Garland had a high bar to clear after delivering a masterful directorial debut with Ex Machina, but the veteran science fiction writer offered another gem with his sophomore feature, Annihilation. It's a trippy, wondrous sci-fi horror show that taps into the human drive toward self-destruction and transforms it into a phantasmagorical nightmare. Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Oscar Isaac, and Jennifer Jason Leigh all give standout performances in a loose adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer's novel, which starts out as an investigation into a mysteriously transformed region of the world called Area X, where an alien force known as the shimmer has redefined the rules of nature. But Annihilation gets weirder with every passing moment, and each new biological perversion is more terrifying than the next, leading to an honestly insane and stunning finale that I still can't believe got studio funding. But thank god it did, because Annihilation's wild and haunting third act is an unapologetic force of creativity and vision that defies easy answers and demands introspection. Almost a year after I saw the film for the first time, Annihilation's tableaus of existential terror are still seared into my brain. I suppose I could have said this all just as well with two words: Scream Bear.
2. Suspiria
Love it or hate it, Suspiria is one bold as fuck piece of audacious filmmaking. The remake no one wanted turned out to be a gutsy, intellectual retelling of Dario Argento's iconic horror classic that swings for the fences in every department. Luca Guadagnino and screenwriter David Kajganich reinvent Argento's mythology with an eye toward heavy themes of fascism and generational conflict, and draping it in powerful, stylish showmanship that managed to step out of the long shadow cast by its revered predecessor into entirely new territory. Suspiria is rich and layered and sometimes feels like actual witchcraft; a remarkable, intentional combination of imagery, movement, performance and character that rewards each new watch with further insights and revelations. And it's just so weird. Guadagnino goes full Guadagnino, casting Tilda Swinton in three roles (naturally, she's phenomenal in all of them), leaning into self-seriousness and historical importance, luxuriating in his lavish settings and spectacular visuals, and structuring it all as a meditation on psychoanalysis. On top of that, Suspiria lowkey boasts some of the best effects and explosive gore of the year, delivering diehard genre enthusiasm in high art packaging. Suspiria is a spectacular piece of cinema that I'm still unpacking and understanding with each new watch, and in my opinion, it's a stone cold masterpiece.
1. Hereditary
Ari Aster's directorial debut is a brutal, walloping dive into grief and family dysfunction, and blow-for-blow, nothing this year has matched the visceral punishment in Aster's portrait of a broken family slipping into their inescapable, nightmarish fate. Hereditary is a great film and a precision piece of craftsmanship, but I actually prefer Suspiria as overall -- so why did Hereditary nab the top spot? Simply put, no other horror film in my adult life has put me through the wringer like this one did. It's scary, yes, but it's also depressing and bleak with some of the most shocking sequences I've ever seen -- not just shocking because of the content, though yeah that too, but because of Aster's impeccable execution, which drags you onto the sacrificial altar alongside his on-screen victims. Hinged on Toni Collette's fearless performance, this is a movie that grabs you by the throat and grips tighter with every new frame. It's a physical experience (A24's clever heart-monitor gimmick was certainly reflective of my first screening), one that makes you sweat and clutch your armrests and caused the most groans, gasps, shocks, and starts I've ever heard or seen in a screening, contorting a room full of industry professionals into a terrified, traumatized mess. The film's ending isn't quite it, but the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts, and Hereditary is one of those special horror movies that will be scaring the wits out of film-goers for generations.
For more of our year-end horror content, be sure to check out the links below.