With Christmas and various other holidays literally right around the corner, how do we celebrate all that jazz? Do we celebrate it with eggnog, singing, and family time? NO!! We celebrate it with blood-curdling screams,gratuitous violence and gore! In this latest post of The Best of 2019, I want to talk about some of the best horror movies I’ve seen this year. In contrast to my opening sentence, the best horror films often don’t have a whole lot in the way of gore or even shock value. Horror is a genre of film that really shouldn’t rely entirely on cheap scares or the aforementioned shock value, even though, sometimes those elements can be a benefit if used properly. The best horror films generally tend to be character-focused, even if the characters are only skin-deep. The scares and tension come from the situations that these characters often find themselves in. In all honesty, this is probably going to be a short list, because I didn’t see a whole lot of horror movies this year, because there really wasn’t a whole to offer, but what was being offered was pretty decent. So, let’s peel the skin off this bad boy and discuss my personal favorite horror films of 2019.
Midsommar
Ari Aster is a name that people should know about. This is the guy that directed last year’s horror film breakout, Hereditary. Midsommar is only Aster’s second film, but you can tell that he’ trying to expand on his repertoire. Midsommar is a very strange film. It reminds me a lot of The Wicker Man(the original, NOT THE BEES!!!)in terms of story and plot development. The film follows Florence Pugh’s character after she suffers a devastating family tragedy and goes with her boyfriend to Sweden to observe this bizarre cult. Over the course of the 2.5 hour run time, strange things begin to happen as people disappear. Midsommar is one of the few horror movies that takes place mostly during the day, making it much more unsettling. It’s an incredibly beautiful film in terms of its cinematography, set and costume designs, and Florence Pugh’s performance is one of the best of the year. If you can sit through the run time, Midsommar can be a visually interesting film.
Art of the Dead
Sometimes, the best horror movies don’t always make it to theaters, and that can be a good thing. Art of the Dead is a horror film that kind of showed up out of nowhere. My initial impressions with the marketing of the film led me to believe that this was going to be another cheap direct-to-video schlock-fest. How wrong I was. The premise is simple enough: Seven painting representing the Seven Deadly Sins, painted by an artist that went insane, are sold to a family only for strange things to happen. People begin to die in horrible fashion and each family member is being affected by these paintings. There a couple of things that separate this film from the rest of the DTV crap that was released this year. For one, the effects are almost all practical, meaning they use prosthetics, buckets of corn syrup and costumes. Granted, some of those effects aren’t that great, but it’s a very low-budget feature, so it’s still impressive that they went with practical effects. There is minimal use of CGI here and that’s absolutely amazing. The stand-out performances are from Robert Donovan, who plays Father Mendale, and Alex Rinehart, who plays Kim. Art of the Dead is a huge surprise for me, and I’m absolutely glad that I got to check it out.
Bloodline
Here’s another surprise of a film: Bloodline. Why? There really wasn’t a whole lot of waves made about this film before it was released, and I’m not entirely sure why. The setup is very similar to a lot of other films dealing with serial killers with a few twists: Seann William Scott plays a high school counselor who moonlights as a serial killer. Here’s the thing, the people he targets are people who abuse the students that he sees, so it’s almost also a vigilante film at the same time. What really makes this film work is Seann William Scott. I mentioned him in my Best Performances list, but it bears repeating: Scott is absolutely incredible here. He plays against type. Instead of playing the goofy and obnoxious characters that he’s known for, he plays a more downbeat, intense and unsettling role in Bloodline. It would still be a decent thriller, but it’s Scott’s performance that drives the whole thing. It’s not perfect, but I have to say, it’s one of the more interesting horror films that has come out in the last few years.
Crawl
This might sound like me being a bit of a broken record, but often the best horror films are the simplest in terms of story and execution. Alexandre Aja’s Crawl is one such movie. The premise of the film sees a professional swimmer heading back to her family’s house to find her father during a Category 5 hurricane. While she finds her father, they are attacked by a group of alligators who’ve come in during the storm, leading into a battle for survival. Is it simple? Yes. Do the characters make some dumb decisions? Definitely, but we wouldn’t have a movie, otherwise. While the gators are CGI creations, they are surprisingly well done and detailed. The performances are good and the action is tense. I loved almost every single minute of this film. Yeah, it’s not very deep(see what I did there?), but it doesn’t need to be. It’s a creature feature that doesn’t need to be any more than that.
Ready or Not
There have been a lot of horror films over the past decade that have been obsessed with trying to shock the hell out of the audience with extreme levels of violence and sexuality. What happened to horror movies that just wanted to be fun? Ready or Not is a film that dares to be fun, and fun it is. The story is this: Samara Weaving’s character, Grace, has married her boyfriend Alex, who is a member of prominent and wealthy family. The family has a tradition in which the new member of the family gets to pick a game that the family plays at midnight, but Grace unknowingly picks the “Hide and Seek” card, which means the entire family is literally gunning for her. It’s ridiculous, it’s outlandish, and it’s incredibly funny. It’s definitely a twisted little film, but in all the best ways. What makes it work is the fact that it doesn’t take itself seriously at all. It’s bloody, violent and intense, but it’s also one of the funniest movies I’ve seen this year. The family members trying to kill Grace are about as incompetent as you can get and Samara Weaving just nails it with the humor and action. She’s fantastic. Everyone is fantastic here. I was not bored by this movie whatsoever. It’s definitely worth checking out.
Brightburn
I love it when movies take what many would consider to be a conventional film and turns it on its head. Take Brightburn for example. This is a film that takes the Superman mythos and flips it over. What happens when Superman, instead of doing the right thing and fighting for truth and justice, decides to embrace his darker side? Brightburn is that movie. While I can’t say that the film works all the time, but it’s anchored by some really strong performances from Elizabeth Banks and David Denman. The real standout here is Jackson Dunn as Brandon Breyer. This is a kid that instead of fearing what he is, decides to embrace it in the wrong way. The film earns its R-rating, make no mistake about it. It gets pretty gory at times, but the concept and execution are mostly on point. Brightburn is a unique spin on the superhero genre, and by making it a horror film, it should allow film-makers to take established character stereotypes and run wild with ideas.
While there were other horror movies out there that were released this year, these were the ones that I saw that really impressed me the most. Well, with December in full swing, I should be wrapping this up with my Best Movies of 2019, hopefully by the end of the month, so stay tuned for that.