I was talking to an old friend about our favorite horror films from 2024 and we both agreed that the movies we both admired were incredibly fresh and original, not to mention memorably dark and creepy. It’s just a great time for fans of these type of films because directors are pushing the envelope in ways that are always surprising and disturbingly unique. Here are my six favorites from last year and where to stream or rent them.
Oddity. A genuinely scary supernatural thriller. shot in Ireland, by Damian McCarthy (Caveat), starring Carolyn Bracken as a blind psychic who runs a bizarre curio antique store filled with haunted items. After her twin sister (also played by Carolyn Bracken) is killed in a home invasion by a lunatic recently released from an asylum run by her sister’s widowed husband Ted (Gwilym Lee), she arrives at his house with a strange gift- a creepy, life-sized wooden mannequin. Beautifully constructed from beginning to end it just creates an atmosphere of unbearable suspense as it sardonically plays out. An impressive, frightening film. (On Shudder or a $4.99 rental on Amazon)
Longlegs. This subversively disturbing chiller by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter) is about Lee Harker, a haunted, rookie FBI agent (sensational Maika Monroe), with possible psychic abilities, on the hunt for a frightening serial killer who calls himself “Longlegs.” The fiend remotely causes suburban fathers to violently annihilate their families and delights in leaving authorities cryptic, encoded, Zodiac Killer-like notes behind. Nicolas Cage is almost unrecognizable as a mysterious, long-haired, deathly pale, lumpy-faced, maker of life-sized dolls. He also is a lover of the 60s English rock group T Rex and Satan (maybe not in that order). Blair Underwood plays seasoned Agent Carter, Harker’s FBI partner. It’s wonderful to see Underwood again- I’ve been a fan of his ever since he played “Bobby Blue” on One Life to Live. Alicia Witt is just phenomenal as Lee Harker’s incredibly weird, deeply damaged, mother. Perkins has a way of framing a simple shot- like the outside of a house, or looking out through a car windshield, or even the inside of a barn adorned with crosses- and filling you with unexplained dread. This film feels of one piece and it keeps whittling away at your nerves throughout. I swear I haven’t been this creeped out since Ari Aster’s Hereditary. Not that they are similar- they’re not. But they are beautifully crafted, insidiously constructed and both pure nightmare fuel. (A $5.99 rental on Amazon)
Cuckoo. Writer/director Tilman Singer’s appropriately titled, defiantly bizarre, enjoyably unhinged horror film. An unhappy teenage girl- 17-year-old Gretchen (scrappy, sensational Hunter Schafer), is begrudgingly uprooted from America and forced to move with her architect father (Marton Csokas) to a desolate resort in the German Alps, along with her unfriendly stepmother (Jessica Henwick) and her mute, much younger, half-sister Alma (Mila Lieu). The creepy resort manager- Herr Konig (Dan Stevens)- offers Gretchen a job at the reception desk of the hotel, where strangers stagger in and vomit in the lobby for some unknown reason. “Is this normal?” a startled guest asks. Everything feels off there. Even little Alma starts having violent seizures as she gazes off into the ominous, impenetrable forest. One night cycling home from work, a weird woman violently chases Gretchen down the road, relentlessly attacking her until she races to safety at the local hospital where she is stitched up from a gash in her forehead. Her story is met with bored skepticism by the local police. Then the movie merrily jumps the tracks and becomes this nightmarish conspiracy of sinister avian reproductive experiments as Gretchen fights to survive. The oppressive atmosphere of dread and disorientation (plus the intricate sound design) is just inspired. And Dan Stevens is fiendishly fabulous in his role as the droll, demonic mastermind. (On Hulu or a $3.99 rental on Amazon)
Strange Darling. I have to be extra careful how I describe this because I was warned by friends not to look it up or know anything about the film before going in. Director JT Mollner’s sensationally constructed puzzle of a film is a 6-part serial killer story told out of order. At the onset, we see “The Lady” (Willa Fitzgerald) being furiously chased down the road by “The Demon” (Kyle Gallner), angrily driving a truck, shooting off his gun and snorting coke. But nothing is at it seems in the film and as the pieces slowly fit together an entirely different picture emerges. An added treat is Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey, who show up later as a hippie survivalist couple living in a cozy house deep in the forest. We watch them eat a staggeringly abundant breakfast and settle down to a jigsaw puzzle of Scott Baio. What I can say is that Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner are absolutely brilliant in this twisty, wildly clever thrill-ride. (A $5.99 rental on Amazon)
In a Violent Nature. Director Chris Nash’s impressively artful, gleefully gruesome meta-take on the slasher movie. A group of friends stupidly remove a locket at a fire tower way out in the forest. When they leave, a lumbering creature claws himself up out of the dirt and moves forward through the woods, now a virtual killing machine. There is even a campsite retelling of the legend of “Johnny” (Ry Barrett), and how he came to slaughter an entire squad of fire rangers many years ago. From then on there is almost a POV vision of this murderous entity as he works his way (literally and bloodily) through the unfortunate friends searching for that locket. Imagine Friday the 13th only directed by Gus Van Sant as one of his more arty experiments. Now when I first heard of the film I feared it would be a film gimmick that would grow weary, but I was dead wrong. It’s always surprising and beautiful in many ways (the cinematography by Pierce Derks is staggeringly). It’s also outrageously gory, for fans of this genre. Shot in Ontario, from what I gather, this film went through an earlier, troubled incarnation that had to be entirely re-shot. But what exists now is a one-of-a-kind shocker that lingers disturbingly in the mind. (On Shudder, or a $4.99 rental on Amazon)
Red Rooms. The high-profile trial of Ludovic Chevalier, an accused serial killer of teenage girls, has begun in Quebec, and beautiful model Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariepy) religiously sits in the courtroom, gazing at the accused and at the grieving families with a cool, impenetrable stare. In Pascal Plante’s ultra-disturbing film, Kelly-Anne’s morbid fascination with the case is impossible to decipher at first, but as we watch her movements, going home to a sleek high-rise apartment where she cleverly wins money online gambling and also slipping down into the dark web for more nightmarish visual evidence of Chevalier’s handiwork, the less we seem to fathom her sick obsession. She begrudgingly befriends a groupie at the trial- Clementine (Laurie Babin)- who finally comes to her own realization of the folly of romantically attaching oneself to such evil. But Kelly-Anne’s descent into the darkness only deepens. Juliette Gariepy’s performance is incredibly subtle yet frighteningly effective in this slow-burn, masterfully creepy film. (On Shudder, or a $3.99 rental on Amazon)