It has been a hell of a year, huh? Just when we thought we were out of the throes of the pandemic, they pull us back in. Political unrest, social division… sounds like a great recipe for horror movies! If art is a reflection of its time, horror movies stand as a reflection of the dark id of that time, and boy did they ever. Stories of isolation, stories of madness, stories of the evils we visit upon one another, they’re all here. And so, without further ado, let’s count down the Top 10 Horror Movies of 2021!
You can find last year’s list right here.
10. Censor
Anchored by a terrific central performance from Niamh Algar, Censor tells the story of a woman working on the UK’s film board in charge of determining which movies will be labeled video nasties. These movies were deemed too extreme or so lacking in artistic merit, they should be kept from the gentile eyes of proper British citizens. Not only is our heroine, Enid, charged with such a moral responsibility, but she also lives in the wake of her missing sister, lost in the woods so many years ago. When she sees a potential video nasty featuring a girl who looks suspiciously like her missing sister, Enid is sent down a rabbit hole of paranoia and murder. It’s a dense and visually lush movie that pairs its gorgeous visuals with explosions of violence.
9. The Medium
The director of Shutter, Banjong Pisantanakun, returns to the horror genre to reclaim his title as king of Thai horror cinema. A documentary crew is following a woman from a rural village who claims to be a shaman, enabled and inhabited by a spirit who aids her in healing and blessing the people of the town. As we follow our shaman, Nim, we learn of her family discord, of a sister who denied the spirit Nim now traffics with, and of a niece named Ming who may be next in line to be inhabited by this spirit. Only Ming’s behavior suggests that something darker is at work, and perhaps only Nim can save her. Employing a found footage style, Pisantanakun turns the screw slowly at first, but the final minutes of this movie are pure nightmare. It’s mean-spirited, occasionally shocking, and wonderfully scary. On one level, it’s about how the secret sins of a family can destroy it. On another, it’s about scaring the pants of its viewers, and it succeeds at both.
8. The Vigil
The fact that the remake of Firestarter is in the hands of writer-director Keith Thomas has me all kinds of excited to see what he comes up with. After seeing his horror feature debut, The Vigil, Thomas is firmly cemented as a talent to watch. Without an ounce of unnecessary exposition, Thomas portrays the plight of a young man named Yakov, played with subtlety and power by Dave Davis. Yakov struggles after leaving his orthodox Jewish community and is drawn into playing shomer for a family for the financial gain of it. A shomer for the uninitiated (like myself) is someone who stands over the body, reading Psalms and protecting the dead from evil spirits. But there is something waiting for Yakov in the home where he is to stand watch over the body, something that feeds on the pain and guilt he carries with him. Every element of The Vigil works in concert to support its themes of moving beyond the pain of the past and finding healing in the future. It is a confident piece of filmmaking which also manages to harbor some genuine scares. The nature of the demon haunting this house is perfectly aligned with Thomas’ cinematic argument. Much like many films of the past few years, The Vigil stands as a metaphor for the kind of pain we all carry and lets us know that we can be free of it if only we are willing to face it.
7. The Night House
The Night House is a terrific mystery made all the better by Rebecca Hall’s lead performance. Following her husband’s suicide, Beth discovers that the man she married may have been involved in sinister behavior. As she investigates her husband’s secret life, she is plagued by apparent supernatural happenings in the la...
