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Yes, Halloween was this past weekend.
I know because I saw all the pictures on social media (Kendall Jenner included), and also because I used it as an excuse to eat more candy than is perhaps optimal.
One has to live a little.
Ahead of October 31, we told you about five horror movies that may well get you in the mood (we mean frightened, not frisky, although I won’t judge your kinks), and now Rolling Stone has weighed in.
They’ve ranked the 65 greatest horror movies of the 21st century in order, focusing on films “that have spooked us, shook us and scared us shitless since 2000”.
In 65th place is 2016’s Don’t Breathe, but let’s just skip ahead to the really good stuff.
Your top five is as follows, starting with fifth.
The Babadook (2014)
The story of a widowed mother (Essie Davis) whose son is menaced by an angular demon that’s literally straight out of a children’s book begins as a nerve-scraping parable of grief; it becomes truly terrifying, however, when the subject shifts to how quickly parental love can turn to hate.
It’s a monster movie in which everyone takes turns being the monster.
A trailer well made, too:
Let the Right One In (2008)
Beautiful, bleak and deeply affecting, Tomas Alfredson’s stunning 2008 film gave the vampire genre a much-needed tweak with its somber depiction of one of the more unusual relationships in horror history – an alienated 12 year-old boy who inadvertently bonds with the “young” female bloodsucker next door.
Like Twilight, but not a pile of shite:
Hereditary (2018)
Toni Collette’s performance as an artist dealing with loss(es) is a masterclass in how to play someone slowly losing their mind; Alex Wolff’s portrayal as her son, equally heading off the rails, matches her step for step.
Everything from the cinematography to the score suggests a bad dream you can’t wake up from. The movie requires several viewings at least, so you can see how impressively the film is planting clues at what’s really going on the whole time.
I’ll take their word for it, because I will not be watching a horror movie multiple times.
28 Days Later… (2002)
As with many great horror movies, Danny Boyle’s eviscerating zombie thriller grew out of real-world terrors…
Shot on MiniDV to emphasize the grubby, post-apocalyptic ugliness, the film is a marvel of handheld camerawork and jittery editing. But in the wake of 9/11’s jolting tragedy, this prescient horror film also spoke to unconscious anxieties about a world in which simmering tensions and seething paranoia felt like a terrible new normal.
18 years later, and we’re dealing with another terrifying ‘new normal’.
Time for the most terrifying movie of the 21st century.
Get Out (2017)
It was an instant classic and the inescapable horror movie of 2017…
A straight-up nightmare that laced its satirical jabs with genuine menace, weaponized a gleeful sense of tweaking “woke” folks and gave form to all the free-floating communal dread of the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot!” era.
Released right after a racist President was sworn in to office and still playing in theaters when white supremacists marched in Southern streets, this hit horror film remains emblematic of our warped moment. We all live in the Sunken Place now.
Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel, as America votes, but Peele wasn’t letting any light in at the time:
See the full list here.
[source:rollingstone]
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