From topical zombie apocalypses to retro-slasher flicks, the best scary movies since the turn of the millennium
Back in the late Sixties and early Seventies, Vietnam and civil unrest helped kickstart a new golden age of American horror movies; shortly after the beginning of our new century, we had one massive public atrocity and several new wars to fuel a whole new wave of movies dealing with communal anxieties via scary monsters and super-freaky maniacs. Yes, it's always been a durable genre regardless of what's going on in the culture, but considering what's happened globally over the last 16 years, it makes sense that horror films would resonate with folks the way they have. That, and the fact that such free-floating dread would help give birth to a number of films from both the U.S. and abroad that deserve a place in the pantheon.
So we've assembled our take on the 7 best horror films of the 21st century – the zombie-apocalypse tales, things-that-go-bump-in-the-psyche ghost stories, retro-slasher flicks, neo-giallo nuggets, J-horror, K-horror, French extreme and Hollywood franchise films that have spooked us, shook us and scared us shitless since 2000. As in any committee-led process, our highly opinionated writers and experts argued over what constituted being included/categorized here (Mulholland Drive belongs on every list of the Greatest Films of the Millennium; whether it's genuinely a "horror" film, however, is still up for debate). But the ranked list of films here are guaranteed to have you repeating to yourself, "It's only a movie ... it's only a movie... it's only a movie ...".
1. 'Don't Breathe' (2016)
Three years after he made his feature-film debut with a surprisingly good Evil Dead reboot, filmmaker Fede Alvarez directed and co-wrote his own gripping, original addition to the horror canon. A trio of teens attempt to rob the house of a blind man. It's only then they learn about their target's past: He's is a bereft Army vet (Avatar's Stephen Lang) whose daughter has died and, to cope with his lost, has subsequently taken some dark turns in his life. Tables get turned, and predators become prey – it's abject, twisted and totally compelling. KG
2. 'Sinister' (2012)
Desperate for a hit, a true-crime author (Ethan Hawke) takes on a project involving a serial killer; coming across a box of Super-8 films in the basement, he discovers that the house he's staying in may help him with his research in the worst possible ways. This return to the good ol' hard-R horror trend after a long line of anodyne mid-'aughts thrillers felt like a sucker-punch to the abdomen, working a gruesome legacy of snuff films, occult nastiness and literary vanity to incredible scary-movie effect. ST
Sure, many children are innately creepy, and identical youngsters are vessels for evil pretty much without exception. (It's called science, people.) But the little rascals in this sleek debut from Austrian duo Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala are in a class all their own. When Mom starts acting volatile after returning from an intensive surgery, the boys suspect she's not the woman she claims to be — look up "capgras delusion" in your DSM — so they go to work on violently interrogating her. The boys' unusual weapons speak to the directors' originality in this front-to-back novel work: Krazy Glue, a DIY crossbow, and a goosebump-raising jar of cockroaches, to name a few. Trust no twin. CB
4. 'The Purge: Anarchy' (2014)
The first Purge movie took a genius idea – a government-mandated annual holiday in which every violent act is legal from dusk until dawn – and fashioned a tense home-invasion thriller out of its high-concept premise. James DeMonaco's sequel beautifully drops the free-for-all mayhem into more of a Grand Theft Auto-style sandbox-game template, adds another layer of social commentary and gives us a new genre hero in Frank Grillo's vengeful badass. But wisely, he didn't forget the oh-shit! scares as well, and ended up with a superior follow-up that expands the movie's universe while still delivering the folks-in-creepy-masks primal fears. DF
5. 'What We Do in the Shadows' (2014)
A mockumentary about vampires might seem like low-hanging fruit, but New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi and collaborator/co-director/Flight of the Conchords member Jemaine Clement manages to make it both hilarious andgenuinely frightening. The Real World-style friction between several undead housemates, including an 8,000-year-old Nosferatu-like bloodsucker, is sharply satirical and yet strangely poignant; you end up feeling for these creatures of the night, even when they have to rip some poor soul's throat out to survive. Bonus: A sequel focusing on the pack of uptight werewolves (not swear-wolves) led by comedian Rhys Darby is supposedly on the way. SA
6- 'A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night' (2014)
As spellbinding a debut movie as you're likely to see, Ana Lily Armipour's melding of spaghetti Westerns, John Hughes misfit odes, black-and-white art movies and vampire stories definitely announced a major new talent. But the fact that horror is but one of the film's many flavors doesn't dilute the thrills or chills at all; you can swoon to its Type-O–craving heroine dancing with her crush one second and then shudder as she goes fangs-first ballistic on someone several scenes later. Consider this the punk-rock, girl-power Twilight you didn't know you needed. DF
While Ringu may have kickstarted modern J-horror, it wasn't the only franchise game in town – Takashi Shimizu's bone-chilling tales of a ghostly curse that attaches itself to anyone entering a house with a homicidal history also helped spread the country's new wave to vast shores.The third film in the series but the first to get a theatrical release and international attention, Ju-On didn't change the subgenre's conventions so much as refine them, adding a sickening sense of grace to its scenes of black-haired spirits creeping and crawling. And never underestimate the power of someone unexpectedly finding a hand on the back of their scalp. DF
