C. M. Rosens

Just a fun post while I’m researching Cinderella stories for the final part of the series!

I picked 4 films to know me (2020s) on Bluesky and realised they were all from 2020, and none from other years this decade, so I’ve decided to pick 5 for each year so far because I’m indecisive. 2024 hasn’t had much out that I’ve actually seen, so I’ll throw in ones I’m excited for that are meant to be out this year.

EDIT: I only just saw Prey (2022) and it would def have knocked Meg 2 off the top spot in its favour if I’d seen it before I did this post!

Top Films of the Decade (so far…)

Underwater (2020) dir. William Eubank – Deep sea action-adventure horror bringing Cthulhu and the Deep Ones into what is already a horrifying situation. Definitely one of my top picks of the decade so far.

Gwledd/The Feast (2021) dir. Lee Haven Jones – I’d honestly say this is the best Welsh horror I’ve seen since Apostle. Stunning. Loved it. Eco-horror, family dysfunction, and some really meaty (lol) themes. It is a very slow burn dark adult fairytale.

Nope (2022) dir. Jordan Peele – 2022 had some absolute bangers, but this is the one I’ve rewatched the most times, so it takes the crown from this year. I’ll do a 2022 appreciation post. I’m not sure which is my favourite Jordan Peele films, but this one is up there for me!

Meg 2: The Trench (2023) dir. Ben Wheatley – A lot of the horror I watched from 2023 was about catharsis and grief/trauma processing, especially with the distance from the pandemic. This film was the most enjoyable one of the lot, and so it’s on the top picks list from this year. Otherwise, it would be a toss up between Renfield and The Sacrifice Game for very different reasons and I can’t decide. I don’t class Renfield as horror, though, really? Action comedy with Dracula, sure. But that’s also one of my favourite 2023 movies.

I haven’t actually seen any films released this year yet!

If I break it down by year, it looks a bit different. There are just so many good ones.

2020

According to Letterboxd, I’ve watched/remembered to log 33 films released in the year 2020. I didn’t give all of them ratings. I actually really enjoyed a lot of them.

Top 5 Horror Picks

• Underwater dir. William Eubank – Deep sea action-adventure horror bringing Cthulhu and the Deep Ones into what is already a horrifying situation. Definitely one of my top picks of the decade so far.

• His House dir. Remi Weekes – This one is a tough watch, it’s emotional, there’s so much grief and trauma going on under the surface, and it’s also a glimpse at the UK asylum system and how difficult, bureaucratic and dehumanising the process is for people.

• Relic dir. Natalie Erika James – Tough watch, family-centred horror with strong dementia/alzheimer’s metaphor throughout. The kind of thing Hereditary sounded like it was going to be about and would probably have been a much better film it had been. There, I said it.

• Gretel & Hansel dir. Osgood Perkins – arty in the way Green Knight is arty, at least to me, and I didn’t mind that. I like fairytale retellings, and cannibalism. I have simple tastes and needs.

• Il Legame/The Binding dir. Domenico Emanuele de Feudis – can you see where this is going? Of course. But also, no. Is it a lot of fun to get there? Sure. Some lovely folk horror stuff in this.

Top 5 Horror Runners-Up

• Caveat dir. Damien McCarthy – I liked this a lot more than I expected to, and the conceits were really intriguing. I liked the premise, the execution was more or less fine, and that bloody bunny creeped me out just by existing.

• The Babysitter: Killer Queen dir. McG – I love the first one too. Really enjoyed this sequel. Mainly, just a massive Max fan. Live your dreams, buddy.

• Becky dirs. Cary Murnion, Jonathan Milott – Lots going on here, and I liked the complete spiral of the titular teen character, especially as she devolved through the film. It was fun to read it as a villain origin story, or massively dark antiheroine origin story, so I’m hoping to find the sequel and get around to that.

• The Night House dir. David Bruckner – Spousal bereavement and supernatural-centred. I enjoyed the slow reveals and the lore.

• Bloodthirsty dir. Amelia Moses – genuinely a decent werewolf film that does a lot more with the tropes than I expected. It’s sapphic and a bit gory, but didn’t quite hit for me enough to make it to my top 5. I think it deserves an honorary mention though. It was a toss up between this one and The Block Island Sound dirs. Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus, but werewolves narrowly won out.

Really Good Horror-Adjacents I Would Have Put In Horror

• Nneka the Pretty Serpent dir. Tosin Igho – I haven’t seen the 1994 original (dir. Zeb Ijiro), but would really like to. It’s a slowburn drama with supernatural elements, and an example of where genre isn’t that helpful to classify it. It’s listed as horror, but it’s more a contemporary drama meets dark mythological fantasy. There are morality play echoes in it, and it has a lot going on. I really liked the storytelling.
  
• Psycho Goreman dir. Steven Kostanski – honestly, this is just a lot of fun, it’s not even horror to me, it’s more gory action SciFi (he’s an alien) and feels like a more bloodthirsty version of the kids-befriend-aliens type films of the 1980s and early 1990s. It’s definitely on the lighter end of horror-comedy. Horror for kids. It’s great.

2021

I watched a lot of films from 2021, 32 of which were horror. There were some really good ones! I picked Gwledd/The Feast as my ‘film of the decade’ pick from this year, but here are my top 5 picks from this year alone:

Top 5 Horror Picks

• Gwledd/The Feast dir. Lee Haven Jones – I’d honestly say this is the best Welsh horror I’ve seen since Apostle. Stunning. Loved it. Eco-horror, family dysfunction, and some really meaty (lol) themes.

• Candyman dir. Nia DaCosta – I loved this. I especially enjoyed that it’s a sequel rather than a reboot, and it stands on its own. I loved the original, too, and this worked really well.

• Vampir dir. Branko Tomović – Gorgeously slow, stylish descent into the dark side of Serbian folklore. The lack of subtitles on the Serbian worked for me as I don’t speak it either, but I could pick up a little, so I got the disorientation of the protagonist. This has been me in so many situations where I’m trying to learn a language but I’m the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on, especially as a kid living abroad, so I really liked it for capturing that disequilibrium

• Willy’s Wonderland dir. Kevin Lewis – I have so many questions about this whole plot. Can the townspeople seriously not gang up on these mascots???? They all get taken out by this one guy. Come on, people. And yet. Strangely the most perfect Nic Cage film ever to star Nic Cage. It’s not in my top 5 because it’s a great film, it’s here because I’ve had so many hours of pure entertainment from it, and will have many more.

Top 5 Horror Runners-Up

• Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin dir. William Eubank – This one gives me Incantation vibes, and I liked it for that. I was debating between this one, Le Calendrier/The Advent Calendar dir. Patrick Ridremont, and the Fear Street films (1666 and 1978) but decided Fear Street is more of a complete series, so I wouldn’t count the films individually as each installment adds to the overall arc, and out of this one vs The Advent Calendar, I’d most likely rewatch this one.

• El Páramo/The Wasteland dir. David Casademunt – war trauma to the max. Folk horror family-centred horror in an alternative Spain, claustrophobic and visceral.

• Mad God dir. Phil Tippett – Amazing stop motion, absolutely off the wall. Loved this. Every time I rewatch, I see something new, but I can’t rewatch it very often because of the feel, the score, etc.

• Slapface dir. Jeremiah Kipp – I can’t stop thinking about this. It’s just a really bleak family disintegration drama with a kid protagonist, trapped in a rural nightmare of bullying and every adult in his life – including and especially the supernatural ‘adult’ figure – making it 100x worse.

• Gaia dir. Jaco Bouwer – Great South African jungle sporror that beat out In The Earth to make the top 5 of these.

2022

What a year this was. So hard to choose from, as I really enjoyed the majority of things I watched from this year. I remembered to log 49 films from 2022, and I enjoyed so many of them! 2022 gave us some bangers. Of the ones I saw, 36 of these were horror, so here are my top picks.

Top 5 Horror Picks

• Nope (2022) dir. Jordan Peele – 2022 had some absolute bangers, but this is the one I’ve rewatched the most times, so it takes the crown from this year. I’ll do a 2022 appreciation post. I’m not sure which is my favourite Jordan Peele films, but this one is up there for me!

• X dir. Ti West – Mia Goth is outstanding in this film, and there are some absolutely brilliant moments of tension in it. It was also really emotional, and Pearl was a deeply affecting character.

• Talk To Me dirs. Michael Philippou, Danny Philippou – Absolute banger of Australian horror, and exactly the kind of thing a group of teens would do with a hand like that. It got me in the feels, too.

• Harum Malam/Blood Flower dir. Dain Said – I really loved this one, there’s a lot going on, and there’s a good revenge plot (but CW for incest/rape, infanticide). This came up in my posts on #100HorrorMoviesin92Days and I think was one of my favourites of that challenge.

• 咒/Incantation dir. Kevin Ko – The concept really got to me and I loved the reveal at the end, the journey, the footage style, the communal aspect, just, everything. Again, a deeply sad one, but one I would revisit and even though I know the twists, I think I’d still really enjoy it.

Top 5 Horror Runners-Up

• Halloween Ends dir. David Gordon Green – I liked the way the franchise was concluded, and the performances were great. I debated between this one, Hellraiser, Scream, Smile, M3gan, Barbarian, Umma, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Enys Men… so many great ones. But out of them all, I think this one is the one I most enjoyed.

• Pahanhautoja/Hatching dir. Hanna Bergholm – I really liked the way this was a story about the burgeoning monstrosity of a tween girl, and its development into coherence and selfhood, as a different take on development and puberty. I really liked the way this was done, and the central, toxic, maternal figure.

• Das Privileg – Die Auserwählten/The Privilege dirs. Felix Fuchssteiner, Katharina Schöde – I thought this was a solid YA German sporror, CW for adoption. It was a fun ride.

• The Harbinger, dir. Andy Mitton – God, this is pure pandemic trauma. I had to sit with this one a while. I debated between this, Christmas Bloody Christmas, and the two Poe films Raven’s Hollow and The Pale Blue Eye, but it has to be The Harbinger. So much trauma to unpack, and the sense of dread is so heavy throughout it.

• Glorious dir. Rebekah McKendry – I like this purely because I enjoyed Ryan Kwanten’s performance, but it was painfully straight. Painfully straight. I loved the mythos concept, the claustrophobic one-man-show vibes, and fact it’s about a selfish arsehole called Wes who would rather end the world than stop it ending because his relationship has broken down (no spoilers, but… hmmm). I watched this while revising The Day We Ate Grandad, which is also about a selfish arsehole called Wes who would prefer the end of the world to going through a break-up. If I had a penny I’d have 2 pennies, etc etc.

2023

I logged 24 films from 2023 up to now, and it was hard to whittle them down, too. My favourite was Meg 2, because it was my very first time in an Everyman Cinema, and I had such a fun time. I loved how it was half Underwater, half Jurassic World, tied together with a megalodon and a giant squid. Why not. So it made its way onto the top picks for the decade so far!

Top 5 Horror Picks

• Meg 2: The Trench dir. Ben Wheatley – A lot of the horror I watched from 2023 was about catharsis and grief/trauma processing, especially with the distance from the pandemic. This film was the most enjoyable one of the lot, and so it’s on the top picks list from this year.

• Renfield dir. Chris McKay – The natural double-bill with Barbie, for the relationship 101 dynamics. I really loved this, the relationships, the dynamics, and Nic Cage. It was my preferred balance of action and comedy, with Dracula.

• Cuando acecha la maldad/When Evil Lurks dir. Demián Rugna – After the terrifying ride of Atterados/Terrified, I wanted to watch more Rugna films. This didn’t disappoint me. It’s set in an alternative Argentina, where demon possessions are an accepted hazard of life, even if nobody really knows how to handle them. It features my least favourite thing: creepy fucking children. Literally drop kick the little fuckers, they’re tiny. Argh.

• The Sacrifice Game dir. Jenn Wexler – Just a fun boarding school romp with demons and dark magic. I liked this a lot! Supernatural/occult slasher fun and games in the ’70s. It has so many issues, but I enjoyed the premise, the characters.

• Suitable Flesh dir. Joe Lynch – A really fun update to Lovecraft’s The Thing on the Doorstep, and definitely in my top 5 picks. Twisted and enjoyable, I would never hire her as a therapist but I’d watch this again.

Top 5 Horror Runners-Up

• El club de los lectores criminales/Killer Book Club dir. Carlos Alonso-Ojea – Derivative plot, and literally a Point Horror reveal, I’m not sure if this actually was based on one?? I had a lot of fun with it though.

• Totally Killer dir. Nahnatchka Khan – I really had fun with this and its Back to the Future vibes; it would make a great double bill with It’s A Wonderful Knife. So much campy Point Horror love this year. Loving life.

• It’s A Wonderful Knife dir. Tyler MacIntyre – I love Point Horror and this felt like a nostalgic romp through a Point Horror plot, but with timey-wimey stuff, fun aesthetics. I liked the references to Clarence / It’s A Wonderful Life, and it was so silly and fun. I think this is the one with sapphic endgame, and I loved that. I get this confused with Totally Killer in my head, which I loved also, and is another timey-wimey slasher.

• Older Gods dir. David A. Roberts – Set in Wales but not Welsh horror per se, this one is a grim Lovecraftian horror full of suicide and dark deeds, stalkers in the countryside, grief, loneliness, guilt, and a whole host of things.

• Konferensen/The Conference dir. Patrik Eklund – Team-building is my idea of hell, so this one as a survival horror-comedy worked for me. Murderous mascots, office drama, victims hoisted up a flagpole, deadly zip wires, it’s got it all. Sweden has some great comedies and dramas and loads of genres, and we seem to just get all the really fucked up stuff, but I’m ok with it.

2024

I haven’t seen anything that’s out this year yet! I’ve got my eye on a few films in this list, especially Abigail, Arcadian, Baghead, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Lisa Frankenstein, MaXXXine, Nosferatu, Stiletto, Stopmotion, They Follow, and Your Monster.

I might do another decade of my fave films later, and really try to whittle it down, but that’s the 2020s for me so far!