Here we go with the next 10 films! Films 31-40 of the 100 Horror Movies challenge. Some good ones in here – some not so good. It’s always a mixed bag as I usually go in stone cold to all of them (I often don’t even know which are low budget, micro budget, indie, etc. before watching). I found something to like about all the films I’ve seen so far.
When I get to 50 films, I think I will do a highlight of my favourites!
I got to add new countries to my Padlet map too! New-to-me countries are marked with a (even if I have seen films from there before, but this is the first horror).
31) The Surrender (2025) dir. Julia Max. Family grief horror. Coming to terms with parental death, and the lengths people will go to during the stages of grief, particularly the denial stage, and how they handle guilt and other complex feelings. Mother-daughter relationship as central, as they both navigate the death of the father, and the shift in their identities without him there. I enjoyed this one a lot.
32) Tyfelstei (2014) dir. Chris Bucher. Alpine Horror, very low budget. It’s a fun little story, nice concept, and for 20,000CHF (about £18.5K), executed pretty well. The scenery does a lot of the heavy lifting. I do enjoy this kind of indie film, and Alpine Horror is a subgenre I haven’t seen much of.
33) Sennentuntschi / Sennentuntschi: Curse of the Alps (2010) dir. Michael Steiner. I’ve added this to my ‘It’s a bit shit to be a woman : bleak folk horror edition” list. I liked this – it didn’t go where I was expecting, and the confusion of the out-of-order scenes helped to draw out the tension as I started working it out. Really bleak. If you need TWs, please expand the box below.
TW: rape, child abuse, toxic masculinity, misogyny, graphic violence (burns, stabbing, gore), and late-stage miscarriage
34) The 100 Candles Game (2020) dirs. Nicolás Onetti, Nicholas Peterson, Daniel Rübesam, Victor Català, Brian Deane, Oliver Lee Garland, Christopher West, Guillermo Lockhart. Fun anthology horror with a strong framed narrative. I enjoyed the segments and the overall story!
35) កំណើតអរូប / Ritual The Black Nun (2023) dir. Semsak Visal. No idea what the English title has to do with the film. There is no nun. I think it was trying for Western Catholic horror (or generic Western religious horror) but that didn’t work. I’ve dropped it into my Emigration Horror list as well. It had a decent idea behind it, and some fun moments. I liked it overall, and want to support Khmer films! Plus: this is the first one on my Padlet for Cambodia.
36) The Hunted (2024) dir. Louis Lagayette. Another one for the Emigration Horror list. European production (Belgium/France/Greece/UK). Why are white people. If you liked The Hunt (2020), this is similar, from a European/British angle, but much less comedy and more gritty drama. The main FMC is a former child soldier and mercenary from South Sudan, carrying trauma.
37) みなに幸あれ / Best Wishes To All (2023) dir. Yuta Shimotsu. Creepy family-focused J-Horror, with dark family secrets coming to light. This one is so grim. I really loved the whole concept. I especially like it when only the protagonist and the audience realise there is something very wrong with the whole situation.
38) You Won’t Be Alone (2022) dir. Goran Stolevski. Australian-Macedonian film from Universal Studios, in Macedonian, going straight on my “It’s a bit shit to be a woman : bleak folk horror edition” list. But it’s not all shit – this has a note of hope and resilience to it, and the hint of cycle-breaking. There’s a LOT going on in this one, and I really liked it.
39) Blacula (1972) dir. William Crain. This one was leaving UK Prime in 5.5 hrs when I found it so I had to watch it now or never! I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. I wasn’t expecting it to have an openly gay Black character in it either (I literally knew nothing about this film except it was a Blacksploitation 70s Dracula). I really enjoyed this.
40) In My Mother’s Skin (2023) dir. Kenneth Dagatan. Deeply dark Filipino fairy tale, in which a flesh-eating diwata tricks a desperate girl into destroying her family. It takes place in 1945, against the backdrop of Japanese and American invasion, and the end of WW2, with collaboration, corruption and betrayal in the adult world mirroring the betrayal of the fairy in the supernatural world, and the girl’s inability to tell who she can trust.
Countries A-Z Films 31-40
Argentina
Australia/USA
Belgium/France/Greece/UK
Cambodia
Japan
Philippines
Switzerland
USA
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