Looking at my lineup of the top fright features of this year, it’s heartening to see that while all of them (I think this is a first) hailed from the independent arena, several were granted nationwide theatrical releases. Not all of them did the business they deserved, though THE SUBSTANCE became a word-of-mouth success and LONGLEGS held its own against the bigger summer blockbusters. And it’s encouraging that even in the age of streaming, there are distributors who seem to believe (quite rightly) that scary movies are best experienced in a full communal environment. Hopefully this trend will continue into 2025 (and more such releases will win meaningful box-office coin).
As always, this list is made up of features that got commercial release during the past year. Though there was quite a bit of good stuff in 2024 (my runners-up list is especially long this time), for me, there was only one obvious choice for the top slot…
THE SUBSTANCE: From the opening montage, which tells us everything we need to know about the rise and fall of actress Elisabeth Sparkle without showing her face, Coralie Fargeat’s body-horror epic announces itself as the year’s most exciting genre exercise. Cutting deep into Hollywood’s treatment of women, particularly as they age, it showcases a stunning performance by Demi Moore as Elisabeth, whose star has lost its luster and who decides to try the eponymous drug program. It promises to create a “better version” of herself, and literally does in the person of a younger, fitter woman (Margaret Qualley) who calls herself Sue. Things get stranger–much, much stranger–from there, and while always keeping her eye on the thematic ball, Fargeat repeatedly takes her scenario one, often unexpected step further into flights of visceral, grisly fantasy. THE SUBSTANCE goes for broke beyond any film in recent memory, while staying meaningful and rooted in character at the same time–a remarkable achievement, (Reviewed in RM #220)
The rest, in alphabetical order:
EXHUMA: Jang Jae-Hyun’s Korean blockbuster sets up an intriguing premise involving a group of paranormal experts (including one played by OLDBOY and I SAW THE DEVIL’s Choi Min-sik) investigating strange events tied to a wealthy family’s ancestral grave site. This premise is seemingly wrapped up after an hour or so in a way that makes you feel like you’ve already gotten your money’s worth…and then the film really starts cooking, venturing into some seriously freaky areas. Grounding its increasingly bizarre scenario in well-observed and -deployed social and cultural tropes, EXHUMA, like THE SUBSTANCE, elicits that wonderful feeling of not knowing what’s coming next while knowing it’s going to be deliciously over the top, delivering some of 2024’s most powerful screen shocks.
INFESTED: Every year should give us a nature-run-amok flick as good as this one. Director/co-writer Sébastien Vaniček takes us inside a French housing project with a vermin problem much worse than cockroaches: an invading species of spider that can multiply as fast as the eight-leggers can pursue their human prey down the dilapidated hallways. Touched with just enough sociopolitical themes that never get in the way of the skin-crawling business at hand, INFESTED has us fully invested with the young people attempting to escape the house of horrors that their urban dwelling has become. It’s the best recipe for arachnophobia the movies have given us in quite some time. (Review)
LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL: You don’t have to be familiar with late-night talk shows of any kind, and specifically from the ’70s, to fully enjoy this horror/comedy that purports to show us an ill-fated broadcast from Halloween night 1977. Anxious to boost his ratings, host Jack Delroy (a completely winning David Dastmalchian) devotes this episode to the paranormal, featuring the expected clutch of oddballs and charlatans–and a young girl (Ingrid Torelli) apparently possessed by a demon. Then, as the show goes on, “apparently” is removed from the equation as the program literally goes to hell. Acutely observed in its pop-cultural details and perfectly pitched in its combo of fear and fun, this is a true crowd-pleaser from writer/directors Colin and Cameron Cairnes. (Review)
LONGLEGS: I predicted in my original review that Osgood Perkins’ serial-killer chiller would be divisive, which indeed came to pass. A movie this specifically unusual in its approach to a well-trod genre (a young FBI agent tracking a mysterious multiple murderer) wasn’t going to please everyone, though it was gratifying to see it become such a big hit, and count me in the camp that continues to admire it. Perkins’ precise use of image and sound to create a foreboding, nightmarish mood is on full display, Maika Monroe grabs and holds our attention and sympathy from the beginning as agent Lee Harker and Nicolas Cage, heedlessly plunging down an eccentric rabbit hole in the villainous title role, gives us the willies even though we don’t get a good look at him till fairly late in the game. (Review)
NEW LIFE: The least celebrated film on this list, which is both a shame and an advantage for those who haven’t seen it; the less you know when you sit down to watch it, the better. And you absolutely should watch this standout debut by writer/director John Rosman, which starts as a tense pursuit thriller that you know has some unpleasant events lurking in its background, before pivoting to full gripping horror in the second half. Excellent turns by Sonya Walger and Hayley Erin, whose characters carry meaningful secrets, help to fully engage us in the increasingly frightening drama. (Review)
ODDITY: The Wooden Man featured in the advertising is the most conspicuously creepy element of Damian McCarthy’s second feature, but it’s far from the only one. Adroitly mixing psychic phenomena, ghostly haunting and the evil that humans do, he focuses on blind oddities-shop owner Darcy (Carolyn Bracken), who’s anxious to use her clairvoyant gifts to solve the death of her twin sister Dani (also Bracken). After she sets up in the remote mansion where Dani was apparently murdered by a patient of Dani’s psychiatrist husband, Darcy begins unraveling the truth, which entails terror for both her and the audience, including a couple of the year’s best jump-scares. McCarthy is equally skilled at evoking a tense atmosphere through both setting and the interactions of his leads, while establishing and resolving a very satisfying mystery. (Review)
RED ROOMS: The current media/public fascination with CEO slayer Luigi Mangione is but the latest building block of relevance for Pascal Plante’s darkly fascinating study of true-crime obsession. The story revolves around a man who’s under trial for the torture and murder of three teenage girls, but the physical violence is all offscreen. What’s front and center is the dubious-at-best behavior of two women (memorably played by Juliette Gariépy and Laurie Babin) who are fixated on the case for different reasons, some of which only become clear in the final stretch. Throughout, we are transfixed by their behavior and relationship, through which Plante digs at the chilling side of human nature while refusing to judge his protagonists. (Review)
STRANGE DARLING: Another movie that truly benefits from going in cold is JT Mollner’s film–which really was shot on film, beautifully, by actor-turned-cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi. His arresting images complement Mollner’s unconventionally told tale, which begins with a woman (Willa Fitzgerald) being stalked by a shotgun-toting madman (genre vet Kyle Gallner) through a rural landscape. There’s more–a whole lot more–to their story than initially meets the eye, and Mollner unfolds it in ways that reinvent the psycho-killer genre while charging the key scenes with extra levels of meaning and menace. The result is by turns surprising and deeply scary, and gripping from start to finish. (Review)
YOU’LL NEVER FIND ME: Another two-hander, from new Australian auteurs Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell, that keeps you guessing as it keeps you shivering. It’s a sterling example of one-location indie filmmaking, as a man (Brendan Rock) receives a desperate late-night visitor (Jordan Cowan) to his RV on a dark and stormy night. He offers shelter but might also pose a threat, and as the movie goes on, it becomes evident she may not be all she appears to be either. As they slowly, sometimes inadvertently, reveal more about themselves, the terrific lead performances help the directors cast an eerie spell that slow-burns to some seriously unsettling developments in the final act. (Review)
Other horror highlights of 2024 include ABIGAIL, BLACKOUT, BLINK TWICE, CUCKOO, THE DEVIL’S BATH, HERETIC, HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON, IN A VIOLENT NATURE, IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE, NOSFERATU, A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, SLEEP, SMILE 2, SPEAK NO EVIL, STOPMOTION and the Adams Family’s double shot of WHERE THE DEVIL ROAMS and HELL HOLE.
