Perhaps unsurprisingly for a group that self-selects for gothy wallflowers, “horror people” tend to have a bit of a persecution complex. As such, there’s one eternal truism we see over and over in analysis of the genre: horror gets no respect. This both is and isn’t true, for reasons that have been discussed to death (no pun intended). What’s more interesting to me, at this point, isn’t why horror is inherently niche despite being extremely popular. It’s how to leverage that popularity.
That’s a way of tap-dancing in the direction of an interesting development: Distributors that aren’t necessarily known for horror movies using horror to grow. In early October, “The Substance” became MUBI’s highest-grossing film to date at the box office, doubling the take of 2022’s “Aftersun.” Online discourse around Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes screenplay winner was more toxic than the titular neon-green Substance, but, in the real world, audiences lined up at theaters like Chicago’s Music Box, where it sold out screenings for weeks on end.
Now, Demi Moore is nominated for a Golden Globe for her ferocious tour-de-force performance in the film. But, more importantly for our purposes, it also brought MUBI into the heavyweight class of indie distributors currently dominated by A24 and Neon. Like MUBI, Neon has released its share of horror films, but it isn’t defined by them. At this point, it’s best known as the company that won five Palmes in a row at Cannes. But Palme d’Ors only mean so much at the box office.
Enter “Longlegs,” which overtook “Parasite” in July to become Neon’s highest-grossing film to date. It was the best marketed horror film of 2024, for those who track such things. And I’d bet that, going forward — particularly after “Immaculate” got savaged at SXSW — Neon will use a similar strategy of skipping festivals and showing its horror titles to small groups of critics to build hype. My hot take is that “Longlegs” is fine. It’s definitely a turn towards the populist for the normally more esoteric Osgood Perkins, but it has just enough creepy experimental flourishes to keep things interesting. And Maika Monroe, as always, makes for a capable horror heroine.
For whatever reason, A24 didn’t have a similar commercial breakout in 2024, although “I Saw the TV Glow” was hailed as a masterpiece at Sundance. Neither did IFC/Shudder, although its divisive neo-slasher “In A Violent Nature” did well enough to birth a new franchise. (A sequel is currently in development.) Instead, every film discussed thus far was smashed (slashed, dismembered, whatever) by “Terrifier 3,” the latest in a series that’s become a pop-cultural cultural phenomenon whether snobs like me like it or not. Tedious, artless (again, no pun intended), and regressive, it made $89 million worldwide.
But don’t count metaphorical horror out just yet. Anxiety about bodily autonomy, whether in the form of reproductive freedom or trans rights, permeated the horror films released in 2024. The body horror of Brian Yuzna and Screaming Mad George gets a feminine update in “The Substance,” of course, and “I Saw the TV Glow” compares the feeling of gender dysphoria to being buried alive. Both of those films explore the body from a non-male point of view (Schoenbrun is non-binary transfeminine), placing them adjacent to the most prominent horror trend of 2024: post-Roe pregnancy horror.
At least five movies dramatizing the horror of being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy were released in 2024: “Immaculate,” “The First Omen,” “Apartment 7A,” “The Girl with the Needle,” and maybe “Alien: Romulus,” although that franchise’s framing of pregnancy as being colonized by an alien parasite predates the repeal of Roe V. Wade. (On TV, “American Horror Story: Delicate” also fit the brief.) The political context of this should be obvious, as stories of women bleeding out in hospital parking lots in states that severely limit abortion access have become as numbingly common as kids getting shot at school.
It’s also not a coincidence that two of those movies revolve around nuns forcibly impregnated with the Devil’s spawn, given the role Christianity, and particularly Catholicism, play in this particular form of state-sponsored oppression. It’s also interesting to note that only two of the films cited above, “The First Omen” and “Apartment 7A,” were directed by women, and that those films place a greater emphasis on the interiority and personhood of their protagonists rather than the sexualized spectacle of “Immaculate” — a great example of a modern exploitation film, but hardly the most developed treatment of the theme.
They’re also both late-period sequels to franchises (if you can call “Rosemary’s Baby” a franchise) that nobody is all that invested in anymore, giving their directors a degree of leeway with the material. That brings us back around to one of the benefits of horror being a modest, under-the-radar workhorse of a film genre: There’s actually a lot of room to explore and play within the confines of a Hollywood B-movie like “The First Omen.” As long as a filmmaker hits their required beats — in the old days, it was nude scenes; now, it’s self-referential lore — studios don’t really care what a director does with a horror film. And it’s in those margins that the interesting work gets done.
THE TEN BEST HORROR FILMS OF 2024
“Chime”
In the mid-2010s, Kiyoshi Kurosawa decided that he was bored with crafting spine-tingling atmosphere and set himself a new challenge: Shocking the audience with random acts of extreme violence committed in broad daylight. “Chime,” one of three films Kurosawa debuted in 2024, epitomizes this impulse. The effect is formally exciting and extremely destabilizing, the kind of movie that follows you home.
Currently unavailable streaming. Hopefully that changes in 2025.
An instant classic of the “Bleak Week” subgenre (as defined by the American Cinematheque), “The Devil’s Bath” is a historical drama that forges into psychological territory so disturbing, it becomes a horror film. The morbid detail and grimy nihilism of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s latest is catnip to a certain type of viewer, for whom alienating the masses is a badge of honor. I’ll see you there, freaks.
On Shudder now.
“Dream Creep”
This short from writer-director Carlos A.F. Lopez was ubiquitous on the genre circuit in 2024, and for good reason. It’s smartly conceived, in the sense that it’s written in a way that can be pulled off on a minimal budget. What it does with its everyday setting is truly surprising, and what follows is 12 minutes of deeply weird nightmare fuel. You’ll never look at a meat thermometer the same way again.
Now streaming on MUBI.
By far the best of 2024’s slate of pregnancy-themed horror movies, Arkasha Stevenson’s surprising, dread-laden directorial debut continues the tradition of B-movies as vessels for personal expression. This movie looks amazing, is well-acted (star Nell Tiger Free is particularly good) and thoughtfully directed, and imbues its main character with layers of interiority and agency that its competitors lack.
Now on Hulu.
“Heresy (Witte Wieven)”
An hour-long film made for Dutch TV that screened at Rotterdam and Fantastic Fest, “Witte Wieven” announces an exciting new talent in director Didier Konings. The meticulous medieval setting and supernatural horror recall the modern classic “The Witch,” but Konings takes the diabolical imagery, and radical solidarity with Satanic outcasts, to blasphemous new heights.
Not currently available streaming.
My travels on the festival circuit make it impossible for me to be objective about this particular group of underdogs and their mighty struggle to finish this film, but I mean it when I say: This is it. This is how you move the genre forward without leaning on trite nostalgia or pretentious thematics. Formally innovative but too Canadian to brag about it, it radically reinterprets the slasher movie while delivering on its most visceral promises. I saw it three times.
Now on Shudder.
One of Jane Schoenbrun’s strengths as an artist is their faith in their vision. And “I Saw the TV Glow” has not only a singular point of view, but also some of the most astonishingly beautiful imagery of 2024. Incorrectly labeled by some as a mere nostalgia piece, it instead viscerally captures the existential agony of looking in the mirror and not recognizing what you see.
Now on Max.
“Oddity”
Another sophomore feature that delivers on the promise of its director’s debut, “Oddity” is an elegant piece of filmmaking. It opens with the most impeccably crafted scare scene of the year, and ends on a pitch-black punchline. But Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy’s fascination with bizarre folklore, real and imagined, is what makes this more than just an (exceptionally well done) exercise.
Now on Shudder.
“Red Rooms”
Edgelord cinema at its classiest, this French-Canadian thriller takes an icy-cold approach to its hot-blooded material. And the effect sizzles. It’s what writer-director Pascal Plante doesn’t show that’s really provocative, turning star Juliette Gariépy’s unblinking stare into an interrogation of the viewer’s own morbid, voyeuristic imagination.
Available on VOD.
Any movie that sparks as much debate as “The Substance” has to be doing something right. As a grotesque fairy tale and burn-it-all-down satire of Hollywood ageism and beauty standards, it really worked for me; it’s about as subtle as smashing watermelons with a hammer, but its fury is righteous and its splash zone is immense. Bring a poncho.
On MUBI now.
*****
Heading into 2025, I’m anticipating the release of a handful of films I saw at festivals in 2024, but are still awaiting the right North American distributor: the J-horror revival piece “Missing Child Videotape,” which premiered last month in Tokyo; my beloved “Dead Talents Society,” a Taiwanese horror-comedy with rare charm and popular appeal; the intriguing Midwestern weirdness of “Dead Mail,” which screened at both SXSW and TIFF; and “The Last Sacrifice,” a spooky and thought-provoking documentary blend of film history and true crime.
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