Already behind me this season are Hulu, Disney Plus, Peacock, and MAX. The Mountain is up next, and the question is… do they deliver an avalanche of horror?
- 10 Cloverfield Lane
- I really do love dan Trachtenberg’s little thriller, which i wish had a different name so it could surprise more people. but, this is easily the best film in the franchise, and should have earned John Goodman an Oscar nomination. Yeah, I said it. He’s never been nominated, and this would have been an excellent slide in for his career.
2) A Quiet Place
The Mountain is home right now to all three films in this series, but I prefer the OG. Directed by John Krasinski, this horror/thriller with deadly aliens murdering everything that makes sound is so well directed. You forget it is directed by Jim from The Office. The performances here are also really strong for a genre nomination, and while her first Oscar nomination was for Oppenheimer, would anyone have been surprised if it had been years prior for A Quiet Place? I do believe she snagged some nominations during awards season that year.
3) Bo Is Afraid
Ari Astar’s absolute mindfuck of a movie is like a modern day Dante’s Inferno, as one man has to brave the whole world he’s become afraid of if he hopes to reach his mother’s house. I may not love everything Ari Astar does, but this certainly is not boring. It has so many different levels to it, you’ll laugh, then be scared, then just wonder what is life?
4) Event Horizon
Most people don’t find the works of Paul W.S. Anderson to be highbrow. A lot of horror fans do make an exception for this film though, which goes hard on gore, as Sam Neill and his crew stumble onto a ship that might have just traveled through hell in space. Libérate tuteme ex infernis.
5) Ghost
I always like to include something for the crowd that like the idea of Halloween, but has a threshold of basically nothing when it comes to scary movies. So, for paramount Plus, I bring you Ghost. It is a movie whose leading man is actually a ghost for the majority of the film. So, if your friends make fun of you for using ghost as your Halloween fixture, just remind them that technically this is a movie where a woman is haunted by the ghost of her ex, who even goes to the extreme of possessing someone to try and communicate with her, all while there’s a killer on the loose. Reframing a movie makes it sound way more intense.
6) Identity
James Mangold (Logan) directs this “better than it has any right to be” horror thriller that is memorable at least for its absolutely out of left field bonkers ending. The cast is pretty stacked too, with John Cusack and Ray Liotta among the leads.
7) Pet Sematary (the remake)
As far as remakes go, this was well directed, and made different choices so that it felt fresh. No one can ever beat the original Judd, but John Lithgow certainly tries. It has such a bleak ending too. My favorite of the four Pet Sematary movies.
8) Red Eye
Wes Craven directs this tight little thriller with excellent performances from Cillian Murphy, Rachel McAdams, and Brian Cox.
9) Rosemary’s Baby
Don’t bother with that Apartment 7A crap. Just rewatch, or watch for the first time, Roman Polanski’s nightmarish classic. If you wanna be a film nerd, this is probably the most consequential film on this list.
10) Significant Other
A Paramount Plus original that really surprised me. In protest of Paramount still not adding audio description to the first 4 Scream movies, I passed on recommending Scream 5 or 6, and while I thought about Smile, since there’s a sequel coming out, that film is basically just jump scares. This is the better movie, though I would have loved to recommend the original Scream.