Father Time, you need to slow your roll. I feel like it was only days ago that I dubbed Spring my favorite horror movie of 2015, but here we are, ready to recap another tremendous year for genre cinema. Yes, you heard me right – TREMENDOUS. Next person to tell me “horror is dead” gets a swift laptop-slam to the face, and then I’m forcing them to sit through each and every one of the following movies. Horror is more than alive. It’s THRIVING. Maybe not in the way old-schoolers remember, but horror cinema continues to evolve in new, exciting and unpredictable ways. You just have to look for it.
This year’s list has a lot more English-speaking horror than usual (foreign titles have been dominating past years), and even more intriguing is a few mainstream films that managed to break blockbuster curses. It seemed that good horror was all going the way of indie backing, but 2016 had its bigger-budget behemoths. More are honorable mentions than actual Top 13s, but they still represent an upward trend that hopefully sticks.
So, let’s get this crazy train a-rollin’ down the tracks – it’s time to talk the best of 2016 horror! As a note, anywhere you see a hyperlink, it’ll link to our review of the film.