WITNESS: My Top 10 Favorite Horror Films of the New Millennium
An ode to the newer things that might be hiding under our beds. :)
Hello Family,
Happy October! What you got planned for the spookiest of all months? And Happy Libra Season to all the Libras out there! My grandmother was a Libra, so I have special love for y’all. In ten more days, it’s Scorpio season. I’m scared! 😅
I’m still trying to decide if I’m going to participate in my neighborhood’s Halloween Crawl this year. I’m not sure if that’s a safe choice for an immunocompromised person. So, I may have to sit this activity out for the foreseeable future. Darn it! And I had so much fun dressing up in costume and handing out candy to trick-or-treaters.
But in the spirit of this time of year: I have seen some brand-new horror films recently. I saw Barbarian, which I thought was superb. It was very original and had a very interesting concept and social message. It was genuinely scary and I loved the reveal of who the actual barbarian was. I was bugging at how the lead actor was a dead-ringer for Halle Berry! This, like The Invisible Man, is one of the great filmic commentaries of the #MeToo era. I highly recommend it. Additionally, I saw the Shudder original Deadstream and The Midnight Club series on Netflix, both of which were pretty good.
I’ve also been revisiting some horror classics. I’ve been watching horror films for as long as I can remember. I was one of those kids who was exposed to horror movies at a young age because the adults in my life measured my courage by whether I was able to overcome being scared to death. The defining moment of terror was seeing The Exorcist when it was re-released in theaters in 1979. I was eight years old. And that settled the question of my courage real quick. I slept with the lights on for five years after that. :)
At some point, I began to understand that my fear wasn’t really rooted in the movie creatures, but rather in what those movie creatures represent about real life. In his critique of The Exorcist in The Devil Finds Work, James Baldwin gets right to heart of the matter:
“For, I have seen the devil, by day and by night, and have seen him in you and in me: in the eyes of the cop and the sheriff and the deputy, the landlord, the housewife, the football player: in the eyes of some governors, presidents, wardens, in the eyes of some orphans, and in the eyes of my father, and in my mirror. It is that moment when no other human being is real for you, nor are you real for yourself. The devil has no need of any dogma—though he can use them all—nor does he need any historical justification, history being so largely his invention. He does not levitate beds, or fool around with little girls: we do.”
I’m not a blood-and-gore type of viewer and I generally don’t like the “body horror” or “torture porn” subgenres of scary movies (I refuse to see any of the Saw or Hostel movies, for example). Perhaps it’s because I recognize that there’s very little difference between those kinds of films and the evening news; the Final Girl’s life deemed just as disposable in real life as in the movies.*
I also have a very difficult time with child abduction horror films. The Boy Behind the Door and The Black Phone, two excellent films that would definitely be on my top 25 list, had me in a state of perpetual anxiety. I recently realized that it’s because I came up during the Atlanta Child Murders, which haunted my waking and my sleeping. It didn’t matter that there are over 850 miles between Atlanta and Brooklyn; I kept thinking I would be next. So I routinely practiced how loud I could scream, how fast I could run, what everyday object I could make deadly to protect myself from whatever boogeyman was snatching up and murdering children. It was because of the Atlanta Child Murders that I understood, irrevocably, at eight years old, what it meant to be a Black child in a country where everyone—everyone—despises you.
Paradoxically, it’s that sort of connection between the reel and the real (shout out to Ancestor bell hooks!) that fascinates me most about horror. More than any other category of film (except maybe documentary), horror reveals something deep, troubling, and truthful about humankind.
The genre is inherently problematic, of course. All of our sins—from ableism to racism, from classism to misogyny, from rape to murder—are on full display in these films; presented not always as subjects of critical examination, but most times as the normalized fabric of the text itself, transmitted there by the filmmakers’ (and society’s) own desires, ignorance, prejudices, and shortcomings. Art imitates life and life imitates art.
My husband and I tried to watch Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story on Netflix and stopped 20 minutes in. It felt immediately exploitative. It hit too close to home. Something about it felt like it was reveling in the consumption of Black bodies as much as it was attempting to explain what happened (how government institutions were so swayed by Dahmer’s whiteness, that they intentionally let him get away with serial murder).
Early on, the series seemed to have a level of sympathy for Dahmer. It felt too American. It reminded me that for Black people around the world, the hills really do have eyes. And I’m glad I don’t have social media anymore to see the defenses of Jeffrey Dahmer, people expressing their attractions to him, and the attacks on his victims that my friends told me have taken place there. However, I still don’t believe in the banning of art—no matter how corruptive, exploitative, or offensive I might feel the art is. All art—ALL ART—reveals both the artist and the audience. When I find something repulsive, I have the right to cover my eyes. I don’t have the right to cover someone else’s eyes (unless it’s my own underaged child).
But I did watch and finish The Innocents, which received rave reviews (certified 97% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). I found it to be one of the most overtly racist films I’ve seen in a long while. Filled with wicked stereotypes of Brown/Black people, it was absolutely insidious how the film used misdirection to absolve whiteness and implicate Brownness/Blackness. The Brown/Black children in this film—and their families—pay the ultimate price, of course, while the white children are permitted redemption, forgiveness, triumph, and life. To me, what this film was ultimately saying is that Brown/Black people are morally and spiritually inferior, and power, even the supernatural kind, belongs in the hands of white people only (even if those white people display evil and ableist tendencies). The title of this film was revealing in ways that I didn’t anticipate and perhaps in ways the filmmakers hadn’t either.
Even in some of the films I list below, there are some elements of uncriticized bigotry. Often, I get the sense that viewers are expected to just accept the stereotyping and dehumanization—especially of marginalized characters—in these filmic universes as a given, as the “natural order,” as destiny, as proper, as true, as part and parcel of not just the design of the films, but the design of the world. This expectation lays the groundwork for dangerous, but effective propaganda. And, it seems to me, Hollywood has always been the propaganda arm of the U.S. government.
The described pathology—and the acceptance of it as central, centered, default, immutable, invisible, and etched in reality—becomes as much a part of the horror for me as the other mundane and supernatural weaponry being wielded against the film’s characters. I believe it’s crucial for individuals to develop a critical consciousness when engaging with art so that things can be placed in their proper context and examined in ways that lay the problematics bare. Horror films that are conscious of the pathologies at play and use them in an attempt to expose something about the human condition are generally the ones I gravitate towards.
In that vein, here are 10 horror films from 2001-2022 that I’ve found to be quite extraordinary, in various ways, with varying degrees of success, at laying the wickedness of the human soul, and human systems, bare.
Warning: Some of the video excerpts below contain quite terrifying, possibly triggering, and spoiler-y imagery. Viewer discretion is advised.
10. The Lighthouse (2019)
I read this film as an exposé on patriarchy and the ways it warps men’s minds. The film has the same feel to me as the American literature written by white cisgender heterosexual male authors (and those who wish to write in that vein) that is deemed classic and canonical: rugged, hard, dismal, struggling, bleak, violent, unrelenting, deceitful, hallucinatory, selfish, and descending. In The Lighthouse, so much is revealed in the tension between needing human touch and fighting against that need in order to define oneself as manly or bootstrapping. It’s one of the loneliest movies I’ve ever seen—and that’s whether the loneliness is imposed of self-imposed. Ultimately, I think profound loneliness (and the disasters people can become as a result of it) is the horror here. It’s a strange film, but is patriarchy not also strange?
9. Host (2020)
This is not The Host. That movie was great, but this is another one entirely. I didn’t think a horror movie literally filmed over a Zoom call could be scary. I was dead wrong. I was surprised at how terrifying they were able to make this film. Snaps for creativity! The message here about not messing with shit you have no business messing with is a common theme in horror. But it’s also the lesson most human beings consistently fail to learn. In a lot of the genre, there’s always a positioning of non-Abrahamic, Indigenous spiritual systems as “pagan” or “demonic.” I don’t know if this was the filmmakers’ intention, but this movie made me briefly consider: What if the reverse is true? What if the demons are the Abrahamic peoples and systems that have pillaged and plundered and murdered and destroyed and overwritten the Indigenous wisdoms and ways of being, and that the spiritual vengeance enacted against colonizers and interlopers, who disrespect the sacred with their intrusions, is actually justice? In any event, if fuck around and find out was a movie, this would be a strong contender. Good old-fashioned scariness. But why did it have to be the Hongkonger character that was the primary offender? Sigh.
8. The VVitch (2015)
The eeriness begins right away in this film. From the excommunication to the isolation to the breakdown of the familial order to the odd and unsettling occurrences that are the result thereof. Much of the imagery of this film is terrifying. The scene where little Caleb is possessed and sheds new light on biblical ecstasy is one of the scariest moments I’ve ever seen. And those twins? And that goat? Yikes! In the end, I’m left to contemplate what I see as the film’s overall message and Thomasin’s journey: In a patriarchal world, is it always a matter of choosing which master you’re going to serve: order or chaos? And does patriarchy make it such that there is ultimately no appreciable difference between the two?
7. What Josiah Saw (2021)
Hands down, this is the most revolting horror film I have ever seen. I’m not talking in a body horror sense. I mean in terms of subject matter, it’s singularly repulsive. Layers upon layers of family trauma, unveiling frightening scenarios that the camera won’t pull away from. There’s a sense that the film is deconstructing the notion of the nuclear family, exposing it as radioactive; revealing that the American Dream should more aptly be described as the American Nightmare. It gives us a glimpse at what a post-Roe v. Wade U.S. will actually look like: and it’s hideous. The whole cast is sublime, but you never want to see most of these characters again if you can help it. I know I don’t. I’m serious: I will never watch this film again. That’s the highest compliment I can pay it.
6. Saint Maud (2019)
One of the most effective films I’ve ever seen about the dangers of religious devotion, and how the pious interpret existence in ways that are a wild departure from objective or corporeal reality—which is why they cannot be reached by reason. There’s a scene in this film, where the main character performs an act of self-mortification that literally made me shout out loud. There’s also a sex scene that scared the shit out of me. The brilliance of this film is in not what it shows, but what it suggests; in what it subverts in your expectations. And when it does decide to show, the reveals are equal parts surprising and horrifying. Morfydd Clark and Jennifer Ehle (who looks hauntingly like Meryl Streep) are chilling and stellar.
5. Doctor Sleep (2019)
I never imagined that a sequel to a classic movie like The Shining 1. was necessary, 2. was possible, and 3. could be good. Doctor Sleep, based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, shattered my expectations entirely. If this isn’t one of the best movies I’ve ever seen about the ways adults harm children, then I don’t know what is. It’s all here: How adults steal children’s innocence, joy, bodies, and souls—and moreover, how adults insist that their survival depends on this grand theft. To me, this film offers how children must always and forever be on their guard around adults and must do whatever they can, use whatever power or cunning they have at their disposal, to protect themselves from most adults—who define their power as dominion over children.
4. Hellbender (2021)
This was a rocking, psychedelic, heavy-metal thrash of a film. One of the most interesting takes on witches and witchcraft that I’ve seen, with a very strong message about traditions in which women try to deny other women their power and what happens once the power is discovered. You heard of mythic “sons kill their fathers”? Well apparently, daughters kill their mothers, too; in the most shocking of ways. This movie stars the real-life mother/daughter duo Toby Poser and Zelda Adams, who are magnificent in their roles as “Mother” and “Izzy,” and also co-directed the movie along with husband/father John Adams. The special effects are striking. And that ending. Whew. Talk about terror. Poser and Z. Adams also starred together in another great film, The Deeper You Dig. This family is buku talented. I can’t wait for more from them.
3. The Mist (2007)
As I’ve said before: The scariest thing about this film is how on-point it is about the state of the United States: how scared people will follow anyone who purports to have an answer, no matter how destructive or nonsensical that answer is; how religion can make people do the most heinous and inhumane things and call it “God’s will”; and how perhaps there is no way to rehabilitate the U.S., that every choice made is a doomed one because of the nature of what the U.S. is and how it came into being. The scariest beasts in this film all have human faces. The Mist—based on a Stephen King novella from his Skeleton Crew collection—is a modern horror movie classic.
2. His House (2020)
Director Remi Weeks is a genius. The way this film worms itself in and out of the mind is a grand achievement. Revelation after revelation. Truth lives inside walls. This film asks: Who are you trying to be? But that’s not its only question. It wants to give you a chance, so it also asks: Are you sure that’s what you want to be? Mainly because it knows the price of the affirmative answer even though we, and the characters, don’t. What answer do you choose, though, when all of them are bad? How far are human beings willing to go to delude themselves? The Ancestors might know and might be able to help. The conscience sequences are among the most beautiful, and nightmare-inducing, I’ve seen in the genre. Wunmi Mosaku and Sope Dirisu are absolutely superb as Rial and Bol Majur, and their beauty serves as a sharp contrast to the devastation around them. And inside them.
1. Get Out (2017)
The more I watch this film, the scarier it becomes. Influenced by both The Stepford Wives (1975) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Get Out strikes at the deep and primal fear of what happens to the Black person who enters into white spaces as the only (or one of the few) Black person. It eviscerates the idea of the “well-meaning ally” as well as the notion of solidarity between “people of color”; it also has some terrifying things to say about interracial dating, and positions Black people as singularly preyed upon for our art, culture, and talents, yes, but also our very bodies. Repeat viewings reveal additional levels of sociopolitical commentary that eviscerates because of how indistinguishable it is from reality. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. On top of all of that, Daniel Kaluuya and Betty Gabriel give absolutely bravura performances. It is officially my favorite horror film of the 21st Century, and quite possibly my favorite horror film of all-time.
Honorable Mention:
Annihilation (2018)
Barbarian (2022)
Halloween (2018)
Hell House LLC (2015)
It Follows (2014)
Midsommar (2019)
The Others (2001)
The Ring (2002)
Train to Busan (2016)
You’re Next (2011)
Syllabus:
The Devil Finds Work by James Baldwin (The Dial Press, 1976)
Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments (Bravo, 2004)
The Good House by Tananarive Due (Atria Books, 2003)
Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies by bell hooks (Routledge, 1996)
Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison (1992)
Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (Shudder, 2019)
Acolytes of Horror by Nathan Wellman (YouTube)
*(If you wish to help Pieper Lewis, the 17-year-old girl who freed herself from the horror that is sex trafficking, please donate to her GoFundMe.)