Bud’s Top 10 Horror Movies of 2021: Part 1
It’s December and that means it’s the time of the year where everybody and their brother is making some sort of best of list. However it will be blatantly obvious that this is the best list on all of the internet for a few reasons:
It’s the only list that is in two parts. Climate change is real friends and a large list covering all ten movies eats up too many kilobytes of internet while two small lists conserves energy. Think about the polar bears, I did.
It’s the only top ten list with eleven movies. Why? Adhering to societal norms is poppycock, bucking the system is where the action is really at.
Halloween Kills is not on this list. AKA I’m not shilling for the corporate overlords. Also, I think there were a lot of movies that were better but also YOU WILL NEVER OWN ME BEZOS!!!
I wrote it. This should have been number one tbh.
That said, sit back, relax and enjoy part 1 of Bud’s Top 10 Horror Movies of 2021: Part 1.
#10 BLOOD RED SKY
This is a great one to go into blind because the first act of this film plays out very much like a stereotypical terrorists hi-jacking a plane movie and “Oh no, what is this single mother going to do to survive/protect her son” but then SPOILER ALERT she transformers into a full on, bald headed, Nosferatu style vampire and starts ripping terrorists apart.
This is a Netflix film and sometimes it feels like they release so much content that things get overlooked. Perhaps at times they also focus on content that may seem more palatable or relatable to audiences, something I feel they did with the Fear Street trilogy and it’s not to say those are bad films, if this was a Top 13 they would have made the cut. It’s just that Blood Red Sky is so much better. The blood and gore is absolutely off the charts, in fact it shocked me how much gore there was but the emotional story about the mother infected with vampirism and her son who does his best to help his mother is **chef’s kiss**. Not to mention a couple twists and turns where the scary mother vampire has to become the hero mother vampire when the worst terrorist of them all gets infected. And the end? Yeah bubba, the end will make you cry so have the Kleenex handy.
#9 WILLY’S WONDERLAND
Oh shit, it’s Nic Cage! I’m sorry, where are my manners: Oh shit, it’s ACADEMY AWARD WINNER Nic Cage. The fact that he is a two time nominee and one time winner of the best actor of the year award is something I have to keep in the back of my mind when I watch him in all the batshit crazy movies he’s been in the last decade. I mean, my guy beat Mr Holland's Opus and Dead Man Walking in 1995. In 2002 he lost but he went up against the goddamn Pianist and Mr. “I’m going to make shoes for a year to prepare for a role” Daniel Day Lewis for christsake. Thankfully for us horror fans he has an extensive “Legal Issues” and “Tax Problems” section of his Wikipedia which includes chihuahua theft.
Cage has exactly zero lines of dialogue in this film. None. Not even a cheesy one liner at the end of the film. All he does is play a pinball machine, drink grape soda when his watch beeps and murder possessed animatronic puppets in a condemned children’s restaurant. It’s amazing and a testament to his acting prowess because he still conveys that trademark “Batshit Crazy Cage” energy in complete and utter silence. Some folks call this movie a Five Nights At Freddy’s ripoff but does FNAF have its own theme song? No, it doesn’t.
#8 THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT
Ed and Lorraine Warren are the best couple in horror since Julie Walker and Curt Reynolds in Return of the Living Dead 3 and the third entry of the main Conjuring series proves that. The film is as much about the infamous court case where a murderer claimed demonic possession as the reason for his rampage as it is about the bond between husband and wife. Typically a horror film will end with the monster getting one last jump scare before the credits roll but this one ends with Ed and Lorraine dancing in a gazebo in the woods to Elvis music. It’s utterly beautiful.
So why is it #8 you may ask? Well, there is a whole portion of this film where Lorraine is basically a paranormal super-hero like Dr. Strange or something who has to track down an evil super villain who has paranormal devil worship powers and have a battle. Obviously there is a suspension of disbelief involved with all movies but the first two Conjuring films were firmly seated in reality which made the real photos of everyone involved that appear during the credits much more haunting. To me at least, it’s hard to believe Lorraine was having a magic battle in an underground lair. Maybe it was the only way to get scares since the film wasn’t set inside of a house? Also, the movie tried to convince me Patrick Wilson was old and frail but he is clearly young, in fantastic shape and handsome as fuck.
#7 HUNTED
You know what I love? Lean, simple horror movies with limited exposition and tons of action, something that Hunted delivers oh so perfectly. Clocking in at 87 minutes and having a cast of about ten people it’s easy to see why I fell in love. The film follows Eve who finds herself in a strange town on a business trip. She meets a handsome guy in a bar but he ends up being a psychopath who kidnaps her, takes her into the woods and plans on killing her with his accomplice. I mentioned I like simple movies, Handsome Guy and Accomplice are how the two maniacs are credited as it was unimportant to the main story to give them names or backstories. They are maniacs. They plan on killing Eve. She runs, she is Hunted. Simple
This is the first of four Shudder films on this list and one of the main reasons why that service is so damn good is that they don’t just have a bunch of random ass horror movies, they have expertly curated shit. Hunted is a masterpiece, a modern retelling of the big bad wolf and little red riding hood with an absolutely insane third act where hunted become hunter as the tables turn. Most of the film is in French, but the climax of this film is in a language that can only be described as primal rage as Eve roars through a small town hunting the handsome man with a sharp stick. It’s pure insanity from start to finish and an absolute gem that would have been missed if it weren't for the folks at Shudder.
#6 PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: NEXT OF KIN
Perhaps the pandemic had something to do with it but 2021 was the year of streaming service horror. Most famously there was Halloween Kills released on Peacock but this list also has 4 films released on Shudder, 2 from Netflix, 2 from HBOMax and 2 from Paramount+ which I absolutely did not know was a thing until I signed up to watch the newest Paranormal Activity film. Don’t get me wrong, I love the theater, especially the Ford-Tel drive-in in Detroit that has a late showing that starts at 2am, but I also love laying on the couch watching from the comfort of my home. If this trend continues post pandemic, sign me up…well, I guess I am already signed up for like, I dunno, 10 streaming services at this point.
Next of Kin might be the best looking film on this whole list which sounds strange for a Paranormal Activity film as they are typically filmed with handheld cameras, phones, security cameras in a house and in one of the films, an Xbox Kinect. It’s now 2021 and technology advances, so this found footage film is done in full HD. What makes it even better is what the cameras are picking up. The film follows Margot who was abandoned at birth and through 23 and Me finds her relatives, a group of Amish in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. Now there is nothing more beautiful than the snowy tundra of Pennsylvania in Amish country and this film fully captures that in all its glory. It also catches one of the kings of hell who lives in a giant hole underneath a creepy church in the middle of the woods outside of the Amish village.
Like all Paranormal Activity films, this one is about building tension and then smacking you in the face with ghost fueled insanity during the 3rd act. The difference being, this film utilizes a little bit of standard film making in with the found footage that really heightens that tension. A little bit of score here, a little bit of 3rd person viewing there and you have a film that far exceeds any of the previous entries in the series. Yes friends, you heard me right, this is the best Paranormal Activity film. The cinematography is gorgeous, the Amish are scarier than any creaking door from the other 5 films, not to mention an actual king of hell on a killing spree during a snowstorm, at night in the middle of nowhere. Leading up to this film I watched the entire series over again. The first two seem dated, the third feels like it’s trying to hard, the fourth is trying real hard and no one knows what an XBox Kinect is. The Marked Ones is…well The Marked One’s is pretty damned good and so was Ghost Dimension I guess, but this one? This one has high re-watch value and gets far enough away from the found footage gimmick that it cannot be dismissed as another found footage miss.
Go get yourself some Paramount+ and check this one out…and the #4 film, well which you will have to wait until next time to find out what that is.
