The year 2018 was an interesting one for horror movies. That was the year that Ari Aster terrified the world with his modern classic horror film Insidious: The Last Key.
Those movies were the ones that everyone was talking about; there were so many films of equal value, some even better. With several great horror movies slipping by, here are the 10 best horror movies that you probably missed.
THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT
While polarizing to horror fans, the sequel to the 2008 horror movie The Strangers arrived 10 years later and couldn't be any more different. The first movie, starring Liv Tyler, was about a home invasion and was a small hit that came years before the rise of films like The Purge. The sequel, subtitled Prey at Night, leaned a lot more toward satire, and that made it very entertaining, if not nearly as scary as the first.
OVERLORD
J.J. Abrams delivered one of his surprise films in 2018 with Overlord. For people who went in without knowing anything about the movie, this was one of those films that flipped an unexpected switch many people didn't see coming.
The film started as a war movie with soldiers sent in for a mission and then found Nazi experiments had created monsters. The film was a ton of fun and delivered an explosive monster mash that was a great surprise for horror fans in 2018.
THE RITUAL
Released early in 2018, The Ritual started like many horror films, with four friends heading off into a scary-looking forest in the Swedish wilderness to find something evil waiting for them. However, this movie was a step above the rest as it brings in mythology and throws the guys into a situation where they go to sleep in a cabin, and when they wake up, they realize they are lost and might or might not have a monster chasing them.
MANDY
It is often easy to overlook Nicolas Cage movies, but when it comes to Mandy, there is a lot here to love. Yes, this is over-the-top Cage, with him not only overacting but going more than a little crazy along the way. However, this isn't The Wicker Man.
Mandy is a movie about a man whose wife was murdered, so Cage sets out to kill everyone responsible in the most graphic, disturbing, and psychedelic ways possible. Forget Death Wish; this is the revenge movie made in a way that no one has ever seen before and probably won't see again.
SUMMER OF '84
Summer of 84 is a horror movie for people who loved Stranger Things. A group of kids in 1984 believe a cop who lives in their neighborhood is a serial killer and starts spying on him in the summer of 1984. However, what they find is a lot scarier than just a regular murder mystery, and the twists and turns themselves were surprisingly good, and the ending was dark and disturbing.
REVENGE
Often, rape/revenge horror movies end up as exploitation films, and most of those are not very good. They range from gross and disgusting, where the assault is highlighted or trashy in the second half of the film where the victim gets revenge.
In Revenge, three guys went out for a hunting trip, and one of them brought his mistress. When she is left for dead, she comes back and seeks bloody revenge against the three. The fact that it is written and directed by a woman might explain why this doesn't exploit the assault and delivers a gleefully violent climax.
ANNIHILATION
Fans who want to see a movie about a group of women kicking some butt, check out Annihilation. Imagine an alien movie where everyone who can save the world is women and then put them in a dangerous situation where they battle a horrific sci-fi horror monster.
Alex Garland (Ex Machina) directed the movie and brought one that left viewers thinking about what they saw, even after finishing the colorful and violent climax. While this is more sci-fi than horror, the women are battling a monster, and it has intense moments of horror.
UPGRADE
Another movie that skews a little more toward sci-fi than horror, from the screenwriter of Saw. This film stars Logan Marshall-Green as a man who ends up as a paraplegic after an attack in a futuristic society.
A brilliant scientist implants a chip in him that allows him to walk again through an AI he can communicate with. Imagine Venom, but instead of an alien, its a computer chip who loves to kill people.
PYEWACKET
Pyewacket is a strange horror movie that features a troubled teenage girl who decides to awaken an ancient evil in the woods with an occult ritual and sets a witch off to kill her mother. The film is similar to The Babadook in that the tension is what brings the horror, and the creature doesn't even show up until the end, leaving viewers wondering if it is even real or not.
That makes this film a step above the rest because it's not about showing off the monster but about building an almost unbearable tension.
APOSTLE
Gareth Evans took a step back from his explosive action movies The Raid and The Raid 2 to create this atmospheric horror movie in 2018. realizes it is not what anyone believed.
