As we come to the end of the 2010s, moviegoers are reflecting on the last 10 years of cinema. This past decade was a strange one for horror films. Thanks to a handful of arthouse horror hits that emerged from the festival scene, some snobbish critics coined the term “elevated horror” to feel less ashamed for liking a horror movie.
Jordan Peele has also pioneered a resurgence in the “social thriller” genre, scoring himself an Oscar for writing a critically acclaimed film that explored racism through the horror genre. Here is The Scariest Movie From Each Year In The 2010s, Ranked.
2012: Sinister
Scott Derrickson directed Sinister from a screenplay he co-wrote with C. Robert Cargill (a pair that would go on to work on the MCU’s Doctor Strange movie). It stars Ethan Hawke as a true-crime writer who stumbles upon a collection of home movies in his attic depicting gruesome murders.
These home movies were shot on actual Super 8 cameras, so they have an air of authenticity. If there’s one criticism against the movie, it’s that it overuses jump scares, but most of those jump scares are effective.
2011: You’re Next
Thanks to an onslaught of sequels like Paranormal Activity 3, Scream 4, and Final Destination 5, 2011 was a pretty tiresome year for horror movies. Ben Wheatley’s Kill List was a harrowing, hard-hitting, almost Kubrickian horror opus, but the title of scariest 2011 movie has to go to Adam Wingard’s You’re Next.
You’re Next managed to wink at the audience and be a great self-aware slasher with a dark sense of humor without losing any of the terror of killers in animal masks attacking a country house.
2019: Us
2019 was a toughie because it brought horror masterworks from two of the genre’s foremost visionaries: Jordan Peele and Ari Aster. As unsettling and anxiety-inducing as Midsommar was, Us just about clinches it. Anchored by a spectacular dual performance from a snubbed Lupita Nyong’o, Us dealt with a lot of lofty themes.
The idea of a doppelganger in a red boilersuit coming to kill you in the middle of the night is terrifying on its own, and Peele executed it masterfully with an airtight script and some chilling set pieces.
2010: Black Swan
Like the previous entry, this psychological horror opus explores the idea that our worst fear is ourselves. Inspired by Dostoevsky’s The Double, writer-director Darren Aronofsky brought the world of ballet to the big screen in a haunting way with Black Swan.
Natalie Portman was unsurprisingly honored with the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Nina, a ballerina who slowly loses her mind as she’s targeted by a doppelganger and traverses the ruthless New York City Ballet company.
2015: The Witch
In 2015, The Visit marked M. Night Shyamalan’s comeback, Crimson Peak was filled with sumptuous gothic visuals The Witch.
Eggers deftly blended real historical horrors with supernatural spectacle and slowly building tension. This movie solidified Anya Taylor-Joy’s place as a modern scream queen.
2016: Train To Busan
While Don’t Breathe brilliantly flipped the home invasion thriller on its head and Hush used sensory deprivation to create suspense long before A Quiet Place did, 2016’s scariest movie was Yeon Sang-ho’s zombie-infested thrill-ride Train to Busan.
Set on a cross-country train ride as a distant father attempts to reunite his daughter with her estranged mother, Train to Busan is visceral, action-packed, and its plot moves at a breakneck pace. And on top of all that, as the train’s engers divide themselves into groups, the movie becomes a critique of class.
2013: Evil Dead
2013 saw the birth of The Purge franchise, The Evil Dead franchise that was gruesome, well-paced, and ultimately satisfying.
Instead of trying to recast Bruce Campbell, Álvarez’s movie gave us a bunch of new characters spending a few nights at the haunted cabin. He used a bigger budget and CGI effects to create more effective scares than Sam Raimi could with the shoestring indie budget he had for the original.
2014: It Follows
Made in the style of horror classics from the ‘80s, It Follows stars Maika Monroe as an unsuspecting young woman who receives a sexually-transmitted disease from her new boyfriend that causes a paranormal entity to ruthlessly pursue her wherever she goes.
David Robert Mitchell directed the film with a gloriously minimalist style. The story of a teenage girl fleeing from a supernatural being is a simple one, but horror thrives on simplistic narratives; it paves the way for the terror to take center stage.
2017: Get Out
Jordan Peele singlehandedly relaunched the “social thriller” subgenre with his directorial debut, Get Out. It’s rare that the Academy recognizes a horror movie, but they instantly fell in love with Peele’s breakout hit.
Daniel Kaluuya stars as Chris Washington, a black photographer, and Allison Williams as Rose Armitage, his white girlfriend who invites him up to an all-white suburb to meet her parents. Get Out is like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner told as an episode of The Twilight Zone. It’s irrepressibly creepy, but it also addresses serious racial issues.
2018: Hereditary
There’s no question that the scariest movie of the past decade is Ari Aster’s Hereditary. When it first hit theaters in 2018, critics called it this generation’s The Exorcist, and that was no exaggeration. The trailers led moviegoers to believe it was about one thing, and then the movie itself took a sharp left turn about half an hour in, leaving those moviegoers with no idea what to expect for the rest of the runtime.
Toni Collette gives a revelatory career-best performance as Annie Graham, while Aster builds tension masterfully towards a shocking finale.
