Summary
- Some horror movies take time to find their audience, like Annihilation and The Lords of Salem, that deserve a rewatch.
- Gems like Knock Knock and Under the Skin were misunderstood upon release but are now gaining appreciation for their unique takes.
- Films like A Cure for Wellness and Doctor Sleep were critically acclaimed but faced challenges translating that into box office success.
Sometimes it takes a couple of years for a film to find its audience, and in the past decade, this was the case for several horror movies that have proven more than worth another watch. The horror genre has long been considered a proving ground for young up-and-comers, so it’s a crowded chock-full of talent, and some of those bold visions haven’t always immediately landed.
The 2010s were a decade so rich with horror movies, from slasher movies to the rise of psychological horror movies in the 2010s, that there are certainly more that deserve another examination. In an era that started with slasher reboots and ended with the cultural primacy of studios like A24 and Neon, some gems got lost in the shuffle. Some had small but fervent audiences upon release. Others were quite controversial. Still others had great critical reviews but failed to translate them into success. Whatever the case, these movies deserve a rewatch.
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10 Annihilation (2019)
Annihilation 
3.5
Alex Garland’s Annihilation is based on the novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer. It follows a group of explorers – comprised of biology professor Lena (Natalie Portman), psychologist Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), physicist Josie Radek (Tessa Thompson), geomorphologist Cassie Sheppard (Tuva Nvotny), and paramedic Anya Thorensen (Gina Rodriguez) – as they enter “the Shimmer”, a quarantined zone of mutated plants and animals caused by an unknown extra-terrestrial phenomenon. Lena agrees to enter the Shimmer in search of her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac), who was sent in as part of a special forces operation.
Director Alex Garland Release Date February 22, 2018 Cast Sonoya Mizuno , Kola Bokinni , Jennifer Jason Leigh , Gina Rodriguez , Cosmo Jarvis , Oscar Isaac , Tessa Thompson , Tuva Novotny , Natalie Portman , David Gyasi
Alex Garland’s heady sci-fi-infused follow-up to his highly successful breakout Ex Machina was a tough sell with Skydance, the studio that produced it. Roughly based on a Jeff VanderMeer novel whose inspirations were drawn from the works of Franz Kafka and JG Ballard, the story is dreamlike and associative, paired with technicolor surrealist imagery.
While the film is now considered one of his best, financiers panicked after a tepid test screening, worrying Annihilation was too intellectual to draw the average viewer’s interest (via THR). As a result, after producers refused to force dramatic cuts to make the film more conventional, Garland’s sophomore feature was released on streaming less than a month after its theatrical debut, leading to a poor showing at the box office.
9 Knock Knock (2015)
Knock Knock R
Knock Knock is a 2015 crime drama starring Keanu Reeves, Lorenzo Izzo, and Ana de Armas. Reeves plays a married father who aids two young women who knock on his door. But things quickly escalate as they threaten and seduce him. Knock Knock is directed by Eli Roth and is a remake of Death Game (1977).
Director Eli Roth Release Date October 9, 2015
Eli Roth’s satirical home invasion thriller about two young women who digitally extort a befuddled Keanu Reeves with false rape accusations rubbed audiences the wrong way upon its release in 2015. Earning a paltry $6.3 million on its $10 million budget, critics dismissed its commentary on social media’s impact on sex and society as tonally inconsistent and unnecessarily campy.
Viewed as a product of its time, though, this tricky, tongue-in-cheek bloodbath is both clever and amusing, likely to satisfy audiences far more accustomed to horror’s blending with comedy than even five years ago. Reeves’ performance as a loving father and good husband, a cartoon Job figure being tested by the scourge of conventionally attractive and scheming women, is hilariously unmodulated. Like Unfriended before it, Knock Knock is a sickly look at how we’ve tried (and often failed) to understand the sociological underpinnings of social media and technology in the 21st century.
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8 The Lords of Salem (2013)
The Lords of Salem
The Lords of Salem was written and directed by Rob Zombie and stars Rob’s wife, Sheri Moon Zombie. The 2012 release is a supernatural Horror film that revolves around the Salem Witch Trials, following a modern day DJ named Heidi that ends up mixed up in a centuries-old ritual.
Director Rob Zombie Release Date April 19, 2013 Cast Bruce Davison , Dee Wallace , Ken Foree , Jeff Daniel Phillips , Sheri Moon Zombie , Meg Foster
Rob Zombie’s ‘70s occult pastiche, The Lords of Salem was rejected by critics and audiences in 2013, who found it virtually incoherent. The film follows radio DJ and recovering heroin addict Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie) on a path to complete psychological (and supernatural) breakdown after witches leave a record for her to play on the air.
The Lords of Salem is absolutely more vibes-based than plot-based, pulling from its grab-bag of references like a teenager hastily rifling through a collection of band t-shirts before a party. But Zombie, a rocker turned director, is a perennial shock jock and plays these references to Polanski, Ken Russell, and Méliès with a veejay’s aplomb. Since its grim opening weekend, the film has found its cult audience and been raised in critical esteem.
7 Color Out Of Space (2019)
Color Out of Space
Directed by Richard Stanley, Color Out of Space is a 2019 Horror film starring Nicolas Cage. The film follows a meteorite that strikes the Earth, leading to strange occurrences on a farm. The release features Lovecraftian elements.
Director Richard Stanley Release Date January 24, 2020 Cast Nicolas Cage , Madeleine Arthur
One film that hasn’t received major critical reappraisal is cult director (and former warlock) Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space, because it hasn’t needed it – both critics and audiences rate it highly on Rotten Tomatoes. An adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story of the same name, it has all the makings of a midnight movie: Nic Cage stars as a befuddled dad who believes alpacas are the animal of the future and transplants his family to his father’s old mansion in the middle of nowhere.
When an alien color invades, the film takes on a distinctly psychedelic, stoner-ish timbre, featuring references to the Necronomicon, a not-insignificant secondary role for Tommy Chong, and multiple “full Cage” scenes for its star. It’s no Mandy, but Color Out of Space is a worthy entry into the psychedelic horror subgenre that blossomed at the end of the 2010s.
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6 A Cure for Wellness (2016)
A Cure for Wellness 2.0
Directed by Gore Verbinski, A Cure for Wellness stars Dane Dehaan as Lockhart, a young executive sent to retrieve the CEO of his company from a strange wellness retreat in the Swiss Alps. Becoming trapped at the retreat, Lockhart begins to uncover its dark history and must fight for his life to escape. Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth, and Celia Imrie also star.
Director Gore Verbinski Release Date February 17, 2017 Cast Jason Isaacs , Susanne Wuest , Johannes Krisch , Mia Goth , Natalia Bobrich , Dane DeHaan , Carl Lumbly , Eric Todd , Lisa Banes , Adrian Schiller , Ivo Nandi , Harry Groener , Judith Hoersch , Celia Imrie , Magnus Krepper
Like The Lords of Salem, Gore Verbinksi’s A Cure for Wellness was knocked for its florid meta-referentiality upon its initial release. As A.O. Scott described it (via LA Times), watching A Cure for Wellness, “you might feel like you’re in the company of a manic cinephile friend breathlessly recounting his favorite movie scenes in no particular order.”
The film, inspired by a Thomas Mann novel, follows a businessman (Dane DeHaan) on a journey to the Swiss Alps after his boss (Harry Groener) disappears at a mysterious health retreat. The Pirates of the Caribbean director’s balance of good fun and slick, ambitious visuals in A Cure for Wellness make this twisty thriller an enduring object of curiosity, and its fan base has grown significantly.
5 Doctor Sleep (2019)
Doctor Sleep 3.5
Based on Stephen King’s book of the same name and the sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep follows an adult Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) as he confronts his past at the Overlook Hotel. When a young girl named Abra reaches out to Danny using the telepathic Shine, he learns that she is being hunted and reluctantly becomes her protector. With the Overlook Hotel holding the key to Danny’s own power, he’s forced to return in order to finally move on.
Director Mike Flanagan Release Date October 30, 2019 Cast Carl Lumbly , Ewan McGregor , Bruce Greenwood , Emily Alyn Lind , Rebecca Ferguson , Alex Essoe , Kyliegh Curran , Zahn McClarnon
Mike Flanagan’s sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep, released between the massive successes of some of his best-regarded work on film as well as in television (after Gerald’s Game and The Haunting of Hill House and just before The Haunting of Bly Manor), was a flop. It’s hard to understand what went wrong, considering the film’s nearly universal critical acclaim. Still, it suggests that its 2.5-hour runtime and short marketing campaign may bear some of the responsibility for its failure.
The film is worthy of the praise it received, however. Offbeat and dense, the film boasts excellent performances from Ewan McGregor as grown-up Danny Torrance and Rebecca Ferguson as the seductively evil “shining” vampire Rose the Hat.
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4 Under the Skin (2013)
Under the Skin 3.5
Under the Skin is a sci-fi thriller directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Scarlett Johansson. Johansson plays “The Female,” an alien from another world that hunts men in Scotland. Despite receiving high praise upon release, Under the Skin was a box office bomb, only making a little over half of its budget.
Director Jonathan Glazer Release Date April 4, 2014 Cast Dougie McConnell , Lynsey Taylor Mackay , Jeremy McWilliams , Scarlett Johansson , Kevin McAlinden
Even before its dramatic box office failure in 2013, critics recognized Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin as a piece of art. Developed over a decade and shot to be deliberately alienating, including ample use of hidden cameras and non-actors, Under the Skin was hard for audiences to accept. This contrast was made particularly stark by the fact that the film, which stars Scarlett Johannson as a clinically (anti)sexually curious alien, came out the same weekend as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, also starring the actress. Still, the film, with its artful examinations of what Glazer broadly termed his interest in “the human condition,” has also subsequently been firmly (and rightly) claimed as an existential, feminist sci-fi art film.
3 The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015)
The Blackcoat’s Daughter
Since the release of Longlegs this summer, Psycho star Anthony Perkins’ son Osgood “Oz” Perkins has achieved a new level of fame outside the horror community that would have seemed incredible only a few years ago. The director’s debut film is a pathos-driven chiller about a lonely young woman (Emma Roberts) trying to protect a group of boarding school students (centrally, Kiernan Shipka) left alone over winter break.
The Blackcoat’s Daughter wasn’t released until 2015, however, after struggling with budgetary problems and a botched release schedule after its festival premiere. The film appears fully formed, with none of the jitters that can appear in even the most talented director’s first features. Its scare scenes are eerie and, at times, crawl-out-of-your-skin disturbing. Kiernan Shipka, who rarely has starring roles, is haunting as Katherine, bringing possessed-doll vibes to a character with limited backstory.
2 Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)
beyond the black rainbow
Mandy director Panos Cosmatos debuted with a bang in 2010, releasing Beyond the Black Rainbow, a full-blown trance film that draws inspiration from metal music and the films of Andrei Tarkovsky alongside grindhouse ‘70s aesthetics and Ken Russell’s Altered States.
Set in a latter-day Esalen Institute gone to seed, the film is a moribund morality tale about the death of the ’60s and the health-and-wellness capitalism that supplanted it by the ‘80s. Full of mystery and, eventually, monsters, some critics rejected it as pure pastiche, while others dubbed it a would-be midnight movie. Since the success of his more recent films, this underappreciated low-budget arthouse puzzlebox has attracted a cult following.
1 Green Room (2015)
Green Room
Green Room is a horror thriller that stars Patrick Stewart as a calculatingly devious club owner who is forced to deal with a group of punk rockers who witness a crime they shouldn’t have. Unable to find the breakaway success they hoped for, The Ain’t Rights end their tour at a strange, run-down club in the middle of the woods in Oregon. When the band bears witness to a crime in the club’s backroom, they find themselves prisoners to the club’s dangerous owner who intends to keep his business a secret – no matter who has to pay the price.
Director Jeremy Saulnier Release Date April 15, 2016 Cast Anton Yelchin , Imogen Poots , Patrick Stewart , Alia Shawkat , Callum Turner , Joe Cole
Green Room is a slick, nasty little slasher about regular punks who witness Nazi punks commit a murder after a gig in Portland. This taught, electrifying gore-fest was extremely well received by critics when it was released in 2015, but, like others on this list, underwent a botched release, getting lost in the shuffle between limited and wide distribution.
This edge-of-your-seat tale, told over the course of one harrowing night, boasts an unforgettable performance by the late Anton Yelchin, considered one of his best. The skinheads, led by a would-be Nazi mafioso performed with sociopathic calm by Sir Patrick Stewart, are undeniably and memorably creepy, while the gore itself is particularly high quality. Green Room not only holds up as a particularly effective horror film deserving of more attention, but it also remains salient and stylistically fresh, taking on a timelessness of form that holds up its specific time and place, turning it into a classic.