Smile (2022)

Smile is a nightmarish slow-burn horror film comparable to the likes of It Follows (2014) and They Look Like People (2015), with plenty of creepy images and a pervasive sense of building dread throughout its entire runtime. Therapist Dr. Rose Cotter begins experiencing a terrifying phenomenon following a patient’s apparent suicide, and must figure out what smiling, shapeshifting thing is stalking her before it is too late. Unfortunately, just about every frame that could be considered chilling in Smile was shown proudly in its trailer, making the film itself feel like an extended rehash and forcing it to rely on a few jumpscares to keep the wider audience interested. One of these jolts is a scene in which Rose’s sister approaches Rose’s car, knocking on the window. As she does, her head swings violently into view to reveal a hideous smile on her face. The whole thing happens so quickly and the grotesque appearance of the long, swinging neck and demented grin make this a hugely effective scare, even if it was also sadly shown in the trailer.

Insidious (2010)

This one got me good back in 2010, and I still remember jumping clean out of my seat at a couple of points. Of course I was more impressional back then and I’m not sure it would have the same effect nowadays, though I would consider Insidious to be a chillingly atmospheric and intensely creepy horror film nonetheless. Many would probably consider the best jumpscare here to be the appearance of the red-faced demon behind Patrick Wilson’s character, though there was another scene that sticks with me far more. Somewhere in the madness of the first real night of haunting, Renai (played by Rose Byrne) runs into her baby’s room to see a figure standing over the cot. Because this happens in the midst of so much panic, and because Rose Byrne’s reaction through one unbroken camera shot is so convincing, I would place this as one of the more spine-chilling jumpscares James Wan has to offer.

The Visit (2015)

Despite being one of M. Night Shyamalan’s later works, The Visit actually utilises its found-footage presentation well for the most part, offering a group of charismatic and interesting characters and plenty of passable chills, not to mention an ending that calls back to the director’s earlier, more widely regarded films. While I enjoyed a lot of The Visit, we are here to talk about the jumpscares of the matter, which sadly I liked a lot less. One stand-out scene is when the kids are crawling under their grandparent’s house and end up hiding from their snarling ‘grandmother’ as it crawls around looking for them. This may have been a creepy scene if not for the incessant and inhuman screeching and snarling coming from her. These sounds have no bearing on the story and are seemingly there to give the audience a little jolt, like an editing afterthought when it was realised the scene simply wasn’t that scary.

Hereditary (2018)

Ari Aster’s breakout directorial debut Hereditary is a uniquely nasty look at classic haunting tropes, one that shocked audiences with its blend of supernatural chills and pitch-black family drama. The scare I’m choosing to focus on from this particular nightmare is a good case for the argument that quiet jumpscares can work better. Things are already tense as Charlie (Millie Shapiro) struggles through her closing airways and when she tries for air, a small thud is all that’s needed to let us know that the worst has happened. You might not have initially jumped at this one, hell, you might not have even caught it the first time around, but once the realization sets in of what happens when Charlie sticks her head out of the car window, we are left in the same state of silent shock her unfortunate brother Peter (Alex Wolff) is in. Phenomenal acting and truly disturbing subject matter mean that this flick is not for the weak of heart.

The Conjuring (2013)

Like any decent ghostly chiller from James Wan, The Conjuring is chock full of dread, atmosphere and a bucketload of jumpscares. As with his other works such as Insidious, Wan likes to turn up the shocks and then keep them coming until the audience is completely worn out from gritting their teeth. Once the tension ramps up we can expect horrors jumping from every shadow, meaning it can be quite hard to pin down a particular jumpscare amongst the madness. That being said, the reveal of the evil entity, Bathsheba, hiding atop the wardrobe has to be one of the better timed and executed scares of James Wan’s career. Her hideous, yet not over-the-top, appearance flashing so suddenly gives such a threatening air that our fight-or-flight sense begins to tingle at the very sight of her. Couple that with the knowledge that she sacrificed her own child just to get one over on God and you have one truly unsettling antagonist.

Signs (2002)

I’ve already picked on one of Shyamalan’s later works so why not go back and have a look at one of his more worthy creations? Signs stars Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix and could to this day be the scariest sci-fi horror extraterrestrial invasion film in history. This is chiefly due to the thick sense of foreboding that builds over the film’s first couple of acts, before panic ensues and the family hope their preparations weren’t in vain. The scares work here because Shyamalan keeps things quiet for the most part. One standout moment is when Merrill Hess (Phoenix) is watching shaky news footage of an alleged ‘sighting’ at a child’s birthday party. The shot of a backyard alley is held just long enough to put viewers on edge before an alien walks brazenly out and swaggers across to the other side. At this point in the film we don’t know what to expect from these creatures, so when a vaguely sinister humanoid walks out the effect is a confusing and hair-raising jolt. Every little glimpse of a leg or hand of the creatures thus far has been leading to an almost casual reveal, and Phoenix’s reaction illustrates the significance of the event perfectly.

Sinister (2012)

Sinister is a moody and atmospheric horror directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Ethan Hawke, which utilises a home-movie effect through some of its sequences that can be considered some of the creepiest scenes in modern horror. When author Ellsion Oswalt (Hawke) finds a stack of super 8 footage depicting the gruesome murders of several families, he must decipher the connections between them before the malicious entity residing in the footage finds him. I won’t spoil too much, though I’ll say that one of these tapes has one of the more unexpected and gut-dropping jumpscares I’ve personally come across. While Sinister’s third act doesn’t quite live up to the dread built in the first two, it’s still a worthy modern horror flick in many regards and should be watched at least once.

Lights Out (short) (2013)

For this pick I’m giving a shout out to one of the most harrowing short films that ever graced the internet. It was later adapted into a great feature film of the same name, though I still consider the rawness and simplicity of the original Lights Out short to be far superior for a quick scare. Clocking at around three minutes, Lights Out features no dialogue and very minimal sound effects with no excessive increases in volume. When our lead turns out the light and sees the sinister figure at the end of the hall, we see it as she does, with no obnoxious instrumentation or erratic camera editing. As she starts to curiously turn the light on and off , the figure only appearing in the dark, we scream internally to just leave the thing on and get out of the place. The 2016 feature film definitely took things further in every possible way, and happens to be a very competently horrifying film in the process, though something about the short will always reign supreme. Watch the Light Our Horror short below.

Barbarian (2022)

Barbarian is an absolute enigma of a film and is best enjoyed with absolutely no prior knowledge going into it. Let’s just say that the first act in no way hints at the insane length the story goes to, and the first actual reveal of where things are going is downright horrifying. Featuring little to no sound, this particular scene uses a quick and horrifying visual followed by some brutal violence that are both heart-stopping in their abruptness and such a curveball in terms of story that viewers feel completely and suitably helpless.

The Ring (2002)

Gore Verbinski’s 2002 remake of the Japanese chiller Ringu, The Ring, was one of the first horror films I remember seeing, and I still remember the nightmares, the fear of TV static, and the absolute hatred of little girls with long black hair. There’s plenty to be scared of in what I would consider one of the best horror remakes around, though one scene disturbed my young mind beyond belief. Following an account of a young girl’s horrifying death, we are greeted to a quick shot of the victim crouched in a cupboard, her face twisted and warped beyond recognition. The image is so jarring and unexpected that the audience is put in a state of alert apprehension, and although I am biased I would consider it one of the best scares on this list.

Joe Clements

Joe first knew he wanted to write in year six after plaguing his teacher’s dreams with a harrowing story of World War prisoners and an insidious ‘book of the dead’. Clearly infatuated with horror, and wearing his influences on his sleeve, he dabbled in some smaller pieces before starting work on his condensed sci-fi epic, System Reset in 2013.Once this was published he began work on many smaller horror stories and poems in bid to harness and connect with his own fears and passions and build on his craft.
Joe is obsessed with atmosphere and aesthetic, big concepts and even bigger senses of scale, feeding on cosmic horror of the deep sea and vastness of space and the emotions these can invoke. His main fixes within the dark arts include horror films, extreme metal music and the bleakest of poetry and science fiction literature.
He holds a deep respect for plot, creative flow and the context of art, and hopes to forge deeper connections between them around filmmakers dabbling in the dark and macabre.

linktr.ee/Joeclements

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The post The Frightful History of the Best Jumpscares appeared first on Puzzle Box Horror.

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

This Charles E. Sellier directed slasher wasn’t the first time a maniacal killer donned a Santa suit, though it’s definitely one of the first that showed the true brutality the budding sub-genre had to offer. Silent Night, Deadly Night follows Billy, a troubled young man suffering from post-traumatic stress after being sole witness to the murder of his parents at the hands of a man dressed as Saint Nick himself. This, coupled with his subsequent abusive upbringing in a Catholic orphanage, picks away at his psyche until finally, in adulthood, he snaps and begins mirroring the man who brought about his parents demise. Billy dons a santa claus outfit and begins a spree of brutal murders in his hometown.

Silent Night, Deadly Night was met with its fair share of controversy over its depiction of a sadistic Saint Nick, being pulled from theatres a mere week after its release. Of course, as plenty of banned films do, it quickly achieved cult status and managed to spawn four sequels, with a reboot in the works for release this year.

Billy’s breakdown is, while dated in many regards, still a potent one. The eventual explosion of violence he undergoes is chock full of the mean-spirited dispatching of innocents that we have come to expect from slashers. Although, the personal dramas Billy deals with throughout the films runtime are just as endearing, and we are met with just as much human tragedy as we are mindless violence in this rough-but-ready Christmas horror movie relic.

To All A Goodnight (1980)

Interestingly enough, this slice of festive nastiness was directed by none other than actor David A. Hess, known for his own roles depicting gruff and often murderous villains. Some would argue that David may have been better in front of the camera for this low-budget slasher, and it’s easy to see why. To All a Goodnight flew under just about everyone’s radar at the time, despite coming out before the likes of Silent Night, Deadly Night and around the same time as the likes of “You Better Watch Out”. Even so, this is a particularly vicious and atmospheric Christmas horror slasher that should be on every genre fan’s watchlist at least once.

Like many slashers of its era, This one opens with a flashback to a prank going terribly wrong before moving to the present, where a group of wealthy students of a Finishing School for Girls plan to sneak their boyfriends in for a late night party. Their plans are ruined, however, when someone dressed in a Santa costume begins stalking the halls, dispatching them one-by-one.

There are some interesting kills on show here, and a suitably rough and unhinged electronic score permeating the festive filleting of surprisingly halfway decent actors. Each character manages to bring something distinct to the table, making this an under appreciated and worthy Santa slasher.

Sint (2010)

Sint, also known as Saint in Europe and Saint Nick in the US, is a Dutch black-comedy about the legend of Sinterklaas, the character upon which our lovable modern Santa Claus is based. Sint distorts myth and reality, portraying Sinterklaas as a homicidal ghost who murders huge amounts of people when Christmas coincides with a full moon. The film was directed by Dick Maas, who gained critical acclaim with such horrors as De Lift (1983) and Amsterdamned (1988), and is seen widely as a return to form after a long absence.

Sint is a surreal and polarizing affair on the whole, some feeling the potential its concept set wean’t fully realized. That being said, the bizarre and action-packed spectacle we are left with is, while tamer than most yuletide horrors, more than entertaining and darkly funny enough to satiate the Christmas horror movie genre fans years down the line.

Rare Exports (2010)

For our next look into crimbo carnage we head to Finland for the modern fantasy/action horror Rare Exports, directed by Jalmari Helander. The story centres around Pietari, a young boy living in the mountains of Northern Finland. He and his friend Juuso uncover plans of a secret mountain drilling project that they believe has uncovered a tomb. The tomb of Santa Claus himself. Of course this is a Christmas horror movie, so the Saint Nick that is uncovered and expectedly rises from his grave is not as jolly as one might hope. All hope may rest in an old wildman who becomes ensnared in one of Pietari’s father’s wolf traps, who may know more than he is letting on about the recent children’s disappearances and reindeer’s slaughter.

The story begins slowly, ramping up the suspense before the deliciously savage killing begins. Each character is given room to breathe and establish themselves, adding real weight to the carnage that follows. The end result is something beyond a simple b-movie slasher; a unique, unsettling and often hilarious Santa Claus origin story that reminds us that all fairy tales are truly dark if you dig deep enough.

Christmas Evil (1980)

Christmas Evil is a bit of a wildcard. This mean-spirited proto-slasher being more an exploitation film than anything would usually mean buckets of blood and some risque content that wider audiences would have difficulty with. This is by all means a nasty and uncompromising film, though it seems more concerned with mood and atmosphere than with shocking its audiences with gore and nudity.

Brandon Maggart plays a toymaker who has loves Christmas since he was a young boy. He is scarred when he realises Santa isn’t real and vows then to keep the Christmas spirit a reality, becoming obsessed with children’s behaviour and the quality of his own creations. He eventually snaps when people meet his efforts with a cold cynicism, causing him to begin a killing spree dressed as his lifelong hero, jolly Saint Nick.

Maggart plays Harry with an intensity that brings to mind broken characters such as Travis Bickle and even Michael Rooker’s ‘Henry’. This coupled with Christmas Evil being the first film to feature Santa as a killer elevated it above plenty of the Christmas horror movies of its era.

Tales From The Crypt (1972)

When a group of tourists become lost in a labyrinth of ancient catacombs, they come across the Crypt Keeper (played by Ralph Richardson) who tells each of them their fate in the form of five short films. Not only does Tales From The Crypt feature one of the scariest killer Santas in cinema history, but it manages to be a cut above other anthology horror films by a wide margin in terms of quality and overall scares. The tales include a murderous spouse, a man who becomes the target of nosy and suspicious neighbors, and an adulterer who may meet a fitting end if the keeper’s predictions are accurate.

This was arguably the first film to feature a homicidal Santa Claus, though not as its main crux.

A Christmas Horror Story (2015)

The idea of a killer Santa is turned gleefully on its head in this fun action/horror from directors Grant Harvey, Steven Hoban and Brett Sullivan. The small Town of Bailey Downs is suddenly set upon by a maelstrom of Christmas chaos, including insidious spirits, zombified elves and none other than the anti-Santa himself, Krampus.

A Christmas Horror Story has something for everyone; the uninitiated will enjoy the simplicity and accessibility of the story while more hardcore fans will recognise references such as Bailey Downs from the film’s opening.

All in all this manages to be one of the stronger horror anthologies out there, especially since it is dedicated fully to modernising an old tale with a brutal new twist. Don’t miss it.

Black Christmas (1974)

And finally we come to one of the most influential and to-this-day unsettling of all the Christmas horror movies. Black Christmas set the stage for slashers in the late 70s and early 80s, creating many of the conventions we know and love them for today.

As winter settles in, a shout of sorority sisters begin receiving aggressive and sexual phone calls from an anonymous psycho. One thing we can tell from the squealing voice is that its owner is very disturbed and very dangerous. Margot Kidder does a great job as the unhinged and inebriated ‘Barb’, who gleefully eggs on the caller until he becomes threatening. When the girls hear of a local girls murder, and one of their own goes missing too, they begin to suspect the calls may have been more threatening than they appeared, and none of them have any idea just how close the danger is.

And as an audience we feel every bit of that danger. Because Black Christmas is from a time before established slasher tropes, there are no fixed rules for who will live and who will die. Not even a ‘final girl’ is guaranteed amongst the colourful group, making this nasty yuletide spree a worthy entry in any horror fan’s rotation. There’s a reason so many tried to emulate what Black Christmas did, and the templates it set in stone are still revered to this day.

Joe Clements

Joe first knew he wanted to write in year six after plaguing his teacher’s dreams with a harrowing story of World War prisoners and an insidious ‘book of the dead’. Clearly infatuated with horror, and wearing his influences on his sleeve, he dabbled in some smaller pieces before starting work on his condensed sci-fi epic, System Reset in 2013.Once this was published he began work on many smaller horror stories and poems in bid to harness and connect with his own fears and passions and build on his craft.
Joe is obsessed with atmosphere and aesthetic, big concepts and even bigger senses of scale, feeding on cosmic horror of the deep sea and vastness of space and the emotions these can invoke. His main fixes within the dark arts include horror films, extreme metal music and the bleakest of poetry and science fiction literature.
He holds a deep respect for plot, creative flow and the context of art, and hopes to forge deeper connections between them around filmmakers dabbling in the dark and macabre.

linktr.ee/Joeclements

The post Must Watch Killer Christmas Horror Movies appeared first on Puzzle Box Horror.

Goosebumps

More than just a film, Goosebumps has been one of the forerunners of children’s horror since 1992 with the groundbreaking Goosebumps children’s book series, and the hair raising tv series of the same name beginning in 1995. In addition were two more recent Goosebumps films and some noteworthy comic and video game adaptations. I indulged in plenty of the Goosebumps literature at a young age, particularly the ‘choose your adventure’ titles as something about making the wrong choice resulting in someone dying horribly was all the scarier. That being said, I remember being frightened witless at just as many moments in the television series. Slappy’s original design from Night of The Living Dummy still lives bored into my mind as one of my earliest jumpscares, and his sinister smile still chills me to this day. That episode also featured another sentient doll which held her owner hostage and threatened to kill her entire family (yes, this show was aimed at 7 year olds). I blame Goosebumps as a franchise almost entirely for my love for, and discerning taste in, all things horror.

Are You Afraid of The Dark?

A show known only to me as ‘Canadian Goosebumps’ at one point in time, the equally creepy Are You Afraid of The Dark aired from 1991 to 1996, with one revival show airing from 1999-2000 and another beginning in 2021. The most recent revival has been met with a great reception, though the early-90s original was not without its charms. All adaptations centre around a group of kids who called themselves ‘The Midnight Society’, who meet up ritualistically in spooky places in the dead of night to tell scary stories. Each episode, these stories are shown to the viewer as blood-curdling short films, which often bleed over into that character’s reality in some way.

Frankenweenie

Tim Burton is a name that will likely pop up a number of times in this article, as he is one of the few who truly understands the balance between dark scares and childlike wonder. To be told that Frankenweenie is Burton’s best film in a long time should be encouragement enough to watch it, and that is exactly what the general consensus is. In this alternate timeline, a young Victor Frankenstein is a scientist and outsider at school with one true friend; his dog Sparky. When Sparky is tragically killed, Victor takes the advice of his science teacher and reanimates his companion. When Victor’s classmates steal his work and attempt to use it on their own pets however, things go horribly awry. Burton pays homage to plenty of classic horror movies and returns to his roots with blazing success with Frankenweenie, a flick not to be missed by horror fans young and old.

Monster House

It took me a criminal amount of time to finally watch the brilliant animated family horror Monster House, though better late than never. This clever little tale centers around two friends who discover that their creepy neighbor’s even creepier house is far more monstrous than it looks. When the house itself begins eating people on the run-up to Halloween, the boys must try to convince an adult of what is going on before the ultimate smorgasbord of trick-or-treaters file up to its ravenous door! Featuring an all-star cast of voices, and some bone-chilling animation including the evil house’s twisted transformations, Monster House is a modern classic which blends family-friendly humour with a tangible and at-times terrifying threat.

Coraline

Coraline was adapted from the 2002 Neil Gaiman book of the same name, and is an utterly skin-crawling experience, albeit one packed with heart and nostalgia. 11 year old Coraline finds an alternate, and rather ideal, version of her own home within its walls, though before long she realizes that the place holds a dark and insidious secret. While remaining appropriate for children, Coraline features some truly chilling concepts and hair-raising stop-motion animation that is kept raw to utilize the unsettling effect stop-motion can have. Neil Gaiman always manages to capture the hearts and minds of his audience, especially given his penchant for horror, so one can only be thankful that Henry Selick had the directorial prowess to take it to the big screen.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

You’ve seen the merchandise, you’ve heard at least one of the songs, though if you haven’t actually sat down to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas yet you’re missing out in a big way. This 1993 Burton classic paved the way for many animated films that followed its staggering popularity. The story focuses on Jack Skelington, King of Halloween Town as he one day stumbles upon the neighboring Christmas Town. When he becomes obsessed with Christmas culture he attempts to bring it back to his own people, to great confusion and uproar. Jack’s is a unique tale with a solid moral compass, one layered with catchy songs and lovable voice acting throughout.

Beetlejuice

This one might be a little bit of a cheat, as there are plenty of parents who wouldn’t want their young children watching Michael Keaton sauntering around making crude gestures and more innuendos than Austin Powers. But that is part of what makes this dark, wacky live-action headtrip such a quintessential Tim Burton classic. Sure, it’s not fully aimed at kids but there’s enough slapstick comedy and colorful integration of unnerving stop-motion (I’m looking at those sandworms) to entertain people of all ages. While it’s not exactly a musical, the placement of a couple of Harry Belafonte songs are particularly hilarious, and the overtly stylized look of the film combined with some brilliantly off-kilter performances are enough to warrant this film a cult classic. Keaton is a force to be reckoned with as the reverse-exorcist Beetlejuice, who promises to rid your home of the living should you simply say his name three times. No one would be that stupid though, right?

James and The Giant Peach

Things are getting personal now as we visit another early Tim Burton nightmare. One of my earliest memories of being terrified is of the hellish mechanical shark with its rotating layers of steel teeth, or the horror of the black rhino in the storm clouds. James and The Giant Peach is adapted from a Roald Dahl book and given a suitably dark and unsettling stop-motion style, blended cleverly with live-action as James crosses into a dreamlike reality of giant fruit and huge talking insects. On a voyage across the ocean and skies to New York, James and his band of oversized creatures must battle peril upon horrendous peril, while ultimately finding himself in the comfort of his friends. This adaptation catures the comic brilliance and surreal grimness of Dahl’s work perfectly, and makes for solid family viewing any time of the year.

Gremlins

Fun fact: Gremlins was almost an R-rated gorefest of a movie before some studio head decided it was worth converting into the fun and exciting festive horror-comedy we know and love. The story centers around struggling inventor Randall Peltzer who is looking for a Christmas present for his son, Billy. When he wanders into an old bazaar in Chinatown, he encounters an old man who presents him with a cute, furry creature called a Mogwai. The man imparts upon Randall the few vital rules one must follow when owning a Mogwai, though Billy himself has a little trouble keeping to them. While it remains a cult-classic among many adults, Gremlins has enough laughs and cuteness from Gizmo the Mogwai to entertain children of all ages, even though those under 10 might find certain scenes of fantasy violence disturbing.

Joe Clements

Joe first knew he wanted to write in year six after plaguing his teacher’s dreams with a harrowing story of World War prisoners and an insidious ‘book of the dead’. Clearly infatuated with horror, and wearing his influences on his sleeve, he dabbled in some smaller pieces before starting work on his condensed sci-fi epic, System Reset in 2013.Once this was published he began work on many smaller horror stories and poems in bid to harness and connect with his own fears and passions and build on his craft.
Joe is obsessed with atmosphere and aesthetic, big concepts and even bigger senses of scale, feeding on cosmic horror of the deep sea and vastness of space and the emotions these can invoke. His main fixes within the dark arts include horror films, extreme metal music and the bleakest of poetry and science fiction literature.
He holds a deep respect for plot, creative flow and the context of art, and hopes to forge deeper connections between them around filmmakers dabbling in the dark and macabre.

linktr.ee/Joeclements

The post Best Family Horror Movies appeared first on Puzzle Box Horror.

When it comes to horror movie killers, some are simply smarter than others! As a horror fan, one realizes quickly that the variations between franchises and their villains can be widely diverse. Some horror movies feature hyper-intelligent killers who are able to outwit nearly any protagonist…keeping the audience’s jaw fixed to the floor. Other horror movies invite super dumb killers to the screen who chase their victims best, but with little to no cunning or wit at all! Ultimately, all horror movie killers can be ranked by IQ and their intelligence in kills. So who is the smartest horror movie killer?

Horror Movie Killers, Ranked by Intelligence (IQ)

Puzzle Box Horror has included the most notable killers along with their IQs per our expert opinion. Here is a complete list of our favorite horror movie slashers and killers ranked by intelligence!

Jigsaw [IQ: 158]

Saw’s Jigsaw Killer, John Kramer is so smart that he continues to kill movie after movie, long after his autopsy where we see messages being extracted from his very corpse! One of the most influential factors which make Jigsaw the #1 Smartest Horror Movie Killer, is that he planned all of these additional killings (in one fashion or another) in advance of his own predicted death. If planning weren’t enough, Jigsaw’s traps absolutely reek of genius. He always manages to add a personal flair and the chance of painful retribution for his victims, ultimately making them the bringers of their own demise through choice.

Pinhead [IQ: 154]

Clive Barker’s ingeniously sadistic Hellraiser series brought us one of the more recognizably stylish and unmistakably brutal of horror movie killers, Pinhead. Pinhead is an interesting entity; ominous and authoritative in speech and with a wide variety of demonic torture methods at his fingertips. Summoned with the Lemarchand Configuration, Pinhead draws from another realm entirely, making him far less restricted as a killer than someone of earthbound flesh. In all, Pinhead is one of the most powerful and intelligent killers on this list, with prospects of taking over the entire world!

The Zodiac Killer [IQ: 145]

Based on a real-life killer and told in meticulous detail (The producers even hired a private investigator to track down the real-life Zodiac survivor, Mike Mageau!) David Fincher’s Zodiac gives us a glimpse into a devious and cunning killer with an obsession with ciphers and cryptograms that he would send to the police, claiming that if they were not printed publicly then further killings would occur. The self-named Zodiac was never caught to this day, and some of his codes have yet to even be cracked!

Hannibal Lecter [IQ: 140]

Silence of the Lambs spawned Hannibal Lecter, a devious killer who is able to literally cut open someone’s skull, remove, cook and eat the victim’s brains, all right in front of their eyes! Hannibal is educated, assumes the identity of a doctor, and convinces others to kill and mutilate, making him a super manipulative killer, and the third most intelligent horror movie killer.

John Doe [IQ: 132]

David Fincher’s Se7en gave us one of the sharpest, and easily one of the downright creepiest killers to ever grace the screen with John Doe. As he plays out his master plan of sin-related carnage he stays two steps ahead of the pursuing detectives at all times, only appearing to them, and the audience, when he so chooses. Patient and methodical to a terrifying extent, John Doe is responsible for one of the most chilling endings to a horror film ever, and Kevin Spacey’s skin-crawling performance ensures he stays in your mind long after the credits roll.

Patrick Bateman [IQ: 125]

Mary Harron’s American Psycho is more a pitch-black deconstructive jab at yuppie culture than a straight-up slasher, though the gleefully psychotic centerpiece of this story, the sadistic Patrick Bateman, helps it tread confidently between the two. Patrick is cool, suave and sophisticated, wealthy enough to maintain an illusion of pure class while he satiates his bloodlust in the shadows. He seems to use serial killing as a form of self-improvement and while he is one of the more unstable entries on this list (see his reaction to a colleague’s superior business card for example) he is also one of the more successful and intelligent.

Freddy Krueger [IQ: 121]

Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger is a little predictable, but still puts on a really good show. Freddy pulls off a number of creative deaths and outsmarts a lot of really resourceful protagonists. One of the most important factors to consider, is that Freddy often comes back for victims that have survived the past movies, finding new ways to overcome and slay them. Freddy Krueger maintains a respectable 5th place when it comes to horror movie killer IQs!

Chucky [IQ: 111]

Child’s Play’s Chucky is a doll inhabited by a desperate fugitive serial killer, Charles Lee Ray. Charles is not too bright himself, often being outwitted or otherwise outdone by a child or other dimwit character. However, given the nature of most other horror movie killers, Chucky still rakes in a strong 6th place!

Ghostface [IQ: 102]

Scream’s Ghostface killer ends up being two of the high school students involved in the plot from the start. Protagonist Sidney Prescott’s boyfriend (Billy) and her friend (Stu) are the killers, sharing the same outfit in order to manipulate the characters throughout the scenes faster and with less suspicion. Still, a team of high school killers hatch a plan smart enough to outscore a lot of the more traditional hack and slash jobs!

Michael Myers [IQ: 78]

Halloween’s Michael Myers has a variety of movies to showcase his intelligence, but he just doesn’t meet the bar! He is constantly outsmarted by characters that get away time and time again…most notably being Dr Loomis, who can be found in a number of Halloween movies constantly trying to reacquire and actually track Michael Myers.

Jason Voorhees [IQ: 69]

Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees is portrayed as a disabled child in Freddy Vs Jason (2008) and has had several other references made throughout his films insinuating he is mentally challenged. He still manages to kill an astronomical amount of people rather quickly…probably because he is too stupid to play with his food!

Leatherface [IQ: 67]

Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface wins the award for the most deranged killer, being that the character is literally mentally challenged. Leatherface is supposed to be the result of a redneck, Texas inbred family (referenced in some of the flicks themselves), who lives life by following family orders. Still, as low of an IQ as Leatherface might have, he is no less entertaining, finding ways to make the same types of kills interesting every time!

Final Word on Who is the Smartest Killer

Not all of the killers we see in horror flicks are slashers, making the running a lot harder for first place! There are many creative ways a smarter killer is able to showcase a death and a lot of these movies feature proof of exactly that!

Have a killer you’d like to see ranked? Leave your comment below and we’ll assess the monster/slasher and add them to the list!

Tritone

Tritone’s love of horror and mystery began at a young age. Growing up in the 80’s he got to see some of the greatest horror movies play out in the best of venues, the drive-in theater. That’s when his obsession with the genre really began—but it wasn’t just the movies, it was the games, the books, the comics, and the lore behind it all that really ignited his obsession. Tritone is a published author and continues to write and write about horror whenever possible.

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George Romero passed away July of 2017. RIP to one of the greats; George Romero February 4, 1940 – July 16, 2017

When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.

George A. Romero

Night of The Living Dead (1968)

The original. The progenitor. The timeless classic which pioneered the entire zombie genre. Romero’s first major motion picture shocked audiences with its mix of graphic violence, creeping horror and sharp social commentary back in the late 60s, when all people had seen of zombies were the more focused and often voodoo-based flicks of the 30s and 40s, beginning with Victor Halperin’s 1932 opus, White Zombie. Night of The Living Dead tells the tale of a group of Pennsylvanians hiding out from the undead apocalypse in a farmhouse basement. Grim news reports detail the carnage in the surrounding areas as the group fend off the walking dead from their makeshift fortress. Being filmed in black and white certainly adds a lot to the grotesque atmosphere and hides a lot of the budgetary and technological constraints of the time, proving Romero’s first entry to be just as effectively gruesome today as it ever was.

Turns out there was a miss in the copyright of the original Night of The Living Dead so it can be readily streamed for free on many services as it is now in the Public Domain.

The Crazies (1973)

The few films Romero released just after the critical success that was ‘Living Dead were sadly not so well received, one of these being The Crazies. The Crazies centers around a small town affected by an airborne bioweapon which causes people to become homicidal psychopaths. We follow a nurse (Lane Carroll) and her husband (W.G. McMillan) as they try to flee their infected town. When the US army turns up to control the outbreak, the chaos ramps up even more in what is, if not Romero’s best work, still a potent low-budget shocker with plenty to satisfy even discerning horror fans. Like many of Romero’s classics,The Crazies was a big enough hit to warrant a remake in 2010, with a fresh and terrifying look at the source material that some deem to be better than the original.

The Amusement Park (1975)

While not exactly horror, and not exactly a feature film, Romero’s The Amusement Park is as sharp on social commentary as it is chilling. Believed lost until 2017 when a print was found and given a 4k restoration by IndieCollect, the film was originally commissioned as an educational piece on elder abuse but mothballed after completion.

Lincoln Maazel plays Martin, an elderly man on a visit to, you guessed it, an amusement park. What follows is a ride as unsettling as it may be upsetting for some, and though the metaphors on the way elderly people are treated by society are heavy handed, Maazel’s disoriented performance amongst the screaming crowds and roaring rollercoasters is as frightening as ever. The Amusement Park is Romero at the height of his vicious cynicism, a deeply unnerving psychological head trip peppered with absurdist jabs at an uncaring society. If Romero was alive to see its eventual release I’m sure he’d have more than one interesting story to tell, though to have it released at all is a blessing for any horror fan.

Dawn of The Dead (1978)

Ten years after his original zombie horror show Romero returned with Dawn of The Dead. While it features no characters or settings from its predecessor, this was the second film in Romero’s Living Dead series and focused on the wider effects the zombie outbreak has on society. Boasting a much larger scale and a clearly bigger budget, Dawn focuses on two Philadelphia S.W.A.T. team members, a traffic reporter, and his television executive girlfriend as they seek shelter from the rotting hordes in an abandoned shopping mall. It is often regarded as one of the best zombie movies ever made for its uncompromising and shocking gore, sharply misanthropic social commentary and no-holds-barred zombie action.

Shot at the Monroeville Mall and in Pittsburgh; the special make-up effects were created by Tom Savini, also a Pittsburgh native. To this date the mall still holds an annual Zombie Fest.

Creepshow (1982)

Creepshow saw Romero leaning more into his campy tendencies with a hilarious horror/comedy anthology film based on the E.C. horror comics of the 50s. Written by, and starring none other than Stephen King himself, Creepshow is a colorful, wacky homage to pulpy low-brow horror that pays true tribute to its inspirational works. An all-star cast including Tom Savini, Leslie Nielsen and Hal Holbrook play out five brief but volatile short horror films with such stories as a rural man dealing with an extraterrestrial visitor, a man using unorthodox means of revenging his cheating wife and a terrifying monster breaking free of its holding cell and causing a path of destruction.

Day of The Dead (1985)

Romero’s Living Dead series is back with another scathingly cynical view on society decorated with buckets of blood and gore. Day of The Dead is the third in the series and, while not considered to be as incendiary in its message and haunting in its execution as previous entries, it still has a few gruesome tricks up its sleeve. Its story sees the zombies coming together and evolving as the survivors of the outbreak hunker down in an old missile silo underground. Focus is given more to the dangers of people rather than the undead this time around, with survivors devolving into cavemen below the surface while the zombie hordes begin to thrive in their new kingdom. Day of the Dead deals with the conflicting ethos of science vs military in a ravaged Earth, demonstrating as clearly as ever that humans don’t need to be nukes into oblivion when their own idiocy can get them into a similar state.

Land of The Dead (2005)

Fast forward 20 long years and Romero proved once again that his zombies simply don’t stay dead. Land of The Dead developed Romero’s concepts of human hierarchy further by splitting the surviving factions of humans into upper-class, who live out the apocalypse from the comfort of their high-rise tower block, and lower-class, who must sweat it out in the makeshift slums below. While some of the originality of the original trilogy is lost in the sometimes-on-the-nose social commentary this time around, there is plenty of flesh-eating fun to satiate the hungriest zombie fan. Paul Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) enforces brutal class distinctions between his feudal society while a secret rebellion is in the works to overthrow him. Couple these elements with a horde of evolving zombies that are learning to adapt, and the chaos of Land of the Dead is really something to behold.

Diary of The Dead (2007)

Now here is a curveball that none saw coming. With Romero’s fifth installment in his Living Dead series he decided to change format completely and shoot the whole affair in a found-footage/documentary style. While independently produced, the film did see a theatrical release by The Weinstein Company. This entry takes place at the beginning of the outbreak, telling the tale of a group of students and their professor attempting to make a horror film in the forest. Before long the living dead hone in on the class and begin to pick them off one by one. Romero’s political edge is as prevalent as ever, with a good amount of his jabs being taken at the media and their implication in disastrous events, in this case the zombie apocalypse. There’s not a whole lot more to say about Diary of the Dead as, as entertaining and effective as it can be, the whole field starts to feel a bit trodden by this point.

Survival of The Dead (2009)

A zombie virus has plagued the Earth, and one group of soldiers traverses the more rural areas to scavenge for supplies after abandoning their post. The soldiers hear of a safe haven on Plum Island, however when they get there they find a fierce battle between warring families, The O’Flynns and The Muldoons. The O’Flynns want to exterminate all zombies for good while the Muldoons want to live peacefully among their living-dead friends and family. A plot like this leaves plenty of room for Romero’s signature scathing wit, though even the most die-hard fans will admit at this point that their hero is starting to run out of ideas. Sub-par directing, questionable acting and a script that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be makes Survival of the Dead barely a footnote in the legacy that once took theaters by storm.

George Romero’s Other Works

Aside from his extensive work with Zombies he also contributed to horror with the following films and TV show.

 Martin (1978)
 Knightriders (1981) 
Monkey Shines (1988) 
The Dark Half (1993)
Bruiser (2000)

created and executive-produced the television series Tales from the Darkside, from 1983 to 1988.

I didn’t play practical jokes at home. I had a strict upbringing, which is part of my rebellion. I was raised Catholic and went to parochial school, which is why priests and nuns appear in my movies a lot, and I don’t have very much nice to say about them.

George A Romero

If you are inspired by George A. Romero like we are you can now study horror at the George Romero foundation.

Joe Clements

Joe first knew he wanted to write in year six after plaguing his teacher’s dreams with a harrowing story of World War prisoners and an insidious ‘book of the dead’. Clearly infatuated with horror, and wearing his influences on his sleeve, he dabbled in some smaller pieces before starting work on his condensed sci-fi epic, System Reset in 2013.Once this was published he began work on many smaller horror stories and poems in bid to harness and connect with his own fears and passions and build on his craft.
Joe is obsessed with atmosphere and aesthetic, big concepts and even bigger senses of scale, feeding on cosmic horror of the deep sea and vastness of space and the emotions these can invoke. His main fixes within the dark arts include horror films, extreme metal music and the bleakest of poetry and science fiction literature.
He holds a deep respect for plot, creative flow and the context of art, and hopes to forge deeper connections between them around filmmakers dabbling in the dark and macabre.

linktr.ee/Joeclements

The post The Undying Legend of George A. Romero appeared first on Puzzle Box Horror.

Val (Rose Williams) works her first day as a nurse and somehow finds herself forced to work the nightshift during one of the aforementioned blackouts. Simple and effective, no? Couple this setup with fantastically engrossing performances and some playful yet focused cinematography and viewers are transported within the walls of the hospital themselves. I felt Val’s every insecurity, laughed at the sardonic nurses and surmised at their odd detachment to their surroundings. 

All of this made it rather more terrifying when the lights finally went out. Chills ran up my spine as the darkness crept towards Val, her whimper of “It’s too early, isn’t it?” echoing into the black. The idea of being so unprepared and in such an unfamiliar place is universal. This and the quality of direction and casting on display here bolsters an otherwise thin story requiring self-generated drama; Faith clearly knew this and rolled with it, playing to her advantages. 

Every element seems tailored to add to the films immersion; the story taking place in a single night, the realistic reactions (one nurse hilariously walks away when things start to get slightly weird), the slow-burn first act that drew me in with likeable and varied characters as well as the the ambiguity of what the hell that is lurking in the dark? Then, at some point in its runtime, something happened which rarely does in modern paranormal horror; things actually escalated. While the slow realization that something is watching from the darkness is very creepy, this did not give me high hopes that The Power would elevate itself beyond the throwaway slow-build-to-jumpscare horror flick it could easily have been. Thankfully my fears were laid to rest when all implied menace finally reared its ugly head, and the true horror began.

From this enthralling tonal shift onwards we are treated to masterful setup and execution of scare after scare. Restrained and calculated use of violence serves to establish a tangible threat, forcing the viewer to relate more directly. Later on, themes are explored tastefully and mindfully that give the title a new meaning entirely, bringing a fulfilling cadence to the third act. I won’t divulge too much for the sake of impact, but the second tonal shift only added to The Power’s impression on me.

Discipline and moderation are shown in the making of this diversely spooky tale of a hospital’s dark secret. That being said, director Corinna Faith knows how to get the hairs standing and the blood pumping while still delivering a satisfying conclusion to a twisting, tightrope-walk of a horror film.

Joe Clements

Joe first knew he wanted to write in year six after plaguing his teacher’s dreams with a harrowing story of World War prisoners and an insidious ‘book of the dead’. Clearly infatuated with horror, and wearing his influences on his sleeve, he dabbled in some smaller pieces before starting work on his condensed sci-fi epic, System Reset in 2013.Once this was published he began work on many smaller horror stories and poems in bid to harness and connect with his own fears and passions and build on his craft.
Joe is obsessed with atmosphere and aesthetic, big concepts and even bigger senses of scale, feeding on cosmic horror of the deep sea and vastness of space and the emotions these can invoke. His main fixes within the dark arts include horror films, extreme metal music and the bleakest of poetry and science fiction literature.
He holds a deep respect for plot, creative flow and the context of art, and hopes to forge deeper connections between them around filmmakers dabbling in the dark and macabre.

linktr.ee/Joeclements

The post The Power (2021) – A Truly Dark Horror Film appeared first on Puzzle Box Horror.

Demons 2 (1986)

Lamberto Bava’s sequel to his 1985 horror thrillride Demons demonstrates exactly why tower blocks are a nightmare waiting to happen. A demon invasion makes its way into an apartment block through a film being broadcast one saturday night, and a few survivors must fight their way through the block to safety. Produced by the legendary Dario Argento, Demons 2 indeed lacks a bit of the joyful wackiness of its cinema-based original, which is by rights an imperfect classic, and sadly ends up devolving into a reskinned b-grade zombie movie before long. Bava seems to be crafting a sequel as quickly as he can here, with scenes reminiscent of Romero’s original trilogy and the then-just-released Gremlins. The gore and practical effects which made the original what it was are still present, though the vivid colour palette of Demons has been replaced with a lot of dominating blues and greys which sap the energy out of several scenes. Perhaps if its predecessor wasn’t such a cult classic, Demons 2 would have stood a better chance, as it still serves as a great example of nail-biting high-rise horror.

[•REC] & [•REC]² (2007/2009)

REC is a Spanish found footage horror film co-written and directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. Both REC and its sequel take place in an apartment block during a zombie outbreak. While the first relies on the found footage of a news reporter picking a very unfortunate night to cover her local fire station, the sequel utilises shots from SWAT team cams and some intruding youths to craft an even more tense and terrifying ride. The claustrophobia is very apparent here, with hordes of ferociously fast zombies taking up corridors and whole stairwells at a time. Doubly horrifying is the introduction of lockdown to the building, wherein characters realize that not only will the undead kill them if they stay, but the authorities will kill them if they try to leave. This makes the feeling of imprisonment much more acute, and makes the towering backdrop all the more effective

Poltergeist III (1988)

Poltergeist 3 was co-written and directed by Gary Sherman, and is the second sequel to Tobe Hooper’s legendary and massively influential 1982 classic. It was the final feature of Heather O’Rourke before she tragically died at the age of 12, adding even further to the already-present ‘Poltergeist curse’ that had been plaguing cast members of the franchise since its first entry. After being repeatedly tormented by supernatural horrors, Carol Anne moves in with her relatives in a tower block in Chicago in order to undergo therapy. However, the ghostly evil appears to have followed her as she begins to experience terrifying visions, as well as spectral figures in the mirrors of the relative’s high-rise apartment.

Attack The Block (2011)

As its name suggests, Attack The Block takes place in a London apartment block and centres around the gang of youths that live there as they take on a vicious alien invasion. The charismatic teens trawl the streets and their beloved block evading police, rival gangsters and the otherworldly horrors that hunt them. Director Joe Cornish dials into a perfect blend of action, horror and comedy, doubled with plenty of satire on class and ethnic barriers, all aided by the sprawling urban setting and lively, if not a little unhinged, characters who live there.

Candyman (1992) 

Bernard Rose’s Candyman terrified audiences the world over in 1992 with its bleakly horrific depiction of the real-world superstition known widely as ‘Bloody Mary’. According to the lasting urban legend, one must say the name of their malevolent force in question five times in front of a mirror, and the thing will awaken and kill them.

Fascinated by local urban legends, Helen (Virginia Madsen) investigates the myths and superstitions surrounding the one-armed Candyman, writing a thesis on how the residents of the Cabrini-Green ghetto use his legend to deal with their surroundings. However, she confronts her worst nightmare when a series of murders, dangerously close to the Candyman’s modus operandi, start taking place around her. Jordan Peele’s 2021 remake expanded on the lore of Candyman in an interesting and often exciting way, though never managed to be as deliriously scary as the ‘92 original breezed its way through being. Playing more on themes of police brutality and ‘ghetto gentrification’, Candyman 2021 tries to add a lot of recent topics to the mythos, more than may have been necessary when considering the classic themes which are just as prevalent.

Cloverfield (2008)

Cloverfield tore theatres a new one back in 2008, changing the game completely for the found-footage subgenre and for monster movies in general. Utilising the shaky-cam technique, director Matt Reeves created a monster movie with such sparse shots of its titular monster that a tension and mystery was retained around the monolithic creature and its origins right up until 2018’s legacy-destroying sequel The Cloverfield Paradox.

In 2008’s Cloverfield, a group’s surprise leaving party for their friend is disastrously interrupted by an explosion in downtown New York, which it is soon revealed was caused by a gigantic rampaging monster. The party’s survivors must flee across New York, documenting each atrocity as it occurs. Technically the film takes place in several tower blocks, including the survivors traversing the roof of one collapsing tower to another which allows for some dizzying shots of the city below.

American Psycho 

Adapted from the 1991 novel from Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho concerns investment banker/serial killer Patrick Bateman and his homicidal exploits around Manhattan. Starring Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto and Chloë Sevigny, the Mary Harron-directed chiller is as sadistic as it is confusing, with Bateman’s unreliable first-person account of a disjointed plot involving brutal killings as well as equally intense conversations about business cards. Much of the plot takes place in Bateman’s high-rise apartment complex and the other establishments he inhabits around the suffocating Manhattan streets. The cold megalophobia of the film’s setting adds a new layer to Bateman’s madness, as well as adding to the exposure of the more low-key insanity of the society he lives in.

Land of The Dead (2005)

Land of the Dead was written and directed by George A. Romero, and is the fourth of Romero’s six Living Dead movies. As zombies begin to inherit most of the world, survivors of the apocalypse have built a walled city to protect themselves. However, the living dead are evolving more by the day, and a plan to overthrow the city leadership is in the works. Land of The Dead features a very on the nose portrayal of a modern political climate, with the rich and powerful living in Fiddler’s Green, a luxury high-rise, while the rest of the population are left to fend for themselves in the slums below. Fiddler’s Green eventually becomes the target of not only the zombies but also the working class, in a finale that shows exactly why tower blocks are the perfect setting for a metaphor on civil unrest.

High Rise (2015)

Another film to utilise the Snowpiercer-esque visualisation of class hierarchy through its setting is Ben Wheatley’s 2015 dystopian thriller High Rise. Based on the 1975 novel of the same name by British writer J. G. Ballard, High Rise takes place in a luxurious tower block in the 1970s. With a wealth of modern conveniences at their fingertips, the residents of the building grow gradually less dependant on the outside world, allowing them to live each day without even leaving. As the infrastructure becomes brittle and tensions begin to rise, the block is soon thrown into chaos as a full class warfare erupts. Without a clear protagonist in mind, viewers must wade in the moral ambiguity of one atrocity to the next, deciding for themselves who, if anyone, can be considered a hero in it all. Like Snowpiercer in a skyscraper, the violence and debauchery this societal breakdown results in is as entertaining as it is brutal, though with no clear moral alignment the plot of High-Rise can become confusing.

1408 (2007)

Based on the chilling Stephen King short story of the same name, 1408 stars John Cusack and Samuel L Jackson and centres around a grand old hotel in New York that is said to be haunted. Mike Enslin (Cusack) is an established horror author who stays in apparently haunted places and documents his finds. After overexposure to pseudo-supernaturalism, Enslin is becoming bored of his work until he hears about the legendary hotel and room 1408. He is soon trapped in the room with seemingly no escape.

Being trapped in such a high floor of a hotel is played out effectively, with Enslin hanging out of windows and trying to scale across the outer wall to the next room. The setting adds another dimension to his imprisonment and retains a hopelessly bleak air as Enslin’s mind is pushed to breaking point.

Joe Clements

Joe first knew he wanted to write in year six after plaguing his teacher’s dreams with a harrowing story of World War prisoners and an insidious ‘book of the dead’. Clearly infatuated with horror, and wearing his influences on his sleeve, he dabbled in some smaller pieces before starting work on his condensed sci-fi epic, System Reset in 2013.Once this was published he began work on many smaller horror stories and poems in bid to harness and connect with his own fears and passions and build on his craft.
Joe is obsessed with atmosphere and aesthetic, big concepts and even bigger senses of scale, feeding on cosmic horror of the deep sea and vastness of space and the emotions these can invoke. His main fixes within the dark arts include horror films, extreme metal music and the bleakest of poetry and science fiction literature.
He holds a deep respect for plot, creative flow and the context of art, and hopes to forge deeper connections between them around filmmakers dabbling in the dark and macabre.

linktr.ee/Joeclements

The post The Best of High Rise Horror Movies appeared first on Puzzle Box Horror.

For those who don’t know, Train to Busan (2016) was a hugely successful south-Korean zombie flick from 2016, which made use of its tight £8.5 million budget to create, believe it or not, a unique and exciting entry into the world of modern zombie films. The film utilised strong direction, a cast including zombies played by dancers and contortionists, exhilarating action in a snowpiercer-esque limited setting and some genuinely emotional moments to engage critics the world over. Then, the one thing happened that nobody really wanted: Next Entertainment went and got sequel fever. 

Train to Busan worked because of its limited setting and, dare I say, its limited budget. A common gripe with sequels of films like this is that they go “all Hollywood” and layer in as many computer-generated effects as they can over a rushed plot and basically try to crank every aspect up to eleven, many times missing the point of what made the original great and alienating those who appreciated it the most. That, sadly, is exactly what has happened here. 

Train to Busan presents: Peninsula Has No Heart

Firstly, the heart of Train to Busan has been ripped out in Peninsula and replaced with one mechanical and unfeeling, one that tries desperately to imitate the organic beating of its predecessor while any right-minded viewer frowns at the blatant algorithms forming their emotional experience. Basically, the sentiment is so forced into Peninsula that it borders on emotional manipulation at several points, wherein the film may as well have held up title cards saying FEEL NOW rather than spend so much time lingering on mediocrely-portrayed anguish and cheap, oh so cheap misdirection. Without spoiling anything, I honestly wished they’d committed to the more tragic ending that was implied in the final scenes rather than backpedal in their inferral that we as viewers couldn’t handle it.

That being said, for the most part Peninsula knows what it is, and as a result is a fast-paced and often fun action movie. Much of the claustrophobic tension falls by the wayside for car chases and gunfights so heavy on CGI that one would be forgiven for thinking they’d wandered into Zack Snyder’s latest picture. Every time we are shown a crowd of zombies, which here serve more as fodder than a threat, at least half of them look superimposed or computer generated which, along with the borderline cartoonish style, can break immersion regularly. Some of the long-take action scenes are competently pulled off and enjoyable, even despite feeling a little derivative. Any scene in which a somehow-indestructible car mows down hundreds of computer-generated undead (which happens more than enough) is enough to draw an exasperated groan from anyone familiar with modern, high-budget zombie flicks. 

Aside from a few unique ideas, such as twisted survivors throwing strays into their zombie arena to battle captured undead and a clever idea involving a little girl and her remote-control cars, a lot of Peninsula feels a little too familiar to justify its runtime. If they are indeed setting up a series of zombie films here then I hope they continue the variation in concept and boil things back down in an attempt at a more focused zombie flick. We all know the genre has more to give, if only those creating it could show enough restraint to remember what made zombies great in the first place. 

Joe Clements

Joe first knew he wanted to write in year six after plaguing his teacher’s dreams with a harrowing story of World War prisoners and an insidious ‘book of the dead’. Clearly infatuated with horror, and wearing his influences on his sleeve, he dabbled in some smaller pieces before starting work on his condensed sci-fi epic, System Reset in 2013.Once this was published he began work on many smaller horror stories and poems in bid to harness and connect with his own fears and passions and build on his craft.
Joe is obsessed with atmosphere and aesthetic, big concepts and even bigger senses of scale, feeding on cosmic horror of the deep sea and vastness of space and the emotions these can invoke. His main fixes within the dark arts include horror films, extreme metal music and the bleakest of poetry and science fiction literature.
He holds a deep respect for plot, creative flow and the context of art, and hopes to forge deeper connections between them around filmmakers dabbling in the dark and macabre.

linktr.ee/Joeclements

The post Train to Busan presents: Peninsula (2020) appeared first on Puzzle Box Horror.

This is why the found footage horror genre works so well in horror. Found footage movies are presumed to be recovered recordings of actual events. They’re shot with low quality cameras, cast with no name actors, and often created on a tight budget. And yet this obvious lack of “quality” is exactly what makes these films succeed. The handheld cameras and documentary-style narratives help shape movies that seem incredibly realistic – and when they’re in the horror genre this also makes them incredibly frightening. To give you a taste of what this wide-ranging sub genre has to offer, we’ve explored the history of found footage horror to give you some of the best found footage horror films!

Host (2020)

It’s July of 2020, and the United Kingdom is in the middle of a lockdown due to the Covid-19 virus. A group of friends have decided to use weekly Zoom calls as a way to stay connected, and in this latest call they have invited a medium to host a seance. Things start off innocently enough, but when one of the friends feels the presence of their dead friend Zack, things start to go off the rails. It’s a frighteningly good time, blending real world circumstances with supernatural scares. The entire movie was shot on Zoom during Covid, so it works as effective found footage horror movie as well as a marker of life during the pandemic. In the realm of “movies shot on the Internet” this stands out above the rest.

Creep (2014)

A young, burgeoning filmmaker named Aaron has found a new gig: recording a video diary for a new client. Josef, who wants to film his final moments for his family, invites Aaron to his cabin in the woods. But Josef’s behavior is increasingly erratic and strange, and by the time Aaron realizes the truth of what’s going on it may be too late. This psychological horror film has the found footage horror movie genre hallmarks of a low budget and stripped down story, but it goes a step further by removing many of the obvious horrors. Instead it’s a case study of two men – one whose madness is slowly revealed and the other whose life is in danger because of it. It’s a risky choice for the genre, but it’s pulled off incredibly well thanks to the magnetic energy and chemistry of its leads Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice.

What We Do In the Shadows (2014)

It may not be as scary or disturbing as the other entries on this list, but as a horror comedy hybrid What We Do in the Shadows excels. The movie fits into another sub genre known as mockumentary, and the premise concerns a documentary crew who are filming a group of vampires who share a flat in a suburb of New Zealand. These vampires have varying powers and personalities, and much of the film follows their nightly exploits as they search for humans to kill and live their best undead lives. Comedic duo Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement wrote, directed, and starred in the film that has also launched a television show and a cult following of loyal fans.

Frankenstein’s Army (2013)

It’s towards the end of World War II and a Red Army team on the Eastern Front has received a Soviet distress call. The company traces the call to a seemingly abandoned church where one of their members is suddenly attacked and disembowled by a zombot – a murderous half man/half robot creation. It turns out that the church, as well as the catacombs beneath it, are teeming with zombots created by a mad scientist descended from Victor Frankenstein. The movie has its gory moments and the plot takes some interesting twists and turns, but the standout stars by far are the uncanny and unsettling monster designs and grisly practical effects. Altogether the film is a fun mix of grindhouse, sci-fi, and body horror.

The Conspiracy (2012)

Two young documentary movie makers, Aaron and Jim, have decided to make a film about a local conspiracy theorist named Terrance. During the course of their movie, Terrance suddenly disappears, leading them further down the rabbit hole. Their search reveals a secret organization named the Tarsus Club, and soon they are wrapped up in its strange rituals and shadowy machinations. The film does a good job of striking a mysterious tone early on before shifting to mounting dread as the plot goes from faux documentary into straight horror. The final scenes are shocking, particularly one involving a bull’s head, and they will stay with you long after the movie ends.

Grave Encounters (2011)

Grave Encounters is about a reality tv show that focuses on the paranormal. Its crew consists of ghost hunters, occult specialists, and mediums who journey to various haunted locales. Each episode features a different spot, and their latest is an abandoned and presumably haunted insane asylum known as the Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital. Part of the hospital’s sordid history involves a mad doctor who conducted ghastly experiments on the residents. The crew decides to spend the night in the hospital and becomes inexplicably trapped inside, filming what may be their last episode. Not only is this movie a humorous parody of actual paranormal reality shows, but it is also one of the more genuinely frightening found footage horror movies.

Lake Mungo (2008)

The Palmer family is grieving the loss of their sixteen-year-old daughter, Alice, after she drowns while swimming in a dam. Her younger brother, Mathew, sets up video cameras around their house to record what appear to be images of her ghost as more dark secrets begin to unravel. The film is shot in a docufiction/mockumentary style, where the main story is communicated through a series of interviews with the family and found footage. More than just a supernatural thriller, the movie is a tense and mournful exploration of grief and how families cope with loss. There was no dialogue written into the script, and the ad-libbing of lines lends to the “real” feel of the movie. Overall, it’s a masterclass in making a powerful movie on a shoestring budget.

Cloverfield (2008)

Unlike most found footage horror movies, Cloverfield was created by a big name creator, backed by big name production companies, and funded with a moderate budget. J.J. Abrams was able to get the project secretly greenlit and utilized a viral marketing campaign of trailers, posters, websites, and merch tie-ins to build hype before the film’s release. The movie is about an enormous monster attacking New York City, and it’s all filmed cinema verite style through the camcorder of a character named Rob. The chaotic scenes of destruction, the incredible design of the creature, and the realistic shaky home video quality (which caused some moviegoers to fall ill) all work in tandem to create a tense and highly enjoyable found footage movie.

REC (2007)

A reporter and her cameraman are covering the night shift of a local fire station for the television program While You’re Sleeping. A fire station gets a distress call from a nearby apartment building, and after they arrive the building ends up being sealed off due to the outbreak of a deadly virus. The virus, which presents like rabies, is causing the residents to attack and subsequently infect each other, spreading quickly throughout the building. Those who haven’t been infected, including the camera crew, must find a way to escape and survive. The Spanish film was an immediate critical and commercial success, even spawning a less-than-stellar American remake (Quarantine). 

Paranormal Activity (2007)

Not many movies (except the next one on our list) are as closely associated with the found footage movement as the Paranormal Activity franchise. The first film centers on a couple named Katie and Micah who are trying to capture evidence of and communicate with the increasingly angry demon that haunts their house. The creation of one-man show Oren Peli, who did pretty much everything but act in the movie, Paranormal Activity was an unexpectedly massive success. It’s one of the most profitable films ever made and, because Peli decided to focus on believability instead of gore and action, it’s also one of the most genuinely terrifying films in the found footage horror movie genre. 

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Paranormal Activity may have generated more sequels, prequels, and video game adaptations, but its success owes thanks to one of the first found footage horror films that pioneered the genre in America: The Blair Witch Project. The film, which follows doomed student filmmakers as they attempt to investigate and document the local legend of the Blair Witch, has all the classic tropes and markings of the found footage genre. It’s shot mockumentary style on handheld cameras, it features no name actors ad-libbing the script, it utilized a viral marketing campaign, and it grossed many times over its miniscule budget. It may not be the best found footage movie ever made, but it will always hold a special place in our hearts thanks to the groundbreaking work that paved the way for future films and enabled the genre to become a mainstay in pop culture.

Honorable Mentions

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018)

Unfriended (2015)

Hell House LLC (2015)

The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014)

As Above, So Below (2014)

Afflicted (2013)

The Borderlands (2013)

Trollhunter (2010)

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Ben Long

Ben’s love for horror began at a young age when he devoured books like the Goosebumps series and the various scary stories of Alvin Schwartz. Growing up he spent an unholy amount of time binge watching horror films and staying up till the early hours of the morning playing games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Since then his love for the genre has only increased, expanding to include all manner of subgenres and mediums. He firmly believes in the power of horror to create an imaginative space for exploring our connection to each other and the universe, but he also appreciates the pure entertainment of B movies and splatterpunk fiction.

Nowadays you can find Ben hustling his skills as a freelance writer and editor. When he’s not building his portfolio or spending time with his wife and two kids, he’s immersing himself in his reading and writing. Though he loves horror in all forms, he has a particular penchant for indie authors and publishers. He is a proud supporter of the horror community and spends much of his free time reviewing and promoting the books/comics you need to be reading right now!

readingvicariously.net/

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Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)

Tobe Hooper’s 1974 horror classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was scary bordering on masochistic, and since then has been tarnished with a horde of shoddy sequels and rebooted more times than an 80s Macintosh. Filmmakers seem content simply chopping different bits off the original’s title each time they reset; first we had The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), and then Texas Chainsaw (2013), and now Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022) horror remake. Many try to tack on enough lore just to fill and warrant their runtime, though our skin-masked maniac’s latest outing seems far more heavily focused on gore. Of course, gore isn’t what made Hooper’s masterpiece what it is, but it certainly helped. Sadly David Blue Garcia’s take utilises mainly CGI gore that can tend to look animated when it ramps up, and Leatherface himself never felt immediate enough to be actually scary. Olwen Fouere plays a returning Sally Hardesty (played originally by Marilyn Burns) in what seems like an attempt at the ‘returning leads in horror’ trend currently headed by Jamie Lee Curtis and most of the Scream (1996) cast, though Sally’s comeback was in no way as effective or as thought-out as the aforementioned. While it is worth a watch for gore completionists, Texas Chainsaw Massacre ultimately proves itself to be merely another in a lengthening line.

Scream (2022)

Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin got a lot of things right with Scream (2022); it was rife with the meta-awareness of its predecessors and aware of the change in their relatability as the years had gone on, perfectly willing to integrate itself into the new modern age and do so effectively. It brought back cast favourites from the very beginning of the franchise and even got so meta as to question what kind of addition to the franchise it really was, coining the term ‘requel’: not quite a horror remake, not quite a sequel.

Scream (2022) is a clever whodunit horror, though somewhere along the way it forgot to be scary. Aside from a couple of tension-building moments, most of the runtime is spent winking to the audience rather than actually being a horror film. Still, it is a funny, self-aware and welcome addition to the franchise, one that fans of any of the previous sequels will likely enjoy.

Friday 13th (2009)

Friday 13th (2009) is an example of a reboot that simply didn’t do enough to distinguish itself from its predecessors. While technically-sound and boasting plenty of gore, director Marcus Nispel’s (director of 2003’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot) vision sadly followed too many of the same beats as practically every other film in the long-running franchise, proving that a sleek, modern look isn’t all that’s required to resurrect someone like the immortal Jason Voorhees.

The story does take some interesting turns, though all we are eventually left with are a handful of 00’s horror cliches and hollow half-scares. With a ‘reimagining’ like this, some expectations arguably have to be subverted, otherwise what is the production but an attempt to milk some more cash from the franchise? Unfortunately everything here that is expected to happen, happens, and the experience as a whole is forgettable, even in terms of late-stage Friday 13th titles.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2022)

Welcome To Raccoon City is an indisputable homage to the golden era of the Resident Evil game series, though it also throws into question whether or not this is a good thing for a film. Paul W.S. Anderson’s take on the series was heavily flawed and received mostly negative feedback, especially as it went on, and one of the factors for this was always thought to be its departure from the plot and themes of the games in favour of the story of Alice, played by Anderson’s wife Milla Jovovich. Now that we have a perfectly functioning cinematic version of the games themselves, complete with likeable cast, plenty of action and great callbacks to the originals, it becomes apparent that the problem may not have been wholly with Alice. Following the beats that the Resident Evil games did actually makes for quite a hollow cinematic experience, even when done with all the heart and care a fan can muster.

Wrong Turn (2021)

Here was a hell of a curveball in terms of horror reboots. While not by any means perfect, Wrong Turn (2021) completely reinvented the meaning of backwoods brutality by swapping out its predecessors’ cackling mutant hillbillies for The Foundation, a group who rejected modern society to live in the woodland, and who protect their way of life using savage measures.

Wrong Turn does lay it on thick in terms of political ideology, and it is odd to see a film in the series take itself so seriously. That being said, the film’s balance between being that of strong ideas and that of a strong body-count is what keeps it afloat for the majority of its runtime. Some truly haunting imagery and wince-inducing kills make up for the shaky pacing and ridiculous choices of its lead characters (it is a slasher after all). Anyone interested in seeing the effects of some gruesome woodland booby traps will find more than enough here to enjoy.

Evil Dead (2013)

My personal favourite horror reboot. Evil Dead (2013) manages to capture perfectly the ferocious insanity of the original while also creating a uniquely dark spin on its story. Five friends spend a night in a cabin in the woods to cure one of their heroin addictions. When addict Mia (Jane Levy) begins facing demonic and invasive threats, she must convince her friends that far more than withdrawal is plaguing her before it is too late. Fede Alvarez manages to keep some key items as love letters to Raimi’s legendary films, such as that tree for example, and amps up the gore and violence to vomit-worthy levels. Faces are stabbed, hands are split, heads are chainsawed and all is done with a gleeful knowingness of what makes Evil Dead special. Let’s not forget the iconic Necronomicon, which makes an appearance as well. And with Evil Dead: Rise just around the corner, it’s nice to know there’s a future for such an uncompromising horror entity.

Halloween (2018)

Blumhouse’s Halloween reboot is one of their better horror films. What makes Michael Myers scary is the apparent randomness to his killings, and Halloween (2018) knew exactly where to go with it. After a shaky intro (what is even happening there? Does Michael have the ability to send the mentally ill into a frenzy?) we are then given a very solid setup involving a returning Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, her family, Michael’s foreboding transfer from psychiatric hospital to maximum security prison (what could go wrong?) and even a little self-awareness with the ‘by today’s standards’ quip. Instead of Laurie returning in the same brief way Sally Hardesty did, she and her family are key players in Michael’s latest bloodbath, showing Laurie’s preparation and the deadly results it yielded.

Joe Clements

Joe first knew he wanted to write in year six after plaguing his teacher’s dreams with a harrowing story of World War prisoners and an insidious ‘book of the dead’. Clearly infatuated with horror, and wearing his influences on his sleeve, he dabbled in some smaller pieces before starting work on his condensed sci-fi epic, System Reset in 2013.Once this was published he began work on many smaller horror stories and poems in bid to harness and connect with his own fears and passions and build on his craft.
Joe is obsessed with atmosphere and aesthetic, big concepts and even bigger senses of scale, feeding on cosmic horror of the deep sea and vastness of space and the emotions these can invoke. His main fixes within the dark arts include horror films, extreme metal music and the bleakest of poetry and science fiction literature.
He holds a deep respect for plot, creative flow and the context of art, and hopes to forge deeper connections between them around filmmakers dabbling in the dark and macabre.

linktr.ee/Joeclements

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