Random Most Underrated Horror Films Of Last 10 Years (12 items)

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  (#1) Grave Encounters

  • Alex Sander, Merwin Mondesir, Mackenzie Gray, Juan Riedinger, Fred Keating, Sean Rogerson, Luis Javier, Shawn MacDonald, Michele Cummins, John Sampson, Ben Wilkinson, Ashleigh Gryzko, Max Train, Arthur Corber, Ryan Da Silva, Eva Gifford, Kristina Brown, Gisli Johanneson, Blair Brownlee, Alex Timmer, Warren Cwele, Dana Keller, Robert Wellman, Cliff Rogers, Greg Stubbard, Jacquelin Wood, Brenda Anderson, Michael Mahoney, Kate Roumieu, Bob Rathie, Jon Malmberg, Josh Holmes, Martha Eason, Matt Diamond

  Found-footage horror movies and ghost movies have both been extremely popular over the course of the last decade - but they also both get kind of a bad rap among horror connoisseurs as being samey films made to appeal to the least-common denominator. At a glance, Grave Encounters looks like it'll be exactly that - a found-footage dark ride about the crew of a ghost hunting reality show who explore an abandoned mental hospital with a dark history, where they'll encounter plenty of kohl-eyed figures.

  And, certainly, it has plenty of that to offer. But Grave Encounters also does things that most of its siblings don't dare, such as messing with time and space in ways that are genuinely disconcerting and reminiscent of more typically thoughtful fare like Picnic at Hanging Rock or the book House of Leaves.
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  (#2) American Mary

  • Katharine Isabelle, Antonio Cupo, Paul Anthony, David Lovgren, Jen Soska, John Emmet Tracy, Julia Maxwell, Sean Amsing, Tristan Risk, Clay St. Thomas, Sylvia Soska, Nelson Wong, Twan Holliday, Paula Lindberg, Travis Watters

  Sister act directing duo Jen and Sylvia Soska, who have recently remade David Cronenberg's Rabid, first exploded onto the genre scene with their 2012 black comedy horror film American Mary. Though it immediately earned them a name in extreme horror circles, American Mary still remains under-seen by the wider horror world. In it, Katharine Isabelle (of the Ginger Snaps series) plays a medical student who, in desperate need of funds, finds herself drawn into the world of extreme body modification.

  Unfortunately, she is also the victim of a terrible assault from the doctors and mentors who are in charge of her residency, which leads her to a grisly revenge and into a cat-and-mouse game with the police. With a 60% at Rotten Tomatoes, the Critics Consensus says American Mary "utilizes pitch-black humor and striking visuals to deliver gory, freaky thrills for body-horror enthusiasts."
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  (#3) Absentia

  • Doug Jones, Ian Gregory, Justin Gordon, Katie Parker, Brian Normoyle, Courtney Bell, Damon Pfaff, Scott Graham, Camron Robertson, Connie Ventress, Morgan Peter Brown, Dave Levine, Brandon Valley Jones, James Flanagan, Erin Cipolletti, Joseph Mendoza, Mark Dumonski

  Director Mike Flanagan has made quite a career for himself by directing Netflix's mini-series version of The Haunting of Hill House, not to mention Stephen King adaptations Gerald's Game and Doctor Sleep. But one of his earliest horror film entries still remains under-seen, in spite of being part of what started his career in the industry.

  The film follows Tricia and her sister, Callie. Tricia's husband has been missing for seven years, and she and her sister gradually begin to suspect his disappearance, along with those of many other people in the area, has something to do with a tunnel in front of her house. Just as Tricia is having her husband declared passed in absentia, he abruptly shows back up, bloody and barefoot, and surprised that anyone else can see him.

  Of course, things only get freakier from there, as Flanagan showcases some of the skills that have made him a major name in the horror field in the years since.
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  (#4) Green Room

  • Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner, Patrick Stewart

  Jeremy Saulnier's story of a punk-rock band trapped by white supremacists unfortunately feels more topical with each passing day. It's also notable for its claustrophobic setting, intense action, and powerful performances. After all, it's not every day that you get to see Captain Picard himself, Sir Patrick Stewart, play a skinhead. 

  When the film's band, the Ain't Rights, find themselves playing a gig at an out-of-the-way venue in Pacific Northwest, they quickly realize they're in trouble when they notice the place is full of skinheads. That doesn't stop them from playing a cover of "Nazi Punks F*ck Off" by the Dead Kennedys, though. It isn't until the show is over that things take a turn for the fatal. The band is in the green room when they witness a slaying - and the leader of the skinheads decides to take them all out to keep them from talking.

  The result is a brutal, nail-biting flick that is also one of late lead actor Anton Yelchin's last film roles.
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  (#5) Triangle

  • Melissa George, Michael Dorman, Rachael Carpani, Henry Nixon, Emma Lung, Liam Hemsworth

  Most of Christopher Smith's films have been appreciated by horror aficionados while sailing under the radar of less dedicated fans. None of them deserves a reappraisal more than 2009's Triangle.

  Sure, on the surface it looks and sounds like a typical slasher flick with a nautical twist: A group of friends take refuge on an abandoned cruise ship after a yachting accident, only to find themselves stalked by a masked slayer. But there's much more going on in Triangle than meets the eye, and to delve into its twists and turns would be to dig into the territory of spoilers better discovered for yourself.

  For fans of Netflix's In the Tall Grass - and those who thought that film had some fun ideas but lacked a little in execution - give Triangle a look. You won't regret it.
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  (#6) Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

  • Tommi Korpela, Per Christian Ellefsen, Jorma Tommila, Risto Salmi, Peeter Jakobi, Rauno Juvonen, Jonathan Hutchings, Sigmund Bøe, Onni Tommila, Nils M. Iselvmo, Olav Pedersen, Nils Nymo, Ilmari Järvenpää, Jens Sivertsen, Steinar Skogstad

  Before the Krampus craze had really taken hold, there was the bizarre Finnish horror film Rare Exports. Think of it as an Amblin Entertainment flick with the darkest possible sense of humor, as a child and his dad try to bail out their bankrupt business slaughtering reindeer by... exporting Santas?

  It seems that a British research team has dug something massive out of the ice. At the same time, local children and items have begun to go missing. When Pietari, a young local boy, and his father inadvertantly capture a naked old man that they think might be Santa Claus, things take a turn for the very weird. Prepare yourself for lots of unclothed old men, lots of weird hijinks, and some titanic revelations about the true nature of Santa Claus in this irreverent, dark horror comedy from 2010.
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  (#7) The Awakening

  • Rebecca Hall, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Ian Hanmore, Joseph Mawle, Cal MacAninch, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Steven Cree, John Shrapnel, Anastasia Hille, Shaun Dooley, Richard Durden, Lucy Cohu, Daniel Pirrie, Tilly Vosburgh, Andrew Havill, Charlie Callaghan, Diana Kent, Sidney Johnston, Sarah Weldon, Andy Callaghan, Katie Hart, Nicolas Amer, Alfie Field, Neil Broome, Adam Thomas Wright, Joseph M. Jenkins, Felix Soper, Ben Greaves-Neil, Spike White, Andrew Foster, Molly Lewis, James Kirkham, Nick Murphy, Terry Swoffer, Ewan Andrew Walker, Joseph Courtney, Zach Mitchell

  Not exactly a small-time production, The Awakening was made by the BBC and StudioCanal and stars actors like Rebecca Hall, who was in Iron Man 3, Dominic West, from 300 and Tomb Raider, and Imelda Staunton, from the Harry Potter franchise. Yet many people seem to have slept on this quiet but creepy haunted house chiller from 2011.

  Hall plays Florence Cathcart, an author and professional skeptic who works with the police to debunk fraudulent spiritualists in the wake of WWI. When she is invited to a private boy's school where the ghost of a child may have caused the demise of another boy, her skepticism is tested by what she discovers. The movie may be at its best during the early debunking scenes, but all the actors give good performances, and there's plenty of chilly ambiance to be found all the way to the film's twisty ending.
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  (#8) The Final Girls

  • Nina Dobrev, Malin Åkerman, Taissa Farmiga, Chloe Bridges, Alexander Ludwig, Alia Shawkat, Thomas Middleditch, Adam DeVine

  "Come on," we can almost hear you saying, "a slasher comedy? And one that's rated PG-13, no less?" But trust us when we say that there's more to The Final Girls than meets the eye. Sure, there's stoner jokes and goofy slayings and plenty of self-aware humor, but there's also a surprising amount of heart in this story about a young woman (Taissa Farmiga, The Nun) trying to reconnect with her deceased mother (Malin Akerman) by watching the low-rent slasher flick she starred in years ago.

  Naturally, the young woman finds herself getting more than she bargained for when she and her friends are pulled into the movie itself in this heartfelt story of grief and family ties that also manages to be a genuinely funny and visually striking slasher comedy - all without a lot of piled-on grue. Who would have thought?
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  (#9) A Dark Song

  • Catherine Walker, Steve Oram, Mark Huberman, Susan Loughnane

  In most horror movies, occult magic is shockingly easy to find and perform. So much so that it's a wonder people aren't calling up spirits and placing hexes left and right - which, if the number of supernatural horror movies out there are any indication, maybe they are. Not so in Liam Gavin's A Dark Song, a film that concerns two people - a woman grieving the passing of her 7-year-old son and an ill-tempered occultist - who are performing a grueling, months-long ritual.

  Neither of them can leave the house for the duration of the rite, and its working through gradually takes a terrible (and possibly fatal) toll on the both of them. If this is the price of ritual magic, it makes much more sense that people aren't tossing it around willy-nilly.
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  (#10) Resolution

  • Sarah Oliver, Zahn McClarnon, Bill Oberst Jr., Kurt David Anderson, Aaron Moorhead, Peter Cilella, Thor Wixom, Melissa E. Low, Emily Montague, Michael Felker, David Clarke Lawson Jr., Dan Martinez, Catherine Burns, Justin Benson, Bob Low, Vinny Curran, Carmel Benson, Skyler Meacham, Shiblon Wixon, Josh Higgins, Glen Roberts

  Writing/directing duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have been generating growing buzz in indie horror circles with the release of films like The Endless, but one of their best (and most under-seen) efforts remains their 2012 debut Resolution.

  The film concerns two friends, one of them (Michael) a successful graphic designer with a pregnant wife, the other (Chris) a user who has moved into a remote shack and seems to have become increasingly delusional. Michael decides to stage an intervention, but things begin to turn strange when the two men start finding seemingly impossible photographs and film footage of them. A mind-bending trip into the truly weird that is also a tale of the bonds of friendship, Resolution is a testament to what you can do with a fairly meager budget and some big ideas.
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  (#11) The Canal

  • Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Steve Oram, Rupert Evans, Hannah Hoekstra, Serena Brabazon, Tony Murphy, Conor Horgan, Carl Shaaban, Maura Foley, Calum Heath

  Sometimes it isn't the story that's being told that makes a film stand out, it's the telling. On its surface, The Canal's story of a husband (Rupert Evans) whose wife goes missing and is presumed drowned in the canal near his home is a familiar one. Is he cracking up, or is the house actually haunted by a grisly crime that occurred there a century ago?

  What sets The Canal apart from the rest of the ghostly crowd are its visuals, borrowed partly from the archival film footage that is the protagonist's day job. As the haunting ramps up - or his sanity begins to unravel - and the walls start cracking apart to reveal the horrors hiding beneath, they uncover sights that would have been right at home in a Clive Barker adaptation.
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  (#12) Kill List

  • MyAnna Buring, Ben Crompton, Emma Fryer, Michael Smiley, Alice Lowe, Neil Maskell, Sara Dee, Steve Oram, Struan Rodger, Mark Kempner, Robin Hill, Lee Steele, Gareth Tunley, Gemma Lise Thornton, Janice Bird, Robert Hill, Lucie James, Frenchie Cowley, Ann Turner, Alex Blake, David Bowen, Josh Honeybourne, David Mares, Zoe Thomas, Chaelyn Allcock, Harry Simpson, Jimmy May, Lorna Gladhill, Katya Galiana-Philip, Ann Lomax, Rebecca Holmes, Gareth James, Richard Stocks, Lauren Maile-Wilson, Dennis Turner, Niki Jones, Emily McKinley, John Chappell, Shane Fitzsimmons, Josh Moore, Hannah Murton, James Bateson, Esme Folley, Alex Janczenia, Andy Stirling, Ciaran Humphries, Simon Smith, Janice Worsley, James Nickerson, Dave McKinley, Richard Mileham, Lora Evans, Brian Gaugan, Glynn Davies, Keith Lomax, Jamelle Ola, Damien Thomas, Stuart Webb, Aahid Rasool, Jennifer Andrews, Lyn Wesson, David Charles Denwood, Nadine Lloyd, Sharron Hardy, Pat Kelly, Joy Palmer, John Striker, Stephen Preston, Lynn Copperfield, Ken Birch, Joan Cooper, Dorothy Webb, Edward Booth, Alice Harrand, Nick Lea, Tom Adcock, Daphne Eland

  Ben Wheatley's films can be a bit of an acquired taste, so perhaps it should come as no surprise that a great many of them remain underappreciated and under-seen by those who might find them fascinating. Of all his earlier films, one of the best - and most beloved by those who have had the good-fortune to see it - is  Kill List, Wheatley's 2011 mash-up of horror and crime cinema.

  Following two former soldiers who are working as hitmen after getting back into the world, Kill List is a slow burn that takes its time getting to its bizarre folk horror elements. But when they do arrive, boy, do they ever.
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  (#13) Ruin Me

  Sure, the whole slasher deconstruction fad has become old hat in the decades since Scream, but that doesn't mean it can't still get a fresh spin now and again. In Ruin Me, a young woman named Alex reluctantly tags along on her boyfriend's Slasher Sleepout trip - an event that's part camping trip and part escape room, in which the participants are dropped off in the woods in the midst of a simulated slasher movie. Of course, things aren't all that they appear, and events quickly take a turn for the intense as Alex's companions start turning up deceased.

  Think Cabin in the Woods if it hadn't been played for laughs, or David Fincher's The Game, but for slasher aficionados. That'll give you some idea of what you're in for with Ruin Me, which is currently streaming on Shudder.
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  (#14) Berberian Sound Studio

  • Toby Jones, Katalin Ladik, Cosimo Fusco, Layla Amir, Tonia Sotiropoulou, Susanna Cappellaro, Antonio Mancino, Kata Bartsch, Hilda Péter, Fatma Mohamed, Lara Parmiani, Eugenia Caruso, Salvatore Li Causi, Chiara D'Anna

  One thing that doesn't get talked about enough is the importance of sound in making horror films work. Not so with Berberian Sound Studio, the second feature from British director Peter Strickland (In Fabric). Here, Toby Jones plays a sound engineer who goes to work on an Italian giallo horror film, only to find himself out of his depth and quickly losing his grip on reality.

  "I wanted to make a film where everything that is usually hidden in cinema, the mechanics of film itself, is made visible," Strickland told Basia Lewandowska Cummings of The Quietus. "Here, the film is out of view, and you only see the mechanics behind it." If you ever wanted to see - and be entirely creeped out by - Foley artists making sound effects for grisly scenes that you can't see, this is your movie! Never has watching men tear apart produce been so terrifying.

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