Top 10 Horror Movies for 2016

I didn't care for Hush and bailed out halfway through. It was just a little too boring and played out for me. I absolutely need to see The Wailing before the end of the year. I've heard it's really good.

I'll start with what I haven't seen: Wailing or Busan, Jane Doe and Lights Out, The Purge, Shallows, Split, .

My Top 10 without those:

1. The Green Room
2. The Invitation
3. They Look Like People
4. 10 Cloverfield Lane
5. The Witch
6. Don't Breathe
7. The Conjuring 2
8. Oujia: Origin of Evil
9. The Good Neighbor
10. Blair Witch

HM: Neon Demon, I am Not a Serial Killer, What We Become

I really wanted to get some horror in this week but I'm lacking. Looking at that list, just wow. I'm not sure there's been a better horror year since the 80s mix of slashers, Cronenberg, Carpenter, etc.

I think what really separates the year is the amount of films that aren't really about monsters, or that the monsters are much more hidden, varied. I don't want to spoil anything unless the thread becomes a big spoil, but the amount of films with REAL people, where the horror is more subversive or elusive, just fantastic.

1-3 are just all incredible, and I contemplated putting every one of them at the top of the list.

"Barry" on Netflix.

I loved Green Room but is that really a horror? Seems more like a thriller.

It's not for everybody but Rob Zombies "31" is pretty good.

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I loved Green Room but is that really a horror? Seems more like a thriller.

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I don't see how it's horror at all. 100% thriller IMO.

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I loved Green Room but is that really a horror? Seems more like a thriller.

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I don't see how it's horror at all. 100% thriller IMO.

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Thriller and horror often overlap. The film lives and breathes on the claustrophobic atmosphere where they are, a common trope in horror where the place you are is just as much of an enemy as the thing chasing you.

There's also the sharp focus on gore in plenty of scenes. Your victims are torn down one by one, again very much horror.

I mean replace the antagonists with Zombies and would you say yes to horror or no to horror? The Neo-Nazis are psychopaths, regardless of their relatively calm approach to the situation.

Horror imo.

I didn't really find a good source but did like this line at the top of a Google search:

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A thriller is designed to hold your interest, adventure and suspense... both film techniques are similar in that way, but a horror is full of repulsive and horrible acts in an attempt to give the audience members nightmares.

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Also this from an interesting Reddit thread from a few years ago.

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Thrillers work with the world/situation as the viewer understands it; horror film upend the viewer's world and present a world/situation that rejects normal conventions.

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I guess I didn't get the idea that I was supposed to have a nightmare from Green Room. Nothing in Green Room made me question my own safety from the ideas on screen. Yes, if zombies replaced the antagonists, I would change it to horror.

I might also question if gore is a unique characteristic of horror especially nowadays when it's so customary to see it in many genres.

Just a friendly back and forth, we can certainly agree to disagree (and this is a good place for the discussion), but here are my thoughts:

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A thriller is designed to hold your interest, adventure and suspense... both film techniques are similar in that way, but a horror is full of repulsive and horrible acts in an attempt to give the audience members nightmares.

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To me, that's horribly narrow for horror. First of all, scary things don't necessarily have to be horrible or repulsive. They can simply be unsettling, in a variety of ways. Yes, that can mean ghosts, or a serial killer who is violent and can't be killed. But it can also mean something far less obvious or even overt.

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Also this from an interesting Reddit thread from a few years ago.

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Thrillers work with the world/situation as the viewer understands it; horror film upend the viewer's world and present a world/situation that rejects normal conventions.

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Eh, I would take Wikipedia over that, particularly from the literature definition (Horror film has its own definition which is weird):

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Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle their readers or viewers by inducing feelings of horror and terror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon has defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing".[1] It creates an eerie and frightening atmosphere. Horror is frequently supernatural, though it can be non-supernatural.

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Frighten, scare, disgust or startle does encompass quite a large section of negative, fear-inspired emotions.

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I guess I didn't get the idea that I was supposed to have a nightmare from Green Room. Nothing in Green Room made me question my own safety from the ideas on screen.

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Agreed, but this isn't the main drive of horror, it is for some horrors, but not all.

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I might also question if gore is a unique characteristic of horror especially nowadays when it's so customary to see it in many genres.

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That's probably fair, so like a lot of things, it depends on HOW it's used. At least in the Green Room, it's used to do a couple of things 1) Drive it home that the band is in a situation that is very real 3) Continuously chip away at them, like many horrors do 2) The coldness employed by the group enacting the violence shows how little they care for life and also how much control they have, ie. it isn't random that they use the word "committed" more than a few times. And none of the NeoNazis really react negatively to violence, it's all very normal to them.

Again, could be agree to disagree on this, but I do agree there's no lasting nightmare to be had from Green Room, but I also don't think that keeps it from being a horror film, imo.

If the only thing making this film not a horror are humans that are the antagonist, that would bring into question lots of films: The Invitation, The Good Neighbor from this year. Movies like Psycho, Saw, even the first Halloween where Michael Myers isn't a demi-god yet.