Best of 2020: Our favourite horror films of the year

We don’t need to take up too much space here revisiting just how terrible 2020 was, but it sure was a great year for horror. A number of genre fests including Montreal’s own Fantasia moved online this year, allowing more fans than ever the chance to check out new and under-the-radar releases, and the horror streaming site Shudder debuted some of this year’s most buzzed-about releases, including the Zoom-based horror movie Host, and the storytelling exercise Scare Me.

Early in the lockdown, a study was published espousing the notion that horror fans were proving to be more adept at handling the stress and uncertainty of the ongoing pandemic. Maybe that’s due to years of being inoculated with frightening visions of the unknown or facing the idea of death through film on a regular basis (or simply because we’re happy to stay home for weeks on end plowing through movies), but either way, 2020 offered up a great slate of horror movies that helped us deal with or forget about the real horrors outside our door for a little while.

Below you will find our 10 favourite horror films of the year, along with a slew of additional recommendations. Since this was such a strong year for horror, we omitted any of the below titles from our general best of 2020 film roundup — you can find that list here. Here’s hoping 2021 is just as strong and begins to put us on the path to being able to gather in darkened theatres again.

10. Scare Me
A love letter to horror stories and storytelling in general, Scare Me accomplishes so much with its streamlined premise. Two authors (Josh Ruben and Aya Cash) find themselves temporary neighbours in remote cabins in the countryside and decide to spend an evening telling each other scary stories while a thunderstorm rages outside. As each one of them acts out their individual stories, they take on multiple voices and physically reenact their tales, like a souped-up theatre school version of campfire horror stories. Writer-director-producer and star (!) Josh Ruben stages the proceedings in a stripped-down way that really lets the performances shine. With loads of humour, drunkenness, and some great physical acting from Ruben and Cash, Scare Me is the perfect horror movie to show to someone who claims to not like horror movies.

9. The Invisible Man
Director Leigh Whannell updates the classic Universal monster as an abusive tech bro in this thrilling high-octane ride, featuring a remarkable central performance by Elisabeth Moss as a woman being gaslit from all corners as she is ruthlessly targeted by an invisible foe. Whannell has a great sense of staging and turns the inherently silly trait of invisibility into something new and unexpected. This is likely the best looking horror film of the year — it’s so refreshing to see a smart and exciting horror release get the blockbuster treatment. Whannell has quickly shot to the top of the list of the most exciting genre directors working today, and Moss once again excels in a role that puts her through the emotional and physical wringer. This is large-scale horror filmmaking at its best.

8. Anything for Jackson
While “exorcism” films have become a trite genre onto themselves, this Canadian horror film puts a welcome new spin on the familiar motif in one of the most unpredictable horror films of the year. Canadian screen icons Sheila McCarthy and Julian Richings play a bereaved couple grieving the loss of their grandson. They also happen to be Satanists and manage to kidnap a young pregnant woman (Konstantina Mantelos) to perform a reverse exorcism, planting their grandson’s soul in Becker’s unborn child. As out-there as the premise is, things only get crazier from there. Director Justin G. Dyck, working from a screenplay by Keith Cooper, skillfully navigates the black comedy and horror elements (including some outstanding creature designs), while rooting all of the insanity in the couple’s grief and Becker’s insane predicament. With strong performances, a completely unpredictable script, and some truly unsettling moments, Anything for Jackson is a thrillingly strange ride. Read our full review here.

7. Saint Maud
The feature debut from writer-director Rose Glass, Britain’s Saint Maud is a deeply atmospheric and unsettling film about a young hospice worker named Maud (Morfydd Clark) who comes to believe she must save the soul of a woman she is taking care of (Jennifer Ehle). A terrifying look at religion and madness (and the intersection of the two), Saint Maud takes its time working its way under your skin before it explodes in the film’s final moments. Morfydd Clark is a revelation in the title role, slowly unraveling over the course of the film as she is wracked by her calling and her understanding of the world and her place in it. Devastating and unforgettable.

6. Host
Host shouldn’t work as well as it does. Made up entirely of a Zoom call between friends conducting a séance, Host was unleashed into the world in the midst of the pandemic, where the last thing most of us wanted to see on our TV (or god-forbid our laptop) was another damned Zoom screen. With the odds stacked against it, director and co-writer Rob Savage put together a smart and highly-effective found-footage horror film, with some of the most impressive jump scares and set pieces of the year. The entire cast does a great job of selling their fear and disbelief as their standard Zoom catch-up call begins taking a deadly turn towards the supernatural, and the film utilizes the viewer’s understanding of the technology to create some truly innovative and unexpected scares. We may never want to return to Host after the pandemic, but by then Savage and this entire team should hopefully be onto something new and equally surprising.

5. Relic
A family drama crossed with a classic haunted house tale, Australia’s Relic won’t be for everyone. When Edna (Robyn Nevin) goes missing, her daughter Kay (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) trek out to their remote family home to track her down. When Edna returns, she begins acting erratically, speaking to an unseen presence and covered in a black substance that also begins appearing throughout the house. As both Edna and the home continue to deteriorate, her daughter and granddaughter have to come to terms with both the danger in the home and what it means for Edna’s condition and their family. Relic might not appeal to those looking for a straightforward home film (see our next pick for that), but those willing to follow the film’s deliberate pacing will be rewarded with one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking endings of any horror film in recent history.

4. The Dark and the Wicked
After upending the home invasion film with 2008’s terrifying The Strangers, writer-director Bryan Bertino strikes at our deepest fears with The Dark and the Wicked, a brutal and dread-inducing story about a pair of siblings (Marin Ireland, Michael Abbott Jr) returning to their remote family home to visit their ailing father, only to be faced with their mother’s (Julie Oliver-Touchstone) strange deterioration. While the backbone of the film is relatively predictable, Bertino pushes the violence and sense of dread to almost unbearable levels, resulting in the outright scariest film of the year. If only we could have seen this in theatres.

3. His House
Written and directed by Remi Weekes, His House expertly mixes the real-world tragedies of war and systemic racism with an old-fashioned haunted house story. Bol (Sope Dirisu) and Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) escape war-torn South-Sudan with their young daughter for England, where they are placed in a sprawling, dilapidated home. While their every move and purchase is scrutinized by the racist government handlers in charge of their case, the couple soon discovers a presence in the walls of their home that begins pushing them to the breaking point, putting their legal standing in their new country and their very lives in jeopardy. Weekes has a knack for crafting truly upsetting and frightening moments that hit all the harder due to their real-world implications. His House is the kind of groundbreaking horror film that deserves to be seen far beyond the strictly diehard genre crowd, and should hopefully be recognized when awards season rolls around.

2. Possessor
Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor shows the writer-director giving his famous father a run for the money in terms of pure body horror and biting social commentary. A brutal body-swapping film with moments of shocking violence (be sure you see the uncut version), Possessor is a striking sci-fi/horror hybrid filled with images that will haunt you for weeks, coupled with an incredibly unnerving lead performance by Andrea Riseborough. Read our interview with Brandon Cronenberg here.

1. The Wolf of Snow Hollow
Writer/director/actor Jim Cummings follows up his indie hit Thunder Road with this killer horror-comedy about a potential werewolf terrorizing a small town. Cummings does a great job of balancing the film’s comedy and horror elements (no easy task), resulting in one of the best horror comedies in years. Featuring a scene-stealing performance from the late Robert Forster, The Wolf of Snow Hollow is this year’s most rewatchable horror movie by a mile. Read our full review here.

Runners-up:
The Stylist
Sputnik
Uncle Peckerhead
Lucky
The Mortuary Collection
She Dies Tomorrow
VFW
Underwater
My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To
Sanzaru
The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw
For the Sake of Vicious
Shirley
Gretel & Hansel