Month: March 2024

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Director profile – Rob Savage

British horror cinema continuously delivers fantastic films and filmmakers alike, with countless classics rising from home soil; whether that’s folkloric nightmares, Hammer Horrors, gritty zombie fests, satiric parodies or creature features, Britain is a motherland of talent. One of these standout contributors to the genre is director Rob Savage. In the past couple of years, Savage’s work has traversed the land of short films, indie features, and major Hollywood debuts, with each picture delivering a unique, distinctive slice of terror for audiences to devour. 

Savage’s efforts to captivate his audiences can be traced back to his pure passion for filmmaking, which began early in the award-winning director’s journey when he made his first short film at the young age of 13. For a budding teen, his debut short, Sex Scene (2009), tackled quite the earnest storyline of two young individuals trying to navigate the world of intimacy. Following his first taste of creation, Savage continued to wield a camera and direct, edit and write a bundle of independent short stories such as Act (2010), Sit in Silence (2011), and I Am (2012).  

By the time Savage hit the later years of adolescence, it was clear that the young man with a movie camera would be bound to a career within the industry. Throughout the following years, Savage’s hard graft and drive for creation would yield significant results, being a testament to contemporary horror cinema.  

Strings (2012) 

Savage’s first feature-length film was a pure grassroots venture, and the filmmaker has since expressed the opportune nature of its production. Straight out of school, Savage used all his university savings to create a film, which he made off a borrowed camera and was filmed at his college. However, just like many great directors, Savage did not need the expensive thrills to produce a standout debut. 

String’s warm reception is mainly owed to Savage’s emotive take on a tender yet dramatic coming-of-age story following four teenagers who vow to spend their last summer together before venturing into adulthood. The film is thematically reminiscent of the series Skins (2007) and visually remindful of the likes of Fish Tank(2009), with the film’s microbudget adding to the close, personal feel where the narrative is given the chance to hone in on the character dynamics. 

The film went on to win the Raindance Award at the British Independent Film Awards before being procured by Vertigo Films for distribution. Upon this triumph, Savage went on to create a streak of short films, one of which, Dawn of the Deaf (2016), co-written by Jed Shepherd, would foreshadow the pair’s success in the horror genre. 

Host (2020) 

Savage’s second feature is the sensational Host, an unforgettable film that not only catered to many horror hounds’ frightful tastes but also invited an influx of new fans to the genre due to its rapid, viral success. Much of Host’s achievements come from how the film weaponizes its desktop setting to initially familiarize, drag the viewer in, and then torment them for long after watching. Its authentic coding also spoke to the film’s timely release. 

Filmed and distributed during lockdown was Savage’s full-length version of a prank gone array. Savage revealed in an exclusive interview with Dead Northern that he kept up with social outings during lockdown via Zoom meetings to catch up with friends; however, when he began hearing strange noises in his attic, he knew that he could play the ultimate joke on the unsuspecting crowd. With the idea of a laugh in mind, Savage arranged a call with pals to provide emotional support as he scoped out his supposedly haunted attic, only for him to edit the live call and insert a jumpscare of a zombie lurching out from the dark from the Spanish found footage movie Rec (2007). The subsequent screams and panics got the viral treatment from the internet, making studios desperate for Savage to extend his one-minute idea into a feature-length desktop horror. 

With Shudder eventually pinning the release, Host became the most talked about film of 2020, and to this day, Host still holds a 99% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes against a whopping 99 reviews! 

Host’s stellar outcome is largely owed to its gritty natural tone, where the character’s actions do not feel forced but genuine, forcing the fear to become palpable. The film’s immersive structural format is a consequence of how the entire cast and crew knew each other prior to filming and were only given loose scripts and action commands by Savage, along with co-writers Shepherd and Gemma Hurley. Host is far from rigid. It feels as if the footage from this haunted Zoom meeting really was just happened upon. It would be easy to compare Host to the likes of fellow desktop features such as Unfriended (2014) and Searching (2018), but instead, Host is a film unlike any other. 

Dashcam (2021) 

After the victory that was Host, the rumour mill reported that Savage had entered into a deal with Blumhouse Productions to create three features under their wing. The first entry to stem from this exciting collaboration was Dashcam, a screen-life horror surrounding the contentious musician Annie (Annie Hardy) as she treks through one hell of a wild night. The found footage boom is undoubtedly alive and well throughout the film, with the firsthand footage originating from dashcams, live streams and phones. 

What ensues for the next 76 minutes is a bundle of mania, including but not limited to MAGA-endorsing protagonists, lockdown conspiracies, possessed elderly women, abandoned amusement parks, car wrecks, chase scenes, occult symbols, stabbings, and an oddly entertaining but rather vulgar spew of songs carolled from Annie as she goes about this disastrous night. 

The rambunctious expedition, joyously accompanied by all of the conundrums and quirks is what makes Dashcam feel like a hazardous fever dream, where you will most definitely be left thinking ‘what on earth have I just witnessed?’ But nevertheless, in the best way possible. Dashcam is a valiant film from Savage and returning co-writers Shepherd and Hurley. It is not a movie that has been previously accomplished, and it is unlikely that cinema will get a film as provocative and brilliantly feral any time soon. 

The Boogeyman (2023) 

Savage’s latest film, The Boogeyman, saw the director take an alternative approach to horror than his previous feats, with the film taking a more traditional filming approach and swaying away from found footage altogether.

The Boogeyman comes from a 1973 short story of the same name from the one and only Stephen King, which chronicles a grieving family tormented by the Boogeyman. The film’s primary forte is the deadening atmosphere that trickles through every ounce of the film, covering the screen in a dreary, raw, and authentic mood where the sombre emotions of grief washes over every moment, alongside the peaks of haunting scares provided by the titular antagonising force. 

The film wields a commendable balance of brief ‘got ya!’ scares amidst its layers of more sincere horror which comes from both the stunning performances from Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, and Vivien Lyra Blair and the film’s aesthetics. The final act is brimming with these scenes of great visual capacity, where giallo-esque lighting and colourful hues fuse with the horrific imagery and the omnipresent vibe, providing a feeling that urges you to believe that evil really does lurk. 

The cinematic cherry on top, if you will, is The Boogeyman’s official seal of approval from the King of Horror, with Savage describing that King had openly praised the film and stated how it lingered with him after watching, just as a horror film should. 

Savage’s next move in his booming career is a further step into the land of horror, with it being confirmed that he is to adapt the graphic horror novel Night of the Ghoul, which follows a father and son duo as they search for the truth surrounding a long-lost horror film. However, as they unearth the secrets, they discover that this cursed film was left hidden away from the masses for good reason. What propels Savage to be one of the contemporary greats is how his love for the genre is palpable within his filmography. Horror fans make the best horror movies, and Savage’s works precisely proves this time and time again.

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Ten of the scariest jumpscares in horror

  1. The Lawnmower – Sinister (Scott Derrickson, 2012)

Sinister has a brilliant and justifiable setup for many jumpscares to ensue, with Ethan Hawke’s character discovering a box of Super 8 films revealing a plethora of families’ grisly deaths. Many of these evil tapes are shown, showcasing drownings, hangings, and a string of other cruel fates. However, one tape, in particular, is still wedged in the back of many viewers’ minds twelve years on. The lawnmower tape displays an unknown person (later revealed to be a child!) grabbing a red lawnmower from a dark shed before mowing over grass in the pitch-black night, with the only morsel of light coming from the glow of the recording flash. Sounds of white-noise-like fuzziness play ominously over the confusing scene before the camera’s warm glow shows a person bound to the ground as the mower lashes over them with a fierce suddenness accompanied by an ear-drum bursting screech. The scene is an exercise of the classic jumpscare, brimming with brutally loud sounds and a terrifying image, yet it does not feel archetypal and expected; instead, the setup combined with the payoff is exactly how a quick jumpscare should be done.

2- Clown mask – Hell House LLC (Stephen Cognetti, 2015)

Is Hell House LLC one of the best horror films of the last decade? It might be a bold statement considering all of the fantastic films to come from this period. Yet, many a contemporary horror fan would state that Stephen Cognetti’s contributions are undeniably superb, mainly thanks to his filmography’s ability to turn every morsel of screentime into a bone-chilling expedition of great extremes. A scene in testament to this is the ‘What’re you looking at?’ scare, where a member of the haunted house comes across a demonic figure, believing it to be his friend dressed up in an eerily creepy clown suit. The true horror of the scene comes from the audience’s knowledge that this figure is not a friendly familiar but a hellish being donned in a black and white fairground suit and mask. We feel the tension bloom as the cast member comfortably stands beside his supposed friend and casually talks to it. It is not a scene where loud screams blare, or a monster leaps out. It is a simple setup with an excellent culmination to the terrifying film. 

3- Camera closeup – Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (Jung Bum-shik, 2018) 

The South Korean footage horror entered screens with immediate success, coming in first at the box office on the same day of its release. Its ‘must-see’ reputation grows yearly, with the film now being one of the highest-grossing films in the country, just behind the classic A Tale of Two Sisters (2003). Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is somewhat of a slow burn, taking its time to build trepidation before unleashing its ferocious force onto the unsuspecting viewer. There are countless incidences where you will find yourself watching the screen between peaked fingers over the eyes, but the one scene that continuously creeps up on jumpscare compilations is the ‘ultra-close up shot’. In traditional found footage fashion, the firsthand camera, in this instance, comes from the fisheye lens on a GoPro, which is mounted to the head of its user. The user in question experiences possession by a malicious spirit, turning her mouth into a menacing grim, complete with black irises and an air of pure wickedness. The intensity of the fright primarily originates from the twisted complexion that the fisheye lens provides; it’s an image straight from the uncanny valley, especially when paired with the unhuman odd squealing noise that the character makes. 

4- The first appearance – I Am a Ghost (H.P. Mendoza, 2012)

I Am a Ghost remains criminally underrated despite its truly nightmarish conclusion. Describing the film can come across as a disservice. Nothing happens for the majority of the film. There are no grand acts of terror, and a monotonous routine takes precedence for the most part. However, this stagnantness is where the horror excellence shines. I Am a Ghost follows a woman from an indeterminable era in a large Victorian house, all by herself, as she goes about her daily routine of waking up, making breakfast, walking around the house, and so forth. However, something is off, a stringent atmosphere become apparent, but the force of strain is revealed ever so delicately and subtley. Yet, when the clock strikes and the realisation hits, we are met with an ungodly reign of terror in the form of a chilling creature-like demon whose appearance is a psychical shock in terms of its sheer spectacle but also an emotional jolt due to the sudden interruption into the banal, mundane tone that was at play for the majority of the film. 

5- Night vision – The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005)

The Descent’s unbreakable reputation still stands today due to Neil Marshall’s impeccable timing of frights, scares and gore galore. The night vision scene occurs deep under an unknown cave system amidst columns of sharp, pointed stalactites and hundreds of animal bones. Darkness prevails, and panic sets in for the spelunking group, who are becoming increasingly aware of their entrapment. Their access to night vision only provides a feeble attempt of sight, but what it does pick up is a daunting image of the humanoid creature known as a ‘Crawler’ standing over them, waiting to catch their prey. Upon discovery, all hell breaks loose, and the group’s tortuous journey to their gruesome deaths begins. It’s everything one could wish for in a jumpscare – disquieting tension, limited vision, an almighty scream and a powerful scare.

6- Car window – Smile (Parker Finn, 2022)

A common conception about contemporary horror cinema is that they are predictable with one too many jumpscares. And whilst that sentiment may ring slightly true, there are plenty of films which exercise an abundance of jumpscares with brilliance—an example of this being Smile. Parker Finn’s feature debut’s standout scene, which took many by surprise, is the ‘car window’ snippet. The jolting clip shows a woman running to a car window, only for her torso to fill the car window, and her neck to seemingly contort and hang low, pushing her twisted expression into the glass and showcasing an awfully horrid smile.

7- ‘The Mother’ – Barbarian (Zach Cregger, 2022)

The payoff from Barbarian’s ‘big’ jumpscare is all in the buildup, which takes up the majority of the first half of the film. Whilst details will be kept sparse, throughout Barbarian we are unsure as to who or what will go wrong, who to trust and when the horror will unfold. Meaning that the grand reveal of the mysterious titular creature behind all the terror is all the more effective. What also propels this particular Barbarian scare to gold status is how it changes the film’s method of horror. The likes of Smile and Sinister use quick scares to retrieve a response. Meanwhile, Barbarian and I Am a Ghost utilise a general sense of devilment to entice a reaction. Barbarian often employs atmospheric dread to create fear, making this unforeseen monstrous appearance all the more frantic.

8- I Saw Her Face – The Ring (Gore Verbinski, 2002)

Gore Verbinski’s adaption of the Japanese classic Ringu (1998) is an example of a remake done right. There are countless instances where the film takes us on a frightening ride, but there is one scene that stands out amongst them all – the infamous ‘I Saw Her Face’ extract. During a somber funeral service for a young girl hit by the tragedy of The Ring’s lore, the victim’s mother tells of her heartbreak and sudden death of her daughter. The scene is one of solemn and tenderness, mourning the sadness of a life lost, however, in an attack of complete sporadicalness the camera cuts to the girl hunched dead inside a closet, mouth gaping open, eyes drooped and bruised skin. Brutal, bold and beyond bone-chilling.

9- The Haunting of Hill House (Mike Flanagan, 2018)

Mike Flanagan is the ultimate horror connisseur, what with being a known avid horror fan, which continuously shows through his extensive filmography. Although The Haunting of Hill House is not a film but mini-series, it truly is a cinematic masterpiece. The show as a collective nails the art of a jumpscare. It features scenes of brief, sudden thwacks with booming sounds providing plenty of nerve jolting attacks to the senses. On the flip side, there is an equal amount of long, dreary, shocks that unnerve as much as they panic. Whilst there are too many scenes to pin the precise focal point, a few masterly frights include every appearance of the Bent Neck Lady and the ‘car scare’.

10- Hide and Clap – The Conjuring (James Wan, 2013)

To set the scene, a mother and child are playing the hide and clap game, which is akin to a Marco-Polo, hide and seek activity. In an attempt to locate the hider, the seeker (the mother) follows the claps, leading her to the entryway of the basement. Now in complete darkness with only a small glow lighting up her face, she waits for the next clap, only for the silence to be broken by a clap from right behind her. Loud screams and panic ensues, but the real reaction comes from the slow buildup, shivering in anticipation waiting for a clap to appear out from knowhere and cut the unbeliviably thick tension.

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Imaginary (2024) review

Imaginary is Jeff Wadlow’s latest collaboration with Blumhouse Productions, following from their previous combined projects, Fantasy Island (2020) and Truth or Dare (2018). Like every production house, there are filmic expectations, whether that be the dizzyingly raucous films from Troma Entertainment or the moody existentialist slow-burners from A24. And whilst Blumhouse has produced some utterly fantastic horrors such as The Bay (2012), Creep (2014), Get Out (2018), and Soft and Quiet (2022), the studio has more often than not come under fire for spewing out banal, cliched movies that lack any air of originality. Unfortunately, their latest venture, Imaginary, has hit screens with an overwhelmingly negative response thanks to its underdeveloped, muddled storyline and humdrum attempts to scare. 

Generically, Imaginary follows Jessica (DeWanda Wise), a children’s author who returns to her childhood home with her stepdaughters, Alice (Pyper Braun) and Taylor (Taegen Burns). However, chaos ensues when Alice discovers a stuffed teddy bear named Chauncey. 

With this in mind, the narrative has ample potential to be something eerie and dark, a tale of childhood frights and how they seep into the psyche. Yet, one of the film’s significant downfalls is how the ‘could-be-great’ capabilities are lost in all of the hullabaloo. In a nutshell, Jessica’s repressed childhood has unknowingly clouded most of her life and affected her more than she could have ever imagined; there is an unnecessary backstory surrounding Alice and Taylor’s troubled mother, which is joined by yet another subplot of this underground-like world called the ‘Never Ever’ that Chauncey unleashes. The story is further complicated by the fact that Chauncey’s physical materiality is a fabrication of Jessica and Alice’s minds, making frequent appearances to others somewhat confusing. Imaginary really outdoes itself because it cannot make up its mind, with underplots, lore, secondary storylines and tangled conclusions all fighting for attention for the entire film. 

The oversaturation is not offbeat or theatrical, where the excessiveness plays off as humorous or loveable enough to create a fanbase, as seen in the likes of 2023’s M3gan. Alternatively, Imaginary’s capacity to grasp its gratuitous plot and develop any sense of charm is completely missed. 

Furthering the vapidness is the almost nonsensical dialogue that features throughout. The lead actors, particularly Wise, are equipped with all the tools to make the film excel, yet the robotic script dulls any sparkle and makes not just the character’s physical actions confusing but also makes every monologue and essential piece of exposition fail. Take the character of Gloria (Betty Buckley), Jessica’s neighbour, whose sole purpose is to be an exposition provider. It is not uncommon for films to dedicate a scene for the lead to decipher the origins that are plaguing their situation. However, Gloria’s delivery of the backstory is akin to that of a wiki article. It’s a monotonous speech that reels off a PowerPoint presentation to Chauncey’s motives.

The singular hook that barely keeps Imaginary in the loop is the creature design of Chauncey when he enters beast-mode. His small teddy bear frame becomes towering, with his eyes shedding the shiny plastic beads, becoming bright red, and his sewn-shut mouth ripping open to reveal gnarly fangs. What makes this all the more impressive is that Chauncey’s form was created mainly using practical effects and animatronic tricks. These effects were created by none other than Spectral Motion, an effects design team that is known for their brilliant work on the likes of Stranger Things (2016-). If Imaginary had featured more of Chauncey’s dark side and beastly form, then the film’s overall themeatics would have had the opportunity to materialise. 

The film could have utilised its undertones and portrayed the manipulation of reality, how psychological illusions and repression lead to the destruction of the self. Chauncey’s villainy could have propelled the film away from its continuous jumpscare tactics and led the way with a more piercing take on the human condition if the script had been stripped back and allowed the effectiveness of its story beats and antagonist to shine.

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Horror in the High Desert is the ultimate found footage film – review

Bumps in the dark and strange creatures are brilliant devices used by many filmmakers. Nevertheless, it is often rare that there comes about a film that employs these facets with such power that it will leave you not just fully engrossed in the on-screen magic but also enthralled by the sheer capacity to frighten. Dutch Marich’s Horror in the High Desert (2021) and its equally haunting sequel Horror in the High Desert 2: Minerva (2023) is an exercise in visceral found footage cinema that deserves to be registered as one of the greats. 

The first entry chronicles the disappearance of hiker Gary Hinge (Eric Mencis), who went missing in the summer of 2017 after hiking in the Great Basin Desert, Nevada. For the first time since the tragedy, family and friends are interviewed, recalling the horrific events and the terrifying conclusion of what happened in the high desert. 

At first glance, Horror in the High Desert’s stylistic choices may seem to emulate the found footage storytelling device as seen countless times before. However, the complexity Marich exerts throughout propels the aspect of the first-hand camera into new and exciting territory that imposes an awfully stringent omnipotent force. The film takes inspiration from the authenticity of documentary filmmaking, featuring interviews and archival footage, and presents its facts on screen as if learnt in real-time whilst editing a supposedly real documentary on a genuine case. It is an intoxicatingly fascinating approach to horror that has been excellently handed in the likes of The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Lake Mungo (2008), with the product having an undictated tonality, where the events unravel in real time, making the finished content much more authentically coded and therefore tenfolds more terrifying. 

With all these hyperrealist intentions, exploring the film’s visual aesthetics is crucial. Night vision is a potent aspect that Marich amalgamates to extradite a deeply intrinsic fear held within us. What we can’t see is always scarier; the dark figures hiding behind pillars and the whispers of entities are more often than not more startling than the constant exposure of the antagonising force. Marich heavily enlists this ‘less is more approach’ during the film’s final act, which shows the last footage from Gary shoots on his camcorder. Supposedly alone in the dark heights of the isolated desert, Gary captures a deserted cabin surrounded by sparse trees, all washed in total darkness, naked to the human eye, except for the camera’s night vision capabilities. 

Fear is survival. It is a preservation instinct that keeps us alive. We become near defenceless when we are denied light and are steeped in the darkness, unable to see the predatory threats. Horror in the High Desert, throughout its conclusion, calls upon this evolutionary cycle to enhance our senses and thus force us to look at the screen, taking in every frame to see where the monstrousness lies, pay audible attention to every branch stepped on to determine how close menace is to our surroundings and ultimately force us to watch on as the gruelling events unfold. In tandem, the close bond developed by the first-hand diegetic camera thrusts our perspective to be at one with Gary, fully and brutally immersing us in his position throughout this bone-chilling sequence. 

Identifying an immersed spectatorial experience and the discharge of all-consuming darkness that entices a haptic touch towards the film translates to Horror in the High Desert’s corpus that stimulates folkloric-based rhetoric. This idea of lore and mystery is presented heavily throughout the sequel, Horror in the High Desert 2: Minerva. Featuring a similar outline and based in the same context, is a secondary disappearance story focusing on the geological researcher Minerva Sound (Solveig Helene), who relocated to a rural trailer amidst the desert where she documented a string of strange occurrences. Accompanying this are various subplots of other people’s experiences with the ominous area, including the case of the young mother, Ameliana Brasher (Brooke Bradshaw), who goes missing along Highway 50. This is followed by the bodycam footage of Luke Wells (David Nichols Jr.), an EMT who was part of the initial search party for Ameliana. 

Minerva’s story unravels slowly, featuring video calls between herself and loved ones concerning the discoveries she has made inside the trailer, such as discarded home video tapes featuring chilling visuals that play out as stalker-like footage, reminiscent of the recordings in The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007), but with a more covert, suspenseful tone. However, the most macabre discovery is of an unidentified person creeping around the trailer, breathing sluggishly and grunting, “he’s comin’ in..” and “I got one for ya”. It is an eerie sequence enough on its own, yet the true bite comes from its suggestion that whatever wreaks havoc among the high desert is something that is far more sinister than a lone wolf, a night stalker, but instead, an uncanny force that is bigger than us all. 

Deepening this are the performances above from the likes of Ameliana and Luke, whose experiences with the land are both utterly perplexing and strikingly frightening. After driving from Las Vegas, Ameliana’s car breaks down, but not to fear; her family has a strategy for this long abandoned stretch of highway; if they do not get home at the specified time, the stranded must wait outside the car until rescue appears. Marich makes brilliant use of the surveillance style of found footage by inserting clips from Ameliana’s dashcam. Details will be spared to avoid spoiling the unforgettable (and frankly nightmare-fueled) surprise. What can be noted is how Marich bravely takes the time not to rush the sequence of Ameliana’s fate. It’s a torturous slow burn that makes the viewer wait in pure fear and trepidation, knowing that Ameliana’s blisteringly gruesome fate will occur at any given moment. 

One final punch to the gut is Luke’s bodycam footage, which is an extract that horror filmmakers spend their entire careers learning how to craft, as Marich has done. Again, specifics will be spared in a bid to ‘keep mum’ on the finale. By this process, take heed of this: Luke enters a stranded mining facility in the pitch darkness, having broken his flashlight, unable to see that he is always nearly mere feet away from bumping into a disfigured, unexplainable figure capable of ungodly terror. 


Marich has discussed Horror in the High Desert becoming a multi-entried horror series, with the film’s official website confirming that the third edition, Horror in the High Desert 3: Firewatch, is coming soon. Given the excellence of the original and its equally distinctive sequel, Marich is certainly becoming a signature figure in the found footage world, causing waves and creating overwhelmingly smashing cinema.

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Top ten mind-boggling horror movies

1- The Wolf House (Cristobal León and Joaquin Cociña, 2018)

Kicking off this mind-twisting list is the Chilean stop-motion film The Wolf House. Directed by Cristobal León and Joaquin Cociña and co-written by Alejandra Moffat, is the animated, surreal fairytale that takes the viewer through a mirage of labyrinth-like settings and worlds in a desolate house. The film’s visual incoherence is a guise that shelters and replicates the intense and complex meaning behind the story—inspired by the troubling Colonia Dignidad, a colony established in Chile post WW2 where various acts of torture were committed. The Wolf House’s myriad of madness is captivatingly gruesome, with each scene being near impossible to decode at first glance; for instance, as the meaning behind the house unravels within the story, the bones of its foundations experience a metamorphosis where objects become people and people become animals. 

2- Possum (Matthew Holness, 2018)

Akin to the backwards world of British TV series The League of Gentlemen (1999-2002) and infused with a touch of Ben Wheatley’s Neo-folk filmmaking style is the utterly fantastic and incredibly dark Possum. From the mind of director Matthew Holness is the story of a child puppeteer, Philip (Sean Harris), who returns home where he is confronted with his past trauma. The film was adapted from Holness’s short story of the same name that was influenced by the works of Sigmund Freud. Considering this, Possum is brimming with the uncanny, whether that be through the offensively disturbed arachnid puppet that features throughout, or the cold, dismal world that the film takes place in. Possum is one of those films that may be watched a dozen times before one can truly get to grips with every single detail of great emotional significance that seeps throughout every frame. 

3- House (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977)

House is a kaleidoscopic fever dream that emulates psychedelia with a pungent extremity, with its ethereal quality coming off as both haunting and unreasonably excessive. The hallucinatory facets within House derive from director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s wanting to create a film that goes beyond human understanding, or more accurately, adults’ understanding of the logical world. In creating the script, Obayashi enlisted his daughter’s help where he observed that a child’s imagination conjures the most fascinating of concepts that traverses far beyond the mundanity of what the mature mind summons. With this, House takes aspects of childhood nightmares of colourful monsters and nonsensical scenarios to create a film that is wildly ambitious and genuinely startling. 

4- Begotten (E. Elias Merhige, 1989)

Back in the mid 1980s E. Elias Merhige developed an idea for a piece of experimental theatre where live music and dance would be performed against a story of mythology, religion and the disgrace of humanity. Whilst traction was aligned with the project and the concept blossomed, Merhige realised that the production as a live piece of theatre would be too costly, leading to his concept becoming a film. With the knowledge that Begotten’s corpus derived from experimental theatre, it becomes easier to mentally digest the final product, which is by all intents and purposes a complete deluge that resembles a total exodus of reality. The  hellish imagery consists of the self-disembowelment of God whose mutilated remains gives birth to Mother Earth before conceiving the ‘Son of Earth’ and going on a surreal, nauseating path of destruction and discovery. Take this rambunctious idea and now imagine it paired with the film’s obtrusive score that runs throughout which features nothing but insect-like squirming noises over a ‘thu-dum’ heartbeat sound. Begotten obliterates normality and acts a sporadic experience from beginning to end. 

5- Koko-di Koko-da (Johannes Nyholm, 2019)

Koko-di Koko-da is another Groundhog Day story that chronicles a grieving couple that are stuck in a time loop by nursery rhyme characters. The complex and structurally intricate storyline deliberately never makes sense or fully acknowledges its strangeness, it is just accepted by the cinematic universe, making every confused and disjointed emotion extracted from the viewers all the more disturbing. Paired with the absurdity of the events, there is an overall aggravation towards the antagonising characters. The beings terrorising the couple strive through with a morbid happiness that seems whimsical until we are reminded that this is very much a horrific story. 

6- Uzumaki (Higuchinsky, 2000) 

Based on the Junji Ito manga of the same name is Uzumaki, a film where atmosphere, aura and an unhinged narrative take over to create a boggling adaption. Uzumaki has received a decent share of criticism over time, partially due to its off-kilter humour that sporadically features throughout, which seems quite out of place. However, it is this strange placement of slapstick comedy that pierces the tension and makes the film an untamed watch where the entire direction of the film is consistently unprecedented. Adding to the peculiarity is the film’s central focus surrounding the spiral pattern and how it essentially drives the characters to the brinks of their psyche. The Fibonacci spiral hysteria twists and turns the story in the most unexpected of ways, leaving for the most memorable of watches.

7- Society (Brian Yuzna, 1989)

The magnificence of body horror is forever in debt to Brian Yuzna’s Society. Yuzna’s epic exploration into the potentials of depravity is an exercise in the brilliance of cinema that doesn’t take itself too seriously, with plenty of amalgamated bodies that fuse flesh to flesh and limb to limb to create a gigantic creature formed by body parts. The aspect of anthropomorphism plays a large role in Society with the monstrosity of the final act being a repulsive feast for the senses. For fans of excessive gore and stomach churning terror, this film is not to be missed! 

8- Resurrection (Andrew Semans, 2022)

Despite the brilliance of the leads, Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth, Andrew Semans Resurrection is criminally underrated. Whilst many absurd films tackle obscene comedy to further the surreal nightmarish quality of mind-boggling horror, Resurrection takes a much more gloom-ridden route where the calamitous nature of the film shines alongside the unearthly and bizarre plot points. Whilst the story is best left as an enigma for first time watchers, what can be revealed is that Resurrection follows the disciplined business woman Maggie (Hall), whose life implodes when a strange figure (Roth) from her past comes back to haunt her. The words brutal and cold rings strong throughout this relentless shocker. 

9- Visitor Q (Takashi Miike, 2001)

Hmm… where to begin with horror legend Takashi Miike’s Visitor Q? Not for the faint hearted and certainly not a family film is this utterly barbaric and gut-wrenchingly twisted tale of nihilistic dread following the perverted Yamazaki family as they fall apart at the hands of their own lewdness. Themes of incest, voyeurism, sadio-masochism, torture, necrophilia, coprophilia, lactophilia (and copius other ‘philia’ related terms) all take centre stage throughout the film, leaving any seasoned viewer affected, let alone an unsuspecting spectator. However, whilst there is a lot to be said about its extremity, Visitor Q is a fascinating watch, particularly due to its stylistic output. The film mimics documentary footage with the camera acting as a fly on the wall for most scenes, creeping up where you’d least expect it and bringing us uncomfortably close to the experimental action. 

10- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)

German expressionism roots its origins within Berlin circa 1920s as a reflection of the turmoil during that era. Notable films from the period include the likes of Nosferatu (1922), Faust (1926) and most importantly in this case, Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The film is renowned for its graphic style and striking aura that is straight from the dark underbelly of horror thematics. The set’s were purposefully built to create a dizzying effect where the walls were angled and floors were tilted, where featured trees would appear diagonal and staircases would be spiralized messes. It was a radical decision to portray such a frenzy that still pays off over 100 years later. 

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