That damn camera, motionless and unstirred, is always happy to film what’s in front of it, never one to pan about to catch new angles. In The Clovehitch Killer, this sensation is wrought entirely through craft instead of effects. Horror movies are all about the squirm, the nerve-wracking build-up of tension over time that, done properly, leaves viewers crawling out of their skin with dread. Either way, fathers aren’t always who or what they appear. Maybe Don just has a real kink fetish and keeps rope around for fun in the bedroom. Beneath, though, he’s something more, at least so Tyler suspects: The Clovehitch Killer, a serial killer who once tormented their area with a horrific murder spree long completed. On the surface, Don looks and acts like an automaton, too, with occasional hints of humor and warmth in his capacity as father and Scoutmaster. Caught up in this dynamic is Tyler (Charlie Plummer), awkward, quiet and shy, the son of Don (Dylan McDermott), a handyman and Scout troop leader, which brings no end of unexpressed consternation to Tyler as a Scout himself. Almost none of the characters we meet in the movie have a spark they’re drones tasked with maintaining the hive’s integrity against interlopers who, god forbid, actually bother to be somebody. The film is shot stock-still, the camera more or less fixed from one scene to the next, as if affected by the vibe of routine humming throughout its setting of Somewhere, Kentucky. In The Clovehitch Killer, director Duncan Skiles replicates this bait-and-switch through cinematographer Luke McCoubrey’s camera. Life in small-town Christian America can have a stultifying effect on a person, sucking out all personality and vitality, replacing all individual identity with better living through dogma. Here are the 15 best horror movies of 2018. The best horror movies of 2018 both stoked our fears and satiated our futile lusts, both screamed into the endless void and wept into the uncaring future. (Even the Online Metropolis of Ralph Breaks the Internet bears the manifestation of a terrifying edifice.)Īnd yet, as much as our writers squabbled over specific picks, we could all agree on the essence of these films: that we are on the brink of apocalypse that we all seem to hate each other that being “extremely online” will kill us all. Talk about it too much nowadays, and everything sort of seems like horror. It’s been, in other words, an odd year for the horror movie, at the mercy of as many thinkpieces about “what” horror “is” as what it isn’t, with services like Netflix and Shudder expanding their qualifications into broader genre considerations while allowing directors to push at the borders of their pulpier sensibilities. When ranking the best horror of the year, 2018, perhaps more than any other 12-month period, provided the most chances for complete disagreement amongst our staff. Forest horror is too rare a genre nowadays, especially the kind that gives power back to the land itself, but Wheatley’s thoroughly modern folk horror entry is outstandingly creepy and surprisingly brutal - and all in the great outdoors, making it a perfect movie for kicking off the summer. The film’s beautiful and pristine wilderness feels at once like it could be just a few yards from any highway in America, as well as terrifyingly remote and isolated. This movie, a pandemic-era offering from Kill List and The Meg 2 director Ben Wheatley, sends its characters into the forest in hopes of finding some kind of scientific discovery. Or you could watch In the Earth and resolve yourself to never step outside your home again. Summer is finally here, and that means it’s time to kick off your shoes and head outside to the wonder of the great outdoors. PsychoĬast: Ellora Torchia, Joel Fry, Hayley Squires Even still, The Thing’s prequel is a great concept well executed, and even a slightly pale imitation of the original movie is more fun than most other horror movies you can stream. The biggest tragedy of this version of the Thing is the production originally featured practical effects reminiscent of Carpenter’s classic, but those were scrapped in favor of CGI creations that aren’t nearly as neat or scary. The story of the Norwegian base that first fell victim to the Thing monster’s mimicry and rampage is every bit as brutal, bloody, and creepy as the original, even if no one here is as charming or interesting as the characters in the first movie. Yes, really, the prequel to John Carpenter’s masterpiece is actually pretty good. The early days of summer, just as everything’s starting to heat up again, are the perfect time to throw on a very chilly horror movie, and 2011’s The Thing is an excellent option. Photo: Kerry Hayes/Universal Pictures/Everett CollectionĬast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen
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