Horror movies aren’t just for Halloween anymore. They’re year-round extravaganzas of bloody gore, crazy villains and high-concept stuff that’ll freak you out and make you think about the world around you.
There’s also some absolute dreck, but, hey, you take the good with the bad.
The world’s plenty scary with viral outbreaks and uncertainty about theaters reopening amid the current pandemic, but streaming services thankfully have maintained a steady dose of the creepy stuff. The latest definitely will stick with you in our current state of things: Writer/director Amy Seimetz’s “She Dies Tomorrow” is a contagion thriller, imagining an ideological belief that spreads among humans rather than a virus.
This year, we’re taking on the task of definitively ranking every new horror movie. Here’s how “She Dies Tomorrow” stacks up with what’s come out thus far:
The horrid adaptation of Henry James’ “The Turn of the Screw” stars Mackenzie Davis as a governess hired to take care of a young girl who’s driven nuts seeing ghostly figures and hearing things that go bump in the night. Way more frustrating than freaky, the film also has one of the worst endings in recent memory.
Give Blumhouse credit for casting Michael Peña in Ricardo Montalban’s old Mr. Roarke role and wanting to make the old TV concept fresh again. Yet so much else fails in this convoluted retread with guests being put through their individual hells and one huge forced plot twist after another. It’s just a checklist of bad horror tropes by the end.
There’s a strong sense of style in this noir horror fantasy, thought not much resembling a cohesive narrative, with a renowned trumpet player (Stephen McHattie), the hitman (also McHattie) hired to bring back one of the musician’s fingers, and a bonkers plot involving psychics, jazz, pedophilia and vampires.
In the latest (and forgettable) redo of the Japanese horror movie, a couple of cops and others come to face-to-face with a vengeful phantom that attaches itself to houses and people and haunts them until their unavoidable doom. The film offers nonlinear intertwining story lines, ghosts coming out of bathtubs and little else.
Freya Tingley plays a gifted violinist who inherits her late composer father’s Gothic castle and unpublished masterwork in “The Sonata.”
37. ‘The Sonata’
Freya Tingley plays a gifted violinist whose composer father (the late Rutger Hauer) dies extremely violently. She inherits a Gothic castle and an unpublished masterwork – filled with weird symbols courtesy of dad’s dark interests – in a movie with cool classical music but no real scares.
Katie Holmes stars as a mom who doesn’t know what to make of an eerie porcelain doll in “Brahms: The Boy II.”
36. ‘Brahms: The Boy II’
Katie Holmes is a mom whose family moves to the English countryside after a violent break-in and Christopher Convery plays the young boy who finds and befriends the freaky doll Brahms. Brahms is plenty unnerving, but the sequel frustratingly undermines what made the first film’s twist ending cool and instead falls back on boring horror tropes.
April Billingsley stars as a psychiatric patient who insists her newborn baby was kidnapped by a secret cult in “The Dark Red.”
35. ‘The Dark Red’
The indie psychological thriller hinges on a psychiatric patient (April Billingsley) who insists her newborn baby has been kidnapped by a secret cult collecting folks of her rare blood type. Its “Is she crazy or not?” narrative takes a goofy third-act turn into a revenge flick better at showing Billingsley’s pull-up prowess than doling out chills.
Young Claire (Elizabeth Birkner) accidentally unleashes a demon from a haunted mirror in the horror film “Behind You.”
34. ‘Behind You’
Two young sisters move in with their very strange estranged aunt, all the mirrors in the house are covered up (for a reason, naturally), and when one of the girls uncovers one, she releases a nasty demon that’s haunted the family before. The few highlights are undone by a convoluted mythology, plenty of clichés and a lack of scares.
Kevin Janssens and Olga Kurylenko star as a European couple who buy a house with a secret wish-granting room in “The Room.”
33. ‘The Room’
A European couple buy an old house and in the midst of spiffing the place up discover a hidden room where whatever they wish for comes true. It’s pretty standard “Monkey’s Paw” material for much of it, though the movie shows some depth when it finally gets personal with its main characters and their deepest desires.
Hermione Corfield plays a marine-biology student investigating some otherworldly weirdness attached to a fishing trawler in “Sea Fever.”
32. ‘Sea Fever’
On one hand, it’s hopelessly derivative. On the other, it’s got an exploding eye that’ll leave you squirming. The sci-fi horror centers on a marine-biology student who boards a European fishing trawler that’s invaded by an otherworldly organism, which infects the sailors and turns them mad. Maybe not the best flick if you’re weirded out by worms.
Jeremy Gardner (with Brea Grant) writes, directs and stars in “After Midnight” as a small-town guy faced with a mysterious vicious creature that shows up nightly at his front door.
31. ‘After Midnight’
In the down-home indie horror romance, a small-town bar owner’s forced to deal with a vicious monster that attacks his front door every night. As the creature’s appearance coincides with the disappearance of the dude’s girlfriend, “Midnight” deftly explores the push-pull between expanding your horizons and remaining comfortably complacent.
Kristen Stewart takes on mysterious creatures seven miles below the ocean surface in the sci-fi thriller “Underwater.”
30. ‘Underwater’
The “Alien” influence isn’t at all subtle in the action-packed thriller starring Kristen Stewart as a mechanical engineer on a doomed drilling team seven miles below the ocean surface. There are lots of claustrophobic escapes, crushing deep-sea dangers and neato monsters, plus Stewart does a decent job rocking a modern Ripley vibe.
David Cronenberg (left) stars as a podcaster who helps a young woman (Tuppence Middleton) with a Niagara Falls mystery in “Disappearance at Clifton Hill.”
29. ‘Disappearance at Clifton Hill’
Playing a quirky podcaster, horror legend David Cronenberg is a scene-stealer in the film about a young woman (Tuppence Middleton) who returns to her Niagara Falls home still traumatized by a tragedy she witnessed as a girl. The immersive narrative is convoluted in its resolution, yet offers a few well-crafted moments worth the watch.
Alexis (Alexandra Daddario, center) and her pals (Amy Forsyth and Maddie Hasson) pick up some dudes at a local heavy-metal show in the horror comedy “We Summon the Darkness.”
28. ‘We Summon the Darkness’
In the middle of a satanic panic with murderers on the loose in their 1980s-set Midwestern locale, a pack of girlfriends go to a rock show, befriend three dudes and things get bloody when the pentagrams and chainsaws come out. You can see the twists coming, though “Darkness” takes a horror-comedy stab at cults of personality.
Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg are a house-hunting couple who check out a very weird neighborhood in the sci-fi thriller “Vivarium.”
27. ‘Vivarium’
Suburban madness is real for the main couple (Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots) when they’re trapped in an otherworldly identical neighborhood, especially as a baby is plopped in front of them with the message “Raise him and be released.” There’s a creepy kid to be had as well as a larger metaphor about life and parenting.
A middle-aged husband (Kevin Bacon) is driven nuts in a sinister house in “You Should Have Left.”
26. ‘You Should Have Left’
Kevin Bacon stars as a middle-age dude with a mysterious bit of infamy and a much younger actress wife (Amanda Seyfried) whose Welsh getaway turns sinister when dark forces keep him trapped in a modern house that defies time and space. There are some eerie moments but they should have made a less predictable flick.
Lulu Wilson plays the rebellious title teen who fights back against home invaders in the bloody thriller “Becky.”
25. ‘Becky’
In one of 2020’s biggest swings, comedian Kevin James sports a shaved head with a huge swastika tattoo in this revenge thriller, a twisted take on “Home Alone” featuring a rebellious teen girl (Lulu Wilson) fighting back against a pack of escaped convicts led by their sadistic neo-Nazi leader (James).
A fed-up woman (Chelsey Grant) goes to extreme lengths to kill off a psycho in one of seven tales in the horror-comedy anthology “Scare Package.”
24. ‘Scare Package’
With a 1980s-style video store as a framing device, the horror-comedy anthology unleashes seven tales gleefully sending up various subgenres – for example, three girls are possessed by a demonic lollipop in one story and an unkillable slasher gets the spotlight in another – and putting a clever meta spin on a trove of tropes.
Will Forte stars as a washed-up singer with satanic intentions and Maeve Higgins is a kindly Irish driving instructor in the horror comedy “Extra Ordinary.”
23. ‘Extra Ordinary’
In this small-town Irish charmer full of spooks and satanic pacts, Rose (Maeve Higgins) is a driving instructor and reluctant psychic who has to save a virgin from the devil-worshipping shenanigans of a pop-music has-been (Will Forte). The film intriguingly digs into the loneliness of ghosts and has a fun but gross running gag involving ectoplasm.
Elijah Wood stars as a man who visits his long-estranged father and is thrown into crazy circumstances in “Come to Daddy.”
22. ‘Come to Daddy’
Noir and comedy mix in this kooky outing that begins with quotes from two luminaries: Shakespeare and Beyoncé. A privileged dude (Elijah Wood) travels to see the estranged father who left him behind when he was a child, their reunion is a disaster, and a crazy reveal forces our man-child hero to survive a series of bloody predicaments.
Mary J. Blige and Nat Wolff play cops dealing with a supernatural force in the thriller “Body Cam.”
21. ‘Body Cam’
Starring Mary J. Blige as an officer investigating the gruesome murders of fellow cops, what seems at first an ordinary law-and-order drama turns very supernatural with interesting themes involving revenge and police brutality, a twist on the found-footage model in cool ways, and plenty of exposed organs for gore hounds.
Nicole Brydon Bloom stars as a woman who learns her new L.A. apartment complex isn’t the utopia it seems in “1BR.”
20. ‘1BR’
A recent LA transplant (Nicole Brydon Bloom) scores a sweet Hollywood pad with seemingly nice neighbors who cook out. Only too late does she realize the bizarre reality of her new surroundings. “1BR” is aces at tackling the ideology behind community and cults and goes to some fairly unnerving places in its brutality.
Alec Secareau is an ex-soldier and Carla Juri is a young woman caring for her mother in the horror film “Amulet.”
19. ‘Amulet’
In director Romola Garai’s devilish horror flick, an ex-soldier (Alec Secareanu) moves in to help a young woman (Carla Juri) with the upkeep of her decrepit house. The weirdness lies upstairs, though, where her elderly mother lives and some freakiness willl be revealed during a slow-burn chiller that messes with your expectations.
A group of friends attend a seance over Zoom and the results are scary in the horror movie “Host,” filmed during quarantine.
18. ‘Host’
Shot and produced remotely during COVID-19 quarantine, the clever film taps into timely circumstance and successfully tweaks the found-footage model in a lean-and-mean fashion with the story of locked-down friends who attend an online seance via Zoom and some aggressive spirits don’t maintain appropriate social distancing.
Haley Bennett stars as a housewife who develops a condition where she eats strange objects like marbles and pins in the psychological thriller “Swallow.”
17. ‘Swallow’
Haley Bennett stars as happy-on-the-outside housewife Hunter who becomes pregnant and develops pica, leading her to compulsively swallow pins, screwdrivers and other objects that’ll make you squirm. However, the “Oh, please don’t eat that” situations switch to more hopeful ones as Hunter reclaims her identity and deals with a dark past
Krista Kosonen plays a dominatrix who forms an emotional connection with a widowed heart surgeon in the Finnish film “Dogs Don’t Wear Pants.”
16. ‘Dogs Don’t Wear Pants’
The Finnish thriller, which played at last year’s Cannes and Toronto film festivals, is surprisingly as endearing as it is disturbing. A widowed heart surgeon is a cold fish with sexual hangups when he meets and forms a strong connection with a BDSM dominatrix whose strangulation methods prove addictive, freeing and oddly cathartic for him.
Gabrielle Elyse (left) and Mary Nepi star as estranged childhood friends who reunite when one of them loses her virginity and becomes pregnant with an alien baby in “Snatchers.”
15. ‘Snatchers’
“Booksmart” meets “Shaun of the Dead” and “Gremlins” in the teen horror comedy centered on a teen girl who loses her virginity and gives “birth” to an alien baby. Come for the gruesome shenanigans of a monstrous critter that attaches itself to people’s heads, stay for estranged childhood pals reuniting to become creature-hunting BBFs.
Tara Basro (right, with Marissa Anita) stars as a woman who investigates a remote Indonesian village with the residents want to kill her and break an old curse in “Impetigore.”
14. ‘Impetigore’
Exploring folk terrors with intriguing depth, the Indonesian flick stars Tara Basro as a woman who travels to a remote village to investigate a residence that belongs to the parents she never knew, and she learns of the locale’s bloody history and an old curse that has the residents wanting to kill her.
Betty Gilpin stars as a Southern woman trying to survive being preyed upon for sport in “The Hunt.”
13. ‘The Hunt’
“The Hunt” takes no partisan prisoners in imagining cold warfare between the left and right taken to ultra-violent ends. It struggles to find balance between clever metaphor and comedic splatter-fest, but you’ll still revel in watching Betty Gilpin star as a Bible Belt car-rental employee with a very particular set of hidden skills.
Selah (Raffey Cassidy) begins to question her faith in enigmatic Shepherd (Michiel Huisman) in “The Other Lamb.”
12. ‘The Other Lamb’
Taking on gender power dynamics and toxic masculinity, the coming-of-age story stars Raffey Cassidy as a teen born into an all-female flock that worships a strange messianic figure (Michiel Huisman). Transitioning to adulthood, she begins to see the awful truth around her in a film full of artistic imagery and pervasive unease.
Liana Liberato stars in the cosmic horror film “The Beach House,” about visitors in a sandy beach town dealing with something trippy and strange emerging from the ocean and inhabiting the populace.
11. ‘The Beach House’
Feeling a little cabin fever from being cooped up with a pandemic outside? This nasty little piece of cosmic horror probably won’t help: A young couple (Liana Liberato and Noah Le Gros) venture to a beach house but their sandy getaway turns into ground zero for a supernatural force rising from the water and infecting the locals.
A tribal sheriff (Michael Greyeyes) and his two sons (Forrest Goodluck and Kiowa Gordon) try to keep their Canadian reservation zombie-free in “Blood Quantum.”
10. ‘Blood Quantum’
Tired of the same old zombie movies? Canadian director Jeff Barnaby’s horror film carves out a place in the undead subgenre by focusing on timely issues of contagion, with a Canadian tribe of First Nation people who are immune to a terrifying virus but have to weigh morality vs. survival, even among their own family.
Netflix’s horror satire “The Platform” imagines a jail where prisoners on lower levels are fed whatever those above them don’t eat.
9. ‘The Platform’
The gory Spanish satire imagines a tower-esque prison where the incarcerated are fed via a platform filled with high-end vittles, and prisoners on lower levels have to eat the scraps from those above them. The class metaphor is fairly obvious, but salient points are made in the extreme lengths people will go to hold their status over others.
Kay (Emily Mortimer, right) wonders about her mother (Robyn Nevin) after she disappears and then shows up again in the horror film “Relic.”
8. ‘Relic’
Director Natalie Erika James infuses a dread-filled twist on the haunted-house movie with an emotional undercurrent about the effects of dementia. An old woman (Robyn Nevin) goes missing from her dilapidated country home, turns up behaving oddly and worries both her daughter (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter (Bella Heathcote).
A New England alpaca farmer (Nicolas Cage) has a meteorite land in his yard in “Color Out of Space.”
7. ‘Color Out of Space’
In this trippy, slow-burn gore-fest based on an H.P. Lovecraft short story, a New England alpaca farmer (Nicolas Cage) and his family discover a meteorite’s landed in their yard and they’re taken over by an alien presence. The invasion creates stunning visuals, and Cage going absolutely bonkers never gets old.
A witch next door haunts a teenage boy in the horror film “The Wretched.”
6. ‘The Wretched’
Those who adored Reagan-era coming-of-age flicks like “The Goonies” and “The Lost Boys” will appreciate the love and care – plus unnerving visuals and dread – directing duo Brett and Drew T. Pierce inject into their tale of a teenage boy sent to live with his divorced dad in a coastal town who discovers a deadly forest witch is living next door.
Dan Stevens (left), Sheila Vand and Jeremy Allen White play guests at a lakeside Airbnb that find tension rather than relaxation in the horror film “The Rental.”
5. ‘The Rental’
Dave Franco’s impressively sinister directorial debut is an unnerving tale of Airbnb guests ready for a weekend of relaxation – and perhaps a little molly – that’s instead chock full of tension, infidelity and, yep, some bloodshed. Paying more attention to character than shock value, the film also deftly weaves in modern issues – secret surveillance, racist microaggressions – for maximum effect.
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“It” actress Sophia Lillis plays a teen girl whose brother wanders into the home of a witch in “Gretel & Hansel.”
4. ‘Gretel & Hansel’
In this fairy-tale reimagining, Gretel (Sophia Lillis) and little brother Hansel (Samuel Leakey) find a super-weird house and are enticed by an elaborate feast inside, where they meet the witch (Alice Krige) who runs the place. The film features wonderfully unnerving sights, a nuanced narrative and an intriguing empowerment story.
Grace (Riley Keough) is stuck in a snowed-in house with her fiance’s children when things go awry in “The Lodge.”
3. ‘The Lodge’
Like your horror super-duper bleak? “The Lodge” is full of despair as Grace (Riley Keough), who’s still haunted by her childhood being the only survivor of a religious death cult, gets trapped with her fiancé’s kids in a remote house. But that’s just the start of the twisty terrors that grip the place in this beautifully shot, slow-burn chiller.
Kate Lyn Sheil is a woman who believes death is coming for her in “She Dies Tomorrow.”
2. ‘She Dies Tomorrow’
Amy (Kate Lyn Sheil) believes she’s going to die tomorrow, and it’s a doom-ridden thought that proves contagious as it metastasizes among a group of people including her friend Jane (Jane Adams) and Jane’s brother (Chris Messina). Trippy and dark, the well-crafted film evolves into absurdist comedy for an experience that’s equally unnerving and stunning.
An unseen home invader follows Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) in “The Invisible Man.”
1. ‘The Invisible Man’
The impressive combo of social consciousness and inspired scares modernizes an old-school monster for the #MeToo era. Elisabeth Moss’ heroine finds no one believes her when she insists her sociopathic ex faked a suicide and haunts her as an unseen antagonist. It’s a satisfying film as much about domestic abuse and gaslighting as it is freaking you out.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Amy Seimetz’s ‘She Dies Tomorrow’: Every horror movie of 2020, ranked