Every year, a bunch of wacky people (the best people are a little wacky) take part in a challenge to see 100 horror movies in 92 days. Sarah Stubbs started this several years ago, and it’s slowly become a thing that brings an entire community together to watch and enjoy so many horror films. Last year, I added a bonus task to that insane goal: ranking and briefly reviewing every film I saw for the challenge. Last year I did 115 films; this year I only made it to 100 like some kind of chump, but there is still a ranking to do, so here we go. The 100 horror films I watched between August 1st and October 31st ranked from absolute dog shit to something truly glorious.
100: The Game (1984) – Three millionaires make a bunch of people face their fears to win a million dollars, and it’s one of the most mundane things you could imagine. The combination of a rotten script, actors who seem like they were pulled off the street and forced to perform at gunpoint and a score that belongs in a 50s western rather than an 80s horror, it’s truly the kind of film that you make when you have no idea how to make an actual goddamn film.
99: Butchers Book Three: Bonesaw (2024) – The entire Butchers franchise isn’t anything special, but this movie ignores everything that was even unique about the first two movies while also having no fleshed-out characters, a plot that makes no sense and kills that are at best hilarious and at worst straight-up pathetic
98: Xtro 3: Watch The Skies (1995) – A shitty Predator movie with a laughable-looking alien, nothing original about it at all and the most forgettable set of performances you could imagine. The worst in a trilogy that was pretty shithouse to begin with, but it somehow managed to sink even lower with every new entry.
97: Psycho Killer (2026) – A film should not be boring when it contains a satanic orgy and a nuclear power plant; that shouldn’t be possible.
96: Xtro II: The Second Encounter (1990) – The first Xtro might not be anything truly special (We’ll get to it eventually), but at least it was original. This is such a ripoff that it’s kind of amazing that they didn’t get sued because of everything they so blatantly stole… and also did nothing with what they took.
95: Dark Tower (1989) – So uninteresting that I almost fell asleep watching it, but at least it wasn’t really promising anything that should’ve been compelling no matter what… oh wait, I’m sorry, I forgot that it has the coolest poster ever, a plotline involving an exorcist and ghosts beating people up and Michael Fucking Moriarty, a combination of things that are scientifically designed to delight me specifically and it gave me NOTHING!
94: Piranha II: The Spawning (1982) – Some film concepts should be absolute slam dunks, “Flying Piranhas attacking a Caribbean resort directed by a young James Cameron” is one of those ideas that should basically sell itself without anyone else needing to do anything and yet it is far and away one of the worst films I’ve found in the killer animal subgenre
93: The Vineyard (1989) – The most intriguing thing about this film is the fact that it’s written by, directed by and stars cinema legend James Hong… sadly, he didn’t give us a potential camp classic or some dramatic piece of cinema that could get him named some secretly great director, he gave us something so flavourless that it makes drinking seem like a great idea.
92: The Curse of the Necklace (2024) – Oh look, it’s another possession movie where we spend a lot of time dealing with tedious and stupid people who shouldn’t have gotten themselves into this position, all the scares are sudden loud noises that cause a momentary jolt and everything else is kind of dull… up until the final scene where something actually does happen and it could be entertaining, but then it turns dumb really quickly. Also, the titular necklace is fucking ugly, no one with any sense of taste would look at it and think “Yeah, I should give this to my wife”
91: Hell House LLC (2015) – Look, maybe if you’re a fan of the Found Footage subgenre you’ll like this, it is a well-made version of that kind of horror film, but I spent most of the film going “Put the camera down and run for it”, when I wasn’t annoyed by the use of strobe lights and generally confused. Turns out Found Footage is not my subgenre of horror, plain and simple.
90: The Majorettes (1986) – A confused slasher that tries to blend about five different ideas into a single movie, does nothing with any of them and doesn’t even deliver on the tasteless effects that an 80s slasher is meant to provide. Still, at times it’s so bad it can be a little amusing.
89: Revival (2024) – Oh look, another mad scientist killing people and reviving them to learn about what’s on the other side… only a very lame version of that idea.
88: The Odds (2019) – Take the core idea of Would You Rather?, cut the cast down to two, remove the visceral shock and depressing ending that made that film as provocative as it was and give it the worst pacing possible and boom, you have The Odds
87: Daddy’s Deadly Darling (1973) – The film promised pigs eating people; the film delivered on pigs eating people. I should be very entertained by the pigs eating people, but somehow the pigs found an unexciting way to eat people.
86: Deranged (1974) – One of the earliest films to use Ed Gein as source material, you’d think that being closer to that kind of true horror would make for a scary film… I’m sure it was scary in the 70s when the notion of showing an ankle petrified people, but boy this film did not age well
85: The Farm (2018) – This feels like a film that PETA would make, except somehow I feel like PETA would at least understand that you need compelling characters and a decent structure to make a feature film work. Half-decent idea for a film, wasted in its brainless execution
84; In Search Of All American Massacre: The Lost Texas Chainsaw Film (2022) – While it has some thought-provoking information about this mysterious missing film, it feels like a film made in the early 2000s (it was made in 2020), it has only one relevant person being interviewed for the entire thing and is so blandly presented that after a while it’s hard to really give a damn.
83: Tarot (2024) – The idea of a deck of tarot cards that predicts your death is not the worst idea I’ve heard of… taking it dead seriously and making it a PG-13 film that’s so tame that you can’t embrace the campness of the concept is absolutely the worst idea I’ve heard of. At least it has some mildly gripping moments.
82: Headgame (2018) – About as stock-standard as a “Game of death” film can get. The central gimmick involving cameras in people’s heads is never used in any real way, and the characters as a whole are as blank as it’s humanly possible for a character to be.
81: Scream 7 (2026) – This is what happens when you fuck up a film in preproduction so badly that you get desperate to salvage it and decide to throw in enough nostalgia to choke a horse… it doesn’t work, in the slightest
80: Scream (1981) – A routine film where nothing really happens, which sucks because it has a pretty good atmosphere and a lot of visuals that, for the early 80s, weren’t that bad. I’m just glad we now associate the movie title Scream with the 1996 classic and not this piece of crap.
79: Undertone (2026) – I can enjoy the general concept of a podcast horror, but I’m gonna need to actually be scared by something at some point
78: Butchers Book Two: Raghorn (2024) – Almost no relation to the first Butchers movie, it’s a bargain-basement outback torture porn movie that’s not dark enough to be interesting. Its one upside is the addition of a trans heroine, but beyond that, nothing really special.
77: The Chill Factor (1993) – While there are some genuinely good gore effects and a particularly bonkers scene where the film’s heroine has a snowmobile race against a demon, the film is still kind of dreary and confusing. How confusing? Well, using Three Blind Mice in the score is certainly confusing, as is featuring a song seemingly titled “Love is like a game show” for the end credits of a film that has no relation to game shows.
76: Schizoid (1980) – One would assume that a film that combines the classic mystery and aesthetics from Giallo films, the body count and gore of an 80s Slasher film and features a Klaus Kinski performance would at least be compelling on some level… apparently not, because Schizoid wastes almost all of those, though it does get a point for the wildest musical sting on this list when it plays a dramatic chord at the reveal of the word “MURDER!”
75: Curse II: The Bite (1989) – Your kind of average road trip movie with an absolutely wild appearance by Klinger from M*A*S*H (who seems completely out of place in this film). Would be so much lower were it not for the jaw-dropping effects work by the late great Screaming Mad George.
74: Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings (1993) – A huge step down from the previous entry that manages to tell a much more tense emotional story about the death of a child… this one is little more than a standard monster movie with flashing lights thrown in almost deliberately to irritate me. Some good effects make it tolerable, the suit is always impressive, but that’s about it.
73: Cheerleader Camp (1988) – A little all over the place because it tries so hard to do something surprising and ends up being kind of average; it’s nothing special but also nothing awful. Indeed, at times it is hilariously campy in that special 80s slasher kind of way
72: Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) – A substandard follow-up to the bona fide classic, this film relies mostly on admittedly impressive effects to get through. It’s lucky that it also has a genuinely intimidating villain in the form of Reverend Kane, which helps it quite a lot. Also, one of the few films that really does try to solve everything with the power of love
71: Poltergeist III (1988) – Not much better than Part 2, but at least this film had more effective scares, any scene with a mirror is actually incredibly tense and well done… it’s sadly worn down by a bad plot, insane character choices and about 731 cases of the words “CAROL ANNE” being yelled out by someone for some stupid fucking reason.
70: The Initiation of Sarah (2006) – You could have aired this movie on the CW and people would’ve called it a possible spin-off of Charmed, I can guarantee it. Most of it feels kind of phoned-in and none of the effects hold up, but when they let Jennifer Tilly and Morgan Fairchild have a moment to steal the film, it suddenly becomes kind of camp.
69: The Children (1980) – Killer kids movies are fairly common so it’s a little hard to do something that stands out and sure, kids with black nails who hug the adults to death is certainly gonna stand out but outside of some impressive effects and one particularly harrowing moment, there’s not a lot new here to really sink your teeth into.
68: Black Water: Abyss (2020) – Think about what kind of movie AI would make if your prompt was “Group of people in an underwater cave find a crocodile”… yeah, this is that movie, there’s no shock or surprise, nothing new, it’s an exact version of what you imagine a film about a crocodile in an underwater cave could be.
67: Passenger (2026) – Cliché haunted house movie in a slightly unique location… one that moves, so at least something was moved
66: Massacre at Central High (1976) – A body-count film where all the kills are elaborately staged accidents could be something different (at least for a pre-Final Destination film), but unfortunately there’s no tension because everyone knows who is doing everything, and none of the actual horror scenes are that scary.
65: George A Romero’s Resident Evil (2025) – What could’ve been a fascinating documentary about an abandoned film ends up feeling like a YouTube history made by feeding a couple of Wikipedia pages into a text-to-speech program. Fortunately, the information is still very intriguing, but it’s blandly presented, and a bulk of the film is basically a dry reading of a plot synopsis
64: Cuckoo (2024) – Being original is great and all, but if you make a lot of what you’re doing impossible to understand, at some point you stop being original and start being pretentious. It does have a few scary moments though, and the Dan Stevens performance is wildly captivating
63: Scarecrows (1988) – A bunch of criminals land in a field, and the scarecrows kill them. It’s certainly got some good gore and a few compelling characters… such a pity you can’t see shit because everything is so dark
62: Berserker (1987) – A “Teenagers go camping” slasher but with a bear as the serial killer… so much less interesting than that would suggest, no real imagination for any of the scarier moments and no real characters to speak of. Would’ve been so much better if the bear did a whole fuckton of cocaine
61: Demonia (1990) – Lucio Fulci allegedly tried to disown this film, and I can see why; a lot of it is largely stuffy and confusing, but oh my god, when Fulci does the insane gory stuff that made him famous, there are so very few who are on his level.
60: Whistle (2026) – Final Destination but a lot stupider with bland characters. Really only saved by how over-the-top some of the kills are.
59: Butchers (2020) – A by-the-numbers Texas Chainsaw/Wrong Turn knockoff that has enough ideas to make it work as a film, but nowhere near enough to warrant starting a franchise
58: Initiation (2020) – Your stock standard slasher with some clever visuals and tense scenes, let down by the harsh juxtaposition between a cheesy killer who uses an exclamation point as a calling card and a plotline revolving around sexual assaults.
57: Cellar Dweller (1987) – The idea of an artist’s drawings coming to life and killing the people around them is fascinating; the effects work and the core creature design is undeniably brilliant… but once they have the creature do its thing, it never changes, and it gets stale after a while.
56: X-Ray AKA Hospital Massacre (1981) – Gotta love the early 80s slashers that were made to cash in on the success of Texas Chainsaw, Halloween and Friday the 13th. It’s full of weird characters, some brutal deaths and enough walking-down-a-hallway scenes to make Aaron Sorkin have a coronary.
55: Lights Out (2016) – A fairly tense film that understands how to film in darkness while still making things visible. It’s good but also not exactly high on the memorability scale. Heck, I almost forgot to put it on this very ranking list so not sure that’s a great sign for its quality.
54: I, Madman (1989) – One of your classic “This work of fiction I’m reading is coming to life” horror stories that throws in the swagger of Freddy, the look of The Phantom Of The Opera, the gore of Friday the 13th and even the occasional homage to Rear Window just for the sake of it. You’d think all those references would make it more compelling than it is, but it is at least watchable.
53: Two Heads Creek (2019) – Is it the funniest or scariest horror comedy ever? No, but it has a third-act bloodbath so gloriously over the top that it basically carries the film into being one of the most enjoyable films of its kind.
52: Children Of The Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice (1992) – Any film that drops a house on an old woman can’t be all bad… OK, so it’s largely bad, but the good parts are so weird and stupid that it’s deliciously bad.
51: Children Of The Corn 3: Urban Harvest (1995) – Somehow worse than the film before it while also being more entertaining. Possibly because this film embraces the absurdity of the concept a little more and goes for the gusto on everything.
50: Absurd (1981) – One of the legendary Video Nasties, it’s essentially a spin on the American slasher that throws out any sense of logic and ups the ante for violence. A ton of great gore and some wild moments where you can tell things got lost in translation; it sadly isn’t as gripping as it could be
49: Y2K (2024) – A quirky alternate universe take on what could’ve happened when the Y2K crisis happened. A lot of jovial chaos in the first third, then it kind of slows down, then Fred Durst appears, and if you don’t like him that’s going to tank the whole movie for you because the film basically requires you to see him as a mini deity in order to properly function.
48: I Am Not A Serial Killer (2016) – A twist on the ‘character study of a sociopath’ that brings in elements of Dexter and The Thing for flavouring. It’s not quite as deep as it clearly thinks it is, and some parts are a little anticlimactic, but on the whole, it’s engaging enough to be worth the time.
47: C.H.U.D. (1984) – With a concept like “Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers”, you would expect more cannibalism and less discussion about city planning but hey, what do I know? Lively enough when the titular monsters appear and it was nice to see the homeless being heroes for this one, but not as entertaining as it could be.
46: The Boogey Man (1980) – Siskel and Ebert used this as an example of the kind of horror movies they hated but really, it’s a catalogue of what tropes were popular in the 80s because this film uses every single one of them.
45: Grafted (2024) – A delightfully messed up NZ body horror that might be a little all over the place at times, but boy when it wants to make you feel uncomfortable in your own skin it finds a way to do that.
44: Death Of A Unicorn (2025) – Taking the beauty of the unicorn and twisting it to be a horror film is intriguing, throwing in some commentary on how the wealthy are almost excited to use the skills and labour of those in the lower class is a nice bonus.
43: Violation (2020) – Rape-revenge films are generally hard to sit through, but usually there is a cathartic moment, the rape victim gets their revenge and can move on with their lives… Violation asks “What if that didn’t help at all?” and actually plays around with the nuances of the situation, making a film that’s certainly more harrowing to watch but also a lot harder to sit through since we know there’s no real way this can get better
42: Saccharine (2026) – A body horror that every fat person can relate to on an uncomfortable level
41: The Sacrifice Game (2023) – Starts as a dark cult-based horror film that feels like it’s going to be a rough watch before slipping into something silly for the last half hour. It’s a little bit of a jarring watch, but still very enjoyable.
40: The Barn (2016) – You can almost feel how amateur the set for this film must’ve been, this is so clearly a film made by people still figuring it out that they even mess up the way the end credits are organised… but they also clearly love the genre that they’re part of and are having such a great time making a big silly gory slasher film that it’s kind of infectious.
39: Your Host (2025) – Sure, the plotline about false accusations is a little heavy-handed (because really it does not happen, certainly not to the extent implied here) but if you get past that, there are some shockingly effective kills and an absolutely bonkers Jackie Earl Haley performance that’s one of the most glorious things you will ever see.
38: Splinter (2008) – Grisly and forceful, its small cast makes for an intense time and the body horror stuff is great but boy, is it let down by the camera deciding to shake like crazy every single time any of that body horror is on camera. It might be trying to cover the rough edges but it also makes it nearly impossible to watch
37: Crawlspace (1986) – One of those films you want to see a remake of solely so they can fix the small issues and make something great out of the concept. Klaus Kinski is captivating, even if he inspired the director to contemplate murder.
36: The Red AKA Rippy (2024) – The most demented version of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo I’ve ever seen. A dark, deadly serious zombie flick that also happens to be about a kangaroo that’s somehow been turned into a zombie. Even with the awful CGI Zombie Kangaroo, it’s still impressively committed to the concept.
35: The Video Dead (1987) – Some zombie films are about deeper issues and some say “What if we threw every weird cool zombie image on screen for 90 minutes then called it a day”, and The Video Dead is the second kind of film. What it lacks in intellect and nuance, it makes up for by handing a zombie bride a chainsaw and letting her go for broke on her special day.
34: Aenigma (1987) – Fulci does the kind of insane shit that Fulci does best. Possibly the most fucked up bullies outside of a Stephen King story, this film is a little hard to follow at times, but it delivers so much on the “Bullies getting fucked up by their victim” element that it makes up for that.
33: Last Straw (2023) – A dark, nihilistic story of the late shift from hell that falters because everyone makes obviously dumb choices for no reason. We’re talking things like not unlocking the door for a police officer, not locking the door after escaping a bunch of insane people and working a late shift in a diner… the dumbest decision of them all.
32: Blue Monkey (1987) – A kind of silly monster movie taking place in a hospital, the exact kind of weird practical effects film you’d expect from the 80s. It’s got a lot of dark ideas that make for an intriguing enough film; I only wish that we got to see the creature longer or have it do a little more than what it ends up doing.
31: Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026) – Evil Dead Egyptian style with slightly less engaging characters and a much more expanded plotline. Still engaging, but boy, there are so many better ways to handle this kind of film.
30: Mimic (1997) – Del Toro in general is going to be great no matter what, but this one definitely felt like he had someone holding him back from doing what he can really do when he’s allowed to be the legend he is. It’s still got a lot of great imagery and effective moments, but it’s clearly a little restrained,
29: Backrooms (2026) – A truly clever film that plays with liminal space in a way no other film really has that runs a little long, so it can be a touch hard to really latch onto after a while… also the films above it on this list are a more enjoyable watch for me, even if this film is technically really great.
28) Sting (2024) – A pretty standard B-movie about a giant killer spider that does absolutely everything you would want a film from that genre to do, and throws in a very surprising performance by Noni from Play School as a special gift to the fucked up Australian kids watching.
27) Xtro (1982) – An alien abduction film that takes being called ‘weird’ as a personal challenge. Every couple of minutes has a new kind of weirdness for the audience to… enjoy? Enjoy feels like the wrong word to use for what this film does, but if you like your 80s films absolutely fucked up in ways that can’t be described without sounding like an insane person, then this is going to be something to look out for.
26) Carved (2024) – Killer Pumpkin movies really don’t need to do much, just give me some hilarious kills and give the pumpkin a half-decent excuse to kill everyone. Congrats, Carved, on doing exactly that and committing to the bit. Points lost for some bad CGI that really could’ve and should’ve been practical effects (We’ve been severing heads practically in cinema for decades; no, you have no excuse here), but still a gleefully stupid time.
25) Bambi: The Reckoning (2025) – Take the plotline of Jaws 4: The Revenge, throw in the careful use of the shark effect from Jaws, replace the sharks with a deer and have it all happen at night… I know that sounds insane, but trust me, it somehow actually works! Seriously, this Poohniverse thing is turning out some legitimately brilliant films and we might have to accept that they know what they’re doing!
24) The Suckling (1990) – The kind of demented, sleazy horror you only get out of the late ’80s, where no one had any sense of good taste, actors could be hired for the cost of a blunt and most of the money went to some mentally deranged visual effects guys who wanted to make the most fucked up monsters that latex would allow. It’s exactly what you expect from a film about a demonic aborted fetus that gets loose inside a brothel.
23) The Crazies (2010) – As far as remakes of Romero films go, a genuinely great take on the original material that only feels more relevant now we’ve actually experienced a global pandemic that made people act like assholes. Brutal and twisted, there’s a reason why the pitchfork scraping the floor scene became the poster.
22) The Bride! (2026) – A wild modern take on the Bride of Frankenstein that lived fast, died young, but left a fantastic-looking corpse. It’s not the kind of film that will be for everyone, but goddamn, when it clicks, it absolutely clicks.
21) Possession (1981) – Absolutely buck-wild 80s horror that really shows off what you can get an actor to do for a film. The kind of film designed to be studied, with so many insane sequences that it’ll break your brain at times, but in the best possible way
20) Piranha (1978) – Joe Dante looked at Jaws and said, “I can do that, but on a much smaller budget” and thank god he did. It’s just as tense, almost as shocking and even more horrifying at times than the bigger-fish counterpart. It even goes further than Jaws in how it revels in the carnage created by the sharp-toothed creatures… if only it had the robust characters that Jaws had, it might have been perfect.
19) From Beyond (1986) – Barbara Crampton delivers one of her best performances in one of the horniest films from the 80s, which is saying a lot considering how horny that decade seems to have been.
18) The Brood (1979) – You can really feel the extreme divorce energy in this film, and that honestly makes it so much more compelling. You could look at this as a story about how a bitter divorce can have lasting effects on the children of said divorce, or enjoy late 70s Oliver Reed getting every single person to call him Daddy; both are options.
17) Gerald’s Game (2017) – A truly tense nightmare that basically relies on a couple of incredible performances to get the job done. Really disturbing even before we get to the infamous degloving scene. An absolute masterpiece that really shows why Mike Flanagan is basically the ultimate King adaptor… although man, do the final few minutes really drag everything down
16) Cast A Deadly Spell (1991) – The Lovecraftian follow-up to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? that you didn’t know you needed. Absolutely chock-a-block full of great scares and wild concepts that are backed up by some terrific performances. This feels like a forgotten gem that should be talked about more often
15) Eden Lake (2008) – Absolutely harrowing film; these kids are the stuff of nightmares. A hard watch that honestly feels too real; we’ve all known kids who could probably get away with what happens in this film, and they all have parents who would back them up, so seeing this presented so bluntly is hard to watch, but it’s a great little horror film.
14) Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma (2026) – As someone who didn’t fully get into I Saw The TV Glow, this is the film that has me sold on this director. A loving callout of the 80s slasher films complete with copious sprays of blood and enough lesbianism to make everybody happy.
13) The Ranger (2018) – A nature preserve set slasher film that feels like it came straight out of the 80s, with some fascinating characters and really cool shots; it’s a lighthearted horror flick that ticks every box so perfectly that it’s hard to say anything about it. It does what it needed to do; good job, movie.
12) The Barn: Part 2 (2022) – If The Barn was a fan’s attempt to make an 80s horror film without all the technical knowledge required to make it look good, The Barn Part 2 is what happens when that person takes a couple of years to hone their craft and give it another try. Not only a lot better made than the first film, but ups the fun factor by throwing in so many nods to one of the most insane periods in horror history; it’s basically a film made specifically to delight people like me, and it succeeds.
11) Scare Campaign (2016) – Taking a prank YouTube channel and having them learn that snuff films are doing better than they are in the algorithm is a genuinely fascinating idea, but blending that with interesting characters, incredible gore effects, and a bunch of twists that somehow work every single time is genuinely impressive. For a film you’ve probably never heard of, it’s actually truly great.
10) C.H.U.D II: Bud The Chud (1989) – Absolutely not a C.H.U.D. movie, more like a Return Of The Living Dead movie, but it’s also so campy and stupid with endlessly dumb jokes that made me laugh harder than they should have. It’s not high art, it’s not smart, it’s stupid, but goddamn it, it’s delightful. Also, the Bud the Chud song is going platinum in this household.
9) Stream (2024) – A cheesy slasher chock full of modern horror icons that clearly wants to be stupid and throw about some elaborate practical effects. Basically the blueprint version of a modern slasher movie that doesn’t take itself seriously in the slightest
8) Bone Lake (2024) – Possibly the horniest horror movie in recent years. Take the awkward opening from Barbarian, give it a shit ton of Viagra, throw in the uncomfortable deception of Speak No Evil, and you have Bone Lake.
7) The Howling (1981) – A stone-cold classic for a goddamn reason. Dee Wallace finally gets to be something other than a mother, and she absolutely owns it, so much about this film is perfect and an absolute must-see for any genre fan. I’m actually annoyed I hadn’t seen it sooner!
6) The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (2017) – The kind of weirdness you only get out of Yorgos Lanthimos. Unnerving performances, including the one that undoubtedly gave Barry Keoghan a career, along with one of the bleakest endings of any film in recent years, it’s proof that originality in cinema isn’t dead as long as we keep giving Yorgos a budget.
5) Mr. Crocket (2024) – Mr Rogers absolutely lost his goddamn mind and decided to kick some parents’ asses. It’s a dark, weird take on kids’ shows from the 90s blended with great practical effects, an intriguing backstory and a truly iconic horror villain that make for one hell of a film. Sure, you can tell where the story is going but that doesn’t make it any less compelling.
4) Cooties (2014) – A witty little twist on the zombie genre from the guy who wrote the original script for Glee… and boy, can you tell. If you’re into that very specific style of humour, then this is going to work wonderfully for you.
3) Shell (2024) – What if you took The Substance’s message about how women are treated by Hollywood for the crime of aging, removed every single drop of subtlety and nuance and ended it all with a giant lobster fucking everyone up? You’d have one of my absolute favourite films of this entire challenge, an absolute balls-to-the-wall bit of insanity that delights from start to finish.
2) The Fly (1986) – A work of genius that distils its horror down to the purest form. Every element is perfect, from the performances to the effects to the tension building to the unsubtle metaphor of this 80s film about a mysterious illness that slowly causes a body to deteriorate. The kind of touchstone film that you feel like you have to have seen at some point because it’s so genuinely perfect (so it’s wild it took this challenge for me to see it)
1) Leviticus (2026) – A heartbreaking look at the real-world horror of conversion therapy that only barely has to adjust reality to make something horrific. It’s emotional, disturbing and somehow has a beautiful love story under all of it. There is something very special about this film that you hope will change minds that need to be changed.
And there we go, 100 films in 92 days. Maybe next year I’ll beat this amount, but for now it’s good to know there were enough films available to do this.
