Every year has its banner horror titles, the legacy sequels, the Midsommars, and remakes. However there are also many great horror movies that fly just below the radar. 2016 was no different.
There were big titles like The Conjuring 2, The Witch, The Purge: Election Year, 10 Cloverfield Ln and Split. There were also cult classics like Ouija: Origin of Evil and Train to Busan.
However, these ten lesser-seen movies also packed a pretty scary punch and are well worth watching, even ten years later.
The Belko Experiment
The Belko Experiment, starring Tony Goldwyn, takes workplace horror to a new level. This film takes place in the offices of Belko Industries in Bogota, Colombia.
One day, a voice over the intercom of the office tells the employees that they must kill a coworker within thirty minutes. When they dismiss the message as a prank, four of their coworkers are killed via explosives in their tracking devices.
Over the course of ninety minutes, the stakes escalate, and the true depths of depravity and desperation are explored. It exposes a side of people that they didn’t even know was in themselves.
Don’t Breathe
After his remake of Evil Dead, it was pretty obvious Fede Alvarez knew how to deliver scares. When he opted to write and direct Don’t Breath after that, he cemented himself as a force in the genre.
Don’t Breathe takes a relatively simple premise and flips it on its head. Three young Detroit burglars break into the home of a blind, old war vet, hoping for an easy score.
What the trio doesn’t know is that this vet is hiding some pretty dark secrets, and they’re in for a truly terrifying night.
The Invitation
The Invitation is one of the wildest cinematic experiences of the last decade because everything that happens in the film is genuinely unexpected. Not in an M. Night twist kind of way but more so in a who could think of something like that kind of way.
The cast plays it so perfectly too. Logan Marshall Green is the audience’s gateway into the story because he is also genuinely confused by everything taking place around him, while the rest of the cast do an amazing job pretending everything is normal.
If you’ve ever been to an uncomfortable dinner party, The Invitation will make that feel warm and cozy.
The Forest
Fresh off her stint on Game of Thrones as Margaery Tyrell, Natalie Dormer appears in this little known horror film about a woman looking for her missing sister. She ends up in a haunted Japanese forest called “Suicide Forest.”
The Forest features pretty breathtaking scenery, a great performance from Dormer, and a pretty exciting climax after a tense build up. It is a great movie to put on at home and get under a big blanket.
Personal Shopper
The queen of awkwardness, Kristen Stewart, gives a great performance in this ghost story about a woman who works as a personal shopper for a celebrity. She is trying to make contact with her dead brother, and weird things start to happen around her.
It’s weird and stylish and definitely should have made a bigger splash in 2016.
Green Room
Jeremy Saulnier has proven to be one of our best edgy directors over the past decade. Of his four feature films, however, it is Green Room that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go until the opening credits.
Anchored by an unexpected heel turn performance by Sir Patrick Stewart, Green Room tells the story of a young band being terrorized by a gang of Nazis that runs the venue they performed in that day. It is loud, aggressive, scary, and breathtaking.
Now that Saulnier is making a name for himself, hopefully, this awesome film gets new life.
The Girl with All the Gifts
The Girl with All the Gifts aptly combines many genres into one cohesive story. At its heart it is a pretty unique take on zombie horror. It follows a young girl who is immune to a fungal infection that wiped out much of humanity.
It is a story about survival and how humanity acts in desperation. The cast also includes Glenn Close, Gemma Arterton, and Paddy Considine. It is gripping and propulsive while also being thought provoking and deep.
Anyone who hasn’t seen this movie should take the time to do so!
Hush
Mike Flanagan, the king of horror TV, gave us a hidden classic in 2016. Hush stars his wife Katie Siegel as a deaf and mute author who goes to a remote house in nature to escape NYC.
A psycho with a crossbow arrives at the house and terrorizes her (and the audience) for the remainder of the movie. John Gallagher Jr plays a brilliant killer too. He is creepy and unexpected. Every move he makes is terrifying.
Hush is a great film that thrills, scares, and tires you out from adrenaline! It should be on everybody’s watch list.
The Boy
The Boy has one of the best horror twists of the twenty-first century. Lauren Cohan does a great job selling the alternative.
This wasn’t easy because the setup is a bit silly. She is hired to babysit a young boy by a rich couple with a huge house in the woods. When she arrives, the boy in her care is actually a doll.
Crazy things start happening that test her sanity, as well as the audience’s. Thirty minutes in, you might be tempted to give up on it, but if you hang in there, you will be rewarded.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
This movie is just flat out scary. It centers around Emil Hirsch and Brian Cox who play a father and son medical examiner team. They receive an unidentified body to perform an autopsy on.
The rest of the movie is pure chaos as the audience and the coroners try to figure out what is happening. The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a smart story that is perfectly executed from start to finish.
Featured still via STX Entertainment.
