The Story

A couple plots and films the murder of a random stranger purely for the thrill of it, and their plan starts falling apart once one of them has second thoughts about actually going through with it.

Verdict

Dark premise, and I think the film mostly earns the discomfort it’s going for. The relationship dynamic between the couple carries more of the tension than the actual killing itself does, which I found more interesting to watch unravel than I expected going in.

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Creep (2014) A different kind of unsettling one-on-one dynamic, if the discomfort here worked for you. → Go to movie

Man Bites Dog (1992) A much darker, more transgressive film built on a similar willful-complicity idea. → Go to movie

The Story

A long-distance couple starts video-chatting to stay close after one of them leaves for college, and idle curiosity about a local online psychic quickly pulls them into something they can’t undo.

Verdict

Genuinely ahead of its time, given this predates the whole screenlife trend by well over a decade. It’s rough around the edges technically, but the idea of horror unfolding entirely through an early webcam chat interface feels like a direct ancestor of Unfriended and everything that followed it.

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Unfriended (2014) The film that made this exact format mainstream, over a decade after this one tried it first. → Go to movie

Catfish (2010) A different kind of online-relationship horror, closer to documentary than fiction. → Go to movie

The Story

A documentary crew investigates the life, brief career, and unexplained death of Karl Atticus, a horror filmmaker some call the forgotten father of the slasher genre, with real genre figures weighing in on why his story vanished from film history.

Verdict

I love how this blurs the line between real documentary and outright fiction, featuring actual genre figures like Eduardo Sánchez discussing a filmmaker who never existed as if he absolutely did. A clever, under-the-radar mockumentary that horror-history nerds specifically will get a real kick out of.

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Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) A different, more comedic take on blurring real slasher mythology with fiction. → Go to movie

Digging Up the Marrow (2014) Another film that plays with the line between real horror figures and an invented mystery. → Go to movie

The Story

An intervention-style reality show crew films an episode about a teenage girl fighting addiction, and slowly starts to suspect her symptoms point to something considerably more destructive than substance abuse.

Verdict

I like the reality-TV intervention format as a wrapper for possession horror, it’s a genuinely different entry point than the usual documentary-crew setup this genre defaults to. The ambiguity between addiction and possession is handled better than I expected, even if the back half settles into more familiar possession-movie territory.

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The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014) A different illness-or-something-worse ambiguity, similarly well constructed. → Go to movie

The Possession of Michael King (2014) A different route into possession horror, this time chosen deliberately rather than diagnosed. → Go to movie

The Story

A team of parapsychologists wires a newly occupied apartment with cameras and detection equipment to investigate a string of disturbing phenomena, and things escalate well past what their instruments were built to handle.

Verdict

A fairly standard haunted-apartment investigation, and I don’t think it does much to distinguish itself from stronger entries covering similar ground. The equipment-heavy, tech-forward approach is a nice touch, but nothing here really stuck with me once the credits rolled.

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Grave Encounters (2011) A different location, but a much stronger version of the same investigative setup. → Go to movie

Hell House LLC (2015) A more effective slow-build haunted-location investigation, if this one left you wanting more. → Go to movie

The Story

A serial killer records over a rented horror movie tape with footage of his own murders, addressing the camera, and by extension the viewer, directly as he walks through his methods.

Verdict

The meta angle of a killer talking straight to the audience is genuinely unsettling, and I think it holds up better than most early-2000s attempts at this kind of direct-address format. Not for everyone given how deliberately it implicates the person watching, but that discomfort is clearly the whole point.

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The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007) A different, more procedural approach to serial-killer footage, similarly unflinching. → Go to movie

Man Bites Dog (1992) Another film that implicates its audience in a killer’s own self-presentation. → Go to movie

The Story

A reverend and his psychiatrist wife trade city life for a quiet farmhouse, filming home videos of their young twins for every holiday and family event. Watched back to back, the footage slowly reveals something deeply wrong with the children.

Verdict

I think the evil-children angle here is genuinely unsettling specifically because it’s told entirely through home-movie footage rather than a polished horror lens. The ambiguity about what’s actually happening to the twins, illness or something else, is where most of the dread comes from, and I respect the film for never fully resolving it until it has to.

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The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014) A different family, a different ambiguity between illness and something worse, similarly well handled. → Go to movie

Paranormal Activity (2007) A different domestic setup, but the same patient, home-footage dread. → Go to movie

The Story

Vampires publicly reveal themselves to the world, and a documentary crew gets rare, up-close access to observe how they actually live alongside humans, only to find the new arrangement is far less peaceful than advertised.

Verdict

The ‘vampires go public’ premise is a fun twist on the genre, and I don’t think the execution fully capitalizes on how good that idea is. Decent cast, uneven pacing throughout, worth a watch if the concept alone is enough to pull you in.

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What We Do in the Shadows (2014) A much funnier take on vampires adjusting to modern life, if the mockumentary tone here worked for you. → Go to movie

Afflicted (2013) A very different, more body-horror take on vampirism if you want something darker. → Go to movie

The Story

An Eastern European journalist arrives in Paris to begin filming a documentary about the so-called European dream, touring the continent’s capitals. The trip slowly turns into a record of his own mind unraveling instead.

Verdict

Genuinely one of the stranger entries I’ve come across in this genre, mixing dark comedy with a real, uncomfortable sense of someone coming apart on camera. It’s not conventional horror at all, more of a psychological character study, but worth it if you want something that breaks from the usual haunted-house formula.

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Man Bites Dog (1992) A very different tone, but a similar willingness to sit uncomfortably close to a mind falling apart on camera. → Go to movie

Zero Day (2003) Another difficult, deliberately uncomfortable descent, though grounded in a very different kind of horror. → Go to movie

The Story

A local TV reporter and her cameraman are locked inside an LA apartment building alongside its residents once a rabies-like outbreak starts turning people violent, with no way out and no idea what’s actually happening.

Verdict

I know this gets written off as just the American remake of [Rec], and structurally that’s fair, but I think it’s a genuinely well-executed version in its own right. Jennifer Carpenter’s performance carries real, escalating panic, and I’d actually recommend watching both back to back rather than skipping straight past this one.

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[Rec] (2007) The original film this one remakes almost beat for beat, and still the stronger version. → Go to movie

Grave Encounters (2011) A different building, a different threat, but the same feeling of exits sealing shut behind you. → Go to movie