As we count down into my top 20 horror films we are reaching films that I honestly hold up as great films of any genre. Included in this list are truly some of my favourite films of the past quarter-century.

20. A Tale of Two Sisters
2003, South Korea, d. Kim Jee-won.
A teenage girl returns home from mental health treatment to her sister, father, and despised stepmother. Soon supernatural occurrences begin to plague their isolated house. Kim directs a superb haunted house movie, inspired in part by Korean folklore and boosted by particularly strong performances. It is dark, and melodramatic almost to the point of absurdity, but somehow he pulls it all together with tremendous effect. Like Ring, it was remade in America by DreamWorks Pictures – but nowhere near as effectively.

19. The Ruins
2008, USA, d. Carter Smith.
Some foolish American tourists climb a Central American pyramid, but when they try to climb down a community of local refuses to let them leave. Unable to contact anybody or escape, they grow terrified of starvation or dying of thirst, while the greater threat is on the pyramid with them. Hugely underrated, even taking into account its colonialist undertones, The Ruins offers viewers a tremendous surprise when its exact style and content of horror becomes apparent, and is extraordinarily effective. You will probably squirm.

18. Talk to Me
2022, Australia, d. Michael and Danny Philippou.
A group of teenagers start playing with a mysterious carved hand that appears to enable dead souls to temporarily possess them. An Australian film that became a smash hit overseas, Talk to Me is arguably our greatest local horror film ever. Everything an audience might want from a horror movie is here: original ideas, quality acting, jump scares, rising dread, and a powerful sense of allegory. A strong melancholic framework holds it all together.

17. Tigers are not Afraid
2017, Mexico, d. Issa López.
A combination of supernatural horror and bleak gangland thriller ensures that Tigers are not Afraid is about as unique and memorable a film as you could see. Director Issa López has a spectacular eye for representing the film’s horror imagery, and part of why its is spectacular is how ambivalent and uncertain the film is. Ghosts might be unsettling and ominous, but what unsettles more is the uneasy possibility that the ghosts are not there at all.

16. Haze
2005, Japan, d. Shinya Tsukamoto.
A man wakes in a cramped dungeon-like space, and must crawl painfully around in order to make his escape. At 49 minutes this is the shortest film in this countdown by far, and likely contains the least amount of story as well, but as a visceral nightmare-like experience Tsukamoto’s mini-masterpiece is tough to beat. It is high on claustrophobia and flinch-inspiring injury, and low on context or explanation. If that sounds like your kind of thing, I am almost certain that is will be.

15. Black Swan
2010, USA, d. Darren Aronofsky.
What initially seems to be a drama about the stressful world of classical ballet rapidly descends into a Polanski-esque exercise in psychological horror. The paranoia is ratcheted up to an extreme degree – a state that is enhanced by Natalie Portman’s superb central performance. The technique used within the film is truly breathtaking. Darren Aaronofsky is a hugely talented filmmaker; I honestly think this is the best film he has ever made.

14. The Descent
2005, UK, d. Neil Marshall.
I am not sure I have ever seen anything quite so claustrophobic as The Descent. The film follows a group of women who go caving, only to uncover a deadly secret hidden beneath the ground. Many viewers will find the horrific discovery in the caves to be the most horrific. Personally, I could barely get past the scene where someone simply got stuck in a narrow cave passage. Director Neil Marshall also helmed Dog Soldiers (2002) and Doomsday  (2008); his later work was sadly not as effective.

13. Pontypool
2008, Canada, d. Bruce McDonald.
An Ontario radio jockey (Stephen McHattie) is in the middle of a local broadcast when the town is struck by an unexplained condition where residents transform into zombie-like killers. Set almost entirely inside a radio station, Pontypool manages to be a clever variation of a genre staple through cultural satire, comedy, and strong character work. Tony Burgess adapts his own novel in a smart, restrained screenplay, while Bruce McDonald directs it with humour and flair. Star Stephen McHattie is superb – and superbly funny.

12. Pulse
2001, Japan, d. Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
Horror can express human emotion in many ways, from shock to revulsion to suspense, but I think the most difficult to generate in a horror film is dread. Kiyoshi Kurosawa effectively kickstarted the 1990s J-horror craze with his excellent film Cure, but it was Pulse that stands as a bona-fide masterpiece. The film’s growing sense of isolation and unease becomes more emphatic and overt as the story goes on, culminating in perhaps one of the most mournful, hopeless stories the genre’s ever told.

11. The Host
2006, South Korea, d. Bong Joon-ho.
This is possibly the greatest monster movie ever made. A strange creature emerges from the Han River, massacring numerous screaming civilians in its path before stealing away a local teenage girl – the daughter of a slacker and snack bar owner (the excellent Song Kang-ho). With the government and military failing to help, he assembles his close family to mount their own rescue. The central creature is a phenomenal achievement in scary monsters, but what makes The Host so outstanding is its unexpected use of absurdity, character comedy, and satire.

50 Great Works of 21st Century Horror
#50-41 (link) Dark Water, Old, Suicide Forest Village, Daguerreotype, 1922, Fresh, The Dark and the Wicked, Kill List, Barbarian, The Black Phone.
#40-31 (link) A Quiet Place Part II, The Invisible Man, The Innocents, Pearl, Candyman, The Night Eats the World, Exhuma, The Lodge, The Ring, Saw.
#30-21 (link) 28 Days Later, Saw IV, Saloum, Come True, Doctor Sleep, Last Night in Soho, Speak No Evil, Train to Busan, Us, The Exorcism of Emily Rose.