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Barfoot draws from folk horror, both in setting and storytelling, for his unique creature feature. That means that the horror builds slowly, relying on atmosphere and the isolated, stunning wooded setting to create unease as Lewis and Laura struggle with their loss. Neither handle it well; the quiet Lewis has retreated into himself as Laura relies heavily on their wine cellar to cope with the empty nights. It’s an emotionally fraught environment perfect for horror to take root, further sowing division between son and stepmom.

That horror comes slowly, with Barfoot strategically escalating the creature’s invasion. When the creature does appear, always obscured enough to retain mystery, it’s effectively chilling. The filmmaker has a strong sense of editing that only enhances the visceral terror of the entity, though he is prone to pulling punches. The action cuts away on more than one occasion just as Barfoot dangles the possibility of full-throttle horror, opting instead to preserve the enigmatic nature of this particular creature...

... Daddy’s Head is handsomely crafted, with a creature design that’s pure nightmare fuel. Barfoot knows exactly how and when to employ it for maximum discomfort, though he is prone to cutting the horror scenes too early. The final coda, while sweet, doesn’t quite hit its intended note, either. Barfoot isn’t interested in spelling out everything, working heavily in its favor. While that ultimately makes for a sparser story, it’s one that rewards more depending on how much work you’re willing to put in as a viewer to decipher its details and clues. Whether you’re on this movie’s wavelength or not, one thing is certain: Daddy’s Head is creepy as hell.

When the author Thomas Hardy was writing Tess of the D’Urbervilles in 1891, he chose to set the novel’s dramatic conclusion at Stonehenge, where Tess sleeps on one of the stones the night before she is arrested for murder.

What the author did not know, as he wrote in the study of his home, Max Gate in Dorchester, was that he was sitting right in the heart of a large henge-like enclosure that was even older than the famous monument on Salisbury Plain.

Though invisible at ground level after millennia of ploughing, the enclosure still survives under Hardy’s garden. It has now been given protection by the government as a scheduled monument, recognising its status as a nationally important site...

“It qualifies only as instant junk.” This is what Vincent Canby said in his review of 1982’s The Thing. Director John Carpenter’s sixth feature film (which mixed the genres of science fiction and horror) told the tale of deadly extraterrestrials in Antarctica through the use of extreme visuals and constant paranoia. While both of these trademarks found in this novella adaptation were initially torn apart by many critics upon release, the Kurt Russell starring movie later found immense success through these same two attributes when it was later released on home video and syndicated on television.

Considering the fact that The Thing was later re-evaluated and regarded as one of the best horror and science fiction films of all time, it’s no surprise that many of the film’s more stark elements made it into other Hollywood projects. While movies like 1992’s Reservoir Dogs transplants the feeling of deceptiveness into a more urban setting and 2016’s The Void puts the cosmic horror into a hospital instead of a research facility, the small screen tended to be a bit more creative with Carpenter’s original work.

While the tribute was respectable but rather tame in the eighth episode of the first season of the X-Files (only so much can be shown on cable television), a 1997 episode of Fox Kid’s Sam and Max: Freelance Police swung the extreme opposite way and saw two animated, anthropomorphic animals try to take down a similar creature — in theory — the “alien” was located in a supporting character’s literal refrigerator. Too comical? Yeah, we thought so, too. What about a classic Hanna-Barbera cartoon, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, that consistently dared to push the envelope? They not only have the gall to adapt The Thing (in a non-comedic fashion), but they even put their own spin on Split-Face. Let’s check it out and see if this is an honorable homage to Carpenter’s film...

Netflix has had a pretty good run with both original movies and the ones it has scooped up through licensing lately, and that trend continues with a new horror movie that has arrived at #2 on the charts for its debut.

That would be Evil Dead Rise, what is the fifth film in the series which also includes a TV show that spanned three seasons, but is arguably one of its best entries, despite showing up so late in the game...

The Substance is one of the best horror movies of 2024, and here are 10 other films to watch if you like Coralie Fargeat's terrifying thriller. The Substance's body horror is some of the best that has been seen on the big screen in years, with it calling back to some of the body horror greats like David Cronenberg. The Substance's mix of gore, comedy, and social commentary makes it a wholly unique experience that is deserving of praise, with its style making it stand out among the many horror movies that have been released in recent years.

The Substance follows Demi Moore's Elisabeth Sparkle, an aging actress and model who wants nothing more than to be as beautiful as she believes she once was. Elisabeth signs up to test out a new drug called The Substance that promises to create a new her, with it only having a few rules regarding its usage. The Substance causes the seemingly perfect version of Elisabeth to emerge from her body, but things quickly turn horrific when Elisabeth and her counterpart Sue begin to butt heads over who gets to be in control. So, here are the best movies like The Substance.

"The famous geoglyphs are found in the soil of the Nazca desert in southern Peru, and have baffled scientists for nearly a century.

However, thanks to AI, scientists have uncovered more than 300 patterns, and some of them are rather peculiar.

The new discoveries have been likened to aliens, killer whales brandishing knives, cats, camels and a figure that looks just like Wall-E.

To see the glyphs, scientists used the new technology to add lines on to the original lines, which have faded due to erosion.

The mysterious glyphs were uncovered by researchers at Yamagata University in Japan and IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center in New York in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

‘It took nearly a century to discover a total of 430 figurative Nazca geoglyphs, which offer significant insights into the ancient cultures at the Nazca Pampa,’ say the team in their paper.

‘Here, we report the deployment of an AI system to the entire Nazca region, a UNESCO World Heritage site, leading to the discovery of 303 new figurative geoglyphs within only six months of field survey.’

The team used AI to identify markings in the landscape that would have been missed by just the human eye, with 178 suggested by the technology.

‘AI may be at the brink of ushering in a revolution in archaeological discoveries like the revolution aerial imaging has had on the field,’ the researchers said.

Peru’s famous Nazca lines were first ‘discovered’ by archeologists almost a century ago, in 1927."

“The Empty Space,” Andrew Jara’s Cosmic Horror film, has been added to the Horror movie app, Screambox!!

The Empty Space stars Joe Sinclitico along with Valerie Alene, Rachel Olsen and Pablo Medina, as they tell the story of a woman (Alene) going to a support group after a violent attack left her boyfriend dead to deal with anxiety and depression. When her boyfriend seemingly returns from the dead, she will have to face her fears to find out exactly who or what has come back before she loses her grip on reality.

“As a horror director and a fan of horror, it brings me immense joy to have my movie featured on Screambox. I hope that it continues to find a horror audience and Screambox is the perfect home for it” Andrew Jara, writer & director of “the Empty Space.” The film went on to win 2nd Place at the Horror Hotel Festival, a finalist at the Oaxaca Filmfest and “Best of the Fest” at the 14th Sacramento Film Festival.

... The Severed Sun is a deeply immersive and atmospheric folk horror in the truest, traditional sense – unlike some recent additions to this subgenre. It isn’t a cash-in based on the success of something like Midsommar as it’s a work truly stepped in distinctly British (or European), horror, nor is it a movie that simply presents the conventions of the genre in a neat fashion without any inclination to examine them or approach them in any meaningful, creative way (yes, I’m looking at you Lord of Misrule). A deeply ambiguous movie, The Severed Sun intentionally presents its audience with a puzzle to savour and return to – one which affords them the opportunity to create their own interpretations and ideas about what they might have seen. It’s a remarkable achievement considering its time restraints and budget, and the film’s experimental and unnervingly atmospheric electronic soundtrack, written and performed by Brain Rays adds to the experience. It’s an auteur’s work – a beautifully considered movie in which all its key components work in harmony and has Puckett’s fingerprints all over it, and once again I’m left hoping to see more in the future.

Oddity—a critically acclaimed horror movie that only played in limited release in theaters—begins streaming on Shudder this week.

The official synopsis for Oddity reads, “When Dani (Carolyn Bracken) is brutally murdered at the remote country house that she and her husband Ted (Gwilym Lee) are renovating, everyone suspects a patient from the local mental health institution, where Ted is a doctor. However, soon after the tragic killing, the suspect is found dead. A year later, Dani’s blind twin sister Darcy (Bracken), a self-proclaimed psychic and collector of cursed items, pays an unexpected visit to Ted and his new girlfriend, Yana (Caroline Menton). Convinced that there was more to her sister's murder than people know, Darcy has brought with her the most dangerous items from her cursed collection to help her exact revenge.”

It’s that time of year. The trees are browning, and the nights become darker, which means only one thing – Halloween! Netflix releases its slate of horror movies for the month, and 2024 has a fantastic selection on the way. Below, we’ve hand-picked

For October, we’ll give you two extensive lists of movies you should watch. That’s because it’s Halloween season, and it felt right to highlight some brand-new horror, thriller, or other Halloween-adjacent titles on the way. As always with our best-of lists on what’s coming up, we’ll be splitting this list up into two halves, with the first four picks covering Netflix Original titles and the other four touching on the licensed movies coming to Netflix in the US (other region’s availability will vary).

As a quick aside, Netflix’s new licensed horror for Halloween is pretty impressive for the first year in a long time. It comes as Netflix has greater access to catalogs from rivals, which had been held back in prior years as many rival companies to Netflix are looking for cash.

Horror buffs, the official trailer for The Curse of the Necklace has finally dropped, and we shared it above. This horror film is slated to be released in theaters on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, followed by a digital release on Oct. 1.

The horror flick is set in the '60s, and we follow the Davis family as they try to navigate through turbulent times. The matriarch, Laura Davis, has separated from her alcoholic cop husband Frank and returns to the workforce as a nurse, ultimately putting a strain on her relationships with her two daughters, 11-year-old Ellen and 16-year-old Judy.

However, Frank wants Laura back, and his attempt at making this happen is by gifting her an antique necklace he found in an evidence bag at the police station. But this isn't just an old necklace. It's cursed with the tormented soul of an evil boy attached to it. With the cursed necklace now in the Davis family's possession, they soon find themselves in terrible danger from a malicious spirit...

Haunted houses are a wildly popular trope of the supernatural horror genre. Though a tad clichéd and overdone by today's standards, when done effectively, the premise of a ghostly haunting centered mostly within the confines of a home could lead to a truly terrifying and thrilling viewing experience. Films like The Innocence, The Others, House on Haunted Hill, and The Conjuring are some of the best haunted house movies around and prove this trope's potential. Unfortunately, it doesn't always lead to success.

The following ten entries are arguably some of the worst haunted house movies ever made. What could have otherwise been fun, eerie, and immensely thrilling ghost flicks turned into frustrating messes that failed to be worth anyone's time. They're spectacularly underwhelming and mediocre flops that aren't scary or entertaining. Instead of making the audience jump with freight, it left them dying from boredom.