Now, when just hours’ remains of 2010 I have put together a list, consisting of the 56 top horror movies, which were released this year.
I have not ranked the movies from my personal opinion, instead I have ranked the movies according to the ratings and score that the audience has given the movies at the biggest movie sites, like IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, etc.
As you’ll see, I have not limited this list too only contain horror films, I’ve also included movies of the genres that I usually write about, therefore the sci-fi, fantasy and thrillers on there.
1. Black Swan
With an IMDB rating of 8,7 and 90% audience score at Rotten Tomatoes,
Darren Aronofsky’s psychological thriller about two rivaling ballerinas grabbed this list’s top placement in a superior style.
Trailer:
Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel.
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
It wasn’t a surprise that the next-to-last Harry Potter movie, in which he sets out to destroy the Horcruxes, would be high up on this list. But I didn’t think it would grab the second place, though.
Trailer:
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint.
3. Mother (Madeo)
On third place we find the Korean thriller/mystery movie by Bong Joon-ho, about a mother who desperately searches for the killer that framed her son for their horrific murder.
Trailer:
Starring: Hye-ja Kim, Bin Won and Goo Jin.
4. Shutter Island
Martin Scorsese eerie movie about two U.S marshals, sent out to an island to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a murderess at a hospital for the criminal insane, got the fourth place.
Trailer:
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo and Ben Kingsley.
5. Let Me In
Matt Reeves’s American version of the Swedish vampire movie Let The Right One In, turned out to be rather popular among the audience.
Trailer:
Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloë Grace Moretz and Richard Jenkins.
6. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
The movie goers really embraced this twisted Christmas tale about an archaeological dig that stumbles over Santa Claus, giving the movie a sixth place on my list.
Trailer:
Starring:Per Christian Ellefsen, Peeter Jakobi and Jorma Tommila.
7. Buried
It appears that watching Ryan Reynolds trapped in a coffin for one and a half hour wasn’t as boring as it first sounded, hence the seventh place.
Trailer:
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, José Luis García Pérez and Robert Paterson.
8. Black Death
Christopher Smith’s mediaeval thriller about a young monk, which is tasked with learning the truth behind reports of people being brought back to life in a small village, landed on eight place.
Trailer:
Starring: Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne and Carice van Houten.
9. I Spit on Your Grave
The remake of the controversial 1978 cult classic, about a young female writer who is brutally raped and then seeks revenge on her attackers, squeezed it’s way into the top 10 of this list.
Trailer:
Starring: Sarah Butler, Chad Lindberg and Daniel Franzese.
10. The Book of Eli
The Hughes Brothers post-apocalyptic tale, in which a lone man fights his way across America to protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind, snagged the last top placement.
Trailer:
Starring: Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis.
11. The Last Exorcism
Eli Roth produced this horror movie about Cotton Marcus, a troubled evangelical minister who decides to document his last exorcism. Starring: Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell and Louis Herthum.
12. [Rec] 2
A Spanish horror movie and the sequel to 2007’s REC, about an honorific zombie outbreak inside a sealed off building. Starring: Jonathan Mellor, Oscar Sánchez Zafra and Ariel Casas.
13. Triangle
A British-Australian psychological horror about the passengers of a yachting trip in the Atlantic Ocean who, when struck by mysterious weather conditions, jump to another ship only to be faced with even greater havoc. Starring: Melissa George, Joshua McIvor and Jack Taylor.
14. The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson directed this thriller about a young girl who, after she’s been murdered, gazes down on her family and her killer, from heaven. Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz and Susan Sarandon.
15. The Crazies
A remake of George A. Romero’s movie from 1973 about how the people of a small town go murderously insane after a mysterious toxin contaminates the water supply. Starring: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell and Danielle Panabaker.
16. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
In this third romance vampire movie, Bella continues to be torn between her love for Edward the vampire and her friendship with the werewolf Jacob. Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.
17. Paranormal Activity 2
The prequel to 2007’s box office hit, takes place a few months before the events in the first movie and revolves around a family that gets more than they bargain for as they set up security cameras around their house. Starring: Molly Ephraim, Brian Boland and David Bierend.
18. Predators
Nimród Antal’s sci-fi action about a group of human elite warriors taken to another planet to be prey for the merciless Predators was better than I thought it would be. Starring: Alice Braga, Topher Grace and Adrien Brody.
19. Resident Evil: Afterlife
The fourth movie about Alice’s never ending battle against her nemesis the Umbrella company and the zombies jumped into top 20 on this top list. Starring: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter and Shawn Roberts.
20. Devil
An enthralling story with nice cinematography about a group of people, strangers to each other, who gets trapped in an elevator and realize that the devil is among them. John Erick Dowdle directed from a story penned by M. Night Shyamalan. Starring: Chris Messina, Bojana Novakovic and Bokeem Woodbine.
21. Hatchet II
Adam Green takes Marybeth back to the Louisiana swamps. This time with an army of hunters, to recover the bodies of her family and see a bloody revenge against the bayou butcher. Starring: Danielle Harris, Tony Todd and Kane Hodder.
22. Daybreakers
The Spierig Brothers’s vampire movie, where the vampires rules the world and are using humans for food, felt fresh and innovative. Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill.
23. Monsters
An impressive sci-fi thriller, made with a budget of only $800,000 and a crew consisting of only two people, about a journalist escorting an American tourist through an alien-controlled zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border. Starring: Whitney Able and Scoot McNairy.
24. Piranha 3-D
Alexandre Aja unleashes a bunch of prehistoric piranhas on a group of wild college kids celebrating spring break at a small town in Arizona, with a bloody and hilarious result. Starring: Steven R. McQueen, Jessica Szohr and Adam Scott.
25. Frozen
Adam Green’s second movie on this list depicts three skiers being stranded on a chairlift and the life-or-death choices they must make. Starring: Emma Bell, Shawn Ashmore and Kevin Zegers.
26. Doghouse
A group of men head to a remote village, to help one of their friends to overcome his recent divorce, only to discover that all the women in the village have turned into man-hating cannibals. Starring: Danny Dyer, Noel Clarke and Lee Ingleby.
27. Saw 3D
In the final installment of the Saw film series we where able to get the slaughterous and limb-ripping traps in full 3D. Starring: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor and Betsy Russell.
28. Heartless
British horror directed by Philip Ridley about Jamie Morgan, a young man with a large heart-shaped birthmark on his face, discovers that there are demons on the streets of East London. Starring: Jim Sturgess, Noel Clarke and Clémence Poésy.
29. The Eclipse
A modern ghost story is set in a seaside Irish town, where a widower sparks with a visiting horror writer, while he also begins to believe he is seeing ghosts.
30. Case 39
A social worker rescues a girl from her abusive parents, only to discover that the girl is more dangerous than she could ever imagine. A very good movie by Christian Alvart and Jodelle Ferland is superb as the evil girl.
31. Chain Letter
Deon Taylor wrote and directed this movie about a brainsick murderer who kills teens if they don’t forward a chain letter. Starring: Nikki Reed, Keith David and Brad Dourif.
32. Splice
It seems that the Cube director Vincenzo Natali’s story about two rebellious scientists creating a new spice, didn’t quite fulfill the audience’s expectations. Starring: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley and Delphine Chaneac.
33. The Wolfman
Joe Johnston’s remake of the 1941 monster movie, starring Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins, looks grand almost epic, but doesn’t give a scary or nail-biting impression.
34. The Horde
Yannick Dahan gives us a French zombie movie where police officers and gangsters forms an alliance against hordes of flesh hungry zombies. Starring: Claude Perron, Jean-Pierre Martins and Eriq Ebouaney.
35. The Descent: Part 2
Jon Harris sends Sarah down the dreadful cave system, she just escaped from, to aid in a rescue expedition trying to recover the others from the first movie. Starring: Shauna Macdonald, Douglas Hodge and Joshua Dallas.
36. After.Life
Liam Neeson and Christina Ricci stared in Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo’s movie about a girl, trapped between life and death, in a funeral home after a car accident.
37. Burning Bright
Carlos Brooks directed this thriller about a young woman and her autistic little brother, trapped in a house with a very hungry tiger, while a hurricane is raging outside. Starring: Briana Evigan, Garret Dillahunt and Meat Loaf.
38. A Nightmare on Elm Street
Personally I think that the remake of Wes Craven’s classic horror from 1984 was surprisingly well-made and that Jackie Earle Haley presented a genuine portray of Freddy.
39. Possession
A psychological thriller, directed by Joel Bergvall, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lee Pace about a man who wakes up from a coma, thinking e’s his brother.
40. Legion
Scott Stewart’s feature debut revolves around a group of people, stranded at an out-of-the-way dinner, forming an odd alliance against the legion of angels about to bring on the Apocalypse. Starring: Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid and Adrianne Palicki.
41. Lost Boys: The Thirst
The vampire-hunting brothers Edgar and Alan Frog returns in the third Lost Boys movie, to help an author of vampire novels to find her missing brother. Starring: Corey Feldman, Jamison Newlander and Casey B. Dolan.
42. My Soul to Take
Wes Craven directed this eerie story about a serial killer who returns to his hometown, to stalk seven children who share the same birthday as the date he was allegedly put to rest. Starring: Max Thieriot, Denzel Whitaker and Zena Grey.
43. Blood Creek
Henry Cavill and Dominic Purcell plays two brothers on a mission of revenge are trapped in a painful occult experiment, which dates from the Third Reich. The film had a limited release in 2009, but wasn’t released on DVD until January 2010, therefore the appearance on the list.
44. The Human Centipede
Tom Six disturbing movie about a demented surgeon, with a vision to create a human centipede, got an enormous buzz but didn’t manage to get the big audience’s approval. Starring: Dieter Laser, Ashley C. Williams and Ashlynn Yennie.
45. The Possession of David O’Reilly
Andrew Cull’s shockumentary about a demonic presence in a young couple’s home in London, seems to have fallen under many people’s radar, which could explain why its low placement on this list. Starring: Giles Alderson, Francesca Fowler and Zoe Richards.
46. Altitude
Directed by Canadian comic book writer and artist Kaare Andrews depicting a group of friends and their struggle against a supernatural being, high up in the clouds. Starring: Jessica Lowndes, Julianna Guill and Ryan Donowho.
47. Night of the Demons
Adam Gierasch depicts his story about a bunch of kids attending a Halloween party, only to have to face down a group of demons. Starring: Shannon Elizabeth, Linnea Quigley and Michael Arata.
48. Puppet Master: Axis of Evil
During the height of World War II, young Danny Coogan finds a crate of mysterious puppets and is suddenly thrust into a battle all his own. Starring: Levi Fiehler, Jenna Gallaher and Taylor M. Graham.
49. Survival of the Dead
George A. Romero’s sixth film in the Dead series takes us to an island, off the coast of North America, where its residents simultaneously fight the zombie epidemic while hoping for a cure that will return their un-dead relatives to life. Starring: Alan Van Sprang, Kenneth Welsh and Kathleen Munroe.
50. The Black Waters of Echo’s Pond
Gabriel Bologna hands us a psychologic thriller about nine friends playing a game that brings out worst in each of them, like jealously, greed, hatred and lust. Starring: Robert Patrick, Danielle Harris and Sean Lawlor.
51. Salvage
The story about a mysterious container, which washes ashore near a sleepy cul-de-sac, forcing a single mother to overcome all odds to save her daughter, was inspired by the real-life beaching of the container ship MSC Napoli. Starring: Shahid Ahmed, Dean Andrews and Sufian Ashraf.
52. And Soon the Darkness
When one girl, on a biking trip with her friend in Argentina, goes missing her friend must find her before her worst fears are realized. Starring: Amber Heard, Odette Yustman and Karl Urban.
53. Mirrors 2
The sequel to the Mirrors (2008) revolves around Max, a worn-out man taking a job as a nighttime security guard, begins to see visions of a young mysterious woman in the store’s mirror. Starring: Nick Stahl, Emmanuelle Vaugiér and Evan Jones.
54. Vampires Suck
It seems that the audience didn’t quite appreciated Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer’s funny vampire spoof movie, mainly based on the Twilight movies, as much as I did.
55. 30 Days of Night: Dark Days
In the sequel to 30 Days of Night Stella moves to Los Angeles, seeking the attention of the local vampires, to avenge the death of her husband, Eben. Starring: Kiele Sanchez, Rhys Coiro and Diora Baird.
56. The Graves
Brian Pulido’s movie about the Grave’s sisters and how their visit to a remote mine town turns into a mind-bending fight for survival, is despite uneven acting and a weak story, worth a look nonetheless.
Congratulations, you made it down this mountain of text, well done!
Now, since this list will probably not match your own opinions, you are welcome to leave your thoughts about it and what you believe to be the best horror movie of 2010, in the comments below.
Meanwhile, I wish you a happy new year, filled with new captivating chills from the silver screen!
Box of Horror 