It's time to celebrate the best of horror from 2020, with the third annual Thingy Awards! Once again, we summoned a jury of expert horror aficionados to determine the worthy winners from a pool of great (if perhaps under-seen) scary movies. Raise the curtain and let's hand out some awards!
★★★ out of ★★★★★
A mysterious woman turns out to be a real roommate from hell in this fun new terror tale from Full Moon Features.
Supernatural consequences await a man who digs on his new property and accidentally finds millions of dollars buried next to a dead body in Digging for Death. The Scariest Things has the poster reveal and trailer for you! Following is the official press announcement.
Happy Mothers Day! The archives of horror films are filled with great matriarchs. It's the strongest, and often the most important relationship of our lives, and the horror genre takes full advantage of all the emotional triggers of all things mommy.
The almighty George Romero has a new movie coming out in June 2021! Wait, hasn't he been dead since 2017!?!? Indeed he has, but that doesn't mean that he didn't create a mountain of content never before seen by human eyes. In the same way that Prince will be releasing albums well in to the next century, Romero may have some additional gems that have never made their way out of the crypt. Until now!
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
The vurdalak legend finds new blood in this exciting, top-notch chiller.
★ out of ★★★★★ Serious question. Are horror movies required to be scary? Can they just pass off a sense of dread and doom in other less frightening but equally provocative ways? Answer: it sure makes horror more horrifying if there’s some actual horror in the horror film.
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
Slasher-film fans should have a great time with this whodunit thriller — set on a present-day university campus — that shines a light on some ugly social issues.
★★★ out of ★★★★★
How far would you go for your family?
Are you an aspiring horror movie director, and happen to be from an underrepresented ethnic minority in filmmaking? Well now is a golden opportunity chance for your work to be seen! The Portland Horror Film Festival is offering FREE film submissions for BIPOC film creators. Deadline is May 4.
Jed Shepherd, writer/executive producer of Host (2020), is Kickstarting a new horror video game!
★★ out of ★★★★★ The horror anthology is one of the true staples of the horror genre. Always clever, always engaging. As we’ve said before, anthology horror is the traditional extension of gathering around ye' ole campfire and scaring the hell out of each other. They hearken back to the oldest root forms of scary storytelling. It’s always frightening to hear a scary story, until it’s not.
The first two stills and some cool 8mm behind-the-scenes footage has been released for director Neill Blompkamp's upcoming horror movie Demonic.
Vampires and addiction are both addressed in the film My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To, which has...
Zoom-based Warped Dimension online film festival, presented by the fine crew responsible for San Francisco’s Another Hole in the Head...
Howdy partner! The western expanse is big and full of terrors. I'd be careful out there if I were you. A man can go missing out there right quick if you're not careful. The Scariest Things heads west along the trail of much bloodletting as we examine Horror Westerns in Episode 121.
Holy Beelzebub! The official/official trailer for The Conjuring III, AKA The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do it, is finally here! Complete with devils, god, witches, the Warrens, and waterbeds — which were a thing in 1981, trust us — this trailer has it all.
Otherwordly occurences during COVID-19 is becoming a current horror film subgenre, and a new U.K. feature looks to be a thrilling entry into that subgenre. Here is the trailer and poster reveal for director Howard J. Ford's The Lockdown Haunting, which stars fright-fare icon Tony Todd.
IFC Films looks to have another winner on its hands with the upcoming release of Werewolves Within, which is based on the Ubisoft's virtual reality video game. The Scariest Things has the teaser trailer and poster premiere for you!
One of the strongest entries into the historical horror subgenre in recent memory, director John Hsu's Taiwanese chiller Detention has been picked up for theatrical and virtual cinema distribution by Dekanalog.
Sometimes when you find a film, you connect with it. And sometimes when you write about this film connection, the director of the film wants to share his love of creating the film with you. Such was the case with Michael Lovan, and his film, Murder Bury Win, and he sat down to discuss all things about this firecracker of a movie with The Scariest Things.
★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
Be Careful what you wish for...
The festival circuit was strong in 2020 with lots of great horror shorts. These 10 horror shorts made it on to our 2021 Thingy Awards. Check out the full short films included for your review!
★1/2 out of ★★★★★
A Blair Witch knockoff out of Russia that fails to deliver.
What The Exorcist is to possession movies, Jaws is to shark movies: a classic film that will likely never be equaled in its subgenre. There have been some fine shark attack films during the past few years, though, and absolutely some fun ones. RLJE Films and Shudder are releasing their entry into sharksploitation and survival horror this summer with Great White, and it sounds like it should be a winner.
★★★★ out of ★★★★★
Prepare to get more than a trim from The Stylist!
★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
The Banishing serves up several haunted house tropes, but it looks good while doing so, with solid performances and conspiracy angles.
RLJE Films & Shudder go back to school for some supernatural horror with Seance, the directorial debut from Simon Barrett, screenwriter of You're Next (2011) and The Guest (2014). The trailer and poster dropped today, and The Scariest Things has them both for you!
A missing girl, a grisly murder and two journalists eager to uncover the story Below the Fold.
One of the big features released in the SXSW film festival Midnighter selections was Travis Steven's sophomore feature effort, Jakob's Wife, starring Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden. It was a wonderful character study of a middle-aged woman finding the most unusual (and bloody) way to break out of a mid-life crisis. The Scariest Things got a chance to break down this remarkable film with Travis.