By Maria Lewis
(11) SPLIT Yes, M. Night has burned us mightily in the past, but after two solid steps in the right direction with The Visit and TV’s Wayward Pines, could he wiggle his way back into our nightmares? Here’s hoping with this mysterious looking flick that sees James McAvoy go head-to-head with horror’s genre star of the moment, Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Morgan).
(10) BERLIN SYNDROME Backing up her starring turn in Lights Out, Teresa Palmer is front and centre once more in another horror movie – this time the claustrophobic thriller from Australian director, Cate Shortland. She plays a photographer held prisoner in an apartment after a passionate holiday romance turns deadly. The most small-scale film on this list, its tight setting and intimacy are likely to provide the most chilling moments.
(9) THE BYE BYE MAN Nothing beats a good urban legend come to life for an effective horror premise, and The Bye Bye Man is just that. Three HYTs (Hot Young Things) discover a creature known as The Bye Bye Man, who is the root cause of the most evil acts of mankind. The more that you think about him, and the more you say his name, the stronger he grows and the more likely he is to come for you. The first film from Hood Of Horror director, Stacy Title, in over a decade, this also looks like her most promising.
(8) RAW Not since We Are What We Are has there been such an intriguing spin on the classic carnivorous tale. Directed and written by Julia Ducournau, Raw follows a young veterinarian (and vegetarian) student who, after a meaty hazing ritual at college, sees an insatiable craving for meat grow inside her.
(7) XX Being a female horror fan can be a hard slog sometimes, especially when the default option of lazy filmmakers is to watch women get sexually assaulted, hacked, murdered or – if they’re lucky – be the vengeful spirit who suffered an awful fate. But! There are shining moments of fierce feminist brilliance in the genre (Sidney Prescott! A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night! The Descent! Ginger Snaps!) and that’s all set to come to a head in XX, a horror anthology written, directed by, and starring women. The pedigree of filmmakers behind this is impressive as hell – Karyn Kusama! St. Vincent! Roxanne Benjamin! – and given the eclectic nature of anthologies, this will be one of the more unique horror experiences of 2017.
(6) A CURE FOR WELLNESS The last time that Pirates Of The Caribbean filmmaker, Gore Verbinski, stepped away from making blockbusters, he gave us the bloody terrifying and near perfect American remake of The Ring. A Cure For Wellness seems set to be just as affecting, with Dane DeHaan playing a young executive sent to retrieve his CEO from a mysterious wellness retreat. Cue full on House Of Horrors meets Shutter Island terror and mind-bending torment.
(5) THE MUMMY Universal have been attempting to restart their monster movie universe for what seems like the better half of a decade now, yet if any film might do it, it’s the Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe vehicle, The Mummy. Upping the action quota and the budget of other flicks that have wanted to straddle that horror-blockbuster line, director Alex Kurtzman is from the J.J. Abrams school of filmmaking, and is set to be to the Universal Monsters Universe what Kevin Feige is to The Marvel Cinematic Universe. He has said that “we owe the audience a monster movie”, and we can only hope that he delivers.
(4) THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE From the director of Trollhunter comes a movie on what seems like a much smaller scale: a father and son coroner team work together to try and determine what killed a young woman who has been brought into the morgue. As they get closer to revealing the cause of death, Jane Doe’s terrifying secrets begin to manifest, and the duo are forced to confront unforeseen terrors. Highly hyped on the film festival circuit, The Autopsy Of Jane Doe is one not to miss.
(3) WINCHESTER Few filmmakers have been as exciting from their very first film right through to their last as The Spierig Brothers. You can chart their progress and ever-growing ambition when you look at Undead, Daybreakers, and Predestination. Rounding out the cube of hopefully great flicks is Winchester: it stars Helen Mirren as the heir to the Winchester gun fortune and the real-life story of her labyrinth of a mansion which she designed to escape what she believed to be the ghosts of her family and those killed by Winchester rifles. A fascinating premise in skillful hands.
(2) THE BELKO EXPERIMENT Talk about a one-two punch of fucking great talent. The Belko Experiment’s first trailer was a slap in the face, but is it any wonder given that Greg McLean (Wolf Creek) is sitting in the director’s chair and wielding a screenplay from James Gunn (Guardians Of The Galaxy, Slither)? In a Hunger Games meets Battle Royale-esque premise, office workers are forced to fight each other to the death in order to survive the increasingly sadistic orders of the people who have taken over their corporate building.
(1) GET OUT Better known for his comedic stylings, it was a revelation when Jordan Peele spoke at length on an episode of the Shock Waves podcast about his love of horror movies. Then the trailer for his directorial debut dropped and blew-everyone–the shit–away. Get Out follows a young black man as he goes to visit the family home of his Caucasian girlfriend, only to learn that the property is plagued with a terrible curse. For horror fans of colour, it can often be challenging to find (a) people that represent you in the genre and (b) that aren’t being killed off. Things have progressed somewhat, but not nearly as quickly as the audiences’ appetite for representation around it. Get Out looks set to fix that problem and a whole lot more as it examines race in America within the casing of a terrifying and surreal horror experience. Special shout out to what has to be one of the best ensemble casts of 2017: Keith Stanfield, Caleb Landry Jones, Catherine Keener, Daniel Kaluuya, and Bradley Whitford.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS: Suspiria (a remake of the genre classic, worthy of a look because of the talent involved), The Dark Tower (Idris Elba in (a) leather and (b) one of Stephen King’s most beloved properties), and Alien: Covenant (cautiously hopeful that this could be the ointment to Prometheus’ third degree burns).
Maria Lewis is a journalist and author who can be seen on The Feed, weeknights on SBS Viceland. She’s the presenter and producer of the Eff Yeah Film & Feminism podcast. Her debut novel Who’s Afraid? was released in 2016, with the sequel – Who’s Afraid Too? – due for release on January 17, 2017. You can find her on Twitter @MovieMazz.
