The 2010s gave rise to a modern horror movie renaissance, wherein a sea of new directors were able to get their unconventional and macabre features distributed to wide audiences. Names like Jordan Peele, Ari Asher, and Robert Eggers have become synonymous with this movement – but these three men represent just a few of the people making grittier, weirder horror movies.
Many of these new horror films play on audience expectations for a happy ending. Sometimes, the resolution is drawn out to the last jittery second. Other times, viewers are left with hopelessness and despair. While some of these features have followed the more optimistic path with their climaxes, others have taken viewers on a grim, shocking journey that concludes on an utterly bleak note.
Bleak: Hereditary (2018)
There's no denying that while Ari Asher's Hereditary managed to take the mainstream by storm thanks in large part to stellar marketing, the chilling film's narrative plunges headfirst into total misery. Toni Collette received infinite praise for her portrayal of Annie Graham, a woman whose life is turned upside down after the death of her estranged, secretive mother.
As one tragedy after another unfolds around Annie, the woman concludes her mother, Ellen, may be to blame. Ellen's involvement in a Pagan cult comes to light, a cult Annie believes wants to destroy her family.
Hopeful: It (2017)
Andy Muschietti's two-part re-imagining of Stephen King's classic novel It is a tale of intergenerational trauma, heartwrenching loss, and survival. As a group of outcasts who call themselves the Losers Club band together to defeat the monster killing the kids in their town, they come to realize the value of sticking together no matter what.
Bill Skarsgard's portrayal of the creature Pennywise, a shapeshifter who appears every 27 years to feast on the weak and young, is spot on. It breams with terror, both physical and psychological, while giving its main characters a just finale.
Bleak: It Comes At Night (2017)
Simply put, It Comes at Night is a 90-minute long emotional gut punch. Set in a dystopian future wherein a highly contagious disease is destroying the planet, the film stars Joel Edgerton and Carmen Ejogo as a couple keeping themselves safe in a fortified, isolated home deep in the woods.
When a young couple, played by Christopher Abbott and Riley Keough, seek refuge with the family, all hell breaks loose. What plays out is a raw, unrelenting examination of the ways human beings fail each other during hard times.
Hopeful: The Invisible Man (2020)
Leigh Whannell breathes new life into Universal's classic monster the Invisible Man in his feature film starring Elisabeth Moss. Moss plays Cecilia, the emotionally abused girlfriend of optics engineer Adrian Griffin.
Cecilia hatches a plot to abscond from the controlling Adrian in the night, but her ex fakes his own death and relies on an invisibility suit to terrorize Cecilia. No one believes Cecilia's claims about Adrian's attacks, leaving her to fight alone – and boy does she fight.
Bleak: The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015)
Brutal and grisly, The Blackcoat's Daughter is a unique tale of Satanic possession set at a private Catholic school for teenage girls. Kiernan Shipka and Emma Roberts co-star as two young women with dark, violent ties to the aforementioned school.
The film moves between quiet, slow-burn sequences and insane bloodbaths. Set against a wintry backdrop, The Blackcoat's Daughter's arrives at a shocking, shivery conclusion.
Hopeful: A Quiet Place (2018)
John Krasinski earned some serious genre cred directing, scripting, and starring in A Quiet Place, which tells the story of a family surviving in a nightmare alternate Earth occupied by alien creatures who hunt by sound. In order to live, the family must remain silent at all times.
Krasinki co-stars with his wife Emily Blunt in A Quiet Place, which is full of calamitous, tearjerking scenes. Ultimately, though, the film is a testament to persevering no matter what – and its forthcoming sequel A Quiet Place 2 will explore this theme even more.
Bleak: The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (2017)
Yorgos Lanthimos's films exist outside genre classifications, but The Killing of a Sacred Deer is rife with horror. Colin Farrell plays Dr. Steven Murphy, a cardiovascular surgeon who lives a cush existence with his wife and two children. Barry Keoghan plays Martin, a fatherless teen who begins to implicate himself into Dr. Murphy's life in ominous ways.
The film evolves into a bizarre family psychodrama that rips any notion of the ideal suburban life to shreds. The devastating climax pours even more salt into the wound.
Hopeful: Hush (2016)
A low-budget exercise in eliciting scares without relying on excess gore and jump scares, Hush is a home invasion film directed by Mike Flanagan. Kate Siegel stars as Maddie Young, a mute and deaf author who is stalked by a masked intruder.
The trespasser believes Maddie to be an easy target, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Maddie engages in an epic battle against the prowler, once that showcases the protagonist's ability to defend herself and endure.
Bleak: Relic (2020)
Another horror film that taps into familial trauma, Relic is the feature film debut from Australian director Natalie Erika James. Emily Mortimer, Robin Nevin, and Bella Heathcote co-star as three generations of women who are connected by much more than DNA.
After Nevin's character Edna, who is the matriarch, goes missing, Mortimer's character Barry and her daughter, Heathcote's Sam, go searching for her. What they discover is a mysterious presence taking control of their legacy.
Hopeful: The Nightingale (2018)
Jennifer Kent's follow-up to The Babadook is a period drama marked by scenes of ghastly abuse, extreme racism, and violent retribution. Set in the 19th-century Tasmania, the film stars Aisling Franciosi as an Irish convict named Claire who is brutalized by the British soldiers she is forced to serve.
After her husband and daughter are killed, Claire hires an Aboriginal tracker named Billy, played by Baykali Ganambarr, to help her find the detachment responsible for the murders. Claire and Billy traverse a lawless wilderness inhabited by self-serving colonizers, and the pair forge a powerful, uplifting emotional bond that keeps them alive.