In the 1980s, horror films were everywhere. Filmmakers such as John Carpenter and George A. Romero became giants. Horror changed a bit in the 90s when Wes Craven's Scream franchise begat the "self-aware" horror movie. In the 2000s, the horror film began to return to its darker roots.
It was mostly studio-backed films that received wide releases but Indie gems like The Blair Witch Project snuck in and played to wide audiences. As the decade saw On-Demand markets becoming increasingly popular, less low budget horror films found their way to cinemas. But the 2000s held more than a few underseen horror treasures.
Lovely Molly- Directed By Eduardo Sanchez (2011)
Lovely Molly finds Gretchen Lodge giving an incredible performance as Molly, a woman who moves into her dead father's house in the woods and becomes figuratively and literally haunted by a dark past.
Director Eduardo Sanchez, who ushered in the phenomenon that was 1999's The Blair Witch Project, creates an interesting character in Molly, who becomes more and more unstable as the film grows darker. Sanchez's minimalist storytelling style works very well for this film, making it a chilling horror film that is also an interesting character study.
Djinn- Directed By Tobe Hooper (2013)
In what would become the director's final film before his death in 2017, Tobe Hooper's Djinn is an extremely creepy horror film that focuses on an Emirati couple who moves from New York to Audu Dhabi after the death of the baby son. They move to a fog-shrouded apartment tower that was built in an area that is haunted by Djinn, a monstrous supernatural force.
For the first time in his career, Hooper's in-your-face style of filmmaking gave way to a quieter and more patient slow-burn of a film. In doing so, the filmmaker created a sense of unease and an inescapable aura of death that makes this one of the most effective films of Tobe Hooper's career.
The Woods- Directed By Lucky McKee (2006)
An isolated and New England boarding school is the setting for Lucky Mckee's supernatural tale, The Woods. Agnes Bruckner plays an outsider who is sent to the woods-surrounded school and immediately becomes an outsider. Patricia Clarkson is the school's dean who seems to genuinely care for the new student. McKee fills his film with strong female characters who are the driving force to the film's success, as every person is written and performed realistically, staying away from horror film character clichés.
The titular woods are the source of the film's horror as the students begin to disappear and the director makes good use out of his setting. McKee blankets the film in the sinister, making a quite effective chiller.
Exists- Directed By Eduardo Sanchez (2014)
Eduardo Sanchez returned to his Found Footage roots with Exists, his film about a group of campers who run afoul of a Sasquatch.
A self-confessed Bigfoot fanatic, Sanchez wastes no time with his entry to the Bigfoot film subgenre, as he introduces his characters and surroundings and unleashes some tense scenes that tease the terrors to come, as the film's second half becomes an all-out and quite terrifying monster film.
The Toolbox Murders- Directed By Tobe Hooper (2004)
Tobe Hooper directed this inventive remake of the 1978 slasher film of the same name. Hooper greatly improves on the original by creating a completely new story about a renovated hotel that unleashes an evil that begins to cause the death of its inhabitants.
This is an inventive film that gives genre fans a mix of evil spirits with the slasher film. Hooper uses the hotel set to great effect by exploring its dark corridors and having his cast move through the darkness as they try to stay alive to killers both human and otherworldly.
Last Shift- Directed By Anthony DiBlasi (2014)
In this truly frightening low budget horror treasure, a young policewoman spends an overnight shift alone inside a police station that is being closed down. As the night progresses, something evil begins to take hold.
Last Shift is an atmospheric mood piece that relies upon extreme tension to scare its audience. The film is a spooky world of devil cults, murder, and demonic and supernatural forces. Through skill and craftiness, director Anthony DiBlasi crafted one of the great unsung horror films of the 2010s.
Seventh Moon- Directed By Eduardo Sanchez (2008)
Getting great use out of the Found Footage genre that he made popular, Eduardo Sanchez goes dark with Seventh Moon, the story of a wife and her husband who honeymoon in China unaware that they are there during a ghost festival which brings the spirits out.
Sanchez places his actors in almost complete darkness throughout much of the film. Using only the cell phone lights to guide the way. In the film's darkness lie ghostly demons that make this little film a horrifyingly intense experience.
2001 Maniacs- Directed By Tim Sullivan (2005)
A reimagining of the Herschel Gordon Lewis gore classic Two Thousand Maniacs, Tim Sullivan's 2001 Maniacs is a macabre throwback to the horror films of the 1980s and an homage to director Lewis, the "Godfather of Gore".
Robert Englund plays one of his best roles as the mayor of a Southern town that celebrates their Confederate roots in vicious and bloody ways. Lin Shaye is fantastic as he and his wife, together with the townsfolk, lure unsuspecting victims from the nearby highway. What follows is a fun thrill-ride of a film full of macabre humor and practical gore effects that should please horror fans.
The Woman- Directed By Lucky McKee (2011)
A lawyer puts his life and the lives of his family in danger when he kidnaps a woman from a violent clan of nomads and tries to "civilize" her. The Woman is director Lucky Mckee's look behind the windows of suburbia that hides darker truths than their sunlit streets portray. His film gives us two unique horror families whose ways of life come into violent contrast with one another.
The film received some controversy after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival with some viewers feeling it degraded women, but the film stands as a commentary on the power of a woman's right to choose how their lives are led and the audacity of men who try to make the rules regarding a woman's body. This is a horror film that warns of the futility of trying to create a male-dominated world.
The House Of The Devil- Directed By Ti West (2009)
Ti West entered the world of satanic horror with 2009's The House of the Devil. Perhaps the most underrated horror film of the 2000s, the film tells of an unlucky babysitter who unwillingly sits for a family of Satanists and is chosen to bring about the return of The Devil. Tom Noonan and Mary Wornov add to the film's atmosphere with their creepy performances and the "parents" who hire the babysitter.
West crafts the film as if from the 1970s and makes the film both a throwback to the Drive-In styled genre films of that era and one of the most frightening films in modern horror.