Number #3 – Ghost Stories
Directed by Jeremy Dyson, Andy Nyman, Written by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman
The greatest horror anthology of all time is 1945’s ‘Dead of Night.’
The second greatest is ‘Ghost Stories.’
Starting with a paranormal skeptic who meets his idol who advises him to investigate three cases that changed his perspective on life ‘Ghost Stories’ goes from terror, to dread, to disorientation to misdirection and ends with a stunning heartbreaking twist that makes the entire movie highly rewatchable.
The natural progression of Hammer horror and British horror in general ‘Ghost Stories’ is simply a marvel. Since I saw it I was convinced that I would not see a better horror film in a five year span and I have been mostly right.
Written and directed by Ari Aster
“Midsommar” is the movie equivalent of an ‘earworm’ a movie that was somewhat perplexing in the theater, but you just kept coming back to it over and over again. It reminded me of Bergman’s “Hour of the Wolf,” but “Midsommar” goes an extra mile to create an entire culture and utter horror all in the brightest of daylights. It understands that being around people nothing like you with inscrutable motives is it’s own sort of horror.
“Midsommar” is about a very troubled woman who moves from one co-dependent relationship to another, more dangerous one in a self-contained cult that worships her but exacts vicious death to the other people in her life.
As time has gone on, it has become a reasonably popular opinion that her rather poor boyfriend deserved his fate. I credit Aster with making a modern-day “Wicker Man” with a premise so seductive that some women believe that someone should die for hurting them in a relationship. The very finest films reveal who we are as people and two years later “Midsommar” is still doing that.
Tom & Tom : Black Like You 