Best horror movie of the '21st century'...?

[Golgo-13]

Man, i just finish watching The Descent and i've got to say, that this has got to be the best horror movie in the past 7 years.

What do you guys think is the best horror movie of recent?

And if you haven't seen The Descent, your really missing out!

 

[Darth Elektra]

The Descent was pretty good, but Im not sure its the best.

 

[Speedball]

I haven't seen the Descent, but from what I've heard, ti is one of the most terrifying films.
I didn't see it when it came out because I was going to go caving about the same time.

 

[Obsidian]

The best horror movie in the past 6 years? Yeah, I'd have to agree on "The Descent".

 

[Golgo-13]

What's funny about the movie is i heard very little about it when it was out in the theatre. It's only when it came out on dvd i started hearing alot of good word of mouth.

Plus the entire cast, crew with the exception of that asian/spanish chick, is British. Goes to show that Brits make awesome horror movies, with low budgets that don't come out cheesy like the American ones.

Plus i just found out that Neil Marshall, the director of The Descent, directed one of my other favorite Horror movies 'Dog Soldiers.

 

[cryptic name]

i liked the descent, definitely better than the tween oriented ***** being put out most of the time

 

[Matt]

I didn't care for The Descent. It had no plot, no characters that I cared about (which really makes a horror movie tense for me), was violent simply for the sake of it. The only thing it had going for it was creepy atmospheres.

I'd say The Ring remake is my favorite so far.

 

[L0ngsh0t]

Ummm the Descent was good

I would say Slither though

that movie was unreal how awesome it was, sure it is only half horror, but it still kicked loads of ass

others i think are better than Descent

28 Days later
Saw
Dawn of the dead

 

[Darth Elektra]

Neil Marshall, the director of The Descent, directed one of my other favorite Horror movies 'Dog Soldiers.

 

[The Dark Defender]

I didn't care for The Descent. It had no plot, no characters that I cared about (which really makes a horror movie tense for me), was violent simply for the sake of it. The only thing it had going for it was creepy atmospheres.

I'd say The Ring remake is my favorite so far.

It had one of the most dense plots wrapped inside a seemingly simplistic story ever put on film, a very meaningful humans survival story with plenty of realstic and relateable characterization, and naturally what is (amongst numerous other things) a visceral monster movie is going to be violent. Considering the subject matter, the violence could've been far more over the top. You might as well say a comedy was "funny just for the sake of it."

 

[Kevin Roegele]

i liked the descent, definitely better than the tween oriented ***** being put out most of the time

You should look further afield than Hollywood then.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

I'd say The Ring remake is my favorite so far.

I concur. Not only does it offer an elaborate mystery, it has genuine imagination in both plot and visuals. The slow-building, ever-escalating sense of dread reaches almost unbearable levels at the climax. I recall seeing this at the cinema and, when Samara appears for the legendary climax, people were terrified.

 

[Matt]

It had one of the most dense plots wrapped inside a seemingly simplistic story ever put on film, a very meaningful humans survival story with plenty of realstic and relateable characterization, and naturally what is (amongst numerous other things) a visceral monster movie is going to be violent. Considering the subject matter, the violence could've been far more over the top. You might as well say a comedy was "funny just for the sake of it."

Violence and horror movies do not always go hand in hand. Comedies and humor do. Your analogy is flawed. Less would've been more in The Descent (that goes with seeing the ridiculous looking ape-men as well)

 

[The Dark Defender]

They do in films with creatures in them that say "Rated R for violence and gore" on the trailer, hence my analogy is not flawed. Going to a horror film labeled that way and complaining about its violence is really no different than going to a comedy and complaining about it being funny.
I didn't say EVERY horror film automatically required gore (and again, considering the subject matter they didn't use nearly as much gore as they could have).
They looked nothing whatsoever like apes, they had a demonic look to them which fit with the hell symbolism of the underground atmosphere

Spoiler

and they may or may not have even existed, since the story is told from the viewpoint of someone that is losing her mind, hence the duel meaning of the title

.
It was a human survival story showing the danger of selfishness and personal vendettas getting in the way of the good of the entire group, a visceral monster movie, a subtle suspense atmosphere movie, and psychological mind-bender rolled into one.

 

[Abaddon]

I havent seen it. It's not obscenely violent just for the sake of it like say "The Hills Have Eyes"whatever is it?

 

[The Dark Defender]

That wasn't just for the sake of it either, the film is about the chain reaction of violence, the brutality was a big part of the films point.

 

[Abaddon]

It seemed so cartoonish. It just put me off. But to be fair, I've never really been into the big slasher gore flicks.

 

[The Dark Defender]

The whole idea that of the film was trying to get across is that anyone, even the most normal people can become brutal monsters if they're pushed far enough.
The atrocious acts of the mutants are being done by people that were once every bit as normal as the people that they're now savagely terrorizing until a corrupt government blew up their land for selfish, greedy reasons and made them what they are now; then after the trailer sequence the victims end up becoming just as savage as the villains.
The extreme violence was really needed to get the idea of the film across.

 

[Abaddon]

I guess I missed the point then because I didn't get the impression that the trailer victims had become savage.

 

[The Dark Defender]

Compare how Aaron Standford and Emilie De Ravin were in the first half of the film to the people that they become in the final act.
They're really entirely different people that are doing things that they wouldn't even have been capable of when the film started.

 

[Abaddon]

Sure, but they made it clear it was absolutely necessary and so it wasn't that dramatic a change. They were stuck in the middle of nowhere and completely helpless, so of course they needed to anty up and do whatever it took to fight back just like a dozen other characters have in a dozen other movies with a similar premise.

 

[The Dark Defender]

It was a dramatic change because they were the most non-violence, average people imagineable that had to resort to savage brutality that they never could've imagined they were capable of prior to the events in that trailer.
I'm not trying to say that they became evil people, but they changed drastically. Something monstrous inflicted on them by others turned them into savages, and the same happened to the mutants.

 

[Mike059jig]

Yes this scary movie didn't have to do with little crazy kids as the villians....

 

[Abaddon]

It was a dramatic change because they were the most non-violence, average people imagineable that had to resort to savage brutality that they never could've imagined they were capable of prior to the events in that trailer.
I'm not trying to say that they became evil people, but they changed drastically. Something monstrous inflicted on them by others turned them into savages, and the same happened to the mutants.

I didn't get that they were the most non-violent people imaginable. They were a pretty typical family sure, they come off as saints either.

And again, the same could be said of any other horror film where innocent, and mostly defenseless people are horribly victimized till they start toughening up in order to survive. Add to that the fact that the film had a bunch of other horror movie cliches. I didn't feel like they were savages in the end, but that they did what needed to be done. I mean if anything I was disturbed by what they'd been through, and not what they had to do to make it out alive.

 

[Speedball]

Ummm the Descent was good

I would say Slither though

that movie was unreal how awesome it was, sure it is only half horror, but it still kicked loads of ass

others i think are better than Descent

28 Days later
Saw
Dawn of the dead

Dawn of the Dead was an action film, not horror.