The 16 Best Horror Films of 2016

It’s been a solid year for horror. We didn’t see too many thrilling commercial releases (pics like The Forest, The Darkness and The Other Side of the Door were absolutely nauseating), but there are a few to hit theaters that left us stunned. But the real genre beauties this year headed straight for VOD outlets or quietly crept onto discs.

What you’re about to read is a list of the very best genre films released this calendar year. Prepare for some virtual unknowns, a couple wildly creepy foreign affairs and a throwback to 80s genre fare.

Ah hell, enough of my blabbering – just check the list out for yourself!

16 Ouija: Origin of Evil

In 1967 Los Angeles, a widowed mother and her 2 daughters add a new stunt to bolster their seance scam business and unwittingly invite authentic evil into their home. When the youngest daughter is overtaken by a supernatural spirit, the family confronts unthinkable fears to save her and send her possessor back to the other side.

15 The Mind’s Eye

Zack Connors and Rachel Meadows were born with incredible psychokinetic capabilities. When word of their supernatural talents gets out, they find themselves the prisoners of Michael Slovak, a deranged doctor intent on harvesting their powers. After a daring escape, they are free from his sinister institution, but the corrupt doctor will stop at nothing to track them down so that he may continue to siphon their gifts for his own use.

14 The Pack

A farmer and his family must fight for survival after a ferocious pack of wild dogs infiltrates their isolated farmhouse. Through a series of frightening and bloody encounters they are forced into survival mode to make it through the night.

13 The Windmill

Jennifer is an Australian girl on the run from her past who washes up in Amsterdam. In a desperate attempt to stay one step ahead of the authorities, she joins a coach-load of tourists embarking on a tour of Holland’s world famous windmills. When the bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere, she and the other tourists are forced to seek shelter in a disused shed beside a sinister windmill where, legend has it, a Devil-worshiping miller once ground the bones of locals instead of grain. As members of the group start to disappear, Jennifer learns that they all have something in common – a shared secret that seems to mark them all for doom.

12 I Am Not a Serial Killer

In a small Midwestern town, a troubled teen with homicidal tendencies must hunt down and destroy a supernatural killer whilst keeping his own inner demons at bay.

11 The Witch

New England, 1630: William and Katherine try to lead a devout Christian life, homesteading on the edge of an impassible wilderness, with five children. When their newborn son mysteriously vanishes and their crops fail, the family begins to turn on one another. ‘The Witch’ is a chilling portrait of a family unraveling within their own sins, leaving them prey for an inescapable evil.

10 Fare

A ride-share driver finds himself transporting the man who is secretly sleeping with his wife.

9 Hush

A deaf writer who retreated into the woods to live a solitary life must fight for her life in silence when a masked killer appears at her window.

8 Edge of Winter

Elliot Baker seizes the chance to develop a better relationship with his sons when his ex-wife, Karen, and her new husband take a vacation and leave the boys with him. What starts as a bonding opportunity turns into a nightmarish adventure when they get stranded in a deserted cabin near the lake as night falls and a snowstorm rages. Bradley, 15, and Caleb, 12, quickly learn more about their father and what they truly mean to him in this gripping tale of family and survival

7 Chocolate Strawberry Vanilla

A black comedy/drama about a lonely ice-cream van driver, Warren Thompson, and his unhealthy obsession with television soap starlet, Katey George.

6 Be My Cat: A Film for Anne

Obsessed with making a movie with Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway, a young man in Romania goes to shocking extremes using three local actresses to shoot scenes from the movie to send to Anne as proof of his filmmaking and acting skills.

5 The Monster

Kathy is the alcoholic and smoking addicted mother of the young, but mature teenager Lizzy. They live together since Kathy’s husband Roy left her, and she neglects her daughter. Kathy is supposed to drive Lizzy to her father’s home in the morning, but she sleeps until late afternoon and they have to travel during a rainy night. While driving through a lonely road through the woods, Kathy hits a wolf that breaks her car, leaving them stranded on the empty road. They call 911 and while waiting for the tow truck and an ambulance, the wolf disappears from the road. When the tow truck arrives, the mechanic Jesse tells that he needs to fix the axle and an oil leakage to tow her car. While repairing the vehicle, a monster attacks him but neither Kathy nor Lizzy note. When they seek Jesse out, they realize that they are not alone in the spot. Further, Kathy learns that monsters do exist. Will they be rescued on time?

4 The Wailing

In the small village Goksung in South Korea, police officer Jong-Goo investigates bizarre murders caused by a mysterious disease. His partner tells a gossip for him that a Japanese stranger that lives in a secluded house in the mountains would be an evil spirit responsible for the illness. Jong-Goo decides to visit the Japanese with his partner and a young priest that speaks Japanese. They find an altar with a goat head and pictures of the infected people that died on the walls. However they are attacked by the guard dog and they only can leave the place when the stranger arrives. Jong-Goo finds one shoe of his beloved daughter Hyo-jin in the house of the stranger and soon she becomes sick. His mother-in-law summons the shaman Il-gwang to save her granddaughter while a mysterious woman tells Jong-Goo that the stranger is the responsible. Who might be the demon that is bringing sickness to Goksung?

3 Train to Busan

Sok-woo and his daughter Soo-ahn are boarding the KTX, a fast train that shall bring them from Seoul to Busan. But during their journey, the train is overrun by zombies which kill several of the train staff and other passengers.While the KTX is shooting towards Busan, the passengers have to fight for their lives against the zombies.

2 Green Room

A band straying into a secluded part of the Pacific Northwest stumbles onto a horrific act of violence. Because they are the only witnesses, they become the targets of a terrifying gang of skinheads who want to make sure all the evidence is eliminated.

1 Don’t Breathe

Rocky, a young woman wanting to start a better life for her and her sister, agrees to take part in the robbery of a house owned by a wealthy blind man with her boyfriend Money and their friend Alex. But when the blind man turns out to be a more ruthless adversary than he seems, the group must find a way to escape his home before they become his newest victims.