Horror Movies in 2019 - Sophomore Slumps and Murdering Chumps

Your body isn't elastic enough to receive the amount of Blumhouse that's about to be crammed into it.

Welcome to another year of horror supernatural thrillers. This list will be updated throughout the year (for realsies this time. Seriously) because incredible movies tend to appear out of nowhere at a festival in Toronto or Austin or pop up on Netfilx without warning. This will consist of mostly theatrical releases and a smattering of notable Netflix/Hulu/Shudder/VOD exclusives. I won't do every single one of those because I only have a finite amount of time left in this world. 

Summaries in quotes and italics are taken from IMDb. No, I don't know why the Youtube integration is so shitty. 

Update 1: Grudge has been delayed until January 2020. So...that's a good sign. 

***

Escape Room

January 4

Directed by: Adam Robitel

Written by: Bragi F. Schut, Maria Melnik

Starring: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Tyler Labine, Jay Ellis, Nik Dodani

"Six strangers find themselves in circumstances beyond their control, and must use their wits to survive."

Did someone say January horror? It almost feels wrong to start the year without a Resident Evil, Underworld, or Insidious installment. It’s like Christmas without Santa, or Christmas without eggnog, or Christmas without depression. Nevertheless, we persist. 

The first slice of horror in 2019 is a PG-13 movie about escape rooms starring my least favorite character from Daredevil not named Foggy Nelson, Dale from Tucker and Dale, AND a Disney Channel kid? You already know I'm here for it.  

Glass

January 18

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Written by: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sarah Paulson, Samuel L. Jackson

"Security guard David Dunn uses his supernatural abilities to track Kevin Wendell Crumb, a disturbed man who has twenty-four personalities."

"Cautiously optimistic" is the only way to describe my approach to Glass. Sure, Split is pretty great if you ignore the whole sexually assaulting a child thing that's just kind of casually unresolved, and I liked The Visit a fair deal, but 2 good movies in 15 years isn't enough to convince me. I would love for it to be great, but Shyamalan's track record and the odds of Bruce Willis actually trying have me nervous. 

The Final Wish

January 24 

Directed by: Timothy Woodward Jr.

Written by: Jeffrey Reddick, William Halfon, Jonathan Doyle

Starring: Lin Shaye, Michael Welch, Melissa Bolona, Spencer Locke, Tony Todd

"After the death of his father, Aaron returns home to help his grief-stricken mother and to confront his past. Going through his dad's belongings, he comes across a mysterious item that is more than it seems."

The Final Wish is a movie I was going to leave off the list. Then I watched the trailer. A cross between Final Destination and Wish Upon with Lin Shaye and Tony Todd? Your boy is back on his bullshit. Final Destination is one of the most consistently entertaining franchises, and its creator is on board as a writer. I can't wait. 

Velvet Buzzsaw

February 1

Directed by: Dan Gilroy

Written by: Dan Gilroy

Starring: John Malkovich, Jake Gyllenhaal, Renee Russo, Zawe Ashton, Billy Magnussen, Toni Collette, Natalie Dyer, Daveed Diggs

"Big money artists and mega-collectors pay a high price when art collides with commerce.”

Boy that plot description sure buries the lede. 2018 was rough, and 2019 might be bringing unspeakable terrors of its own. At the very least you can wake up knowing that the writer and director of Nightcrawler is teaming up with Gyllenhaal and Russo again in a movie about something supernaturally fucked up merking rich people. I can't wait to se-I'm sorry, what's that? It's premiering on Netflix, you say? I'm not saying that significantly lowers my interest but...maybe this will be the exception to the rule and I'll have a great time. Hopefully.  

The Prodigy

February 8

Directed by: Nicholas McCarthy

Written by: Jeff Buhler

Starring: Taylor Schilling, Jackson Robert Scott, Colm Feore

"A mother concerned about her young son's disturbing behavior thinks something supernatural may be affecting him."

My Twitter timeline is already full of pictures of this spooky child and his little half monster face. If The Nun taught us one thing, it's that if you have spooky ads that make people jump, they'll pay to see it in a theater. You put that little skeleton face everywhere and snag one of the kids from It to play the spooky haunted child and baby you got a stew goin.

St. Agatha

February 8

Directed by: Darren Lynn Bousman

Written by: Andy Demetrio, Shaun Fletcher, Sara Sometti Michaels, Clint Sears

Starring: Sabrina Kern, Carolyn Hennesy, Courntey Halverson, Seth Michaels, Trin Miller

"Set in the 1950s in small-town Georgia, a pregnant young woman named Agatha seeks refuge in a convent. What first starts out as the perfect place to have a child turns into a dark layer where silence is forced, ghastly secrets are masked, and every bit of will power Agatha has is tested as she learns the sick and twisted truth of the convent and the odd people that lurk inside its halls."

Did someone say nunsploitation? It might not be the genre we want to make a comeback, but it's the one we need. Bousman has been busy creating immersive haunts for the last couple of years, so I'm excited to see how he applies what he learned from submitting people to a living nightmare to scary nuns. 

The Amityville Murders

February 8

Directed by: Daniel Farrands

Written by: Daniel Farrands

Starring: John Robinson, Chelsea Ricketts, Paul Ben-Victor, Diane Franklin, Lainie Kazan, Burt Young

"On the night of November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. took a high-powered rifle and murdered his entire family as they slept. At his trial, DeFeo claimed that "voices" in the house commanded him to kill. This is their story."

That's right. Another one. Another one this year, and then the next year, and the year after that. Every year until this dying planet melts us all. We're going aaaaaaaaaaaaaall the way back, back before the original film with James Brolin's incredible hair. This is the story of Ron DeFeo having an extremely normal one and shooting his family in their sleep.

This is totally unrelated, but I looked up the director's credits and he has carved out a powerful niche for himself.  

2019: The Haunting of Sharon Tate

2019: The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson

2018: The Amityville Murders

2013: Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th

2011: Scream: The Inside Story

2010: Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy

2009: The Crystal Lake Massacres Revisited

2009: Mind Over Matter: The Truth About Telekinesis

2009: The Fear is Real: Reinvestigating the Hautning (in Connecticut)

2009: His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th

2000-2001: History's Mysteries (3 episodes)

 - The True Story of Rob Roy

 - Amityville: Horror or Hoax

 - Amityville: The Haunting 

And for those of you wondering at home: Hillary Duff is playing Sharon Tate. I love movies so much. 

Happy Death Day 2U

February 13

Directed by: Christopher Landon

Written by: Christopher Landon

Starring: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Phi Vu, Suraj Sharma, Sarah Yarkin, Ruby Modine

*Spoilers for first movie in the trailer*

"Tree Gelbman discovers that dying over and over was surprisingly easier than the dangers that lie ahead."

I'm going to be honest with you, Gentle Reader. I didn't need to see a trailer. As soon as they announced the tittle I was in love. Embracing a silly title wins brownie points from me every single time. Happy Death Day is one of the biggest surprises in recent years and I'm more than willing to jump back into that world. I don't want to say too much because the movie picks up right after the first one and the trailer I posted spoils the shit out of it. The long and short of it is things happened, she escaped the time loop, but now she's back in it - and so are her friends. 

Climax

March 1

Directed by: Gaspar Noé,

Written by: Gaspar Noé,

Starring: Sofia Boutella and a lot of French dancers

"French dancers gather in a remote, empty school building to rehearse on a wintry night. The all-night celebration morphs into a hallucinatory nightmare when they learn their sangria is laced with LSD."

Gaspar Noe is the Orson Welles of making movies that you watch once and vow to never put yourself through again. Irreversible is a fantastic movie that I will never rewatch as long as I live. Climax has a fantastic elevator pitch of a plot, and if anyone else was directing it I would be first in line. Unfortunately, since it's Noe, I know it's going to be a movie I watch alone on my laptop with the door locked and I'll feel disgusting for days afterwards. 

The Hole in the Ground

March 1

Directed by: Lee Cronin

Written by: Lee Cronin, Stephen Shields

Starring:  Seána Kerslake, James Quinn Markey, Simone Kirby, Steve Wall, Eoin Macken

"Trying to escape her broken past, Sarah O'Neill is building a new life on the fringes of a backwood rural town with her young son Chris. A terrifying encounter with a mysterious neighbour shatters her fragile security, throwing Sarah into a spiralling nightmare of paranoia and mistrust, as she tries to uncover if the disturbing changes in her little boy are connected to an ominous sinkhole buried deep in the forest that borders their home."

I've never heard of this but it that trailer says A24, so I've got a solid 85% chance of enjoying it. Spooky kid movies are almost impossible to fuck up, so count me in. To top it off, it's an Irish film so I get to watch a movie about a haunted child and then tell people that I just got back from seeing a foreign film. I love being cultured. 

Among the Shadows

March 5

Directed by: Tiago Mesquita

Written by: Mark Morgan

Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Charlotte Beckett, Gianni Capaldi, Dominik Madani, Olivier Englebert, Daniel Hugh Kelly

"A private investigator must unravel the murder of her uncle while keeping the secret that she is a descendant from a line of werewolves."

Y'all. I fucking love movies. 

Us

March 22

Directed by: Jordan Peele

Written by: Jordan Peele

Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Yahya Abdul Mateen II, Anna Diop

"A mother and father take their kids to their beach house, expecting to enjoy time with friends, but their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some visitors arrive uninvited."

Honestly...do I really need to say anything? There's not a chance anyone reading this won't be seeing Us. If Us ends up being on the same level as Get Out, then Peele has a blank check as far as I'm concerned and I'll see anything with his name on it. If it's bad, I'll be utterly devastated and Alex will never let me hear the fucking end of it. 

Wounds

March 29

Directed by: Babak Anvari

Written by: Babak Anvari

Starring: Armie Hammer, Dakota Johnson, Zazie Beetz

"Disturbing and mysterious things begin to happen to a bartender in New Orleans after he picks up a phone left behind at his bar."

This is one reason why I love horror as much as I do. I stumble upon a movie that doesn't even have a trailer to watch a month before it opens, is directed by a British-Iranian director I've never heard of, but has three great leads and an intriguing premise. This could very easily be one of those movies that comes out of nowhere and blows people away. Or it could be awful, in which case I'll delete this and nobody will ever know. 

Captive State

March 29

Directed by: Rupert Wyatt

Written by: Erica Beeney, Rupert Wyatt

Starring: John Goodman, Ashton Sanders, Vera Farmiga, Jonathan Majors, Machine Gun Kelly

"Set in a Chicago neighborhood nearly a decade after an occupation by an extra-terrestrial force, Captive State explores the lives on both sides of the conflict - the collaborators and dissidents."

I'm going to be completely honest with you, Gentle Reader. This isn't really horror. It doesn't belong on this list. But here's the thing: after stumbling across it myself, I feel as if I would be doing a disservice if I did not make as many people aware of it as possible. Earth has been occupied by aliens for a decade, and John Goodman is recruiting a rebel group to fight back. Also Machine Gun Kelly is in it. 

Pet Sematary

April 5, 2019

Directed by: Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer

Written by: Jeff Buhler

Starring: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow

"Louis Creed, his wife Rachel and their two children Gage and Ellie move to a rural home where they are welcomed and enlightened about the eerie 'Pet Sematary' located near their home. After the tragedy of their cat being killed by a truck, Louis resorts to burying it in the mysterious pet cemetery, which is definitely not as it seems, as it proves to the Creeds that sometimes, dead is better."

It's time to wendigo to the polls, folks. A fancy city doctor moves his family out to the country. Just a regular, normal house next to a pet cemetery that is built on top of an ancient burial ground. His toddler gets pancaked by a Mack Truck, so he buries his littlest son in the cemetery where things don't stay dead and he comes back - as the locals say - all fucked up.  

There's a lot of history down this road, including an adaptation from Mary Lambert in 1989 and a follow up that is...flawed, to say the least. As you all know, It made approximately 70 billion dollars last year, so everything old is new again and all bets are off. Lambert's adaptation has some great things - namely Fred Gwynne and Cousin Zelda - but I've always found it to be a bit lacking. Of all movies to be remade, I'm not terribly upset at a studio taking another crack at one of King's most haunting stories. What's even more exciting is that this remake is being helmed by Kolsch and Widmyer, the duo that directed Starry Eyes, one of my favorite horror movies of this decade. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't eagerly anticipating their take on the story.

Hellboy

April 12

Directed by: Neil Marshall

Written by: Andrew Cosby, Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Aaron Coleite

Starring: David Harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim

"Based on the graphic novels by Mike Mignola, Hellboy, caught between the worlds of the supernatural and human, battles an ancient sorceress bent on revenge."

Does this look like a remake of the original? Yes. Does this really need to exist? Maybe not. Am I still salty that there's never going to be a Guillermo del Toro directed Hellboy 3? Absolutely. But as much as I don't like remakes and reboots and yadda yadda yadda, I support great genre directors getting handed fat stacks of cash to make something. As far as I see it, even if this is awful, whatever money Neil Marshall got paid to make this is a thank you for Dog Soldiers and The Descent.

The Curse of La Llorona

April 19

Directed by: Michael Chaves

Written by: Mikki Daughtry, Tobias Iaconis

Starring: Linda Cardellini, Raymond Cruz, Patricia Velásquez

"Ignoring the eerie warning of a troubled mother suspected of child endangerment, a social worker and her own small kids are soon drawn into a frightening supernatural realm."

This spooky ghost lady jump scare-a-thon is Michael Chaves' feature length debut and being produced by James Wan. Wan must have seen something he liked out of this freshman film, because he's handed over the keys to The Conjuring and chose Chaves to direct the third installment. From the bit I've seen from the trailer, La Llorona looks like it would fit in well in the Conjuring Universe. Whether you're into jump scare filled ghost stories or not, it's up to you to see it and give Linda Cardellini a massive blockbuster franchise. 

Brightburn

May 24

Directed by: David Yarovesky

Written by: Mark Gunn, Brian Gunn

Starring: Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A. Dunn, Matt Jones, Meredith Hagner

"What if a child from another world crash-landed on Earth, but instead of becoming a hero to mankind, he proved to be something far more sinister?”

Brightburn (produced by James Gunn) is a movie that poses many questions. What if an all powerful alien fell to Earth and terrorized us instead of saving us? Who would be able to stop them? Why isn’t Elizabeth Banks in more movies? How many Gunns are there? 

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

May 31

Directed by: Michael Dougherty

Written by: Michael Dougherty, Zach Shields, Max Borenstein

Starring: Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Bradley Whitford, Sally Hawkins, Charles Dance, Thomas Middleditch, Aisha Hinds, O'Shea Jackson Jr., David Strathaim, Ken Watanabe, Zhang Ziyi

"The crypto-zoological agency Monarch faces off against a battery of god-sized monsters, including the mighty Godzilla, who collides with Mothra, Rodan, and his ultimate nemesis, the three-headed King Ghidorah."

I am going to be completely honest with you, friends. The world is an awful place. Just a truly miserable, horrible environment that will ring you dry of every ounce of life you have until there’s no more profit to squeeze out of you and then leave you to die penniless and sick. The light at the end of that tunnel is Godzilla, and if this movie is bad I am going to spin into a sad spiral and dig deep into depths of misery I didn’t even know I was capable of hitting. If King of the Monsters does not deliver, I will hit more rock bottoms than The Rock in 99. Fingers crossed! 

Child’s Play

June 21

Directed by: Lars Klevberg

Written by: Tyler Burton Smith

Starring: Gabriel Bateman, Aubrey Plaza, Brian Tyree Henry

"A mother gives her son a toy doll for his birthday, unaware of its more sinister nature."

Fuck this. Child’s Play has been Don Mancini’s baby for 3 decades, and despite the tender love and care he’s put into not only keeping the franchise going, but keeping it going in interesting ways and maintaining a Fast and Furious esque continuity, Halloween’s reboot made a shitload of money so here we are. I've got nothing against Klevberg, because despite my soap boxing, if someone offered me the chance to direct Child's Play I would take it that instant. His first feature film Polaroid is trapped in Weinstein Purgatory right now so this will be his debut to general audiences. No pressure. 

No Mancini (who is still putting together a Child’s Play TV series), no Brad Dourif, no voodoo. Bullshit. Go see Cult of Chucky instead. 

47 Meters Down: Uncaged

June 28

Directed by: Johannes Roberts

Written by: Ernest Riera, Johannes Roberts

Starring: John Corbett, Nia Long, Sophie Nelisse, Corinne Foxx, Sistine Stallone, Brianne Tju, Davi Santos, Khylin Rhambo, Brec Bassinger

"Five backpackers, diving in a ruined underwater city, quickly learn they are not alone in the submerged caves."

The plot honestly sounds cool as hell, and Roberts’ The Strangers: Prey at Night had one of my favorite sequences in any horror movie from 2018, but I can not support the studio’s cowardice for not naming it 48 Meters Down. 

Untitled Annabelle 3

June 28

Directed by: Gary Dauberman

Written by: Gary Dauberman

Starring: Mckenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga

If you're wondering why this is happening, let me run some numbers by you. The Conjuring Universe as a whole (2 Conjurings, 2 Annabelles, and The Nun) have cost a combined 103.5 million dollars to make. They have grossed a combined 1,569,001,120 actual real dollars worldwide. Expect to see one of these every year for a long time. 

The New Mutants

August 2

Directed by: Josh Boone

Written by: Josh Boone, Knate Lee

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Maisie Williams, Charlie Heaton, Henry Zaga, Blu Hunt, Alice Braga

"Five young mutants, just discovering their abilities while held in a secret facility against their will, fight to escape their past sins and save themselves."

Oh New Mutants. Where do we begin. An interesting concept with a solid cast that has been pushed back over and over with repeated promises of “don’t worry everyone, we’re making it scarier. It’s gonna be good, promise.” That’s not me being sarcastic, they pushed it back from 2017 to 2018 so they could add reshoots to make it scarier. That’s what they said. 

Rumors keep going around about reshooting massive chunks of the movie, even so much as adding entire new characters. Now that Disney has bought Fox and will most likely scrap everything X-Men related and reboot them, who knows if this even gets finished or sees the light of day. The current scuttlebutt (which hasn’t been confirmed so take this with the absolute largest grain of salt) is that it’s going to get delayed again and Fox is considering dumping it to Hulu in October. 

Midsommar

August 9

Directed by: Ari Aster

Written by: Ari Aster

Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, Vilhem Blomgren, Wililam Jackson Harper, Ellora Torchia, Archie Madekwe

"A young woman reluctantly joins her boyfriend on a summer trip where things quickly go awry."

IMDb's description is vague. That's fine, I mean it doesn't come out till August. We probably won't even see a trailer for another 3 or 4 months. No harm, no foul. But curiosity got the best of me and I wandered on over to Wikipedia to see if they had any more information than that. 

"A couple travels to Sweden to visit their friend’s rural hometown for its fabled mid-summer festival. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult."

Y'all. Ari Aster's follow up to Hereditary is about a pagan cult in Buttfuck, Sweden. I don't need anything else. Don't need a trailer. Just give me tickets. 

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

August 9

Directed by: André Øvredal

Written by: Guillermo del Toro, Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman

Starring: Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Austin Abrams, Gabriel Rush, Austin Zajur, Natalie Ganzhorn

"A group of kids face their fears in order to save their town."

2019 looks absolutely stacked with great horror, but outside of Godzilla this is easily my most anticipated movie of the year. I grew up with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and the illustrations inside have been buried deep, deep into my brain. As a kid The Exorcist didn't really do anything for me, nor did most of the slashers my parents would let me rent, but sweet fucking Christ I will never forget turning the page for the first time and seeing that woman's face. It was an ephemeral moment: everything froze, I couldn't hear anything but my heart pounding, and for a second it felt like I had been spooked so badly that I left my own body. This milestone in my life being co-written by Guillermo del Toro (who I would die for), directed by the director of The Autopsy of Jane Doe, and coming out a week after yours truly's birthday feels like the stars aligning to give me one good thing before my life spirals out of control.

It: Chapter Two

September 6

Directed by: Andy Muschietti

Written by: Gary Dauberman

Starring: James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Jay Ryan, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, James Ransone, Andy Bean, Bill Skarsgard

"Twenty-seven years later, the Losers Club have grown up and moved away, until a devastating phone call brings them back."

27 years after the first film, Pennywise returns and the Losers' Club return to Derry to kill that god damned clown once and for all. Chapter Two has a lot to live up to and at the very least they've got the cast to do it. No matter how this turns out, take solace in the fact that not only were they smart enough to split It into two movies, but there's almost no way they could create a more underwhelming finale than the 90's version. 

Are You Afraid of the Dark?

October 4

Directed by: D.J. Caruso

Written by: Gary Dauberman, BenDavid Grabinski

Starring: Beats me lmao

If you think I will ever stop showing up with handfuls of cash every time a studio markets my nostalgia back into my dumb fat piggy face, you've got another thing coming. There's not much out there about this yet other than the writers, director, and the fact that it's an original story and not just a retelling of an episode. Gary Dauberman is all over James Wan's movies and It, and D.J. Caruso has directed movies such as *checks notes* The Disappointments Room and xXx: Return of Xander Cage. One of those is one of the worst horror movies I've seen in the other five years, and the other has Ice Cube showing up with a rocket launcher. What I'm saying is you have to take the good with the bad. 

Zombieland: Double Tap

October 11

Directed by: Ruben Fleischer

Written by: Dave Callaham, Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick

Starring: Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin, Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg

"Columbus, Tallahasse, Wichita, and Little Rock move to the American heartland as they face off against evolved zombies, fellow survivors, and the growing pains of the snarky makeshift family."

Yeah. Sure. Why not. At no point in the last decade have I hoped we would get a sequel, but I also never hoped we would get a Grudge reboot. Or a Child's Play reboot. Or another Amityville. 

Being a big baby aside, I will say I'm intrigued by them getting everyone back. One of my core tenants in life is that I will never not see a movie that stars Woody Harrelson. Ruben Fleischer is hot off the success of Venom (SOMEHOW), and let's be honest: even if it looks bad, don't pretend you're not gonna go see a big budget zombie movie in a theater near Halloween. If you weren't that kind of person, you wouldn't still be reading this post. 

The Addams Family

October 18

Directed by: Conrad Vernon, Greg Tiernan

Written by: Matt Lieberman

Starring: Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll, Bette Midler, Allison Janney

"An animated version of Charles Addams' series of cartoons about a peculiar, ghoulish family."

This is such a supremely powerful cast that I honestly don't know what to do with myself. A lot of people spend their entire lives in search of their purpose. Mine is to watch Oscar Isaac as Gomez Addams. 

Nick Kroll playing Uncle Fester is why movies are made. 

Doctor Sleep

November 8, 2019

Director: Mike Flanagan

Written by: Mike Flanagan

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson

"Years following the events of "The Shining", an now-adult Dan Torrence meets a young girl with similar powers as his and tries to protect her from a cult known as The True Knots who prey on children with powers to remain immortal."

If there's one thing I can't wait for, it's to spend the next 8 months explaining that Doctor Sleep is a sequel to the novel, not the Kubrick movie. I guarantee that I absolutely will not get tired of "Well, actually"-ing people at all hours of the day and night, never logging off, never not posting. 

Are there too many Stephen King movies in development? Absolutely. Will most of them even get made? Absolutely not. Am I excited for a movie about Ewan McGregor getting plastered every night to avoid being haunted by ghosts? 1000% 

Also, that Mike Flanagan guy is pretty good at making horror. I've been a fan of his for a while, but The Haunting of Hill House should be enough to convince anyone that this property is in good hands. 

~ TBD ~

3 from Hell

Directed by: Rob Zombie

Written by: Rob Zombie

Starring: Sheri Moon Zombie, Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Clint Howard, Dee Wallace, Danny Trejo, Richard Brake

More than a decade after The Devil's Rejects, Rob Zombie is bringing back the Firefly family. How, you ask? Didn't Rejects end with them all getting shot to shit while Freebird played in its entirety? You bet. I don't know how they're coming back, but honestly I don't care. As up and down as his filmography has been, I will always stand up for House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects. I welcome a return of Baby, Otis, and Captain Spaulding to the big screen, no matter how convoluted the reasoning. 

Into the Tall Grass

Directed by: Vincenzo Natali

Written by: Vincenzo Natali

Starring: Patrick Wilson, Laysla De Oliveira, Harrison Giblertson

"Brother and sister are driving through Kansas during their road trip. Suddenly, they hear calls for help coming. They stop to investigate and get lost in field of tall grass."

We still have absolutely on idea when the hell this is coming out. We just know it's a Stephen King adaptation and that Netflix is going to drop it whenever they damn well feel like it. It's based on a Joe Hill and Stephen King novella of the same name in which a little brother and sister hear a cry for help and go deep into a massive field of grass only to discover there might not be a way out. Fun fact: At this very moment I learned that's something I'm deeply afraid of, so that's exciting. You know what they say, if you stop learning, you stop living. 

The Lighthouse

Directed by: Robert Eggers

Written by: Robert Eggers, Max Eggers

Starring: Willem Dafoe, Robert Pattinson

"The story of an aging lighthouse keeper named Old who lives in early 20th-century Maine."

I'm only allowed to see one artsy fartsy movie a year without damaging My Brand, and The Lighthouse is 2019's winner of this dubious honor. This is Robert Eggers' follow up to The Witch, one of the best genre movies of this decade. Please do not @ me if you disagree. We don't really know anything about this at all. We know that it's called The Lighthouse, Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson are in it (nobody else is listed on IDMb and Pattinson's character isn't named), it's in black and white, and the filming conditions were absolutely miserable. You had me at "fantasy horror set in the world of old sea-faring myths." 

The Nightingale

Directed by: Jennifer Kent

Written by: Jennifer Kent

Starring: Aisling Franciosi, Sam Claflin

"Set in 1825, Clare, a young Irish convict woman, chases a British officer through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. On the way she enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker named Billy, who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past."

2019 is playing host to several second efforts from acclaimed first time directors. Fingers crossed we don't get any sophomore slumps. We're getting Us, The Lighthouse, and Midsommar, and now The Nightingale is getting a release. Jennifer Kent's long awaited follow up to The Babadook was picked up by IFC Films and is looking at a summer release. I don't know about y'all, but I am more than ready to watch some good old fashioned 19th century revenge murder. Babadook was a fantastic debut, and the fact that Kent was given more scripts than she knew what to do with and decided to instead write and direct a movie about a young woman and an Aboriginal beating soldiers to death in Tasmania definitely has me curious. 

Rabid

Directed by: Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska

Written by: Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska, John Serge

Starring: Laura Vandervoort, Ben Hollingsworth, Stehpen McHattie, Ted Atherton, Mackenzie Gray, what the fuck does that say CM Punk and AJ?

"What happens when you realize that to achieve your dreams you have to live a nightmare? Rose is a quiet, demure, unassuming woman in her looks and actions. Her dream is to become a famous designer in the fashion world, but a terrible accident leaves Rose scarred beyond recognition. She seeks out a radical untested stem cell treatment. The treatment is nothing short of a miracle and wallflower Rose turns into the belle of the ball. It all seems to good to be true. She is now everything she wanted to be. But everything in life comes at a price and this new found perfect life is no exception."

It's the damndest thing. I pitched a little shitfit about remaking Child's Play of all things, but here we are with a remake of a classic Cronenberg flick and I can't get myself worked up over it. Does that make me a hypocrite? A big, whiny baby kicking his feet and screeching about remaking the killer doll movie but shrugging at remaking one of the best horror directors ever? A screaming toddler who picks and chooses what he selectively throws tantrums about?

Absolutely.

If you're going to choose someone to remake a Cronenberg movie, the Soska Sisters are a great choice. It makes so much sense that you almost wonder why it didn't happen sooner. The siblings behind American Mary, a movie about a medical student going deep into extreme body modification to make money, writing and directing a movie about stem cell treatment going terribly wrong with a bunch of fucked up side effects should be a hit.  

The Gallows Act II

Directed by: Chris Lofing, Travis Cluff

Written by: Chris Lofing, Travis Cluff

Starring: Ema Horvath, Chris Milligan, Brittany Falardeau

"When Ana Rue transfers to a prestigious new acting school, she encounters a malevolent spirit after participating in a viral challenge."

Wait, seriously? Of all movies to give a sequel to years later, why this one? I'm a staunch defender of the found footage genre but The Gallows is one of the worst I've seen. Why in God's name is it getting a sequel 4 years later?

The Gallows

Budget: $100,000

Box office: $43 million

Ah, I see. Well nevertheless,

One Cut of the Dead

Directed by: Shinichiro Ueda

Written by: Shinichiro Ueda

Starring: Takayuki Hamatsu, Mao, Harumi Syuhama, Yuzuki Akiyama, Kazuaki Nagaya

"Things go badly for a hack director and film crew shooting a low budget zombie movie in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility, when they are attacked by real zombies."

One Cut of the Dead is an interesting case. It played at some film festivals last year, but if you weren't paying attention to recaps from the Popcorn Frights Film Festival you most likely never about it. I would have never known about it myself, except for a little whoopsie daisy that happened at the end of 2018. With no warning or fanfare, it appeared on Amazon Prime. Illegally. Someone uploaded it and Amazon took a look at it and thought "yeah this looks legit" and put it up. That blunder has most likely thrown a huge monkey wrench in the creators' attempts to get distribution, which is a shame. For the short time that it was on Amazon before we learned what had happened, dozens of critics were tweeting and posting articles about how it was awkward timing because everyone had just published their top 10 lists and if this had been available a week earlier it would have been on all of them. I went from not knowing it existed to learning that it was one of the best movies of the year within 10 minutes. I didn't get to it in time, but if even half of them are right, this is a movie you all need to keep your eyes open for. 

Jacob’s Ladder

Directed by: David M. Rosenthal

Written by: Jeff Buhler, Sarah Thorp

Starring: Michael Ealy, Jesse Williams, Nicole Beharie, Karla Souza, Guy Burnet

"After returning home from the Vietnam War, veteran Jacob Singer struggles to maintain his sanity. Plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks, Singer rapidly falls apart as the world and people around him morph and twist into disturbing images."

What the fuck? When did this happen? How did this happen? Why did this happen?

It’s the remake nobody asked for, but studio execs know that most people won’t watch anything older than 2014 so here we are. It’s funny as hell that America has been stuck in endless wars in the Middle East for the last 2 decades yet this remake can’t even take the time to move the setting outside of Vietnam. Whatever. The studio has been doing test screenings of this since 2016 and took it off their release calendar again, and more likely than not it will be just like the Cabin Fever remake and nobody outside of a select few sweaty horror nerds will know it ever existed. Unfortunately, this ruined my day so now you have to know about it, too.

Horror movies were a mistake. See you in 2020!