‘X-Men: The New Mutants’ Seemingly Confirmed For May Shoot In Montreal

It’s starting to look the official title of Josh Boone‘s New Mutants film will indeed be X-Men: The New Mutants, as it’s been an unofficial title of sorts making the rounds on sites.

More production news now concerning The New Mutants is backing up the recent article from Le Journal de Montreal, that the next main X-Men installment would be shooting yet again in Montreal starting in May. This would confirm the X-Men film shooting there is New Mutants and not some other mystery X-Men film.

Boone didn’t 100% back up the shoot taking place in Montreal, but did suggest on social media of a possible April start for New Mutants. So, it’s possible production could be moved-up if things go well enough during pre-production.

It’s brief synopsis also leads us to believe that Xavier could also be involved, producer Simon Kinberg had previously suggested that it was the plan to include Xavier and rumors linked James McAvoy reprising the role. This could mean along with the titling of the film that Boone’s potential New Mutants trilogy will indeed be the next phase in main X-Men saga.

Josh spoke with Creative Screenwriting (via Collider) revealing he originally pitched a trilogy to Simon Kinberg and Fox, which I assume might be perfect timing for the franchise that could use a new blood.

“We had loved this X-Men spinoff, The New Mutants. We had loved Bill Sienkiewicz’s run with Chris Claremont that had Demon Bear. It was really dark, interesting, and different from the typical X-Men stories that we had read.”

“After I made The Fault in Our Stars, we made Fox a comic book. It walked them through a trilogy of New Mutant films that would build on each other. We used this program called Comic Life, and took all the images we had loved from the series and strung them together to show them the movie we wanted to do.”

“We brought it to Simon and he really liked it. We’ve been going for the past year and a half to get it ready, and I’m about to go location scout and we have a release date now.”

Potential new cast members include Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Morgan, Split) for the leading role of Magik, who recently worked with Xavier’s James McAvoy on the film Split. James had been previously linked for a return along with Storm actress Alexandra Shipp via HitFix.

Anya revealed to IGN she’d love to be apart of it.

“I think the world is really fascinating,” she said. “I’d love to be a part of it. It would be wonderful.”

Alexandra Shipp also spoke to IGN and of course wants to reprise the role.

“I love Storm as a character. I’d love to reprise her in many different movies and be able to show people different sides of her because she is so multidimensional and I think that the people who love Storm at least as much as I do, really want to see that,” she said. “We want to see Storm killin’ it and kickin’ ass. That’s the best thing about her, how amazing and powerful she is.”

Game of Thrones‘ Maisie Williams had also been linked for Wolfsbane in that report, while speaking to Entertainment Weekly said “sign me up” when the role was brought up.

“I can’t say much about it at all, but I would absolutely love to be a part of it, [and] to be a part of the Marvel family,” Williams said about possibly joining the X-Men spin-off when asked recently by EW. “New Mutants looks absolutely incredible and I’ve always loved the idea of spin-offs and [director] Joshua Boone is incredibly talented. So, yeah, sign me up.”

Also, Fault In Our Stars and Death Note actor Nate Wolff was linked for the Cannonball role.

The other mutant roles expected to be filled include confirmed characters Mirage, Sunspot, Warlock and villain Demon Bear.

It remains to be seen who else will be returning from X-Men: Apocalypse.

I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if Josh Boone starts taking over the franchise from the busy Bryan Singer, as it’s starting to look like New Mutants is a full-fledged X-Men sequel and not a spin-off.

Kingberg and Singer have previously stated that X-Men: Apocalypse was the final chapter in the First Class trilogy, which could be mean New Mutants is indeed a main X-Men installment after all and beginning of a new trilogy.

Fox has yet to announce an official release date for New Mutants, although it sounds like Boone knows when that could be.

SOURCE: MY ENTERTAINMENT WORLD

’10 Cloverfield Lane’ Director Dan Trachtenberg To Helm Long Developing ‘The Secret Life Of Houdini’

William Kalush and Larry Sloman‘s book “The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America’s First Superhero” has taken an interesting journey through Hollywood. Gary Ross, Joe Wright and Dean Parisot have each flirted with this adaptation (the latter even had Johnny Depp attached to star), but none had quite the right amount of magic to make it to the big screen. Could a rising filmmaker be the one to break the spell?

Deadline reports that “10 Cloverfield Lane” helmer Dan Trachtenberg is in talks to direct the project over at Lionsgate. Noah Oppenheim (“Jackie,” “Allegiant,” “The Maze Runner“) has penned a script based on the book that offers the theory that Harry Houdini was a spy for Britain, was involved with the Secret Service and police organizations, and was asked to be an adviser to Czar Nicholas II’s court in pre-revolutionary Russia. All this will be spun in what has long been described as an ‘Indiana Jones‘ style adventure. Here’s the book synopsis:

Since his death eighty-eight years ago, Harry Houdini’s life has been chronicled in books, in film, and on television. Now, in this groundbreaking biography, renowned magic expert William Kalush and bestselling writer Larry Sloman team up to find the man behind the myth. Drawing from millions of pages of research, they describe in vivid detail the passions that drove Houdini to perform ever-more-dangerous feats, his secret life as a spy, and a pernicious plot to subvert his legacy.

The Secret Life of Houdini traces the arc of the master magician’s life from desperate poverty to worldwide fame—his legacy later threatened by a group of fanatical Spiritualists led by esteemed British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Initiating the reader along the way into the arcane world of professional magic, Kalush and Sloman decode a life based on deception, providing an intimate and riveting portrayal of Houdini, the man and the legend.

Remarkably, this is the only feature project Trachtenberg has inked since he scored a smash hit with “10 Cloverfield Lane,” so presumably this will be a major priority.

Tilda Swinton Sent Us Her Email Exchange with Margaret Cho About Doctor Strange, Diversity, and Whitewashing

Earlier today, we posted about Margaret Cho’s account of a “fight” she had with Tilda Swinton regarding her controversial casting in Doctor Strange, in which Swinton played the Ancient One, a character who originally was written as Tibetan in the Doctor Strange comics.

Cho portrayed Swinton’s approach as imperialistic (“I felt like her house Asian...like I’m her servant...like I was following her with an umbrella”). She said that Swinton requested Cho send a message to Asians regarding the casting, that Swinton did not understand the outcry over her being cast as a character who appeared in the comics as Asian. Cho said it was “so weird” and made the exchange sound contentious. She said Swinton ended the conversation by saying she was producing a movie starring Korean-American actor Steven Yeun and dropped the mic.

(When listening, I also got the sense that Cho was referring to a phone conversation that hosted this interaction—she said Tilda “wanted to talk,” referred to their exchange as a “conversation,” and said a mutual friend asked her, “Is it cool if I give Tilda your number because she wants to talk to you?”)

Earlier today, we reached out to Swinton’s rep Brian Swardstrom for a comment, and boy did he give one:

Since you asked for a response to a story you published today about the substance and tone of a correspondence between Margaret Cho and Tilda Swinton, Tilda offers you the entire unedited and only conversation she has ever had with Margaret - with her gratitude for the opportunity to clarify and with all good wishes to all.

He forwarded an email exchange between Swinton and Cho, which appears to have taken place on May 13, 2016, with the subject line “Strange matters.” It is reprinted below, so that readers can decide for themselves if Cho’s characterization was fair.

Dear Margaret,

We’ve never met, but you’ve been in my head for years - I’m a fan.

I want to ask you a favour now which is sprung out of a truly important social conversation but may be heading for some crazy-making shit.

The diversity debate - ALL STRENGTH to it - has come knocking at the door of Marvel’s new movie DR STRANGE.

I am told that you are aware of this. But since I am that extinct beast that does no social media, I am unaware of what exactly anybody has said about any of it. I believe there are some ironies about this particular film being a target, but I’m frankly much more interested in listening than saying anything much.

I would really love to hear your thoughts and have a - private - conversation about it. Are you up for this? Can we e-mail?

No wrong answer here. Tell me to fuck off if you feel like it. In any and every case,

Much love to you,

Tilda

From: Margaret Cho

To: Tilda Swinton

Sent: Fri, 13 May 2016 13:32

Subject: Re: Strange matters

Sure! I’m a big fan of yours - since orlando!

Well, what do you know so far? I can tell you from my perspective what’s happening!

The character you played in Dr Strange was originally written as a Tibetan man and so there’s a frustrated population of Asian Americans who feel the role should have gone to a person of Asian descent.

The larger part of the debate has to do with the ‘whitewashing’ of Asian and Asian Americans in film. Our stories are told by white actors over and over again and we feel at a loss to know how to cope with it.

Protest seems to be the only solution- we just want more representative images of ourselves in film. TV is getting better in terms of diversity but film is lagging behind.

Anyway - hope this helps! We can totally email and we can be private! Best, m

Thank you so much for your reply! So grateful to have a chance to chew this cud with you. Super clear.

Here’s the situation I reckon Marvel was in. The old comic books from way back when are stuffed with stereotypes that we could all find offensive for any number of reasons.

The film - like any film adaptation - is a riff on the books. The Ancient One may have been written as a Tibetan man in the comics, but Marvel, in a conscious effort to shake up stereotypes, wanted to avoid tired cliché. They cast Chiwetel Ejiofor as the second lead - a white Transylvanian in the books. And wrote a significant Asian character to be played by Benedict Wong.

With The Ancient One (the ‘wise old Eastern geezer’ Fu Manchu type in the book), wanting to switch up the gender (another diversity department) and not wanting to engage with the old ‘Dragon Lady’ trope, they chose to write the character as being of (ancient) Celtic origin and offered that role to me. Presumably on Ancient grounds. I accepted happily, impressed that, for once, they aimed to disrupt the ‘wisdom must be male’ never-ending story - and, by the way, for once, wanting to feature a woman who’s a badass, over 26 and not simply bursting out of a bikini.

The biggest irony about this righteous protest targeting this particularfilm is the pains the makers went to to avoid it.

A - personal - irony to my being even remotely involved in this controversy is what I stand up for and always have. Whether it is challenging the idea of what women look like, or how any of us live our lives, or how we educate our children, diversity is pretty much my comfort zone. The idea of being caught on the wrong side of this debate is a bit of a nightmare to me.

I am as sick as anybody at the lack of a properly diverse cinematic universe. Pretty much sick of the Anglophone world in general, sick of all the men’s stories, sick of all the symmetrical features and Mattel-inspired limbs..

I’m a Scottish woman of 55 who lives in the Highlands. There’s precious little projected on contemporary cinema screens that means a great deal to my life, if truth be told.

So

How best might we focus this thing? To offer intelligent and empowered thinking.. And see something constructive coming out of this moment?

Ducking the issue is not what I am about. I want to meet it, but, if possible, move things forward by how I meet it.

I realise, as far as I am concerned, this possibly means saying nothing: so far I have attempted to correct the notion that I accepted an offer to play an Asian.. (!!) the most significant and damaging misunderstanding out there, it seems. Beyond that, I don’t feel it appropriate for me to add anything, certainly at this point.

But I would love to know what ideas you - or anyone you know - have of something properly progressive to bring to this table. The debate is so important for all of us. It needs to build itself on strong ground.

love

Tilda

From: Margaret Cho

To: Tilda Swinton

Sent: Fri, 13 May 2016 20:44

Subject: Re: Strange matters

I’m totally unfamiliar with all the comic books so I can’t speak on anything about that - and the efforts to make this film more diverse is unfortunately lost in the translation here. Hopefully that comes up more when the film comes out and is finally brought to audiences!

I think that it’s just a timing thing - Asian Americans are fed up with not being given roles even if the part called for someone of Asian descent - and that the Ancient One role was being used as another example of ‘whitewashing’. Social media has grown to the point where we can use it effectively to express - well whatever.

I believe very much that you as an artist are about diversity and your body of work shows that - but this particular case of the Ancient One is just another in a long list of ‘whitewashed’ Asian characters and so you’re likely to feel the heat of history.

I am not sure what to say other than I am glad you want to meet the issue head on - it’s a tough one I know.

I think that talking about the issue frankly - as you have done with me is the right way to go. It’s hard I know - people get very angry and it’s difficult to know what to do to get around that anger. But you should know that it’s anger built up over many many years of invisibility within film/tv/media that’s just exploded now with this film. And it’s not just you - It’s also directed at Scarlett Johanssen for Ghost in the Shell.

Maybe what’s best is the highlight the diversity that you do see in the film and that being why you felt drawn to the project.

Also acknowledge that you’re all about diversity and how you want the films you make to be diverse and how film can benefit from that.

I’d even suggest getting into producing content that would give Asian American voices a platform? That’s really what is being asked for. Asian Americans feel as if we have no place in film and so we want one to be created. Whether that is found in supporting projects that would bring Asians

I can’t thank you enough for this.

It really helps me sort out the lay of the land. To be continued.

x

By the way, the project I have been developing as a producer over the past two years is with Bong Joon Ho - my colleague from SNOWPIERCER - a film called OKJA shooting this summer in Korea, NYC and Vancouver - to my knowledge the first ever half Korean/half English speaking film, which we are making with Plan B and Netflix, in which the lead is a 14 year old girl from Korea and which stars Steven Yeun, amongst others.. fingers crossed it will be a big deal and help the landscape somewhat.. I hope and believe it will..

From: Margaret Cho
To: Tilda Swinton
Sent: Fri, 13 May 2016 22:30
Subject: Re: Strange matters

Hey that’s great about OKJA!

We have reached out to Margaret Cho’s rep for further comment. If she has anything to add, we will update this post.

Jurassic World 2 – No High Heels for Bryce Dallas Howard

With any popular genre, there are a number of clichés to go along with it. Despite the fun of watching sequels, prequels and spinoffs, audiences often suffer the frustration of simply seeing their favorite franchise’s most iconic moments recycled ad nauseam. Whether its heroes diving away from a huge explosion or saving a damsel in distress, it’s only a matter of time before people start to get tired of the tropes. Jurassic World leaned hard into stereotypical damseling, relegating its star, Bryce Dallas Howard, to a decent amount of screen time fleeing from angry dinosaurs in fancy high heels. This stripping of agency has had many fans wondering why Jurassic World 2 would bother to include her.

There were many things about Jurassic World that led it to be such a huge hit – but Claire, the park’s operational manager played by Howard, may have been one of the least of them. While there was nothing wrong with the actress’ performance, there was much criticism from fans about how her character was portrayed. She often defaulted to the whims of the gallant dinosaur trainer, played by Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy). In era where strong feminist characters (and women in the real world) are becoming more empowered, her damseling felt out of place to many viewers. However, Jurassic World 2 director J.A. Bayona (A Monster Calls) assures fans that Howard’s character will come well-prepared for his turn at the wheel.

While promoting his most recent movie, Bayona discussed a number of elements about his impending work on the Jurassic World sequel. Birth.Movies.Death. reported the particularly revealing quote that “Claire doesn’t wear high heels in this movie.” It’s a somewhat inconsequential detail, but one that suggests her damseling days are in the past.

Details on the sequel are slim, but Bayona seems like a great choice for the helm. He has promised a “darker” sequel that deals with the issues animal abuse, and if Howard’s character has a more consequential role to play, it’s all the better. These creative choices could come as a solid change of pace to the tone that Colin Trevorrow brought to Jurassic World. Could the sequel be a better and smarter movie than fans are expecting?

Jurassic World 2 has a lot of responsibility on its shoulders, the least of which is the $1.7 billion box office of its predecessor. It remains to be seen if the film can bring the necessary goods to make a worthy and successful sequel to one of the most cherished franchises of all time. Luckily, it’s already exhibiting a number of promising elements and ensuring each lead character gets their due is definitely a step in the right direction.

Source: Birth.Movies.Death.

The 15 Best Horror Movies of 2016

2016 has been a great year for horror fans. Sure there were a few sequels nobody asked for, though a few of those were actually rather well done (the following list sidesteps James Wan’s The Conjuring 2 and Adam Wingard’s Blair Witch, but both films reward a late night watch), and there’s a few franchises we weren’t all that keen on revisiting (apologies to The Purge movies and The Underworld films, but we’ve long outgrown you), but everything from the ubiquitous zombie chase film, artsy period pieces, pastiche chillers, and exceedingly excellent foreign imports had us howling with delight and rejoicing the quality fright fare unspooling before us.

15. Demon

The final work from the talented and troubled Polish director Marcin Wrona, who tragically died by suicide while Demon was still doing the festival circuit in late 2015, this is a deeply affective rumination on the past as well as a bone-chilling cautionary tale about Poland’s ghosts.
Based on Piotr Rowicki’s renowned play “Clinging”, Demon details the wedding celebration of doomed bridegroom Peter (talented Israeli actor Itay Tiran), newly arrived to rural Poland from England to tie the knot to his enchanting fiancee Zaneta (Agnieszka Zulewska). The two have been gifted with her family’s rundown bucolic home where Peter unearths some human remains. The ghost story that follows fusses with the Jewish legend of the dybbuk––a malicious and mean possessing spirit.
Wrona unleashes a wealth of strange, sad, and even darkly enjoyable comedic set pieces and as the wedding ceremony proceeds, eccentricity and danger accelerates in troubling and unpredictable ways.
A fascinating fright film with beautiful imagery, strong performances, and some first-rate psychodrama, Demon indicates a burgeoning talent in Wrona, who most assuredly would have brought cinema to some unusual, eerie, and startling places. Demon being his valedictory film, it leaves a lasting and haunting impression.

14. We Are the Flesh

Presenting an Hieronymus Bosch-like vision of hell, Mexican filmmaker Emiliano Rocha Minter’s We Are The Flesh is easily the most transgressive horror film of the year as explicit incest and heroic doses of cannibalism permeate the post-apocalyptic wastes. Desperate and dangerously underfed, two adult siblings (Diego Gamaliel and Maria Evoli) hunker down in a debris-strewn warehouse more or less occupied by a menacing Mephistophelean-like figure (Noé Hernández).
There’s a bit of a riff on Hansel and Gretel for our two young innocents, though they do not remain innocent for long, nor it their nightmare any kind of walk in the woods. We Are The Flesh in is the kind of extreme and provocative filmmaking that will repel the squeamish while attracting the brave and boastful.
So much of what Minter puts on the screen, while impeccably framed and artfully photographed, is just wrong: graphic sex scenes frisk with eruptions of brutal violence as extreme elements dog-pile on top of one another until everything topples down. Fans who find Marquis de Sade tame and need cinema as outré as possible will get plenty of kick from this alarming and impressive beast.

13. Another Evil

Writer-director Carson Mell’s debut feature Another Evil is an eccentric, original, and gut-busting horror-comedy. Shot on a micro-budget this low-key comedy unravels like a mumblecore Ghostbusters.
After encountering a pair of gross ghosts in their cottage, a married couple, Dan (Steve Zissis) and Mary (Jennifer Irwin) along with their teenage son, Jazz (Dax Flame) take action the only way they can. They track down a supposed expert on ghosts named Joye Lee (Dan Bakkendahl), whose methods are loopy and whose knowledge of the supernatural seems sketchy at best.
After Joey informs Dan and Mary that they and the ghosts haunting them can live in relative harmony, Dan takes offence. He wants the ghosts gone even if it means employing another supernatural expert in the form of an odd exorcist named Os Bijourn (Mark Proksch). Soon Dan and Os are doing really wild things to rid the entities and all the while Os seems determined to overshare his inner desires, grooming a reluctant Dan to be his new BFF.
The cast, particularly Bakkendahl and Proksch, are hilarious, and Another Evil presents a steady stream of awkward laughs, more than a few creepy kicks, and surprising heaps of droll subtlety. If you like cringe-y uncomfortable comedy combined with your horror, Another Evil is right for you.

12. The Invitation

An astonishingly effective dinner-party-from-hell maze of mental anguish, Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation is a superb slow-burn thriller. Will (Logan Marshall-Green) is attending a dinner party at his former abode in the Hollywood Hills, and begins to suspect that the hosts, Eden (Tammy Blanchard), who’s also his ex-wife, and her new man David (Michiel Huisman), may have some nastiness in store for the assorted guests.
Kusama expertly ratchets up the tension in a steady bow from bonhomie to balls-out viciousness while also dropping some smart truth bombs about depression, grief, and surviving the peaks and valleys of the modern age.
Elegant nuance and tangible dismay smartly seesaws with our hero’s troubled psyche and all the slow-building pressure arrives at an awesomely unforgettable finish that’s eerie and alarming enough to have you cancelling dinner plans for the foreseeable future. Essentially something of a small-scale chamber piece, The Invitation makes for a suitably delightfully macabre gem that you’d better RSVP.

11. The Similars

Mexican filmmaker Isaac Ezban’s made considerable waves in the festival circuit in 2014 with his time warping sci-fi success The Incident, and now his stylish, strange, and artfully atmospheric follow-up, The Similars, is building a strong case that Ezban is an up-and-comer worth keeping a close eye on.
The Similars is set in an eerie, out-of-the-way bus station in 1968, and plays like something of a Twilight Zone tribute – complete with a Rod Serling-style narration – and is furiously fuelled and fed by an edgy and economical understanding of shots, cuts, and reveals that are rich in ambience and inducing enjoyable anxiety in the viewer.
This film intentionally presses plausibility with gory genuflections and paranoid-addled pastiches as wildly varied as Orson Welles, the Evil Dead, Alfred Hitchcock, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Fans of self-reflexive cinema with a taste for the strange, the unsettling, and a playful aptitude for puzzling together clues and complications had best keep close tabs on Ezban, a new cinematic voice who’s called and commanded our attention.
His next film, Parallel, promises amazing and precarious obstacles for a group of friends (including Mr. Robot’s Martin Wallstrom) who discover a portal to parallel worlds. If Ezban is at the helm you better bet we’ll be first in line!

10. Under the Shadow

Babak Anvari’s assertive ghost story is made all the more modernistic thanks to a stirring feminist slant that is set amidst the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Shideh (Narges Rashidi, brilliant) lives under constant threat of aerial bombardment with her husband Iraj (Bobby Naderi) and troubled young daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi) in an outmoded apartment building in Tehran. The sinking feeling of dread the family endures is palpable from the start and this feeling builds as does the story.
Iraj is drafted to the frontlines leaving Shideh and Dorsa alone. Their building is bombed and an undetonated missile brings along with it an ancient evil in the form of a Djinn.
An unnerving fright fest, Under the Shadow supplies a strong sense of danger, an enraging subtext, and an uncompromising finish that’s both chilling and resolute. Miss this film at your peril.

9. Don’t Breathe

There’s been a buzz around director Fede Alvarez for a while now and ever since his 2013 re-imagining of Evil Dead he’s been cahooting with genre legend Sam Raimi, who acts as producer on Alvarez’s latest terrifying spectacle, perhaps the best home invasion film this side of Kevin McCallister, Don’t Breathe.
Written by Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues, Don’t Breathe settles in on three teenage friends; Rocky (Jane Levy), Alex (Dylan Minnette) and Money (Daniel Zovatto). The trio foolishly believe they can pull off the perfect crime by breaking into a blind man’s (Stephen Lang) house, whom they have reason to believe has scads of dough.
Suffice it to say, Don’t Breathe wastes little time as it smartly twists and tangles its vigorous premise in a supremely well-crafted film that prides itself on nerve-racking sequences, first-rate action, and umpteen unexpected thrills.
Alvarez takes trouble as he piles on the suspense, carefully constructing the narrative with the precision and tension of vintage John Carpenter while also using the derelict neighbourhoods of Detroit like an execrable ghost town, as glimpsed in recent atmospheric horror films like It Follows and Only Lovers Left Alive.
With help from cinematographer Pedro Luque, Alvarez explores the dark corners, obscure passageways, and clandestined areas of the house with damnable delight, unrelentlessly exciting the viewer until the hard-fought finale. Don’t Breathe is a superior chiller and may well be the progenitor of a new horror franchise that’s off to a ghoulishly great start.

te of Cinema - Movie Reviews and Classic Movie Lists > Lists > Film Lists > The 15 Best Horror Movies of 2016

The 15 Best Horror Movies of 2016

14 DECEMBER 2016 FEATURES, FILM LISTS BY SHANE SCOTT-TRAVIS

8. Train to Busan

This South Korean apocalypse-shaded horror thriller from Yeon Sang-ho––previously known as a director of the acclaimed animated films The King of Pigs (2011) and The Rake (2013)–– is one of the most entertaining and enjoyable zombie genre mashups in a very long time.
For all of its fast-moving, fun to follow, and tightly edited detours, Train to Busan also wisely adds a wealth of social commentary amongst its excellently choreographed action scenes and the expected OTT splatter this type of film requires.
A Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) is a divorced fund manager who hopes to gain some footing with his estranged daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an) by agreeing to take her via train to visit her mother in Busan for her birthday. Quicker than you can say “Snowpiercer meets Night of the Living Dead” the father-daughter pair along with a ragtag rabble of mostly likeable passengers are trapped on a speeding train during an undead outbreak.
Sure, there’s nothing too original or groundbreaking here story wise as the survivors and the zombies who are hunting them revisit every archetypical cliché in the zombie survival playbook, yet Yeon Sang-ho uses such skill and cunning that it never really matters.
Train to Busan is a dizzying, fist-pumping, gobsmacking double dose of genre delectation with enough sociopolitical commentary, drooling dark humor, likeable leads, and ruthless propulsion to please even the most scoffing fright fans. This stylish exercise in End of Days entertainment is emotionally on the ball, and serves up some of the best onscreen mayhem of the year. To miss this train would not be at all advisable.

7. 10 Cloverfield Lane

There’s something very Orson Welles’s Mercury Theater broadcast to Dan Trachtenberg’s feature-length directorial debut, 10 Cloverfield Lane. After she survives a sketchy car crash, Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) awakens to find herself in an underground bunker with two shady dudes she’s never seen before.
One of them, Howard (John Goodman), is convinced they cannot leave the bunker due to mysterious circumstances that may or may not involve a large-scale chemical attack of possible extraterrestrial origins. And that’s the Wellesian bit. Is it all a hoax? Are there aliens up above looking to pick a fight?
Howard’s menacing, not-quite-right behaviour has Michelle hatching escape plans and questioning everything in her midst, and Trachtenberg, along with screenwriters Josh Campbell, Matthew Stucken, and Damien Chazelle (yes, THAT Damien Chazelle) keep their hand held close as the film grows all the more engrossing and continually, maddeningly, gripping.
10 Cloverfield Lane is a part of J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot productions and has been described as a “spiritual successor” to Cloverfield (2008), but whereas that film largely went for large scale disaster-movie conventions with respect and awe for the Kaiju subgenre, this film is a largely psychological chamber piece.
Buoyed by Winstead’s wonderful performance, and a thrilling third act that’s all edge-of-your-seat suspense, 10 Cloverfield Lane is an intelligent, tension-addled freakout that’s also funnier and more satisfying than something this bleak and ominous ought to be.

6. The Witch

With perfect period detail and unsettling aplomb, writer/director Robert Eggers’ directorial debut The Witch is in the chilling tradition of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist as fearsome religiosity mingles with stiff-necked puritanical fear.
Eggers, who recently announced that he’ll be following up The Witch with a reworking of F.W. Murnau’s horror classic Nosferatu, carefully constructs this tale of supernatural horror in 17th Century New England. Here we are introduced to young Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), who lives with her parents and siblings in a remote farm, where their closest neighbors are Puritans who view the New Testament differently than they, and so they are essentially ostracized from their community.
When Thomasin’s baby brother goes missing the family fears he may have been abducted by a witch and then before you know it the family goat, Black Philip, is apparently speaking some fucked up shit to Thomasin’s creepy younger twin siblings. As the slow-burning yarn skillfully unspools, the viewer is utterly immersed in a repressive, claustrophobic, and deeply chilling tale.
The production design adds great depth to the story, as do the strong performances, effective and authentic Jacobean dialect, the supremely unsettling sequences with witchcraft––and the monotheistic Christian beliefs of Thomasin’s clan aren’t any cheerier––making for a genre experience that really is quite unique.
The Witch is an original and upsetting historical horror film that would problem pair nicely with a screening of Michael Reeves’ classic Witchfinder General, as both films contain ample frights instigated by a repressive society, a fear of feminine principles, misused power, and a climax that’s both devastating and shocking.

5. The Girl with All the Gifts

Director Colm McCarthy (Peaky Blinders) and screenwriter Mike Carey (who also wrote the 2014 best-selling novel of the same name) offer up a tense, intelligent, chillingly provocative, and endlessly exciting British horror film in The Girl With All The Gifts.
The zombie film that World War Z should have been, this film takes the overdone undead genre and resuscitates it ferociously while also revamping a wealth of well-established genre tropes––apocalypse premise, creepy kids, mad scientists––tweaking them in eccentric, imaginative, and awesome new ways.
Newcomer Sennia Nanua is wonderful as the titular gifted heroine of the movie, Melanie, a second generation “hungry” who holds the key to humanity’s bleak future. The cast also includes strong turns from Gemma Arterton, Glenn Close, and the always impressive Paddy Considine.
The Girl With All The Gifts is a sharp synthesis of George Romero, Children of Men and 28 Days Later with it’s own biting revelations. Genre fans rejoice, this is the best zombie film of the year.

4. The Neon Demon

Probably the most polarizing film since Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin, The Neon Demon comes to us courtesy of partition-adoring Danish auteur du jour Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson, Drive).
A kinda sorta obeisance of giallo cinema, The Neon Demon mixes elements of arthouse horror, sticky satire, and Marquis de Sade-level savagery in the seductively sordid tale of of sixteen-year-old wannabe model Jesse (Elle Fanning) and her terrifying odyssey into the Los Angeles fashion industry, where bloodlust, libido, carnal cravings and cannibalism all combat for the whip hand with a velvet glove.
A suitably amorous and atmospheric score from Cliff Martinez helps the unabashedly sensual and endlessly eerie film unfold with just the right amount of hallucinatory expression to this beauty-obsessed tale of exploitation.
Call it pretentious and call it indulgent if you wish, and certainly there will be those who will want to debate whether or not The Neon Demon even qualifies as horror, but any film that is this glossy, this pretty, and also this unflinchingly gruesome demands the attention and adoration of horror hounds. This is a brilliant concept that artfully conjures the dreamlike juxtaposing of bloody disturbance and decadent experience.

3. The Eyes of My Mother

Startling and discomfiting from the start, Nicolas Pesce’s directorial debut The Eyes of My Mother is perhaps the most disturbingly formidable horror film of the year. Pesce, who also wrote and edited the film, sustains a precise and extremely well-defined narrative clarity throughout even though he regularly strives for and achieves a nightmare logic that would make David Lynch drool (and the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography from DP Zach Kuperstein adds to this otherworldly effect).
Francisca (Kika Magalhaes) has a thorough understanding of human anatomy thanks to her mother, formerly a surgeon in Portugal, and she also has a rather laissez-faire attitude towards death due to this upbringing, too.
After a particularly tragic event shatters her bucolic family life––no spoilers here, but oh man, it ain’t pretty––Francisca grows up a little fucked up, disconnecting from the world in astonishing ways.
The disquieting journey that Francisca takes the audience on attains a strange plateau between American Gothic and German Expressionism with shards of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy in there for added oomph. This is a shocking and unforgettable film that should not only signal the start of an impressive career from Pesce, but also from Magalhaes as well.

2. The Love Witch

“I’m the Love Witch, I’m your ultimate fantasy!” coos Elaine (Samantha Robinson, excellent), in the throes of passion to one of her doomed suitors in Anna Biller’s amazingly audacious film. Elaine is the come-hither antihero of The Love Witch, she has an eye for style and a desire for danger and her quest to find the man of her dreams might backfire if she doesn’t ease up on all the misplaced magick.
Biller’s film is a Technicolor melodrama that’s deliciously transgressive and decidedly dangerous as it explores the antiquated avenues of 60s and 70s sexploitation with glossy contemporary embellishments such as stylized feminist subversion, whip-smart visual savvy––Biller production designed the film with Goddess-level detail––a fitfully nostalgic soundtrack (Biller pops up there, too), stunning costumes (Biller’s work, again), and a variegated yet delightful script (yup, you guessed, Biller wrote it). If The Love Witch doesn’t build a strong case for auteur theory perhaps nothing will.
Ravishing, stylish, playful, and perverse, The Love Witch feels like an enchanted artifact from some distant, far more sophisticated and all round cooler place, and while it may not be a full-on horror film like other films on this list, it has enough incendiary ideas, stylish distractions, quotable lines, and savage stabbings to top any list of fright films. Also, of any film listed here The Love Witch has the best chance for acquiring cult membership with requisite midnight viewings.

1. Green Room

Offering an extremely vicious and unbearably intense punk rock variant on Rio Bravo by way of Assault on Precinct 13, Jeremy Saulnier‘s intense shocker, Green Room, is catnip for extreme action thriller fans and horror hounds alike.
At the ass end of an awful tour, Pat (Anton Yelchin) and his noisy punk band, The Ain’t Rights, are desperate for dough and so find themselves headlining a gig at a backwoods skinhead bar, way off the map, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
Soon the band bares terrible witness to something oh so grisly in the titular green room and soon the same room is all that stands between them and a blood-simple, machete-wielding, Neo-Nazi mob, led by a pants-shittingly-terrifying Patrick Stewart.
In Green Room, survival is a fool’s paradise, and hope but a mere blink in a broken beer bottle. As one brazenly executed action sequence follows another in bloody and rapid succession, duress and bloodshed reach a fever pitch.
The sustained intense onslaughts on our tapering heroes effectively obliterates any notions of assurance for the audience. No one and nothing is safe and salvation seems impossibly distant, if at all. A more thought-provoking and brilliantly paced horror film with so palpable a physicality you will not find, not in 2016 or any other year.
Author Bio: Shane Scott-Travis is a film critic, screenwriter, comic book author/illustrator and cineaste. Currently residing in Vancouver, Canada, Shane can often be found at the cinema, the dog park, or off in a corner someplace, paraphrasing Groucho Marx.

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