Ranking all the 2019 Theatrically Released Horror Movies

[Kyle]

My plan is systematically rank all the horror movie theatrically released (in the US) in 2019 and listed as (at least partially) being in the horror genre on Box Office Mojo. For the movies I've already seen, I will rank them and separately provide a short review. For those I haven't seen, I will eventually watch them (hopefully this year) and include them in the ranking with a short review after I have done so. Note: I'm not including horror movies that were re-released into theaters in 2019 (like The Shining, or It, or The Giant Spider Invasion).

THE RANKINGS
Midsommar (7-3-19)
Us (3-22-19)
The Dead Don't Die (6-14-19)
Ready or Not (8-21-19)
Zombieland: Double Tap (10-18-19)
Tigers are not Afraid (8-21-19)
Starfish (3-15-19)
It: Chapter 2 (9-6-19)
Brightburn (5-24-19)
Happy Death Day 2U (2-13-19)
One Cut of the Dead (9-13-19)
The Lighthouse (10-18-19)
The Divine Fury (8-16-19)
High LIfe (4-5-19)
The Wind (4-5-19)
Ma (5-31-19)
Crawl (7-12-19)
Annabelle Comes Home (6-26-19)
I 'll Take Your Dead (7-5-19)
Lords of Chaos (2-8-19)
Luz (7-19-19)
The Intruder (5-3-19)
3 From Hell (9-16-19)
Captive State (3-15-19)
Body at Brighton Rock (4-26-19)
Don't Let Go (8-30-19)
Doctor Sleep (11-8-19)
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (8-9-19)
Pet Semetary (4-5-19)
Tresspassers (7-12-19)
Rabid (12-13-19)
Depraved (9-13-19)
Escape Room (1-4-19)
Dark Light (12-6-19)
Little Monsters (10-8-19)
The Dead Center (10-11-19)
The Curse of Buckout Road (9-27-19)
The Curse of la Llorona (4-19-19)
Hellboy (4-12-19)
Child's Play (6-21-19)
Countdown (10-25-19)
Knife + Heart (3-15-19)
The Hole in the Ground (3-1-19)
Climax (3-1-19)
Prey (9-27-19)
K-12 (9-5-19)
Wrinkles the Clown (10-4-19)
Killer Unicorn (6-14-19)
Slaughterhouse Rulez (5-17-19)
The Prodigy (2-8-19)
Black Christmas (12-13-19)
100 Acres of Hell (10-11-19)
Gags the Clown (9-3-19)
Hagazussa (4-19-19)
47 Meters Down: Uncaged (8-16-19)
Shed of the Dead (5-17-19)
Apparition (12-27-19)
Rottentail (4-12-19)
The Final Wish (1-24-19)
Made Me Do It (4-12-19)
Wicked Witches (8-9-19) (aka The Witches of Dumpling Farm)
The Church (5-24-19)
The Golden Glove (9-27-19)
Clinton Road (6-14-19)

UNWATCHED
Piercing (2-1-19)
Blood Widow (8-4-19)
The Addams Family (10-11-19)
Beloved Beast (10-11-19)
Crepitus (10-31-19)
Ballet Blanc (11-8-19)

[Kyle]

Wow, that's a lot of horror movies to watch. Anywho, here's real short reviews for the one's I've seen, starting with worst to best.

47 Meters Down: Uncaged- I actually enjoyed the first movie. But trying to make a sequel ended up with a nonsensical mess. The budget was awful, resulting in cardboard rocks that you could see waving in the water, and stupid logic, like trying to scream to get someone's attention while you're all underwater and wearing scuba masks. Just terrible.

The Prodigy- This movie was so bad that I had to double check to make sure I watched it. It turns out I had and the reason I couldn't remember is because it was such a generic "evil kid" movie. Terrible. Go watch The Children instead. That movie rocks.

Child's Play- I was kind of excited to see this. I like Aubrey Plaza. I like the original cheese of the first movie (which was an actual horror movie, unlike its sequels). But this was just predictable and not compelling. Have you seen a Chuckie movie? Well, then you've basically seen this. You can't reboot a franchise that doesn't really need a reboot unless you're going to bring something new to it. And this didn't do it.

Hellboy- Oh man, what a disappointment. I really wanted this to be a fun, over the top action movie. Instead, it was just a rehash of the original Hellboy movie, but done so poorly. David Harbor is no replacement for Ron Perlman, and this movie-- in every instance-- is a lesser movie than the original. Go watch the original instead- it holds up and is great.

The Curse of la Llorona- I know it's popular for people to shit on PG-13 horror, but I like them as their own subgenre. And while I'm not a fanatic for the Conjuring Universe, I do enjoy their movies more often than not. The problem with this movie is that it's ANOTHER period piece (70s) about ANOTHER family in distress (the usually awesome Linda Cardeillni). I just feel like I've seen this too many times from this universe. The jump scares weren't even good. That's a cardinal sin in the Conjuring universe. Whatever. Not good.

Little Monsters- I really wanted to like this horror comedy staring Lupita Nyong'o as a school teacher on a field trip to a petting zoo with an obnoxious Captain Kangaroo child's host (Josh Gad) in attendance- all when the zombie apocalypse breaks out. It wanted so hard to be funny, but the jokes were often just too immature (and that's coming from me) or just fell flat. And the star of the movie is Alexander England, who is a terrible actor in this movie. Horror Comedy is hard to pull off and this misses the mark by a lot. Not awful, but not great.

Escape Room- You know what? I liked this dumb movie. Welcome to an escape room that's trying to kill you! Escape into another escape room that's trying to kill you! It's actually a great premise that was executed pretty well. Don't get me wrong: the plot is dumb, none of the motivations make sense and the acting is a bit iffy. But this movie was a lot better than it deserved to be, and I would recommend it to horror fans.

Pet Semetary- It's aight. You know? It's just aight. It's pretty much just an update of the original, which is fine because-- having recently seen the original-- it needed one. And look- this did just fine. But it didn't blow me away and it didn't leave me feeling rattled- which the first one did when I originally saw it. It's creepy kids that are pretty creepy. You know what you're getting here, and that's it.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark- So I don't know what the books were, so my opinions are what I thought of this as a kids, horror anthology. And it did a pretty admirable job with it. The acting was decent, the atmosphere was super creepy and there were actual scares to it. Horror anthology is hard, so it's fund to see a movie pull it off this well. The only problem with it is that it's definitely a kids movie.

Annabelle Comes Home- Confession: I have a weird love of these stupid, stupid Annabelle movies. Why? I don't know. The acting's fine. The plots are usually okay. But there's something about that doll that gets me. And I'm always disturbed by these movies. So look- it's decent horror. If creepy dolls don't work on you, then skip it.

Crawl- All you need to know is the premise- girl and her dad get stuck in their home in the middle of a hurricane in Florida. Then the alligators find their way in. Done. It's directed by Alexandre Aja who makes everything look gritty and dirty (watch the Evil Dead Reboot or Don't Breath) and he does the same here. This is the best alligator home invasion movie I've ever seen.

[Kyle]

Ma: It's Ma from Ma! This is a different kind of horror movie about a bunch of teens that befriend an older lady (played awesomely by Octavia Spencer) who lets them in her house to party, drink and smoke drugs. The things get psycho. Octavia Spencer makes this movie enjoyable despite it's flaws. It's a nice change of pace from your regular horror movie cliches.

One Cut of the Dead: I'm not going to say much about this because I don't want to spoil it. But here's the spoiler-free premise: it's about a Japanese movie about a zombie invasion that is shot in one single shot with no cuts. And unlike other "one-shot" movies that stitch together scenes to make them look like one shot, this movie is the real deal. But, as with all Japanese horror, it then twists your expectations halfway through and becomes a completely different movie. Just watch it.

Happy Death Day 2U: I've seen a lot of people shitting on this because it pales in comparison to the energy and fun of the first movie. And they're right, it does pale. But that doesn't mean it's a bad movie- that just means you're disappointed with it. I'd suggest going into this with a fresh mind and watch it on its own merits. OF COURSE it's retreading the premise of the time loop from the first movie. WHAT ELSE WOULD IT DO? They put some smart twists on it. It's fun and smart and a legitimate horror movie! I liked it!

Brightburn: I'm still confused why there aren't more people talking about this movie. They marketed it as a dark superhero movie for the theaters, so I understand why people were disappointed. I feel they should have just sold it as a horror movie, because the premise is great: what if Superman was a psycho as a kid? Y'all, this movie is so good if you view it as an understated horror flick. This is the type of movie that if you knew nothing about and just stumbled across on Netflix, you'd be bragging to everyone how you found the best horror movie of the year.

It: Chapter 2: I loved the first movie so much. So why did I only like this movie a lot? Well, first of all, the "adult" part of the book was also worse than the "kid" part. I like the fact that they ramped up the "true horror" even though I felt the first one was scary as hell even though it didn't have jump scares. No, my problem with this movie is the marginalization of Beverly. Sophia Lillis is amazing in the role and is one of the reasons the first movie was so emotionally powerful. In that movie, she was also the strength of the group. In the sequel, Chastain plays her as weak and timid. And I guess there's something to be said for everyone's PTSD, but she literally cries and does nothing in almost every action sequence. It was a big disappointment for me and kind of a crime to the character.

Zombieland: Doubletap: Y'all, I loved this movie. Was it just a retread of the original? Yes. But it was so faithfully done with a lot of fan service, but not too much fan service. The jokes hit, the actors were clearly having a great time, and the story was fun. I love both this and the original so much.

[Kyle]

Ready or Not: This movie is a horror comedy about a woman who has to play a deadly game of hide and seek with her inlaws on her wedding night. For another movie (Little Monsters) I talked about how hard it is to do horror comedy properly. It's just such a fine line to walk between making sure the jokes land and not abandoning the fact that you're still making a horror movie (I'm looking at you, Army of Darkness). Simply put, this movie nails it. It's a true horror movie that's also funny. It's tongue in cheek without winking at the camera. And if Samara Weaving, the star, doesn't become the next big thing (go watch Mayhem- also she's one of the daughters in the new Bill and Ted movie), then there's no justice in the world.

Us: It's Jordan Peele doing an actual horror movie. That should be enough of a recommendation. But look- it's a doppelganger movie where a family (led by the mother played by Lupita Nyong'o) is attacked in their vacation home by their doppelgangers. And it's terrifying. I don't want to reargue whether Get Out was horror (it wasn't- it was a thriller, but whatever- semantics). But without a question, this is horror and it is done perfectly. The tension is real and this movie sticks with you for weeks after you see it. It's a crime that Lupita Nyong'o wasn't nominated for her performance in this movie.

[Kyle]

Midsommar- I was not a fan of Hereditary, which was written and directed by Ari Aster, who wrote and directed this. I felt Hereditary was a near perfect slow burn horror movie that betrayed itself at the end. Where Hereditary was all shadow and gloom in it's portrayal of a woman's struggle with grief, this movie deals with the same issues, but in the bright sunlight and vivid colors of rural Sweden. The main character, played by Florence Pugh, goes there with her boyfriend and some friends on a trip. Then weird stuff happens. I don't want to say anymore because everyone should watch this. Florence Pugh's performance is breathtaking. She needs all the roles in Hollywood from now on. Honestly, this movie emotionally affected me in a powerful way. Everyone needs to watch it if they haven't, and then thank me.

[Kyle]

Clinton Road- Worst movie I've seen in years, and I recently watched the Happytime Murders. Everything about this movie shouts AMATEUR. Let's start with the opening scene in a bar (for no reason) where Ice-T and Big Pussy (from the Sopranos) are bar owners who are chatting with some patrons- who turn out to be the young stars of this "Haunted Stretch of Road" movie. Ice-T and Big Pussy scare them with stories about how Clinton Road is haunted. Then we never see them again. It was clear both were paid to be there for a one-day shoot and I think were reading their lines off of cue cards. The next red flag was the star- Season 5 American Idol finalist Ace Young. Oh boy. Look, everything about this was bad. The editing was atrocious and jarring. The script and dialogue sounded like they went through google translate, and the acting was just so, so bad. The effects were bad. The linear plot didn't make sense. And the direction looked like me and my kids tried to shoot a movie-- THEN I FOUND OUT IT WAS DIRECTED BY RICHARD GRIECO. Now it starts making sense to me. This has to be some vanity project. Holy moley. So bad. Here's the one funny part- everyone else in the movie obviously knows they're acting in a lump of shit movie-- except Ace Young. That motherfucker thinks he is acting the SHIT out of every scene. But he's the worst by far. Ooooof. So bad.

[Kyle]

The Final Wish- So I felt like I could get behind this movie. It co-stars Lin Shaye (of Insidious fame for non-horror folks) and is a monkey's-paw/wishes-gone-wrong movie. Okay, that's cool. Let's see what this is about. Not much. Nothing weird or supernatural or even scary happen for the first 45 minutes of this 90 minute movie. And then, as the wishes play out (and boy, does the lead character sure say "I wish" a lot in his regular speech, not knowing they'll come true), they do so exactly as you would imagine-- including and up to the titular "final wish" which brings about the resolution to the movie. Lin Shaye and the star playing her son, Michael Welch, do great performances with the material they have, but this movie is really hampered by a predictable script and embarrassing subpar acting by the rest of the cast.

[Kyle]

I'll Take Your Dead- Now this is what I was hoping for with this project! The premise is cool, a widower lives on an isolated farm with his 12-year-old daughter. Periodically criminals show up in his driveway with corpses. He disposes of the bodies. That's his job (his mythical name with gangsters is the Candy Butcher). Anyhow, one day a corpse gets dropped off and when the criminals leave, it turns out she's not quite all the way dead. Complications ensue. So the three main actors- the Butcher, his daughter and the not-corpse-lady are just freaking great. All three performances are note-perfect and impact. The only drawback to this movie- and it's a pretty serious one- is the insertion of a supernatural element that you're not sure if it's real or not. I didn't need that and would have preferred this movie much more if it was just a straight thriller without ghost-garbage. Even still, this movie was highly enjoyable and a good recommend.

[Kyle]

Tresspassers- So a horror movie doesn't need to be a unique idea to be good. And this is a great example of it with the subgenre of home invasion. The premise is two couples take a retreat to a vacation home for a weekend of sex and drugs. Then the home invasion happens. The acting is better than I expected and the characters have some serious complications to them that make them interesting and people you actually care about, even if they're not great people. The dread and terror was palpable. Just a really well done horror movie.

[Kyle]

Wicked Witches (aka The Witches of Dumpling Farm)- This movie is reminded me of what a slog this challenge is going to be. I'm surprised at how many "backyard" movies can actually get a theatrical release in a few theaters (even if it's just a vanity release). The Witches of Dumpling Farm isn't actually a backyard movie (that's what I call movies that look like a group of friends with an iphone shot in their backyard over a few weekends), but it sure looked and felt like one. The premise was simple and unoriginal-- a group of guys go to a rural farm to party, do drugs and score chicks. The ladies turned out to be witches (but also kind of like vampires) and killed everyone except our hero. Our hero escapes, finds there den, is caught again, escapes again and then... is caught an killed at the end. The first half of this ninety minute movie is spent "bro-ing out" with a bunch of irish frat dudes acting like animals. Then the last half is just watching the witches kill everyone and throw blood around while you listen to bad foley work. When it got down to just our hero left, the movie took a weird tonal-turn and seemed like an homage to Evil Dead-- and our hero a facsimile of Ash-- but it just didn't work. It was boring, predictable and not well executed.

[Kyle]

Body at Brighton Rock- I'm pleasantly surprised at how many original ideas I'm seeing, as opposed to the cut-and-paste monster movies I was expecting. This movie is about an inexperienced and slightly inept park ranger who, while trekking through a difficult trail, gets lost and discovers a corpse. She radios it in and is told that she'll have to secure the scene and wait for fire and rescue to show up the next morning. So she has to spend a night with the corpse. While there's a weird tonal disconnect with the beginning and rest of the movie, I found the whole thing enjoyable. Karina Fontes is great in the lead (and practically only) role and goes from whimsical to terrified convincingly. While there were some predictable tropes, I found this to be very well done and completely unique.

[Kyle]

Luz- Let me just start by saying that, even though I enjoyed this German movie, it's super weird and not for everyone. It's plot is uncomplicated- a female taxi driver is being interrogated by the police over an incident in her cab. It seems there may have been some supernatural forces at work and MAYBE someone is possessed. The real compelling tilt to this movie is in the disjointed, non-linear narrative. Some scenes are rendered in flashback. Some scenes are depicted in recitation and storytelling. Some scenes are shown in recreation under hypnosis. Seriously. And it all really worked for me. That's all I'll say about this movie, because the joy in it is really in the experience of watching it unfold. But if you're not into non-traditional storytelling, or experimental stuff- then maybe this isn't the movie for you.

[Kyle]

Tigers are not Afraid. Holy shit, y'all. This movie. It's about a gang of orphaned kids (between the ages of 5 and 10, I'm guessing) living in a ghostland urban part of Mexico. They get into trouble and are being hunted down by a gang associated with a cartel. And one of the kids might have three wishes to use. This movie is brutal. I mean, just unblinking and brutal. Even though the main actors are all children, the two main protagonists are absolutely excellent. This end is particularly profound and impactful. You really should watch this for yourself, but be warned- if you're troubled by seeing very young kids in violent, awful situations, then you might want to skip it.

[Kyle]

Gags the Clown- I don't hate found footage movies, but I understand why a lot of people do. The problem is that found footage is a cheap and easy way for amateur filmmakers who might just be getting started (or are not very good) to make a movie. The finished product normally has some glaring holes in some aspect of the production that is just terrible. It's not found footage movies people hate- it's bad movies. That's the issue with Gags the Clown, which is playing off the recent wave of "creepy clown" phenomenon in movies and real life. This movie has some really effectively disturbing and creepy imagery and some of the scenes are very clever and well thought out. The problem is in the scripting and acting. The actors are obviously friends of the filmmakers or other first time actors. Most are really hammy and simply not good. But what really cripples them from being able to give a good performance is the dialogue scripted for them. These characters are having conversations that people just don't have. They're talking to themselves in ways people just don't do. And the characters are all exaggerations of "good people" and "bad people." The good people are almost altruistically so. And the bad people are just irredeemable psychopaths that don't have a shred of humanity in them. It's just laughable. So while it has great creep moments, the bad stuff in this movie so outweighs the good that I can't recommend it.

[Kyle]

Starfish- You know, for every bad Gags the Clown movie I watch (and think about quitting this exercise), I discover something really cool like Starfish. Y'all might not find this to be true, but for me it's worth sitting through the garbage to find cool new expressions of horror in unique ways. I thought I'd seen everything there is to see, but I keep finding cool new stuff. I don't want to give too much away about this movie, but it's basically a one woman show with the incredible Virginia Gardner (you might recognize her from the Runaways) playing a woman whose best friend commits suicide. In her grief, she breaks into her dead friends house and wakes up the next morning to find that the small town around her has been locked down because there's weird terrors hunting in the streets. But the movie gets much more trippy and weird from there, including an awesome anime sequence. But I've said too much. This is beautiful examination of grief and despair. I really loved this movie and suspect it will get moved up my list (like Tigers are not Afraid) the more it sits with me over the next few months.

[Kyle]

Wrinkles the Clown- It's weird to me that a documentary was also labelled as a horror movie, but if that's what it says, then I have to watch it. So first things first: this is not a horror movie, it's a documentary. It's a very poorly executed documentary. It follows a homeless guy who leaves guerrilla fliers all over a Florida town and when kids are being bad, he's called to go scare their kids "for a few hundred bucks." Needless to say, the story isn't exactly what it appears at first, but I honestly, I just don't care. This movie spend the first hour just showing the creepy clown and having different people give the gas-face to the camera and act outrageous about this creepy clown. It was boring. And stupid. And the real story behind the story is even stupider. I'm stupider for having watched this.

[Kyle]

The Hole in the Ground- I've had a lot of luck with independent Irish horror movies lately. The Irish Film Board (i guess now called Screen Ireland) has put out some really smart, funny and creepy horror movies over the last ten years. So when I saw this was from the IFB (now the SI), I was a little excited. It's a well worn story of the creepy kid- Mom and kid move out to rural Ireland in large creepy house; kid goes out into the forest and comes back... different. Unfortunately for this movie, it did nothing original with the genre. It was a slow burn as the tension between the mom and her child built, but it was just too slow and the tension fell flat for me many times due to inexplicable character motivations. Growing dread throughout a movie is tough, and when the characters keep doing stuff that makes you think, "That was dumb, why would they ever do that?" you lose the momentum and don't care about the dread. That's this movie in a nutshell. There was supposed to be an underlying theme about domestic abuse and the suffocation of an abusive relationship, but-- either due to disjointed editing or a poorly designed script-- that message got lost.

[Kyle]

Doctor Sleep- It's amazing to me when you can have a "sequel" to a boxoffice and critical smash movie and, after it gets cycled through all the producers, writers and other committees, you end up putting out a mediocre product. The Shining did well because it took risks. This movie took exactly zero risks. Let me start by saying that this isn't really a sequel to the shining, my son put it best, "It's like a spin-off." While the story picks up the story of adult Danny Torrence, who was the son of the Jack Nicholson character in the Shining, this movie is about how special people have the magic Shining powers and there's a group of other vampire-like people that feed on their life essence. It's gory, gruesome but not inspired. In a two and a half hour movie, you would think that you'd have an investment in the main characters, but I didn't. I felt like it was explaining to me who these characters are and how they felt instead of actually showing me that and letting me experience it myself. Without spoilers, I'll just say that the original Shining elements do appear in this movie, but they seem like they are just shoe-horned in and served more for fan service rather than serving the story. This one will probably sink as I have more time to think about it.

[Zombie]

Doctor Sleep could have worked as a standalone movie. I was digging it for the first half. The whole third act was exactly as you say, shoe-horned, and it ruined the movie for me.

[Kyle]

Slaughterhouse Rulez- As I saw the summary of this movie, I thought, "How can there be another Simon Pegg/Nick Frost horror comedy and I never knew about it?" But after watching it, I realized that no one wanted to bring attention to a movie that turned out so bad. It's so bad. The premise is that there's an English boarding school where rich kids are made richer and poor kids are shit on. But something weird is going on in the tunnels below the school. For the first hour, I didn't even think it was a horror movie, but it eventually got there in the third act. But the horror was predictable and schlocky, and definitely not scary. But the real tragedy of this movie is that it's not a comedy- even though it tries so hard to be one. All of the jokes fall flat. None of them are clever or... you know... funny. I didn't even groan at them- they throw out a joke a minute, but they're all just terrible and stupid. Oh boy, y'all. This movie was so bad. And considering that I love the cast- Pegg, Frost, Michael Sheen, Margot Robbie? What a waste. I'm also becoming convinced that the genius of all the Pegg/Frost movies that I love wasn't because of them- it was because of Edgar Wright, who had nothing to do with this movie.