After long deliberation, these are my top choices for horror this year, and you may notice a few omissions like Green Room, which is a straight thriller and not a horror film. It may have been bloody, but it is certainly not horror. I also want to give a shout out to a couple of low budget body horror films that I really enjoyed, but just didn’t make the cut. She Kills is a fun, schlocky gross out film that had tongue firmly in cheek, and Killer Rack is another fun body horror flick that happened to have some really interesting subtext about body image and female sexual empowerment.

The Windmill was an interesting mixture of slasher film and Catholic guilt. Train to Busan did some interesting things with zombies, but in a post-World War Z world it seemed a bit late to the table. 10 Cloverfield Lane was surprisingly good but won’t hold up to multiple viewings. Siren was really solid and laid the foundation to explore more supernatural excitement in future sequels (the club holds so many possibilities). But enough about what didn’t make the list, let’s get to what did.