Macabro Tuesday: The Best Horror Films of 2015 by Chuck Pee

By Chuck Pereda for www.elsalvavidas.mx

Making a list of the best horror in Mexico is complicated — to start with, not everything makes it here, and even when it does, it's playing in very few (and far-off) theaters, at super weird times that seem designed on purpose just to mess with genre fans (seriously, It Follows on Wednesday at one o'clock? Ok, thanks for nothingCinemex.) In fact, you'll sadly notice that only one made it to Mexico :C

However, 2015 was packed with REALLY good horror, and — call me crazy — I decided not to include Ich Seh, Ich Seh (Goodnight Mommy) or A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (which, by the way, is technically from late 2014, even though it reached both Mexico and Netflix in 2015) simply because I didn't find them all that scary (in fact AGWHAAN is a western — Iranian, with a female vampire) and they left me a bit bored, but feel free to include them yourselves and ignore my recommendations.

Here's the list:

Last Shift.- I only just watched this one recently, and what caught my attention was how it's exactly the same premise as Assault On Precinct 13, but taken to a completely different place. It has its flaws, but the ultra-low budget never gets in the way of the dark, claustrophobic atmosphere it pulls off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p0KIrh8hyM (abre en nueva pestaña)

It Follows.- Well, since I left out Ich Seh, Ich Seh, I decided to go ahead and include It Follows though it's not the kind that'll scare the pants off you — mainly because it has a soundtrack that's spectacular and it plays on a very common fear, especially among teens whose hormones are in overdrive, taking it to such an extreme that it leaves you with a somewhat paranoid feeling even after it's over — which is what good movies do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymoh5SIqgtw (abre en nueva pestaña)

The Witch.- There's no way to describe The Witch that would do it justice — it's very similar to the horror of Ben Wheatley and it also has a bit of that modern horror classic: The Black Death; it's without a doubt an impressive debut and, curiously, has a brutal simplicity to it (hence the nod to Wheatley.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQXmlf3Sefg (abre en nueva pestaña)

Deathgasm.- I'm generally not a fan of “horror comedies,” but Deathgasm is maybe the most fun you can have with your clothes on and, honestly, it does get a laugh or two out of you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg-c7UpJZLQ (abre en nueva pestaña)

Bone Tomahawk.- If I left out A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night it's because there's another film that's much better and does the opposite: while AGWHAAN is a “horror” movie that ends up being a western, Bone Tomahawk is awestern that's rock-solid through and through and ends up being a horror film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lm5o5pZKt4 (abre en nueva pestaña)

We Are Still Here.- The. Best. Horror. Movie. Of. The. Year. With excellent performances, very good effects, a solid script with a treatment modern enough not to be 100 percent nostalgic (like The House of the Devil, for example,) but at the same time it does have a nod to old school European horror, or to films like The Changeling and Burnt Offerings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDJbCMvv9IU (abre en nueva pestaña)

Honorable mentions:

Creep Late Phases Unfriended The Final Girls What We Do In The Shadows Spring