by Neve Mazique
Horror is my favorite entertainment genre, and I enjoy its grotesque fruits all year round with romantic madness. It is especially satisfying to me to watch horror during Halloween, All Hallows' Eve, Samhain, Da de Muertos, and the autumn season. As a practicing vodouisant, hoodoo witch, and rainbow goth, I celebrate the thinning of the veil at the fall equinox and continue my dark revelry until December. My love of the macabre feels spiritual, political, and deeply fun.
It is in this spooky spirit that I bring you a list of films and shows that I truly love, all but one of which came out this year. Each title pushes the boundaries of horror, thriller, sci-fi, horror fantasy, horror drama, or horror comedy. They possess gifts unique to them and at the same time are perfectly situated in the political, environmental, and pop cultural zeitgeist. Now, ritually immerse yourself in the lush and treacherous landscape of my fondest revelatory pastime — watching, listening to, reading, absorbing, imbibing Horror.
Watch them in this order. Forward, backward, on a loop, your choice.
Tip: Star ratings are modeled from spice ratings when ordering food, 0 to 5 stars, with 5 being the spiciest. These ratings are based on my own nervous system responses while watching. I like scary stuff, but I know not everyone does! While every item on this list is spooky, not all of them are scary.
What it is: What We Do in the Shadows is a comedy, fantasy, horror mockumentary show following the lives of three vampires — four, if you count the energy vampire — and their human familiar who live together in an old house on Staten Island. It was created by Jemaine Clement, who created the film of the same name with Oscar-winning Mori and Jewish film icon Taika Waititi.
Scareometer: 0 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars
Shrieks of Delight: Natasia Demetriou, who plays Nadia, is one of the funniest people on earth. She has entirely radicalized my concept of what a sexy, empowered vampire is.
What it is: No One Will Save You is a mostly solo-protagonist-versus-solo-monster-style science-fiction action thriller horror. A young woman, living isolated from her former community, must contend with an extraterrestrial invasion in her home, alone.
Scareometer: 2 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars
Shrieks of Delight: Kaitlyn Dever, who plays main character Brynn, rocks. As a friend pointed out to me, No One Will Save You has no dialogue, it's practically a silent film. I was shocked by this fact, because I had only watched the film with audio description (AD) on. With AD, this movie is not only not silent, but the describer was working very hard to keep up. There is a sweet subset of horror that I like to call dance horror, because of the ways it relies on choreography to tell a story and set a mood. No One Will Save You is such a dance horror.
What it is: Our protagonist is queer, Black, and obsessed with a Grammy-winning queen whose fans are known as "The Hive." When you mess with the queen, you get stung. Swarm is a new delicious brainchild from the magical mind of Donald Glover. An artful slasher, pop culture critical horror, true-crime mockumentary, and, according to the opening credits, "not a work of fiction."
Scareometer: 3 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars
Shrieks of Delight: The angelically talented Chle and the queerly iconic Billie Eilish are among the shriek-inducing musical artist cameos in Swarm.
What it is: A teenage group of friends in Australia come into possession of an embalmed hand, cast in plaster, that allows you to talk to the dead when you hold it. As you might imagine, things do not go well. Talk to Me is a gorgeous, grisly, dramatic horror from one of my favorite production companies, A24.
Scareometer: 5 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars
Shrieks of Delight: Sophie Wilde, who plays the main character, Mia, is an excellent scream queen. She had me on the edge of my seat! Zoe Terakes, who plays a potentially nefarious (albeit hot!) supporting character, has my heart forever for their performance in Ellie & Abbie (& Ellie's Dead Aunt).
What it is: From is a dramatic fantasy horror series set in rural Nowheresville, America. In a small town that you only get to if you encounter a felled tree in the road on your way to somewhere else, there is a group of residents who are doing their best to make a life worth living. They find ways to bond, organize, and care for one another, despite the fact that everyone is cosmologically and physically trapped in this town with no end in sight, and each night, something comes out of the woods to hunt.
Scareometer: 4 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars
Shrieks of Delight: Harold Perrineau, who stars in From as the community unity-rallying sheriff, may have moved you before with his roles in Lost, Claws, and Romeo + Juliet. Harold Perrineau, Harold Perrineau, Harold Perrinau! I always sing his praises. If you enjoy the cinematic horror/dystopian fiction hope trope of people rallying together in the face of supernatural adversity la The Walking Dead, you might love From too. Also, the monsters here genuinely scare me.
What it is: Monster High gets even more queer, musical, and political! Monster High 2, the second in what might be a trilogy, picks up right where we left off, with main protagonists Clawdeen Wolf, Draculaura, and Frankie Stein enjoying some newfound popularity at their all-monsters boarding school. This popularity proves to be fragile, however, when a new monster, Torelei Stripe, returns from her time abroad to challenge Clawdeen for the role of prefect, leading a campaign capitalizing on fear and hatred, extolling the need for monsters to protect themselves from humans and witches (bad news for our Ghoul Gang, who are connected to humanity and witchcraft in different ways). Will friendship and liberation prevail against bigotry and fascism once more?
Scareometer: 0 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars
Shrieks of Delight: Rather than screaming in horror, you will be cheering with triumph, laughing, and even singing along. Recommended for ghouls of all ages, let these fabulous, talented young monsters snatch your breath away!
What it is: Delicate is the 12th installment of the horror anthology series American Horror Story. It follows a young actress who has recently come out in a horror film that's garnering awards buzz. She and her husband have been struggling with fertility, and it is her very ability or inability to get pregnant and stay pregnant and have a human baby that is the focus of this story's gruesome, gaslighting, high-fashion horror.
Scareometer: 2 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars
Shrieks of Delight: I think I have a crush on Kim Kardashian now (who plays the main character's publicist and best friend)? AHS is like the Snickers bar of horror media, and Kim Kardashian is its rightful candy queen.
What it is: The Exorcist: Believer is a dramatic horror and possession story that unfolds like a folktale. Two girls, one white, one Black, acquaintances at school, get together one night to do magic in the woods. When they finally come home, three days later, they are more than not themselves, and twice the amount of anti-demonic hoodoo faith power will have to come together to banish their possessors back to hell and save their lives!
Scareometer: 4 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars
Shrieks of Delight: Unlike past remakes of The Exoricist, The Exorcist: Believer is a direct follow-up to the original, set now, oh so many years later. Linda Blair even makes an appearance. We're being set up for a new era's take on this story, likely told in well-timed franchise installments. Which also means, more Leslie Odom, Jr.! — who plays the father — an actor who elevates everything he's in.
What it is: The Changeling is an episodic fairytale horror based on the novel of the same name by Victor LaValle. It tells the tale of Apollo Kagwa, who falls in mutual love with Emma Valentine, happily ever after. But once they are married and have their first child, they are thrust on a bloodcurdling, courage-testing journey through space, race, gender, place, and time. This is a Black feminist fairytale about trust, curiosity, listening, and love.
Scareometer: 2 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars; While The Changeling is not always scary, it is emotionally intense, creepy, and unsettling.
Shrieks of Delight: I have read The Changeling by Victor LaValle a few times, as well as the short story that he expands with the novel. I love his writing so much. This adaptation, to its credit, holds onto its fairytale roots by opening and punctuating scenes with LaValle's own narration. LaKeith Stanfield (who plays Apollo Kagwa) is our reigning silver screen manic pixie dream boy/scream king, and there's a good reason for that. The casting of this show is so satisfying!
What it is: Nocebo is a fantasy/folktale horror about a white, Irish children's fashion designer who has suffered a mysterious trauma, and subsequently has lost her work and her health. She struggles with new symptoms of her chronic illness emerging daily, until someone comes to her door — Philippine witch, who with a big smile and reassuring words proceeds to act as a full-time, live-in healer, chef, assistant, and nanny for the main character and her family, opening up a portal of transformation and discovery that just might reveal a terrible truth that has been kept hidden away for too long.
Scareometer: 3 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars
Shrieks of Delight: Eva Green, playing fashion designer Christine, has long been a crush and inspiration to me and she doesn't disappoint in this role. Chai Fonacier, who plays the witch, Diana, is a wonderful force of nature. I cheered for her. I followed her on Instagram.
What it is: Infinity Pool is a haunting, thrilling horror fable directed by an emergent prince of body horror, Brandon Cronenberg (son of David Cronenberg, a pioneer of the genre). It follows a wealthy couple on vacation to a remote (fictional) seaside country called Li Tolqa. There, they meet other wealthy vacationers, who have discovered a unique, disturbing way to have fun on the isle — a practice that will transform their lives forever and rip them from the very reality they cling to.
Scareometer: 4 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars
Shrieks of Delight: Mia Goth (Suspiria 2018, X, Pearl) is a delectable scream queen of the unhinged variety, and I love her for it. Infinity Pool is a potent, potable fairytale about imperialism, colonization, and predatory tourism to be downed in one draft, leaving you breathless, and changed after.
What it is: Only Murders in the Building is a mystery thriller comedy featuring a strange mix of comedy royalty, Martin Short, Steve Martin, Tina Fey, and Selena Gomez. When a murder takes place in an apartment building in New York City and all the tenants are evacuated, three neighbors find themselves getting cozy in a diner booth to listen to the latest episode drop from their favorite true crime podcast. What unfolds or spirals from there is this hilarious, glorious, sometimes spooky, and surprisingly wholesome three-season (so far) saga about three unlikely friends solving crimes, getting fame, and taking names, all while learning deep truths about themselves and each other.
Scareometer: 1 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars
Shrieks of Delight: I love stories about chosen family. The intergenerational friend/family unit that is Gomez, Short, and Martin's characters' relationship with one another begins like a bit, but quickly establishes itself as dynamic and complex. If you have a true-crime podcast habit like I do, you might find some uncanny similarities between Tina Fey's belly-laugh-inducing performance as Cinda Canning and Canning's podcast, All Is Not OK in Oklahoma, and some real-life, prolific podcasters of true crime (who I happen to love).
What it is: They Cloned Tyrone is a tour de force. At turns dark and often comedic, it is a sci-fi mystery thriller about a neighborhood of people rising up against a conspiracy to control them. It stars the bright and shining John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx as a group of friends who discover the plot and try to stop it.
Scareometer: 3 out of 5 Spicy, Screaming Stars
Shrieks of Delight:They Cloned Tyrone is a perfect film. The production gives us such seamless '70s Blaxploitation aesthetics that you might not realize the film is set in 2023 until someone says "bitcoin." The script is exceptional, especially the banter between Parris and Foxx. The performances are magnanimous and award-worthy. I felt moved and nostalgic watching Boyega now, an actor who I have watched come into himself with such dedication and poise. He first won me over with his performance in the teens-versusaliens sci-fi horror Attack the Block. They Cloned Tyrone has such a beautiful and culturally relevant audio description that I recommend, everyone, sighted or not, watch it with AD turned on.
NEVE (they/(s)he) is a multigender, multiracial, multiply Disabled, multidimensional, multidisciplinary terpsichorean artist of the stage, street, field, stream, and screen. They are an Indigenous African living in Duwamish and Coast Salish lands and traveling wherever they have access and an invitation. (S)He is a 2020 Pina Bausch Fellow and a 2022 Arc Artist Fellow. Visit them online at nevebebad.com and beyond.
Featured image by Lightspring/Shutterstock.com; edited by the Emerald team.
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Before you move on to the next story …
The South Seattle Emerald™ is brought to you by Rainmakers. Rainmakers give recurring gifts at any amount. With around 1,000 Rainmakers, the Emerald™ is truly community-driven local media. Help us keep BIPOC-led media free and accessible.
If just half of our readers signed up to give $6 a month, we wouldn’t have to fundraise for the rest of the year. Small amounts make a difference.
We cannot do this work without you. Become a Rainmaker today!