Two brown eyes dilate in the dark. They peer out at a TV across a room. On the screen, a teenage girl creeps through a dark house. Then we see a masked murderer, or a leering stalker, or a hideous monster. The young girl is doomed, but when, how? Brown eyes narrow as the music patiently swells, a subtle hint at the approaching terror. The heart beats faster with fear and excitement when a jolt action punctuates the scene! That’s what a night with a great horror movie is all about. But what year produced the most amount of those kind of great nights?
The argument for “best year in horror” comes down to two solar cycles: 1999 and 2016. Each year featured a large variety of critical and commercial successes. So, we took the ten biggest films of each year and pitted them against each other in–
–the ultimate battle for horror movie supremacy!
10. Audition vs. The Witch
Audition is a 1999 Japanese horror movie about a widower looking for a new wife. Sounds almost sweet, but the psychological film terrorizes viewers as it spirals into horrific and glorious madness. Audition is one of many great Japanese horror films of the late-90s.
Film festival darling The Witch is part period piece, part supernatural horror. Director Robert Eggers kept it real with a lot of natural lighting, spot-on dialogue, and detailed costumes and sets. For me, the movie is about the world’s most asshole-ish goat.
Verdict: While most people loved The Witch, I found it a little dull when it was all said and done. Audition, however, still holds up and is cringe-inducing.
