The 2000's—the decade of iPods, social networking websites and economic hardship—were an interesting decade for horror movies, to say the least. You either loved them, or you downright hated them. From remakes, re-imaginings, reboots, restarts and resets to foreign imports to a resurgence of low-grade schlock, the 2000's were not without gore for fans across the globe....

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At the end of the 90s, horror movies were almost non-existent. They were doing nothing new—trying only to steal the fame that Scream harnessed in 1995. Theatres were flooded with neo-Slasher knockoffs, and mediocrity ran amok. If it weren’t for The Blair Witch Project and The Sixth Sense, the 90s would have drowned in a sea of its own plainness. Once the 90s ended and the new millennium began, horror slowly glided on the watered-down plotlines of the should-not-be-classics of I Know What You Did Last Summer and Urban Legend, and gave us such teen-friendly flicks as Valentine, Wrong Turn, Jeepers Creepers and Darkness. Neither too edgy nor risqué, these movies were a safe way to ensure that everyone was having a good time without upsetting apple carts.

As the 2000s progressed, horror took a turn for the worse. As if you thought the onslaught of pubescent drivel in horror was bad, this murky genre quickly descended into a heretical darkness where it still dwells today, and has yet to claw its way out. In 2003, Michael Bay did the unthinkable. He hired music video director, Marcus Nispel, to helm a remake of Tobe Hooper’s all-to-real and disturbing masterpiece, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This was a blow not only to horror fans, but to cinephiles as well. The deed seemed almost as blasphemous as yelling the Lord’s name in vain, but audiences ate it up and accepted it as their own, greeting it with open arms. The success of this film (I say “film”, but, really, it’s plagiarist bullcrap) soon saw bigwigs in the film biz illuminate the dusty light bulb that hovered above their scalps. Assuming this was the way to make more money, companies dug through the aisles of their local video stores to uncover other “classics” that have been “burdened” by such discrepancies as being “too old” and not having enough “nu-metal”. Black Christmas, Amityville Horror and When A Stranger Calls eventually saw copies, and Friday the 13th and Last House on the Left soon followed. Remakes were a dime a dozen and, at one point, seemed like that was all that was being churned out.

Not only were these landmark horror films seeing double, American companies also sought inspiration in the East. The Japanese seemed to know exactly how to terrify audiences, and instead of using their films to rouse their own ideas, the US just ended up remaking the movies with English actors. Ringu, Ju-on, Kairo and Dark Water all saw redos in no-time with the years of the release dates between doppelgangers being small enough to bridge two neighboring towns.

Japanese horror wasn’t the only foreign exchange that had its successes in America. Australia gave us Wolf Creek, a great accompaniment to what was happening in the States, Spain gave us The Orphanage (which was produced by Guillmero del Toro) and Sweden gave us Let the Right One In, a vampire fairy tale which "makes the cast of Twilight look like Saved by the Bell” (thank you, Ryan Reynolds, for that analogy). In the latter half of the 2000s, the French stepped the “extreme violence”, found mostly in American horror, up a notch with such adversaries as Frontier(s) and Inside.

Probably the most successful films of the 2000s were done by those indicted into the “Splat Pack”, such as James Wan’s Saw, Eli Roth's Hostel, Rob Zombie's The Devils Rejects, Alexandre Aja's High Tension and Neil Marshall's The Descent. The success of these gore-centric films gave birth to a subgenre (as ridiculous as record companies in the early 90s using the term "grunge" to describe dirty and angst-ridden musicians) known as "torture porn" - the watching of characters in pain for entertainment purposes. Horror was instantly reverted back to its “extreme roots”, posing as 70s exploitation aspirants. Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers and Frank Darabont’s The Mist, though they left audiences divided, both saw a good sum at the box office and drew inspiration from its gorno predecessors. Not only that, the triumph of both 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake paved the way for more compatibles like Shaun of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Slither, [Rec] (as well as its American Xerox, Quarantine), and Dead Snow, and jump-started the zombie apocalypse subgenre into a frenzy. Independent horror even saw success with Ginger Snaps, May and Fido, and achieved cult status.

With the first decade of the 2000s coming to an end, a good slew of horror films are still left uncovered. As many horror movies that came out and elated audiences with a sort of morbid glee, an unsung few still sit by their lonesome, collecting dust and fading fast. This small group may not have made the big bucks, but they sure as hell should be ranked up there with the big guns. They’re all original scripts and they all hail from different parts of the world. Below are our favorite unsung horror movies along with a brief review of each.

Hopefully these films will be known as classics in the years to come. Who knows. Maybe one of these listed is the scariest movies you’ve never seen. Enjoy.

EDEN LAKE

James Watkins, 2008



Hailing from England, Eden Lake is a torturous film about a gang of punks terrorizing a young couple who vacation on a tranquil lake for the weekend. Jenny (Kelly Reilly) and Steve (Michael Fassbender) make their way down to the beach to romantically kiss each other amidst the sunset. The serenity is quickly interrupted by a clan of delinquents drinking, smoking and polluting the air with raucous music. Steve becomes enraged and walks over to crash the party, but after the teens mutter a few choice four-letter-words, Steve dejectedly returns to Kelly. Later that day, the couple’s car keys are stolen, and, upon finding the thieves in the woods, Steve gets into a physical altercation which renders him helpless to the blade that pierces his throat. Aside from the sheer and brilliantly formed tension that inhabits the film, the real reason you want to see Eden Lake is because of Jack O’Connell’s harrowing performance as the gang’s ring leader of morbidity. Some movie villains never quite get off the ground, and they quickly fade with time, but I have never seen a performance so real and so hateful, especially in an 18 year old kid. Suspense triumphs over gratuity in this British thriller. Boys will be boys and kids will be killers.



CREEP

Christopher Smith, 2004



This British gem finds itself regurgitating 70s exploitation and 80s slasher mentality, but in a good way. Someone—or something—lives in the nether regions of a London subway, and poor Kate (Franka Potente) falls asleep while waiting for the train and wakes up alone. She is accosted by a drug addict who forces himself onto her, but is eventually dragged away by some mysterious person. As she flees from the scene, and searches for a way out, she finally finds the person who has been sidling alongside her the whole time: a deformed and insane person who feeds on human flesh. He catches her and locks her inside a cage that dwells beside a room with surgical equipment. As she scours the premises, she wonders what it is this hermit does down here, and why he looks the way he does. Before she can answer her own question, she must witness the creep’s violent extremity before her eyes.


OPEN WATER

Chris Kentis, 2004



This is a movie that will undoubtedly make people say, “Oh yeah! I remember that!”, because, for a while, it got some buzz for its use of low-budget digital cameras and based-on-a-true-story gimmick. Several items that make the film a must-see are that they used real sharks for the filming, and ambient noise for the audio. All you hear are birds and the waves sloshing around, and no diegetic rock music afflicts the soundtrack because the director wants as much of a real experience for the audience as possible. It's all about atmosphere. Daniel (Daniel Travis) and Susan (Blanchard Ryan) go on a scuba-diving expedition with eighteen others that join them. After surfacing from their underwater exploration, they realize that the boat has left them behind, due to, as the film explains, a poor headcount. The audience must sit helpless and witness the couple float amidst a sea of jellyfish and sharks with no land in sight for miles.



INFECTION

Masayuki Ochiai, 2004



In the early 2000s, Japanese producer, Taka Ichise, asked six directors to create a film that would be released under the name "J-Horror Theater". Infection was the first of the lot by Shutter director, Masayuki Ochiai. The movie centers on a hospital in Japan that has been horded by a group of victims suffering from a black rash that soon causes the patients to bleed green slime. What’s great about Infection is that for naïve Americans, who think that all Japanese fright flicks have a pale ghost child with stringy black hair as its main antagonist, should watch this psychological mindfudge as gross special effects and an eerie setting takes precedence over cheep scares.


THEM

David Moreau and Xavier Palud, 2006



If you’ve been keeping up with the state of horror as of recent, you’d know that gratuitous bloodbaths are prevalent right now. New school horror has now made a name for itself by being synonymous with torture porn. Them is the exception. This is a movie that plays up the creep factor by not showing anything to the audience at all; only the sounds of heavy breathing and the rustling of feet behind locked doors are all you have to envision what’s going on. After all, the images we create in our heads are for more terrifying than anything that can be constructed onto celluloid. Directors Moreau and Palud have taken the point-and-shoot tactics as seen in The Blair Witch Project and made one stripped-down and intense little flick. Clementine (Olivia Bonamy) and her husband, Lucas (Michael Cohen), are awakened one night in their remote home by intruders cloaked by grey hoodies. No blood, no special effects, just two characters cowering in the corner of their bedroom. Isn’t that all you need for a good horror movie?



THE ABANDONED

Nacho Cerda, 2006



Orphaned Marie Jones (Anastasia Hille), now grown up, returns to Russia where she learns that a legal representative has found her dead parents and the farm they used to live in. Once there, she is greeted by Anitoly (Carlos Reig), who offers to take her to the Kardinovsky Farm. What ensues is a barrage of tension as Marie tries desperately to understand the enigma that is her existence as well as hide from a woman who looks remarkably like herself… except dead. The Abandoned was part of the first After Dark HorrorFest in 2006, and was undoubtedly the best movie that came out of it. If you ask me, it shouldn't have been lumped in with God-awful movies like Dark Ride, Penny Dreadful and The Gravedancers. Those films pale in comparison to this one.


RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR

Chris Gorak, 2006



In a post-9/11 world, an immense fear amongst Americans is the idea that something incredibly disastrous could happen in a split second without realizing it, rendering us helpless and fending for ourselves. Brad (Rory Cochrane) is a stay-at-home musician, concentrating on writing jingles for clients. His wife, Lexi (Mary McCormack), is out running errands and eventually gets stuck in traffic. What she discovers is a parade of panicky locals running from a fog that seems to be emanating from a distance as sirens echo in the sky. People in gray jump suits and gas masks follow them, capturing as many people as they can, particularly those who are coughing uncontrollably. Brad watches the news and learns that a dirty bomb has gone off and quarantine is in effect. But he must make a decision quick: should he stay in his house, so not to be infected, or should he risk going outside in the midst of chaos to search for his wife? A modern-day The Crazies (despite the fact that a remake of the 1973 classic is being released in 2010), the film experiments with a could-be real life scenario and imagines how an everyday person would react to a chemical outbreak, and once the government—people we should trust—cage us in our own homes while telling us it's for the better.



TROUBLE EVERY DAY

Claire Denis, 2001



When one thinks of cannibalism, beauty is not a word that pops up frequently (unless, of course, you are a cannibal), but I guess that would be a good word to describe the cinematography, as well as the film’s protagonist (or antagonist? Haven’t quite figured that out yet). The film itself is sad, and the actual cannibal scenes are very hard to watch. I’m usually pretty good with watching on-screen violence, but this was something I could just not handle. For you horror aficionados out there should note that the femme-cannibale in the movie is none other than Inside’s Béatrice Dalle who plays a sultry vixen who has a difficult time separating sex and eating people. The film centers around two people (Dalle and Vincent Gallo) whose paths never cross until three quarters down the line. Gallo’s character fantasizes about his fiancée covered in blood--not because he wants to, but because he can’t control it—which is where Dalle’s character eventually comes in. The film’s focus on themes of existentialism and gender roles are intrinsic in its imagery, and dialogue is virtually absent, which makes this a new take on the horror genre.


SPLINTER

Toby Wilkins, 2008



For those of you who dread the cinematic domination of CGI can sleep soundly now. There just so happens to be a horror film out there that utilizes a monster without the "assistance" of a computer and was actually filmed (gasp!) in front of camera. In the vein of influential 80's horror FX as seen in John Carpenter's The Thing and Stuart Gordon's From Beyond, Splinter's use of animatronics and in-depth make-up is highly commendable. A young couple, played by Paulo Costanzo and Jill Wagner, are en route to an Oklahoma camp ground for a romantic vacation when they are car-jacked by an ex-convict, Shea Whigham, and his delinquent confidante. As if things couldn't get any worse, they are brutally attacked by an arboric parasite that attaches itself to humans and uses their corpses as a vehicle for its barbarism. It's about time we see a "monster movie" that doesn't pass as a modern day George Romero zombie knock-off.



SUICIDE CLUB

Sion Soto, 2002



Whatever I thought this film was going be, what it was, was not what I thought. Suicide Club is a film that jumps from thriller to crime drama to musical to horror to existentialism to comedy, yet it never takes you out of the movie. In the film, there is a series of group suicides that occur, and it is somehow linked to a website that tells people to do so. A mysterious bag on a skateboard soon appears, a sporadic cougher persistently calls the police and a one-hit wonder all-girl group called Dessert plays on televisions throughout the entirety of the movie. The film becomes incredibly serious as it nears the end, harkening towards a very, depressing realization that everyone is going to die eventually, and poses the question “can you be connected to yourself after death?”