Mark Hofmeyer of Movies, Films, and Flix recently undertook the Herculean task of identifying the top-ranked horror movies of the 21st century, thus far. By reading through and aggregating scores drawn from critics and users of sites including IMDb, Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatoes, as well as data from horror sites including Fangoria and Bloody Disgusting, he was able to come up with four separate lists ranking the most acclaimed horror films of the last 15 years according to both critics and audiences alike.
The entire process and resulting analysis and discussion over on MFF is fascinating and well worth an in-depth read—and then, of course, Hofmeyer decided to take things to the next level and asked readers to vote for the Best Horror Film of the 21st Century. The results of that poll are now in, so it’s officially time to FIGHT, INTERNET, FIGHT!!! (By which I mean, take a look at the list below and politely discuss our feelings and opinions about what does and does not belong in the top ten…)
Without further ado, here’s the MFF list, based on votes/poll results:
#10 Drag Me To Hell
#9 Mulholland Drive
#8 Shaun Of The Dead
#7 The Babadook
#6 It Follows
#5 Let The Right One In
#4 The Descent
#3 28 Days Later
#2 Pan’s Labyrinth
#1 The Cabin In the Woods
As the AV Club has pointed out, this new ranking features fewer horror comedies than Hofmeyer’s original lists did (no Zombieland, no What We Do In The Shadows, for example), but overall it’s an interesting mix. On a purely subjective level, I love several of these movies (Mulholland Drive, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Shaun Of The Dead, while very, very different takes on the genre, are all insanely brilliant). Others, I don’t care for at all (I’m rather surprised that Drag Me To Hell rates as highly as it does here and in the previous lists; while I’m a longtime Sam Raimi fan and rushed to the theater to see it on opening weekend, I found it extremely disappointing on multiple levels.)
I was pleasantly surprised to see The Cabin in the Woods in the top spot, though. It’s a movie that I had quite a few thoughts about when it first came out in 2012, when I wrote about its potential long-term pop cultural significance at some length (with bonus Breakfast Club references thrown in for good measure). Personally, I’m delighted to see people voting for a film that manages to be fun, funny, and genuinely clever while driving home a powerful critique of Hollywood and the culture at large. But clearly “horror,” as a genre, means a lot of different things to all kinds of different people—how do these rankings stack up against your own personal Best Of list? And what movie would you nominate for the number one spot?
Bridget McGovern is the managing editor of Tor.com and can’t wait to finally see What We Do In The Shadows this weekend.
