My favorite horror columnist, Bloody Disgusting’s Meagan Navarro, delivered a halftime report for horror films released in 2018 with her June 11th post titled “Here Are the Best Horror Movies of 2018 (So Far)!”

Navarro lists nine movies, and as usual, she nails it. I added a 10th at the end, but I totally agree with her picks. Check out Navarro’s article at the Bloody Disgusting website here.

Without further ado, here is Navarro’s list (plus one). I used the plot descriptions from movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb.

To rank the films from 1 through 10, I used Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer. I added the critic score and audience score for the total score. The scores are based on the percentage of positive reviews. For example, the critic score of A QUIET PLACE is 95%, which means 95% of critics recommended the film. The audience score for A QUIET PLACE is 84%, which means 84% of user reviews were positive. I used the higher critic score to break any ties.

1. A QUIET PLACE. Total Score: 179. Critic Score: 95%. Audience Score: 84%. Box office gross: $185.6 million. Plot description: “In the modern horror thriller A QUIET PLACE, a family of four must navigate their lives in silence after mysterious creatures that hunt by sound threatens their survival. If they hear you, they hunt you.”
2. THE ENDLESS. Total Score: 174. Critic Score: 96%. Audience Score: 78%. Box office gross: $267,616. Plot description: “Following their Lovecraftian modern cult classic SPRING, acclaimed filmmakers Moorhead and Benson return with this mind-bending thriller that follows two brothers who receive a cryptic video message inspiring them to revisit the UFO death cult they escaped a decade earlier. Hoping to find the closure that they couldn’t as young men, they’re forced to reconsider the cult’s beliefs when confronted with unexplainable phenomena surrounding the camp. As the members prepare for the coming of a mysterious event, the brothers race to unravel the seemingly impossible truth before their lives become permanently entangled with the cult.”
3. UPGRADE. Total Score: 172. Critic Score: 86%. Audience Score: 86%. Box office gross: $9.8 million. Plot description: “After his wife is killed during a brutal mugging that also leaves him paralyzed, Grey Trace is approached by a billionaire inventor with an experimental cure that will “upgrade” his body. The cure — an Artificial Intelligence implant called STEM — gives Grey physical abilities beyond anything experienced and the ability to relentlessly claim vengeance against those who murdered his wife and left him for dead.”
4. REVENGE. Score: 155. Critic Score: 92%. Audience Score: 63%. Box office gross: $102,091. Plot description: “Jen (fearlessly embodied by Matilda Lutz) is enjoying a romantic getaway with her wealthy boyfriend which is suddenly disrupted when his sleazy friends arrive for an unannounced hunting trip. Tension mounts in the house until the situation abruptly — and viciously — intensifies, culminating in a shocking act that leaves Jen left for dead. Unfortunately for her assailants, Jen survives and reemerges with a relentless, wrathful intent: revenge. A white-knuckle tale of transgression and transformation, REVENGE gloriously blurs the lines of vengeance and survival while simultaneously delivering a ferocious dissection of gender and genre.”
5. ANNIHILATION. Score 154. Critic Score: 87%. Audience Score: 67%. Box office gross: $32.7 million. Plot description: “Based on Jeff VanderMeer’s best-selling Southern Reach Trilogy, ANNIHILATION stars Natalie Portman as a biologist (who) signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition into a mysterious zone where the laws of nature don’t apply. It was written and directed by Alex Garland (EX MACHINA, 28 DAYS LATER).
6. HEREDITARY. Score: 150. Critic Score: 91%. Audience Score: 59%. Box office gross: $17.2 million. Plot description: “When Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family, passes away, her daughter’s family begins to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry. The more they discover, the more they find themselves trying to outrun the sinister fate they seem to have inherited. Making his feature debut, writer-director Ari Aster unleashes a nightmare vision of a domestic breakdown that exhibits the craft and precision of a nascent auteur, transforming a familial tragedy into something ominous and deeply disquieting, and pushing the horror movie into chilling new terrain with its shattering portrait of heritage gone to hell.”
7. GHOST STORIES. Score: 150. Critic Score: 82%. Audience Score: 68%. Box office gross: $135,095. Plot description: “Experience three spine-tingling tales of terror to haunt your dreams. A debunker of all thing paranormal, Professor Phillip Goodman (Andy Nyman) has devoted his life to exposing phony psychics and fraudulent supernatural shenanigans on his own television show. His skepticism is put to the test, however, when he receives a file of three chilling, inexplicable cases: a night watchman (Paul Whitehouse) haunted by disturbing visions as he patrols an abandoned asylum; an edgy young man (Black Mirror’s Alex Lawther) involved in a hellish car accident deep in the woods; and a wealthy former banker (Martin Freeman) visited by the poltergeist spirit of his unborn child. Even scarier: each of these macabre stories seems to have a sinister connection to Professor Goodman’s own life. WIll they make a believer of him yet?”
8. VERONICA. Score: 133. Critic Score: 87%. Audience Score: 46%. Box Office Gross: N/A. Plot description: “Veronica has taken care of her little brother and sister since the death of their father. One day during a total eclipse of the sun, Veronica and two friends decide to make a Ouija board in order to invoke her father’s spirit. At the very peak of the eclipse, the glass shatters. Veronica enters a kind of trance and passes out, frightening her friends. Veronica recovers and goes home. But there, she starts to pick up on slight changes: objects that move, breathing in the dark … and she’s still unaware of the horrific outcome that awaits her.”
9. THE RITUAL. Score: 130. Critic Score: 71%. Audience Score: 59%. Box office gross: N/A. Plot description: “Following the sudden, violent death of their best mate, four young men reunite for a hike through the Scandinavian wilderness. Deep in the black Nordic forest, they find themselves lost in a hell of sinister nightmares and pagan sacrifices. For these ancient woods are home to a malevolent deity which will force them to face the darkness inside themselves.”
10. STILL/BORN. Score: 110. Critic Score: 91%. Audience Score: 19%. Box office gross: N/A. Plot description: “Mary, a new mother gives birth to two twins but only one of them is alive. While taking care of her remaining child, Adam, she suspects that something, a supernatural entity, has chosen her child and will stop at nothing to take it from her.”

The second half of 2018 looks promising for horror films, too. THE NUN, another prequel to THE CONJURING, hits theaters on Sept. 7, and the new HALLOWEEN movie arrives on Oct. 19.

What are your favorite horror films of 2018 so far? My favorite is REVENGE followed closely by THE RITUAL.

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RELATED LINKS:

Horror Movie Review: REVENGE

Horror Movie Review: STILL/BORN

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