The Cherry Hill Chainsaw Massacre

Slow-building, sinister, and unapologetically bizarre, The Killing of a Sacred Deer , directed by Greek absurdist Yorgos Lanthimos from a screenplay co-written by him and Efthimis Filippou, puts an idiosyncratic spin on the eye-for-an-eye revenge horror narrative, with a trio of compelling lead performances counterbalancing the filmmakers' stilted dialogue. Unfortunately, a gallery of distinctly unreal characters breed a dreamlike, Twilight Zone -adjacent atmosphere that holds the viewer at arm's length and prevents the inevitable, nihilistic resolution from reaching its full heart-wrenching potential. The title, one of the more memorable and distinctive in modern horror, is technically derived from part of the story of the ancient Greek tragedy, Iphigenia in Aulis , by Euripides. However, within the context of the movie that bears its name, the "sacred deer" in question refers to a human being, specifically one of the three loved ones of a cardiac surgeon named Steve...

In 2008, Bryan Bertino, one of the most prominent and atmospherically masterful filmmakers working within the horror genre today, wrote and directed The Strangers , the greatest and most terrifying slasher film of the 2000s, an experience so traumatizing and grounded in the unpredictable laws of reality that it doesn't even feel like a slasher. Although the story is as basic and straightforward as can be -- a couple are terrorized in a summer home located conveniently in the middle of nowhere by a trio of masked, knife-wielding sadists -- it's the emphasis Bertino placed on the psychological anguish of his achingly relatable protagonists that marked his movie off from the abundance of other entries in the subgenre. The protagonists are sympathetic and intelligent, but not equipped to deal with such a nightmarish scenario that they did nothing to put themselves in, aside from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The killers are ruthless and horrifying, but not possessed o...

Stephen King is the most renowned horror author still living, his numerous works of literature having given birth to some of the most legendary horror films and their antagonists. Notably, his affinity for horror seems to almost invariably be rooted in the realm of the supernatural, whether it be a socially alienated teenage girl exploiting her dormant telekinesis to exact vengeance on the sadistic students who've bullied her her entire life, a recovering alcoholic patriarch becoming possessed by the spirits of the hotel in which he's taken a job as a winter caretaker, or an Indian burial ground that restores life to recently deceased pets with the caveat that they make their owners realize that "sometimes, dead is better." But sometime in 1966-1967, during his freshman year at the University of Maine, King began writing what would become his first-ever novel, and while it fit into the genre of horror, the cause was rooted entirely in the here and now. Even the most i...