In wide release, Zach Cregger's new horror «Weapons» is enjoying triumph, in which the atmosphere of a small town immersed in horror becomes one of the main characters of the narrative. In this regard, we decided to recall a few more new atmospheric...
«Weapons» (2025)
All the children from one school class, except for one child, simultaneously vanish without a trace. Locals and families try to understand what or who caused their disappearance. The investigation will be taken up by a periodically grief-drinking teacher (Julia Garner), the inconsolable father of one of the missing children (Josh Brolin), and a number of characters accidentally drawn into the mystery of American suburbia, whose life inertia is interrupted by an unexpected nightmare.
«Weapons» is a charming (and already box-office) horror by Zach Cregger () with detective aspirations and the manners of Osgood Perkins and Stephen King. The film intrigues, sometimes scares decently, and sometimes confuses (but that's not so scary anymore). Perhaps the main horror of the year, which found the courage to be an ordinary genre experiment rather than a confession about various psychological traumas.
The online release of «Barbarian» – the most lively, creepy, and at the same time funny film from comedy sitcom director Zach Cregger. About why this horror will enter the TOP-3
Open material«MaXXXine» (2024)
The final chapter of Ti West's trilogy brings to a climax the story of Maxine (Mia Goth) — a girl obsessed with the Hollywood dream, already discerning the promised hills outside her window and her first big role in a horror film. But her triumph turns into a surreal nightmare with the appearance in the city of a maniac named the Night Stalker, whose first victims are those closest to her.
West creates not just a slasher, but a total immersion in the mythology of the 1980s: neon flashes, heavy metal, cassettes with Parental Advisory labels, and video rental as a dark alternative dimension of cinema. The stylistics here are not just an atmosphere, but the main character, turning nostalgia into horror, and horror into nostalgia for something that perhaps never existed.
«Longlegs» (2023)
Osgood Perkins' is a hypnotic thriller in which an FBI agent (Maika Monroe) plunges into a frightening game with an infernal maniac (Nicolas Cage). Her investigation is built on deciphering the bizarre codes left at crime scenes and the gradual realization that the solution to this puzzle is somehow connected to her own past. The film became Perkins' unexpected breakthrough into the mainstream — largely due to aggressive marketing and word of mouth. However, this sudden popularity had a dual result.
The release of «Longlegs», the most fashionable horror of the season about the FBI's pursuit of a satanic maniac. In the role of a frenzied cult servant — Nicolas Cage. About how director Oz Perkins
Open materialThe film, refined, personal, woven from authorial obsession and visual poetry, did not fully meet the expectations of a wide audience tuned to something that sells best. But nevertheless, «Longlegs» remains primarily a deeply personal statement — elegant, disturbing, and endlessly self-immersed in the stuffy atmosphere of the early 90s. This is a film in which the director peers into others' nightmares only to ultimately sort out his own.
«The Black Phone» (2021)
Kidnapped by a maniac, teenager Finn (Mason Thames) comes to in a soundproof basement — a place from which, it seems, there is no escape alive. The only thread to salvation is an old phone on the wall that suddenly starts ringing: on the line are the voices of previous victims, ready to help the boy at the cost of the bitter experience of their own deaths.
Scott Derrickson's is not only an exemplary horror, masterfully working with claustrophobia and tension, but also a subtle statement about resistance to despair: about how collective memory and solidarity even after death can become weapons against absurd evil.
In Stephen King's stories about terrible things, paranormal forces, and human cruelty, children have long been the main characters. In its time, this method was borrowed by filmmakers. And
Open material«Nosferatu» (2024)
Würzburg, 1838. Disregarding the bad premonitions of his wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), tormented since childhood by anxious visions, ambitious Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) sets off for Transylvania to strike a deal with the eccentric Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). Instead of commercial triumph, he faces captivity by the cunning aristocrat, who turns out to be an ancient bloodsucker — while Ellen's illness at home increasingly takes on the features of possession.
Robert Eggers' film more often wins the battle of form over content, building a Gothic universe of Victorian superstitions, taboos, and advancing progress with almost tactile meticulousness. This picture is beautiful and lifeless, like the vampire Orlok himself, but is not devoid of an elegant idea: desires held in check for too long can break free and destroy everything around.
«Censor» (2021)
Britain in the 1980s: reserved Enid (Niamh Algar) works on the censorship board, methodically cutting out of B-movies everything that might disturb the peace of the respectable public. Her own life, however, has long been frozen in anticipation — ever since her sister disappeared without a trace, whose death was officially confirmed by everyone except Enid herself. One day, in another film marked for destruction, she discovers a scene that literally repeats the tragic events of her past. This forces the heroine to set out in search of the anonymous producer — in the hope that the film knows more about the disappearance than the police.
«Censor» by Prano Bailey-Bond is a brilliant horror that became the hidden gem of 2021, masterfully recreating not only the visual aesthetics of the era (riots in London suburbs, Thatcher's TV appearances) but also its existential fear of the media. The film carefully examines viewers hungry for forbidden content and those who censor that content — reminding us that the line between fiction and reality is ghostly, and one day you might find yourself on the other side of the screen: in a world that was supposed to be hidden.
«Cuckoo» (2024)
A rare German horror about a girl who comes to a resort with her family, and there are mad scientists, bird-women, and generally something incomprehensible and creepy going on. It looks as if the film «The Sisters», for example, were directed by David Lynch and David Cronenberg. And alternately. So the visual part is in perfect order: everything is concise, tailored to the 80s, stylish, beautiful, with inserts of still fashionable new wave on the soundtrack, and inventively scary, as befits a fashionable horror. And sometimes even unexpectedly funny.
It's another matter when these horror elements end and something like a detective story with completely alien and artificial shootouts begins. Here the structure starts to wobble heavily from side to side and barely survives until the finale, torn between several thoughts at once. However, the film still managed to achieve the main thing: it keeps you on edge all the time, so that the viewer has enough strength to sort through everything that is piled up there.
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