A prizewinner at 2016's Cannes Film Festival, this Belgian-French mind-blower from Julia Ducournau (another female director, woo!) might just turn you into a vegetarian. Justine is a staunch vegetarian who, on her first day in what seems like the worst veterinary school on the planet, is forced to eat a piece of meat. Saying anything else would give away the perverse kick of watching "Raw" unfold. This is a movie that is equal parts sensual and horrifying and which has the best ending of any horror movie in recent memory. You'll have scars from this one.
'It Comes at Night'😨
Just a year after his debut feature "Krisha" (a small family drama) captivated art house audiences, Texas director Trey Edward Shults returns with the far more psychological menacing "It Comes at Night," which the filmmaker says was inspired by the death of his biological father. That's a fascinating personal backstory for a film that remains purposefully elliptical, focusing on a family (led by Joel Edgerton and Carmen Ejogo) who are holed up in a farm house following some kind of contagious outbreak. "The Walking Dead" it's not. This is somber, sobering horror, meticulously crafted and emotionally devastating.
'The Lure'🐉
"The Lure" is the Polish mermaid cannibal period musical you never knew you needed. Beautifully directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska (yay for female horror directors!), about a pair of young mermaids (named Silver and Golden) who encounter a rock band on the beach and soon become garish nightclub oddities. Things only get weirder from there. But there's a fair amount of sexual weirdness, lengthy meditations on the nature of humanity, and wonderfully choreographed musical numbers. Look for it to achieve cult classic status following the home entertainment release by Criterion later this year.
'A Cure for Wellness'🐊
Turning something everyday into something sinister is what great horror movies accomplish, and "A Cure for Wellness" fits snugly into that category. A European health spa turns into a bottomless pit of malevolence when a young Wall Street operative (Dane DeHaan) travels to the Swiss Alps to retrieve his company's missing CEO.A horror epic of truly insane proportions, director Gore Verbinski is keenly interested in wringing horror out of every moment and in the undervalued importance of mood and atmosphere. Equal parts hilarious and chilling, "Cure" is the antidote for the average horror movie.
'The Blackcoat's Daughter'
Director Osgood Perkins has horror running through his veins: he's the son of Anthony Perkins, who played Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho." "Blackcoat's Daughter" is actually Perkins' first film, but was released domestically after his sophomore feature "I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House" (on Netflix). And it's shocking to see what a mastery Perkins already has, both in terms of form and storytelling. Oh and brace yourself for that ending. It's a doozy.
'The Devil's Candy'🐼
It seems pointless to show "The Devil's Candy" at any other time but midnight. The film is Australian writer-director Sean Byrne's gore-soaked ode to heavy metal, occultism, and all things Texas. Ethan Embry plays a father who battles demons -- both literal and metaphoric -- as he tries to save his family from a local killer (Pruitt Taylor Vince). It's decidedly unhinged, with a story that only bothers to make sense in the loosest possible way, but it's anchored by strong performances and some genuinely virtuoso filmmaking. Put your devil fingers in the sky for this bad boy.
'Hounds of Love'💘
Australian writer-director Ben Young takes an unusual approach to the tried and true serial killer genre, focusing both on the mundane lives of the murderous couple (Stephen Curry and Emma Booth) and by giving an unexpectedly detailed portrait of their latest, would-be victim (Ashleigh Cummings). While a movie with this much patience and painterly beauty might risk making the actual brutality an abstraction, the emotional closeness to the characters heightens the intensity to an almost unbearable degree. Clearly indebted to films of the past but never slavishly adhering to them, "Hounds of Love" is offbeat and brilliant.
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