I went to the FrightFest film festival over the weekend. As always it was a lot of fun and exhausting. It turns out that trying to watch 25 films in 5 days isn't a sensible plan.
The traditional cabin in the woods seems to have vanished this year, replaced with the big house in the open countryside. I'm not sure if this is some deep cultural change or different US states have had good tax breaks in the last few years. Films about people who decided that going to big houses with strange pasts was a good idea include Nervous and The Nameless Ballad. If you squint a bit this could also include The Last Temptation of Becky and The Pitchfork Retreat (also the final film of the late, great Tony Todd). But my two favourites are Recluse and Imposters.
Recluse is a proper modern gothic with a dying patriarch, a mother vanished under mysterious circumstances, a housekeeper who knows more than she will say and a family curse. If that sounds like your kind of film, then this is a good one. In Imposters a family is told about a cave in the woods where lost things can be found after their baby goes missing. You'll probably work out what's going on before the characters do, but the film works more like a (very) bloody science fiction than a horror. It's interested in taking one unreal idea and working through the consequences.
If you're smart enough to avoid the mansions you might still be tricked into the countryside by going on holiday. You could be eaten by hippos in Hungry, eaten by spiders in Spider Island or feed to alligators by a cult in Gator Face. Although if you're watching the films all three are good dumb fun.
That's still better than going to work in three of my favourite films from this year. In Colony the zombie attack isn't totally the fault of the boss, but he isn't helping things. This is from the director of Train to Busan and he knows how to create a good balance of action and doom in his zombie films. In the French film Species modern work is so toxic that it will turn you into a monster. Lots of body horror and good stuff. And in the dark comedy Grind every job and every boss is going to kill you or drive you mad. Probably with some strange monsters.
Work may be bad, but horror is still often a surprisingly strong supporter of conservative morality, so crime is not going to pay. In Labyrinth, Oddities and Valley View Motel bad things happen to people because they committed a crime. But the one I'll strongly recommend is Drag. A black comedy about two sisters who break into a house (a big house in the open country again). When they're in there one of them throws out her back, can't walk and has to be "dragged" to safety. If you're in the mood to laugh at someone falling down the stairs this is a very good movie and I'm just as sick as you.
There are several other films I liked, but can't force into any of the categories, This includes The Glorious Dead, the new film from the Adams family. Imagine the sheriff from the Fargo movie, dealing with the end of the world, mostly by getting grumpy with people being stupid.
And finally a film where good things happen, the Japanese comedy You Are the Film. It's another strange film from the writer of Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes and River with the key scenes set in a cinema. So if you want to be safe and solve problems in your life instead of being eaten by monsters just stay in the cinema.