To be honest, this wasn't a great decade for horror. We saw lots of trends - J-Horror, Zombie mania, Torture Porn, 3D, and endless, mindless remakes, but not many memorable installments into the horror movie hall of fame.
Here are the lone standouts:
Let the Right One In - the vampire tale finally told from a personal perspective. Quiet, reflective and chilling to the bone.
The Ring - the best of J-Horror transferred to the states. A compelling ghost riddle with a great ending.
The Devil's Backbone - Del Torro's haunting ghost story.
The Orphanage - another foreign language pitch-perfect ghost story.
The Host - the best monster movie in a long time. Great characters - a fun ride. What Cloverfield and Monsters wanted to be.
The Mist - best Stephen King adaptation since Shawshank. Builds up gradual tension and then crashes you with a brutal Lovecraftian ending.
Drag Me to Hell - Raimi returns to his manic Evil Dead roots, but with a more toned-down approach. Fun, funny, scary and always entertaining.
28 Days Later - Danny Boyle's brilliant zombie reboot for the 21st century.
Saw - yes, it launched a torrent of horrible torture porn, but as a standalone low-budget horror movie Saw remains as a great example of what you can do with minimal sets, a couple actors and one nasty idea.
Paranormal Activity - lots of haters with this one, but I loved the setup and bought most of it - except for the flaming Ouija board - ok, that was kinda silly.
Let's see, a top ten list where 5 out of the 10 are foreign made (remember, 28 Days Later is British), another one (The Ring) is a remake of a Japanese film and two of the American-made movies were indie films, far from the mainstream studio system. Really, a pitiful showing from Hollywood, where dollar signs led them to blindly rehash old favorites in a desperate attempt to generate revenue - instead of developing great new horror talents.
It's obvious the foreign and indie markets will continue to drive this genre.
The best of the rest:
The Mothman Prophecies
REC
Hostel
Trick 'r Treat
1408
The Last Exorcism
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