Well, hello, everybody! How the expletive is it July already? How would we even notice if time sped up uniformly for everything? And yet here we all are, racing through time like we’re desperate to get it all over with…

Anyway, that’s the therapy portion of the blog. Today we’re talking about my top five horror movies of 2024 so far! I’m going to do these in alphabetical order because I think individual ranking is silly and arbitrary, but unqualified top five lists are fine. Let’s do it.

CANNIBAL MUKBANG
written and directed by AIMEE KUGE
I saw this as part of the Chicago Horror Film Festival 2024 Part 1 in May, of which WWS was a sponsor. It’s a fun and fresh story rooted in revenge horror, with well-executed elements of both comedy and a love story. The whole thing depends on the chemistry between lead actors April Consalo and Mark Wise, and they nail it. Really excited for everyone to get to see this. Really hope Shudder picks it up.

LA MESITA DEL COMEDOR (THE COFFEE TABLE)
written by CRISTINA BOROBIA and CAYE CASAS
directed by CAYE CASAS
It has long been said that the line between comedy and horror is very thin, and this might be the best demonstration of that idea that I have ever seen. Imagine a hilarious situation comedy farce, but the secret the central character is trying to hide is one of the most horrifying things imagineable. Once again, fabulous acting is the lynchpin of the whole thing, courtesy of David Pareja and Estefania de los Santos.

LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL
written and directed by CAMERON CAIRNES and COLIN CAIRNES
Ah, yes, the one that almost got away. There is so goddamned much going on in this film that I wrote an absurdly long blog post about it that involved watching the whole fricken movie almost frame by frame, illustrated with about fifty screencaps. Crazy to think this completely failed for me on first watch. David Dastmalchian, Ingrid Torelli, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Faysall Bazzi, and Rhys Auteri – ensemble of the year.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING
written by ROSE GLASS and WERONIKA TOFILSKA
directed by ROSE GLASS
This is definitely the horror-adjacent title on the list, but it’s my list, so it counts. Rose Glass’s followup to her breakthrough debut SAINT MAUD is a very different film, but still uses some well-applied tricks of the horror trade to tell its story. There’s one moment in here that you are either going to accept or you won’t, and it will probably determine your final opinion of the film. It worked for me. And surprise, there’s great acting all over the place, especially from Kristen Stewart, Anna Baryshnikov, and the legendary Ed Harris.

STOPMOTION
written by ROBIN KING and ROBERT MORGAN
directed by ROBERT MORGAN
Here’s a film that a lot of people have praised, but a film that I feel is also much darker than most people have noted (check out our podcast about it). Either way, it’s a fantastic achievement in blending stop-motion animation with live action. It takes strong advantage of the inherent uncanny valley creepiness of stop-motion. It’s simultaneously very uncomfortable and very gross. I mean, when Phil Tippet says you done good, you done good. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention fantastic performances from Aisling Franciosi and Caoilinn Springall.

There are, of course, numerous 2024 releases that I have yet to see, but these are my five favorites so far. Lots of great stuff still to come as well. Assuming, of course, our society makes it to 2025.

Fuck SCOTUS.
– JD Provorse