Some horror films hold a certain impact that does not dilute with time. A few ’70s movies are perfect proof. Among others, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Exorcist, and Halloween. Some films from the aughts were no different. They were scary then and remain scary now. But to be included here, they had (and have) to be genuinely frightening. So, while I love Final Destination and Final Destination 2 and because of them I don’t particularly enjoy getting on an airplane or travelling behind a log-carrying truck on the highway, I still don’t find those movies particularly frightening as much as they are intermittently tense. The same goes for Jeepers Creepers, The Others, Dog Soldiers, 28 Days Later, and Saw.
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Then there are the ones that are jarringly gross in a way that stays with you, but that doesn’t make them truly scary. For instance, Thir13en Ghosts, House of 1000 Corpses, Wrong Turn, Cabin Fever, The Devil’s Rejects, and Antichrist. What follows are five aughts horror movies that cut to the core and leave their mark in a way that is unforgettable.
1) Frailty
A forgotten 2000s scarer that has lost none of its impact, Frailty works on several layers. For one, we never quite know what is real and what is fiction until the final moments. And then, we come to realize everything we thought was fiction was actually what was real.
Frailty is a fun movie to go back to because, even if you know the conclusion, you’re still enveloped in the family dynamics. Even if Bill Paxton’s father character truly thought what he was doing was right, what he was doing was murder and exposing his kids to that level of violence. Demons or no demons, that’s an unsettling concept.
Stream Frailty on fuboTV.
2) The Descent
The Descent is the ultimate masterpiece from Dog Soldiers director Neil Marshall, filled with claustrophobic atmospherics and genuinely creepy cave monsters. Not to mention, while it’s not the only movie on this list that has a gut punch of an ending, it has the best gut punch of an ending.
This is a movie that makes you feel every ounce of its characters’ hopelessness. The jaw-dropping ending only heightens that feeling, provided you’re not watching the trimmed down finale that was shown to American audiences.
Stream The Descent with a BFI Player Amazon Channel subscription.
3) Eden Lake
An underrated and terrifying 2000s showcase of human brutality, Eden Lake is not an easy watch. It’s the type of movie most audience members will watch once and feel that is enough.
It’s also pretty tough to watch such likable famous people either go through the youths’ torment or be the tormenters themselves. Yellowstone‘s Kelly Reilly and the X-Men reboot quadrilogy’s Michael Fassbender play the young couple just trying to enjoy themselves by a lake. Only one of them makes it out alive, and the other goes out in a way that is not mercifully swift. Then there’s Jack O’Connell of Sinners fame, who is brilliant as Brett, the leader of the gang. He sells his and his cohorts’ ultimate goal, which is just to cause suffering without any true motive or purpose. Few things are as scary as that.
mention The Last House on the Left, Wolf Creek.
Stream Eden Lake on Prime Video.
4) The Strangers
A movie that fibbed a bit about being based on a true story, The Strangers kicked off a franchise that has never quite matched the effectiveness of the first time out the gate. The original works so well because it never quite feels like a Hollywood motion picture. We recognize Liv Tyler, but it’s easy to forget we’re watching actors perform as much as we come to believe these are real people being terrorized by other real people.
Nothing feels removed from reality in The Strangers. It very easily could have been something that occurred in the real world. And it has a way of consistently reminding us that its violence feels quite genuine, most notably seen at the tail end of a brief performance by It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Glenn Howerton.
Stream The Strangers on Prime Video.
5) Drag Me to Hell
Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell goes to show that a horror movie doesn’t have to be rated R to really stick with you. Sometimes all it takes is a wonderfully unexpected downbeat ending.
The film’s PG-13 rating and overall offbeat, almost comedic tone really help the ending hit hard. We truly believe Alison Lohman’s Christine Brown is a decent person at heart and that, after dealing with a vengeance-fueled curse, will make it to the credits and run off into the sunset with Justin Long’s Professor Clayton Dalton. But she doesn’t…in the final moments she’s, well, dragged down to Hell for an eternity of fire.
Stream Drag Me to Hell on Peacock.
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