The Devil’s Candy

In 2009, Aussie director Sean Byrne burst onto the scene with a gloriously subversive take on torture porn. It didn’t make much money at the box office, but it became a cult success in the years that followed - and rightly so. More importantly, though, it afforded Byrne the luxury of making more insane horror films, and The Devil’s Candy is another winner - a demented tale about madness and demonic symbolism and, oddly, heavy metal.

The Void

Looking at the list we’ve got so far, it’s rather encouraging to see just how diverse these movies are - they flirt with science-fiction, social commentary, psychological thrills, period drama, and found footage. But The Void might be the most unusual of them all: It belongs to a niche subgenre known as Lovecraftian horror, a great example of which would be the first Alien movie, Stephen King’s The Mist and the hit Netflix show Stranger Things. Lovecraftian horror deals with the unknown, and our inherent fear of it - and The Void is a fine example of how movies can evoke an eerie atmosphere from virtually nothing. As Steven Spielberg once said, “What you don’t see is often scarier than what you can.”

Creep 2

At a time when the found footage subgenre was being talked about as a passing fad - and admittedly, as far as mainstream horror was concerned, it was - along came a precious little movie called Creep. Like most of Mark Duplass’ works, it was a mishmash of tones and themes, equally dark and funny. But its most impressive feat was that it really understood the immediacy that the found footage style of filmmaking brings to a story, the unnerving realism it adds, and the psychological bond it forges between the audience and the characters. Because Creep 2 is the only sequel on this list - besides Split, of course - it would really make sense if you went back and watched the original first.

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