Here are Cinephile Corner’s 10 recommendations for horror movies like The Elixir:
28 Days Later
28 Days Later isn’t just another zombie movie—it’s a reinvention of the genre’s DNA, stripped down and reengineered for a new century of horror. Directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland, this lo-fi British horror film arrived at a moment when zombie films were treading water, yet it managed to make the undead feel urgent and terrifying again. With its harsh digital video aesthetic, jagged editing, and pulsating soundtrack, 28 Days Later feels like a transmission from a ruined world—one that still resonates more than two decades later.
Evil Dead Rise
There aren’t many horror franchises able to reinvent themselves as often as Evil Dead does while still maintaining relevancy and quality. Maybe it’s because Sam Raimi holds his creation so close to his heart that only a select few are able to take on the premise, or maybe it’s because the premise seems simple and malleable enough to make nearly anything work. It can shoot for the downright zany and ludicrous with Evil Dead II or Army of Darkness, or it can strive to be like Lee Cronin’s newest spin Evil Dead Rise – a movie so sick and twisted that you can’t help but give it its dues by the time the credits roll.
Shivers
Shivers feels more like a film to study than to enjoy. It’s a fascinating, uneasy watch—more of a historical curiosity than an essential horror film. For fans of David Cronenberg, it’s worth seeing to track the evolution of his twisted vision. While it introduces many of the themes and obsessions he would refine in later films, Shivers lacks the narrative control and technical finesse that would come with time.
Train to Busan
Yeon Sang-ho’s Train to Busan is a visual feast as survivors band together on a speeding bullet train. It delivers the right amount of thrills and action set pieces. Although the dramatic elements and character development may seem underbaked, the film rarely faulters and crashes off course.
Barbarian
Zach Cregger‘s Barbarian is still refreshing and thrilling, and it’s easily one of my favorite theater experiences of 2022. Films try over and over again to use the schlocky marketing bit of audiences screaming in theaters only to be disappointing in actual terror when places in front of you – but Barbarian is genuinely jaw-dropping.
MadS
MadS reminds me of the joys of finding undiscovered independent horror movies. Although it’s gained some steam within the genre’s diehard community, MadS still feels as though it’s being underappreciated. Because for a film as muddy and down-to-Earth as this one is technically, it’s a thrill ride about as absurd as anything you’ll see in 2024.
Smile
While Smile delivers on a couple creative and freaky scares, it ultimately falls apart with a prototypical first hour and a generally confusing second one. Sosie Bacon stars as a traumatized doctor looking for answers to her visions.
Weapons
Weapons opens with one of the most chilling hooks you’ll hear in any movie this year: at exactly 2:17 a.m., every child from Mrs. Gandy’s class woke up, walked downstairs, opened the front door, stepped into the dark… and never came back. It’s the kind of premise that immediately grabs you, the kind of logline that sells itself in a trailer and sticks in your head for days. Writer-director Zach Cregger, who burst onto the horror scene with 2022’s Barbarian, proves once again that he knows how to start a story with an irresistible, terrifying question.
Talk to Me
Talk to Me is the latest elevated horror movie from A24, a studio that’s completely redefined and reimagined the state of the genre, introducing new ideas and themes into it over the past decade. Talk to Me attempts to do the same, pitting trauma and coping mechanisms with demonic forces to a scary degree.
28 Years Later
Few film franchises feel as reflective of their eras as the 28 Days Later franchise. The 2002 original remains one of the most influential horror films of the century, with Danny Boyle’s grainy, handheld style perfectly matching its atmosphere of isolation and dread. Its 2007 sequel, 28 Weeks Later, wasn’t directed by Boyle or written by Alex Garland, and while it had moments, it left fans with a sense that more could be done with the premise. Now, both Boyle and Garland return for 28 Years Later (2025), a film that feels both like a homecoming and a cautious step toward something bigger.
