Dawn of the Dead (2004), Don’t Breathe and other action horror movies

Ready or Not

My personal vote for horror’s newest Scream Queen goes to Samara Weaving, who has appeared in Netflix’s fun/scary The Babysitter, the absolutely bonkers Mayhem (on Shudder), and last year’s black horror comedy Ready or Not.

Grace and Alex have just been married at his very rich family’s home, and Grace is told that she must participate in a time-honored family tradition. She is asked to draw a card from a special deck, and the card she picks reads “Hide and Seek.” When told she has to hide while all of the other players try to find her, she plays along at first.

But, it soon becomes very clear that this is no light-hearted game. Grace is being looked for all right, but the stakes are deadly, because every other person in this game has a lethal weapon in hand. This movie is action-packed and darkly funny, as Alex’s drug-addled sister keeps accidentally killing household staff members and Grace runs and hides for her very life. Meanwhile, her beautiful wedding gown gets dirtier and more ripped up at every turn.

Ready or Not will keep you enthralled right up to the crazy ending, and the final shot of this action horror film is worth the price of admission alone.

Ready or Not can be watched on several streaming platforms, including Vudu, Amazon Prime and YouTube.

The Descent

This 2005 British horror flick is one of my all-time favorites for so many reasons. It has a cast of fantastic female actors playing strong characters, a horrifically claustrophobic setting (deep inside an unexplored cave), nasty humanoid creatures and plenty of violent bloodshed.

After a devastating car crash scene that kills Sarah’s husband and daughter, The Descent slows down a bit to establish the friendship between Sarah and her pals Juno, Beth, Sam and Rebecca. The women have planned an adventurous weekend spelunking, and they spend an evening drinking, reminiscing and arguing.

The pace picks up and never stops once the women reach the cave that Juno has chosen for them to explore. As it turns out, tricky Juno picked a cave that is not mapped, and that becomes a problem when part of it collapses, trapping them. It only gets worse from there, as mutant human-like creatures begin stalking and viciously killing our heroines.

There are so many intense, harrowing scenes in this movie, and since we actually like the characters, it hurts when they are slaughtered. The movie winds up to a break-neck pace, and depending on which ending you see, there is either a relatively positive outcome or a miserably bleak ending.

The Descent can be streamed on Hulu, Amazon Prime and other platforms.

 Honorable Mentions:

• Mayhem (Shudder)
• 28 Days Later
• The Babysitter (Netflix)
• Train to Busan
• Blair Witch (2016)

Hopefully at least one of these action horror films has the ability to jolt you out of the quarantine doldrums and get your blood pumping again.

Do you like your horror to be fast and furious like Dawn of the Dead (2004)? Tell us your favorites in the comments section.