If self-isolation has you feeling a bit sluggish, you might want to consider watching Dawn of the Dead (2004) Don’t Breathe and some of our other selections to fuel your adrenaline.
I love a good slow burn horror flick. You know the kind of film I’m talking about. Think The Haunting of Hill House and other stories that pull you in at a deliberate and steady pace.
But I know that they are not every genre lover’s cup of bloody tea. However, I also love action horror that keeps me on the edge of my seat.
There is nothing quite like a movie that gets your heart pumping and causes your eyes to bug out of your head. Since a lot of action horror movies out there fit that bill, I am just going to focus on a few of my personal favorites.
Dawn of the Dead (2004)
I was a teen horror nerd when the original Dawn of the Dead was released, and I absolutely loved it. When the remake hit theaters in 2004, I was both hopeful and dubious, certain that it would not measure up to George A. Romero’s original masterpiece.
To my surprise and delight, I loved it! It paid tribute to its source material, while adding something new and exciting to the mix. These zombies were not slow, plodding dummies, they were hungry, angry and they could RUN.
From the moment a neighborhood child walks into Louis and Ana’s bedroom and kills Louis, this story does not slow down. Ana and an eclectic mixture of people end up sheltering in a shopping mall surrounded by zombies, and they don’t know that pregnant Luda has been bitten. Her loving husband Andre keeps it a secret, and the childbirth scene that follows is SO uncomfortable to watch.
The special effects are fantastic, and trivia alert: AFX Studio is responsible for them. Why is this interesting? AFX is co-owned by scream queen Heather Langenkamp, who played Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street!
If you prefer the old-fashioned slow moving zombie, then by all means, watch an older film. But, if you want to see zombies run their victims down, knock them violently to the ground and then eat their faces off, check out this excellent remake.
Action horror film Dawn of the Dead is available to stream on Amazon Prime, YouTube and Vudu.
Don’t Breathe
Fede Alvarez followed up his remake of Evil Dead with this dark little gem of a movie. Money, Alex and Rocky (played by Jane Levy, who was so good in the Evil Dead remake) are three young adults who break into homes to steal valuable items. Money comes up with a plan to break into the home of an older blind man, having been told there is a large sum of cash in the house.
Unfortunately for our friends, this isn’t just any blind man…he has what Liam Neeson would call “a very particular set of skills”, and the three thieves are in a lot of trouble. What makes Don’t Breathe so great is that we are actually rooting for two of the three burglars, and we eventually want Rocky to conquer the “innocent” blind man.
Trapped in the house, Rocky and the remaining friend (spoiler alert: one of them is brutally killed) must try to escape with their lives, while being pursued by a very calm, very dangerous man and his vicious dog. Don’t Breathe had me sitting in the theater wide-eyed, feet up in my seat, and my hand up to my mouth. It’s a real nail-biter, and personifies action horror.
You can view Don’t Breathe on a number of streaming platforms, including Vudu, Amazon Prime and Hulu.
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.