Film distributor A24 has a massive stable of popular horror movies under their banner. Here's how they rank with critics
A24 has distributed a whole bunch of films, across countless genres--but over the years, they've become almost synonymous with horror. With an eye for the eccentric and the off beat, A24's horror movies range from full-on art house experiences to low budget grindhouse slasher and comedies--and just about everything in between. Chances are you've heard of at least a handful of their movies, or can name at least a couple just off the top of your head, even before you scroll further into this list.
But there will also certainly be horror movies that fall under A24's banner you may have completely missed or totally forgotten about. After all, they do put out a lot of movies--and not all of them get the prestige of a major or wide theatrical release. Not everything can hit Hereditary-levels of cultural saturation, after all.
So, with that in mind, we took to our sister site, Metacritic, to see exactly how A24's horror roster shakes out with critics. These scores are aggregated from critical response on a scale of 100 points--and keep in mind that some of them may even change in the future, especially if they've only been screened at festivals so far.
Which A24 horror movie is your go-to favorite? Which ones are overrated and which ones are slept on? Let us know in the comments below.
22. Life after Beth 50
Zombie comedy Life after Beth stars Aubrey Plaza as the titular Beth, a young woman who dies and is subsequently revived as a zombie who retains (most of) her sentience--for now, at least.
21. False Positive 54
Broad City's Ilana Glazer stars in this pregnancy-based horror movie about a fertility clinic with some seriously disgusting practices. Despite Glazer's comedy pedigree, this one is anything but a side-splitter.
20. Tusk 55
Kevin Smith's Tusk threads the needle between stomach churning body horror and comedy as it follows the story of a podcast interviewer (Justin Long) accidentally falling into the trap of an eccentric man who really wants to turn Long's character into a replacement for his best friend, a walrus.
19. Slice 61
Horror comedy Slice brings some top tier comedians into the mix with Hannibal Buress, Paul Scheer, and Chris Parnell playing supporting roles for Zazie Beetz and Chance Bennett (AKA Chance the Rapper.) It's about a pizza delivery guy trying to deliver pizza to ghosts--no, really.
18. The Hole in the Ground 63
This may shock you but The Hole In The Ground is about--you guessed it--a hole in the ground. Well, that, and about a malignant supernatural force that is maybe (definitely) body snatching children. This one has some real Babadook vibes, if that's the sort of thing you're into.
17. Men 66
Writer/director Alex Garland has dabbled in horror mash-ups before in movies like Annihilation, but Men was his first attempt at a pure folk horror story. It follows a recently widowed woman trying to pick the pieces of her life back up in a small English village--only to be stalked and harassed by a supernatural creature infecting people in the town.
16. Climax 67
If you're familiar with cult classic director Gaspar Noe at all, you've probably heard about Climax. Like his other movies (Enter the Void and Irreversible, for example) Climax is a highly experimental, psychological movie that heavily features music and dancing--many of the scenes were even improvised on the spot. This is going to be the sort of thing you either love or you hate.
15. The Blackcoat's Daughter 68
Sabrina the Teenage Witch herself, Kiernan Shipka, stars alongside Emma Roberts in The Blackcoat's Daughter, a story about demon possession and the horrors of being a teenage girl. Like almost everything else on this list, this one gets really weird, really fast.
14. Lamb 68
Icelandic folk horror movie Lamb is the story of a couple being given a surprising chance at raising a child when one of their sheep inexplicably births a sort of bizarre sheep-human hybrid. Yeah, it's pretty cute, but it won't shock you to learn that this creature did not, in fact, show up without some monstrous intervention.
13. The Monster 69
Monster movies can be tough to come by--they're typically pretty hard to make, and require either a big budget or some really fantastic visual effects. The Monster manages to circumvent a lot of the hurdles, however, by telling a story that's almost entirely contained to the inside of a car broken down on a deepy, isolated road through the forest.
12. Midsommar 72
Ari Aster's second movie, Midsommar, is a very literal fever dream-slash-drug trip through a cult-like Swedish village where the sun never really sets and human sacrifices are part of the norm. Come for the beautiful scenery, stay for Florence Pugh offering a killer performance.
11. The Killing of a Sacred Deer 73
Sometimes horror movies don't need monsters or even guys in masks with knives--sometimes they just need Barry Keoghan terrorizing Colin Farrell's entire family in a horrifically bleak revenge plot that unspools like some sort of deeply cursed fever dream. Like Hereditary, this one is best left behind if you've got any issue with horror involving kids. It's rough.
10. High Life 77
A24 loves a good genre mash-up, and that's definitely the case with High Life, a sci-fi horror movie set on a space station en route to a black hole. This one gets exceedingly dark--so consider yourself warned and maybe look up some spoilers if you're worried about really sensitive content--but it stars Robert Pattinson and is the English language debut of Claire Denis, who directed acclaimed movies like Beau travail and Chocolat.
9. It Comes At Night 78
Shockingly, It Comes At Night predates the Covid pandemic--but in watching it now, it's pretty hard to ignore how prescient moments of it feels. It's the story of a highly contagious disease ravaging the world and a group of survivors sequestering themselves deep within the woods--or, maybe there's something much more dangerous at play here.
8. X 78
Released this year, X was a take on the slasher movies of the 70s and 80s with a twist--instead of a bunch of teens and 20-somethings going on vacation or breaking curfew, it focused on a group of amatuer porn stars looking to make a movie on the property of a strange old couple. You don't need us to tell you that things go off the rails.
7. Green Room 79
The story of a punk band who winds up in the worst case scenario during one of their gigs, Green Room stars the late Anton Yelchin and Patrick Stewart as a horrifically brutal Neo Nazi skinhead. You read that right--this is a long, long way from the lovable Captain Picard you know and love. Think gritty, splatterpunk levels of violence for this one.
6. In Fabric 81
Horror comedy In Fabric has been compared to the classic Suspiria, and tells the story of a cursed department store, selling dresses that seem to cause nightmarish misfortune to befall their owners.
5. Bodies Bodies Bodies 82
Slasher Bodies Bodies Bodies has yet to receive a wide release in theaters, but premiered at South by Southwest to resounding praise from critics for its scathing social satire and clever use of horror comedy to really drive home the scares. And hey, who doesn't love a good teen slasher every now and then?
4. Saint Maud 83
A24 does love to release a religious horror movie. Saint Maud is the harrowing story of Maud, a guilt ridden reformed Catholic who begins working as a live-in hospice nurse for a woman dying of terminal cancer. Of course, rather than just doing her job and providing care, Maud decides that she has been sent to this particular case on a literal mission from a higher power to save her patient's soul. Unsurprisingly, things do not go well.
3. The Lighthouse 83
Tied with The Witch is Egger's second movie, The Lighthouse--which, admittedly, is a bit of a genre bender. Far from pure horror, The Lighthouse takes a look at the slow descent into madness undergone by two isolated lighthouse keepers (Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson). The whole thing is shot in black in white in a 4:3 ratio, making it feel like it somehow escaped through a rift in space time from the 30s or 40s.
2. The Witch 83
Similar to Aster, The Witch (frequently stylized as The VVitch) brought director Robert Eggers crashing into the mainstream as horror fans both loved and loathed the movie's strange, surreal look into the dark side of the colonial witch hunts and Puritanism. Oh yeah, and there's a goat named Black Phillip in this one, too, for all the animal lovers out there. Don't worry, he's definitely not the literal devil or anything.
1. Hereditary 87
Arguably one of A24's most famous movies to date--thanks in part to its sheer shock factor and to Toni Collette's bombshell performance--Hereditary is what bumped director Ari Aster up to a household name for genre fans of all kinds. If you're only going to watch one movie on this list--and you've got the stomach for it (seriously, if you haven't already been spoiled by now, just make sure you're comfortable with some very, very rough, graphic moments) this is the one to pick.
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