I’ve read everything from 2018 has been the best year for cinema in recent years to the worst. Aside from the valid argument that “best” or “worst” are highly subjective when basing it on a qualitative criteria, there is no doubt that it has certainly been a year with a lot of variety. There have been some great films and complete dumpster fires. If I were to evaluate 2018 cinema, I would say that this year’s selections skew much closer to best than worst in recent years. Personally, I feel that it has been an exciting year! This observation is evident through the plethora of dynamic conversations on #FilmTwitter. While I do not feel that there is any singular standout film in 2018, there are ones that I feel help to make this a banner year, a truly memorable time in cinema for blockbusters, auteur, and indie films. The combination of new releases in the theatre, through streaming services at home, or sometimes both concurrently, provides audiences with an unprecedented ability to access a wide assortment of movies and films to satisfy even the most discerning cinematic palate.
While it is certainly up for debate how 2018 performed compared to past years, there is little debate that the horror (and horror adjacent) genre has become increasingly mainstream. But is that what the horror community wants? As a longtime fan of the American horror film, I gotta be honest with you that I am not a huge fan of how popular this genre has become. For the longest time, to be a fan of the horror genre was something niche. It was seen as this weird or macabre subculture to which outcasts, geeks, and goths, for example, belonged. Without writing an entire research paper on the subject (which, now that I think about it, may be a good idea), the horror community felt like a family or perhaps a neighborhood. Now it’s getting to the point that it feels like a city. Horror has always been popular and bankable, but it hasn’t been until the last couple of years that it has exploded among a wide array of movie lovers. With the growing affinity among general audiences, that sense of family is slowly fading.
Perhaps it’s the idea that our attraction to the repulsive, the “pleasurable unpleasure” as Freud would say, does not feel as special as it once did. If there is a positive side to more and more people looking to be entertained by horror, it is the number of horror films and shows released. Standout movies and shows from 2018 are A Quiet Place, Hereditary, Halloween, The Haunting of Hill House, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. All highly successful and extremely well made, a few award-nominated and winning even! For 2019, many of us are eagerly awaiting the remake of Pet Sematary, IT: Chapter 2, Us, and others. I love how there seems to be new horror movies and films coming out all the time. Gives me new movies to watch! But the tradeoff is a lot of “new fans” who think they know the genre in the same way as us lifers; furthermore, flock to, not only the cinema, but to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios to create 2-3hr waits for the world-class haunted mazes/houses, many of which are based on horror films and shows. HHN28 was the most crowded that I’ve ever seen it. Maybe it will be up to us lifelong fans of the horror genre to stick together to discuss what we’ve loved and have demonstrated an appreciation for a long time.
Horror isn’t the only genre or subject that has received a lot of attention in 2018, we also had some incredibly strong “non straight white male” writers, directors, central characters, and actors. From incredible performances delivered by Toni Collette, Viola Davis, Glenn Close, and Olivia Colman to films such as Blindspotting, Widows, Boy Erased, and Can You Ever Forgive Me?, just to name a few, we have certainly seen a much-needed increase in representation from those whose stories had more difficulty making it to the silver screen. There are many other fine examples of this shift in cinema, and I hope that this trend continues into 2019 and beyond. With all the outlets for storytellers now, it’s a great time to have the money and resources to bring hidden stories to life for all the world to see.
Okay, enough with some of my 2018 observations, here is my Top 10 Films of 2018 list followed by my most disappointing films list. If I wrote a formal review on my blog, I added the link to the title. Some films are so bad that I don’t even bother reviewing them on here. Haha.
Top 10
Honorable Mention: Annihilation
10. Halloween
9. Tully
8. Widows
7. Green Book
2. Hereditary
- The Favourite* After a lot of thought as I’ve been reviewing 2018, and when I was selecting my picks for the Oscars, I realized that I actually liked The Favourite a little more then ASIB. So, I’ve updated my blog to reflect that. (01/22/19).
Bottom 10
9. Happy Time Murders
8. 15:17 to Paris
7. Rampage
6. Skyscraper
5. AXL
4. Death Wish
3. Truth or Dare
2. Slender Man
Check to see if I’ve reviewed a movie from 2018 that you are interested in by typing the title into the search bar at the top of the page. There are 44 reviewed NEW 2018 films on my blog plus more than 250 other films! For horror fans, checkout my All The Horror blog from October that has 31 brief reviews of horror and Halloween movies. Odds are, you’ll find some for which you are looking!
Ryan is a screenwriting professor at the University of Tampa. If you like this article, check out the others and FOLLOW this blog!
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