Horror movies are enjoying a jump-scare moment, as hit films like “Obsession” and “Backrooms” thrill zeitgeist-moving Gen Z audiences. Summer promises to deliver yet another slew of memorable thrills, including these five highly anticipated features.
‘Leviticus’
A movie with already-deafening buzz, director Adrian Chiarella’s queer horror story drops at a time of retrenchment for gender and sexual minorities in many parts of the world, including the United States. Naim (Joe Bird) and his mother, (Mia Wasikowska), move to a small Australian town, where he begins to fall for Ryan (Stacy Clausen). A pastor (Nicholas Hope) then subjects the boys to a cruel form of conversion therapy in which they are both stalked, terrifyingly, by a shape-shifting demon that impersonates the other boy. A “Sundance darling with few quote-unquote recognizable movie stars and no I.P. ties to speak of” that was snapped up by Neon after thrilling audiences at the Sundance Film Festival, it fully deserves to be the “next big summer horror movie,” said Ryan Lattanzio at IndieWire. (in theaters now)
‘Evil Dead Burn’
If you’re watching an “Evil Dead” film at this point, it isn’t for the originality but rather for the seemingly endless joys of watching angry demons lay waste to whatever unfortunates happen to rouse them from their turpitude. Director Sébastien Vanicek (“Infested”) takes over the franchise after the unexpected success of 2023’s “Evil Dead Rise.”
The new story features a grieving widow, Alice (Souheila Yacoub), whose visit to her in-laws’ isolated cabin goes predictably awry when someone decides to open up the Book of the Dead and read it aloud. Have the characters not seen any of these films? The film “unleashes the franchise’s most savage and terrifying ride to date, blazing onto big screens with an all-new chapter of carnage and demonic mayhem,” said Meagan Navarro at Bloody Disgusting. (in theaters July 10)
‘Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma’
Fresh off her career-making turn in the recently concluded HBO Max comedy “Hacks,” Hannah Einbinder stars as a young, queer filmmaker tasked with rebooting a trashy slasher franchise called “Camp Miasma.” When she seeks out Billy Preston (Gillian Anderson), the reclusive star of the original, she finds Preston living in the woods where the film was set and discovers that the movies might not all have been fiction.
The franchise’s villain, Little Death (Jack Haven), is trans, and director Jane Schoenbrun “approaches critiques of transphobia in horror cinema with so much levity and irreverence.” But the film lands because it is able to “shed the meta trappings and dive deeper into raw feeling,” said Samantha Allen and Ana Osorno at Them. (in theaters August 7)
‘Ice Cream Man’
Parents who believe sweets turn their kids into raging monsters may sympathize with the plot of this bananas movie from director Eli Roth (“Cabin Fever”). Ari Millen (“Orphan Black”) plays an ice cream man whose wares convert children into demonically possessed killers, who then turn on their parents and teachers in ways that make “Children of the Corn” look like a bedtime story for toddlers.
Roth, who also stars in the film, “looks to slaughter any sense of good taste with his brand new horror movie, delivering a blood-soaked exploitation film,” said John Squires at Bloody Disgusting. Even the trailer is not for the faint of heart. (in theaters August 7)
‘Hope’
Rounding out the summer, South Korean director Na Hong-jin returns with his first feature since the wild, justifiably acclaimed 2016 horror movie “The Wailing.” Bum-seok (Hwang Jung-min) is the chief of police in a small town under siege by nightmarish alien creatures. Jung Ho-yeon (“Squid Game”) plays his deputy, who helps him track and hunt the creature, while Beom-seok’s cousin, Sung-ki (Zo In-sung), leads a separate group on the monster’s trail.
Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender and Taylor Russell also star as three of the aliens. The film is “jammed with sharp, semi-parodic meta-commentary” yet remains a “full-on, unapologetic action movie packed with breathtaking and breathless car chases, horse chases, foot chases and monster chases,” said John Bleasdale at Sight and Sound. (in theaters September 9)
Rampaging aliens, murderous demons and a slasher-within-a-slasher highlight this summer’s horror slate
