10 Recent Horror Movies That Weren’t Afraid To Push Their Boundaries

Horror films have been a staple of our screens since the inception of, especially during Halloween month. It seems of late, that these films have become more bold and daring in mashing up and contorting the traditional genre of scares to create a new entertainment experience.

1) Alien: Romulus (2024)

The Alien franchise is built on the visceral monster horror of a hostile xenomorph and alien facehuggers feathered with science fiction futuristic space travel elements. This installation is set on the Weyland-Yutani space station in 2142 with Rain’s space mining YA cohorts and her malfunctioning synthetic android sibling Andy. It leans heavily into both genres with potent themes of young able-bodied workers being exploited for corporate profit as well as the prickly moral question of whether Andy should have been programmed for function rather than emotion by his father.

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Xenomorph in Alien: Romulus. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

2) Longlegs (2024)

Nicolas Cage sure knows how to make a ghoulish androgynous character with creepy face paint and a high-pitched voice his own. Longlegs is ostensibly inspired by Silence Of The Lambs until it evolves into its own sub-genre comprised of horror pop culture elements courtesy of writer/ director Oz Perkins.

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Nicolas Cage in Longlegs. Photo courtesy of NEON

3) The Crow (2024)

Embracing its supernatural gothic underworld premised, The Crow is a tale of revenge when a rockstar comes back from the dead to avenge his lover Shelley’s brutal death in a startling moment. Based on James O’Barr’s graphic novel and influenced by the grim sensibilities of John Keats and Edgar Allen Poe, this stylish horror/ thriller which pushes the limits of extreme revenge violence.

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Bill Skarsgård in The Crow. Photo courtesy of Lionsgate

4) Blink Twice (2024)

Zoë Kravitz artfully blends psychological horror and thriller with ample flourishes of laugh out loud satirical belly laughs in Blink Twice. The film winks, nods, and playfully teases its way at tech bro culture at a gala event on a private island where the glamorous attendees disappear one by one – grizzly times.

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Channing Tatum as Slater and Naomi Ackie as Frida in Blink Twice. Photo courtesy of MGM

5) Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

Okay. It’s Tim Burton directing, so what did you expect from this life and death horror-comedy? Or is that a comedy-horror? Starring a devilishly debonair demon called Betelgeuse who falls in love with a human, they enter the realm of the dead rescue her daughter. This kaleidoscope of visual splash is a whole lotta family fun, especially at the Soul Station. Don’t miss that groove train.

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Michael Keaton as Betelgeuse and Jenna Ortega as Astrid Deetz in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Photo courtesy of Warners Bros.

6) Cuckoo (2024)

Even filmmaker Tilman Singer struggles to label his film a horror, but he got there in the end. It’s a moody, unsettling, confusing film set in a retreat in the Bavarian Alps run by a sinister owner conducting dubious scientific experiments. There are creepy external forces which add to the tension in this film which may drive you “cuckoo.” It’s plain weird.

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Hunter Schafer as Gretchen in Cuckoo. Photo courtesy of NEON

7) Late Night With The Devil (2024)

When the brothers Cairnes combined their love of late night talk show television when they should have been in bed with their love of found footage movies, they came up with a film title that could easily have been an actual television show for horror buffs. It mines the trauma of host Jack Delroy with a guest who’s possessed live on air.

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David Dastmalchian as Jack Delroy in Late Night With The Devil. Photo courtesy of IFC Films

8) Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

Writer Diablo Cody combined a teen coming of age love story starring an iconic monster character and a weirdo pop chick to create this delightful tale of Lisa Swallows and her dead boyfriend she needs to hide from her parents and make him as inconspicuous as possible. There’s a lot to unpack here in this genre-bending horror-comedy film directed by the late Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda Williams. What would Mary Shelley think?

Kathryn Newton as Lisa Swallows and Cole Sprouse as The Creature in Lisa Frankenstein. Photo courtesy of Focus Features

9) Winne The Pooh 2: Blood and Honey (2024)

Call it sacrilege. Call it blasphemy. Call it a horror hybrid. Or just plain blood-letting slasher fun. The cutest bear in all of fairy tale land has gone rogue. Twice. Rhys Frake-Waterfield has made a career of subverting Peter Pan and Winnie The Pooh into vicious monsters is one way to turn familiar characters into horror masters of death and destruction. Piglet, Owl, and Tigger become natural born killers in Ashdown.

Ryan Oliva as Winnie-The-Pooh. Photo courtesy of Altitude Entertainment

10) Slay (2024)

Slay pushes the horror-comedy envelope even further. When four drag queens (you read that correctly) perform at an event with a less than welcoming crowd, they are attacked by a group of vampires. Do the drag queens run back to the dressing room to hide? Not according to writer/ director Jem Gerrard. They slap on more makeup and outrageous costumes and tackle those blood-sucking vampires to save the day. It’s as riotously ridiculous as it sounds.

‘Drag Race’ queens in Slay. Photo courtesy of TUBI

by Staff Writer

From our in-house editorial team.