Edgar Wright names his 12 favourite modern horror movies
Recognised as one of the finest directors British cinema has ever produced, Edgar Wright represents the frenetic pace and comedic verve of the best of contemporary filmmaking. Working alongside the likes of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Michael Cera, Chris Evans, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aubrey Plaza and Anya Taylor-Joy, Wright has lent his talents to comedy, horror, comic book cinema and much more.
No matter what movie he has taken on, however, horror has remained a pretty constant interest, existing as far back as his early TV mini-series, Asylum. Later, he took on the genre directly with his breakout his Shaun of the Dead in 2004, yet his follow-up successes, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End, Last Night in Soho, and even the short film he made for Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Grindhouse’ double-bill, each contained elements of guts, gore and terror.
Wright has made no secret of this either, once teaming up with MUBI to name a list of his favourite horror movies of all time. Showing off his tastes for horror’s eclectic offerings, his collection includes several old classics, including F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face, including a range of modern-day greats.
In fact, Wright named 12 movies released since the turn of the new millennium, with many of his picks going to some of the contemporary era’s most critically acclaimed efforts, including Robert Eggers’ The Witch and Tomas Alfredson’s vampire movie Let the Right One in.
Elsewhere, the director opts for Pedro Almodóvar’s reimagining of a classic horror we’ve already mentioned, Franju’s Eyes Without a Face. It tells the story of a surgeon who creates synthetic skin for a mysterious woman he is obsessed with; although The Skin I Live In is based on the novel Mygale by Thierry Jonquet, both the book and film share many similarities to Franju’s classic.
There’s also a number of more popular, crowd-pleasing horrors on Wright’s list, with Drew Goddard’s high-budget thriller The Cabin in the Woods making the cut. A loving satire of the genre, the film stars Chris Hemsworth as one of a group of vulnerable teenagers who venture into the forests, only to discover a hellish nightmare, led by an evil corporation, awaiting their arrival.
Take a look at Wright’s favourite modern horror movies below, which includes movies from the likes of Bill Paxton, Guillermo Del Toro, Tomas Alfredson, Julia Ducournau and David Robert Mitchell.
Edgar Wright’s favourite horror movies:
- The Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard, 2011)
- The Devil’s Backbone (Guillermo Del Toro, 2001)
- Frailty (Bill Paxton, 2001)
- It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014)
- Jeepers Creepers (Victor Salva, 2001)
- Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
- Raw (Julia Ducournau, 2016)
- [REC] (Paco Plaza, Jaume Balagueró, 2007)
- The Ruins (Carter Smith, 2008)
- The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar, 2011)
- The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2015)
