The Conjuring 2, Don’t Breathe and The Shallows were just some of the successful horror movies from 2016, and the genre will hopefully continue its strong run into 2017 with these horror films not to miss.
There’s a wide range of classic monster movies scheduled for this year, The Mummy, War for the Planet of the Apes, Alien: Covenant and Kong: Skull Island, and whilst they’re bound to draw big audiences, we’re saying these are more action movies than flat-out horror, so we haven’t included them in this round up.
But there’s definitely plenty of horrors to hide behind your hands for in the cinema this year, here are the ones not to miss.
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The Bye Bye Man
Saying the name of a ‘monster’ can lead to disastrous things (Candyman comes to mind), but in The Bye-Bye Man even thinking it can summon the scary being, he possesses people, forces to see things and commit killing sprees. Watch the trailer below, it’s sure to terrify you.
In cinemas January 13
Split
We’d class this more of a thriller than horror, but we didn’t really want to miss it off the list. James McAvoy plays Barry who suffers from dissociative identity disorder, with more than 20 personalities. He kidnaps three teenagers from a parking lot and the story follows them as they try to escape.
In cinemas January 20
Rings
Rings is the third instalment of the series, taking place thirteen years after the events of the original film, the only returning character is the dreaded Samara, whose video tape once again wreaks havoc and costs people their lives. Let’s hope this lives up to the first film.
Julia is a high school student whose college boyfriend, Holt, has grown distant. Fearing they’re drifting apart, she travels to see him and finds out that he’s part of a club of college students who pass Samara’s tape between each other. Julia discovers Holt watched the cursed tape six and a half days ago, meaning that by the end of the day, he would die. The curse is what brought them back together, but it’s also what threatens to kill them.
Don’t Knock Twice
For Jess, life has never been better. A successful American sculptor, she has recently returned to the UK, where she spent much of her troubled youth. Now happily married, wealthy and settled, all that remains to make her life complete is to rebuild her relationship with Chloe, the daughter she was forced to give up nine years ago. So when Chloe agrees to come and live with her, Jess is optimistic that she can make amends and be a good mother once more.
What Jess doesn’t know is that Chloe has not come to stay because she wants to get to know her mother again. She has come because she is scared that a supernatural curse has claimed the life of her boyfriend, Danny, and is now coming for her. Chloe and Danny made the mistake of revisiting an abandoned house, once home to ‘Ginger’, a mysterious old woman said by some to be a witch. Local legend says that if you knock on her door then the vengeful ghost of Ginger will snatch you away to her hellish limbo.
At first Jess puts Chloe’s erratic behaviour down to the trauma of her past and the resentment she still feels for being abandoned. But soon Jess comes to realise that she is all that stands between her daughter and a formidable and terrifying supernatural force. Thrown into a battle for survival, Jess must learn the truth behind the legend of the witch and ultimately make the bravest sacrifice of all and knock on Ginger’s door herself...
In cinemas March 31
Annabelle 2
The creepy doll is back, although we're not sure why considering the first one actually didn't perform that well. The Conjuring spin-off certainly looks disturbing and scary enough in the trailer, but are all the best bits in there? Only time will tell.
In cinemas May 26
IT
Stephen King’s ‘IT’ has terrified readers since the novel came out in 1986, and then since the original film premiered in 1990. In this big-screen version Bill Skarsgard plays Pennywise the horrifying evil clown.
A Cure For Wellness
The Gore Verbinski-directed psychological horror film certainly caused quite a stir on social media when the first full-length trailer landed. The film is based on an employee who is sent to bring the company’s CEO back from a mysterious spa in the Swiss Alps, where nothing is like it seems and leaving is not an option.
Friday The 13th
The Friday the 13th franchise spans 12 films over the course of 30 years so we’re not exactly sure what else can be brought to the table, but we’ll hold out hope for something scary. It was first scheduled for release in January, but it was pushed back to, wait for it, Friday 13th October. Let’s hope it’s more to do with the significant date rather than reshoots or a whole load of work needed on it.
Saw: Legacy
Jigsaw the sadistic killer is back again, although in what form we're not entirely sure. He was killed in the third film and this will be the 8th, so only time will reveal if is back once again as a flashback.
We're expecting plenty of disturbing and gory kills once again.
In cinemas October 20
Insidious: Chapter 4
The creepy Insidious story is back for a fourth instalment. This time Parapsychologist Elise Rainier and her team travel to Five Keys, N.M. They're there to investigate a man's claim of a haunting, but terror soon strikes when Rainier realises that the house he lives in was her family's old home.
In cinemas November 4
Amityville: The Awakening
The classic story of the Amityville house is given a modern spin, this time starring Bella Thorne and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Single mother Joan moves her three kids into a new house in New York because her sick son (Cameron Monaghan) needs to be close to a hospital, but of course, the cursed house causes things to take a dark turn.
Get Out
Get Out definitely looks creepy enough, the story of a man meeting his girlfriend's family for the first time, but things turn strange when he comes to realise that one of the men he meets is someone he used to know but he isn't acting the same.
Raw
Definitely a film that looks as though it's going to leave you feeling more queasy than actually scared, this is going to be a gore-fest as it follows the story of a vegetarian who turns cannibal.
The Belko Experiment
The question is would you kill in order to avoid being killed? Workers at the Belko Corporation are expecting a normal day at the office, but things take an interesting turn when a voice announces to the whole company that they have 30 minutes to kill three people or six of them will die.
God Particle
God Particle isn’t being released with little notice like '10 Cloverfield Lane' but the third entry in the franchise has the same aura of mystery around it. Daniel Bruhl stars in this film, which follows a team of astronauts aboard a space station find themselves alone after a scientific experiment causes Earth to disappear. When a space shuttle appears, the space station crew must fight for survival following their horrible discovery.
XX
We’re intrigued with this anthology film that’s made up of multiple horror stories directed by four women. The four stories are The Birthday Party, The Box, The Fall and Her Only Living Son.
Halloween
What do we know about Blumhouse’s new Halloween film? It’s scheduled for an October 2017 release, John Carpenter will be heavily involved in the production and he may very well score the film with his son Cody Carpenter. John wants to take the series back to its dark, mysterious roots, all explanations and subplots cast aside.