This year’s top horror movies feature the best of what the genre has to offer — suspense, scares, slashers, stomach-turning gore, topical commentary and more — all of which make it a memorable year for horror fans no matter their subgenre of choice.
Our winner for the Best Horror Movie of 2021 is...
Candyman
Nia DaCosta’s hypnotically terrifying Candyman took the best and most groundbreaking elements of the 1992 original (without dispelling any of the Daniel Robitaille backstory from the sequels) and crafted a politi-horror masterpiece about art, racial injustice, and how harrowing history can physically haunt (and hunt) us all. Told from the perspective of Black creators with largely white audiences (and made by the same), Candyman’s rage from beyond the grave took on a whole new meaning as the gothic slasher’s blood-soaked hook began, for the first time, to represent different past tragedies to different victims. Executive producer Jordan Peele, in a move to update this urban legend for a new era, wisely made Candyman legion. –Matt Fowler
For more, check out IGN's Candyman review.
These are our nominees for the Best Horror Movie of 2021...
Candyman
Nia DaCosta’s hypnotically terrifying Candyman took the best and most groundbreaking elements of the 1992 original (without dispelling any of the Daniel Robitaille backstory from the sequels) and crafted a politi-horror masterpiece about art, racial injustice, and how harrowing history can physically haunt (and hunt) us all. Told from the perspective of Black creators with largely white audiences (and made by the same), Candyman’s rage from beyond the grave took on a whole new meaning as the gothic slasher’s blood-soaked hook began, for the first time, to represent different past tragedies to different victims. Executive producer Jordan Peele, in a move to update this urban legend for a new era, wisely made Candyman legion. –Matt Fowler
For more, check out IGN's Candyman review.
Fear Street Part One: 1994
Fear Street Part One is a fantastic foray into the young adult horror genre. The film perfectly draws on author R.L. Stine's Fear Street series, while adding layers of modern relationships and grown-up gore. Part One kicks off a unique film trilogy for Netflix, which spans hundreds of years of history with anthology-like elements and layered storytelling. The film is also a nostalgic trip back to the 1990s, complete with a grunge/pop soundtrack, early internet chat rooms, and tributes to iconic films like Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Halloween H20, and more. And the young cast shines, even when they meet gruesome ends. –Lauren Gallaway
For more, check out IGN's Fear Street Part One review.
Last Night in Soho
A love letter to a 1960s that was never lived, Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho is a journey from glitz and glamour to unbearable, oppressive darkness. Wright has always been a director that blends genres, but he’s at his most experimental here; starry-eyed time travel dovetails with murky murder mystery, and the supernatural morphs into slasher. Fantastic shot composition brings out the very best in wonderful central performances from Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy, but it's the misogynistic horror fuelled by a terrifying Matt Smith that provides Last Night in Soho’s lasting, chilling impression. –Matt Purslow
For more, check out IGN's Last Night in Soho review.
Malignant
Master of mega franchises James Wan (Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring/Annabelle) wins almost all of the “WTF” awards for 2021 horror with the go-for-broke foolishness of Malignant - a movie that slowly builds as a traditional horror mystery and then breaks free in its third act into something monstrously and magnificently bizarre. Annabelle Wallis plays Madison, a woman tormented by visions of a killer on the loose, a rampaging maniac who’s inexplicably tied to her and her own shadowy past as a girl adopted from a psychiatric research hospital. Malignant has to be seen to be believed, and even then you’re gonna be trying to wrap your noodle around this flick’s tricks. –Matt Fowler
For more, check out IGN's Malignant review.
Titane
Julia Ducournau’s Titane is a brand of movie all its own. Combining a cold and unfeeling violence with overt eroticism, this year's Palme d’Or winner trades in the same body horror that made the French director's 2016 debut Raw so good. From a scarring and truly disturbing pregnancy all the way to the excruciating attention paid to the sound design of people eating and drinking, and even their breathing, the film is a fascinatingly cringey thriller. And as wild as the film gets, even as it stumbles in pain to a bewildering climax, there’s still an accessibility to it. Both Alexia, a titanium plate in her skull from a childhood car accident, and Vincent, a grieving would-be father figure, make a strange kind of sense. If the idea behind body horror is to play on the reaction to unnatural distortions of our bodies, Titane extends that to our sense of community. Seeing two traumatized people find comfort in each other in such an unsettling way not only makes Titane one of the best recent examples of body horror, but one of the best movies of 2021 period. -Clint Gage
For more, check out IGN's Titane review.
All IGN Best of 2021 Entertainment Categories
- The Best Movie of 2021
- The Best Performance in a Movie in 2021
- The Best Director of a Movie in 2021
- The Best Horror Movie of 2021
- The Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy Movie of 2021
- The Best Comic Book Series or Original Graphic Novel of 2021
- Best TV Series of 2021
- Best Performance in a TV Series in 2021
- Best Comic Book TV Series of 2021
- Best Animated TV Series of 2021
- Best New TV Series of 2021
- Best TV Episode of 2021
- Best Anime of 2021
IGN's Best of 2021 Awards were designed by:
Lead Design + Art Direction: Julia Rago
Motion Graphics: Will Batchelor
