Land Of The Dead

While there was a lull in British horror after the glory days of Hammer, it’s come back with a vengeance in the new millennium, with some of the best horror movies of the past decade coming out of the UK. With Paddy Breathnach’s follow up to Shrooms, Red Mist, out on DVD this week, and the tense cat and mouse thriller Hush out next week, we decided to take a look back and pick out the 10 best British horror movies of the noughties.

10. Shrooms
Director: Paddy Breathnach (2007)
Sometimes a movie comes along with absolutely no expectations that turns out to be massively better than you’d suspect. Shrooms is just such a movie. It a deceptively simple idea – basically a group of Americans in Ireland get high on mushroom tea and then start getting murdered one by one. However, are the deaths really are as bizarre as they seem (dog-boys, succubae, talking cows) or is some sort of drug induced hallucination involved, especially as one of the group has taken something far stronger. Shrooms may not be a masterpiece but it is entertaining and far better than many would have you believe.

9. The Hole
Director: Nick Hamm (2001)
Another movie that often gets dismissed is The Hole, partly because it isn’t what most people expect it to be. The film is essentially a very dark thriller rather than the generic teen horror it initially looks like. Schoolgirl Liz (Thora Birch) emerges after being trapped for days in an underground bunker with three other teens. She recounts how they got there and what happened while they were trapped, but the psychologist that Liz is talking to feels she must have blocked out some of the more horrific bits of what happened, but there could be even more to it than that. Starring a pre-fame Keira Knightley, The Hole is a taut, surprisingly clever movie that deserves a lot more credit than it gets, although the twist does annoy some people.

8. My Little Eye
Director: Marc Evans (2002)
Although My Little Eye doesn’t initially look to be a UK production, it is actually a British film. The film is a clever look at reality TV and the danger of the internet, all done as a slasher flick. A group of people move into a house where everything they do is streamed over the Internet, with the hope that after six months, one of them will win a million dollars. What they don’t realise is that it’s essentially a snuff competition, and subscribers are paying to watch them die. Although an effective movie in its own right (everything is filmed Big Brother style, as if from cameras in the house), the DVD takes things a step further, with multi-angle footage and a set-up as if you’re watching the whole thing on the Internet yourself. It’s a neat film with a great DVD.

7. Deathwatch
Director: Michael J. Bassett (2002)
Taking a war film and turn it into a supernatural horror movie is such a good idea that it’s surprising it hasn’t been done more often. After getting separated from their regiment, a group of World War I British soldiers are trying to get back to comparative safety when they stumble into a virtually deserted German trench. After finishing off what’s left of the enemy, they hunker down but soon discover that there’s an evil lurking in the trench that could be even more dangerous than the Hun. It’s a nifty mix of war movies staples, all given a fresh twist by the supernatural horror angle. Deathwatch is another film that often gets a bum rap for not being what people expect, but it actually deserves a lot more praise than it gets.

6. 28 Weeks Later
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (2007)
A rare case of a sequel that’s almost as good as the original, 28 Weeks Later succeeds not only by being an entertaining and intense movie, but also by actually managing to have a point to it. Following on from the events of 28 Days Later, a small part of London has been cleared of the Rage virus and the US Army is starting to allow people in to repopulate. However a family with a terrible secret causes the virus to spread out of control again. It’s an incredibly impressive follow-up to a great movie and is particularly rare for pleasing both those who like full on gore and those who want their movies to have a bit of brains. Let’s just pray they can continue the run with 28 Months Later, currently scheduled for release in 2011.

5. Dog Soldiers
Director: Neill Marshall (2002)
A group of British squaddies are on a routine training mission in the Scottish Highlands, but things go terribly awry when the Special Ops force they’re up against is butchered. The soldiers hole themselves up in a cottage with a zoologist who tells them they’re being hunted by an unlikely foe – werewolves. Conventional wisdom would say Dog Soldiers shouldn’t work, because in an age of fancy special effects, the werewolves in this film are comparatively low tech. However it doesn’t matter because director Neill Marshall, in his feature debut, ratchets up the tension and gore, making this one of the most thrilling British horror movies in years. It also has one of the best DVD audio commentaries you’ll ever hear, with the cast and crew having an absolute blast.

4. 28 Days Later
Director: Danny Boyle (2002)
28 Days Later would have been memorable just for the early scenes of a completely deserted London (which are still more effective than the high-tech empty cities of Vanilla Sky and I Am Legend), however the film is a lot more than that as well. The first half in particular is a textbook case of how to create a tense and eerie movie, as Cillian Murphy’s Jim wakes up in hospital to find an empty London, before discovering that the reason for the desolation is that everyone has been infected by a virus that locks them into a permanent state of murderous anger. Along with a few other survivors, Jim travels north, eventually finding some soldiers who at first seem to offer refuge, but who might actually be worse than the infected. The second half may not be as good as the first, but it’s still an absolutely superb film.

3. Eden Lake
Director: James Watkins (2008)
Although this is definitely one of the best British horror movies of the past few years, Eden Lake is a film you should only watch if you don’t mind being battered over the head by something that ratchets up the tension to almost unbearable levels and never lets go. It’s also a rare case of a horror film where the events are close enough to reality to make things even more uncomfortable. Jenny and Steven are enjoying a romantic weekend break when they confront a group of louts who they believe have stolen some of their belongings. In the scuffle that follows, the gang leader’s dog is killed, which sets off a terrifying cat and mouse chase, where the couple have to try to escape a gang who have few qualms about torture or murder. Like early Wes Craven films, Eden Lake is a truly relentless movie that has little interest in giving the audience an easy time or breaking the tension every so often to give you a chance to breath.

2. The Descent
Director: Neill Marshall (2005)
On paper, the Descent sounds pretty cheesy. A group of cavers being attacked by mutant, albino troglodytes sounds like it should be in the DVD bargain bin, but The Descent is far more than that. With some clever writing, the insertion of an all female dynamic and a director who knows that creating claustrophobia and tension on film is more than just shoving people in a restricted environment and switching a camera on, The Descent in a real horror thrill ride. It’s a frequently terrifying movie that succeeds partly by using the dark environment to keep the attackers hidden in the shadows until the end. It makes the whole thing even more intense and ensures that by the time they’re finally revealed, it doesn’t matter that the monsters look a bit silly. However it’s a trick they won’t be able to pull for this year’s The Decent: Part 2, so it’ll be interesting to see whether that movie works half as well as its predecessor.

1. Shaun Of The Dead
Director: Edgar Wright (2002)
Very few good horror-comedies have ever been made, largely because it’s a tough trick to pull off. However what Shaun Of The Dead realises is that the two genres are far more similar than they first appear. Both comedy and horror work by building tension and then venting it, but with each genre aiming to get a different reaction out of people. If you can do it successfully therefore, horror and comedy can be combined far more successfully than you’d expect, as Shaun of The Dead demonstrates. Simon Pegg plays Shaun, who desperately wants to reconcile with his girlfriend, Liz, after she dumps him. However his plan to get his life back on track is waylaid when a mass zombie outbreak occurs and he and his friends have to fight their way to the safest place they know – the local pub. It’s a film that manages to be very funny while also being incredibly gory. It knows that laughing and screaming are more similar than most people suspect. Thanks to the maker’s obvious knowledge and love of fright flicks, it’s undoubtedly the best British horror movie of the millennium so far.