It’s that time of year again, where I hem and haw about making a best-of 2021 (or whatever year it happens to be) list only to ultimately relent and do the thing. So here, as per usual, are my favorite films of the past 12 months.
Horror as metaphor for grief and mental illness is nothing new. Specifically because it provides an effective framework to examine loss, things that scare us and cause us pain, and our responses, filmmakers will always return to this particular well. In his last film, The Ritual, director David Bruckner examined the collective trauma of a group of friends who violently lost one of their own. His latest, The Night House, hones in even closer, focusing on a single woman coping with sudden death and the legacy it leaves behind.
