I love a well deserved comeback. Nicholas Cage has been the butt of many people's jokes for some years now and I'm not gonna lie, for pretty good reason. After his genuine early works like Valley Girl and Raising Arizona many of his later films were flat out atrocious and part of the blame lies on Hollywood not knowing what to do with the quirky actor (yeah okay he went through a real rough patch and lost his mind and entire fortune). "Oh god, not the bees!!! No, Not my knees!!!! Oh god, Not the Declaration of Independence!!!" It's kinda like if they tried to make Crispin Glover a suave action hero. He's fucking weird man, let him be weird. So it's awesome to see Mr. Cage come back swinging with his weird-ass self, pretty much playing himself so when a director says "I need you to drink an entire bottle of vodka while screaming in your tighty-whities and a tiger shirt covered in blood" it makes totally sense. "You're going to track down evil occult monster bikers dudes, snort a whole table full of cocaine, and fight a guy with a chainsaw", once again total sense. Mandy is one of my favorite films ever. Like a heavy metal, psychedelic, drug induced fever dream of craziness. Then we have one of the best straight up horror films in decades with Hereditary. It starts with a haunting slow burn and ramps up to smash your senses in the face. Tony Collette is a force. Just thinking about her in this film gives me the newbie jeebies. By the way, never stick your head out the window of a moving car. Then there's the remake of one of my top three films ever, Suspira. I was beyond skeptical of the remake but it is so beautiful and creepy and does not step on the original's toes. It captured the original eeriness but made it it's own and I love it so much. Who knew that ballet could be so violent (especially when you're being contorted to death by evil witches)?

2018

1. Mandy (Directed by Panos Cosmatos)

IMDB plot: The enchanted lives of a couple in a secluded forest are brutally shattered by a nightmarish hippie cult and their demon-biker henchmen, propelling a man into a spiraling, surreal rampage of vengeance.

2. Hereditary (Directed by Ari Aster)

IMDB plot: A grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences.

3. Suspiria (Directed by Luca Guadagnino)

IMDB plot: A darkness swirls at the center of a world-renowned dance company, one that will engulf the artistic director, an ambitious young dancer, and a grieving psychotherapist. Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will finally wake up.

Bonus Films!!! I almost didn't add Annihilation to this list because I couldn't decide if it was horror or just straight up sci-fi but then I remembered the "bear" scene and that is the shit nightmares are made of. Also, I remember when Halloween was being rebooted/retconned and I had mixed feelings about the film but after watching it, I got exactly what I wanted from it and it exceeded my expectations. That one little kid actor Jibrail Nantambu was the star. "There was a fucked up face watching me from the dark."

Annihilation (Directed by Alex Garland)

IMDB plot: A biologist signs up for a dangerous, secret expedition into a mysterious zone where the laws of nature don't apply.

Halloween (Directed by David Gordon Green)

IMDB plot: Laurie Strode confronts her long-time foe Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.