While it might be one of the most recent examples, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance was hardly the first film to use bizarre and outlandish horror to earn critical acclaim. Possession isn’t necessarily the first, either, but you’d be hard-pressed to call 100-plus-year-old flicks like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu even remotely as jarring Andrzej Zulawski’s plunge into one of the worst breakups imaginable.

That’s not hyperbole, either: Like, have you lost a spouse to a free-loving German karate expert, only to find out later your ex also left him for — spoiler — a primordial, tentacled man-beast that feeds on human flesh? (If you have, please contact us.)

After wrapping his latest mission and coming home to West Berlin, Mark (Sam Neill, Event Horizon), likely the most mundane international man of mystery, is greeted by his wife, Anna (Isabelle Adjani, 1979’s Nosferatu the Vampyre), with the news she wants a divorce. Mark naturally goes on a skin-crawling bender, but snaps back to reality after realizing Anna has left Bob, their young son, by himself and on the verge of neglect.

They loosely attempt to mend things for Bob’s sake, but they mostly just harm themselves with an electric meat carver instead. Mark tries to move on with the help of Helen, Bob’s schoolteacher who suspiciously looks like Anna (and is also played by Adjani), except for her lighter hair and greener eyes. Meanwhile, Anna rents a dilapidated apartment that practically pushes against the Berlin Wall to look after her latest, more monstrous lover.

Dichotomies define Possession. Anna and Mark both vie for better versions of themselves. The former struggles with trying to reconcile her “Faith” and her “Chance” before “Faith” violently ejects itself from her uterus in an empty subway. The latter, however, forces himself to step up as a more present father, only to inevitably devolve into a self-destructive lunatic. All of which, appropriately, takes place in a physically and politically divided city. If Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire is an examination of how to potentially heal Berlin’s scar tissue, Possession is a nosedive into its festering wound.

What grounds the film is a pair of performances that shift on a dime. Adjani absolutely outshines Neill, but both show a physical and emotional toll from filming that rivals — and even matches — the very real distress seen from Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson just a year earlier in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.

Most will point to Adjani’s subway sequence, where Zulawski simply told her to “fuck the air,” as one of the main justifications for her Best Actress win at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. And they wouldn’t be entirely wrong, but the scene just before that, where she whimpers and whines at a statue of Christ, might be even more telling of her character’s condition. Anna essentially begs for some answer to chaos, for some cosmic force to “fix” the calamity that’s tearing her and every relationship she has apart. But all she’ll ever get is a stone-cold stare from yet another man (or even a symbol of a man) who has no chance of understanding her. And no chance of helping, either.

Scholars have managed to dissect almost everything about Possession, and yet it still persists as a bizarre, mysterious and even schlocky horror drama. Maybe that’s what makes it so challenging. Even as touching and shocking as movies can be, this feels like something different and perhaps more intrusive. It’s like putting the saddest song you can think of from The Cure or Nine Inch Nails on loop, with every iteration getting a few seconds slower until it’s incomprehensible two hours later.

Possession is a free fall into an emotional chasm. You’ll catch your head on a protruding rock every few hundred feet. Eventually, you’ll forget that you ever stood on solid ground. —Daniel Bokemper

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Zach Cregger’s Weapons taps into the same suburban fear that gave his 2022 surprise hit, Barbarian, staying power. What’s more, while Weapons includes a similarly rewarding and refreshing twist, the film doesn’t depend on it. Instead, it uses it to create a tonal anomaly of a flick that — at least for now — solidifies the former Whitest Kids U’ Know member as a must-watch horror director on the level of Jordan Peele and Ari Aster.

At 2:17 a.m. in the middle of a week, 17 third-grade classmates mysteriously vanish, save Alex (Cary Christopher). Their teacher, Justine (Julia Garner, The Fantastic Four: First Steps), shoulders the blame as the town demands a culprit. Archer (Josh Brolin, No Country for Old Men), the father of one of the missing kids, begins his own investigation of the disappearances while school principal Marcus (Benedict Wong, Doctor Strange) struggles to quell the town’s spiraling rage.

Like Barbarian, Cregger opts for a split narrative across six characters. While this helps Weapons comfortably outpace its two-hour runtime, it does feel somewhat needlessly inflated and could’ve benefited from a narrower focus. That said, it doesn’t significantly detract from the film; it just causes it to tread water for a decent chunk of the third act.

Minor criticisms aside, Weapons shines with exceptional cinematography, snappy dialogue and an expectation-subverting meld of heartwarming storytelling and unflinching brutality. Multiple tracking shots cleverly capture the self-destructive drinking and “eating” habits of three prominent characters. (This aspect of the film culminates with an especially wild scene that feels like it borrows from 2000’s Snow Day as much as it does 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust.)

While the film’s central figures feel a bit one-note, they’re leveraged by excellent performances from Garner, Brolin and a returning Amy Madigan (Uncle Buck). And while Austin Abrams’ (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) character is ultimately overexposed, his future collaboration leading Cregger’s Resident Evil movie carries a lot of promise.

Ultimately, Weapons earns most of its resonance through its unexpected accessibility. No, this isn’t a kids’ movie. Yet it borrows enough elements from early 1990s films like The Witches and Ernest Scared Stupid that it feels comfortably nostalgic despite its originality. Declaring it an instant classic feels like an overstep, but its undeniable charm paired with its grotesque violence could give it the legs to be timeless. And maybe it will be.

In a year already stacked with heavy-hitting horror movies, Weapons rises to the top of the pack. While it might not be technically “better” than Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, it operates on a different, largely incomparable level. In the end, Weapons is a crowd-pleasing flick that reminds us we should spend less time placing films on hierarchies and more time celebrating them.

See Weapons in a theater, and be sure to order seven hotdogs and a couple cookies. It’ll be more immersive than any RealD Cinema ever could be. —Daniel Bokemper

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Aliens in a cornfield? Obviously. Murderous children in a cornfield? But of course. Mia Goth violating a scarecrow in a cornfield? Uh, sure. But a Clown in a Cornfield? Maybe we’re jumping the shark. Wait, that’s been in a cornfield, too?!

While Eli Craig isn’t the first to put horror on the cob, 2010’s Tucker & Dale vs. Evil showed a playful understanding of the genre — not originality — is the director’s strong suit. An adaptation of Adam Cesare’s 2020 novel, Clown in a Cornfield sees Craig drop an original story credit, too. This change in his routine doesn’t quite hit the highs of his first standout film. But in a world where Terrifier’s Art reigns supreme, the Midwestern clown holds its ground.

Looking for a fresh start, Quinn (Katie Douglas, Lazareth) and her doctor dad, Glenn (Aaron Abrams, Code 8), move to a seemingly quiet, rural town. As Glenn discovers the residents’ firm commitment to tradition, Quinn meets a classmate named Cole (Carson MacCormac, Shazam!) and quickly falls in with his group of friends looking to buck the old-fashioned values of Kettle Springs. However, the teens quickly discover the town’s mascot, Frendo, isn’t playing around when it comes to community’s way of life. As Frendo starts to prey on Quinn and her friends, they start to unravel the mystery behind the town’s killer clown.

Unfortunate spoiler alert: Frendo isn’t from outer space. In fact, Clown in a Cornfield is significantly more grounded than you’d probably expect from Craig. While it doesn’t avoid humor outright, it doesn’t really try to channel it either. If it weren’t for casting Will Sasso (2012’s The Three Stooges) as the town sheriff, one could almost argue that Craig decided to take this flick a bit too seriously. Those who expect a return to Tucker & Dale’s uproarious gags — or, hell, even Little Evil’s — might find this clown running out of steam fast.

Granted, what makes Clown in a Cornfield at least somewhat interesting isn’t dependent on humor. It’s his straightest horror film yet, with a bit of classic slasher allusions thrown into the mix. It also dips its big, red shoes into an examination of generational tension. Unfortunately, it doesn’t dig particularly deep into this idea. It just kind of dances around it with about as much strength as a rubber chicken with a broken squeaker.

Which isn’t an entire miss, either. In the era of A24’s elevated horror, Clown in a Cornfield is admittedly very accessible. Similar to Cesare’s book, the movie is extremely easy to grasp. It’s not entirely inconsequential, either, as its romantic subplot is surprisingly deep and fresh. Still, it’s as if we’re trained at this point to expect something more from every horror film that isn’t franchised. And that’s probably unfair, given we need introductory films like this to get younger horror fans to dive deep.

Clown in a Cornfield has its moments, including a fair share of creative kills. Still, if you’re expecting some kind of in-depth dissection or even a few decent gags to wash down the mayhem, this cornfield probably isn’t for you. —Daniel Bokemper

Get it at Amazon.