I saw my first horror movie at age 7 and was hooked ever since catching A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: Dream Warriors on television. I started attending horror conventions over 15 years ago when my friends and I went to Monster-Mania Con 2 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Cherry Hill, NJ. Last weekend, I took my 8-year old daughter Charlotte to her first horror convention, Monster-Mania Con 42, at the same hotel my friends and I waited to meet our horror heroes nearly two decades earlier. While she had a great time, being there to experience this with her was a parenting dream come true for me.

Horror fans have it good these days, as new content and analysis is available at the click of a button. A few years ago, James A. Janisse started the Dead Meat YouTube channel quickly building a strong audience with the Kill Count series: videos breaking down horror films and franchises, sometimes scene by scene and enumerating the deaths.

Janisse’s weekly videos quickly became viral sensations and he currently sits with an incredibly impressive 2.3 million subscribers. The success of the Kill Count series allowed him and his girlfriend/collaborator Chelsea Rebecca to branch out and create more content, including crossovers with Crypt TV, fan convention/travel videos, and interviews with horror icons. One year ago last week they started their own Dead Meat podcast available both on YouTube and Soundcloud.

Last One Screaming
Written and Directed by Matt Devino
Starring Camilla Greenberg, Olivia Mackenzie Smith, Derek Weston, Nick Biron
Runtime: 10 minutes
Assorted Kinds
Released date: February 18, 2019 (YouTube)

Horror short films have become a passion of mine as I began attending more film festivals. Matt Devino‘s Last One Screaming played back in December at the New York City Horror Film Festival, continuing a successful festival run. The film takes only ten minutes to leave its mark on a horror fan, playing with genre tropes and conventions and treating the fan with respect. It begins its run on YouTube today.

Last December, at the New York City Horror Film Festival I met filmmaker Laura Kulik, and experienced her short film The Last Seance. The film runs 15 minutes, but packs a punch, reminiscent of Insidious and Ouija 2: Origin of Evil. Alisa Levinson is Anna, a young girl who’s been connected the other side since youth and Lauren Finley is Grace, her sister using her sister’s abilities to run scams on grieving families. That is until Anna comes face to face with something real and sinister.

This past year was one of the best for horror. In the world of film there were big-budget blockbusters and critical and financial successes. On TV and the various streaming services we were treated to a bevy of soon-to-be classic series. Eli Roth hit it out of the park with his phenomenal History of Horror on AMC. Netflix went back to the Mike Flanagan well and struck gold again with The Haunting of Hill House. Hulu is releasing new horror films every month as part of their Into the Dark series, along with the Stephen King-inspired Castle Rock. Shudder is dominating the horror streaming world providing the horror fan the closest experience to walking the video store aisles (you’ll hear the words “Shudder Exclusive” a few times in this list). Speaking of Shudder, we got the epic return of Joe Bob Briggs, who did three separate Drive-In marathons for the network, breaking the internet with his first. We even got the return of horror-staple Fangoria magazine!

Compiling my top genre (horror/sci-fi/thriller/etc.) list of 2018 proved difficult. The original idea of a Top 10 quickly spiraled out of control and ballooned into a Top 20, plus Honorable Mentions. In an amazing coincidence, a ton of these films were done by first-time feature directors. So without further ado, let’s get to my list of Top 20 Horror & Genre Films of 2018.