Sunday Scaries: Quality Horror is Kicking Into Gear Here in Early 2024

The Sunday Scaries are upon us once again! Yes, as the weekend concludes, most of us feel an oncoming sense of anticipatory dread about the week ahead. Anxiety about work manifests itself into a feeling that’s known as the Sunday Scaries. However, we at Awards Radar are here to combat that, by taking back the name. Now, we want you think about a horror-centric piece on the site when you hear the term. So, let us continue on with another installment of the Awards Radar Sunday Scaries! Today, we’re looking at how the genre has finally kicked into gear here in the first section of 2024…

I love when a year has a deluge of good horror. No genre feels more elevated by high quality than this one. So, 2024 has looked like potentially a really strong year for horror, but with a focus on more later in the year titles. March, however, has chimed in with some really great offerings.

The year hasn’t been without good picks prior to this months, either. The highlight of that being, to me, Lisa Frankenstein (reviewed here), which admittedly is a horror comedy. The same goes for last week’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (reviewed here), which throws in action to the mix, though the Ghostbusters sequel did hit in March.

As for March itself, there was a horror adjacent title in Love Lies Bleeding (reviewed here), but the real highlights, that showcase why the genre is alive and well, is Immaculate and Late Night With the Devil. The latter two, in fact, inspired this piece.

Immaculate is succeeding as a Sydney Sweeney star vehicle, but it’s also a solid horror film in its own right. Having her as an A+ scream queen just elevates the flick. My review here included the following opening section:

Religious themed horror is generally not my favorite sub-genre. Of course, believing or not believing doesn’t fully impact if the scary movie works on you, but having some degree of faith does add to the potential terror. Lacking that, I see these fright flicks as just being set in interesting locations, to half-jokingly break this down to the bones. So, when something like Immaculate chooses not to focus too heavily on the religion of it all, I see it as a positive. Combined with a strong central performance and some surprising carnage, genre fans should be pretty pleased.

Immaculate has some ideas it’s toying with, but at its core it’s mostly gore, jump scares, and a showcase for a scream queen. The horror wheel is decidedly not being reinvented, though the convent setting is used slightly differently than usual. More than anything else, it’s a star vehicle, and in that regard, it’s largely successful.

Late Night With the Devil, on the other hand, I’d argue is just full on one of the best films of the year so far. Between the performance from David Dastmalchian, the clever execution by the filmmakers, and just how overall creative it is, there’s so much to fall in love with if you love the genre. My rave review here has the following praise to share:

By and large, found footage horror has seen its moment pass. Aside from some of the recent V/H/S installments that have been a bit on the clever side, we mostly haven’t seen anything new in a while. So, when along comes something like Late Night with the Devil, it’s truly exciting. Not only does it tinker with the format to have it serve its own devilish purposes, there’s also a riveting performance at its core to go along with creative filmmaking. The result is one of the bigger genre surprises of the year.

Late Night with the Devil managed to surprise the hell out of me. I went in curious enough, since even though found footage rarely blows me away anymore, I still tend to like it more often than not. So, to see that it’s a more playful and darker take on that, combined with a demonic story that actually invests you in what’s happening, actually leaves you shaken. Considering how much the filmmakers do with modest means, it’s a truly impressive work.

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The rest of the year has lots of promising titles, including Alien: Romulus, MaXXXine and Terrifier 3, as well as the latest Saw entry. Throw in Nosferatu and, if everything breaks correctly, 2024 could be an all-timer for horror. Stay tuned to see how it turns out, but March is just a table-setter. The best is still, hopefully, yet to come…

Stay tuned for another Sunday Scaries installment next weekend!