If you wanted to see the best horror movies in 2010, you should have avoided the multiplexes in favor of smaller theaters playing limited releases and video stores stocking straight-to-video fright flicks. Here are the best of that bunch. (For the purposes of this list, I'm defining "limited" as less than 500 screens.)
Honorable Mentions: Cornered!, Doghouse, The Eclipse, Heartless, The Horde, I Sell the Dead, Monsters, Victim.
30. Aaah! Zombies!!
© MVD Visual
Consistently funny, if not hilarious, horror comedy that cleverly reveals how zombies see the world (and, in turn, how the world sees them).
29. When Night Falls
© Seminal Films
A tense, twisty, old-fashioned thriller from New Zealand about two nurses spending a dark and lonely night taking care of an invalid at a dusty old house while a homicidal maniac with a taste for nurses is on the loose.
28. Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever
© Lionsgate
Neglects the creepiness of the original in favor of a fun mix of campy humor and gross-out gore that scores more often than not.
27. Southern Gothic
© MPI
A stylish low-budget vampire tale of antiheroic redemption, fueled by a manic performance by William Forsythe as a vampire preacher hell-bent on "converting" the masses.
26. Tell Tale
© Genius
A well-acted, inventive modern riff on the Edgar Alan Poe story "The Tell-Tale Heart," featuring a heart transplant recipient who's driven by his new organ to hunt down those who killed the donor.
25. The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
© IFC
The cult film of the year probably inspired more disgust in those who didn't see than in those who did. The latter can attest that it's not the shallow gross-out-fest you'd assume it is. Rather, it's intelligent, darkly humorous and admirably restrained, featuring an icon-making performance by Dieter Laser as the mad scientist du jour.
24. The Experiment
© Sony
Big stars deliver big emotion on the small screen in this dramatic, introspective remake of the German thriller Das Experiment.
23. Peacock
© Lionsgate
A quirky, slow-boiling thriller featuring a great cast (Cillian Murphy, Ellen Page, Susan Sarandon, Josh Lucas, Bill Pullman) and a unique plot about a small-town bank employee whose dual personalities struggle to take over his body, with snowballing implications.
22. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead
© Indican Pictures
A smart and refreshing throwback farce that puts a fun, vampiric spin on Shakespeare.
21. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
© Oscilloscope
Richly imaginative yuletide fantasy with a delicious dark streak that paints Santa in a not-so-jolly light.
