Necessary Evils: Matt Donato’s Top 13 Horror Movies Of 2015

7) Dude Bro Party Massacre III

Here’s an equation I never thought would work: 5-Second Films + Slasher Film + Frat Parody = Horror Comedy Success

Dude Bro Party Massacre III is a campy throwback to nonsensical slashers from yesteryear, played like a VHS recording your brother ripped off a late-night cable station. Created by the 5-Second Films collective, this unadulterated bro-on-bro horror spoof is a laugh riot from start to finish, and never apologizes for its intentional stupidity. It’s as silly as the title suggest, yet wise beyond its college stereotyping – this is what midnight movie magic is made of.

There’s nothing else I can say other than the paragraph I constructed in my theatrical review:

Face it, Dude Bro Party Massacre III has everything a cult movie needs – (weird) nudity, (random) celebrity cameos, frat mockery, ass smacking, human glory holes, ghost-butt-humping, and a SLEW of other gory surprises for the bros of Delta Bi Theta. Invite over the gang, oil-up those bods, sneak a few butt-chugs in, and get ready to laugh until Natty Light comes out your nose. Party on, 5-Second bros, party on.

Quoting myself might seem ridiculous, but I can’t think of a better collection of words to describe this frat-party-gone-bloody.

*pats self on back, moves on*

6) Backcountry

Horror doesn’t have to be fancy. Hell, I’m more scared of bare-bones flicks that portray something realistic than over-the-top slasher villains who could never exist in our realm of belief. Backcountry is of the former, detailing a couple’s camping trip gone deathly awry. You know how Jaws spooked everyone away from beaches for a little while? Well Backcountry does the same for camping, because bears are scary as hell.

Written and directed by Rookie Blue‘s Adam MacDonald, this is a story of survival. Two on-the-rocks lovers head into the Canadian wilderness for a brief vacation, where Alex (played by Jeff Roop) swears he knows the trails by memory. Jenn (Missy Peregrym) blindly follows his lead, because her corporate gig doesn’t teach her much about being outdoorsy. After wandering aimlessly, Alex eventually gets them lost, encounters a bear, and Peregrym’s character is forced to brave a deep-wilderness chase on her own – something she does exceedingly well.

Backcountry is gritty, down-and-dirty filmmaking with an emphasis on tense execution. Seriously, f#ck bears.