Can you even stand the anticipation?
Here’s my problem: I love getting spooked at movies—feeling anything heart-pounding, really—but I cannot stand gore. I find the use of excessive blood campy at best and exploitative at worst, and it makes me feel more nauseous than scared. For this reason, it’s rare that I can find a horror movie I can actually stomach. But thriller movies? Thrillers I can do.
There’s a range of reasons I’m into thrillers. I love a movie with twists and turns, with good people who might be bad and bad guys who turn out good. I love trying to guess what happens before the ending (I am always wrong) and I especially love that these movies can elicit strong reactions, like a roller coaster, without freaking me out too much with gross wounds. Which means 2019 was a good year for me, movie-wise, because there were some genuinely, um, thrilling thrillers hitting theaters and streaming sites alike.
Rust Creek
Released: January 4, 2019
What Is It?
A woman named Sawyer gets lost in the heart of Kentucky and stumbles upon some scary characters. Including her would-be “rescuer” who’s…just as strange as her pursuers. You have about as much information as the resourceful, resilient Sawyer, as she fights (often literally) to get to the truth and save her own life. The “survival thriller” isn’t always interesting, but Hermione Corfield turns in such a good performance it reminded me of Oscar-nominated Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone.
