This is the sixteenth entry in our ongoing series covering the best horror films from each year. You regular readers will remember that we began in the 1990s and we started off the 1980s decade with lists for 1980 and 1981. But we wanted to pivot and continue moving forward in time beyond the 1990s into the 2000s. Thus far in the 2000s, we have covered horror films from 2000, 2001, and 2002.
On some level you could say this for every horror decade, but the 2000s are a bit odd as a decade. They start out still riding the wave of the commercially successful teen horror craze of the late 1990s. The decade is also known for the myriad re-imaginings of and outright remakes of classic and older horror films. You get the re-emergence and explosion of zombie movies. You get the explosion of Asian horror followed by the myriad American remakes of those successful Asian horror films. You also get the fuller transition away from practical effects and toward visual effects and computer-generated imagery (CGI). As such, the 2000s have sadly been somewhat remembered as the era of bad and overused CGI, and the glut of needless remakes. However, there were also original and quality films created each of these years that are worth watching. And some of those remakes or re-imaginings are not necessarily as bad as either you remember or were led to believe. Most of them definitely are, but not all of them.
On this list we are just doing a straightforward top six horror film selections from 2003. And like with previous lists, we also throw in some of what we call “tangential bonus films” at the end. These are films that incorporate horror elements but, in our view at least, do not primarily fit within the horror genre. These tangential bonus films are thus not actually horror films per se but are films that should be enjoyed by horror fans for their comedic, dramatic, or other use of horror elements and subject matter.
2003 was another big year for blockbuster cinema. The Lord of the Rings series continued its domination of cinemas with the final entry, The Return of the King, finishing as the highest grossing film of the year and winning all of the Academy Awards. The rest of the top ten at the box office that year included various big budget franchise projects including the second and third Matrix movies, the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the third Terminator movie, the second X-Men movie, and the second Bad Boys movie, as well as a few other popular releases from the big studios including Finding Nemo, Bruce Almighty, and The Last Samurai.
2003 was actually a down year for horror cinema both commercially and in terms of quality, especially compared to how prominent both 2002 and 2004 were in those areas. On the commercial side, the highest grossing actual horror movie of the year was Gothika ranking in the low 40s, and even then it was not a particularly good movie. Even amongst horror adjacent films, the highest grossing entries from the year were Scary Movie 3, which finished in the high teens, and The Haunted Mansion, which finished in the middle 20s. And again, I was not a huge fan of those movies either. There were some lean years in the early 1990s when it came to quality in horror cinema, but 2003 might have actually been the most difficult year thus far in terms of even coming up with six horror films from the year to recommend. 2003 was a particularly down year for American horror which seemed to just be an inferior collection of sequels, remakes, and similar regurgitations of formulas. Fortunately for all of us, there were a few good Korean horror movies released in 2003 that salvaged the year and made this list even possible.
1. A Tale of Two Sisters (Janghwa, Hongryeon)
MPAA Rating: R
A Tale of Two Sisters seems to be the consensus choice for the best horror movie of the year. This is likely for two reasons. For one, it is a genuinely engaging and quality horror film that blends three different subgenres of horror or horror-adjacent fare. These include ghost movies (and specifically of course Korean/Asian ghost movies), dark family drama, and psychological horror. Again, A Tale of Two Sisters blends all of these elements together and does so memorably and effectively. The second major reason is the aforementioned weakness of 2003 as a year in the horror genre. Thus, in being possibly the only widely acclaimed horror film released in the entire year, it can easily slide into this position of being the consensus choice. Sometimes the winner is not necessarily the best choice for any one person, but it is the film that is the least polarizing and thus everyone can at least agree was solidly good. I am not one that goes with the consensus choice merely because it is the consensus choice, but sometimes it is nice to have a film like this that just works and that you do not need to place any reservations or qualifications on it as a recommendation.
I do not want to give too much away in terms of the plot. A Tale of Two Sisters is the type of movie that works best with the viewer knowing little to nothing about the plot and in particular of the twists along the way. The story is inspired by the Korean folktale Janghwa Hongryeon jeon. As with anything that delves into psychological horror, there are dimensions where the viewer is compelled to wonder which things are real and which are occurring in a character’s mind. And of course, as is common with ghost movies, dark family dramas, and even psychological horror films, the events of the film take place after a certain tragic and traumatic event that sees one of the sisters institutionalized. The film actually begins with her release.
A Tale of Two Sisters was written and directed by Kim Jee-woon who also directed 1998’s The Quiet Family which was on our list for that year. The acting highlights really are the main female characters. These include the two titular sisters played by Im Soo-jung and Moon Geun-young, as well as the stepmother played by Yum Jung-ah. A Tale of Two Sisters was not a big hit in the United States, and thus remains a bit of an underappreciated horror gem from the 2000s. Nonetheless, it is an engaging, effective, and memorable film that works as well on first viewing as it does in subsequent viewings.
2. Freddy vs. Jason
MPAA Rating: R
There are a few movies that readers will debate whether they should be on the list. And I am assuming that Freddy vs. Jason is one of those films. This is perhaps a polarizing movie, and with that you either love it or hate it. The people over at Rotten Tomatoes tend to not like it with a measly 42 percent score. However, on the other side you have the folks at What the Flick who named it one of the greatest horror movies of the 21st century (see above). Again, Freddy vs. Jason is a love it or hate it movie. Now, in putting it on this list and placing as high as number two will probably tell you where I fall on that question. I make no claims that this film is some grand cinematic masterpiece. However, Freddy vs. Jason is genuinely fun, and is better than it has any right to be. Part of that fun surely comes from director Ronny Yu who handled 1998’s Bride of Chucky film. Freddy vs. Jason is easily the best of the horror franchise crossovers that became somewhat popular in the 2000s. For example, if you have had to endure brainless films like 2004’s Alien vs. Predator and 2004’s Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys, then Freddy vs. Jason comes off looking like The Godfather by comparison.
What makes Freddy vs. Jason work is that it stays true to the character, motivations, and mythology of both of its titular villains. Since both of these iconic slasher villains had been officially killed off by then, it can be only uncomfortably positioned within the canon and chronology of the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street film franchises. Instead of viewing this film a canonical to either franchise, I like to conceptualize this movie as a standalone film that is set apart from the canon and chronology of the two franchises. I view Freddy vs. Jason as its own thing that draws from the imagery and narrative elements from both franchises to craft a What If type of scenario where these two slasher villains existed in the same world and where their paths cross and eventually come into conflict due to their own character motivations.
The people at What the Flick might want to emphasize the story as being as much a Friday the 13th movie as it is a A Nightmare on Elm Street movie, but I do not agree. Freddy vs. Jason is aptly titled because it is primarily a Nightmare type of storyline and because Freddy is the instigator of events. Freddy is the one that puts the plot into motion. As someone that is a devoted fan of the A Nightmare on Elm Street series and that recognizes that the Nightmare series is the one that had more substance to it in terms of the stories and more of a cerebral quality to it, the plot leaning in the direction of the Nightmare series is probably the only way that this film could have worked.
So, let’s talk about that plot. The adults of Springwood, Ohio have taken drastic steps to try to save their children from the dream demon Freddy Krueger. They have removed all mention of him from media and historical articles, and they have banned any mention even of his name. They have fabricated alternate official explanations of many deaths, and in order to prevent the children from dreaming they have even subjected some of them to hospitalization and a dream suppressant drug called Hypnocil (that was originally introduced in Nightmare 3). Because of these drastic measures to erase the memory of Freddy and even to prevent some of the children dreaming at all, Freddy has been rendered impotent and unable to invade the dreams of the youth and kill them. As such, he devises a new strategy. He revives and manipulates Jason Vorhees to have him come to Springwood to begin a killing spree of teenagers in his classic style. Freddy knows that when teenagers start dying again in Springwood, the police and adults will automatically blame him, and thus his name and the atmosphere of fear will permeate the children and allow him to enter their dreams and begin killing again. However, the flaw in Freddy’s plan is that Springwood is a much more populated area than Camp Crystal Lake, which means that there are a lot more teenagers here to kill. When Jason starts killing in Springwood, he refuses to stop killing. And thus we have the source of our conflict between the two slasher villains. They must compete with and eliminate the other in order to have claim to the myriad potential victims in Springwood.
That plot might sound a bit bonkers but it all makes sense when implemented and actually ends up being a rather interesting story about human struggle against not just the supernatural killers, but also the struggle of teenagers for control over their own voice and their own future against an oppressive society that claims to care about them but ignores them and smothers them with what some people nowadays might call safetyism. While the overarching story is one of the clash between supervillains, a larger portion of the actual runtime focuses on the actions of a group of teenagers to discover what is actually happen in their town and devise a way to survive, and facilitate and prolong the conflict between Freddy and Jason. Neither supervillain can come after them when the supervillains are too busy trying to kill each other.
Now, there are of course flaws and limitations of this movie. The studio or the producers seem to have been uncertain whether the average viewer could comprehend a story like this, so the characters seem to repeatedly recount and explain what is happening around them to the viewer. The acting performances from some of the teenage characters are not always great (especially Kelly Rowland). And there are a few lines of dialogue that have not aged well. Another downside is that Jason was recast, and is played here by Ken Kirzinger rather than Kane Hodder who had played the role in the previous four movies. But the strengths of this film far outweigh the weaknesses. The nightmare/dream sequences were always a highlight of the Nightmare series and that remains true here in Freddy vs. Jason. For those that like a high body count, there are a lot of teenagers that get killed in this movie. Even though he could phone it in and play Freddy Krueger in his sleep (pun intended), Robert Englund delivers another solid and engaging performance as the titular dream demon. I would not call it an Easter egg, but horror fans get the added bonus of seeing an appearance by Katharine Isabelle (of Ginger Snaps fame) until her character is killed by Jason.
In sum, again, Freddy vs. Jason may not be a cinematic masterpiece but it knows exactly what type of movie it is and it delivers exactly the film that fans want. It draws from the mythology of both franchises to create a story that is genuinely fun and engaging to watch the first time and the twentieth time. No film on this 2003 list is as rewatchable as Freddy vs. Jason. This movie is comfort food for slasher fans.
3. Memories of Murder (Salinui Chueok)
Not Rated
Memories of Murder is the second film by acclaimed Korean director Bong Joon-ho. While I place Memories of Murder more on the horror side of the equation, this is the type of film that is debatably horror, as some would want to label this as a mystery crime thriller. There is another film in the tangential section (see below) that is likewise a serial killer movie that exists in a similar debatable territory. Memories of Murder is a solid serial killer investigation story about a real life serial killer in South Korea in the late 1980s. What pushes Memories of Murder more to the horror side is that this film really centers on the tension, the mystery, and the unsettling nature of the unknown.
For the plot, there is a serial killer that is abducting, raping, and killing women in rural South Korea in the late 1980s. The local police are relatively inept at investigating serial murder and lack the training, investigative methods, and forensic capabilities of American agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A detective is sent from Seoul to assist the local police. He is able to develop a profile of the killer and in particular that he only strikes on rainy nights and targets women wearing red. There are of course more murders, several false leads, and internal conflict between the police as to how the investigation should be handled.
There have been numerous films both before but especially after The Silence of the Lambs that explore similar themes of the psychological pathology of serial killers and the police investigation into and the catching of the killer. On some level, Memories of Murder is just another entry into that subgenre of films. However there are a few factors that really elevate Memories of Murder and place it amongst the cream of the crop of that subgenre. For one, Bong Joon-ho is now being recognized as a great filmmaker, but this was evident even on his earliest films such as Memories of Murder. If nothing else, Memories of Murder is an incredibly well made movie on every level from script to cinematography. Second, while it is a minor thing, this being a Korean film and entirely in the Korean language does make it a relatively unique entry into the subgenre. The deference in language between this film and the vast majority of the English language and American set films in this subgenre does mean that Memories of Murder has a different feel and different flavor to it even when it does replicate some of the narrative components of the subgenre. The 1990s were a prominent era for this type of movie, and even on our lists thus far we have included several similar films including 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs, 1995’s Seven, 1995’s Copycat, 1995’s Citizen X, 1997’s Kiss the Girls, and 2002’s Red Dragon. Now the majority of those movies along with the majority of entries into this subgenre are fictional stories. Among those listed, only Citizen X is based on a real serial killer. Like Citizen X, Memories of Murder is based on a real serial killer. However, the important difference is that Memories of Murder was an unsolved series of murders at the time the film was released in 2003, whereas Citizen X was only made after the killer was convicted and executed. That these cases are unsolved at the time of the film’s release makes the film much more open ended and ambiguous, and thus it does not have a comfortable ending.
Since that time, the killer has actually been identified. In 2019, police were able to get a DNA match for a man named Lee Choon-jae who was already in prison for a different rape and murder. And in all likelihood, the reason for why this string of murders stopped was because he was imprisoned in 1994. He eventually confessed to the series of rapes and murders, but unfortunately the statute of limitations had expired in 2006 so he cannot be prosecuted and convicted for them.
The acting performances are quite strong overall, but the two most memorable ones are Song Kang-ho and Kim Sang-kyung who play our rival detectives investigating the series of murders. You can quibble all that you want about the degree to which Memories of Murder should be considered a horror film. What matters is that it is one of the best serial killer movies ever made, and that in itself makes it an essential inclusion on the list. If you became a Bong Joon-ho fan with his more recent films like 2019’s Parasite, then I would highly recommend that you go back and see his earlier work, and thus of course 2003’s Memories of Murder in particular.
4. Identity
MPAA Rating: R
Identity is the first and to date still the only horror film by director James Mangold. Identity tells the story of a convicted murderer awaiting execution as his lawyers and psychiatrists try to get him an appeal or a stay of execution. Meanwhile, ten strangers are caught in a torrential rain storm that overtakes the roadways and leaves them stranded at a motel in rural Nevada. As the people settle into their rooms they find that one of them as been murdered. As the story develops, an unknown and unseen killer slowly works their way through the group trying to kill them off. The characters try to unravel the mystery of the identity of the serial killer that is targeting them. They also find out that they all have something in common: they were all born on the same day. The killer leaves numerical hotel keys counting down the number of people killed and remaining. In that sense, the film draws sizeable narrative influence from Agatha Christie’s masterpiece novel, And Then There Were None, originally published in 1939.
There is a significant plot twist at the end of this film that divides viewers. I will not give away the twist for those that have not seen the film. But as I said, it is a polarizing plot twist and it is likely that a significant amount of your enjoyment of the film will come down to whether you enjoy this twist or not. You can surmise from my inclusion of the film that I enjoy the twist. However, I certainly understand why others would not. Fortunately, a twist is not the only thing the movie has going for it. One of its true strengths is its highly recognizable and top notch cast of both lead actors and character actors. These include the likes of John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, John Hawkes, Alfred Molina, Clea DuVall, John C. McGinley, Jake Busey, Carmen Argenziano, Marshall Bell, and the ever lovely Rebecca De Mornay, to name a few.
Overall, Identity is a well made film that benefits from its strong ensemble cast. Sure the plot twist can be divisive, but the film still works as a mystery slasher film (a la And Then There Were None) regardless of how you feel about the twist ending.
5. Dead End
MPAA Rating: R
Given the subject matter, it feels almost strange calling Dead End a fun little movie. But still, Dead End is a fun little movie about a family that is driving to visit relatives for Christmas. The father is the driver and he decides to take a new route and along the way they almost get into a collision with another car. After that they encounter a series of strange occurrences including a woman in white with a baby, another vehicle that seems to be following them, and they find themselves trapped on a stretch of the road that seemingly goes on forever. They make a few different stops and at each stop a family member seems to be killed off or abducted, and the result is that the remaining family members are driven into insanity and family secrets come out into the open. There is of course a plot twist at the end that is a bit predictable. However, the predictability of the plot twist actually does not diminish the story overall. The film overall is a quality though admittedly low budget stylization of what it is trying to convey.
Dead End was co-written and co-directed by Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa. The cast performances are all rather strong but the most memorable are certainly those of the two parents played by Ray Wise and Lin Shaye, as well as the daughter played Alexandra Holden. If for no other reason, this movie is recommended based on Lin Shaye’s performance as the mother whose version of a descent into madness is one of just no longer holding back and to be entirely uninhibited. Though substantive for the plot, that character dimension adds considerable amusement to the tone of the film that makes it more memorable. Her character steals not only scenes but the movie as a whole.
6. The Uninvited (A Table for Four) (4 Inyong Shiktak)
Not Rated
The Uninvited (or, A Table for Four) is our third Korean film and it is a difficult film to talk about and describe to people. It was written and directed by Lee Soo-yeon. For one, while there are ghost story elements and imagery to it, it is not actually a true ghost movie. It is a dark and bleak film about the role that intense guilt and grief related to emotional trauma around death can have on people’s lives and how it fundamentally changes them and the trajectory of their lives. For as dark as A Tale of Two Sisters (above) was, I would have to say that The Uninvited is the most bleak and emotionally devastating film that I watched from 2003. Much like its subject matter, it is the type of film that will leave its mark on you. I do not want to get into the plot, because this is the type of movie that you really need to go into cold the first time. For those of you that truly want a plot summary, you can always read the Wikipedia page for the movie, but again, I do not recommend doing that before you have seen the film.
Highlights of the film would be its brilliant fusion of both the stylization of emotional trauma and how it can present itself in our lives in ways that we might wish were supernatural as well as the simultaneously bleak, indifferent, and brutal presentation of death and how easily and casually it can occur. The acting standouts are our two leads played by Park Shin-yang and Jun Ji-hyun. Each is able to carry themselves in presenting both a realistic but also extreme case of a bond born out of intense grief and emotional trauma. The movie drops down this list to number six because of a few minor flaws in the story and just generally how its bleakness diminishes your willingness to view this one again. This is not the fun time that Freddy vs. Jason was (above). The Uninvited is a good watch but it is the type of movie that can ruin your mood for the day and potentially for the week.
Tangential Bonus 1: The Return of the King
MPAA Rating: PG13
Regular readers will remember that the first two films in this series, The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, were in this same tangential section of our 2001 list and our 2002 list. The Lord of the Rings series along with the Harry Potter series were by far the two greatest fantasy film series of the 2000s, and especially of the early 2000s. The Return of the King is of course the third and final film in the Lord of the Rings series, and it was the most critically acclaimed.
The Return of the King is based on the novel of the same name from J.R.R. Tolkien published back in 1955. Set in Tolkien’s fictional Middle-earth, the story centers around a group of beings (hobbits, humans, dwarves, and elves) and their mission to return a powerful evil ring to its point of origin to destroy it. They do this to try to end a war for control over Middle-earth being waged by the Dark Lord Sauron against all the free peoples of the land. Return of the King is the final chapter in this story with the Sam and Frodo attempting to return the ring to Mount Doom and destroy it while the other remnants of the Fellowship rally the free peoples of Middle Earth to resist and defeat the forces of Sauron militarily. Like the first two films, Return of the King was directed by Peter Jackson who also gets a screenwriting credit. The cast for the film is now iconic including Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Bernard Hill, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davis, David Wenham, Miranda Otto, Karl Urban, Liv Tyler, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Ian Holm, Andy Serkis, Billy Boyd, and Dominic Monaghan.
Every aspect of the film works and it like the others in this series truly is one of the greatest fantasy films ever made. Return of the King was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won all of them. These categories included Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects. Return of the King was of course also wildly successful commercially speaking and was the highest grossing film in the world in 2003.
Tangential Bonus 2: Monster
MPAA Rating: R
Monster is ostensibly a biopic about serial killer Aileen Wuornos that was written and directed by Patty Jenkins. I say ostensibly because the story is semi-fictionalized. However, this was a well executed film that occupies a similar nebulous territory on the question of whether it is a horror movie as the aforementioned Memories of Murder. As a film that centers on a person who was convicted of multiple murders it certainly meets the definition of a serial killer movie and is thus at least horror adjacent. However, what makes me reluctant to place Monster on the more horror side of the equation is where Jenkins places the focus of her narrative. The narrative of the film actually tries to focus on the dramatic aspects of Wournos’ life and her lesbian romantic relationship while enduring her precarious and dangerous life as a prostitute. The murders that she committed were of the men (clients/johns) that hired her as a prostitute. However, unlike most horror movies, the killings are presented as almost an afterthought and are certainly not stylized or glamorized, nor even particularly gory. Thus, the overall tone of the film is one of essentially a dark crime drama where the central criminal just happens to technically be a serial killer. Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci both deliver standout performances in this film, and Theron was certainly deserving of her Academy Award win for Best Actress for this performance as Wournos.
Tangential Bonus 3: Underworld
MPAA Rating: R
Underworld is the first entry in the film series of the same name, and it is arguably the best film in the series. This film in particular and the series overall center on a centuries long war between vampires and werewolves (here referred to as ‘lycans’ short for lycanthropes). Kate Beckinsale stars as a warrior vampire named Selene whose mission is to battle and kill werewolves. In the first film, she discovers that the werewolves are seeking a man named Michael Corvin who is the human descendent of the original immortal Alexander Corvinus who spawned the vampire and werewolf lines. As the plot develops, she uncovers evidence of lies, treachery, and collusion between different elements of the vampire and werewolf sides that causes Selene to question her own role in the war and to eventually defy her vampire coven to save Michael’s life.
Now any film that so heavily focuses on vampires and werewolves is going to be at least horror adjacent, and Underworld certainly is. However, with the narrative and tone of the film being what it is, Underworld remains in the territory of being an action drama that just happens to involve a war between vampires and werewolves. Underworld is overall a rather enjoyable, satisfying, and well made film. The memorable acting performances are of course Kate Beckinsale as Selene, Bill Nighy as Viktor one of the vampire elders, and Michael Sheen as Lucian the head werewolf.
Tangential Bonus 4: The Curse of the Black Pearl
MPAA Rating: PG13
The Curse of the Black Pearl is the first and definitely the best entry into the Pirates of the Caribbean film series that is of course named for the ride at Disney World. In that way, this film is also by far the best film ever made based on a theme park ride. The film’s plot centers around three stories: a love triangle (Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, and Jack Davenport); an outlaw pirate captain attempting to revive his glory days and retake his old ship (Johnny Depp); and of course an undead pirate captain and crew that are trying to lift the curse that has kept them in this liminal state between life and death. The first two parts there are what you might expect from any period romantic drama or swashbuckling adventure. That third part about the evil curses and the undead is what pushes this film into horror adjacent territory.
The Curse of the Black Pearl was directed by Gore Verbinski whose previous film had been the American remake of The Ring. The Curse of the Black Pearl was one of the big movies of 2003 and is remarkable for being both commercially successful and critically acclaimed. It was the fourth highest grossing film of 2003. And though it did not win any Academy Awards, it was nominated for five of them. These nominations included for Best Actor (Johnny Depp), Best Makeup, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects. The cast for these movies, and especially this first movie, is iconic and really all of them give standout performances. The cast includes Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightly, Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce, and even a smaller role for Zoe Saldana.
Doctored Entertainment 