In time for Halloween, horror films seem like the obvious choice for This Weekend’s Film Festival. As I did earlier in the year when I picked the best five live-action family films of the past five years, this lineup will be dedicated to the best horror of the 21st century. And I’m using 2001 as the start date, because it’s actually the real start of the 21st century. There has been a great deal of great horror in the last seven years. However, the five films I have selected are really good examples of the genre. Prepare to be thrilled, but there is some challenging cinema here as well. So let the countdown begin.

Coming in a #5 and starting off the lineup is SESSION 9. As I said in my original review from 2001, “This is one of the scariest films I’ve ever seen.” The story follows five asbestos removers who are under a very tight deadline to clear out and old asylum. This truly frightening film is a psychological thriller. The creepy location is just a setting; it’s the demons haunting the souls of the five men that bring horror to their lives. One of the workers becomes obsessed with recordings of an old patient in the mental institution, and as we get closer to hearing the session 9 tape the more tension we feel. This horror nail-biter features a great cast including Peter Mullan, Josh Lucas, David Caruso, Stephan Gevedon and Brendan Sexton III. Director/writer Brad Anderson makes a horror film where the threat of something terrible happening is far more frightening than ghosts popping up at every turn.

Starting out the Saturday lineup, the #4 film is Lucky McKee’s MAY. Like classic horrors films as wide ranging as FRANKENSTEIN and CARRIE, this demented character study makes us care about the monster and creates tension by steadily spinning their life out of control as we watch in horror. May, played amazingly by Angela Bettis, is a strange girl who works at a pet hospital. She has few friends, often talking to an eerie doll she’s had since she was a child. Her weirdness intrigues mechanic and wannabe film director Adam (Jeremy Sisto) and her lesbian co-worker Polly (Anna Faris). They find May fascinating because she exists outside of the norms of society. However, Adam, who rebels by going to Dario Argento movies, and the sexual experimenter Polly soon fear May, because she’s more than just a “cool” freak — she’s dangerous. McKee skillfully paints a complex portrait of all his characters weaving them into a nicely pace plot highlighted by dark humor. As I said in my original review, “There’s a shot, at the end of the film, where someone washes their leg in the bathtub, that is sickly brilliant.”

THREE… EXTREMES ranks #3, closing the Saturday night lineup. Third place is fitting for this anthology film that tells three different stories from three of the leading Asian horror filmmakers. Fruit Chan’s “Dumplings” tells the disturbing tale of an aging actress and the extents she will go to to retain her youthful appearance. Chan-wook Park’s “Cut” chronicles a kidnapper who strings up a famous director’s wife with piano wire and tortures him to terrible moral choices. Takashi Miike’s “Box” is a haunting tale about a writer who is tormented by the memories of when she was in a magic act with her twin sister and father. In my original review, I said, “Each filmmaker presents his film with a master’s skill. All three are visually intense and dramatically compelling.” This film nicely represents the wide range of excellent horror that is being made in Asian. “Dumplings” is a great example of the extreme trend of pushing the edge of moral boundaries as a form of social commentary. “Cut” tackles the morality challenge sub-genre where a rich man is typically challenges by a poor man to rethink the way they live their lives. “Box” is an ambiguous psychological tale that paints a nightmarish past that plagues the mind of the lead character till the present. Anthology films are sometimes tough to judge when one segment is better than the others, but, as I said in my original review, “each film works on its own and adds to the overall collection. No true hardcore horror fan should miss this film.”

The Sunday lineup should be a true treat for horror fans. Coming in at #2, THE DESCENT is “the best horror film released widely in U.S. theaters since SCREAM” to quote my original review. Director Neil Marshall pays homage to many classic horror films throughout this tale of a group of female spelunkers who find themselves trapped in an uncharted cave with nocturnal humanoid creatures. Marshall knows the reason why the events of his film are scary and plays them out perfectly. He takes the time to build the relationships between his characters and allows their interpersonal conflicts, the dangers of the cave and the hungry monsters weave together into an increasingly tense experience. The claustrophobia of the dark cave doesn’t allow the audience to find room on the frame to run to. With its great cinematography, this horror flick is not just one of the best horror films of the 21st century, but one of the best films of the 21st century.

In 2002, there were few films better than Bill Paxton’s directorial debut FRAILTY. It’s also the best horror film of the 21st century thus far. Paxton plays a father, who believes that God is telling him to kill demons posing as humans and has enlisted his two young sons to help him on his gruesome mission. Told in a framework where Matthew McConaughey plays one of the grown sons confessing that his brother may be a serial killer, we watch in horror as we see the tale of being forced to join in murder and disposal of the bodies. Based on a script by Brent Hanley, we don’t know for sure whether the father is really seeing visions or is insane. As I said in my original review, FRAILITY “really makes the audience think about religion, family and insanity.” This is a perfect horror film that combines brains and brain shattering scares.

If you disagree with my picks for the best horror films of the past seven years, please post your picks in the comments section. If you haven’t seen these films you’re in for a treat. Horror films are not rare, but ones as good as these five films are rare. So don’t be a zombie and lumber to the video store, or Netflix queue, or Zap2It.com.