Letterboxd's Most Popular Horror Pick Is an Unlikely Ralph Fiennes Flick (The Substance Is Only #2)
And it's debatable whether this project is a horror at all.
Today, horror is experiencing, if not a boom, then a renaissance. Both classic horror films with jump scares and gallons of blood and slow burners that scare with creepy atmosphere and talk about psychological trauma are regularly released on the big screen.
Reddit user dremolus has compiled a list of the most popular horror movies of the 2020s, based on the number of ratings from Letterboxd users.
And the results may surprise fans of the genre. No, it is not The Substance, Nosferatu or A Quiet Place, but the black comedy The Menu.
What Is The Menu About?
A big fan of cooking shows, Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) and his girlfriend Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) travel to a distant island to attend a dinner party hosted by the ingenious chef Julian Slowic (Ralph Fiennes).
They do not even suspect that in a few hours the long-awaited event will turn into mental and physical torture, in which the main sadist will be the same famous chef.
The Menu Is Less of a Horror and More of a Suspenseful Thriller
There are some brutal scenes in The Menu. Sometimes the movie resembles a soft version of Saw: a cunning genius gathers people in one place to punish them, and resorts to various tortures.
However, Mark Mylod's film stops just before the real violence begins. After all, the chef is not a sadist in the sense of John Kramer, but a refined aesthete. His challenges break the minds of the rich rather than their bodies.
That is why the presence of The Menu not only in the first place, but also in the list of the most popular horror films of the 2020s surprised many viewers. Reddit user TheRehabKid wrote:
“The Menu is considered horror? I would have classified it as suspense/thriller. I know there's a blurred line between those genres but I didn't think The Menu was even near the horror line.”
It's true, The Menu is more often funny than scary. Director and screenwriters Seth Reiss and Will Tracy do not take their idea too seriously – the characters in the movie are rather caricatures and stereotypes.
The Menu Is a Biting Satire on Consumerism and Superficial Elitism
The Menu shamelessly pokes fun at the sore spots of modern society, criticizing consumer culture and people's mindless desire for pretended elitism.
The main characters are punished for their hypocrisy and duplicity, and the role of the punisher is played by Slowik himself, who, after years of working in the world's best restaurants, realized how soulless and empty the society of rich people can be.
