6 Deeply American Horror Movies to Watch This Holiday Weekend – GQ Magazine

For the conflictedor indoors-inclinedpatriot.

Happy Fourth of July weekend! It's been a rough few months, and while we love this country, if it's hard to stand, hand on heart, shedding a tear at an amateur fireworks display from your friend's rooftop while minority families are being torn apart in the name of "security," we get it.

So here are some very dark, very American horror movies, perfect for watching as you wrap yourself in a blanket, shades closed, and hope for a better tomorrow. Nothin' more American than that.

Red, White, and Blue is not for the faint of heart. In fact, it's not for most people. On its surface, it's a gruesome exploitation movie that goes far further, and far darker, than American audiences have come to expect. What sets it apart from needless, hardcore exploitation is the heart beating underneath. It's a story of three interconnected people who come to do terrible, terrible things in the name of love. It's a film in which violence is the ultimate act of devotion. if you can stomach some of the more visceral scenes, this is a nuanced horror film that captures the terror and anxiety of living in America as ably as it captures the terror of death.

The Purge, for all its faults (boring, silly, very boring) at least had one of the best pure concept in modern horror to prop itself up. The sequel, Purge: Anarchy delivers on the promise of the original, this time taking the action to the streets, and making a sincere, if heavy-handed, point about class politics in the U.S. in the process. This movie's only going to get better and more important with age.

Camp. Kids. Summer. Murder. America.

This movie both takes place in a nondescript area of the Southern U.S. and deals with hellish beings/situations. It's a pun! Get it? This is an anthology horror that connects its threads more seriously than most, and has a couple of the best scary movie sequences I've seen in years. Seek it out.

Willow Creek is perhaps best experienced completely cold. Like, don't even look up what it's about. What I will say is that the very bare-bones premise involves a couple retreating deep into the wilderness to seek out a very American cultural touchstone, encountering some very strange people and experiences. Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait is the writer/director, and while there are moments of real bite and wit, this is a straight-up horror, make no mistake. The centerpiece scene is a single-shot fifteen-minute take, filmed in near-silence, as the couple wakes up in their secluded tent to some curious noisesand, well, you're better off finding out where things go from there on your own.

If you're choosing to spend your July 4th on a beach, I have just two questions for you: 1. Unless you're found a miraculously empty secret sandy cove, WHY? and 2. Wouldn't you rather hang out and watch Jaws, the single most important, ubiquitous beach horror movie of all time? It's cheaper and, I guarantee, a lot more fun than schlepping to Coney Island on its busiest day of the year.

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6 Deeply American Horror Movies to Watch This Holiday Weekend - GQ Magazine

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero