Welcome back to the third annual Scare Value Awards. Essentially, our version of a 2024 Horror Movie Awards. Today we will award some more traditional awards. We’ll crown Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Director and name the Best Picture of 2024.
We will also unveil which classic movie will join Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla in this year’s class of the Scare Value Hall of Fame. Only the greatest, most important or most influential movies in horror history will be a part of this exclusive club.
You can check out Part 1 of our awards here. We crowned the Best Final Girl, Best Killer, Best Twist, Best Gore Effects and Best Kill. It’s been another great year for horror…let’s hand out some more awards.
2024 Scare Value Awards
Best Screenplay
Five more interesting screenplays are set to do battle for their place in Scare Value Award history. Who will join Ted Geoghegan’s Brooklyn 45 and The Menu written by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy in the winner’s circle? The nominees for Best Screenplay are…
Cristina Borobia and Caye Casas – The Coffee Table
Tim Smith, Arkasha Stevenson and Keith Thomas – The First Omen
Dominic O-Neill – Haunted Ulster Live
Michael Sarnoski – A Quiet Place: Day One
JT Mollner – Strange Darling
Impressively, two of this year’s nominees come from prequels. Original films often have the inside track on this award. Only one previous nominee has come from a sequel. These are the first two prequels to vie for the honor. The First Omen earns it by finding clever ways to work around that story’s inevitableness. Certain things must be in place by the end in order to fit with the movie it is setting up. It opens new doors to further stories set in the universe in a clever way. A Quiet Place: Day One isn’t as beholden to what comes next as it focuses on a new cast of characters. What it does do, however, is turn a fun creature feature into one of the most moving portrayals of death, and dying on one’s own terms, we’ve ever seen.
Strange Darling‘s screenplay is one of its finest assets. It allows its story to unfold in unexpected ways by playing things out of order. It isn’t the first time a film has done this…but it has rarely been as effective. The Coffee Table mines tragedy to string out the longest stretch of being punched in the gut…maybe ever. It’s darkly funny…and enough to make you feel sick with anticipation. Haunted Ulster Live is a blast from beginning to end. It finds new ways to make found (or, in this case, lost) footage entertaining. It keeps you guessing…while also keeping you laughing.
Other than Haunted Ulster Live…this isn’t the most “feel good” crop of nominees in Scare Value Award history. It’s admirable how well the two nominated prequels find ways to feel original. Strange Darling‘s brilliance may be a trick…but it’s a great trick. And that leaves us with The Coffee Table. A script that feels like someone turned unimaginable tragedy into a knock knock joke…and then kept you waiting for the punchline for 90 agonizing minutes. Five great screenplays. One clear original.
The Scary Goes To…
Caye Casas and Chris Borobia – The Coffee Table
Best Director
Jordan Peele (Nope) and The Adams Family (Where the Devil Roams) are the previous winners of this award. Another five visionaries vie for a spot alongside them this year. The nominees for Best Director are…
Cameron Cairnes and Colin Cairnes – Late Night with the Devil
Robert Eggers – Nosferatu
Osgood Perkins – Longlegs
David Moreau – MadS
Coralie Fargeat – The Substance
Fargeat’s The Substance is a bold, beautiful and unexpected piece of body horror. It’s stylish and goes for the throat when the time is right. Late Night with the Devil feels like the period piece it is designed to be. Some of the finest found/lost footage usage we’ve ever seen. MadS is all out energy with an incredible technical achievement as its foundation. Turning the story into a one-shot experience pays off big time. Osgood Perkins finds the perfect fit for his patient style of filmmaking in Longlegs. He builds to shocking moments by lulling you into a trance. Speaking of trances…Robert Eggers finally got his dream project on the big screen. And what a beautiful, haunting, stylish and memorable dream it turned out to be.
The best thing about this category is how different each film feels. These directors got their full vision on the screen…and the results speak for themselves. Unique, bold, stylish…2024 was a great year for horror filmmakers. There can be only one winner, however. A trophy for 2024’s most beautiful nightmare.
The Scary Goes To…
Robert Eggers – Nosferatu
Best Actor
Neal Ward (Feed Me) took home the first ever Best Actor Scare Value Award. LaKeith Stanfield (Haunted Mansion) joined him in 2023. Who will be the third recipient? The nominees for Best Actor are…
Hugh Grant – Heretic
Nicolas Cage – Longlegs
David Dastmalchian – Late Night with the Devil
James McAvoy – Speak No Evil
David Pareja – The Coffee Table
James McAvoy was the talk of horror town when his Speak No Evil remake hit theaters. His Patrick is a delightful scene stealing monster. Hugh Grant’s performance makes Heretic work. He delivers a unique blend of likable and terrifying. You’d be forgiven for thinking that David Dastmalchian actually hosted a cursed talk show. His host feels so lived in and realistic that it grounds the story through the madness. David Pareja has to keep a tragic secret throughout The Coffee Table. His terror at it being revealed is one of the most pulpable things in horror this year. And, of course, we have Nicolas Cage’s off-the-wall performance as the titular Longlegs. It’s pure Cage. And that’s a great thing.
Five worthy performances…but a category with limited debate. Grant’s work is incredible…but the script never lets him reach for a second gear. McAvoy is amazing…but the character becomes too one-dimensional in the third act. Cage is Cage. This came down to Pareja’s tortured husband and Dastmalchian’s role of a lifetime. In the end…one of these roles fit its actor so well that it felt like it could only be played by the man who played it.
The Scary Goes To…
David Dastmalchian – Late Night with the Devil
Best Actress
Mia Goth ran away with the inaugural Scare Value Award for Best Actress with her turn in Pearl. Sophie Wilde took home the 2023 prize for Talk to Me. It’s time to see who the 2024 winner will be. The nominees for Best Actress are…
Mindy Cohn – Mother Father Sister Brother Frank
Demi Moore – The Substance
Lupita Nyong’o – A Quiet Place: Day One
Laurie Pavy – MadS
Sydney Sweeney – Immaculate
Sydney Sweeney has, arguably, the finest horror scene of the year in Immaculate. She strips away her superstar aura, coats herself in blood, and forces you to watch as she screams her way through a, pardon the pun, immaculate scene. Lupita Nyong’o is one of our best actors. She gives another brilliant, nuanced, and heartbreaking performance in the unexpected prequel to A Quiet Place. Mindy Cohn gives the funniest performance of the year. Her mother caught in a family murder scandal is the standout performance in the underrated Mother Father Sister Brother Frank. Demi Moore shatters expectations and conventions as the aged-out starlet desperate for another shot at fame. It’s also one of the funniest performances of the year…when it wants to be. Laurie Pavy’s section of MadS is a clear highlight of 2024. Her increasingly panicked, manic performance is the reason why.
Sweeney’s standout scene deserves all the praise one can heap on it. I truly believe that it is the best horror scene of 2024…and it’s solely because of her performance in it. Nyong’o offers the most moving piece of work this year. She plays a dying woman longing for one final slice of life with all the conviction you expect from an Oscar winner. But this category belongs to Demi Moore. At 60 (playing 50…which is funny given the material), Moore delivers her career defining performance in The Substance. To the performance of a lifetime goes the spoils.
The Scary Goes To…
Demi Moore – The Substance
Best Picture
The most coveted prize of any film award show is Best Picture. Eskil Vogt’s The Innocents was our first ever winner. Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One took it home last year. Which of the five worthy nominees will join them? The nominees for Best Picture are…
2024 was a year without a clear favorite for Best Picture. Late Night with the Devil staked an early claim for its contention. Longlegs and A Quiet Place: Day One joined it in the upper echelon soon after. The Substance made its strong case…only for Nosferatu to join it as the latest great movie release this year. A strong class. And a hard choice.
Remake vs. Prequel. Body Horror vs. Creature Feature. Found/Lost Footage vs. Supernatural Investigation. Some of the year’s best performances, screenplays and director’s visions colliding for the biggest award of the year.
A movie has never won two awards at the Scare Value Awards. Correction…a movie had never won two awards at the Scare Value Awards. This year we had five strong candidates…and only one that turns into something so memorably crazy that there could be no other winner.
The Scary Goes To…
The Substance
2024 Scare Value Hall of Fame Inductee
Each year two films will be selected to join the Scare Value Hall of Fame. These movies are the best of the bets in horror history. They can be important of influential…or just a hell of a lot of fun. This year’s first inductee was unveiled in Part 1 of the 2024 Sare Value Awards yesterday. Now it’s time to find out what movie will join Halloween, Night of the Living Dead, Bride of Frankenstein, The Exorcist and Godzilla in the Scare Value Hall of Fame.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Nothing has dulled the power of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in the fifty years since its release. Tobe Hooper’s masterpiece only feels rawer and more dangerous as time passes. It gave us a horror icon, some of the darkest humor in the genre…and enough meaning to chew on for five decades and counting. The film is the source of the biggest debate we’ve had on the Scare Value Podcast. Anyone who denies this classic and influential film’s place in history is as crazy as a family of cannibals raging against the intrusion of society on their world. One of the best horror movies ever made. Now a Hall of Famer.
Thank you for checking out part 2 of the 2024 Scare Value Awards.
See you in 2025.
