Better late-than-never, the following are the horror films that IGN is most looking forward to this year. We’ve avoided remakes and sequels in favour of championing original fare, so there’s no Sinister 2, Insidious 3, Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension, Poltergeist or Amityville: The Awakening. Rest assured we’ll be covering those titles down the line, but these are 10 less derivative films that will be scaring up a storm in 2015...

Knock Knock

31

The Lazarus Effect

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Spring

It Follows

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Eli Roth and Keanu Reeves combine for this psychological chiller in which the latter plays Evan Webber, a successful businessman with a beautiful wife, two lovely children and the perfect home. But while his family is away, two gorgeous girls – played by Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas – show up on Evan’s doorstep, and slowly turn his dream life into a nightmare. Sounds like a sexy Funny Games, which we have no problem with, and Knock Knock isn’t the only Eli Roth production hitting screens in 2015 either, with The Green Inferno and Clown both being unleashed on the planet. Speaking of which…Scared of clowns? Then you might want to give 31 a miss as it’s apparently filled with the smiling bastards. Rob Zombie’s first crowdfunded project, the film revolves around five people kidnapped on the five days leading up to Halloween and held hostage in a place called Murder World. While there they fight for their lives by playing 31, which the synopsis claims to be “the most violent game known to man.” Zombie has stated that the film will be similar to The Devil’s Rejects in spirit, and his most nasty and bloody film to date.Uber-producer Jason Blum says that The Lazarus Effect tips its hat to Flatliners, but judging from the trailer, there’s more than just hat-tipping going on, with the film looking like a carbon-copy of the 1990 horror. Olivia Wilde, Mark Duplass, Evan Peters and Donald Glover play a group of medical students who figure out how to bring the dead back to life, but when one of them flatlines and returns somehow changed, horror predictably ensues. In spite of the similarities, the filmmakers are claiming that The Lazarus Effect is “a unique take” on the premise, so here’s hoping they’ve found something new to say on the subject. We’ve seen Spring and the truth is, the less you know about this one the better. So we’ll keep this vague. Low in budget but high in concept, the film stars Lou Taylor Pucci as a troubled youngster called Evan who, following the death of his mother, heads to Europe to clear his head. And while travelling through Italy he meets and falls for the beautiful but mysterious Louise. The film then follows their courtship, but this being horror, you can probably guess that there’s more to Evan’s new love than meets the eye. It’s a cleverly constructed feature by filmmakers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhad, with the revelations of Spring’s final third shocking, surprising and… well you’ll just have to see for yourselves.It Follows basically revolves about a sexually transmitted ghost. And if that set-up doesn’t get you into theatres, we don’t know what will. Maika Monroe – so good in 2014’s The Guest – plays a 19-year-old teen who starts dating a guy called Hugh, little realising that his affections come with deeply unpleasant strings attached. A thought-provoking spin on the slasher films of the 1980s, director David Robert Mitchell fills proceedings with an understated foreboding, and the result is genuinely frightening, as our review from the London Film Festival attests