Considering their reputation as 'dump months,' January and February seem to have over-delivered on the horror front in 2021. We've already had Chloë Grace Moretz fighting chauvinism, Nazis, and airborne gremlins in the fun monster mash-up
Shadow in the Cloud. And Nicolas Cage continued to embrace the genre that best suits his wild-eyed persona in the gonzo animatronic slasher
Willy's Wonderland. Even the reboot that no-one really asked for,
Wrong Turn, managed to breathe new life into the unfathomably long-running hillbilly franchise.
However, only
The Vigil, which is finally arriving in the States this month (it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival back in September 2019 and has been on other Netflix territories for months), can lay claim to being the first truly great horror of the year. Cleverly released to coincide with the celebration of deliverance from evil known as Purim (Feb. 26), it's also perhaps the first truly great horror to be so firmly entrenched in the Jewish faith.