Unfairly snubbed by its own country, Sweden, in considering its potential nominations for the Academy Awards Best Foreign Language category, Let the Right One In is a brilliantly paced tale of a timid young boy and his new friend, Eli, who happens to be a vampire. The film is beautiful from start to finish, but just wait until the perfect ending. Unfortunately, because vampires are huge right now and remakes are always bankable, a U.S. remake called Let Me In is set for release in 2010.

While some disagree about which half of Grindhouse is better - Robert Rodriguez' campy zombie flick Planet Terror or Quentin Tarantino's slowly-paced B-movie throwback Death Proof - the double feature still remains one of the coolest cinematic experiences in history, so long as you were lucky enough to see it. After bombing at the box office, the films were split into two DVDs, where they saw much more success, but without three of the original reel's hilarious fake trailers.

American audiences did not get to see this film for six months after it was released in the U.K., but it was worth the wait. 28 Days Later. . . revolutionized the genre with its fast-moving zombies. And it was impressive in its bleak reveal of a completely desolated London. To film the sequence, large sectors of the city had to be completely closed off to pedestrians.

Two major zombie flicks came out in 2004. One was an American remake of a zombie classic (number 11 on The Top 13), and the other was a British parody of that same film. While making fun of how slow zombies moved back in the day, Shaun of the Dead also pokes fun at the filmmaker's own British culture and manages to transcend parody to become one of the most emotionally-charged and character-driven zombie flicks ever made. It's also as funny a parody as you will see.

What is a horror movie list without a Stephen King adaptation? Directed by King super fan Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile), The Mist is probably the best King film since Shawshank. Though less successful at the box office than the other King adaptation released in 2007, 1408, this flick will make you jump, cringe, and stare at the screen in disbelief at the stunning ending.

After spoiling his Spider-Man trilogy with a highly forgettable third installment, Sam Raimi went back to his cheesy-horror roots with Drag Me to Hell. The film is so perfectly hilarious that The Top 13 might go far as to say that Raimi has redeemed himself. If only he would stop pre-production on Spider-Man 4 and his Warcraft movie and just make the next Evil Dead installment he announced a while ago.

America can fault this film with sparking the long, oversaturated series of Japanese horror remakes that followed it, including, among others, The Grudge and The Eye. Yet there's no question that the trendsetter was still significantly creepy and an improvement on the original. And the casting of Naomi Watts instead of some 20-year-old rising star like every other PG-13 horror flick in the past ten years scores it big points. It's just too bad she agreed to do that sequel.

Another unfortunate trendsetter and the first in a franchise that spoiled with the second installment and only got more and more rotten after that, Saw was still effective and very original. Noted for its gore, the film stars Danny Glover and Cary Elwes and tells the story of two men who awake kidnapped and chained in a foul bathroom, and are forced to go through horrific torture in order to survive.

The Koreans know how to make a great horror film. This one was a huge hit in its native country, and managed to make a small splash on this side of the pond, as well. It's an exciting film notable for its strong characters who actually attempt to take control of the situation, despite the fact that the sea monster that has taken the family's youngest member seems unstoppable and the government is doing nothing to help them.

There are two particularly horrific elements to The Descent. One is the fear of being permanently and hopelessly trapped in a pitch black underground cave; the other is the population of humanoid "crawlers" who live in the caves and kill any intruders who intrude upon their society. When a group of Scottish women get trapped in an "unmapped" cave system in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, they must face both - and director Neil Marshall makes sure the audience feels like they are right there with them. This is truly one of the most claustrophobic movies ever made.

Despite the fact it was following in the footsteps of 28 Days Later. . . with the use of fast-moving zombies, Zack Snyder's rendition of George A. Romero's classic Dawn of the Dead really holds its own as an American zombie flick that isn't just a low-budget B-movie. Indeed, this year's Zombieland probably wouldn't have existed without it. It's different enough from the original to allow die-hard fans to be at least content with it, and features what The Top 13 views as one of the very best opening ten minutes in horror film history.

Another fine horror film from Korea, A Tale of Two Sisters is about two girls whose deceased mother is replaced by an evil woman who wants their father for herself. Sound familiar? It was remade into a movie called The Uninvited in the U.S. earlier this year. As expected, the remake failed to capture the compelling ambiguity of the Korean film, not to mention the dark, grieving imagination of the original's central character.

Trick 'r Treat might very well be the only great straight-to-DVD horror movie. The film is centered around a trick 'r treater named Sam that kills with the jagged edge of his lollipop, but consists of four interwoven stories, each with its own awesome little twist. With the always stellar Anna Paquin and Sam, the coolest little murderer since Chucky, you can't go wrong.