Christopher Landon is best known for his work in the horror space. Here’s a list of all the director’s movies, ranked from worst to best.
Christopher Landon began his career in Hollywood as a working screenwriter, contributing to several smaller projects, as well as the 2007 hit thriller Disturbia, before tackling his first feature as a director with indie anthology Burning Palms. Next, he became a creative voice for the Paranormal Activity franchise, writing for the second, third, fourth, fifth and seventh instalments, while also directing the fifth. Landon stuck with the horror genre, less broadly pivoting into the realm of horror comedies, many of which have been well-received by critics and audiences alike. We’ve listed each of Landon’s movies, ranked from worst to best.
7. Burning Palms
Starring: Zoe Saldaña, Rosamund Pike, Jamie Chung, Lake Bell
Release Date: 2010
Despite its ensemble cast of recognisable names and faces, Landon’s first directorial effort saw his career behind the camera get off to a rough start. Burning Palms is a muddled anthology film about Californian stereotypes, represented through deplorable characters and equally wretched displays of human indecency. Structured as five unique and unconnected vignettes, each of which wallows in its own form of cynicism, the film doesn’t challenge the archetypes it prods at. It feels largely aimless and without any form of constructive intentionality.
Burning Palms does allow for some degree of dark humour to pervade the bleak storytelling, which prevents the film from coming across as completely irredeemable, but the bright moments are few and far between. Burning Palms explores a variety of social taboos, but at no point does the movie attempt to skewer our perception of these issues, or try to view them through a different lens. It’s a film that seemingly has no purpose except to showcase unlikeable individuals, which does not make for an insightful or enjoyable viewing experience.
6. We Have a Ghost
Starring: Anthony Mackie, David Harbour, Jahi Winston
Release Date: 2023
Based on the short story “Ernest” by Geoff Manaugh, We Have a Ghost is a quirky, tonally inconsistent pastiche of supernatural, genre-bending comedies from the 1980s. Anthony Mackie is the patriarch of the Presleys, a family of four who move into a large, abandoned house as they seek a fresh start. Youngest son Kevin discovers Ernest, a non-verbal ghost played by David Harbour, while exploring the spacious attic. While most of the Presleys try to profit off the discovery, Kevin instead commits himself to solving the mysteries of Ernest’s past.
We Have a Ghost is a haunting tale for the social media age. However, the focus on Ernest’s widespread fame and cultural impact dilutes the horror aspects, creating a muddled identity for the piece. Gatekeeping isn’t a valued practice, but I’d be hard-pressed to approve the film’s horror credentials, owing to the mixture of influences (E.T. is a prime example) and send-ups that make it difficult to pin the movie down. Each of the key performers rises to the occasion, particularly Harbour’s dependable performance. Ernest can’t speak, so Harbour is forced to rely on physicality and facial expressions to convey all of his emotions, and he does so in such an effective way that it only makes us wish the plot that surrounds him was better structured.
5. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
Starring: Andrew Jacobs, Jorge Diaz, Gabrielle Walsh
Release Date: 2014
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones came at a time when Landon couldn’t have been better primed to direct his first true horror film, having armed himself with franchise experience by writing the previous three instalments. Brazen teenagers Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) and Hector (Jorge Diaz) break into the apartment of a recently deceased neighbour, discovering a collection of occult artefacts that soon lead them to encounter a supernatural presence, at first giving the former superhuman abilities before more malignant indications of possession become apparent.
The Marked Ones borrows plenty from the legions of found-footage films that came before it; namely, an inability to adequately justify why the characters we’re asked to care about are still filming in the face of mortal peril. An improvement on its immediate predecessor, the movie does manage to make its characters engaging, using their close relationships with one another to drum up effective tension, but the scares ultimately fail to live up to those provided by in the original Paranormal Activity, marvelously helmed conceived and helmed by director Oren Peli. The Marked Ones is relatively formulaic right up until the final act, where a radical and bold new direction for the story threatens to either enrich or derail the experience, depending on the personal mileage one gets from meta franchise world-building.
4. Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse
Starring: Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller, David Koechner
Release Date: 2015
There’s a zombie stripper pole dancing sequence, a zombie jumping on a trampoline, zombie cunnilingus, and male zombie genitalia. Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse doesn’t attempt to disguise its juvenile style of comedy, swinging for the fences with outlandish humour and action set pieces, unabashedly revelling in its crass nature. Ben (Tye Sheridan), Carter (Logan Miller) and Augie (Joey Morgan) are three Boy Scouts who return from a camping trip in the woods to discover the majority of their town affected by a viral outbreak, turning people into zombies that still mostly retain control of their motor functions. The trio join forces with cocktail waitress Denise (Sarah Dumont) as they race to save Carter’s sister Kendall (Halston Sage) before the military bombs their town.
No doubt inspired in part by Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland, the peak zom-coms of the 2000s, Scouts Guide remixes teen horror tropes with coming-of-age comedy, playing up to all the stereotypes about the wants and desires of sex-crazed teenage boys. There’s little to suggest an attempt at deeper emotional storytelling, instead, Scouts Guide is blood-soaked cinematic popcorn, engineered to provide a horror-tinged sugar rush that passes as quickly as it manifests. Limited in scope and divisively received as a result, Landon’s third feature might not have universal appeal, but those who trade in adolescent sleaze will likely enjoy the ride.
3. Happy Death Day 2U
Starring: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine
Release Date: 2019
As a sequel to a film about reliving the same day over and over, it’s a wonder that Happy Death Day 2U isn’t more derivative than it is. Familiarity was inevitable purely based on the film’s narrative structure, but Landon wisely shook up the formula by pivoting genres, swapping out horror tropes for science fiction. Jessica Rothe reprises her role as Tree, a young woman in college who finds herself stuck in a time loop with a masked killer out to get her. This time however, Tree must also reckon with several subtle differences that throw her off her guard, including some changes to her world that make her question in which reality she wants to exist once she escapes the loop.
Both Happy Death Day movies thrive almost solely due to Rothe’s charismatic performance. She’s the driving force that compensates when jokes don’t land or when concepts fall flat, and that rarely occurs in Landon’s first (and currently only) sequel. Much of the comedy stems from Rothe, from how she emotes to how she physically expresses herself, and the emotional beats all originate with her too. Happy Death Day 2U undercuts some of the deeper personal quandaries it puts Tree through because it cannot escape a predictable outcome, but the journey to that point is fraught with satisfying kills, musical montages, and genre delights that freshen up the mechanics of the mystery at the film’s centre.
2. Freaky
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Alan Ruck
Release Date: 2020
If taking one classic movie concept (the time loop from Groundhog Day) and repurposing it with horror in mind wasn’t enough, Landon doubled down with Freaky, a playful horror-inspired adaptation of family favourite Freaky Friday. Kathryn Newton plays Millie, a timid teenage girl who one night finds herself at the end of the Blissfield Butcher’s knife. Instead of dying at the hands of the masked serial killer, Millie finds herself having swapped bodies with the Butcher, played by the physically imposing Vince Vaughn. With Millie now in a grown man’s body, and the body of a wanted man, she faces danger from all sides as she races to convince her friends of who she is while searching for a way to switch back before the change becomes irreversible.
Freaky switches up the slasher formula with inventive flourishes, providing the Butcher with the ability to scream like a diminutive teenage girl when threatened, and forcing Millie into a position where no one trusts her or has empathy for her, courtesy of her hulking appearance. Vaughn’s performance smoothens the body-swapping transition; Newton switches from nervous wallflower to steely-eyed psychopath convincingly, but Vaughn’s jitteriness and clichéd teenage mannerisms sell the swap. Freaky places unlikeable characters in the path of slaughter, offering up satisfying and gory kills between the many moments of effective comedy, keeping the film in the pocket to be enjoyed by both horror aficionados and the scare-averse simultaneously.
1. Happy Death Day
Starring: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine
Release Date: 2017
Balancing humour, horror and heart is no small task, but Landon’s Happy Death Day, the movie that made him a household name to horror hounds, perfectly walks that narrow tightrope. Jessica Rothe is Tree, a sorority girl with a superiority complex, who repeatedly finds herself waking up in the same dorm room bed. Each day she’s murdered by a masked killer and awakes in the same dorm room ready to relive the day over again. To break the cycle, Tree must uncover the identity of her mystery assailant and survive through the day; her birthday, of all days.
Happy Death Day cleverly subverts slasher tropes, and Landon delights in twisting the conventions of the genre with creative ingenuity, establishing a wicked, dynamic tone from the off. An affectionate play on Groundhog Day, Happy Death Day melds together comedy and horror, aligning itself more with the former than the latter but never allowing that decision to compromise tension — though, the lack of true scares is offset by effective comedic beats. Jessica Rothe is a superstar; her performance leans into the knowingly camp nature of the film, fully committing to the bit by finely balancing snark and charm to embody the cold-hearted sorority vixen with a playful edge. Landon recycles a familiar story structure and strikes gold, mining bags of charm and comedic bite to partner with the violent murder, all of which coalesce to form one of the strongest horror comedies of the past decade.
Watch Christopher Landon’s Drop in U.S. theaters, in U.K. and Irish cinemas, and globally in theaters on April 11, 2025.
