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Number seven is one of the most unique films on this list, and certainly the most outrageous. Saw 2 director Darren Lynn Bousman took his love of the macabre in a very different direction with Repo! The Genetic Opera, a sci-fi sung-through extravaganza with an eclectic cast that includes vampire slayer watcher Anthony Stewart Head, Traveling Pants sister Alexa Vega, and celebutante Paris Hilton. Set in a future in which a virus is causing a pandemic of organ failure, one company has the job of selling organs at outrageous prices. Head is the Repo Man, whose job it is to take back the organs of those who can't pay, but his job gets complicated when his daughter, whom he has kept locked in his house since her childhood, runs away. It's a crazy story, and the film is chock full of camp value that could draw comparisons to Rocky Horror, but Bousman does such a superb job of creating the world that this is actually a great film, in addition to being a joy to watch. As embarrassing as this is to say, the performance that steals the show is Hilton's, who essentially plays a caricature of herself (if that isn't redundant) and is wonderfully funny.. You have to see Repo! to believe it, so go see it now! Go!

Assuming that all of you have now watched Repo!, we can continue to number seven, a much darker horror film. Let the Right One In is a Swedish vampire film completely devoid of sparkling, I promise. Oscar is a young boy who is constantly bullied until he befriends Eli, a strange girl who is able to protect him. The two share a bond, but Oscar realizes Eli's curse, and he is unsure if his love for her can forge this divide. Proving that non-Americans always make the best horror films, Let the Right One In is a genre masterpiece on par with The Orphanage and Pan's Labyrinth. Lina Leanderson gives one of the best performances I've ever seen by a child actor as Eli, creating a terrifying figure who is at the same time extremely sympathetic.

Paranoid Park is pretty much the definition of an overlooked film. It topped the Cahier de Cinema top ten list for 2007 but got completely ignored by audiences in favor of Gus Van Sant's other film released in 2008, Milk. But Paranoid Park is a much more experimental and unique film than the Harvey Milk biopic, telling the story of a teenage skateboarder who gets in over his head when he accidentally gets involved in a murder. Van Sant is a master at creating films that are low budget and low key but extremely emotionally resonant, and Paranoid Park can be added to a list that includes Elephant, Gerry, and Last Days. Using exclusively amateur actors, Van Sant does a superb job of creating a tonal and emotional world in which the audience is enveloped, and the results are very powerful.

I mentioned in an earlier column that I could come up with only a handful of films as emotionally brutal as Hard Candy. One of those was 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and one is my number four film, Funny Games (you'll have to check back next week to see what tops the list). Director Michael Haneke decided to make an almost exact remake of his film Funny Games, only with an American cast, and while I haven't seen the original I was blown away by his Americanized version. Naomi Watts and Tim Roth play an upper-class married couple on vacation with their kids, who become the toys in a disturbing psychological game played by two sociopaths. The film is difficult to watch, but deeply fascinating as it challenges all audience expectations. What really makes the film is the acting; Naomi Watts and Tim Roth give two of their best performances, and their chaos is matched by the level-headedness of Bradley Corbet and the always wonderful Michael Pitt. Forget Hostel, check out Funny Games.

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