The Josh Ruben Movies Ranked
In my youth, I watched a lot of CollegeHumor. The site/YouTube channel was formative in, ironically, my pre-college years, and I certainly wasn’t alone. The main attraction for me was the web series JAKE AND AMIR (2007-present), but sister series HARDLY WORKING (2007–2015) and various other one-off sketches also invested me in the organization. One performer, Josh Ruben, was a favorite, and he also moved behind the camera as time went on. I actually interviewed Ruben for a podcast of mine in 2016 (now long-defunct), and at that time, he was working on a number of short film projects and commercial shoots. So when I saw that he had directed his first feature in 2020, with SCARE ME, I was excited to see the development of his career. In the five years since then, he has directed three further features (more clarification incoming), working mostly in the horror genre, but incorporating his comedy background.
EDIT 2/9/25: Added HEART EYES.
#4 — DEATH TO 2021 (2021)
Co-director: Jack Clough
We start with a “movie” that could, from one perspective, not be considered a “feature” in the way we term 90-ish-plus-minute fiction films. DEATH TO 2021 is a follow up to Netflix’s mockumentary comedy special DEATH TO 2020 (2020), the brainchild of BLACK MIRROR’s (2011–present) Charlie Brooker and spiritual successor to his year-end specials on British TV. As with many TV projects, Brooker is seen as the “auteur” behind the project (although he was more loosely involved with this one), which wouldn’t quite be qualified as a series and kind of goes into “TV movie” category as I see it. This background serves to explain why I consider DEATH TO 2021 a full-fledged movie and also the circumstance that Ruben came into with co-directing it. The formula, look, and template of the DEATH TO… movies were set before his involvement, and in co-directing with Jack Clough, it isn’t quite clear to me what Ruben’s specific contribution was. I do know he tweeted about directing some performers in the talking head segments, however. In spite of or perhaps because of Ruben’s direction (though I’m inclined to believe the former), DEATH TO 2021 is a pretty miserable little pile of humor. DEATH TO 2020 was already not very good, which was based on a series of nihilistic doomerism jokes that had already been made on social media for all of that accursed year. It was enlivened, however, by the performances of Hugh Grant, Samuel L. Jackson, and others, who played fictional characters in talking head segments between Laurence Fishburne’s understated narration, slick graphics, and archival footage. It’s a parody of the documentary/TV special formula we’ve seen a million times, and for DEATH TO 2021, it rings even more hollow with a continuation of the same kind of jokes for the second year in a row. And those jokes are in fact weaker, with even Grant’s work (he was the standout performer the previous year) not able to rise above the worsened writing quality. DEATH TO 2021’s failure at being a funny retrospective covering some hard topics may not lie entirely with Ruben’s direction, and as mentioned, I’m not sure what aspects, good or bad, I should attribute to him. That can happen in the world of TV and its visual templates set by creators and showrunners. But as a feature-length (I consider 60 minutes feature-length), standalone-ish movie-shaped thing, DEATH TO 2021 is without a doubt the worst with Ruben’s directorial credit affixed to it.
#3 — SCARE ME (2020)
Ruben’s directorial debut is a clear ode to his favorite aspects of the horror genre. SCARE ME is a creative interpretation of oral “scary stories,” with Ruben himself starring with Aya Cash to deliver compelling scares and humor on the strength of their dialogue and limited setting alone. Ruben’s rubber face helps things along nicely and Cash is ultimately able to impart a depth to her archetypal “strong woman” character that loops into Ruben’s socially conscious script. The lighting and investing sound design are nice twists and immediate markers of a director who is not totally relying on traditional horror structure. I say “totally,” however, because SCARE ME also falls into awkward territory with baffling plot points and character developments. Chris Redd’s character is a welcome addition to the duo’s dynamic, but his appearance and disappearance are so strange that it almost makes you question why he was included at all. The ending of SCARE ME also isn’t quite twisty enough for me; its final emotional moments don’t always land, although there is a moment in particular where I see what Ruben was trying to say with positions of his and Cash’s characters. Ultimately, the movie is a solid and impressive debut, a movie, like many others, that is about other movies. But then, that’s the point, and the metatextual references serve SCARE ME’s universe rather than annoyingly pointing to ours with a “remember that!?”
#2 — HEART EYES (2025)
HEART EYES is certainly Ruben’s most ambitious and funded film to date and comes after the biggest gap between his releases at just over three years. The studio movie has more elaborate locations and set pieces than any of his previous works, which don’t automatically make it great. But working from a fusion of the rom com and slasher genres, HEART EYES tells a parodic yet earnest story of “enemies to lovers” uniting in the face of a Valentine’s Day killer. The movie is shot really well by Stephen Murphy and the gory practical effects (well, they look practical) are odes to the artform and other squirm-inducing moments from horror classics. Because HEART EYES isn’t an out-and-out spoof, certain moments require a hefty dose of disbelief suspending that don’t quite mesh with the emotional beats it’s trying to pull off. Its ultimate twist also feels a little lackluster. But ultimately, it’s often genuinely funny and thrilling. Leads Olivia Holt and Mason Good (son of Cuba Gooding Jr.) look “CW-ish,” which is perhaps a mean designation to give, but they quickly develop a rapport and comedic timing that make them almost immediately likable. HEART EYES has some distinct flaws, but it’s a totally fun movie and an exciting development of Ruben’s skills.
#1 — WEREWOLVES WITHIN (2021)
WEREWOLVES WITHIN may stand as one of the greatest video-game-to-film adaptations ever. But then, that may be because Ruben’s sophomore effort has little to do with Ubisoft’s multiplayer VR game, modeled after the Mafia-style group games most anyone has played at some point in their adolescence. The director clearly has a thing for snowy horror. Like SCARE ME, WEREWOLVES WITHIN sees characters snowed in. This whodunit, however, features a large ensemble, led notably and strongly by Sam Richardson and Milana Vayntrub. It’s shot and played on a much larger scale than SCARE ME, but still resides within the low-budge horror zone that can yield some great surprises. Ruben, with his first two films, has done a great job of channeling “left-wing horror,” a phrase I like to borrow from John Carpenter. As opposed to “right-wing horror,” WEREWOLVES WITHIN acknowledges the terror within us complicated humans, as opposed to blaming all evil on the “other.” Ultimately there is an other in the movie, but building on the same theme from SCARE ME, Ruben makes the somewhat tired but ultimately salient point that, yes, maybe we are the real monsters. But it’s not like WEREWOLVES WITHIN is some self-serious “elevated horror” picture; Ruben has just been able to fuse (in this case from Mishna Wolff’s script) a little bit of commentary with great genre moments. WEREWOLVES WITHIN isn’t the most revolutionary horror comedy, but it’s a really solid one, and an exciting improvement of the instincts Ruben already displayed with SCARE ME.
