the layout of my awards are similar to last year, with best films & documentaries, worst films, and special categories for particularly surprising or disappointing films. oddly, the same as last year, a single director appears both in my “best” list and my “most disappointing” list, something i didn’t notice until i’d already finished compiling it. last year, director toby wilkins appeared in the “best” category with SPLINTER and in the “most disappointing” list with THE GRUDGE 3. this year, adam green found his way into both categories. both directors are very active on twitter and seem like nice guys, so i can only assume this is a trend that will continue next year with yet another friendly director who loves to tweet finding his way to make one film i love and one that doesn’t quite live up to my (probably unreasonably high) expectations. mark that down as my prediction for 2011.

the best horror films of 2010

#10

SAW 3D

the latest tri-dimensional entry into the SAW franchise is far from perfect, but a damn sight better than some of the later entries (i’m looking at you 4 & 5). the 3d is fun, and the triumphant return of a principal character from the original made this a very enjoyable, if not horribly original, “ending” to the series (i trust this being the last entry as much as i did THE FINAL CHAPTER and FREDDY’S DEAD.)

#9

SPLICE

SPLICE starts off weird, and then just keeps getting stranger and more depraved. not every choice pays off in the film, but regardless a lot of the storyline and visual directions were brave, whether they all worked or not. a little inconsistent, but definitely worth a view from cronenberg fans or genetic scientists who wish their profession involved more kinky sex.

#8

THE CRAZIES

one of films i’m embarrassed to say i’ve never seen is george romero’s THE CRAZIES. it’s on netflix instant, so i really have no excuse. after seeing this slick, enjoyable remake, i may have to finally sit down and watch the original, because if it it’s anything like the new one, then i’m missing out. the remake features some great suspense moments, likable characters and law enforcement (timothy olyphant and his deputy) wearing some disturbingly tight pants (maybe that’s an iowa fashion thing i’m unaware of).

#7

THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE

i went into THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE like most — equally horrified and intrigued at the film’s simple premise, but not expecting much beyond that. i was shocked to find a clever and surprisingly restrained thriller with some great and (in the case of dieter laser) incredibly creepy performances.

#6

PIRANHA 3D

this is a remake of a film that was itself a blatant rip-off of another, more successful movie about a shark eating people. if that sounds like something you might like, then i doubt you’ll be disappointed by this tongue-in-cheek and ridiculously gory and nudity filled 3d extravaganza.

#5

THE LAST EXORCISM

i have yet to tire of these shaky-cam horror films when they’re done well, and this one is. doesn’t quite reach the heights of creepiness that BLAIR WITCH and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY achieved, but still well worth checking out.

#4

BURIED

in the hitchcockian tradition set by LIFEBOAT and ROPE, BURIED is an exercise in filmmaking. in this case, the exercise is setting an entire movie in a closed coffin. there are no cheats here… no flashbacks or dream sequences. this is an hour and a half of ryan reynolds stuck in a box. you’d think that’d be a hard thing to make tense and interesting for 90 minutes, but this film did it.

#3

FROZEN

adam green’s FROZEN is similar to BURIED in that the majority of the film takes place with people trapped in a single location (here it’s a stopped chair lift). it also shares the same serious tone, with the very occasional moment of dark comedy thrown in to alleviate the near-constant tension. a welcome departure from green’s over-the-top silliness exhibited in the HATCHET series.

#2

LET ME IN

i have not seen LET ME IN, but i am including it in the number two slot anyway, because that’s the kind of shit-house-rat crazy bastard i am. i wouldn’t blame you if that makes you disregard my opinion or this list, but bear with me. every review i’ve read of this film (at least the ones written by people i trust) says the same thing — “almost, but not quite as good as the original.” since i know exactly how i feel about the original, i’m going to trust my fellow horror reviewers on this one (well, at least until it hits blu-ray). after seeing it, i will add an addendum^* to this entry stating whether my educated guess on its placement on this list was accurate or not — but i’m almost certain it would reside here, if not higher. ^*after seeing LET ME IN, it would definitely either be in the #2 slot or tied with #1. i’m planning to look at the film more closely in an upcoming post.

#1

LAKE MUNGO

this film was the biggest holy crap that was better than i ever thought it would be moment of 2010, which would definitely place it on my “most surprising” list if it weren’t already residing at the top of this one. i’d kind of given up on the 8films2die4 gimmick as the films usually range from the terribly bad to the terribly mediocre and this one looked to be more of the same (although, to mix things up, it also looked to be “terribly australian”). i wouldn’t blame you if you missed this one, but i urge you to go back and give it another chance. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY left me a little unsettled when the curtain fell, but LAKE MUNGO had me feeling ill-at-ease hours after it’d finished. if you’re a fan of ghost stories and faux documentaries, this is one of the best out there.

the worst horror films of 2010

LEGION

LEGION is like THE PROPHECY but without christopher walken or anything else cool or interesting. the trailers centered around an ice-cream man opening his mouth real wide which seemed like an odd choice, until i saw the film and realized that was the least crappy two seconds in the whole film.

THE RIG

i normally try not to come down too hard on low-budget films, but this one is damn near unwatchable. other films this year managed to come up with something slightly interesting with limited resources, but THE RIG fails to even make william forsythe seem cool, a feat i’d previously thought impossible. this monster tale on an oil rig (which looks suspiciously like a high school in most scenes) redefines tedium and is the only film this year that caused me to literally yell at it, begging it to just, please, end already.

the best horror documentaries of 2010

NEVER SLEEP AGAIN: THE ELM STREET LEGACY

similar to last year’s voorhees’-centric documentary HIS NAME WAS JASON, this in-depth look at the ELM STREET series is far slicker and engaging.

BEST WORST MOVIE

this bizarre but oddly touching look into the making of and current lives of those involved in the cult classic TROLL 2 is well worth seeing, regardless of whether you’re familiar with the film it examines.

the most surprising horror films of 2010

BURNING BRIGHT

when i first read the description of BURNING BRIGHT on netflix (woman is trapped in a house with a circus tiger), my initial thought was “there’s no way i’m adding that to my queue.” after a moment’s reflection, that quickly changed to “that sounds so stupid, there’s no way i’m not moving that up to #1 in my queue.” i’m glad i changed my mind as this turned out to be a surprisingly tension-filled film, despite a few minor short-comings (mainly due to budget limitations, i suspect).

NIGHT OF THE DEMONS

i’ve always had a soft spot for the 1980s NIGHT OF THE DEMONS, so when i heard it was getting a straight-to-video remake, i was not particularly optimistic. however, the new version far exceeded my expectations, retaining the same silly tone of the original while adding some interesting new plot points and imaginative special effects. also it features a scene where people’s lives depend on how fast they can trace, which must be a horror film first.

the most disappointing horror films of 2010

DEVIL

after the beat-you-over-the-head ya-gotta-have-faith message at the end of SIGNS (which, apart from that bit, i kind of liked), i should have known that m. night shamalamadingdong could not possibly treat the idea of satan trapped in an elevator any less subtly. i was optimistic though given he did not direct it himself, but that optimism was misplaced. DEVIL has a few good moments and some decent scares (even if it uses the same ones over and over again), but the overall effect, theme and tacked on “moral” of the film felt insultingly lame.

HATCHET 2

i have mixed feelings about the first HATCHET because it’s just so damn silly and hardly the return to “old school american horror” that it billed itself as, but i had to admit it was an often funny and entertaining film. the news that fan-favorite danielle harris would be joining the sequel gave me high hopes that it might eclipse the first, but those hopes were smashed against the rocks minutes into my pay-per-view screening of HATCHET 2. the sequel keeps the over-the-top gruesome deaths of the original film, but makes the bizarre choice to be just as silly but not nearly as funny as its predecessor. if it’s not scary and it’s not funny, then you’d think that with a slasher film you’d at least be able to enjoy looking at some young, attractive people talking about sororities and fumbling with bra straps before being killed — but there too you’d be wrong, as the people being hunted by victor crowley are almost all middle-aged, slightly over-weight hunters and bikers (with the exception of harris, of course). despite dying in the last film, parry shen returns, but is completely underused and is never given the chance to be as funny and interesting as he was in HATCHET. i give adam green huge props for going up against the mpaa and standing up for independent horror, and i loved FROZEN, but i was horribly underwhelmed by victor crowley’s second outing.

Related posts:

1. Evilontwolegs 2009 Movie Awards
2. Horror Movie Plots That Could Have Been Defused By Someone Not Being a Douchbebag
3. The Bloody-Disgusting Horror Blogger Awards
4. Horror Community Highlights – December 17, 2010
5. Blog Awards!

a couple of days ago, i saw the above tweet from @afterdarkfilms, and i have been thinking about it ever since. there was a time that i loved to go to the movie theater, and something as simple as “a cool poster” would be enough to get me there. but that time is long past… for at least the last ten years, and probably longer, i have been developing a dislike for seeing films theatrically and, as it currently stands, it takes an awful lot to drag me to the theater. i don’t know if this is just me or a trend in modern movie-going, but given the tone of the above tweet, i assume not as many people are shelling out cash for the silver screen experience as studios would like. in order to properly answer @afterdarkfilms‘ tweet, i thought i’d lay out the reasons keeping me away from theaters, as well as list what will get me into a seat, despite my reluctance.

reasons i hate movie theaters

they’re overpriced. this one’s pretty obvious. if you click on the screengrab on the left, that’s the closest theater to me showing MY SOUL TO TAKE. $32.50 to take my wife to see a movie? are you joking? that price is especially ridiculous when you realize the dvd will be out in a few months for half that cost, and not only will i get to keep the film forever — but i get all the special features along with it.

overpriced food. in addition to that $32.50, i’d also have to drop another $20 for a couple of drinks and some popcorn. when did we decide it was ok for movie theaters (and stadiums) to charge us six or seven times the normal cost for food and drinks? no, seriously — when? someone should get a delorean up to 88mph, go back to that moment, and collectively slap us all in the face.

inconvenience. there’s not a whole lot they can do to change this one, but you know — i kind of like deciding for myself when i’m going to start a movie. i also like being able to pause it to go get a drink or go to the bathroom, and not have to shove my butt in someone’s face while inching down the aisle to go do so. unless i really feel like it.

annoying people. sometimes audiences really add to the experience of a film, but more often than not they’re just irritating. whether it’s kids kicking the back of your seat, people talking or someone coming in late, the end result is the same — annoying people doing annoying things pulls you out of the movie. my worst experience with this was during THE RING. a lady two rows in front of me answered her cell phone during the film’s climax and had a loud three minute conversation. every time i see THE RING, i think of that bitch. and i will never, ever forgive her.

the goddamn mpaa. at least when it comes to horror films, this could be my #1 reason for avoiding theaters. why should i pay to see a censored film in the theater when i can see it uncensored on blu-ray cheaper? and it’s not that i so crave sex and gore scenes that missing a few frames of one is inconceivable — it’s that i’m paying to see someone’s artistic vision, and i’d rather not have that vision filtered through a committee of soccer moms who decides what i’m too sensitive to see. there was a time when the mpaa had much more control over the medium, but now with director’s cut and unrated versions being the norm on home video, there’s simply no reason to go watch a watered-down version in the theater.

i never understood why eli roth was so shocked when people didn’t flock to the theater to see HOSTEL 2. he seemed pretty convinced the reason was piracy, but i don’t really think that was it. it might not make a big difference for something mainstream like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2, but when you make a film whose primary attraction is shock, gore and terror geared for the hardcore horror audience — that audience isn’t going to go out of their way to see what they know is a diluted version. especially when they know the full experience will be available cheaper and easier in a matter of weeks. HATCHET 2 made a recent attempt at paving the way for the future of theatrical horror — but unfortunately no one got to go see it because they pulled it from screens before anyone could find their effing car keys.

despite all these reasons to not go see horror in the theater, occasionally i still do venture out to the local multiplex. take note movie studios — here are the reasons that i will part with my hard-earned cheddar for your movie, so make sure your film does one of these things. (did i use “cheddar” correctly in that sentence? i heard it used in a song, so i thought i’d give it a go. not sure it’s gonna work for me long-term.)

reasons i will go to a movie theater

three dee. cinema purists seem annoyed by the current 3d craze, but not me, baby. sure it’s gimmicky, but gimmicks need love too. i was blown away by MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D and PIRANHA 3D, and despite advances in the blue/green glasses technology i can currently use at home, it’s still a pale imitation of the experience you can get in a theater. so, for better or worse (at least until decent 3d is available at home), if your horror film sounds remotely interesting, putting it in 3d is a sure-fire way to get me in a seat.

audience participation. when i refer to audience participation, i’m not really thinking of the ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW variety. there are some films (like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY) that are just better experienced in a packed theater. a lot of the thrill from movies heavy on jump-scares and suspense is feeding off the reactions of those around you… so watching them at home alone is a very different experience. i don’t really need to see THE SOCIAL NETWORK with two hundred people to enjoy it, which is why i’m waiting for it to come to blu-ray; but PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2? that was actually worth going to the theater for on opening weekend.

i can’t wait. very rarely a film will so pique my interest that waiting a few months to see it isn’t a viable option. due to my own nature, these tend to be franchise films… i will always be first in line to see a new FRIDAY THE 13th or STAR WARS, no matter how bad it looks like it might be. however, at least for me, instances of not being able to wait for blu-ray are becoming more and more rare. i’m not sure whether that means i’m getting more patient or films are getting less interesting but… well, there ya go.

something else i can’t get at home. this is where studios really need to put their energy if multiplexes are going to stay in business. 3d is the big thing right now, but it will not last… if you want people to leave the comforts of their home to see your movie, you have to give them something they can’t get at home. imax is a good example of this, but there’s only so much appeal to making the movie bigger and louder (regardless of how michael bay may feel). things that really draw me to the theater are things like live director q&a sessions after the film (either in person or broadcast by satellite) and tangible free stuff. in terms of the former, i once saw BUBBAH HO-TEP in washington dc with bruce campbell leading a live discussion after the film. that was worth the $10 ticket price, and then some.

in terms of free stuff, i also remember a friend going to see PHANTASM II and coming home with this awesome baseball cap with one of the spheres attached to the brim as though it were eating your brains (i couldn’t find a picture of that hat anywhere, but i can assure you it looked much cooler than the one to the left that came up when i did a google search for “phantasm silver sphere hat”). why don’t more movies do stuff like that? if you’re releasing some mid-budget horror film, give out a goodie bag of info on the film, the people behind it. give away a dvd of short horror films and trailers of other horror films we might like to see. or just throw in a t-shirt or something for god’s sakes.

so yeah, that ended up being a lot longer than i expected. anyway, the quick version of all this is that the theatrical experience of films needs to adapt if it wants to survive. watching a film at home is, in many ways, already a cheaper and better experience than what you get at your local multiplex. if they want to keep people coming to the theater they need to find ways to make the that experience unique and give people something they can’t get at home. something other than irritation and an overpriced experienced based on a bygone era.

Related posts:

1. Jon’s Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Love MASTERS OF HORROR
2. Stuff I’ve Been Watching (Saw VI Gets Smacked Down by a Ghost Edition)
3. Where Have all the Real Horror Films Gone?
4. Top Ten Reasons Why Horror Fans Should Be Poetry Fans

i watched THE GRAVES recently (one of the 8films2die4-iv). despite appearances from fan-favorites tony todd and bill moseley, i just didn’t like the film very much. but don’t take my word for it — THE GRAVES is apparently so bad that the director couldn’t sit through a full screening of it to spell check his own credit.

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the butterfly effect 3: revelations (2009)
a butterfly effect sequel seems like a really odd choice for this film series, but it actually fits in quite nicely. apart from the “i can travel back in time and fuck everything up good and proper by changing one small thing” (which can be found in other earlier works, such as ray bradbury’s “a sound of thunder”), the third film in this franchise borrows little from the earlier films, thankfully. it could have just been called murder mystery time bouncing fun time and, apart from the stupidity of the title, it probably would have done better as a stand-alone film.

anyway, this film isn’t bad at all. it involves time travel and a serial killer and some clever plot twists, which is probably a whole lot more than anyone was expected from the second sequel to an ashton kutcher movie. the rules of physics and probability take a back seat to the time jumping antics, but that’s to be expected. you probably won’t remember much about this film a year after watching it, but it’s enjoyable enough at the time.

the broken (2008)
very similar in many way to aja’s mirrors, the broken is the far better of the two. lena headey plays a young woman who catches a glimpse of her own doppleganger and follows it home. while there’s nothing quite as brutal as the jaw ripping scene from mirrors, there are some great mirror-related scares and imagery in the film, but make no mistake — this is a slow, engaging mystery that asks more questions than it answers. this is not an action film, and if that’s what you’re expecting you’ll likely dislike the broken. for me, i loved the molasses-esque pacing and conservative parceling out of clues. i actually see the lack of a solid resolution as one of the film’s strengths, as any answer given would ultimately be unsatisfying. many horror films ignore that fact, over-explaining things to the point of annoyance (i’m looking at you, silent hill) instead of following the example from tremors — sometimes giant, multi-tongued killer sand worms show up in your town, and it doesn’t really matter whether they came from outer space, the government, or nature gone awry — you’ve still got to deal with them.

perkins’ 14 (2009)
this isn’t just one of the better entries from the afterdark film series this year, it’s one of the better entries from any previous year as well. you’re never really sure what direction this film is about to go in, but it begins by asking the question “would it be better or worse if your kidnapped child was still alive ten years after being taken by a psychopath?” in many ways this is a revenge tale with an elaborate scheme that requires some serious long-term devotion to pull off (similar to king’s story, “dolan’s cadillac”), but this is a bit different as the person seeking revenge isn’t who you’d expect. the film exudes a tangible air of creepiness that’s punctuated with copious amounts of gore and violence. i don’t know the full story behind the making of this film, but apparently it was sort of democratically created as fans decided by voting what script would get made, what actors would be in it, and even what poster art would be used. that sounds like a terrible way to make a film, but i have little evidence for that opinion because i really liked perkins’ 14.

from within (2008)
from within reminds me of specific buffy and the x-files episodes, each which dealt with witches and paranoia. given the tendency of people to band together and burn witches when they come around, it’s not a big shock that from within also has paranoia as a central theme in its witch story. the film plays out a little like the ring in that people are seeing visions of things that kill them and, once they’re dead, the curse gets passed to someone else. however, this curse isn’t much of a technophile as it just uses physical proximity to decide who to kill next instead of a vhs tape or cell phone address book (one missed call). apart from some serious implausibility to its ending, this is a fairly decent little witch movie primarily aimed at teens and people who think religious intolerance is dumb and a really bad way to advertise your town to potential homeowners.

dying breed (2008)
this is another of those “city folk go into the country and get devoured by hillbillies” stories set in australia. it stars leigh whannell, who it turns out can walk just fine despite having written a role for himself in saw that required standing in one place for ninety minutes. there is absolutely nothing original, new or groundbreaking in dying breed‘s treatment of the traveler’s cautionary tale, but despite being a copy of several other films, it’s a good copy. of all the subgenres of horror, survival horror has the biggest effect on me — and while this is no where near as effective as other similar films like the strangers and eden lake, dying breed is suspense-filled movie that’s well worth checking out if you’re a fan of the films it borrows so heavily from.

i think it’s also worth noting that this is, quite possibly, the least accurate poster art i’ve ever seen. it’s like if the poster for schindler’s list featured a giraffe in a toupee eating yogurt. exactly what does an eyeball in a martini glass have to do with a group of kids heading into the outback being attacked by some country bumpkins?

slaughter (2009)
perkins’ 14, dying breed, and slaughter are the strongest entries in this year’s afterdark film festival. part single white female, part the texas chainsaw massacre, slaughter takes a little while to get going but ramps up the violence quickly once it starts. in an attempt to avoid her super-stalker ex, a young girl moves in to the farm house home of a female friend she meets in a bar who enjoys life to the fullest, which means, of course, that she’s a slut. the friend has a habit of bringing home a different suitor each night from the bar that usually end up mysteriously disappearing by morning. when our non-slut heroine stumbles across something nasty in the woodshed, things go from good to really, really crappy in about 3 seconds. there are some definite obvious flaws in this film, particularly in regards to the ending, but overall slaughter is an effective thriller.

autopsy (2008)
at this point in the afterdark films, i started to get really worried. given the average quality of the films of the first two years (16Films2Die4?), it breaks all the rules of probability and nature that the first six films i watched would be good. with less exceptions that i’d hoped for, the films from previous years were usually just “meh” or insultingly bad. maybe i’m just in a more forgiving mood these days, but i really enjoyed all the ones from this year up to this point. luckily autopsy was there to put things back on track by sucking hard. now i would be remiss if i didn’t let you know that the very smart guys on the bloody-disgusting podcast hated pretty much every one of these films except autopsy. i don’t know what that means, but i personally just didn’t enjoy it. yes, it has a great scene where robert patrick does a spinal tap and then drinks the fluid, but overall the film had a surreal quality and characters that behaved in ways contrary not just to logic, but against common sense. the closest thing i can compare it to is the feel of some of the old tales from the darkside episodes where realism was not considered very important. that’s fine for fairy tales and metaphorical storytelling, but it makes it very difficult to scare an audience when they simply don’t believe in what they’re watching. however, maybe that’s not true for everyone, so perhaps you’d have a different experience with autopsy.

voices (2007)
i was hoping that autopsy would be the only anomaly, but voices really, really wanted to be different from the majority and succeeded completely. this was, by far, my least favorite of the eight films. worse than not being scary, which it wasn’t, voices doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. like all westerners, i occasionally have problems with eastern storytelling, but this is ridiculous. i followed ju-on, ringu, and the majority of takaski miike’s efforts just fine (with the definite exception of imprint). but voices pulled some david lynch antics on me, giving me the distinct impression that they’d just pulled a tyler durden ending, but leaving me with no understanding of what happened. it’s possible i just missed something obvious or maybe i shouldn’t have been twittering while trying to watch a foreign film, but voices is definitely not my bff, and i wouldn’t recommend anyone else even try to get to know it, let alone become close friends.

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1. Horror DVD Releases – Week of March 29th, 2009

one of the better trailers i’ve seen in a while was for the UK release of the french film frontier(s) (see video on the right). it was finally released here on dvd last week, so i rushed out tuesday and picked up a copy. i was a little surprised to see the dvd packaging… it’s very clearly identified as one of the “8 films to die for” and part of horrorfest 2007. the packaging is exactly the same as the eight films i reviewed last month. so, it appears there are now nine films in the eight films to die for series this year, which is causing me some minor degree of confusion. do they believe horror fans cannot count? are they going to release another film next month… and then another and another, in the hopes that we won’t notice and will just keep buying them saying to ourselves “well, i have the other seven, i better get this one too?” if so… that’s marketing genius.

a far less plausible explanation is the official one… frontier(s) could not secure an R rating and was removed from the original octuplet to be released separately later. that still doesn’t explain why the packaging includes it as one of the “eight,” but i am willing to let it go — and i will tell you why.

this is a kick-ass movie.

if this had been released in the original 2007 horrorfest line-up, it would have easily been the best of the eight. the film excels in most areas, lacking the most in the “originality” department (but who said originality was so important?). the story is familiar… a group of criminals on the lamb stumble into a something much, much worse than prison (e.g., from dusk ’til dawn). a strong female lead suffers through numerous unspeakable experiences (e.g., haute tension, hostel 2) at the hands of an inbred family (e.g., texas chainsaw massacre, the hills have eyes) determined to torture and/or kill and/or impregnate her (depending on where you are in the narrative), leading to a conclusion involving her fighting back while losing most of her sanity along the way (e.g., pretty much all of the afore-mentioned films). the tone and feel of the film are most similar to the two most recent texas chainsaw films (going so far as to include the “forced to have dinner with the insane family” sequence) and the hills have eyes remake, which is not all that surprising since the latter is directed by alexandre aja whose haute tension started the current gore trend in french horror. like haute tension, this is a vicious film which refuses to hold anything back and leaves nothing to the imagination… which basically means it was awesome.

the only possible criticism is that frontier(s) is never quite as good as the films it so unabashedly steals from. the ‘final girl’ is given little characterization, making identifying with her difficult. the psychotic family members are never quite as creepy as they could have been (with the possible exception of the nazi-crazed father). that said, the good aspects far outweigh any bad. the film is overflowing with style and often leaves you with that wonderful feeling i first felt when seeing the original texas chainsaw massacre… that perhaps the filmmakers don’t have your best interests at heart, and maybe entertaining you isn’t their primary goal. it also features one of the more grotesque deaths i’ve seen involving a table saw, and a head explosion rivaled only by the prowler, maniac and scanners. while its possible not every movie-goer shares my love of exploding heads, in my mind that moment is worth the price of admission alone.

Related posts:

1. Horrorfest 2007
2. Stuff I’ve Been Watching (chainsaw edition)
3. Stuff I’ve Been Watching (Saw VI Gets Smacked Down by a Ghost Edition)
4. The Hair of Halloween (2007)
5. Somebody Help Me (2007)

Mulberry Street

a surprisingly good film, this is basically a manhattan version of 28 days later. with rat people. there’s lots of not-so-subtle political commentary here, all told through the gritty realism of the uber-shaky cam. new york looks fantastic, the characters are realistic and sympathetic and as silly as the phrase ‘rat people’ might sound, they’re actually pretty scary. unfortunately it seems that every entry into this film festival is legally obligated to ignore one or more of the fundamental aspects of good filmmaking… and in this case, it’s plot and editing. it’s often hard to tell just what the hell is going on due to the frantic editing and, more globally, it’s not always clear how one scene connects to another or what the bigger picture version of the storyline is. the characters and overall situation was so intriguing i was prepared to forgive a few instances of confusion… until the end. i’m all for ambiguous endings, but i hate endings that seem to be saying over-its-shoulder as it walks away from you “hey, wasn’t that awesome? what an amazing and coherent finish to a fabulous story, eh?” all the while leaving you scratching your head and screaming “hey, wait up! what the hell just happened?” i spent a little time online and could find no one that fully understood exactly what we’re to assume happens to the characters at the end. if you have some idea, please let me know. please.

Nightmare Man

15 minutes into nightmare man, i was regretting my purchase of all eight of these films. this was gonna suck. it’s setup that some bimbo is convinced there’s an african-mask wearing psycho in her dreams that’s trying to kill her. her oh-so-european husband is taking her up to the loony bin in the hopes someone can fix that little problem. they run out of gas and the husband tells his not-really-all-that-mentally-stable wife to stay in the car while he walks 10 miles to get gas. then an african-mask wearing psycho shows up for real and starts stalking her.

at this point, was convinced i would soon need to turn it off. the masked guy was not scary, the characters were ridiculous and i felt like a fool every second i continued to watch it because it seemed like a really, really lame episode of tales from the crypt. the plot seemed horribly predictable… of course the husband is stalking her (likely for insurance money)… and of course he’ll get his karma/morally-dictated gruesome fate by the end. and then something happened…

the wife ran to find safety in a house inhabited by a bunch of college kids playing ‘truth or dare.’ scantily clad women were suddenly running around all over the place, dropping usually amusingly bad dialogue and grabbing crossbows. some guy punched out the wife for raving about the ‘nightmare man’ trapped inside her. the whole film suddenly stole (rather unabashedly) the tone (and even specific shots) from the evil dead series; and while it’s hardly on the caliber of those films… it’d certainly become much more entertaining all of a sudden. the writing was actually more clever than i’d thought as numerous plot twists led to a conclusion far different than the one i’d predicted… and far more satisfying. the whole thing has a very campy 1980s night of the demons feel to it which is a difficult tone to get right, but which nightmare man largely succeeds at. reviews on this one are incredibly mixed, but i recommend it… although, to set the right mood, i might suggest you watch it with friends. and you ask your friends to bring alcohol.

Tooth and Nail

this is one of the better entries this year. i mean, how bad can a movie be that features michael madsen as a fur coat wearing cannibal?

in the future oil has run out and the world sinks into chaos…etc. etc. a group of survivors are trying to start a new society in an abandoned hospital (lead by the annoyingly on-the-nose named dr. darwin) then michael madsen and vinnie jones show up with a bunch of their buddies and decide they want to eat dr. darwin and his friends. lots of running and hiding and axes to the head follow, leading to a rather anti-climatic showdown as the last of would-be-human-mcnuggets decides to fight back. despite several flaws, this is a decent, stylistic entry into the post-apocalyptic survival horror genre and worth checking out.

Borderland

apart from a few moments in lake dead, this is the only film of the eight that one could really say has some disturbing things in it. based true events, it follows the basic blueprint of hostel and turistas as a group of naive americans get various body parts removed in a foreign country. rider strong (also seen in tooth and nail above) leads the cast… but the stand-out performance comes from former hobbit and goonie, sean astin. cashing in on the fact that seeing an actor we’ve grown up loving play a psycho is always disconcerting, samwise gamgee turns out to be one sick mofo.

the story is interesting and the violence is brutal… and while too much of it plays out like a television crime drama, overall it’s an effective, if somewhat derivative film. dvd features are plentiful, including a group commentary, behind the scenes featurette and short documentary on the story behind the film.

The Deaths of Ian Stone

the deaths of ian stone is a quirky little film which has more in common with sci-fi action films such as the matrix and underworld than any horror film. the basic premise is simple, cool and ultimately doomed as you know nothing could ever explain it in a satisfying way.

ian stone is caught in a clive barker version of groundhog day. he keeps getting killed and then promptly wakes up in a new life… one day he’s a taxi driver, the next he’s a hockey player, the next a drug addict, etc. he keeps running into the same people though (who also inhabit new roles) and begins remembering pieces of earlier existences. oh, and there’s these wicked black-smoke-ghost-thingies chasing him around sometimes.

budget constraints and a “not-as-cool-as-the-matrix-or-dark-city” plot explanation keep this from being a really great film. style oozes off the screen (even if some of it is stolen from terry gilliam) and the acting is decent enough. the creature effects range from really impressive to pretty crappy (despite having stan winston involved), but this is the low-budget world after all. ultimately ian stone is just too ambitious for the resources the film had and suffers from the ultimate in lame endings — “you don’t need weapons, skill, or even luck to defeat giant, evil, soul-sucking, could-kill-you-with-their-pinky-finger monsters – all you need is love.”

Lake Dead

lake dead is pretty bad. it starts off promisingly enough… some sisters inherit a motel and go to check it out (correct me if i’m wrong, but it’s the same set as in the unfortunately subtitled pumpkinhead 2: blood wings, without a bit of set dressing changed). unfortunately for the sisters and their accompanying suitors, the place is infested with inbred murderous rednecks.

there’s plenty of nudity, a couple of impressive and gruesome deaths, and at least one suspenseful scene… but all of that happens in the first half. the entire film is filled with boring dialogue and uninspired villains and, unfortunately, the last half of the movie is really just the latter spouting the former. while we’re discussing villains… these truly are the weakest slasher villains in recent memory. one is a obviously modeled on r. lee ermey ‘s character from texas chainsaw, but with all the menace and creepiness replaced with ineptitude and smarminess. then there are the redneck twins which look far more like geico cave-men (see here) than anything from the hills have eyes or wrong turn. the film may be worth seeing just to witness the worst final one-liner i’ve heard in a while.

Unearthed

just based on the premise, this was the film I was most excited about. everything about this film seemed to say “here be a groovy movie about people digging up a creepy-crawlie that kills interesting characters in fun and exciting ways before the most interesting of the characters figure out a fun and exciting way to burn/impale-on-a-stick/blow-up the creepy-crawlie. you know, like in tremors.” some of those elements are present in this film, but it neglects the most important of the adjectives (“interesting,” “fun,” and “exciting”) and instead replaces them with “stereotypical,” “predictable” and “boring.” emmanuelle vaugier does a decent job as the alcoholic sheriff despite having little to work with from the script and tom (aka mr. friendly) from lost pops up a few times… but generally, the characters are horribly generic and unremarkable. instead of focusing on the characters, humor or tension, the movie spends far too much time explaining the ridiculous and unnecessary back story of the monster, insulting the intelligence of anyone who’s taken 9th grade biology. even without the incredibly dumb origin story, the monster is little more than a poor imitation of giger’s alien (complete with a face-hugger-type removable appendage that seems to serve no purpose), redone in sci-fi channel quality cgi. particularly memorable is a not-so-special effect where a character does a triple back-flip when thrown back from an exploding building. i tried really hard to enjoy this movie… but the movie was surprisingly adamant that i dislike it.

Crazy Eights

holy moly, that’s an impressive poster. with a promising cast (frank whaley, gabrielle anwar, traci lords) and a poster reminiscent of hostel and the girl next door… i was expecting a lot from this. unfortunately, the poster is horribly misleading as this ended up being my least favorite of this year’s 8films2die4.

a bunch of childhood friends are brought together when an old friend dies (a la last year’s very memorable the gravedancers). a treasure map leads them to an abandoned barn which contains a trunk with a dead child in it. the rest of the film plays out in an abandoned building… and absolutely nothing happens. when the scariest thing in your movie is gabrielle anwar sucking her thumb… you need to rethink your horror movie.

stylistically, this is one of the strongest entries. the cinematography is beautiful and beckons back to the incredibly creepy session 9. unfortunately that’s where the comparisons end. this is the most exposition heavy horror film i’ve ever seen… and that’s in a film where a text crawl at the opening explains the entire plot twist of the movie. seriously… why would you give away the only mystery in your movie in the opening 2 minutes? i seem to recall there being a similarly ill-advised voice-over in the opening of dark city… but even it didn’t ruin the film as completely as this does.

this film desperately wants to be a creepy, atmospheric ghost story that relies on story instead of gore… unfortunately, the ghost isn’t remotely scary and the story isn’t remotely interesting so there’s not much left but listening to unlikable characters whine in the dark. the nail in the coffin for me though was the ending. i have absolutely no idea what the flashback tacked on to the end means, and unlike the ending of mulberry street mentioned earlier… i have no real desire to find out.

Related posts:

1. Frontier(s) – Horrorfest 2007 Follow-up
2. The Hair of Halloween (2007)
3. Somebody Help Me (2007)
4. Horror Community Highlights – April 2, 2010
5. Series 7 and Actress Apocalypse