Best & Worst Horror of 2008

The end of the another year is upon us. I didn’t feel 2008 was as strong as the previous year – ’07 had five definite winners that I would all go to the mat for – but still had its share of excellent content. Let us begin with my top five of this past year.

Let The Right One In

Sweden, Dir: Tomas Alfredson

The only genre title that really, truly blew me away this year was this Swedish vampire flick. This is a feat of extra magnitude considering how high expectation was by the time it rolled around my neck of the woods in October. LTROI is part art house flick, part vampire romp, part coming of age story and is executed so beautifully, it made me proud to be a cinephile.

4bia

Thailand, Dir: Various

4bia is an incredibly fun Thai anthology that gave me a bit of everything. There are two stories stacked with scares in true Asian horror fashion as well as a comedy horror tale that is as funny as anything Hollywood has proffered in this post-Scream era. The segment ‘Tit For Tat’ suffers from terrible CGI and inadvisable editing, but doesn’t kill the production as a whole.

Cloverfield

USA, Dir: Matt Reeves

I still look back on my midnight screening of Cloverfield with absolute fondness. People tend to forget the films that come out at the beginning of the year when making their best-of lists. I do not. JJ Abrams somehow managed to produce this blockbuster in absolute secrecy – a near impossibility in this day and age. A lot of people were turned off by the nausea-inducing camera style, but I think the idea of filming a giant monster movie from the ground was a stroke of genius.

Vinyan

France/Belgium, Dir: Fabrice Du Welz

This film hasn’t technically been released here yet, but has had a run in Europe. Du Welz’s spiritual remake of the 1976 film Who Can Kill A Child? (and follow up to his debut Calvaire) has everything going for it. It is a haunting and devilish feast for the eyes and ears, with excellent performances from leads Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Béart. Keep your eye out for it when it appears in your area in ’08.

Funny Games

USA, Dir: Michael Haneke

Haneke’s second go-round is as ugly and affecting as his original 1997 version was. Always the manipulator, he flips off the audience and never makes them comfortable with the subject matter he lays out. Considering I had already seen Funny Games going into this – and this version is a virtual shot-for-shot recreation of the original – I was surprised by how much the addition of Tim Roth and Naomi Watts made me connect with it. I’ve said before that my emotional involvement in a movie has a direct correlation with the actress onscreen and thus made Funny Games ’08 possibly even more difficult to watch.

Honourable Mentions

Although I did enjoy both Quarantine and The Strangers a great deal, I couldn’t help but feel they were lesser versions of foreign films that were on my top five list last year.

Fever Dreams’ duo of Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police were perhaps the most consumable offerings presented to me this year. Machine Girl and I have concluded many drunken evenings together and TGP is one of the only films I can say I have seen in two different provinces. What is it about Asian girls in uniform and arterial spray that go so well together?

There can be no doubt that Martyrs is a nasty bruiser of a film. You will feel as beaten down as the protagonist by its end. However, for all its shocking ugliness, I ultimately didn’t feel that it had the thrill-ride gratification of its French predecessors like Inside and High Tension or the dark artistic brilliance of gut punch champion Irreversible. Martyrs was redeemed in my eyes when it showed its true colours at its conclusion though.

I know several people who weren’t all that impressed by The Ruins, but I really liked it. Having not read the book it was based on, my only frame of reference was what was onscreen. I think the fact they cast strong young leads, employed a strange, new locale and didn’t skimp on the gore, made this really stand out to me. Unfortunately, some bad CGI – some of those vine effects looked like they were drawn with MS Paint – did take away from it a bit.

And now, the worst. Continuing my policy of just avoiding films I think will be shite, things worked out fairly well in 2007. Alas, even with all those defensive measures in place, I still wasn’t able to avoid Deadgirl or Wicked Lake. But as much as I disliked those two, the distinction of worst film of the year goes to M. Night Shamalamadingdong's The Happening. This movie was just a parade of bad decisions with every cast member walking around in a daze, following a bunch of clumsy setups with no payoff. The Happening is not even good-bad. Sadly, I think it may be time, after his last trio of laughable attempts at cinema, to put the little guy down.

That's it for this year. Stay tuned for my upcoming 2009 preview.

Look For The Nines

For this month’s selection, here’s something I just recently watched after it having been on my DVR for months and months.

In The Nines, Ryan Reynolds plays three different characters – Gabriel, a video game designer, Gary, a burned out actor and Gavin, a successful television writer – in a trio of interconnected stories.

I have to say that Ryan Reynolds really impresses in this movie. He is in almost every scene and excels in bringing three distinct personalities to the screen. The small supporting cast of Melissa McCarthy (who I’d never seen before and really liked here), Hope Davis and Elle Fanning are all complimentary, as well. The Nines reminded me a little of Brad Anderson’s The Machinist, with its recurring themes and carefully constructed release of information. The story is very strong and although similar subject matter has been explored previously, I’ve never seen it handled in such a character driven and grass roots manner before. Writer (and first time director) John August had taken a giant leap forward here, as his usual output is decidedly lighter fare. The Nines just works on so many levels and is one of those films that your mind will be playing around with for days.

It is this kind of smart filmmaking that should be celebrated and not shelved like it so often is these days. If you are walking through the video store or sifting through your on-demand list, The Nines is the perfect little gem for people who like a little weight with their entertainment.

You Better Watch Out

Determined not to be bullied by the extreme weather conditions of the GTA, I braved the treacherous roadways to make it to a special screening of the festive 1980 film Christmas Evil on Tuesday. This 35mm print of the film is one of the only – if not THE only – left in existence. It was a little red in places, but for the most part it had the usual amount of grain and love lines that you would expect from a much-enjoyed print.

A lonely toy factory worker named Harry Stadling (Brandon Maggart) loves Christmas. Maybe a little too much. He has a plan to reward those who have been nice and punish those who have not. You better pray you are not on his naughty list!

I remembered Christmas Evil from my tenure at the video store, but realized quickly while watching it, that beyond the first scene – which I must have caught in one of those old clip movies like Terror In The Aisles – this was my first time seeing it. The movie itself was a little rough in places, but generally an entertaining ride with one hell of an enjoyably outrageous finale. I think one of the most interesting things about Christmas Evil is the air of plausibility that went with it. Now obviously, some of the specific subject matter in the movie borders on the absurd, but considering how obsessed some people get around this time of year, is it completely out of the question that one might just snap and start believing they ARE Old Saint Nick? Another observation to be made here is – and this could just be due to both films being made in the same time and place – how much Christmas Evil shares in common with Bill Lustig’s Maniac. Though I think Maniac has a lot more to offer, there are several parallels between both movies. Nevertheless, that is some good company to be keeping.

Christmas Evil director Lewis Jackson was in attendance and stayed for a Q&A afterwards. One of my favourite things about engaging filmmakers about their old projects, is how appreciative and humbled they are that people actually still truly care about stuff they did when they were young and green. Jackson, speaking with an animated enthusiasm, that reminded me of Marty Scorsese, talked at length about how for years he was absolutely hated for his part in making Christmas Evil. It was only after finding new life on home video and being championed by a few select filmmakers like John Waters (who maintains Evil is one of his favourite films of all time) that it has endured. It took a long time for general audiences to catch up to it and see the embedded dark humour that a lot of horror works of this era utilized.

Director Lewis Jackson

It was a good night and I was glad that my inadvisable choice to be out on the roads that evening was worth it.

MC

Merry Christmas to you and yours from The Horror Section!

Something Evil Under The Tree

Tomorrow morning, all the good little boys and girls will be getting mass amounts of toys -- well, these days it'll be more like Wii, Xbox and PS3's with a smattering of Yu-Gi-Oh booster packs and Jonas Brothers paraphernalia. Back when I was a kid, we got toys. The simple stuff, ya know. However, in the world of horror movies, anything is a potential danger. Even something as innocuous as a doll or stuffed animal. Behold!

Note to all the parents out there: If that really hard-to-find toy is being sold dirt cheap by a homeless person in an alleyway - THERE'S PROBABLY A REASON!!!

Left 4k For Dead

My Sony fanboyism may have deprived me of enjoying Valve's new multiplayer zombie actioner Left 4 Dead, but at least a computer savvy dude by the name of Markus Persson has come up with a Java based Lo-Fi version for the rest of us.

His web game Left 4k Dead was made for the 2009 Java 4k Competition and miraculously uses no more than 4k of memory for the ENTIRE game.

Check it out here.

Black & Blu

Okay, Christmas is just around the corner, so let’s get festive. Anchor Bay recently released the Canadian classic Black Christmas on Blu-ray. Now, I’ve already commented before on how superb and influential the actual film is, so this post is mainly about what this new Blu-ray edition offers. First, I’d like to mention that the sleeve artwork is excellent. I’m so glad they went with this and not the other atrocious cover I’ve seen slapped on this edition.

As far as the transfer goes, it looks pristine. However, the reality is that this film is over thirty years old and will never be as clear as something produced today, but it still looks great and the best it possibly can. The 5.1 audio also impresses. Every creaking floorboard and clock ticking inside the house can be heard with as much definition as the spoken dialogue. But, I’m sure you would rather hear about the special features on the disc. Sadly, there are no new Hi-Def extras, just the same ones that were present on this edition’s original release in 2006. Black Christmas historian Dan Duffin, creator of the expansive fan site itsmebilly.com, oversaw this edition. Once you have finished with this disc, I highly recommend you visit the site because there is some great material there, my favourite being a tour of the Toronto locations used in the film.

The 12 Days of Black Christmas is a twenty-minute doc featuring interviews with cast and crew, including stars John Saxon, Doug McGrath and Lynne Griffin. There is also a Q&A from a 2004 midnight screening with director Bob Clark, John Saxon and composer Carl Zittrer, mediated by Marc Edward Hueck, who I recognized from his stint on Comedy Central’s Beat The Geeks. There are also extended stand-alone interviews with Olivia Hussey, Art Hindle and Margot Kidder. Hussey’s is probably the best, with her coming off as lovely as you would expect. Art Hindle’s interview is of special note because he talks about the exact locations of places used in the film – I’m planning on doing a little tour myself next year. The thing that unites all three interviews is their absolute surprise that Black Christmas has survived all this time and garnered such a huge cult following. Unfortunately, the commentaries that were included on the Collector’s Edition released previously are absent from this disc.

So, if you’re looking for some good Christmas viewing this holiday, I suggest the ‘yule-ish’ Bob Clark double bill of Black Christmas and A Christmas Story. I’ll keep a bottle of sherry hidden for you.

Treevenge Clip Online

Just a quick post to let you all know that a clip of Jason (Hobo With A Shotgun) Eisener's fantastic new short Treevenge is now online. Check it out!



Happy Holidays!

"First Goddamn Week Of Winter"

Well, we got dumped on last night and the forecast says we can expect about a foot more of the white shit by Sunday. Fantabulous!

I know that the Golden Horseshoe is a good region in which to live - we somehow avoid (knock on wood) the really bothersome weather anomalies like tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes that devastate other parts of the world on a seemingly increasing basis - but that is hard to remember sometimes while enduring the four months plus of bone chilling cold and debilitating snowfalls each year.

Back in August, when we Canucks were all basking in the glorious sun's rays (well, actually this year we pretty much got rained out of our summer too), I did a Coverbox Wednesday on the lazy days of summer. So, in the interest of keeping things even, I bring forth movies featuring summer's antithesis this week. For those of you north of the 49th parallel; bundle up. I think this one's really gonna suck.

And The Winner Is...

The reality show Scream Queens wrapped up last night – in Canada anyway, I think it finished on VH1 a few weeks ago. For those not familiar with Scream Queens, the concept was ten actresses competing for a role in Saw VI. Each week, they competed in horror-themed challenges and were axed one by one, down to one winning Final Girl. I won’t spoil the ending, in case anyone who might stop by has it DVR’d, but the actress I was routing for didn’t win unfortunately. However, I can’t say the judges made an undeserving choice either. Scream Queens was one hell of an enjoyable guilty pleasure that entertained me from start to finish.

You know, I just “might” end up watching Saw VI to see how things turned out. I hope – due to my evasion of parts IV & V – I won’t be totally lost (note sarcasm). So, from their end, if this reality show garners Lionsgate's latest Saw entry a few more ticket sales, then it was worth it. I’ll be keeping my eye out for the two runners-up because I have a wishful hunch that I haven’t seen the last of them either.

To Development Hell And Back.

My friend Schwartz recently showed me a promo trailer for a project called Worst Case Scenario, an oft-delayed Dutch production from Gorehound Canned Film. The first promo trailer hit the web in 2003, and their site has been intermittently updated since then. For some of you, I’m sure WCS is old news, but for those who have never heard of it (I was one until last weekend), check these two promos out.





I want to see this get made. The art design is awesome and Nazi zombies are back in style with Norway’s Dead Snow coming out this year. You may have noticed horror veteran Brian Yuzna’s name in the trailer. Well, that was a ballsy move on the part of filmmakers Bart Oosterhoorn and Richard Raaphorst to get Yuzna attached to the project. Raaphourst had worked with Yuzna in the past and showed him the trailer at the Utopiales Festival in France. Yuzna was obviously shocked to see his name up there, but fortunately his reception of the goods was favourable.

“I was so proud to have my name on something of such high quality that my heart attack turned into a scheming for how to keep it on there."

Initially, things seemed to be moving forward quite nicely. The promo reel garnered some favourable press from Fangoria magazine and Volkomenkut.com (a popular weblog based in Holland) and they were able to score a production deal at the Cannes Film Market in 2004. Things were good to go… and then stalled. Eventually they had to cut ties with said investors, burning another two years retrieving all the rights to their product. So, in 2007, Oosterhoorn and Raaphorst found themselves starting from square one. The last update on their website (from last February) said Gorehound had new backers and were gearing up for production, while still accruing stuff for their upcoming shooting date.

Who knows if this project will ever come to pass, but I hope so because Gorehound Canned Film and their volunteer army of almost five thousand strong – who are affectionately referred to as Gorehound’s Guerillas – have put their undead hearts and souls into this project. Fingers crossed!

If you want more info on Worst Case Scenario, check out the Gorehound site here.

Heh. Heh.

What was I JUST saying about being easy to please?!

I Got A Fever!

It was about a year ago that I first laid eyes on the trailer for Machine Girl. I wasn't sure whether it was real or just some faux trailer like the stuff in Grindhouse, but I DID know that it was love at first sight. After two gore-soaked batshit loco opuses in 2007, it looks like Fever Dreams aren't letting up in the coming year.

Word came out this fall about Noboru Iguchi’s next project The Drill Bra Sisters, and now according to Twitch, there is also some sort of companion short film to Machine Girl called Hajirai Machine Girl on the way, as well.

Needless to say, I'm always up for yakuza-ninja-tempura-REVENGE! I am so easy to please sometimes.

And So It Begins Again...

I love this time of year. Well, I love everything except the sack shrinking cold, of course. Not only is it the Christmas season - which brings time off work to spend with family & friends and consume all sorts of things that aren't good for you - but the film festival cycle is gearing up to resume once again. December brings tidings of the Sundance Film Festival, which runs the following January in Park City, Utah. My list of must-see festival flicks of 2008 are mostly crossed off at this point (Timecrimes, Eden Lake and My Name Is Bruce are the last), so '09 lies before me like an undisturbed field of newly fallen snow. This year's Sundance offers these three new titles to look forward to in the coming year.

I'd been hearing about this Norwegian zombie romp called Død Snø (Dead Snow) for quite a while and now it is just around the corner. The trailer below says it all.




The premise of The Killing Room - about four people volunteering for a research study being exposed to something a lot more sinister - sounds interesting, but the fact that it is directed by Jonathan Liebesman (the TCM prequel, Darkness Falls) doesn't instill me with confidence. Also, anything with Peter Stormare has a high possibility of turning into a cartoon whenever he's onscreen. I'm hoping the producers printed up a big sign saying "sometimes less is more" and made those two stare at it each day before shooting.

Lastly, Grace is about a young pregnant woman (Jordan Ladd) who loses her baby, but insists on having it anyway. When the baby comes to life after delivery, it is considered a miracle, but the mother soon realizes that Grace is no ordinary infant. I'm glad Ladd is still kicking around after a fairly inactive 2008, following small appearances in two flops the previous year. This looks like the kind of role where she really has the chance to shine.

As always, thanks be to Twitch for keeping me apprised of all things strange and off the beaten path.

365

Who'd have ever thunk it? Thank you to everyone who has been looking in over the last year. Cheers all!

Exercising My Right.

Thank you. That is all.

Zombie Lite & Dark

I recently watched the two newly released zombie offerings, Dance Of The Dead and The Zombie Dairies. I didn’t feel too strongly about either one, so I figured I’d bundle them together for this On The Shelf.

Dance Of The Dead is a title that has been on my radar for what seems like ages now and has finally seen the light of day through Sam Raimi’s video distribution company Ghosthouse Underground. Dance Of The Dead is good, but not great. It is enjoyable fare with surprisingly good production values, which elevates it above other recent undead indie offerings like Automaton Transfusion and Kevin Tenney’s Brain Dead. It plays heavily on its influences, but having said that, what zombie movie doesn’t these days? I’m actually shocked that it took until 2008 for someone to marry George Romero with John Hughes. For those keeping score, all the usual high school stereotypes are represented. Dance Of The Dead is a fun yarn that had enough fresh ideas to keep me interested, but I guess I was expecting something more earth shattering, considering how it was tearing up the festival circuit all year.

The Zombie Dairies, released on the Dimension Extreme label, is a lot more serious an affair. You know, it’s a real shame about this current wave of cinema verité filmmaking. Since Cloverfield came out at the beginning of this year, it would appear to the layman that all these titles like REC, Diary Of The Dead jumped on the bandwagon even though they were all produced at the same time or even before the JJ Abrams blockbuster. I’ve said before that I have no problem with this style as long it is done well and the filmmakers are skilled enough to show you what you need to see. This aspect of Zombie Diaries is fairly hit and miss, which is frustrating at times. It is also extremely lo-fi, which can also get distracting. The story is broken into three groups of survivors, which all happen to be documenting their exploits via handheld cameras. As is always the case with this format, the issue of “why would you film this?” comes into play almost immediately and only one of the groups really addresses it with any believability.

What sets The Zombie Diaries apart from the herd is the direction that it takes in its third act. This disturbing turn is its saving grace. The subject matter of its conclusion – in a movie that was largely forgettable otherwise – stayed with me for days afterward. And it’s not even that the message brought forth by TZD hasn’t been covered before; it has. It was just that I wasn’t expecting it and caught me off guard.

So, there’s two more for the fire.

Welcome To Tromaville!

Lloyd Kaufman’s video empire Troma Entertainment has been around for as long as I can remember. I’ve seen some of their recent offerings like Tales From The Crapper and Poultrygeist at different screenings – I see Kaufman in Toronto so much I think he must have a time share here or something – but didn’t realize how deep their catalogue went until I was hanging at my buddy Jacob’s place last weekend. Troma’s filmography numbers in the hundreds because they not only produce movies, but also distribute them too. Jacob (whose knowledge of B-movies seems to have no bounds) spun a couple of movies from his expansive Troma collection while I was there. They were 2000’s Unspeakable, which featured, within the first ten minutes, a dude performing oral sex on an invalid that had just shit herself and 1998’s Buttcrack, which seems fairly self explanatory. Ah… good times.

Yet, at no point was I like, turn this shit off. And that is the thing about Troma. I rarely seek out their stuff, but I don’t avoid it either. And I wouldn’t say I’ve not liked any of the twenty or so movies I’ve watched of theirs over the years. There seems to be this intangible air of watchability to the stuff Troma associates with. I suppose it could be argued that Troma Entertainment is the cinematic equivalent of a train wreck, but I still maintain that there is way worse stuff out there.

Troma had a fairly large presence at my video store and I was introduced to Lloyd and Company through, like most people of my generation, The Toxic Avenger. For this installment of Coverbox Wednesday, I explore the colourful world of Troma.

Holy Cow! I'm In Print!

Check it out! My humble blog is in the Roadkill section of this month's Rue Morgue magazine.

Many thanks to Dave and Monica for doing that. You guys are awesome sauce!

Horror Sampled

Have you ever been listening to a song, heard something sampled from a movie or show and then racked your brain trying to remember where it was from?

In 1993, a similar thing happened to a man named Peter Cigéhn, while watching the 1982 David Cronenberg film Videodrome on late night television. After finding out where the samples came from by posting a query on an Internet discussion forum, he had the great idea of starting a website that catalogued the sources of audio samples used in music. And so The Top Sample Sources List was born. For those not in the know, audio sampling is when an artist culls a sound effect or dialogue from a movie, TV show or other media source and uses it in their music. Industrial - the musical genre that utilizes this technique the most – bands like Skinny Puppy and Ministry have sampled hundreds of things from a variety of sources over the years, as have many other artists ranging from Ice Cube to Big Audio Dynamite.

Horror films are an extremely popular source for audio sampling and when my older brother introduced Skinny Puppy to me circa 1990, it was a match made in hell. What a fantastic idea, I thought; using bits and bobs from horror almost like a percussive instrument, much like singer Nivek Ogre’s distinctive vocals. After having devoured their back catalogue, it was always a surreal experience whenever I would hear something Skinny Puppy had used pop up in a flick I was watching. Like this one, for instance.



That was a clip from the 1982 animated film The Plague Dogs. Any Skinny Puppy fan will recognize that immediately, as it was used in the song Testure from their 1988 album VIVISect VI. So, when I discovered Pete Cigéhn’s site in the late nineties – it was a burgeoning database of information by then, with almost four thousand entries – it was absolute bliss. I could find out where all those mysterious clips from Skinny Puppy, Front 242, Front Line Assembly, Thrill Kill Kult etc, came from and then seek those titles out. This is another reason why coming across Queen and Suspect Video was so momentous for me. They had so many films that I had learned about from the site. My first ever contributions to the World Wide Web were sampling submissions to The Top Sample Sources List.

The reason I am posting about this now is because I recently re-discovered it. Several years ago, it seemed to just up and disappear. One day, my usual bookmark http://www.sloth.org/samples/ came up as a broken link and every web search I tried for years led back to that same dead web page. Then, last week, by total fluke, I’m on Wikipedia and follow a footnote about Blade Runner being the most sampled film of all time and voila, up pops that familiar header for The Top Sample Sources List. It hadn’t been updated since 2004, but the 7836 listings were still there in all their encyclopaedic glory. And I FINALLY got to look up something I had been waiting for since I first laid eyes on the site almost ten years previous.

The sample at the beginning of TKK’s Daisy Chain 4 Satan is from an episode of the seventies TV show The Sixth Sense entitled Dear Joan: We’re Going To Scare You To Death, featuring Joan Crawford in her last acting gig.

What a relief!

So, if you are in the same boat and looking for the source of something that has been clanging around in your brain for ages, be sure check out The Top Sample Sources List. Answers could be only a few clicks away!