2016 in Horror Films, Mid-Year Report (The Best) – Part 2

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10 Cloverfield Lane, Best Horror Films, Best of 2016, Carnage Park, cinema, Clown, Curtain, Emelie, film reviews, films, Freaks of Nature, Green Room, horror films, mid-year review, Movies, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Scherzo Diabolico, The Gateway, They're Watching

With as little ado as possible, I now present the other half of the horror films that have impressed me the most since January. As with the previous list, these are in no particular order, although the final two bear the distinction of being the two most recent films I’ve screened. Let’s get to blurbing!

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They’re Watching — What do you get when you let two of the creative masterminds behind SpongeBob Squarepants loose in the horror genre? Turns out you get something truly quirky, weird, goofy, sort of stupid and thoroughly entertaining: whoda thunk it? Jay Lender and Micah Wright’s horror-comedy sends the crew of an American home renovation show to a tiny, backwater Eastern European village, where they run afoul of the sinister locals, a possible witch and lots of unnatural things in the woods. The film is pitched and realized as a nod to Sam Raimi’s classic Evil Dead and it works like gangbusters, especially once we get to the SFX-heavy finale. Never less than fun and frequently rather brilliant, this was one of the biggest surprises of the year.

Emelie — On the surface, this tale of the proverbial bad babysitter seems thoroughly old hat and moldy but it’s actually quite tense, intelligent and genuinely unsettling. We see how deranged the titular character is right off the bat, which lends an immediate queasy jolt to all of her interactions with the children. It’s the classic case of knowing there’s a bomb, under the table, ready to explode at any moment. While I wouldn’t call Emelie Hitchcockian, per se, let’s just say that writer-director Michael Thelin gets a lot closer to that celebrated real estate than most. The Tudors’ Sarah Bolger does some truly frightening things as evil Emelie and the kids are likable enough to make us care. Another film that should have received a theatrical release but went straight to VOD.

The Gateway — For his sophomore film, writer/director/cinematographer Jaron Henrie-McCrea opted to make what I consider to be a front-runner for horror film of the year, which is really considerate of him. The premise behind The Gateway (aka Curtain) is so simple that it might sound stupid, at first: a burnt-out hospice nurse rents an apartment where any curtains hung in the shower mysteriously disappear. She decides to find out where they go and absolutely metaphysical mayham ensues. The logline may seem like the setup for a lame punchline but what Henrie-McCrea does with it is nothing short of genius. To say almost anything would potentially spoil some amazing twists and reveals, so suffice to say that this microbudget marvel is worth a watch and we’ll leave it at that. A strange, delightful companion to last year’s equally twisted Motivational Growth.

Freaks of Nature — Another film that I expected to be a silly goof, Freaks of Nature won me over so completely that I ended up watching it again a few days later. Fun, good-humoured, full of smart themes, loaded with quotable dialogue and featuring a simply terrific cast, this tale of a small town that happens to be populated by uneasily coexisting humans, vampires and zombies and is then, in turn, invaded by aliens, is the definition of a crowd pleaser. The characters are charming and empathetic, old pros like Denis Leary, Keegan-Michael Key, Joan Cusack, Bob Odenkirk and Patton Oswalt turn in instantly memorable performances and the laughs are both earnest and just raunchy enough to suit the material. The rare film where the teenage characters actually feel like teens and not like thirty-year-old actors. Suffice to say, I liked this one a whole lot.

Pride + Prejudice + Zombies — Despite being a fan of both Jane Austen and zombies, separately, I did not expect to enjoy this particular mash-up in the slightest. I gotta say, though: it ticked every box off my personal score card for big-budget, multiplex horror fare and then some, especially when compare to something like World War Z. Lushly filmed, very smartly written (the not-so-subtle battle of the sexes themes reveal surprises at every turn), full of great action sequences with decent enough CGI effects and quite a bit of grue (for a PG13 flick), I found myself constantly entertained, intellectually engaged and a little sad when it was over. With tongue just enough in cheek (through cheek?) but with an obvious reverence for the source material, this is a modern(ish) update that really works.

Scherzo Diabolico — Anyone who’s been a regular reader of The VHS Graveyard will know that I hold auteur Adrian Garcia Bogliano is no small regard: truth be told, he’s a major deity in my personal pantheon of modern horror filmmakers and someone whose projects I await like a kid on the last day of school. Every film has been markedly different and this little jewel keeps the trend running. A put-upon, low-level lawyer finally reaches his breaking point and decides to kidnap his boss’ daughter in order to throw the alpha asshole off his game. The plan works, to a point, and then it doesn’t: the eventual blowback brings to mind the works of Chan-wook Park and earns this a resounding place at the horror big kids’ table. The title is Italian for “Diabolical Prank” but this is all treats, no tricks.

10 Cloverfield Lane — Full disclosure: I was never bonkers over J.J. Abram’s original Cloverfield. While I always admire a good giant monster flick, that one came with a bit too much nausea-inducing 1st-person POV and obnoxious characters for my taste. I liked this kinda-sorta follow-up (Abrams produces but doesn’t direct) quite a bit better. In fact, when the film is just Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman and John Gallagher Jr. feinting around each other in the bunker, it’s kinda-sorta amazing. The “other stuff” is handled well, without a doubt, but those tense early-to-mid scenes are where the film really shines. To my mind, it’s still obvious that this is two films “stitched” together. When it’s done this well, however, I really can’t complain.

Clown — Once upon a time, a couple of jokers named Christopher Ford and Jon Watts had the cojones to post a trailer for a movie called Clown online and attribute said film to horror maven Eli Roth. Thing is, Roth had nothing whatsoever to do with the film, which also didn’t exist in any form. He was impressed by their temerity, however, so we flash-forward to the actual product, written by both, directed by Watts and presented by Roth. Is the destination as good as the journey for the little creature feature that could? Absolutely. Not only is Clown the very best killer clown movie ever made (call it the Citizen Kane of clowns, if you will), it’s also one of the very best horror films of the last few years, hands down. Clown is pure, old-school, slow-tracking-shot glory, full of outrageously gory kills, a genuinely kickass origin story and a supremely sympathetic, tragic hero. This isn’t a horror-comedy, ala Stiches or Killer Klowns From Outer Space: this tale of a father who dons an old clown costume and starts going through “ch-ch-changes” is pure, skin-crawling, not-afraid-to-kill-off-the-kids, flat-out horror. Essential.

Green Room — Some might argue that Jeremy Saulnier’s follow-up to the gut-punch that was Blue Ruin doesn’t exactly qualify as horror. Fair enough. Close your eyes and imagine that you’re trapped in the back of a run-down bar, in the middle of nowhere, weapon-less, with a mob of bloodthirsty neo-Nazis pounding down the door. Sounds horrifying, right? Fair enough. Featuring one of Anton Yelchin’s final performances, a truly surprising serious turn from Alia Shawkat and Patrick Stewart as the most polite, sublimely evil skinhead in recent memory, Green Room is throttle-to-the-metal action, as fist-pumping and head-banging as it is genuinely sad and tragic. Once again, Saulnier shows that there’s no one better when it comes to depicting deperate folks at the end of their very last ropes. Extra points for a truly kickass soundtrack.

Carnage Park — And here he is again: good, ol’ Mickey Keating. Two films in one year and they both landed on my mid-year best of list…suffice to say, I’m starting to think that this low-budget auteur is the bee’s knees! Capturing not only the blown-out look but also the heat-mirage morality of ’70s-era drive-in fodder, Keating brings us a simply dynamic tale of a pair of lowlifes who rob a bank, take an innocent hostage and drive into the desert, where they all run afoul of a looney-tunes former war hero who’s decided that sniping unsuspecting folks on his own twisted “amusement park” wasteland is as good a form of therapy as any. The performances are pitch-perfect, with Ashley Bell and Pat Healy being easy stand-outs, but it’s really all of the little, marginal details that make this so special, including what I’m pretty sure are some subtle allusions to the original My Bloody Valentine. At this rate, there’s every chance that Keating’s next film, Psychopaths, will also end up on this year’s best of list: when yer hot, yer hot!

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2016 in Horror Films, Mid-Year Report (The Best) – Part 1

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Anguish, Ava's Possessions, Baskin, best films of 2016, Best Horror Films, Best of 2016, cinema, Darling, film reviews, films, High-Rise, horror, horror films, horror movies, Hush, mid-year review, Movies, Nina Forever, personal opinions, The Invitation, The Witch, The Witch: A New England Folk Tale, They Look Like People

It’s now time to take a look at the twenty horror films that have impressed me the most in the first seven months of this year. For the sake of space, we’ll break this up into two separate parts, although there’s currently no real order to any of the listings.

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The Witch — The Witch was hyped so early and so hard (it had steady buzz and good word of mouth from its festival debut early last year) that I assumed it was all but destined to be a disappointment. Rather than being disappointed, however, I was completely entranced by this subtle, genuinely unsettling tale of eldritch evil in the years right before the infamous Salem witch trials. Until the suitably Argento-esque finale, the film plays its cards fairly close to the vest and is all the stronger for it. It’s a strangely old-fashioned kind of a film and rises above the cookie-cutter competition quite poetically.

Baskin — This batshit crazy Turkish export starts out like a sub-Tarantino cop goof before taking a hard right turn in to pure, unadulterated Fulci madness. For stronger stomaches, this tale of a group of SWAT officers finding the literal door to Hell is really one of the very best modern-day Itallo-horror homages and features some truly gorgeous cinematography, along with some of the best use of colored lighting since the glory days of Dario Argento. It might not be a nice film but it sure is an impressive one. Let’s hope that this heralds the dawning of a new era in Turkish horror.

Ava’s Possessions — I expected a lightweight time-waster but ended up with an impressively smart, skillfully made little sleeper that manages to equate binge drinking with demonic possession to rather wonderful results. The titular young woman awakes after being exorcised of a particularly pesky demon and must then put together the very shattered pieces of her formerly normal life, piecing together what happened bit by bit. At times, the film almost plays like a straight-faced Beetlejuice (no mean feat) but the serious themes are never overtaken by the dark whimsy. Suffice to say that I was constantly surprised, which rarely happens.

High-Rise — My early pick for one of the year’s very best films, Ben Wheatley’s adaptation of Ballard’s classic novel is just about perfect. Everything from the film’s immaculate, Kubrickian production design to the mannered performances from top brass like Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons and Elisabeth Moss serve to pull you in to this tale of social upheaval and disintegration in the confines of a luxurious, high-rise apartment building. Not a shot is wasted, nor a line tossed away, which is pretty much par for the course with the British auteur. Grab a dog leg and enjoy!

Darling — Quickly earning a reputation as the hardest working filmmaker in the indie genre scene, Mickey Keating follows up last year’s impressive Pod with this even better Repulsion homage. Darling is an immaculately made little psycho-drama that uses gorgeous black-and-white cinematography and an absolutely mesmerizing performance from Lauren Ashley Carter to pull us into the warped world of the title character, as she descends into complete insanity. By turns shocking and oppressive, Darling is never less than razorwire tense, from the first frame to the unforgettable finale. Mark my words: Keating is one to watch.

Hush — While I didn’t love Mike Flanagan’s Absentia, I was quite taken by its follow-up, Occulus, giving me high hopes for his next film, Before I Wake. With that film trapped in a distribution nightmare that might rival its fictional content, however, Flanagan’s next film ended up being this concise, streamlined home invasion/slasher. Suffice to say, I liked this one quite a bit, too, with a few reservations. This nailbiting chiller about a deaf-mute woman menaced in her home by a masked, unnervingly mannered intruder works best before the bad guy removes his mask and starts talking but it’s never less than completely self-assured and packs a real punch. There are moments and scenes, here, that are nearly on a par with Carpenter’s original Halloween and that says a whole lot, in my book.

Nina Forever — Boy meets girl, falls in love. Girl dies. Boy meets new girl, falls in love. Dead girl emerges from the sheets, bloody, whenever boy and new girl have sex. Despite this one little complication, new girl is still determined to make it work with the boy (and the dead girl). The only problem, however, is that the dead girl doesn’t like to share. By turns twisted, sentimental, oddly erotic and genuinely horrifying, Nina Forever was another surprisingly strong sleeper that used a great cast to tell a rather unique tale extremely well. Extra points for this one debuting on Valentine’s Day and for its consistently twisty, thorny plot twists.

The Invitation — Before a final reel twist that’s both obvious and satisfying, this examination of grief and “getting better” is a thoroughly harrowing dive into the mind of an emotionally shattered father who just can’t get over the death of his son, despite his ex-wife’s seeming ease at doing just that. The whole house of cards comes tumbling down at a dinner party where truths are laid bare, secrets are revealed and we learn that one person’s sense of closure may just be the beginning of another’s madness. Although not completely a horror film, in the standard sense, the constant feeling of dread and paranoia keeps this firmly in the “chiller” side of things. Smart, thought-provoking and all but guaranteed to provoke after-screening discussions.

Anguish — I expected this to be another bargain-basement possesion film (I’ve seen way too many in the past seven months, trust me), so was more than happy when it revealed itself to be an effective little indie chiller, instead. Sharing more than a few similarities with Vincenzo Natali’s equally effective Haunter, Anguish revolves around a teen girl who ends up “sharing” her body with the consciousness of another recently deceased teenager: when the dead girl doesn’t want to leave, things get decidedly scary for the living one. Remarkably subtle and grounded by a genuinely affecting lead performance, this is thoughtful, low-budget horror at its finest. Pity this never received a proper theatrical release, since I found it to be pretty much on par with the critically-vaunted It Follows, if not a bit more consistent.

They Look Like People — Although never technically a horror film, this was, easily, one of the most nerve-wracking, disturbing films that I watched all year. Writer-director Perry Blackshear’s full-length debut details the efforts of a laid-back, totally nice guy (the impossibly likable Evan Dumouchel) as he supports his increasingly paranoid, wackadoodle best friend (the excellent MacLeod Andrews). The crazy friend is convinced that monsters (wearing human masks) walk among us, ala They Live. Is he really insane, however? Just what, exactly, are those weird things over in the shadows…? The final fifteen minutes are a master-class in sustained, white-knuckle tension that found me glued to the edge of my seat and unable to tear my eyes from the screen. A micro-budget mini-marvel thay deserves a wider audience.

Coming up next: the other half of this humble little list. Stay tuned, friends and cyber-neighbors!

2016 in Horror Films, Mid-Year Report (The Worst)

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2016, cinema, Dusk, Fairlane Road, film reviews, films, Forsaken, He Never Died, JeruZalem, Mark of the Witch, Martyrs, mid-year report, mid-year review, Movies, personal opinions, Restoration, Sacrifice, Smothered, The Before Time, The Boy, The Forest, The Offering, The Sacrament, Uncaged, worst films of 2016, year in review

With June now behind us, we’ve officially reached the midpoint of 2016: what better time to take a look at the best and the worst horror films released in the first half of the year? As part of my goal to see as many 2016 horror films as humanly possible (both wide-released big budget affairs and straight-to-VOD indies), I’ve managed to screen 66 of the 113 released films thus far. I’ve still yet to see a few of the wide-released studio horror, such as The Neon Demon, The Conjuring 2 or The Shallows, but a 58% viewing ratio makes me confident enough to be able to provide a (fairly) decent appraisal of what’s out there.

While I’ve managed to see plenty of good films and even a handful of great ones, there have also been plenty of stinkers in the batch. These have ranged from creatively bankrupt, cookie-cutter snoozers that jump on whatever happens to be the trend of the moment (witch and possession/exorcism films are currently “it” in this game of tag) to thoroughly inept exercises in bad filmmaking. I’ve seen films that were laughably bad and films that failed to even check that particular box off their lists.

Out of 66 films, however, there were always going to be some bad apples: that’s just the law of averages. There were also lots of exceptional films and we’ll get to those, too. With no further ado, then, here are my thoughts on the sixteen films that I consider to be the worst horror films of 2016 (thus far). For purposes of brevity, I’ve tried to restrict my thoughts to a sentence or two. There is also no particular order to the list below, although certain films were certainly worse than others. Will any of these make it on to my ultimate Worst of the Year list? Only time will tell but I’ll tell you what: a few of these are early and easy contenders.

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Restoration – Written, directed by and starring one of my favorite actors (Zack Ward), this managed to be one of the most aggressively stupid films I think I’ve ever seen. New home owners find a teddy bear in the walls and mass over-acting ensues.

Uncaged – 1^st-person-POV horror, teens and werewolves should have been a great combo but this overly earnest indie just limped around for a while, waiting for someone to put a (silver) bullet in it. I’ll stick with Teen Wolf, thanks very much.

Sacrifice – A rather dumb take on The Wicker Man, minus any of that film’s genuine mystery or otherworldy allure, Sacrifice is more of a mystery than an actual horror film. This snoozer about ritually-murdered bodies found in a peat bog is also much more interesting in theory than it ever becomes in execution.

Fairlane Road – I never like to unduly shit on indie horror films but it was hard to find anything to extoll in this particular instance. This tale of a nephew going to see his loner uncle in the desert unfolds pretty much how you expect it to, right down to the “twist” ending, devoid of anything approaching a surprise and full of some downright amateurish performances.

The Offering – Combining lame “Americans in a scary foreign place” films with even lamer possession films and adding dumb cult elements, for spice, The Offering is sort of like making a gumbo with rocks, dirt and spider webs and then expecting it to taste like anything but muck: it won’t. Another film that seems to think foreigners are inherently creepy, just, you know, because.

Sacrament – This tale of crazy, small-town Texan carnivores and their cult-like ways had its heart in the right place (hell, Texas Chain Saw’s Marilyn Burns even makes an appearance!) but not much else. If intentions were outcomes, however, this would have been a real gem.

JeruZalem – Another aggressively stupid film (another 2016 theme?), this managed to squander the colossally rad idea of a Biblical catastrophe befalling modern-day Jerusalem by saddling us with obnoxious characters and at least 666 jump scares too many. The 1^st-person-POV was explained via Google Glass, which was clever, but almost everything else was painfully vanilla and remarkably tedious.

Smothered – I really wanted to like this film and its genuinely clever concept (real-life horror icons get picked off, one by one, at a sinister trailer park) but one thing held me back: it’s a complete and total mess. Helmed by Dukes of Hazzards’ John Schneider and featuring lots of all-in performances, this was clearly a labor of love but, unfortunately, not of brains.

The Forest – One of few 2016 horror films to receive wide distribution in multiplexes, The Forest is also one of the year’s very worst films: go figure. Cobbling together a moldy fruitcake out of tedious J-horror clichés, childhood trauma tedium and the bizarre notion than elderly Asian people are absolutely terrifying for no reason whatsoever (is there a name for that phobia?), The Forest looked good but was completely hollow and pointless, like a wax banana.

The Boy – Another wide-released horror film, The Boy was another complete stinker: before the obvious twist turns the film into a complete joke, we’re left with a fairly standard “young woman in a creepy house where doors open and close film” crossed with a very standard “creepy doll” film. Neither “fake” film is particularly interesting but they’re both better than the “real” one, by a wide margin.

He Never Died – I didn’t hate this oddball horror-comedy but I sure as hell didn’t love it, either, especially when it wasted both an original concept and Henry Rollins as an immortal flesh-eater. There’s some genuine pathos and dark humor that gets completely obliterated by tone-deaf cornball comedy and eye-rolling indie-action dumbassery, which kind of hurt my heart.

The Before Time – Paint-by-numbers found-footage horror that did nothing interesting with its Southwest desert location whatsoever except show us yet another shot of someone being dragged backwards by an invisible “something.” Throw in an entire cast of hateful, obnoxious “characters” and this was a complete chore to finish.

Dusk – Very rarely do I hate films but I actively hated this dunder-headed bit of idiocy by the time the credits rolled. This is definitely a mystery/thriller, rather than a horror film, but that’s easily the least of my beefs with it: the entire film is predicated on a twist that is so awe-inspiringly awful and stupid, it almost needs to be seen to be believed. Almost.

Forsaken – Another painfully bad, generic possession/exorcism film, this gem revolves around a priest who purposefully gets his wife possessed by a demon in order to cure her illness. Pretty sure his HMO won’t cover that.

Mark of the Witch – This wanted to be a nod to Itallo horror-surrealism but was saddled with a pretty awful lead (and I’m being rather kind), along with a fairly terrible script (again, kind). Lots of nice visuals and evocative cinematography, however, so not a complete wash, I suppose.

Martyrs (remake) – This glossy, generic remake of the genuinely powerful and important French New Wave of Horror classic is a complete enigma: never as disturbing, graphic or impactful as the original (the entire mind-blowing cosmic implications of the gut-punch original finale are reduced to a dumb action scene, for one thing), Martyrs (2016) seems to exist solely for those folks who simply can’t stomach the original but want to know what it’s about. Couldn’t they have just Googled it?

Coming up: the best horror films of 2016…so far, that is. Stay tuned!