The Year in Review: The Top 20 Films of 2015 (Part Two)

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2015, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, Best of 2015, Bone Tomahawk, cinema, Entertainment, Faults, favorite films, film reviews, films, Mad Max: Fury Road, Movies, personal opinions, Slow West, The Boy, The Hateful Eight, The Voices, Welcome to Me, What We Do in the Shadows

At long last, the creme de la creme of calendar year 2015: my picks for the ten best films of the year. Stay tuned for a final wrap-up on the year before we get back to our regularly scheduled reviews.

– – –

10.

The Boy

There’s a quiet, mournful, almost hushed atmosphere to Craig William Macneill’s The Boy that’s like being smothered to death in a warm, comfortable blanket. This low-key, massively powerful examination of a young sociopath taking the first tentative steps towards full-blown mass murder is full of strong, honest performances (David Morse and Rainn Wilson, in particular, are extraordinary) but none impress, stun or disarm quite as effectively as that of young Jared Breeze, the titular boy. As we follow Breeze’s Ted through his sad, fractured world, it becomes distressingly easy to see the individual “bricks” that will eventually lead to one huge, impenetrable “wall” in his undeveloped psyche. Sad, thought-provoking and absolutely essential, The Boy may just prove itself as one of the most important films of an age that has become inextricably linked with mass killings and spree violence.

9.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

I absolutely adored this “John Hughes by way of Jim Jarmusch by way of Val Lewton” vampire flick, the debut full-length from astounding new Iranian-American filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour. Endlessly cool, evocative, sensual and mysterious, with truly gorgeous black and white cinematography and a pretty kickass score, A Girl… might have become an exercise in style over substance for any other filmmaker. Instead, Amirpour imbues the various characters and their interactions with each other with a genuine sense of emotional heft: this may be an “art film” but it’s one with a big, bloody, beating heart in its chest. With a double-fistful of audacious imagery (the beautiful mirror-ball scene is primo Hughes, while the truly strange, totally cool skateboarding bits are all Amirpour). A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is the kind of debut that fearlessly kicks the door in, waltzes right up to the table and sets a place for itself at the very head: Ana Lily Amirpour is here and I don’t think the world of cinematic horror will ever be the same.

8.

Welcome to Me

Kristin Wiig is one of those performers (like Bruce Campbell, Ron Perlman or Kate McKinnon) that I will, literally, watch in whatever she chooses to do. TV ad? I’ll tape it. Hosting a seminar on watching paint dry? I’ll be first row. There’s just something about Wiig that I find endlessly fascinating, her razor-sharp, cutting wit always slightly diffused by something both infinitely sad and impossibly playful. Able to bounce effortlessly between silly comedies and more serious indie dramas, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing she can’t do. Scratch that: I’m positive of that fact.

This is all by way of saying that I was probably more predisposed to love Shira Piven’s Welcome to Me than most potential audience members. Despite my high expectations, however, I still got completely blown out of the water. To not put too fine a point on it, Wiig’s performance as sad-sack Alice Klieg stands as the high-water mark of a pretty extraordinary career: this is a performance that not only deserves but demands award consideration, a raw, painful, frequently hilarious (but just as often gut-wrenching) look at a woman struggling with mental health issues, all while trying to make the most out of a life that frequently baffles and terrifies her. There are scenes and moments here (Alice’s walk through the casino, for example) that were, easily, the best in the year. To be honest, the very fact that Welcome to Me, one of my very favorite films of the whole year, ended up at #7 on this list has much more to do with the competition than the quality of the film. In any other year, this would have probably been closer to #1.

7.

Bone Tomahawk

Writer-director S. Craig Zahler’s stunning debut, the Western-horror hybrid Bone Tomahawk, pulls off a pretty great hat trick. For the first two-thirds of the film, it’s a pitch perfect Western, the kind that seemed to have fallen out of behavior until a raft of quality 2015 flicks brought the genre roaring back to life. Anchored by phenomenal performances from Kurt Russell (growing the mustache that would consume him in The Hateful Eight), Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox (slimy and endearing, in equal measures) and Richard Jenkins (echoing every kickass, old sidekick that the Duke ever rode with), a truly engrossing mise en scene and some stark imagery, it’s a film out of time that truly works.

And then the film suddenly veers off-road and becomes, without a doubt, one of the single most horrifying, frightening and nightmare-inducing films of the past several years. With each portion (the Western and the cannibals) given equal respect and consideration, this is no stitched-together Frankenstein’s monster: rather, Zahler allows the film to mutate and morph organically, with the horror elements gradually bubbling to the surface until we’re completely trapped by the paranoid horror of it all. This is uncompromising, amazing filmmaking: for a debut, it becomes that much more extraordinary.

6.

The Voices

In a year filled with films about mental illness and depression (Welcome to Me, The Boy, Motivational Growth, Pod, Creep, Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, Xenia, Queen of Earth and The End of the Tour, to name a small handful), few hit quite as hard as Marjane Satrapi’s thoroughly wonderful The Voices. With a simple concept (happy-go-lucky office guy Ryan Reynolds “talks” to his dog and cat, who dispense advice that ranges from “pretty reasonable” to “holy shit, what are you doing?!”), an eye-popping, vibrant color scheme and plenty of funny snark, it would be easy to mistake The Voices as a goofy, stylish romp.

That would be a huge mistake, however. You see, The Voices is actually a thoroughly poisonous, hideous and mind-blowing cupcake, topped with so much bright pink frosting that you won’t realize you’re choking until you’re already dead. This is Marjane Satrapi, after all, the Iranian auteur who introduced the world to Persepolis: she doesn’t do “disposable.” In early interviews for The Voices, Satrapi expressed a desire to try a horror film “just for the hell of it,” adding her own unique voice to the proceedings. The end result speaks for itself: The Voices is immaculately made, gorgeously filmed, brilliantly acted (Reynolds might be perfect, in this, but so are Arterton, Kendrick and the rest of the exceptional cast) and features a payoff that’s as smart as it is soul-shattering. The complete lack of love for The Voices speaks to only one thing: Satrapi did too good a job.

5.

Entertainment

One of the single biggest surprises of the year, Rick Alverson’s Entertainment should never have ended up on my Best of list…never in a million years. You see, I absolutely hated Alverson’s previous film, the loathsome, wretched ode to hipster ennui, The Comedy. I hated everything about it, from the hateful characters to the awful dialogue to the patently stupid setpieces (although the one where they scoot on church pews did make me smile, briefly): it was easily one of the worst films I saw that year, hands-down. Add to this my general disinterest in outre stand-up comedian Neil Hamburger (nee Gregg Turkington), who toplines Entertainment, and this definitely seemed like a film I would not appreciate.

But then I watched it and, lo and behold: Entertainment is not only light-years better than The Comedy (there is, literally, no comparison beyond a few returning actors), it’s light-years better than about 90% of the films I watched in 2015. Essentially the ultimate portrait of life on the road for a touring comic, Entertainment is a complete revelation: Turkington is so goddamn good that I actually found an appreciation for his Hamburger persona that was never there in the past.

Everything about this almost overpoweringly sad film works (and then some): the sense of character building…the competition between more “alternative” comics and more “traditional” ones (Tye Sheridan’s “mime-clown” is a truly inspired creation)…the lonely life that outsiders live, even when surrounded by “friends” and well-wishers…the notion of a personal life lost to endless, torturous days on the road, playing to increasingly small audiences that couldn’t give a shit whether you live or died…unlike The Comedy, which seemed to exist as a misanthropic middle-finger to “polite”society, Entertainment is an endlessly humanist film, much less interested in ridiculing others than sticking up for the quiet dignity of its protagonist.

I can’t stress it enough: Entertainment was the biggest surprise of the whole year, for me, and one of the most powerful gut-punches I’ve had in years. Guess I owe you an apology, Mr. Alverson: you do know what you’re doing, after all.

4.

Faults

I saw this early in the year and, like a couple other entries on this list, it never left my mind once during the ensuing months. Faults is a tricky, prickly little film, a quiet mind-blower that lulls you in with something old (the general story about a cult deprogrammer and his newest charge is straight out of Jane Campion’s Holy Smoke, for one) before beating you senseless with something new (pretty much everything else). Faults is the kind of film that exists best when you know as little about it as possible: I’m willing to wager that most folks would never guess the “twist,” regardless of how intently they pay attention.

While I’ve written extensively about Faults in the past, it still behooves me to reiterate a point: Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Leland Orser are so good in this, so completely invested in both their characters and the film’s strange world, that it’s not like watching performances: it’s like being given a front-row seat to a real-life psychodrama, unfolding before our disbelieving eyes. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: in any other year, this would probably have been #1 instead of #4.

3.

What We Do in the Shadows

This was the year of the quality horror-comedy (Cooties, Deathgasm, Zombeavers, Suburban Gothic, The Final Girls and Love in the Time of Monsters all come to mind) but none of them were as consistently hilarious, well-made and thought-provoking as Kiwi-export What We Do in the Shadows.

Helmed by Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement (who also did extraordinary work in People, Places, Things) and comedian Taika Waititi, What We Do in the Shadows is the last word on vampire mockumentaries (the Belgian film Vampires was probably the first word and not a bad one, at that). Detailing the various travails of a group of vampires who all happen to be roommates, despite their disparate personalities, ages and levels of “savagery,” WWDITS is laugh-out-loud funny from start to finish, filled with so many unique, outrageous and ingenious setpieces that they could probably have filled two films. The cherry on top of this marvelous sundae, however, are the surprisingly deep, sincere emotional moments. When the film wants you to laugh, you’ll be powerless to resist. When it wants you to tear up, however, you’ll find yourself in the same boat.

As one of the most talked-about, ballyhooed films of the year, there was a tremendous set of expectations hanging around the film’s neck, possibly like an albatross. Turns out all of the hype was not only duly founded but may have actually undersold the film, a bit: this is peerless filmmaking, genre or otherwise, and discerning fans should treasure this for some time to come.

2.

Slow West

Slow West was another film that I saw early in the year, yet could never completely shake from my mind. This slow, almost elegiac Western seems to be plowing a pretty standard trail, albeit one full of beautiful cinematography, wide-open vistas and exacting, underplayed performances. When the magical realism and dark humor elements kick in, however, Slow West climbs a ladder to the stars and never once looks back.

Fassbender plays Eastwood, Smit-McPhee brings a little gravitas to his wet-behind-the-ears Scotsman and Ben Mendelsohn (resplendent in one of the biggest fur coats I’ve ever seen) is so perfectly evil that he’s like a template for any who might come after (or before, for that matter). If you love and grew up on Westerns, Slow West will be nothing short of a modern-day revelation. Even if you have no particular love for horse operas, however, Slow West will still be a captivating, quirky and grim journey.

In a year where the Western really made a comeback (Bone Tomahawk, The Hateful Eight and The Revenant all took the cinematic world by storm), first-time director John Maclean’s modest, immaculate little film might have been an underdog but that didn’t stop it from shouting its intentions to the sky. If Maclean doesn’t become one of our best, most celebrated filmmakers in the next decade, I’ll eat a ten-gallon hat.

And now, with no further ado…the number one film of the year is…

1.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Here’s the thing: if you would have told me that outre Australian auteur George Miller would pick up his iconic Mad Max franchise thirty years after its previous entry, I’d believe it. If you would have added that the film would become one of the biggest, pop culture phenomenons of the past several years and a huge box office superstar, I would have laughed right in your face.

But the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. What the 70-year-old auteur has done is something that seems almost impossible, on the outside: Fury Road is a virtually non-stop, two-hour chase film that features some of the most astounding practical effects and vehicular crashes ever set to film. Period. There’s no fat on this film whatsoever: ever shot, every line of dialogue, every edit is there for the express purpose of propelling the film forward, of putting us (and keeping us) right in the driver’s seat the whole time.

Much has been made of Fury Road’s distinct feminist leanings and, like everything else regarding the film, that’s right on the nose, too. While Tom Hardy’s take on the titular antihero is the perfect next step from Mel Gibson’s original, he’s not the hero of the film. Instead, that honor goes to Charlize Theron’s Furiosa, the tough-as-nails uber-warrior/driver who must safely chaperon a group of female slaves from subjugation and forced breeding to freedom. To not put too fine a point on it, Furiosa is an instantly classic creation (think Aliens-era Lt. Ripley) and Theron’s performance instantly vaults her to the top of the sci-fi/genre royalty.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a film best experienced, not discussed: hell, watch it five times and I’m willing to wager you’ve still missed half of the simply astounding visuals and white-knuckle setpieces. This is a film that practically throws away sequences that other, lessor movies would make centerpieces. It’s a film that satisfies longtime followers but is the exact opposite of fan service. It’s a film that is almost ridiculously fist-pumping and action-packed but so far from brain-dead that calling it a mere “action film” is so reductive as to be insulting. It’s a film written and directed by a 70-year-old Hollywood outsider, yet manages to instantly nuke any and everything else out there.

Is George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road the best film of 2015? Absolutely, without a doubt, yes. However…

1.

The Hateful Eight

You see, Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight is also the very best film of the year. How, exactly, is that possible? As it turns out: pretty darn easy. Not only is The Hateful Eight an unapologetic return to the classic Westerns of yore (think Ford or Peckinpah, not Leone), it also features a perfect ensemble cast, stunning 65mm cinematography (the film was even screened in 65mm for select theaters) and legendary composer Ennio Morricone’s first Western score in some thirty years (supplemented with unused pieces from his score for John Carpenter’s The Thing, no less).

But all of that, of course, would be only so much pretty wrapping paper if the actual film weren’t so damn good. At almost three-and-a-half hours, there’s a lot to digest here and a lot of time to spend with characters who range from “awful human beings” to “worse human beings.” Thanks to the eclectic, all-in performances, however, we come to really like these deviants and dastardly folks: it’s the same trick that Tarantino pulled off in Pulp Fiction when he made us fall in love with Vincent, Jules and the rest of their miscreant acquaintances.

Like Fury Road, there’s way more to The Hateful Eight than could ever be caught in one viewing: questions of racial inequality, justice and the terrible, constant shadow of the Civil War hang over every frame of the film, like smoke caught in the cold air. While the mystery aspect of the film likely won’t reward repeat viewings (this is as much an outrageous take on Agatha Christie as anything else, after all), everything else will.

Is The Hateful Eight a problematic film? Like all of Tarantino’s films, absolutely: controversy is as much one of Tarantino’s stock-in-trades as his mountains of dialogue, over-the-top violence and focus on antiheroes. This is a film that somehow manages to include more racially-charged dialogue than even Django Unchained (no mean feat), while also featuring Mexico City-born Demian Bichir as the most stereotypical onscreen Hispanic character since Speedy Gonzalez. It’s a film where the sole female lead is viciously beaten for much of the run-time, yet manages to accrue not one whit of sympathy from the audience (quite the opposite, in fact, at the screening I went to).

Like the best of Tarantino’s films, however, The Hateful Eight manages to take everything and whip it into a fascinating, pulse-pounding and riotous ride through the dregs of society, trawling the gutter for some of his most indelible characters yet. The film is surprisingly funny and, at times, almost a horror film (dig that insane denouement, Jack!). The one thing it’s not? A chore to sit through, in any way, even at almost 3.5 hours in length.

Is The Hateful Eight my favorite Tarantino film since Pulp Fiction? Absolutely. Is it a perfect film? Nope. Was it the very best film that I managed to see in 2015? It was…along with Fury Road. Will I ever be able to choose between the two?  Now, why in the world would I ever want to do that?

The Year in Review: The Top 20 Films of 2015 (Part One)

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2015, Best of 2015, best of the year, Buzzard, cinema, favorite films, favorite films of the year, film reviews, films, Girlhood, Inside Out, Movies, People Places Things, personal opinions, Reality, The Duke of Burgundy, The Final Girls, The Martian, The Midnight Swim, What Happened Miss Simone?

Now that the horror categories for 2015 have been officially closed off, it’s down to the last, big list of this previous cinematic year: the 20 films that I considered to be the very best of the entire year, regardless of genre. Many of these have been bouncing around in my brain for almost the entire year: some were screened for the first time a week ago and still managed to vault onto the list.

From January 1st to December 31st, I managed to watch a grand total of 348 films, 119 of which were 2015 releases and, thus, eligible for this humble little list. Out of those 119 movies, I managed to whittle the contenders down to the best overall 20, plus seven runner-ups.

As far as I’m concerned, 2015 was another banner year for quality cinema. While the multiplex offerings were still as hit-or-miss as ever, VOD and streaming choices really came into their own this year, offering movie fans of every stripe and type a virtual cornucopia of choice offerings. If you didn’t find enough quality films to keep you occupied in 2015, I’m going to go ahead and offer my stock response: you just weren’t looking hard enough.

In that spirit of excellence, The VHS Graveyard proudly presents the first part of the Top 20 Films of 2015: numbers 20-11. Enjoy and stayed tuned for the finale and year-end wrap-up as we bid a fond, final farewell to 2015.

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20.

The Martian

I’m a sucker for both “stranded in space” flicks and intelligent sci-fi, so Ridley Scott’s return to the vacuum of space was always going to light up at least a few pleasure centers in my brain. That being said, even I wasn’t expecting to like The Martian this much. Chalk it up to a combination of an extremely likable Matt Damon performance, lots of completely immersive visuals and locations and tons of organic tension but Scott’s film delivers (at least for me) in the way that mega-budget, multiplex fare rarely does. My biggest complaint (and what keeps this from placing higher on this list) are all of the completely unnecessary cutaways to the rescue effort back on Earth: when The Martian is smart enough to trust solely in Damon’s charisma and Scott’s vision, it shines like a supernova.

19.

Inside Out

Few films, much less animated ones, deal with emotions quite as honestly as Pixar’s Inside Out. Honesty and self-reflection are the name of the game here, however, and the usual madcap antics take a decided backseat to the kind of melancholy soul-searching that’s usually reserved for more adult fare. This coming-of-age tale about young Riley learning to listen to the disparate “voices” in her head is just as apt to produce sniffles in the over-30 set as it is to produce wonder with the young’uns, however, so impressionable parents should proceed with caution: if the kids ask, you just got something in your eye.

18.

People, Places, Things

If I was looking to select a “Most Valuable Player (Male)” for this prior calendar year, it would probably be a tough choice between Kurt Russell and Jemaine Clement. While Russell will always have the “Biggest Badass” title locked down, Clement proved himself one of the year’s very best actors with unforgettable performances in both What We Do in the Shadows and People, Places, Things. As art teacher/single dad Will Henry, Clement lays it all out on the line and the results are a thoroughly heady mixture of deep sadness, wry humor, wounded love and pure indie dramedy bliss. Nothing in writer-director James C. Strouser’s third feature is ham-handed, tonally false or revoltingly precious, despite the presence of Will’s adorable young daughters. This has “modern-day classic” written all over it.

17.

What Happened, Miss Simone?

Passionate, politically-active and never afraid to speak her mind, the legendary Nina Simone took a huge piece of the world’s soul with her when she shuffled off this mortal coil back in 2003. Liz Garbus’ meticulous, fascinating documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone?, uses mind-blowing archival footage, interviews with Simone’s grown daughter and former husband/manager and a host of musical and pop culture luminaries to paint a truly three-dimensional portrait of the musician/activist that might have more relevance today than it did back when Simone was alive. Never afraid to shy away from the various personal issues that made Simone such an interesting person, Garbus’ film is a vital, fiery tribute to a truly one-of-a-kind talent.

16.

The Duke of Burgundy

Smart, sensual and just strange enough to keep you constantly off-balance, writer-director Peter Strickland’s The Duke of Burgundy is a singularly unique experience. Taking place in a world that appears to be devoid of men, Strickland examines the power dynamic behind submissive/dominant relationships, tracking the assorted head games and romantic machinations of a couple of butterfly experts as they attempt to define their relationship in a way that makes sense to them, if not necessarily others. Full of genuinely weird touches (the various mannequins posed in the lecture scenes are more than a little nightmarish, especially divorced from context), lush visuals and a dreamy, evocative atmosphere, The Duke of Burgundy finds Strickland slowly morphing into Peter Greenaway, adopting the elder statesman’s more painterly affectations with ease. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

15.

The Final Girls

I’ve written about my love for Todd Strauss-Schulson’s nostalgic “Purple Rose of Cairo by way of Friday the 13th” meta-slasher already, so let’s just rehash a few of the most salient points. Full of genuine emotional heft, surprisingly funny humor, lots of memorable performances/characters and just enough violence to sell the concept without wallowing in it (the film is rated PG-13, after all), The Final Girls is that rare horror film that serves as not only a love letter for the devoted but a surefire entry-point for the less initiated. You’ll laugh, you’ll gasp, you’ll choke up and you’ll probably hum “Bette Davis Eyes” for a week: deal with it.

14.

The Midnight Swim

While fear, disquiet and unease are all important emotions to invoke with genre films, there’s an additional emotion that I feel gets short shrift: wonder. Although writer-director Sarah Adina Smith’s The Midnight Swim is pretty light on fear, it more than makes up for that with an abundance of disquiet, unease and, of course, wonder. This measured, intelligent drama about a trio of sisters who come together at their family’s lakeside cabin to mourn their missing (but presumed drowned) mother traffics in some of the biggest questions to plague the human animal: Why are we here? Are we all connected, somehow? Where do we go when we die? With a final revelation that’s quietly mind-blowing, in a Kubrickian way, The Midnight Swim is the kind of film that you think about long after the final credits roll.

13.

Buzzard

Loud, obnoxious, casually offensive, openly belligerent and with a massive, Holden Caulfield-shaped chip on its smartass shoulder, Joel Potrykus’ Buzzard is probably what would have happened had Alex Cox opted to follow Repo Man with a primordial version of Office Space. This fractured, completely insane “narrative” about a shitty, young office temp who gets fed up with the phoniness of the world and proceeds to do battle armed with a caustic sneer, a sarcastic quip and a razor-tipped Nintendo Power Glove may not be for everyone but it might just be for you. Similar to the works of Quentin Dupieux, Buzzard pulls you in to a batshit insane, utterly nightmarish world where nothing functions like it should and the very act of wolfing down a heaping plate of spaghetti becomes its own act of societal rebellion. Utterly unforgettable and unlike anything else out there, Buzzard is grimy, ugly and uniquely original, fluttering among the countless masses of homogeneous, Xeroxed bullshit like some kind of a warning from beyond the stars.

12.

Girlhood

This was actually the very last film I screened in 2015, yet ended up being one of the best films I saw all year. Grounded by a simply stunning performance from first-timer Karidja Toure, Celine Sciamma’s coming of age tale details the lives of a a group of poor, black teenagers, growing up on the outskirts of Parisian society. There’s a lot to digest here, from sobering examinations of institutional racism to abusive relationships, from the inherent power of female friendships to the continued disparity between the haves and the have-nots. Never content to hit the easy, surface emotions, Sciamma’s film is raw, honest and, at times, almost too painful to watch. Just try and take your eyes from Toure, however, even for a minute: if there’s a more magnetic new performer out there, I don’t know who they are. Girlhood is not only an impeccably made, beautiful film: it’s a vibrant, utterly alive one that demands respect for its subjects and won’t let go of your throat til you’ve given it.

11.

Reality

In years past, it was all but a given that any new Quentin Dupieux film would end up on my years’ best list. Who am I to buck trends this year? While Dupieux’s newest is a solid half-step (maybe three-quarter step)  down from the sublimely perfect Wrong (2012) and Wrong Cops (2013), it’s still one of the most casually mind-blowing, crazy films of the year. Essentially the story of one director’s quest to find the perfect, Oscar-worthy groan (you could ask but I could never explain), this curious bit of meta-fiction turns and folds in on itself so many times that it’s all but impossible to keep up, sort of like Charlie Kaufman or Spike Jonze getting blasted on peyote tea.

While the film manages to make even less sense than its predecessors (like most Dupieux films, there’s nothing wrong with admitting bafflement), it’s an easy film to watch and, quite frankly, to love. Leave your preconceptions at the door, eliminate all distractions, give your complete and undivided attention to the screen and trust Dupieux to get you to his destination in (more or less) one piece. When you have a filmmaker as amazing as Quentin Dupieux driving the jalopy, just kick back and enjoy the damn ride.

Stay tuned for the final part of our Best of the Year spectacular: the Top 10 films of 2015.

The Year in Review: The Best Horror Films of 2015

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2015, A Christmas Horror Story, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, Best of 2015, Bone Tomahawk, cinema, Cooties, Creep, Deathgasm, film reviews, films, Gravy, horror, horror films, Motivational Growth, Movies, personal opinions, Tales of Halloween, The Boy, The Final Girls, The Nightmare, The Voices, We Are Still Here, What We Do in the Shadows

At long last, we come to one of the year’s big lists: the 15 Best Horror Films of 2015. I screened 73 new horror films in 2015 and managed to whittle the group down to the following creme de la creme.

There was nothing easy about the rankings, below, but I’m pretty confident that I’ve made the right decisions. Many of these have made there way on to plenty of year-end lists, while I’m wagering that others will be a little bit more unsung. Regardless, they all deserve the maximum love possible. As far as I’m concerned, any horror fan will find something to love in these fifteen films: it might require a slight leap of faith but these are all more than worthy. Some, of course, are more worthy than others. In that spirit, I present to you the 15 Best Horror Films of 2015.

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15.

The Nightmare

Few films stuck with me quite as much as Rodney Ascher’s documentary about sleep paralysis. The film is far from perfect and can often tip from self-serious into slightly corny but it was just impossible for me to shake some of the stories. The bit involving the shared experience with the demonic cat is, no pun intended, literally the stuff of nightmares.

14.

A Christmas Horror Story

Despite the fact that one of the segments in this seasonal-minded horror film is a real snoozer (the one about the kids investigating their haunted school), this is actually one of the better anthologies to come out amidst the recent glut of same. Shatner is a heap of fun as the progressively more inebriated radio DJ and many of the segments, particularly the gonzo one involving Santa fighting off zombie elves at the North Pole, pack a legitimate punch. Well-made, well-acted and lots of fun.

13.

We Are Still Here

This slow-burn nod to Italian gore maestro Lucio Fulci would have scored higher but there were a few stumbles on the way to the truly unforgettable Grand Guignol conclusion. If the build-up can sometimes come off a little too over-the-top, the payoff does a pretty damn good job of replicating Hell on earth. Suffice to say that I’m deathly curious to see where director Ted Geoghegan goes from here.

12.

Creep

At first, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this found-footage film featuring funnyman Mark Duplass as an extremely sad, extremely lonely and dying oddball who takes a cue from the Michael Keaton weeper My Life and has a filmmaker document his life for his young child. Turns out I should have expected one of the most genuinely creepy, weird, unsettling and flat-out horrifying films of the whole year. The finale is a real masterstroke but Peachfuzz and “tubby time” will probably haunt my dreams until the day I die.

11.

Tales of Halloween

Tales of Halloween might not be the best Halloween-themed horror anthology out there (I still think that Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘r Treat handily holds that title) but there’s nothing wrong with being the second best, at least in this case. While not all of the segments stick their landings and there’s a lamentable lack of cohesion between the various stories, this was still a tremendous amount of fun, full of outrageous scenarios, great effects and a genuine love for the season. When fan service is this smart and well-done, who can complain?

10.

Deathgasm

If you’re a metal-head, I’m willing to wager that you’re gonna love Kiwi-export Deathgasm: I am and I did. Fast, funny, inappropriate (beating a demon to death with dildos), explosively violent and always smarter than it seems, Deathgasm is a real labor of love and it shows. One of my favorite things here is the thoroughly organic way in which sweet, innocent and decidedly non-metal Kimberley Crossman evolves into a tough-as-nails, demon slaughtering ass-kicker. This fusion of horror, metal and laughs is a winner from start to finish.

9.

The Final Girls

This heartfelt horror-comedy, essentially a nostalgic, slasher flick variation on Woody Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo, was easily one of the sweetest films I saw all year, horror or otherwise. With a focus that prizes the mother-daughter relationship between Malin Ackerman and Taissa Farmiga as much as it does the snide critiques of ’80s horror film cliches and the rapid-fire, witty dialogue, this is the one film on this list that I would expect to easily appeal to mainstream audiences. Just the scene scored by “Bette Davis Eyes,” alone, would place this in the top ten of the year.

8.

Motivational Growth

Few films are genuinely weird but Motivational Growth is genuinely, undeniably weird…and I absolutely love it. Disturbing, grimy, hallucinatory, dryly funny and incredibly smart, writer-director Don Thacker’s odd little puzzler about a loner who receives life advice from talking bathroom mold (voiced with absolute gusto by genre legend Jeffrey Combs) lulls you into a sense of numb complacency before hitting you so hard that it, literally, takes the wind out of you. This was fearless, fascinating and nearly peerless filmmaking: I think Thacker might be the new Henenlotter, which makes Motivational Growth the new Basket Case. If you can stomach it, this is unforgettable.

7.

The Boy

This measured, subtle and thoroughly frightening look at a disturbed young boy taking the first tentative steps towards misanthropy and serial killing features powerhouse performances from David Morse and Rainn Wilson (playing completely against type and succeeding fabulously at it) but its young Jared Breeze who steals the entire film. As the titular character, Breeze displays a world-weary sensibility far beyond his years, turning in a performance that’s complex, quietly devastating and undeniably impressive. The Boy is not only a truly great, gripping horror film: it’s a truly great, gripping character study that deserves serious critical consideration.

6.

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

Drawing from Spaghetti Westerns, Hammer horror, black and white indie art films and the oeuvre of John Hughes, Iranian-American filmmaker Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is the kind of “everything and the kitchen sink” affair that shouldn’t work but does…and fantastically so. Endlessly moody, beautifully shot and possessed of an atmosphere that’s equal parts sad nostalgia, old-fashioned romanticism and smoldering sexuality, this was thought-provoking eye candy that signals Amirpour has a filmmaker to keep an eye on in the future.

5.

Cooties

With pre-release buzz that had me anticipating this little gem for almost a year, the chance for disappointment was high. My faith was strong, however, and the reward was one of the best, funniest and most outrageous horror-comedies I’ve seen in years. The ensemble cast is pitch-perfect (Elijah Wood, Rainn Wilson, Alison Pill, Nasim Pedrad, Leigh Whannell and Jack McBrayer turn in some of their best work), the concept is utterly choice (grade-school kids get infected by bad chicken nuggets and turn into ferocious, blood-thirsty zombies, leading to a standoff with the teachers at a beleaguered school), the effects are good and gory and the humor is smart, constant and in suitably bad taste. This might have been the party movie of the year if not for others on this list.

4.

Gravy

Of all the films I screened in 2015, few surprised me as much as Gravy. Everything about this screamed low-rent (that cover art is so bad, it actually works against the film) but the actual movie was just about as good as it gets. This story about a trio of cannibals who take the employees of a Mexican restaurant hostage, at closing time, on All Hallows’ Eve, is one delightful surprise after another: the cast is amazing, the gore effects are mind-blowing (literally!), the humor setpieces are hilarious and the film is consistently smart and ruthlessly dedicated to shattering expectations. If this hadn’t been such a great year for genre films, this would have topped my list, hands down: the fact that a movie this good ended up at number four speaks volumes.

3.

What We Do In the Shadows

I laughed, I cried, I loved: What We Do in the Shadows was, hands-down, the most crowd pleasing, purely fun horror film of the entire year. This New Zealand export slams the humor elements into the scoreboard so hard that the genuinely emotional dramatic elements almost seem like an unfair victory lap. Go ahead and close the book on any future mockumentaries about the drudgeries of modern life for age-old vampires: What We Do in the Shadows is the only one you’re ever gonna need.

2.

Bone Tomahawk

I love horror movies, I love Westerns and I love Kurt Russell: first-time director S. Craig Zahler would have really had to work overtime to screw up Bone Tomahawk, as far as I’m concerned. As it so happens, the film is an instant classic, the kind of long-abandoned filmmaking that prides atmosphere, mood and character development over instant gratification or dumbed down thrills. The first two thirds are primo, dusty oater, with one of the most effortlessly badass performances by Russell that the veteran badass has ever committed to celluloid. When the horror elements kick in, however, Zahler not only doesn’t lose his footing but promptly plants his boot through the audience’s skull. Uncompromising, beautiful, elegant and full of genuine “holy shit” moments, they really don’t get much better than Bone Tomahawk, horror or otherwise.

1.

The Voices

I saw this little jewel way back at the beginning of the year and it’s stuck with me ever since: I had a feeling it might end up at the top of my list back then and, as it turns out, my instincts were correct. Everything about auteur Marjane Satrapi’s beautifully skewed examination of mental illness is sheer perfection, from the candy-colored visuals to the magical realism elements to the astounding, scraped-raw performance by Ryan Reynolds.

This is a film that lulls you in with its gorgeous cinematography and slightly silly concept (Reynolds receives life advice from his talking dog and cat) before thrusting you headfirst into a screaming maelstrom of murder, insanity and pure emotional pain. The Voices is playful, quirky and utterly devastating, the kind of perfect cinematic experience that comes along all too rarely and functions as a breath of fresh air in an increasingly septic atmosphere: it’s horror as art, the purest form of validation that the much maligned genre could ever receive.

With no hyperbole whatsoever, The Voices should receive award season love: Satrapi should be nominated for Best Director, Reynolds should receive a Best Actor nomination and the film, itself, should be on the shortlist for best film of the year (with so much stiff competition, it would never win but certainly deserves the acknowledgment). The world doesn’t work that way, of course, so Satrapi’s perfect examination of mental illness will probably end up a footnote in the year that was 2015.

I’m here to say, however, that it was more than that: much more than that. As far as I’m concerned, The Voices was not only the best horror film of 2015 but one of the very best films I’ve seen in quite some time. I have a feeling that time will be kind to the film and future audiences will see it for the absolute gem it is. In a rich, full year of horror, Satrapi’s The Voices still managed to stand head and shoulders above the competition: as far as I’m concerned, that’s an achievement of the highest possible order.

The Year in Review: The Best Horror Films of 2015 (Honorable Mentions)

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2015, All Hallows' Eve 2, Best of 2015, cinema, Circle, Deep Dark, Digging Up the Marrow, Extinction, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, horror movies, Knock Knock, Last Shift, Lost After Dark, Love in the Time of Monsters, Movies, personal opinions, Pod, Spring, Stung, Suburban Gothic, The Gift, The Midnight Swim, Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead, Zombeavers

Just how good was the “Year in Horror,” circa 2015? It was so good, dear friends and readers, that your humble host had to compile a whole separate listing to contain all of the amazing films that just missed the “Best of” by this much (you can’t see it but it’s about a centimeter, give or take). In any other year, any or every one of these little gems might have made the big list: hell, once all is said and done, I’m sure I’ll second-guess at least a few of these and kick myself, anyway.

With no further ado, then (and in no particular order whatsoever), I present the seventeen runner-ups to Best Horror Films of 2015. If the “Best Ofs” are Rolls Royces, these are Jaguars. In other words, you just can’t go wrong taking any of ’em out for a spin.

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Love in the Time of Monsters — Pure fun from start to finish, this is one of the most unabashed good times I had watching a film all year. Full of endearing, quirky characters, a really great concept (the people who play Sasquatch at a Bigfoot-themed tourist trap are turned into murderous monsters by toxic waste), some great, gory special effects and one of the most kickass finales in some time, this isn’t perfect but it’s pretty darn awesome, nonetheless.

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Pod — Claustrophobic, endlessly tense and with a genuinely smart pay-off, the only thing that holds Pod back from neo-classic status are a set of performances that are slightly too intense and shouty for their own good. When the film is focused on the creeping, oppressive atmosphere and the question of just what, exactly, is down in the basement, there were few films that got under my skin quite like this.

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Last Shift — Full disclosure: I absolutely loathed the last film I saw by writer-director Anthony DiBlasi, the patently terrible Clive Barker adaptation, Dread. Combined with the truly terrible cover art for his newest, Last Shift, I had absolutely no interest in seeing the film whatsoever. Good thing I choked back my bias, however, because Last Shift isn’t just a good film: it’s an absolutely great one. Barring the stereotypical and cliched finale, everything about this film is a master study in minimal effort for maximum unease. Think of it as a ruthlessly slow-burning variant on Assault on Precinct 13 (kinda sorta) and that’ll get you close enough. I’m not to proud to say when I’m wrong: sorry, Anthony D…this was a keeper.

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The Gift — Not strictly a horror film but close enough for government work, actor-writer Joel Edgerton’s directorial debut is, hands-down, one of the subtlest, meanest and most uncompromising films of the year. Based on the idea that we’re only ever a stones’ throw from the sins of our past, The Gift features a trio of razor-sharp performances (Bateman, playing completely against type, is utterly magnificent) and the kind of twist that used to be Shyamalan’s stock in trade. This is psychological horror of the highest caliber and destined for classic status, down the road.

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Knock Knock — This one completely surprised me. While Knock Knock features the usual tonal shifts, inappropriate humor and “thinking bro observations” that are endemic to Eli Roth’s entire filmography, there’s something about this sneaky little gem that sank its hooks into me and wouldn’t let go. Come for the sick head-games, screwy gender politics and shocking level of restraint (suffice to say, this is the first Roth film that doesn’t feature copious gore) but do stay for the scene where poor Keanu discusses, in detail, his inability to turn down free pizza. This should have been completely wretched but, somehow, ended up being pretty good. Surprise, surprise.

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Digging Up the Marrow — In a true gift to genre fans, writer-director Adam Green (the mastermind behind the Hatchet franchise and under-rated “stuck on a ski-lift” epic, Frozen) teamed up with renowned monster illustrator Alex Pardee and the results are some of the flat-out coolest, creepiest and most awe-inspiring, diverse monsters to hit the silver screen since Clive Barker’s Nightbreed took us to Midian. The story, itself, is pretty meta for this type of thing: Green (playing himself) is invited by the always amazing Ray Wise (not playing himself) to check out some honest to goodness monsters. Things, as expected, don’t go well. More monsters on screen would have pushed this into the next echelon but what’s here is pretty damn unforgettable.

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Lost After Dark — In a genre where throwbacks to previous eras have become not only more popular but virtually expected, finding a new horror film that apes a ’70s or ’80s horror film really isn’t that hard. Finding one with the consistent quality, high production values and subtle wit of Lost After Dark, however, isn’t quite so easy. While writer-director Ian Kessner doesn’t do anything radically different, he does manage to nail all of the stylistic quirks of his intended homage, all while conducting things with a modicum more seriousness and less meta tongue-in-cheek than we usually get. If Lost After Dark really were an ’80s film, I’m pretty sure we’d be seeing homages to it right around this time.

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Extinction — Like Lost After Dark, Extinction doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel but, instead, doubles-down on what makes its particular sub-genre (zombie films) such an intrinsic part of our horror-loving culture. The performances are solid (Burn Notice’s Jeffrey Donovan is particularly good), the twists and revelations come across as fairly organic and the whole “zombie outbreak in a frozen wasteland” scenario is explored to good effect. Is this one of the best zombie films ever? Not even close. Was it the best zombie film of 2015? Maybe.

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Stung — Going in, I expected this to be another silly, over-the-top horror-comedy: after all, caterers standing as the last line of defense between a mob of giant, mutant wasps and the sniveling local aristocracy at a posh garden party sounds like the kind of thing that could, troublingly, be dubbed “zany.” Imagine my surprise and delight, then, when Stung turned out to be much more serious than that. Essentially an old-fashioned “giant insect” film with deft touches of pitch-black humor, this was just about a grand slam. Fantastic creature effects (easily in the Top 5 of this year), fun performances (Lance Henriksen gets a nice bit as the elderly, tough-as-nails mayor), some really great setpieces and some genuinely smart tweaks to convention (suffice to say there’s more than a little bit of Cronenbergian body horror here) make this an easy recommendation.

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Zombeavers — In a year with more top-notch horror-comedies than you could shake a funny bone at, Zombeavers wasn’t the creme de la creme but it still held its own. With an intriguingly gonzo premise (mutant, zombified beavers attack partying young people, all hell breaks loose), an all-in cast, some fairly outrageous gore effects and a helluva lot of impolite, politically-incorrect humor (the bit where the “wild girl” doffs her top, for no reason, only to be chided by a stereotypical backwoods yokel for making a spectacle of herself is but one example of the filmmakers biting the hand that feeds), Zombeavers is pretty much the perfect party film. Silly, funny but distinctly horror-minded, Zombeavers is one horror-comedy with real teeth.

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The Midnight Swim — Beautifully made, expertly acted and genuinely unsettling, writer-director Sarah Adina Smith’s The Midnight Swim was one of the most thought-provoking films I screened all year. This is a subtle film, certainly more sororal relationship drama than hard-core fright film. Look closer, however, and you’ll see that the concepts being discussed here (loss of the self, life after death, the dark mysteries of bottomless bodies of water) are the same sort of things explored in plenty of more “traditional” horror films. While those looking for gore and explosions should keep walking, anyone with a thirst for genuinely smart, evocative cinema should have no problem diving into the deep end.

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Suburban Gothic — Essentially a lesser version of Peter Jackson’s superior The Frighteners or Gerard Johnstone’s far superior Housebound (or a much, much better version of the inept Odd Thomas, if you prefer), Suburban Gothic stars Criminal Minds’ Matthew Gray Gubler as a grown man who moves back into his parents’ house and immediately begins seeing spooky things. Kat Dennings and Gubler make a fairly cute couple, Ray Wise is typically excellent as Gubler’s hateful, racist dad and the whole thing has a light-hearted feel that makes it endlessly breezy and rather pleasant. Barring a few scenes of extraordinarily stupid physical comedy, this was definitely a sleeper.

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Spring — Of the two indie-romance-inspired “guy dates a monster” films that were released in 2015 (the much more problematic Honeymoon being the other), Spring is definitely the better one. Featuring strong performances from both Lou Taylor Pucci and Nadia Hilker, great use of the picturesque Italian countryside and a decidedly Lovecraftian bent, this metaphor for the joys and terrors of new relationships is appropriately icky, when necessary, while also managing to be genuinely heartfelt and emotionally resonant. Small surprise that this is from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the filmmakers behind the stunning Resolution and two of the most promising new filmmakers out there.

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All Hallows’ Eve 2 — One of the biggest surprises of the whole year for me, All Hallows’ Eve 2 was the equivalent of finding a golden ticket in my Wonka Bar. While I genuinely liked and respected the ultra-gory, no budget original film, nothing about this more polished and expensive follow-up inspired early confidence. Turns out I was wrong, however, since this modest little anthology ended up being one of the best I’ve seen in the past few years. While nowhere near the feral insanity of the original, this is still a rock-solid horror film with plenty of good ideas and no shortage of red stuff for the gorehounds. It’s no Trick ‘r Treat, mind you, but really…what is?

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Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead — Gleefully bonkers, this outrageous splatter film manages to deliver just what the cover promises: Mad Max meets Dawn of the Dead. Detailing one badass mofo’s trek across the zombie-ravaged Australian Outback, in search of his sister (kidnapped by mad scientists), while wearing homemade armor, there really aren’t a lot of films like this out there. Although the film is frequently quite funny (Leon Burchill provides excellent comic support as the sassy Aborigine sidekick), it’s actually more of a straight-forward horror/action flick than the synopsis might make it sound. While the exterior scenes provide plenty of tension, it’s the sweaty, claustrophobic sequences in the scientist’s lair that pack the biggest punch.

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Circle — With a simple concept, obviously low budget, largely unknown cast and lack of unnecessary backstory, Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione’s Circle instantly recalls another sci-fi sleeper: Vincenzo Natali’s classic Cube. Like Cube, Circle is a film that purposely keeps the audience off balance, wondering just what the hell is happening onscreen. By the time we get the full story, the film is already rolling the final credits, which is just the way it should be. Smart, economical and legitimately fascinating, I have a sneaking suspicion that Circle will enjoy the same favored status as Cube in the next decade or so. I went in expecting nothing and was completely blown away: that’s the definition of a nice surprise.

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Deep Dark — This year saw the release of two excellent films about sad sack losers receiving life advice from holes in their grimy apartment walls (if this baffles you, we obviously don’t run in the same circles): we’ll get to Motivational Growth later (I know, I know…”spoiler alert”)…Deep Dark is the other one. Although I prefer the batshit insanity of Motivational Growth, that has less to do with the quality of Michael Medaglia’s Deep Dark than it does with my personal sensibilities. Needless to say, if Motivational Growth wouldn’t have dropped this year, I’m pretty sure that Deep Dark would’ve got called up to the majors. This dark fable of a starving artist who seeks inspiration from a strange, fleshy hole in his apartment wall features blood-spraying art mobiles, man-on-wall sex and that all important warning: be careful what you wish for. Indeed.

 

The Year in Review: The Most Disappointing Horror Films of 2015

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2015, Alleluia, cinema, disappointing films, Felt, film reviews, films, Harbinger Down, Hellions, Hidden, horror, horror films, Horsehead, Let Us Prey, Lost River, Movies, personal opinions, The Diabolical, Turbo Kid

Let’s get one thing out of the way: none of the films in the following list are bad films. Well, that’s not exactly true: one of them is actually a terrible film but we’ll get to that. For the most part, however, none of these are bad…in fact, a few of them are actually quite good. So what gives?

As the title might indicate, these are the horror films, released in 2015, that disappointed me the most for one reason or another. Perhaps they were exceptionally strong films that completely collapsed by the conclusion. Maybe they had great central ideas/effects/actors/intentions but only a middle-of-the-road approach. Perhaps they were created by filmmakers I normally follow or had such high pre-release buzz that I couldn’t help but anticipate them. For whatever reason, these are the thirteen films (in rough ascending order, leading to my biggest disappointment) that disappointed me the most in calendar year 2015.

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Harbinger Down — This had great effects (practical, might I add), a killer location (the frigid Arctic), a kickass concept (downed Soviet-era satellite causes mutations, ruins everyone’s day) and then managed to plow as mundane a path with the material as possible. The performances tend towards broad (to put it politely), the creation mechanics/mythos is too fluid and unformed to make much sense (logically or narratively) and the whole thing devolves into a rather clunky rip-off of Carpenter’s The Thing. That being said, Harbinger Down is a lot of fun and certainly no worse than many of its ilk. My disappointment comes from the fact that it could’ve been a lot more unique but never quite crested that hill.

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Let Us Prey — Another film with a great cast (Liam Cunningham and the always amazing Pollyanna McIntosh), a great concept (sort of Needful Things meets Assault on Precinct 13) and some genuinely impressive gore effects, Let Us Prey’s devolution into sheer inanity is a real headscratcher. While starting out strong and atmospheric, the whole thing collapses into so much macho posturing (Hanna Stanbridge is one of the chief offenders, along with Douglas Russell), shouting and stupid decisions that it actually made my head hurt. Again, this was never an out-and-out terrible film: it just became an incredibly stupid film, which handily earns it a spot here.

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Turbo Kid — I really wanted to love Turbo Kid: in fact, going in to the film, I fully expected to love it as much as Hobo With a Shotgun, which is quite a bit. By the end, unfortunately, it was not to be. While the film was frequently charming and featured a great score, clever world-building (the BMX bikes were a nice touch) and some truly surprising gore (almost in the same ballpark as Hobo, if more reserved), it just never connected with me on any kind of a deeper level. While it’s hard to really pinpoint where the film went wrong for me (I loved the incredibly similar Manborg), the incredibly awkward romance between Munro Chambers and Laurence Leboeuf was certainly one of the main culprits. Leboeuf, in general, turns in such an odd, affected and irritating performance that it made me grow tired of the film fairly quickly: at a certain point, I was just ready for the credits to roll. This may be a case of “individual results may vary” but for your humble host, Turbo Kid was pretty much stuck in neutral.

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Lost River — I’ll be honest: I never actually expected Ryan Gosling’s Refn-inspired directorial debut to be a great film. Hell, I didn’t even think it was going to be a good film. Festival buzz bespoke a film that was all style over substance, a confused attempt at creating a new fantasy mythology amid the wreckage of modern-day Detroit. Lost River ends up on my biggest disappointments list instead of my “worst of the year” list, however, for one very simple reason: it’s a pretty fascinating film. Is it a complete mess? Oh, absolutely: not only doesn’t the film make any kind of traditional narrative sense, it never adheres to enough of a mythology to make any kind of fantastical “inner” sense, either. What we’re left with are alluring snippets of a truly intriguing idea (just the submerged city, alone, is kinda classic), some interesting performances, some genuinely amazing visuals and the overriding idea that this souffle coulda been a contender. Next time, however, I think the Gos may come up with something that actually sticks.

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The Diabolical — This started out as a genuinely creepy, unnerving haunted house flick (albeit an incredibly familiar one) before taking a complete left-turn into wacky sci-fi for the final third. None of the finale makes sense, the fast-pace feels more “caffeine rush” than “rollercoaster plunge” and it becomes head-poundingly dumb. A classic example of how adding too many ingredients to the soup doesn’t make it better: it just means you have to throw the batch out and start from scratch.

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Hidden — Until the stupid “twist” rears its ugly, misshapen head, Hidden is an endlessly tense, smart and claustrophobic little chiller about a family trapped in an underground fallout shelter while the world falls apart above their heads. Or doesn’t, as it turns out. When the film sticks with our plucky trio of survivors, there’s a combination of sweet domesticity and ominous foreboding that’s immensely winning. Once filmmaking duo The Duffer Brothers drop the other shoe, however, it ends up being a moldy old boot, held together with nothing more than dust and duct-tape. Pity, too: if they just could’ve stayed the course, this would have, easily, been one of the biggest sleepers of the year instead of one of its biggest disappointments.

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Monsters: Dark Continent — Remember when I said one of these disappointments was also a terrible film? Well, here’s the culprit. While I never loved Gareth Edwards original Monsters, I still had a lot of respect for what the film was trying to do. The only emotions I feel for Tom Green’s sequel, however, are derision and a slight irritation at my wasted time. Dark Continent is a terrible film is so many ways, from its utterly generic, anonymous cast (every soldier looks the same and they’re all assholes: they’re sort of like the Borg, in that respect) to its “Poli-Sci 101” level of political commentary (the soldiers are in the Middle East to fight giant mutants but spend more time fighting human insurgents because war is hell, man) to it’s utterly “who gives a shit?” notion of narrative continuity. I don’t even mind that the monsters aren’t the main focus of the film (they weren’t in the first movie, either): I mind that this shitty, utterly generic, middle-of-the-road “war” movie is.

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Horsehead — What starts out as a lush, crazy, Gothic fever-dream slowly morphs into something that could best be described as a misguided attempt to turn A Nightmare on Elm Street into an art film. It’s a real shame because Horsehead is one hell of an eye-popping experience until the whole thing sags and collapses under the weight of expectations it can’t possibly fulfill. Had this stayed a creepy, moody and nonsensical little bit of nightmare fantasia, ala Argento’s best work, Horsehead might have ended up on my Best of the Year list.  In the end, however, the film is just too cluttered, stretched-thin and vaguely silly to have much lasting impact. A pretty film, to be sure, but also pretty vacant.

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Alleluia — As someone who really enjoys Fabrice du Welz’ films, I was definitely looking forward to Alleluia, his take on the infamous case of the “Honeymoon Killers.” While there’s not much technically wrong with the film, Alleluia ended up being one of my biggest disappointments this year simply because the film ends up being so repetitive, predictable and (at least for the Belgian provocateur) too darn safe. The beauty of du Welz’ films is that we get the idea that anything can happen at any time. Laurent Lucas and Lola Duenas’ actions have such a “lather/rinse/repeat” quality to them that everything gets telegraphed, after a while. We always know exactly how Duenas’ Gloria will react, which significantly reduces any sense of tension. As such, the whole film becomes a waiting game in-between Gloria’s “manic” episodes. While visually alluring and full of strong performances, Alleluia is definitely the low point of du Welz’ filmography and that, my friends, is massively disappointing.

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Hellions — As someone who considers Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool to be a bona fide modern-day classic, any follow-up was going to instantly make its way to the top of my “must-see” list. When I found out that Hellions was about a pregnant teen who must make a desperate stand against demonic, trick or treating, home invaders on Halloween eve, well, let me tell you: I pretty much expected this to be one of the very best of the year. And here we are. While Hellions is a true visual marvel (the whole thing is shot with a hallucinatory pink filter and is probably the most unique-looking film I’ve seen since Wheatley’s A Field in England), it’s also kind of a mess, shooting for the stylized insanity of primo-era Itallo horror films but ending up somewhere closer to Rob Zombie’s “close-but-no-cigar” Lords of Salem. This was a classic case of style over substance which is especially disappointing coming from the auteur behind the whip-smart Pontypool. I definitely don’t mind films that are genuinely odd: Hellions, however, feels like it tries way too hard to achieve that. As you might guess: that’s pretty disappointing.

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Felt — You know what’s disappointing? When you agree with a film’s message, part and parcel, yet can’t stand the messenger. There’s nothing about Jason Banker and Amy Everson’s Felt that I necessarily disagree with: this searing indictment of our modern rape culture is both unflinching and long overdue. There are some genuinely powerful moments here, both visually and narratively, and if the film is never as fundamentally mind-blowing as Banker’s earlier Toad Road, well…what is? The problem (at least for me) was Everson’s consistently unpleasant, tedious and obnoxious performance as the tortured lead. I agreed with what Amy (the character) wanted to achieve but everything about the character and performance was needlessly “kooky,” off-putting and tiresome. It wasn’t just that Amy “told it like it really is”: she turned her rage on everyone around her, including her put-upon “friends” and often came across as nothing more than a spoiled brat, eager for attention. The hell of it? There’s every indication this could have been the modern Repulsion.

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The Hallow — Cool setting? Check. Interesting blend of fantasy and horror elements? Check. Solid acting and filmmaking? Check. Excellent creature effects? Check plus. So, with a scorecard like that, how did writer-director Corin Hardy’s The Hallow end up in this particular list? Quite simply because it promised so much more than it actually delivered. While The Hallow promises an immersion in Irish folktales and mythology that will produce a raft of terrifying new cinematic creepy crawlies, what it actually gives us is some zombifying fungus (not bad) and a whole bunch of pale, generic beasties that look like second-cousins to Marshall’s cave-dwellers in The Descent (not good). That’s pretty much it.

Add to this the fact that much of the film either takes place while poking around a creepy house (been there) or running through the creepy woods (done that) and there’s the distinct idea that The Hallow is much less fresh, original and interesting than it first appears. One of my biggest disappointments of the year, however, was getting all the way to the final credits and releasing that Hardy wasn’t going to utilize any of the terrible, wonderful, ridiculously cool creatures that have been teased throughout. No film this well-made can (or should) be considered a loss: there’s just too much that works here to write it off. The Hallow takes the penultimate spot on my list, however, because it was absolutely capable of so much more: the proof is right there, on the screen…what little of it there is.

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It Follows — If there was one film that seemed to be on every horror fan’s lips in 2015, it was David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows: similar to last year’s The Babadook, the film even managed to top most genre critics “best-of” lists for the year. Depending on who you talked to, the film was either the freshest horror offering to come down the pike in years (since The Babadook?) or one of the most ingenious throwbacks to old-school horror/slasher films: take your pick. One thing everyone seemed to be in agreement on, however, was that It Follows was an easy pick for best horror film of the year.

Since you’re now staring at the aforementioned film at the top of my “biggest disappointments” list, it’s probably obvious that I didn’t agree. Was this an attempt to be “edgy” and buck the trend of popular opinion? Not in the slightest: I’m in complete agreement whenever anyone wants to discuss the film’s outstanding electronic score (Disasterpiece is, apparently, the new John Carpenter), gorgeous cinematography or (mostly) solid performances. As a film (and especially as a debut film), It Follows looks just great.

The film fails for me, ultimately, because it’s just too damn sloppy with its “rules.” Part of the sheer terror of the concept (an unstoppable, constantly moving figure is always behind the victim and will move slowly and surely towards them) comes from the inevitability of the scenario: when there’s a creepy figure moving inexorably closer in the distance, our pulse elevates right along with the character. We’re told, point-blank, that the figure will pursue its quarry to the ends of the earth, slowly, constantly coming for them. Even if you stop moving, it never does.

But then we see the figure just hanging out on top of a roof, looking menacing. Or kicking back in the background, giving the characters enough of a head start to get away. Or, in one of my personal favorite bits, seemingly able to appear right where the character is, even though she drives miles away: I’m guessing the figure hopped a cab to save its aching feet? The most important takeaway, however, is this: the “rules” for the creature are exactly as flexible/non-existent as the film calls for at any particular time.

This, for me at least, had the effect of completely deflating any tension from the film. Let’s use another example: suppose that we have a zombie film where they explicitly state that a head-shot will kill a zombie. We know this, so know what to expect in the oncoming “humans vs zombies” melee. We see countless zombies being shot in the head and dropping, until one reaches our heroes: in a bit of dramatic action, our heroes narrowly put a bullet right in its head…but it just shrugs and keeps coming. Our heroes look at each other and shrug, too. Why did this happen? Why, the need for increased drama and tension, silly!

For me, however, increasing dramatic tension by jettisoning your own established rules does nothing to serve your story or your audience: it’s the equivalent of painting yourself into a corner and then just walking back across the wet paint. Since we’re never really sure what the “rules” regarding the “it” in It Follows are, we’re pretty much left with an unbeatable McGuffin that displays just enough weakness to allow our heroes to get the upper-hand. In short, it’s a plot contrivance more than an iconic new source of terror.

Does this make It Follows a bad film? Not at all: there are genuine scares aplenty, even if the atmospheric ones gradually fall by the wayside for more traditional “we gotta come together and fight the monster” beats. My big issue with all of the hype is the baffling anointing of It Follows as a modern classic: it’s a solid, well-made film but it’s too inconsistent and laise-faire to be as ironclad as it needs to be. If It Follows was the best horror film you saw in 2015, I’m going to wager that you might not have looked quite as hard as you could have.