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The Year in Horror (2016) – The Worst of Times

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by phillipkaragas in Uncategorized

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2016, B.C. Butcher, Bunni, cinema, Darkweb, Dead 7, Den of Darkness, film reviews, films, Ghost Team, horror, horror films, JeruZalem, Martyrs, Movies, Paranormal Sex Tape, The Before Time, The Boy, The Final Project, The Forest, Voodoo Rising, worst of 2016

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There’s no denying that 2016 was a great year for horror cinema but every coin has two sides. Before we get to the very best that the year had to offer, it bears taking a look at the other side of the coin: the very worst of calendar year 2016.

Out of the 179 horror films I screened in 2016, I classified 40 of them as terrible: of those 40, I’ve managed to whittle the list down to the top 15 offenders, the group of 2016 horror films that I would classify as the “worst of the worst,” at least based on what I screened. Bear one thing in mind: none of the films on this list committed the sin of being merely humdrum, dull or average: this were overachievers, in the same way that the top 20 films overachieved. In that spirit, then, I present you with the 15 worst horror films of 2016, in no particular order. View at your own risk.

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The Forest

This came out at the beginning of the year and set the tone for the worst that 2016 horror would offer: glossy visuals, lame jump scares, loud musical stingers, zero genuine frights, unlikable characters and reckless squandering of great concepts/locations. There’s something so generic and processed about this lifeless story of a woman investigating the disappearance of her sister in Japan’s legendary Aokigahara Forest that you might feel as if time has stopped if you’re unlucky enough to sit through it. While there were certainly gems to be found in this year’s crop of mainstream, multiplex horror films, The Forest was most certainly not one of them.

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JeruZalem

Found-footage nonsense that somehow manages to make a Biblical apocalypse in Jerusalem as interesting as paint drying. Loathsome characters run around the city, fleeing from angels, demons and any semblance of common sense possible. This reminded me of As Above, So Below, which is definitely not a compliment.

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The Boy

Even without the astoundingly terrible “twist,” The Boy would proudly represent the nadir of mainstream horror in this calendar year if it didn’t have so much competition. This was the kind of goofball thing that began as a head-scratching concept (a naive young woman is hired by the kind of sinister old couple that belong in House of the Devil to babysit their young son, who happens to be a wooden doll), devolved into dumb Blumhouse jump scares and then came full circle to a resolution that is so howlingly stupid, I fully expected the cast of SNL to jump out and start doing the robot.

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The Before Time

Another dead-on-arrival found footage film that would be casually offensive if it weren’t so thoroughly inept and forgettable. Irritating reporters head to the desert, uncover evil, yadda yadda yadda. Like most of the film’s on the list, this was an absolute chore to get through.

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Martyrs

Proudly taking the title of “Most Pointless Remake” from Gus van Sant’s shot-for-shot Psycho redux, this American redo of the classic New Wave of French horror gut-punch manages to bleed all the power, intensity and repulsive beauty from the original, leaving nothing but a hollow shell and the basic story beats. The original Martyrs might not have been everyone’s cup of tea but the remake isn’t even a cup of warm water.

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Abattoir

I fully expected Darren Lynn Bousman’s Abattoir to be one of my favorite films of the year and yet here it sits on my least favorite list. What went wrong? The film starts with a fantastic concept (a genteel madman, played by the formidable Dayton Callie, goes around and “collects” various rooms that have hosted terrible crimes in order to build the ultimate haunted house) and then works as hard as it can to destroy any good will garnered from said killer idea. At the end, we’re left with a piss-poor imitation of John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness when we could have had a completely new, totally cool horror franchise for the new millennia.

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The Final Project

Another found footage film (notice a trend here?) that details the exploits of a group of obnoxious film students on a haunted plantation. The lack of scares wouldn’t be a problem if anything else in this worked. As such, though, we’re pretty much left with video cam footage of a bunch of young jerks goofing around, followed by some cheap, dollar store effects.

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Bunni

No-budget dreck about a mama’s boy and his killer mama feels like a bad student film (the lighting, in particular, is atrocious) and does nothing in its relatively short run time to alleviate that impression. I’ll be honest: I could elaborate but that’s just about what this particular situation calls for…short, sweet and to the point.

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Ghost Team

Painfully unfunny “comedy” that features people like Justin Long, Jon Heder and Amy Sedaris (who really should know better) mugging their way through a tissue-paper-thin haunted house story that isn’t so much Scooby Doo as Scooby Dumb. As bad as the films on this list might be, there were few that I disliked as immediately and intensely as this waste of resources.

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Darkweb

This film satisfies a very small but, I’m sure, extremely dedicated niche market: those folks who revel in the humiliation of Danny Glover. If you harbor some sort of pathological hatred for the esteemed actor, Darkweb will be like manna from heaven. For anyone who doesn’t want to watch poor Danny Glover shout, flail his arms, cuss like a sailor and generally act like a complete idiot, however, this pathetic Hostel clone will offer nothing more than odd ethnic stereotypes, unconvincing performances and some truly goofy setpieces. Awkward, to say the least.

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B.C. Butcher

Impossibly stupid Troma goof about a Cro Magnon killer who targets a group of cave women, this features Kato Kaelin in a loincloth diaper, which should tell you all you need to know. The only redeeming feature to this mess is that it clocks in at under an hour, which is pretty faint praise, indeed.

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Dead 7

Asylum-esque horror-Western that features former members of ’90s-’00s-era boy bands fighting zombies in a post-Apocalyptic setting and is about as convincing as a kindergarten presentation of Glengarry Glenn Ross. I’ll admit that I’m not the target audience for something like this and I did, for a time, try to keep an open mind. At the end of the day, though, this is in the same wheelhouse as the Sharknado movies and there’s only so much intentional stupidity I can take.

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Voodoo Rising

Many films that I screened in 2016 shared similarities with Voodoo Rising: amateur actors struggling to deliver lines in a convincing manner, an inability to propel the story forward in a timely fashion, a tiring familiarity that telegraphed every single “twist” and “turn” in the narrative. Few films managed to double-down on these failings with as much conviction as this one, however, earning it a spot with this esteemed group of peers.

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Den of Darkness

The “den” in the title refers to a Girl Scout troupe and the “darkness” refers to the hysterical blindness that has befallen the den mother after one of her college-age (?) charges accidentally falls off a cliff. The house she moves into might be haunted or her shithead husband might be trying to gaslight her. If you have any doubts, after reading the above, that Den of Darkness is a truly terrible film, let me lay them to rest: it is a truly terrible film.

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Paranormal Sex Tape

This bears the distinction of being the first film in years that I haven’t been able to get through without judicious use of the frame-forward button, so at the very least you know this left an impression. Only nominally a film, this is actually a loosely edited series of walking scenes, broken up by really bad softcore porn and non-actors improvising awkward “dialogue” that makes Ed Wood read like Chaucer. I have no idea what it was about, a fact that I doubt would have been clarified had I managed to watch every one of its 70-some minutes.

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

03 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by phillipkaragas in Uncategorized

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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

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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.

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Uncaged – 1st-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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 1st-person-POV was explained via Google Glass, which was clever, but almost everything else was painfully vanilla and remarkably tedious.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by phillipkaragas in Uncategorized

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 Best Horror Films of 2015

02 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by phillipkaragas in Uncategorized

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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

BestHorror

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 Best of the 31 Days of Halloween (2015 Edition)

04 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by phillipkaragas in Uncategorized

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31 Days of Halloween, A Christmas Horror Story, All Hallows' Eve 2, Asylum Blackout, Best of 2015, Bone Tomahawk, cinema, Circle, Cooties, Curse of Chucky, Deathgasm, favorite films, film reviews, films, Gravy, Halloween, Halloween traditions, horror, horror films, Lost After Dark, Love in the Time of Monsters, Movies, October, personal opinions, Tales of Halloween, The American Scream, The Boy, The Final Girls, The Houses October Built, The Midnight Swim, The Nightmare, We Are Still Here, What We Do in the Shadows

Capture

In the spirit of completion, I now offer my list of the very best films that I screened during this year’s 31 Days of Halloween. For purposes of this list, I’ve excluded any films that were screened in previous years (otherwise, American Mary and Trick ‘r Treat would become the equivalent of political incumbents). Since some of these were slightly older films that I was seeing for the first time, I’ve lumped them in with the 2015 films: I’ll separate everything out once I put together my Best of 2015 write-up, however.

– – –

The Best of the 31 Days of Halloween (2015 Edition)

(in no particular order)

There’s one very good reason why this list is in no particular order: in most cases, it would be like trying to choose your favorite child at gunpoint. Whether it was a fistful of some of the best horror-comedies I’d ever seen, two of the most kickass anthology films ever created , the best horror Western in ages (forever?) or one of the most gripping, disturbing examinations of young evil that I’ll never be able to scrub from my brain, the best films of October really took things to another level. It’s pretty much a given that at least some of these will end up on my years’ end Best of lists.

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Cooties (2015) — I try to keep my enthusiasm for new films tempered somewhat but I was anxiously anticipating this little treasure for too long to play it safe. Good thing, then, that Cooties not only met but massacred every one of my expectations. No two ways about this, this is a modern classic and one of the funniest, most outrageous and radical horror-comedies that I’ve ever seen.

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The Boy (2015) — There’s an awful lot to recommend here: the frequently lovely cinematography…the intense, immersive performances from David Morse and Rainn Wilson…the unflinching violence…the measured pace that allows for maximum character development and audience identification. Perhaps the number one reason to see writer/director Craig William Macneill’s exceptional sophomore film, however, is the unforgettable performance by young Jared Breeze (also in Cooties) as the titular character. In an era where disturbed individuals commit violence on an increasingly wider scale, The Boy takes us right to the genesis of this internal evil: for this fact, alone, it may very well be the scariest (and most essential) film of 2015.

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What We Do in the Shadows (2014) — Essentially a re-do of the almost as worthy Danish film Vampires (2010), this brainchild of Jemaine Clement (half of New Zealand’s Flight of the Conchords) and Taika Waititi is one of the smartest, funniest, most incisive and well-made films of the year, hands down. While the main emphasis is on laughs (the vast majority of which hit with laser-guided precision), What We Do in the Shadows isn’t afraid to hit the big, emotional beats, either, resulting in a film that’s equal parts hilarious satire and genuine character study. Needless to say, I don’t think we ever need another mockumentary about modern-day vampires dealing with the toils and humiliations of daily life: Clement and Waititi slammed that door and welded it shut.

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Tales of Halloween (2015) — Until I screened Tales of Halloween this October, I was 100% sure that Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘r Treat would always be the undisputed king of the Halloween anthology film. Now, however, I’ve been forced to admit the obvious: there are no absolutes in life. While not all of the segments manage to stick their landings, the ones that do emerge fully-formed and perfect, lovely little blood-flecked pearls that represent some of the very best horror shorts around. Looks like the Pumpkin King’s gonna have to share his throne, in the future!

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Gravy (2015) — Outrageous, unrelentingly gory and violent and almost impossibly offensive, Gravy is one of those films that should split audiences right down the middle. If you prefer your horror-comedies tame, polite and conventional, please keep moving to the end of the line, nothing to see here, thanks very much. If, however, you’re the kind of viewer who prizes genuinely quirky characters, mature, thought-provoking humor, needle-in-the-red bloodshed and actual heart/emotion over shallow “attitude,” I suggest you grab a beer and come pull up a chair next to me: we’ve got ourselves a movie to watch.

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Bone Tomahawk (2015) — I love horror movies, Westerns, and Kurt Russell pretty much unconditionally: ergo, any film that manages the hat-trick of tossing these divine elements into the same movie is going to have an automatic reservation in my heart. Good thing, then, that S. Craig Zahler’s debut manages to not only throw these ingredients together but manages to craft one of the tastiest cinematic dishes I’ve ever had the pleasure of devouring. Hell, just the supporting cast, alone, would vault this head and shoulders over most “prestige” films, let alone horror flicks. Another strong contender for my “Best Films of 2015” list.

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Deathgasm (2015) — The second Kiwi export to make my “Best of…” list, writer/director Jason Lee Howden’s Deathgasm may just be the most perfect intersection of form and function that I’ve ever seen. Tackling the inherent connection between horror and heavy metal, the film’s biggest coup is its utter, unabashed love for its head-banging heroes. While most other genre efforts would relegate Deathgasm’s protagonists to the stereotype-plagued background, Howden moves them up front and treats them with the respect they deserve (us metalheads have to stick up for our own kind, after all). Hilarious, heartfelt and ridiculously fist-pumping (just like a good metal song!), Deathgasm is a jean-jacket-bedecked hessian’s dream come true. Lots of extra points for allowing Kimberley Crossman’s sweet-as-pie, goody-two-shoes to organically become one of the most kickass “final girls” out there.

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A Christmas Horror Story (2015) — While this is nowhere near as consistently awesome as either Trick ‘r Treat or Tales of Halloween, the high points here are more than capable of heavy-lifting this onto my “Best of…” list. Truth be told, the only story that’s a complete letdown is the most conventional one (the one about the teens exploring their haunted school, natch): the rest of the material, including the wraparound starring the inimitable William Shatner, finds interesting and unique ways to twist and screw around with traditional horror tropes and storylines. If nothing else, the “Santa Claus vs. zombie elves” segment is worth the price of admission alone, finishing up with a deliciously demented twist that ends the film on the strongest note possible. Lots and lots of fun, with the added bonus of being a perfectly suitable December viewing. Huzzah!

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Curse of Chucky (2013) — One of the biggest surprises of the entire month of October, franchise creator Don Mancini’s return to the shortest serial killer in history was never supposed to be more than a time killer in my schedule, something disposable to cleanse the palate between the “real” films. Imagine my surprise, then, when Curse of Chucky revealed itself to be an absolute masterpiece of sustained suspense, intelligent, Hitchcockian set-pieces and pure, unadulterated, snarky attitude. The film is fast-paced, ruthlessly smart, gorgeously shot and possesses the coolest Chucky visualization of the entire series, thus far. It’s a glorious return to form for Mancini and, more importantly, singlehandedly jump-started my lapsed interest in the Child’s Play franchise. Suffice to say, I can’t wait for the follow-up.

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The Final Girls (2015) — Despite having an utterly gonzo premise (a group of modern teens step through a theater screen, ala The Purple Rose of Cairo, and end up in the ’80s slasher flick that stars one teen’s now-deceased mother), The Final Girls has more genuine heart than just about any film on this list. The interaction between Taissa Farmiga (as the daughter) and Malin Ackerman (as the mom) are spot-on and lead to some actual heartrending moments in the latter half of the film, while the entire ensemble cast plays off each other beautifully. Laugh-out-loud funny, never skimpy with the horror elements (certain moments actually reminded me of Adam Green’s grue-fest, Hatchet), possessed of a unique and clever premise and never condescending, The Final Girls is the perfect film for horror fans who aren’t afraid to let emotions besides “revulsion,” “fear” and “blood-thirsty glee” into their dark little hearts.

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Love in the Time of Monsters (2014) — Yet another horror-comedy, Matt Jackson’s Love in the Time of Monsters throws a kitchenful of ingredients at the screen and, surprisingly enough, most of it sticks like glue. We get another great concept (toxic waste turns the Bigfoot-suit-bedecked employees of a Bigfoot-themed tourist trap into bloodthirsty “zombie-Squatches”), a fantastic ensemble cast (including great performances from genre vets Kane Hodder, Doug Jones and Michael McShane), a smart, funny script (courtesy of Michael Skvarla), great, gory action set-pieces and an outrageous final battle royale that features more genuine surprises than a bakers’ dozen of M. Knight movies. If the dance-off featuring the Big Kahuna and Brandi doesn’t turn you into a quivering mass of uncontrolled giggles, your heart may be smaller than the Grinch.

– – –

The Best of the Rest

(in no particular order)

I ended up seeing so many quality films in October that determining the minuscule separation between “Holy shit…that was amazing!” and “Wow…that was really good!” became quite the Herculean effort. In that spirit, here are the films that “coulda woulda shoulda” been contenders in pretty much any other year. In the interest of space/time, I’ll just go ahead and list these here. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll all get a chance to explore these in a little more detail.

The Nightmare (2015)

The Houses October Built (2014)

We Are Still Here (2015)

All Hallows’ Eve 2 (2015)

The Midnight Swim (2015)

The American Scream (2012)

Circle (2015)

Lost After Dark (2015)

Asylum Blackout (2012)

– – –

And there we have it: my favorite eleven films of October, along with nine runner-ups. Coming soon, I’ll take a look at the other side of the coin: the worst films and biggest disappointments of the 31 Days of Halloween. Stay tuned, gentle readers…stay tuned!

The 31 Days of Halloween: Week 1 Mini-Reviews

09 Friday Oct 2015

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31 Days of Halloween, cinema, Cooties, Dark Was the Night, Deathgasm, film franchise, film reviews, films, Hellions, horror, horror movies, mini-reviews, Monsters, Monsters: Dark Continent, Movies, October, Saw, Saw 2, Saw 3, Saw 4, Saw franchise, The American Scream, The Blood Lands, The Boy, The Houses October Built, The Nightmare, They, Turbo Kid, White Settlers

Grains of sand are curious things: if you have one, you really don’t have much of anything…if you have a couple trillion, you have a beach. This is, of course, all by way of saying that the scattered grains of sand that were my pending film reviews have quickly grown to something that more closely resembles a dune. Since it will still be some time before I can completely catch up, I figured I’d do the next best thing and write up some mini-reviews in the meantime, lest I quickly find myself buried beneath a solid month’s worth of films.

To that end, I now present a few thoughts about the films I screened during the first week of this year’s 31 Days of Halloween (10/1-10/4). Since one of the main purposes of this humble little blog is to turn folks on to new films, I wanted to make sure to get some recommendations out there while folks can still program a little Halloween goodness of their own. With no further ado, then..

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Thursday, 10/1

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The Nightmare — This fascinating little documentary about the frightening phenomenon of sleep paralysis comes to us from the filmmakers behind the recent Shining/conspiracy theory doc, Room 237. Through a mixture of interviews and re-enactments, we get a front-row seat to a genuinely disturbing, almost impossible strange malady that might affect more people than you at first realize.

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Dark Was the Night — Coming across as a sturdy combination of Feast and 30 Days of Night, DWtN is a thoroughly competent “monster invades a small town” flick that features strong performances from Kevin Durand, Lukas Haas and Nick Damici (one of my all-time favorites) and a suitably bleak resolution.

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The Blood Lands — Starting strong before gradually losing its way, The Blood Lands (formerly known by the much more incendiary but pointless title White Settlers) ended up on my shit-list by taking one of the best genre actresses in the business, Pollyana McIntosh, and saddling her with a simpering ninny of a character. Imagine if Lt. Ripley took one look at the Queen Xenomorph and decided to let the boys handle it, instead: yeah, I didn’t buy it, either. McIntosh’s glorious “The Woman” character would take one look at The Blood Lands’ Sarah and knock her straight into next week.

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They — Despite some effective (if minor) chills, Robert Harmon’s They is just about as beige and generic as its title would indicate. While this tale about now-grown friends confronting (literally) the demons of their childhood makes some minor nods to classic “confronting-the-past” horrors like It, it really plays out as more of a watered-down version of the already tepid Under the Bed. Even Ethan Embry can’t make this particularly interesting: make of that what you will.

Friday, 10/2

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The Houses October Built — This modest little found-footage flick about friends looking for the ultimate haunted house experience (as in “professional haunts with people in masks,” not “actually haunted houses,” which is an important distinction) genuinely surprised me: gritty, unnerving, fairly realistic and genuinely creepy, there’s a whole lot to like here. The “villains” are all quite memorable (scary clowns never get old, for one thing) and the film never quite devolves into “torture porn” territory, even though it toes the line. Pretty much the definition of a sleeper.

Saturday, 10/3

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The American Scream — A charming, thoroughly winning documentary about three families in a small American town who go all out for Halloween, turning their respective homes into some of the most impressive, cool amateur haunted houses that I’ve ever seen. Growing up, we always turned our home and garage into elaborate haunts every year, so The American Scream ended up being the best kind of nostalgia for me.

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Saw — Despite some truly terrible performances (Leigh Whannell, in particular, is astoundingly bad and poor Danny Glover isn’t much better) and a really ugly look, there’s something inherently feral about James Wan’s surprise hit debut. More of a mystery, ala Se7en, than the latter entries in the series, Saw features some great twists (I’ll forget the audience reaction to the final revelation when I watched this on opening night) and introduced the sense of moral relativism to torture porn that it so desperately needed (and still needs, to be honest). It’ll never end up on any “Best of…” lists but it’s also not the worst thing out there.

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Monsters — I was never a huge fan of this film when I first saw it, although my opinion has softened a bit in the ensuing years. In a nutshell, Monsters is sort of a mumblecore creature feature: we follow our hesitant “will they?/won’t they?” potential romantic couple as they attempt to make their way from monster-infested South America into the relative safety of the United States. Just as much an immigration/border parable as a monster movie, Monsters keeps its creatures firmly in the background, allowing the humans to take the stage. Think of this as the “anti-Pacific Rim,” if you will.

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Saw II — Continuing to expand on the original film’s “mythos,” the first sequel introduces Donnie Wahlberg and puts more of an emphasis on the traps. It’s a solid step-down from the first film, mostly due to writer/director Darren Lynn Bousman’s obnoxious stylistic quirks and some of the most unpleasant characters to grace the screen in some time. No wonder audiences rooted for Jigsaw: if it was up to me, I woulda nuked ’em all and been done with it.

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Monsters: Dark Continent — A fairly massive disappointment, this belated follow-up to Gareth Edwards’ effective original is really just another film about U.S. soldiers in the Middle East. It’s telling when the filmmakers opt to make local insurgents the real threat over the massive monsters that blithely roam around the Iraqi desert. We get it, guys: this isn’t “just” another monster movie….it’s about “bigger things.” They’re right: it’s not just another monster movie…it’s actually another dull, generic and clichéd war film. Huzzah!

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Saw III — Part from the first film, the third in the series is, hands-down, my favorite. The twisting machinations of Jigsaw’s convoluted plan are suitably gripping but it’s the downright nefarious traps that really get the blood pumping. There’s an honest-to-god story arc here about a father trying to get over the hit-and-run death of his young child and it really works. Plus, ya know, that bit with the liquified pig carcasses is pretty impossible to forget.

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Saw IV — More convoluted than the previous entry and decidedly less fun, the fourth entry in the series isn’t terrible (that would be the second and fifth) but it is pretty forgettable. This fully introduces Costas Mandylor’s Hoffman character and starts the series down the winding, twisting path that ultimately leads to its resolution. More than anything, though, it’s the fourth entry in a multiplex horror series: innovative, it is not.

Sunday, 10/4

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Cooties — Thus far, this gleefully misanthropic horror-comedy is not only my favorite film of October but one of my favorite films of the entire year (and then some). The concept is unbeatable (chicken nuggets turn pre-pubescent kids into ravenous flesh-eaters and it’s up to a motley group of grade school teachers to save the day), the cast is amazing (Elijah Wood, Rainn Wilson, Alison Pill, 30 Rock’s Jack McBrayer, Nasim Pedrad and the single best performance by actor/writer Leigh Whannell that he’s ever done) and the whole thing expertly toes the line between laugh-out-loud funny and edge-of-your-seat tense. I instantly loved this as much as Tucker & Dale vs. Evil and I definitely don’t say that lightly.

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The Boy — The polar-opposite of Cooties, Craig William Macneill’s The Boy is a stunning examination of a burgeoning serial killer’s first, tentative, boyhood steps towards ultimate evil. Nothing about the film is pleasant in any conventional way but, like the iconic Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, I dare you to tear your eyes from the screen. David Morse and Rainn Wilson are fabulous playing against their usual types but it’s young Jared Breeze (who’s also in Cooties, ironically) who will stomp your heart into a mud-hole. This is the kind of film that everyone should see, especially as terrible acts of random violence continue to plague our world.

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Deathgasm — Heavy metal and horror go together like beer and Slayer shows: you can have either/or but it’s always the best when they’re paired up. Screaming out of New Zealand, writer/director Jason Lei Howden’s full-length-debut is hilarious, heart-felt and full of more fist-raising set-pieces than you can shake a Flying V at. Sort of like the tragically under-rated Canadian TV marvel Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, Deathgasm doesn’t take any cheap shots at his corpse-paint-bedecked heroes: the “beautiful” people are the fodder and it’s up to the outcasts to save the day. Extra points for Kimberley Crossman’s frankly adorable transformation from stereotypical blonde princess to ridiculously epic ass-kicker: she needs her own stand-alone movie, stat.

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Hellions — I absolutely loved Canadian wunderkind Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool (easily one of the best, most ingenious and freshest zombie film to come out in a good 15 years), so my anticipation was through the roof for Hellions: after all, how could a film about a pregnant teenager making a desperate Halloween-eve stand against demonic trick or treaters fail? Turns out, it’s not quite as difficult as I imagined. While Hellions is far from a terrible film (the film’s pink-tinted look, alone, makes it one of the most visually interesting films I’ve ever seen, assorted creepy, hallucinatory images notwithstanding), it is a terribly confusing, cluttered and rather haphazard one. Similar to Rob Zombie’s Fulci homage The Lords of Salem, Hellions emphasizes odd, evocative visuals and dreamy, nightmare scenarios over any kind of narrative cohesion. I didn’t hate Hellions, by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s no denying it’s an odd, often off-putting film.

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Turbo Kid — My level of anticipation for this throwback to the VHS ’80s was so high that it’s probably inevitable I would be disappointed. Don’t get me wrong: there’s an awful lot to like here and even quite a few things to love. The synthy score is spot-on, the over-the-top violence comes close to Jason Eisener’s ridiculously radical Hobo With a Shotgun and the sense of world building (albeit on an extreme budget) is admirable. For all that, however, the film never fully connected with me. Perhaps it was the awkward love story (Laurence Leboeuf’s performance as Apple is so unrelentingly weird and strange that I was genuinely baffled as to what Munro Chambers’ Kid saw in her), the too-often self-conscious acting or the overall scattershot feel. Whatever the reason, I went into this expecting Turbo Kid to be my new favorite film and came out extolling the virtues of Hobo With a Shotgun, instead. Gotta love Skeletron, though!

The 31 Days of Halloween – 2015 Edition (Week 1)

05 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by phillipkaragas in Uncategorized

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Tags

31 Days of Halloween, Cooties, Dark Was the Night, Deathgasm, film reviews, Halloween, Hellions, horror, horror films, horror movies, Monsters: Dark Continent, October, Saw, Saw 2, Saw 3, Saw 4, The American Scream, The Blood Lands, The Boy, The Houses October Built, The Nightmare, They, Turbo Kid

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Welcome to the end of the first (short) week in October, otherwise known as the beginning of the annual 31 Days of Halloween. In the interest of keeping things short and sweet (my arm still prevents me from doing much typing and any writing), I’ll just list the films that we viewed from Thursday, October 1st, to Sunday, October 4th. As always, expect full reviews, write-ups, thoughts and opinions on all of these sometime in the future, when I’m a bit more together.

—

10/1 — The Nightmare / Dark Was the Night / The Blood Lands / They

10/2 — The Houses October Built

10/3 — The American Scream / Saw / Monsters / Saw 2 / Monsters: Dark Continent / Saw 3 / Saw 4

10/4 — Cooties / The Boy / Deathgasm / Hellions / Turbo Kid

—

While I won’t be able to clarify this for some time, let me end by saying that Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion’s debut feature, Cooties (co-written by Leigh Whannell and Ian Brennan), is probably the single best horror-comedy I’ve seen in ages. In fact, barring any upcoming ringers, it’s probably going to be one of my favorite films of 2015. Everything about the film is perfection and I urge horror fans to watch it as soon as possible.

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