The Year in Horror (2016) – The Best of Times (Part 3)

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2016, Ava's Possessions, best films of 2016, Best Horror Films, cinema, Darling, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, Last Girl Standing, Movies, Nina Forever, Scherzo Diabolico, The Eyes of My Mother, The Windmill, Train to Busan, year in review, year-end lists

When last we left off, I had just listed half of my Top 20 Horror Films of 2016, in no particular order. In a logical progression, I now present the other half, in likewise random order. As with the first half, there will probably be a few givens here, along with at least a few surprises. After the conclusion of this list, I’ve also listed the “rest of the best,” the 23 films that almost made this list and, quite possibly, might have on any other day.

Stay tuned for some final thoughts on this past year in horror, as well as a few ruminations on where it might go in the new year. Until then, however, I present the conclusion of the Top 20, in no particular order.

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The Gateway

They say that it’s hard to come up with new stories by this point in our civilization and, at times, I’m almost inclined to agree: almost, that is, until something truly wondrous and unique like The Gateway (aka Curtain) crosses my path. Like previous favorites Motivational Growth and Wrong, this seems to exist in a world so completely alien from our own, so fundamentally weird and amazing that I can’t help but be drawn in. This sense of wonder is one of the primary reasons I got into movies and tapping into it is what’s kept me a fan for my entire life.

Danni (Danni Smith), a burnt-out hospice nurse, rents a cruddy apartment and discovers something not listed in the lease: an apparent portal to somewhere (possibly another dimension, possibly Ohio) that seems to exist in her bathtub. She discovers this, by accident, when she realizes that her numerous missing shower drapes are actually being sucked through a hole into pure mystery. With the aid of a friend, Danni tries to discover where the portal leads, who put it there and what the ultimate purpose is. The truth, as she discovers, is much wilder than anything she could possibly have imagined.

Similar to Repo Man in its grungy look and anything-goes narrative, The Gateway is pure delight from the opening credits all the way to the pure gut-punch revelation. To say anything beyond the basics would be a total disservice, so let me just say this: as someone predisposed to look for twists and inclined to “figure out” whatever I’m watching, I can honestly say that Jaron Henrie-McCrea’s mind-blowing little film took me by complete surprise. If you thought you’d seen it all and you haven’t seen The Gateway, I’m willing to wager you haven’t seen it all, at all.

Under the Shadow

Call it the “Iranian Babadook,” if you must, but writer/director Babak Anvari’s stylish debut actually has a bit more on its plate than its Australian predecessor. On the surface, the similarities might seem a bit uncanny: mother fighting evil forces (and, perhaps, her own sanity) to save her young child…claustrophobic environments…the presence of a sinister, possibly supernatural force…a child’s possession that becomes the source of the “haunting”…an atmospheric, austere style that puts a premium on mood and suspense over obvious shock effects…put ’em side-by-side and there are certainly parallels.

While The Babadook was focused solely on the relationship between a mother and her young son, however, Anvari’s film uses the backdrop of the Iranian Cultural Revolution to add additional social, gender and religious aspects that make this an overall richer experience. The mother, Shideh (the extremely impressive Narges Rashidi), is a gifted, smart and thoroughly worthy individual who has been marginalized and cast aside by her country after the regime change leads to a massive swing from more liberal policies (including the ability of women to study at universities) to more conservative ones (stay at home and don’t say a word). This conflict, along with the inherent struggles of trying to raise a child during wartime (shellings are a constant, formidable presence) add layers to Under the Shadow that just aren’t there in The Babadook.

Ultimately, Under the Shadow is a supremely well-made, fully-realized supernatural chiller that has a bit more on its mind than easy scares. That’s not to say, of course, that scares aren’t important: as with the best horror films, Under the Shadow uses its rich background and believable performances to pull the audience in, inch by inch, before unleashing hell in the final third of the film. Intelligent, measured and self-assured, Under the Shadow will, hopefully, lead to a renaissance in Iranian film. At the very least, it’s made Babak Anvari a filmmaker to keep an eye on.

Last Girl Standing

If you’re a horror fan, I’m willing to wager that you’ve seen at least one slasher flick in your life, regardless of whether it’s your cup o’ tea or not. It might have been Friday the 13th, The Burning or Sleepaway Camp (if you’re a little older) or it might’ve been Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer or Hatchet (if you’re a little younger). At the very least, as a fan of the genre, you probably know the “rules”: horny teens go out to the woods (or suburbs, in the ’90s-’00s) for a little drinkin’, druggin’ and screwin’; a masked killer doesn’t approve and makes his/her case for abstinence/sobriety via any number of extremely sharp, dangerous weapons; everyone gets slaughtered with the exception of the one young woman who has, thus far, abstained from any of the “bad stuff”; this “final girl” takes up arms against the maniac and brings him/her to ultimate justice; credits roll and we get ready for the sequel.

It’s a formula that’s as ingrained with horror fans as a vampire’s aversion to garlic or the need to shoot a zombie in the head: someone else came up with the rules, long ago, and we all just agree and go with it. This unthinking acceptance of genre “rules” is where writer/director Benjamin R. Moody’s debut feature, Last Girl Standing, begins but it ends in a mindset that’s just about as revolutionary for slasher films as you could possibly get. You see, Moody’s exceptional little sleeper begins with the “final girl” surviving the carnage, killing the masked maniac and then asks the question that few fans have probably thought to ask: what’s the rest of her life going to be like? After seeing all her friends butchered, before her eyes, and violently taking the life of a psychotic killer with her own two hands…can things ever be “normal”?

Dealing with issues like post-traumatic stress, survivor’s guilt and the heightened sense of “fight or flight” that affects victims of abuse as they try to navigate a post-assault world, Last Girl Standing is that greatest of meta-horror films: like Behind the Mask, Moody’s film is incredibly smart and insightful  but still more than capable of swinging back into trad slasher territory at the drop of a hat. Akasha Villalobos turns in an outstanding performance as the “final girl,” bringing a nuance that keeps us guessing until the final frame: is this heading for Repulsion or is the terrifying killer really back? While I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the answer, suffice to say that Moody and crew know what they’re doing and you’re in good hands, from the first frame to the end credits.

The Eyes of My Mother

There were lots of prevalent themes running through 2016 horror offerings (lots of witches, Ouija boards, demonic possessions and haunted houses that offered moral quandaries, to name but a few) but one of the more notable themes was a return to a genre staple that never seems to go out of fashion: the marginalized, not-quite-right young woman who is just a few steps out of sync with the rest of the world and might be/probably is an insane killer.

While Polanski’s classic Repulsion will always be the gold-standard that I measure these by, there’s been quite a bit of competition, this year, and one of the very best has to be first-time writer/director/editor Nicolas Pesce’s The Eyes of My Mother. Filmed in gorgeous black and white and informed by films as disparate as Repulsion, the French New Wave and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, The Eyes of My Mother takes a good, long and extremely uncomfortable look at Francisca (played as a child by the stunning Olivia Bond and as an adult by the equally stunning Kika Magalhaes) as she takes the first tentative steps towards becoming the sort of person who clinically dismembers other people.

An art film, through and through, Pesce’s movie moves with a dreamlike sense of flow and purpose, taking its time to arrive at the foregone conclusion even though the whole thing clocks in at well under 90 minutes. Like Henry, this is a film that not only doesn’t shy away from violence but purposefully shoves our noses in it, like a wayward puppy. Impossibly ugly, despite being full of some of the most gorgeous “art” shots of the year, The Eyes of My Mother is a film that I have intention of revisiting, in the future, which is the highest possible praise I can give to this type of film. Some films are for enjoyment, others need to be seen, regardless of how unpleasant they are: this, without a doubt, is one of the latter.

The Windmill

As a lifelong horror fan, I love all facets of the genre, from super-intelligent art films to blood-n-guts slashers, from ultra-cheapie, no-budget grime to ridiculously polished megaplex fare. My definition of horror is pretty broad, no two ways about it, but I love it all.

Dutch writer/director Nick Jongerius’ debut feature, The Windmill (aka The Windmill Massacre), isn’t one of the smartest films I saw all year, although it’s certainly not the class dunce. It doesn’t rewrite the rule book, flipping us into a head-expanding realm where we question everything about life and our place in the cosmic scheme: it’s about a bunch of tourists who head to Holland, visit windmills and run afoul of a resurrected, medieval miller who guards the gate to Hell and grinds up bones to make his bread (literally). There are no huge “twists” no big “reveals” that flip the entire film on its head and leave the audience grasping for air.

No, The Windmill isn’t that kind of a film. What it is, however, is a nearly flawless, breakneck paced, exquisitely shot and ruthlessly entertaining old-fashioned horror film, the kind where a group of disparate folks get systematically torn up (in some very inventive ways) by a very scary monster, up to the point where they band together and start kicking some serious ass. This, friends and neighbors, is the film that horror fanatics are talking about when they say they want a return to the “old school”: no frills, no metaphor, no “pretense” or bigger purpose. As the tag line reads: “This isn’t Hell. It’s Holland.” It just doesn’t get more old-school than that.

Scherzo Diabolico

There are a handful of contemporary genre filmmakers that I would gladly follow anywhere, regardless of what they do, if for no other reason than the simple fact that they have never let me down. Ben Wheatley is right at the top of that list, as are Marjane Satrapi, Quentin Dupieux, Alex de la Iglesia and Joel Potrykus. This group wouldn’t be complete, however, without Spanish auteur Adrian Garcia Bogliano. As expected, his newest fiendish delight, Scherzo Diabolico, is one of the year’s very best, by a landslide.

As with the best Bogliano films, Scherzo Diabolico begins with a simple concept, in this case the old chestnut of a put-upon middle manager deciding to advance his career by kidnapping the boss’ daughter, only to have the whole thing shatter in some thoroughly jaw-dropping ways. With viewer alliances whiplashing as the various players start to do some astoundingly terrible things, we’re never sure who to root for or even trust: there’s no gray area, here, only an unending void of pitch black. The title means “diabolical prank” and that, friends, is truth in advertising.

As impish and playful as he is brutal and unflinching, Bogliano dances his principal characters around each other on marionette strings, his ever-present shears ready to lop them loose at a moment’s notice. This is a horror film in the explicit sense of the term, make no mistake, but it’s also a horror film in the most implicit ways, as well: these are characters that, under any other situation, might have been the “heroes.” Hell, they might’ve been us and that’s the scariest thing of all.

Ava’s Possessions

Without a doubt, one of this year’s most delightful surprises was writer/director Jordan Galland’s Ava’s Possessions. I went into this expecting very little (another theme for a year with so many anonymous films) and came out with huge grin on my face. Turns out, this little sleeper is as far from an anonymous film as you can get.

Like Last Girl Standing, Ava’s Possessions begins at the end of another story and proceeds to expand upon its target in some truly fascinating ways. In this case, the story is a stereotypical possession one and we first meet our amazing lead, Ava (Louisa Krause, simply superb), as she’s being successfully exorcised of a very nasty demon. After finally being free of her demonic possession, however, Ava is now looking at the wreckage of her former life: she did just spend several days indulging in every violent, carnal and evil act possible, after all, so her friends and family are probably gonna be a little unhappy with her.

Part AA parable, part Beetlejuice, part self-empowerment and all awesome, Ava’s Possessions is that rare horror-comedy that gets both halves right, charming with an easy, dark wit that makes the swings into full-bore horror (Ava’s demon is not, in any way, nice) that much more effective. The performances are great (Carol Kane, in particular, is perfect), the effects are impressive and the whole thing is shot in a colorful, vibrant way that is thoroughly eye-catching. In a year where a lot of films managed to get a lot of different elements right, Galland’s Ava’s Possessions is one of the few that managed to put them all in the same film.

Nina Forever

There are few real taboos left in horror but one of the few that still remains is sex and death. I’m not talking about that old slasher greatest hit where young people humping equals machete or the even older one where a little T&A helps the medicine go down. Nothing as easy as that, friends and neighbors. I’m talking about the actual intersection of sex and death, the zip-code where Jorg Buttgereit built the house of Nekromantik and the one part of town where most filmmakers (and viewers) fear to tread. Thank your lucky stars that the Blaine Brothers (Ben and Chris) didn’t get the memo, however, otherwise we never would have got the twisted marvel that is Nina Forever.

Released on Valentine’s Day, in the most inspired bit of serendipity since the last time a Friday the 13th film actually opened on the 13th,  Nina Forever manages to be that most unholy and difficult to achieve combination of genuinely erotic, romantic, disturbing and tragic. A young man finds it difficult to move on after the death of his beloved, Nina, in a terrible car accident, mostly because said beloved won’t actually stay dead. More specifically, Nina displays the rather inappropriate tendency to manifest physically while the new couple are making love. Despite this being the kind of thing that would normally wreck a new relationship before it can start, the new girlfriend is more than willing to give this arrangement a shot, doing everything she can to make Nina feel welcome in their love nest. Nina, on the other hand, isn’t really the sharing type.

There’s a lot to unpack in this film and I’m sure that plenty of more sensitive viewers will steer clear before they get much deeper than the surface necrophilia angle: as mentioned earlier, that’s a fair reaction to a taboo subject. If you give it a chance, however, you’ll see that there’s a truly tender, affecting love story here, the kind that you rarely (if ever) get in a horror film. That’s not to say that the Blaines shy from the bloody stuff, however…far from it. In reality, they’ve come up with a perfect synthesis of grue and glow, just the right combination of dramatic weight, emotional impact and exposed viscera. There’s genuine tragedy to Nina’s story but that doesn’t make anything that happens less horrifying or unforgettable. In a year where many films tried to do something different, Nina Forever actually did, earning its place on this list.

Darling

If they gave an award for hardest-working over-achiever in contemporary genre cinema, I’m pretty sure that Mickey Keating would be the odds-on favorite. After releasing the above-average alien invasion flick Pod last year, Keating dropped not one but two of this year’s best genre flicks, Carnage Park and Darling, with another proposed film, Psychopaths, getting bumped to 2017. Keating releases films like old punk bands used to release albums and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This time around, Keating does a 360 and gives us a skittery, schizophrenic bit of paranoia with Darling, a black-and-white examination of a young woman’s extremely quick slide into full-blown psychosis. Repulsion is the obvious influence but Keating isn’t interested in merely paying homage, bringing every facet of the film into play (the constantly erratic, ominous score is a particular highlight) to bludgeon the viewer into submission. By the time the film descends into stroboscopic madness, it will, literally, feel as if you’ve joined Lauren Ashley Carter in her howling hell of insanity.

And lest I forget to single out Carter, who has been a shining star in such recent genre standouts as Jug Face, The Mind’s Eye, The Woman and Keating’s own Pod, let me take a moment to do so now: her fearless, frightfully immersive performance as the titular character is one of those tours de force that feels less like acting than channeling. Any film that focuses on a central character having a mental breakdown is going to live or die based on that central performance: Darling is one of the year’s very best films, so I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Train to Busan

Several years ago, South Korean writer/director Bong Joon-ho wowed the world with The Host, a monster film about a rampaging, Cloverfieldian creature that was equal parts affecting family drama and giddy Godzilla knock-off. It was fresh, fun and added a great new entry to the canon. This year, Joon-ho’s countryman, Yeon Sang-ho, has repeated history, presenting one of the best, freshest, most action-packed and emotionally resonant films of the year amd giving a shot in the arm to the moribund zombie genre, in the process. The film is Train to Busan and it is, without a doubt, the best zombie film of the year.

Built around likable characters and believable family dynamics, Train to Busan introduces us to a group of stock characters (a workaholic divorced dad, expectant couple, group of high school athletes, shithead businessman, elderly sisters, etc..) and then makes us care for them (except for that shithead businessman, of course) by making them fully-rounded. There’s all kinds of zombie mayhem going on left and right (all of which, might I add, is top-shelf and much more effective than World War Z, which this occasionally resembles) but none of it would pack any punch if we didn’t care about the characters. In particular, Ma Dong-seok (who was equally amazing in Kundo: Age of the Rampart and The Good, the Bad and the Weird) makes his hot-headed, blue-collar, father-to-be such an instantly iconic, ridiculously badass presence that I wanted a full movie devoted just to that guy.

And so it goes: Train to Busan is the kind of film that features a fist-pumping action setpiece one minute (no lie: some of the setpieces are so good, it hurts) and then makes you tear up the next. It’s the kind of fully-realized vision that understands that gut-munching and character development don’t have to be mutually exclusive, that the pursuit of horror entertainment doesn’t automatically mean one has no interest in the non-red crayons in the box. I’m all for horror films stripped right to the bloody bone but, sometimes, you just want a little more. Train to Busan is that “little more” writ large and I’ll take it any old day of the week.

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Honorable Mentions

The Greasy Strangler

The Dark Stranger

Hush

They Look Like People

Freaks of Nature

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies

Carnage Park

Anguish

10 Cloverfield Land

The Mind’s Eye

The Invitation

They’re Watching

Emelie

Feed the Devil

Lake Nowhere

Observance

The Funhouse Massacre

Evolution

Scare Campaign

The Pack

Baskin

The Piper

Fender Bender

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The Year in Horror (2016) – The Best of Times (Part 2)

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2016, Best of 2016, cinema, Clown, film reviews, films, Green Room, High-Rise, horror, horror films, horror movies, Movies, summer camp, The Alchemist Cookbook, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, The Monster, The Similars, The Witch, Trash Fire, year in review, year-end lists

At long last, after an entire year of watching the best (and the rest) that horror cinema had to offer, it’s now time for me to offer my picks for the very best of the year. In the interest of giving each film its proper due, I’ve opted to split my Top 20 choices right down the middle: the final ten films will be coming up in a future post.

As with most of my lists this year, I present these films in no particular order: if choosing the 20 best films out of a field that featured 44 possibilities was difficult, ranking one of those over the other might prove to be impossible. Truth be told, any of those 20 films might flop places with any of the others, based on my mood or the current weather: the only thing I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that these were the twenty 2016 horror films that made the biggest impression on me. These were the films that didn’t just get it right: they showed everyone else how it’s supposed to be done in the first place.

Longtime readers will probably be able to figure a few of these out ahead of time (my intense love of Wheatley, Potrykus and Bogliano makes any of their current films a usual suspect) but I’m sure there will be a few that might surprise or confound: as always, the only thing I care about is how good the actual film is. Budget, subject-matter, quality…none of these mean a damn thing if the final product punches me in the gut and makes me think. Any and every 2016 horror film had a chance to make it onto this list, from trad multiplex fare to no-budget indies: I watched them all with the same open, accepting eyes and mind.

With no further ado, then, I present the first half of my Top 20 Horror Films of 2016. Stay tuned for the second half, along with some of the honorable mentions that almost found their way onto this list. My advice? Seek all of these out and thank me later.

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The Autopsy of Jane Doe

The concept is pure simplicity: a father and son team of coroners (Brian Cox and Emile Hersch) are tasked by the local sheriff with determining the cause of death on a seemingly unmarked body recovered from a grisly crime scene. This is an overnight, rush job, since the beleaguered lawman needs some sort of explanation to feed to the hungry press in the morning. Ready to do the magic they do, the coroners bunker down with the Jane Doe and prepare to spend the evening on a very thorough autopsy of a very strange body. And then, of course, all hell breaks loose.

André Øvredal’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe is probably going to come off as a bit of a tough sell and that’s a real shame: get past the idea that you’re about to watch the equivalent of an hour-long, graphic (if tasteful) autopsy and you actually get to the heart of the story, so to speak, and realize that you’ve actually been watching one of the very best supernatural horror films to come down the pike in years.

Nuanced, perfectly atmospheric, top-lined by a pair of performances that would gain much more acclaim in a non-horror film and genuinely scary, this is the kind of film, like Let the Right On In, that expands the reach of the genre and allows for a perfect synthesis of horror and prestige, in-your-face-grue and tender emotions. I watched an awful lot of horror films in 2016 but this, without a doubt, was one of the very finest: to anyone impressed by The Conjuring 2, I gladly point them in this direction and request that they see how it’s actually supposed to be done.

The Witch

It’s easy to discount Robert Eggers’ chilling tale of witchcraft and black magic in pre-Salem Witch-trials New England when it comes to compiling year-end lists. After all: the film received extensive festival release in 2015, received wide theatrical release in February 2016 and had all but secured itself a slot on any critical best-of before most critics had even started their lists. Why add another assenting voice to the crowd?

The truth, of course, is that Eggers’ perfectly measured creeper deserves all of the acclaim that it has received by virtue of actually being that good. Many non-critics have complained that The Witch is not actually scary, that it’s a classic case of style over substance, metaphor and subtext over blood-letting and endorphin rush. This is not only reductive but flat-out wrong: in a darkened room, with a good sound system and none of the external forces that are so good at wrecking internal peace, The Witch is a virtual masterclass in sustaining an oppressive level of tension and dread for the entirety of a film.

There is no release to be found from a silly stoner cracking wise, a musical packing montage or a hot and heavy sex scene: this is the ultimate, existential dread of knowing that you are a tiny speck of dirt in a gigantic cosmos of infinite, terrifying possibility…a tasty bit of food floating in a bottomless ocean, fearfully waiting for an unseen leviathan to gobble you up. I would wager to say that if you didn’t find The Witch frightening on a very primal level, you might actually be a little too afraid to take the good, long look into the darkness that this requires.

High-Rise

One of the biggest conflicts I had when compiling this list (indeed, when embarking on my original plan to screen every 2016 horror release) was the question of what, exactly, constitutes a horror film. Does it have to be explicitly “horror”, filled with zombies, ghosts, monsters, insane slashers or any combination of the above? What about films where characters devolve into frightening fits of insanity and commit terrible acts? Wouldn’t something like that be considered as “horrible” as something like Dracula? After all, almost all horror fans can agree that Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Psycho is a horror film and what is that but the tale of an individual going mad and committing horrific acts?

In that spirit, I handily nominate masterful auteur Ben Wheatley’s stunning adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s novel High-Rise as one of the very best horror films of 2016. This icy-cold, Kubrickian tale about the breakdown of humanity and moral constraints among the trapped residents of a futuristic, 1970s high-rise begins with our humble protagonist chowing down on leg of dog and proceeds to work backwards to show us that there are much, much worse things than this.

Gorgeously filmed (longtime Wheatley cinematographer Laurie Rose deserves a legit award nod but I’m more than happy to nominate for a Tomby), masterfully acted (the entire cast is simply splendid), faithful to the classic source-material and as fundamentally disturbing as Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, High-Rise is nothing short of a modern masterpiece and further proof that Wheatley is one of the very best filmmakers working today.

The Alchemist Cookbook

A good film can entertain you, provide you with a couple of hours of stress-fire time away from the real world and give you the opportunity to just zone out. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that and there never will be. The thing is…a bad film can do that, too. After all, where would the drinking game industry be without “so bad they’re good” films like Megalodon or anything bearing the name Asylum?

A truly great film, however, doesn’t just entertain you (although it should also be doing plenty of that, obviously): it makes you think. A truly great film isn’t content to merely tick the boxes off that get the job done and provoke the most immediate response: a truly great film will tick off every damn box on the sheet, if it feels like it, in service of whatever point it wants to make, viewer safety, comfort and ultimate entertainment level be damned. Writer/director/genius Joel Potrykus is a truly great filmmaker and his newest mind-blower, The Alchemist Cookbook, is a truly great film for the exact reasons outline above.

This is a film with no easy answers or even a particularly easy narrative reference: you could say that’s it’s about a mentally disturbed chemist trying to find the secret of life while holed-up in dingy RV in the middle of the woods but that would be like describing 2001 as “that ape movie.” It’s about insanity, paranoia and possibly schizophrenia, sure, but it’s also about medieval alchemy, friendship, love, greed, demons, monstrous felines and the need to prove your value to the world at large. Like Potrykus’ previous masterpiece, Buzzard, The Alchemist Cookbook doesn’t just look at fringe individuals: it IS a fringe individual, a completely insane, messy, confusing, fucked up and thoroughly awe-inspiring piece of outsider art.

Trash Fire

Prior to Trash Fire, I knew writer/director Richard Bates, Jr. as the mastermind behind coming-of-age headfuck Excision (The Breakfast Club meets American Mary) and Suburban Gothic (The Frighteners by way of American Beauty), so I assumed that his newest would be more of the same: supremely arch and clever, full of smart, likable characters and some rather intense, if artful, explosions of violence. Turns out Trash Fire is nothing like Bates’ previous films save for one important aspect: it’s just as damn good, if not exponentially better.

The clever set-up takes a while to get to full-blown terror territory. For the first half of the film, we’re basically stuck with the single worst couple in the history of romantic attachments: Owen (Adrian Grenier) and Isabel (Angela Trimbur) aren’t so much in love as ruthlessly dedicated to making each other as miserable as possible. Just when it seems that the couple might actually achieve the impossible and draw physical blood with their virulently poisonous verbal abuse, Isabel drops the bomb that she’s pregnant and they decide, against all odds to try to make their shitty relationship work. Part of this involves Owen getting back in touch with his estranged mother, played by the irrepressible Fionnula Flanagan, a woman who makes their mutual hatred look like childs’ play. There’s also, of course, the little issue of Owen’s long-unseen and hidden sister, a frightened (and frightening) figure who might just hold the key to the entire family’s destruction.

Trash Fire is the kind of film where the verbal barbs are so constant, amazing and genuinely painful that you’ll find yourself watching through clenched fingers for the first half, out of sheer discomfort, only to keep your hands in place once things hit a whole new level of uncomfortable. Never predictable, always fresh and intensely nasty, Trash Fire is the kind of delirious descent into other people’s’ hells that cinema was practically invented for, ending in the kind of Southern Gothic apocalypse that would make Flannery O’Connor proud. Unlike anything else this year, Trash Fire will stick with you long after it’s over.

Clown

I won’t go into the origins of Jon Watts and Christopher Ford’s exceptional creature-feature Clown here, mostly because I’ve discussed them extensively in the past, but the short version is that this is the fake Eli Roth trailer turned actual, third-party movie, with Roth as executive producer. The story is pretty fascinating, as these things go, but decidedly secondary to the real reason we’re here: this thing rocks harder than an uneven washing machine on a cobblestone floor.

Decidedly old-school in construction and intent, Clown looks to ’80s-’90s-era creature features for inspiration (think Pumpkinhead and The Fly, for a basic frame of reference) but vaults over its inspiration by virtue of a genuinely original, slam-bang concept, some ridiculously cool, well-made gore effects/set-pieces and tragic characters that you not only root for but empathize with. Lead Andy Powers brings a tremendous amount of pathos to his performance as the doomed father/titular monster, recalling nothing so less as Jeff Goldblum’s unforgettable descent into the hell of Brundle Fly.

When it came time to salute the best horror films of the year, there was no way in hell I was going to leave off Clown, one of the best, genuine, full-throttle horror films I’ve ever had the pleasure of sitting on the edge of my seat through. There might have been more poetic, measured, artistic and “high-falutin'” horror films released in 2016 but if you were looking for the real deal, old-school style, there wasn’t much better than Clown.

Summer Camp

At first glance, Alberto Martini’s Summer Camp didn’t seem like much to get exited about: a group of camp counselors fall afoul of something evil at a summer camp in Spain, people die, lather, rinse, repeat. I figured this would be just another 2016 film to check off the list, something that probably already had a spot reserved for itself in the “Decent” section of my roster. Boy, was I wrong.

Turns out Martini’s Summer Camp (co-scripted with Danielle Schleif) is non-stop, whiplash-inducing insanity with not one but at least FIVE of the best twists I’ve seen in ANY film, genre or otherwise. I’m not talking about “so-and-so is a double-crosser” bullshit: I’m talking full-blown, jaw-dropped, yell-at-the-screen in delight twists, the kind that show the filmmakers are not only paying attention to their own film but all the ones that came before it.

Summer Camp is the kind of film that indie genre filmmakers need to make more of: simple in construction and execution, yet mind-blowing in concept and intention, Summer Camp obviously didn’t cost a fortune but it didn’t need to. Martini and company have put a premium on an intelligent script, ably executed by a talented cast, and the results speak for themselves. For best results, see this with a group of like-minded souls who are going in blind and then kick back and watch the fun.

The Similars

Right off the bat, writer/director Isaac Ezban’s The Similars should live up to its name: we begin in a desolate, rainy and nearly abandoned railroad station, shot in moody, color-infused black-and-white, as a solemn narrator calmly explains that we’re about to see some very strange sights, indeed. From this direct nod to the glory of Rod Steiger’s immortal Twilight Zone, we leap into a simmering stew of paranoia, fear and suspicion, as the various people waiting for a train to Mexico City all begin, one by look, to look exactly like the same person. As tensions rise, the shocked passengers demand answers: as always, however, they might not like the ones they get.

Endlessly inventive, darkly whimsical and possessed of some of the most casually shocking images I saw all year (a bit involving a dog will haunt me until the very last day I draw breath), this uses The Twilight Zone as a frame but fills the canvas with influences as far-ranging as Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Luis Bunuel and David Lynch, all while managing to maintain a tone that splits the difference between dead-pan gallows humor and full-blown horror.

While this might not fit the strictest definition of a “horror film,” to some, this is another perfect example of the deeper, more intense and existential fears that the best fright films latch onto. There’s something genuinely scary about a machete-wielding maniac, don’t get me wrong: I just happen to find the idea of involuntarily losing your very identity and sense of self to be equally horrifying.

Green Room

Working his way through the color spectrum, writer/director Jeremy Saulnier follows up his bleak revenge tale Blue Ruin with the equally bleak siege film Green Room: at this rate, we should get a film with a name like Red Doom some time in 2017 and it’ll probably make Cormac McCarthy look like Mr. Rogers.

This time around, Saulnier’s patented “hopeless individuals at the end of their rope” are an idealistic straight-edge band who get trapped in the titular location by ravenous neo-Nazis after witnessing a murder in a backwoods, Oregon club. The skinheads outnumber our heroes ten-to-one, are heavily armed, have vicious attack dogs, no qualms about killing people and are led by Patrick frickin’ Stewart, fer chrissakes: this ain’t no rock n’ roll…this is homicide!

Featuring one of Anton Yelchin’s final performances, a rare serious turn from Arrested Development’s Alia Shawkat and a truly memorable, chilling performance from Stewart as the most genteel, reserved and polite monster since Hannibal Lecter sipped chianti, Green Room is non-stop tension and redlined danger, only taking a breather before slamming home the next horrifying development. As with the best that 2016 had to offer, however, Green Room gives so much more than sick thrills, mind-searing violence and an adrenaline overdose: it provides real characters that you actually come to care an awful lot about. When the violence happens (and it happens quite often), you aren’t laughing at stupid stereotypes and cheering on the aggressors: you’re watching people who look and sound a whole lot like people you know get brutally violated and slaughtered. Call it a thriller, if you want, but I think that’s just about as horrifying as it comes.

The Monster

For some reason, writer/director Bryan Bertino seems to get an awful lot of shit from the horror community and I’m not quite sure why. Sure, his breakout debut, The Strangers, was a slick home-invasion flick that struck a chord with the masses but it was also tightly plotted and fairly effective, even if it looks overly familiar these days. His follow-up, Mockingbird, was even better but seemed to be almost universally reviled. For my money, though, that creepy little bit of weirdness about disparate strangers connected via a mysterious “game” was one of the best films of its year, revealing a filmmaker who had no problem deviating from the straight-and-narrow in order to grab his audience by the throat and give them a good shake.

This time around, Bertino presents us with The Monster, a veritable prestige piece about an estranged mother and daughter who find that their own poisonous relationship is the least of their worries when they’re stuck in the woods with an honest-to-god monster. Essentially a two-person film, everything rides solely on the shoulders of Zoe Kazan and young Ella Ballentine: good thing they’re both extraordinary, giving the kinds of performances that normally feature in Oscar clip segments. Although the film moves slowly and deliberately, in the first half, it does anything but spin its wheels: these foundational scenes pay off amazing dividends once the stakes are raised and it becomes life-or-death.

Full of genuine emotional heft and bolstered by two of the strongest performances of the year, The Monster sounds like a Hallmark film, right up until the time the creature (who looks fantastic) pops up and starts laying waste to everything, switching tracks onto a rail that leads straight to Predator land. As someone who foolishly demands that horror films serve both the head and the heart, The Monster is my kind of film: if you’re into quality, I’m guessing it’ll be your kind of film, too.

Stay tuned for the second half of this list, along with the honorable mentions that almost (but not quite) clawed their way into the top honors.

The Year in Horror (2016) – The Most Disappointing Films

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2016, Abattoir, cinema, Don't Breathe, film reviews, Ghostbusters, He Never Died, horror, horror films, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, most disappointing films, Movies, Tank 432, The Conjuring 2, The Good Neighbor, The Last Heist, The Neon Demon, year in review, year-end lists

At long last, we arrive at the beginning of the end: the final breakdown for the year in horror, circa 2016. We’ll be examining the best, the worst and the ones that got away (so far) in later posts but I always like to start with the ones that coulda been contenders first. These are the films that had tons of potential (at least in my eyes), yet managed to drop the ball in some pretty crucial ways.

By this point in the year, I’ve managed to screen 179 of the 259 horror films released/scheduled for this year, meaning that I’ve seen 69% of all horror films released in 2016. Of those 179, I’ve whittled the list down to the ten most disappointing films of the year. Keep in mind that these weren’t the worst (with one exception) but they were the ones that were capable of so much more. With no further ado and in no particular order, I now present the evidence to you humble members of the online jury.

– – –

Ghostbusters

There were a lot of routes that Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot could have taken: it could have been a straight-up nostalgia fest, full of cameos from the original duology…it could have been a sly, feminist commentary on the inanity of modern-day online fanboydom and the expectations of genre fanatics…it could have been a remake, a reboot, a realignment or any other re- that you care to add…it could have been a big, dumb, loud, CGI-heavy popcorn flick…really, the world was its oyster.

In reality, Feig’s Ghostbusters ended up being ALL of these things, which only served to dilute the final product down to the lowest common denominator. With no clear vision, the film whiplashed from snarky meta-commentary to unbelievably dumb CGI spectacle with an ease that did nothing but give me a headache. This wasn’t the worst ghostbusting-related film of 2016, by a long shot (that title belongs to the woeful Ghost Team), but it was the one that had the potential to be a neo-classic and that missed opportunity was a real bummer.

Abattoir

I happen to like writer/director/all-around maniac Darren Lynn Bousman quite a bit, finding his Repo: A Genetic Musical to be an unsung modern cult classic, along the lines of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and thoroughly enjoying his batshit crazy art projects like The Devil’s Carnival and Alleluia. Hell, I don’t even particularly mind his Saw films, even if that franchise is a study in diminishing returns.

In other words, I was really looking forward to his ingenious haunted house film, Abattoir, which featured the thoroughly unique concept of an evil man cobbling together the ultimate haunted house by cutting out particular rooms from various crime scenes and stitching them together into one Frankensteinian monstrosity. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a logline worth getting excited for.

The actual film, unfortunately, is a complete and total piece of shit, easily the worst “film” that Bousman has released and one of the very worst films of the entire year. Nothing works, the film manages to completely squander a fantastic cast (poor Lin Shaye!) and the whole concept is completely dropped for a swing into Mouth of Madness territory that’s so inept, it feels like parody. In a year full of surprises, both good and bad, this was easily one of the worst.

He Never Died

This tale of Henry Rollins as an immortal, cannibalistic but, ultimately, very human and flawed “hero” had so much going for it (Rollins is quite good, for one) that it kind of hurts when it devolves into stupid comedy and tedious, indie film “run and guns.” There are moments where the concept is allowed to fully breathe and, for those brief moments, He Never Died is actually kind of special. For the most part, however, this is a classic case of filmmakers coming up with a better idea than they have the ability to actually portray.

The Conjuring 2

I thoroughly enjoyed James Wan’s original The Conjuring, along with the first Insidious. Since that time, however, the Waniverse has started to look suspiciously like the same film, with slightly different clothes, akin to those old RPGs where you could tell an enemy was different because they were blue instead of red.

This has got all the typical Wan trademarks: creepy old house, lots of jump scares, lots of creepy figures popping up in the background and doing creepy things, Patrick Wilson and Vera Fermiga doing their best to add gravity to the silliness…if this was a checklist, it would hit all the appropriate boxes. The problem, of course, is that none of it is actually scary or even particularly interesting, by this point, lending everything a dull sheen of “been there, done that.” Not the worst big-budget horror film released in theaters, this year, but easily one of the most forgettable.

The Neon Demon

I’ve dearly loved every single Nicolas Winding Refn film, so fully expected The Neon Demon, his first official foray into horror, to top my Best Of list for the year. As it turned out, I ended up really disliking the film, finding it to be exceptionally beautiful, visually, but completely empty and thoroughly frustrating. I’ve seen lots of year-end lists that extol the film for everything from its ultra-lush visuals to its tricky, feminist reimagining of the typical “starlet gets lost in L.A.” trope but I can’t help but feel this is another example of lauding a film for its intentions rather than its actual outcome. I can fully appreciate what Refn was trying to do and still think he’s one of the very best cinematic auteurs of our era. This doesn’t stop The Neon Demon from being a stinker, however, and one of my very biggest disappointments of the whole year.

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House

I love old-fashioned, austere ghost films, the more Gothic, the better. This had all the trappings, from an appropriately gauzy visual aesthetic to a supremely leisurely pace (some might call it slow but that’s easily the film’s smallest issue) but it was missing the most important aspect of any film: a genuine sense of tension, danger or any kind of stakes. More than anything, IATPTTLITH comes across as a style exercise, an attempt by a modern filmmaker to replicate an older style of genre film without really understanding what made those films work in the first place. This is too well-made to be written off as a complete loss and some of the visual effects are genuinely unsettling. For all that, however, I couldn’t help but be disappointed at what could have been, with more focus and a tighter grasp on the mechanics of the story.

Tank 432

Three things I love: British horror films, modern British war films and Michael Smiley. Tank 432 was supposed to feature all of these elements, all but assuring it a place on my favorites list. In reality, Tank 432 is an awful mess, predisposed on a twist that’s so obvious and silly that it thoroughly wrecks any of the preceding atmosphere or creepy elements. You wouldn’t think that a film about an army platoon who must take refuge in a broken-down tank from monstrous, unseen forces would be so dull, confusing and frustrating but you, like me, would be very wrong, indeed.

Don’t Breathe

I actually enjoyed Fede Alvarez’s re-do of Sam Raimi’s classic Evil Dead, so I was curious to see what the burgeoning, young filmmaker could do with an original concept. This film, about shitty young Detroiters trying to rob a blind war veteran and getting much more than they bargained for, has a lot going for it: the film careens along like a rollercoaster, there are plenty of smart, intense setpieces and Stephen Lang is an instantly iconic “villain.” In other words, a complete classic.

Or it would have been, had the actual film not been so dumb, mean-spirited and predisposed on one eye-rolling deus ex machina after another. This is the kind of film where nothing would happen if any of the characters displayed even a modicum of common sense or desire for self-preservation, the kind of movie where you shout yourself hoarse telling the on-screen idiots to just use their goddamn brains for thirty seconds. In many ways, Don’t Breathe is this year’s It Follows: hailed by everyone and their granny as being the second-coming of horror but so far below the year’s very best as to be laughable. And let’s not even get started on the turkey baster…

The Last Heist

Mike Mendez makes big, loud, dumb and relentlessly fun genre films (his Big Ass Spider! is still one of my very favorite modern cheeseball horror films), the equivalent of PBR tallboys out of an ice-filled cooler. The Last Heist, about hapless bank robbers choosing to rip off the one financial institution that happens to be frequented by a stone-cold serial killer (Henry Rollins, being Henry Rollins), has lots of silly action but there’s never a real spark or sense of unmitigated mayhem and fun. This felt like a made-for-cable movie, with all that implies, and could never quite shake the stigma. While too good-natured and zippy to really dislike, this was also rather dull and found me frequently checking my watch, a first for any Mendez film. Not a strikeout, per se, but a supremely weak bunt to first base.

The Good Neighbor

This had a great cast (Logan Miller and Kier Gilchrist are two of the most interesting young actors currently treading the silver screen and James Caan is James fricking Caan, fer chrissakes!) and a fairly interesting concept but managed to collapse into soggy, Lifetime Channel territory by the time the lame twist reared its ugly head. This is also only marginally a horror film (very marginally), making it one of the films I screened this year that doesn’t quite fit in with the rest. As such, this was a double disappointment: very little horror and a complete squandering of James Caan. Again, not the worst of the year, by a long shot, but so dull, generic and painfully obvious as to be a real chore to sit through.

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Year in Review: The Ones That Got Away

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Best of 2015, cinema, films, missed films, Movies, op ed, personal opinions, year in review, year-end lists

Every year, despite my best efforts to the contrary, I always end up missing a bushel (or two) worth of films that I would probably love…or, at the very least, get a huge kick out of. These could be films that have a tremendous amount of critical/award season buzz, productions by filmmakers/actors/writers that I follow or just things that look like they’ll be pretty interesting.

The reasons for this are myriad (my intense dislike of going to the theater; my general focus on horror and genre films, especially in the month of October; a desire to intersperse watching “new” films with past favorites; my tendency to binge-watch TV shows in between screenings) but the results are always the same: I spend the year cruising along, only to realize that it’s the end of December and I still need to see between 30-50 films.

Here, then (with very little rhyme, reason or sense of ranking), are all of the films that I missed out on this year. Needless to say, I’ll be trying to catch as many of these as I can before awards season hits but, for purposes of our end-of-the-year lists, these are all the ones that got away.

– – –

Bridge of Spies

Creed

James White

Steve Jobs

Krampus (missing this one hurt)

Chi-raq

Spotlight

Room

Trumbo

In the Heart of the Sea

45 Years

The Big Short

Joy

The Revenant (missing this one really hurt)

Anomalisa

Amy

Timbuktu

’71

Appropriate Behavior

Love & Mercy

Going Clear

Clouds of Sils Maria

The Hunting Ground

Mr. Holmes

Far From the Madding Crowd

Goodnight Mommy

The Salt of the Earth

When Marnie Was There

Still Alice

Mistress America

Carol

Sicario (another near miss that I still regret)

The Visit

Straight Outta Compton

The Diary of a Teenage Girl

99 Homes

Crimson Peak

Condemned

Movement + Location

Dementia

Anguish

Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

The Year in Review: The Final Wrap-Up

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2014, Best of 2014, cinema, film reviews, films, Movies, wrap-up, year in review

The lists have been published, films have been ranked and 2014 gets further in the rearview mirror by the minute…what could possibly be left to do? As it turns out, not a whole lot except for wrapping it all up and putting a bow on it.

But first, a few last-minute thoughts on this previous year. As I was preparing for my end-of-the-year viewing, I took a look around the ol’ blogosphere, just to make sure I hadn’t overlooked any potential gems at the last minute, and noticed one prevailing trend among the various horror and genre film critics: in general, the consensus seems to be that 2014 was a particularly bad year for film. Despite missing several theatrical releases that have been frequently mentioned elsewhere (Guardians of the Galaxy, Boyhood, Gone Girl, John Wick, The Lego Movie, Foxcatcher, As Above So Below), I must offer the following rebuttal: if you noticed an absence of quality horror/genre films in 2014, it was simply because you weren’t looking in the right places.

For most of my life, I’ve been an avowed lover of going out to the movies. Growing up and all the way through college, I would often see several movies at the theater every weekend, sometimes one after the other. Over time, however, I’ve found that I go out to the movies much less frequently. My patience has steadily eroded, over time, and the kind of crowd annoyances that I would normally have brushed off (talking, texting, etc…) in the past now seem like huge problems. This doesn’t even take into account the exorbitant cost of a night out at the movies, of course, which has crept up into “live show” ranges.

Since I tend to avoid the theaters nowadays, I’m almost always late to the party with new releases: I always wait until the film either goes to Netflix (DVD) or some equitable streaming service before I see it. There are always exceptions, of course (I proudly went to see Prometheus as soon as it opened and I’ll be there for the next installment, as well). Since I go to the theater so infrequently these days, I find that I rarely pay attention to what’s out, since I never see it right away anyway.

All of this, of course, is by way of saying that I didn’t notice a shortage of quality films this year. Why? Well, probably because I wasn’t focused on the box office. As an example, three of the more derided big-screen horror releases this year were Annabelle, Jessabelle and Ouija. If one were to take a look at all theatrical horror released last year, it’s undeniably grim. If one factors in all of the streaming/DTV options out there, however, the story is much, much different. On an indie/outsider level, 2014 was practically an embarrassment of riches. In fact, taking a stroll through streaming outlets like Google Play reveals the kind of “multiplex” that’s sadly lacking nowadays: it’s not so much a matter of trying to find “anything” to watch as it is trying to choose between a dizzying array of choices.

Is this the way it should be? Absolutely not: despite my general dislike of theaters these days, horror and genre films have every right to be represented on the big screen along with everything else. The crucial problem begins when critics (and regular folks) see the theater as the end-all-be-all: taking a look at the 6 or 7 clunkers that played in multiplexes has the effect of giving short shrift to the 90 films that didn’t. You can’t get a good, overall sense of how a year went unless you can take a look at the whole picture: honing in on box office takes, sales records and the like gives a good idea of the financials but does nothing whatsoever to discuss the overall quality. It may be true that some of the best, most well-received films of the year never opened in theaters (or opened so small as to be negligible) but this doesn’t impinge on them: if anything, it just means that the most interesting things are still happening on the fringes and margins, just where they always have.

And that’s enough of that. Thanks, again, to any and all who’ve taken this journey with me during 2014. In order to be complete, I’ve listed all of the films that I watched in 2014 below: save for the bottom handful, which I haven’t written up yet, details reviews of all of these can be found at The VHS Graveyard, starting all the way back on New Years Eve, 2013. I managed to watch 343 films in 2014: let’s see if we can’t do better than that in 2015. Stay tuned as we resume our daily reviews and don’t forget: we could all use a stroll through the VHS Graveyard, from time to time.

All Films Watched in 2014

The Roost

Juan of the Dead

The Sapphires

Somebody Up There Likes Me

The Guilt Trip

Stitches

A Lonely Place to Die

The Tunnel

Drinking Buddies

Exiled

Man With a Movie Camera

April Fool’s Day

The Achievers

Friends With Kids

Redemption

L’Age D’or

Tiny Furniture

Journey to Planet X

Norwegian Ninja

Drew: The Man Behind the Poster

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

Messenger of Death

Freakonomics

Novocaine

The Northerners

Bounty Killer

Gallowwalker

Standup Guys

The Master

Funny Games (1997)

The Adventures of Tintin

The Hamiltons

The Butcher Boys

Amigo

Lovelace

Toad Road

This is the End

The Hidden Fortress

Big Trouble in Little China

Tabu

But I’m a Cheerleader

The Last Rites of Ransom Pride

Cutie and the Boxer

Stay Cool

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga

Agora

Sharknado

The Square

Dirty Wars

Farewell to the King

Looper

The Rabbi’s Cat

The Naked City

Girl Walks Into a Bar

Star Trek IV

The Comedy

You’re Next

Curdled

The Girl Who Knew Too Much

Five Minutes of Heaven

The Iron Lady

Dark Touch

Blacula

The Castle

American Hustle

Blackenstein

One From the Heart

The Croods

Alois Nebel

Jacob’s Ladder

Black Moon

12 Years a Slave

The Hunt

Day of the Dead

Seven Psychopaths

Captain Phillips

Truck Turner

Radio Bikini

A Field in England

Walker

8 Million Ways to Die

To Be or Not To Be

Joe Gould’s Secret

Powwow Highway

The Butler

The Boys Next Door

Robot & Frank

Assault on Precinct 13

Two-Way Stretch

The African Queen

Cockneys vs Zombies

Dallas Buyers Club

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Blue Jasmine

Gravity

Nebraska

Hondo

Prisoners

20 Feet From Stardom

The Act of Killing

The Heat

We Are What We Are (2013)

All Is Lost

Love

Inside Llewyn Davis

Doghouse

Easy Rider

Bad Milo

Midnight Express

Mud

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

Swashbuckler

Wishmaster

Signs of Life

The Station Agent

Lesser Prophets

The Haunting of Julia

Popatopolis

Red Obsession

The Last Days on Mars

Jobs

Insidious: Chapter 2

Frankenstein’s Army

Pacific Rim

Philomena

The City Dark

Street People

A Fantastic Fear of Everything

Don Jon

Wrong Cops

Odd Thomas

Breakfast with Curtis

All Things to All Men

Strictly Ballroom

Silent Running

Rapture-palooza

Entity

Twister (1989)

The United States of Leland

Loaded

As I Lay Dying

Plus One

Paranoia

Ghost Adventures

The Frozen Ground

100 Bloody Acres

Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Wish You Were Here

Short Term 12

Free Birds

The Moleman of Belmont Avenue

Swerve

The Source Family

The Final Cut

The Kitchen

The Incredible Melting Man

Contracted

Here Comes the Devil

Big Bad Wolves

A Fistful of Dollars

For a Few Dollars More

Nightmare City

Buck Wild

Death Wish

Death Wish 3

Son of a Lion

The Guard Post

Night of the Creeps

Maximum Overdrive

Wake in Fright

The Gray

Wishmaster 2

Wishmaster 3

Wishmaster 4

Godzilla vs Mothra

Godzilla vs Monster Zero

Candyman

Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh

Dragonslayer

The Birth of the Living Dead

Nightmare Factory

Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon

The Last Rites of Joe May

Good Guys Wear Black

The Octagon

El Dorado

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence

Doomsday Book

Someone Marry Barry

Escape From Tomorrow

Awful Nice

Almost Human

Grand Piano

Wolf Creek 2

Sanctum

The Blair Witch Project

The Art of the Steal

Vampires

After the Dark

The Conspiracy

Lawless

Devil’s Knot

Banshee Chapter

Cold Feet

Black Rock

No God, No Master

Hatchet 3

Cold Sweat

Homefront

Byzantium

13 Sins

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

The Experiment

The Last Days

The Dark Half

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Lizzie Borden Took an Axe

Dead Before Dawn

All Cheerleaders Die

Better Mus’ Come

HairBrained

Out of the Furnace

Goodbye World

The Nut Job

Cujo

Sweet Evil

Blue Ruin

Go For Sisters

Somewhere

Filth

The Sacrament

Whitewash

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

Halloween

Halloween 2

Alien

Hellbenders

Some Guy Who Kills People

Invaders From Mars (1986)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

The World’s End

Friday the 13th (1980)

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

Under the Skin

Stoker

Chillerama

Stage Fright

Only Lovers Left Alive

Kiss of the Damned

The Last Winter

The Thing

Blood Glacier

Dead Alive

Undead

Visitors

Dog Soldiers

The Descent

Witching and Bitching

Suspiria

Mama

The Haunting

Dead Silence

Dead Birds

The Burrowers

House of 1000 Corpses

The Devil’s Rejects

The Den

Antisocial

Thale

Kill Zombie!

The Returned

Botched

Inbred

Outpost

Outpost: Black Sun

Omnivoros

Ravenous

Cube

Haunter

Splice

Under the Bed

The Monster Squad

Mr. Jones

Static

Shivers

The Cottage

No One Lives

Infestation

Big Ass Spider!

Beneath

Land of the Dead

Diary of the Dead

All Hallows’ Eve

Trick ‘r Treat

Oculus

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Oranges

Locke

Dom Hemingway

The Oxford Murders

In A World…

Cuban Fury

Snowman’s Land

Snowpiercer

The One I Love

Arachnophobia

Knights of Badassdom

The Final Member

Mockingbird

The Guard

The Double

Rhymes For Young Ghouls

Alien Abduction

Willow Creek

Cold in July

Moebius

The Damned

We Are The Best!

The Taking of Deborah Logan

Borgman

Mercy

Jodorowsky’s Dune

Sabotage

The Missing Picture

The Interview

Fading Gigolo

Ida

Torment

Enemy

Doc of the Dead

Ragnarok

Bad Johnson

The Babadook

Stretch

The Lady in Number 6

Nymphomaniac Parts 1 & 2: Director’s Cut

God’s Pocket

Coherence

ABCs of Death 2

Housebound

Calvary

The Year in Review: The Best Films of 2014 (Part Two)

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2014, Best of 2014, Borgman, Calvary, cinema, favorite films, film reviews, films, Grand Piano, Housebound, Jodorowsky's Dune, Movies, Nymphomaniac, Obvious Child, Rhymes For Young Ghouls, Under the Skin, Wrong Cops, year in review, year-end lists

We began with ten of my picks for the best films of 2014 and will now end with the other ten: proving how fluid these types of lists are for me, I’ve already whittled one film off in order to make the list an even twenty…life, as we know, is a constant state of flux. As with the first half, none of these are specifically ranked, with the exception of the final listing. Let’s do this.

– – –

The Best Films of 2014 (cont.)

– – –

Borgman

Coming across as a particularly cold combination of Michael Haneke’s misanthropic odes to the futility of modern life (particularly Funny Games) and the bizarrely Dadaist films of Greek eccentric Yorgos Lanthimos, Dutch genius Alex van Warmerdam’s newest film, Borgman, is a weird, creepy little marvel that almost defies description. A mysterious vagrant insinuates himself into a well-to-do family’s life, ala Down and Out in Beverly Hills, and ends up destroying them from the inside-out. The elevator pitch doesn’t sound particularly odd but Warmerdam isn’t the kind of filmmaker who does anything by the book: blackly comic, surreal, oppressive, nightmarish and oddly fairy-tale-like, Borgman worms its way into your brain and latches on like a pit bull with lockjaw.

– – –

Grand Piano

The absolute closest thing to Hitchcock since the Master of Suspense shuffled off this mortal coil (put your hand down, DePalma), Eugenio Miro’s relentless Grand Piano was one of the biggest surprises in recent memory. The setup is so simple that it seems impossible to carry across a full-length film: a retired concert pianist reemerges to play a concerto on his dead mentor’s prize piano, only to receive messages from a mysterious person during the packed performance that indicate he’ll be shot dead if he stops playing or makes a mistake. From this intriguing, if limited premise, Miro shoots for the moon and winds up somewhere in a far, undiscovered galaxy. Elijah Wood, who’s quickly becoming one of my favorite genre actors, is perfect as the pianist but the real star of the film is Miro’s flawless direction and a ridiculously air-tight script by Damien Chazelle. Grand Piano is full of so many amazing setpieces and thrilling scenes that I was, literally, on the edge of my seat for the entire film: one of the most nail-biting moments I witnessed all year involves nothing more than sheet music and a cell phone and it’s astounding. The fact that this film didn’t open huge and play to massive audiences is one of the best indications that the future of cinema lies in the margins, with the truly unique outsiders, rather than anything that plays the multiplexes.

– – –

Rhymes For Young Ghouls

A coming-of-age film…a period piece about life on Canadian Indian reservations during the ’70s…a heist film…a family drama…a revenge drama…Rhymes for Young Ghouls is all of these things and so much more. Anchored by the amazing performance of Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs as the hard-nosed, resilient and, frankly, awesome Aila, writer-director Jeff Barnaby’s feature-length debut is nothing short of inspirational. I was never less than enthralled by anything that happened in the film (the brief animated segment, by itself, is one of the coolest cinematic moments of the year) and was frequently caught with a giant lump in my throat: when Rhymes For Young Ghouls is firing on all cylinders, there’s an epic quality to the filmmaking that actually echoes Scorsese. I went into Rhymes for Young Ghouls knowing nothing about the film whatsoever and left with my head on backwards. The fact that I really haven’t seen the film mentioned anywhere is testament to the fact that some awfully amazing gems seem to be falling through the cracks lately. An utterly vital, essential debut.

– – –

Under the Skin

Lyrical, lush, atmospheric and experimental, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin was probably one of the most beautiful films I watched all year. There’s something almost hypnotic about the way Glazer blends eerie surrealism with the quiet, hushed tone of the film. Johansson is actually perfect as the mysterious, other-worldly woman who picks up guys on the nighttime streets of Glasgow and then…well, what, exactly? One of the supreme joys of Under the Skin is how little Glazer holds viewers’ hands: there’s never an “info dump,” no tedious flashbacks to over-explain twists and precious little dialogue to intrude on the near suffocating stillness. When the film jets off into the unknown, as in the “assimilation” scenes, Glazer’s film stakes out territory that puts it in the company of pioneers like 2001, albeit on a much smaller scale. Under the Skin is the kind of film that cinephiles can (and should) think about and digest for years to come.

– – –

Housebound

As my pick for the best horror film of 2014, Housebound still wasn’t a shoe-in for my overall list: as I mentioned elsewhere, I used very different criteria to determine the “horror” vs “overall” lists and many films that made my horror list didn’t carry across to the other. Housebound did for a simple reason: it’s not only the best horror film of 2014, it’s one of the best films of the year, period. Extremely well-balanced, with an expert mixture of humor and horror, I could see Housebound appealing to any and everyone, not just the horror-hounds in the audience. Morgana O’Reilly and Rima Te Wiata are outstanding as the mother-daughter ghost-hunting duo, giving us plenty to care about amidst the usual spooky high-jinks and haunted house tropes. To make it even better, O’Reilly’s Kylie Bucknell is an instantly iconic female ass-kicker, a strong-willed, take-no-shit woman who needs a white knight like she needs a hole in the head. When I wasn’t laughing, I was cheering: when I wasn’t on the edge of my seat, I was karate-kicking the ceiling fan. Housebound is an absolute blast to watch and is only writer-director Gerard Johnstone’s first film: I absolutely can’t wait for his next fifteen movies.

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Jodorowsky’s Dune

So many films have been made since the advent of cinema, so many more than any of us will be able to see in a lifetime, that it seems a little strange to celebrate and discuss a movie that was never made. When the film is question is Alejandro Jodorowsky’s proposed adaptation of Dune, however, a film that was actually posited as a source of enlightenment for humanity and a way to help it achieve another level of spiritual evolution…well, it seems like we could probably take a few minutes to reflect on that, dontcha think? There was nothing conventional about Jodorowsky’s plans for Dune whatsoever: from casting Salvador Dali as the Emperor of Space to commissioning Pink Floyd to provide the music for one of the planets (not for the entire film, mind you…just as a theme for one particular part) to utilizing one of the most famous graphic artists of the era as a storyboard artist, Jodorowsky followed his muse at every step. His only intention was to create pure art and enlighten humanity: compare and contrast that with our current glut of superhero films and it’s clear that Jodorowsky wouldn’t even fit into our modern era, let alone in his. Fascinating, inspirational and full of so many amazing stories and anecdotes that it almost becomes overwhelming, Jodorowsky’s Dune is anchored by the man himself, Alejandro Jodorowsky, 84-years-young at the time of filming and so much more alive and vital than most people a tenth of his age. More than anything, the amazing documentary is a testament to the notion that you should never stop reaching for the stars, even if your feet are firmly stuck on terra firma.

– – –

Nymphomaniac Vols 1 & 2

Sprawling, messy, over-the-top, frequently unpleasant and always impossible to look away from, auteur Lars von Trier’s epic-length ode to female sexuality (a staggering 5.5 hours in the director’s cut, which is definitely the way to go, if you’re going at all) is a stunner in every sense of the word. The film doesn’t always work and von Trier is up to all of his old provocateur antics here but it’s impossible to deny that Nymphomaniac is one of the most awe-inspiring films of the years. There’s a level of ambition here that’s daunting: at times, the film’s endless digressions, footnotes and asides begin to feel like a pornographic version of House of Leaves come to bold, colorful life. This will absolutely not be for everyone…hell, it probably won’t be for many people, to be honest: when the film is raw, it’s in-your-face raw and the frequent (real) sex can be a bit numbing after a while. There’s also the underlying question of whether von Trier actually has any business discussing female sexuality at all: it’s a valid concern, to be honest, and one that actually feels like it gets addressed, internally, as the film progresses, almost as if the writer-director is working out his own thoughts and beliefs as the story unfolds…it’s a complex issue and one that demands to be discussed at length and out loud. While I haven’t always seen eye-to-eye with von Trier cinematically (or personally, although that’s a discussion for another time and venue), there’s no denying that his last three films, Antichrist, Melancholia and Nymphomaniac, have been bold, visually stunning and thoroughly unique works of art. Love him or hate him as a person but ignore him at your own risk: for folks that can handle it, Nymphomaniac is nothing short of essential.

– – –

Calvary

John Michael McDonagh’s debut, The Guard, was a massively fun, ridiculously engaging film that featured a whirlwind performance from Irish national treasure Brendan Gleeson at its center and had one of the freshest, tightest scripts around. For the followup, Calvary, McDonagh opts to stick with Gleeson and the results are nothing short of cinematic perfection. There’s an overlying air of regret and fatalism to this story about a happy-go-lucky, small-town Irish priest who’s told by an unknown man, during confession, that’s he’s to be killed at the end of the week as revenge for the Catholic Church’s child molestation scandal. As Gleeson’s Father James runs about the town, conducting his own unofficial investigation in order to discover the identity of his would-be assassin, he uncovers a hidden world of resentment, anger and hatred, much of it directed at the clergy. Unbelievably powerful and bleak, Calvary is an absolutely stunning film with a conclusion that punches you right in the face. In a lifetime filled with more amazing roles and performances than seems humanly possible, Gleeson, somehow, manages to top himself, once again. For my money, Calvary was probably the single best drama of the year, a purely old-fashioned and cinematic marvel that reminds us of the time when all you needed to flatten an audience was tremendous acting, a remarkable script and a filmmaker with the patience and vision to make it all happen. This is powerful, moving cinema as its very best.

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Obvious Child

When it came time to put together my Best of 2014 list, I instantly knew that Gillian Robespierre’s debut, Obvious Child, was going to be there: the only real question was “top spot or lower.” While it didn’t go on to take the top honors, there was nothing easy about the decision at all…in fact, I’m still agonizing about it as I continue to type out this particular missive.

Into a year that seemed hellbent on declaring out-right war on women (threats of violence against female journalists, widespread denial of rape allegations, Stone Age legislative rulings regarding women’s health and reproductive rights) came Robespierre’s bittersweet Obvious Child, an honest-to-god abortion comedy (the only other one I can even think of is Citizen Ruth), a smart, funny, sweet honest and uncompromising film that was the furthest thing from a stereotypical rom-com, yet held enough of the DNA to still be identifiable as such. At the center of it all is stand-up comedian/voice actor Jenny Slate, in a role that should guarantee her status as a star: Slate is simply perfect in the film, displaying a range and depth that would be impressive on a “professional” actor, much less a stand-up comedian. Nothing about the movie is obvious (despite the title) and anyone expecting a typically Hallmark resolution will probably be pleasantly surprised: there’s too much honesty here for any of the characters to delude themselves as far as that goes. By turns hilarious, heartfelt and always authentic, Obvious Child was that rarest of finds in 2014: a film that I wished would just keep going on, into infinity. Here’s a little future forecast for all of you fine folks: Gillian Robespierre will be one of the world’s foremost filmmakers in a remarkably short amount of time, mark my words.

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Nineteen films down, one to go. While everything that preceded this could be considered unranked (although Obvious Child would still be very near the top), my final selection is very definite: I saw this particular film all the way back in April of 2014 and it never left my head throughout the year. At times, scenes would just pop into my brain out of nowhere, as if my subconscious was happily rewatching the film, internally, without my express written consent. It’s a film that I can look at from end to end and find nothing worth complaining about, nothing that detracts from the overall massive awesomeness. When I look back at my absolute favorite films over the years, movies like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, The Godfather, Goodfellas, 2001 and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, there’s a unity of vision to them, a sort of perfect totality of world building that makes them impossible to escape (for me, at least), similar to shiny, jangly things for a jackdaw. I may like quite a few films and probably love a few more than most people do but there’s a very fixed, specific list of films that I consider to absolute, stone-cold classics. It has nothing to do with age, notoriety, “hip-factor” (or lack thereof), indie vs studio or any such easy distinctions. When a film is an utter classic, a little voice goes off in my head and that’s pretty much it: I can give great reasons, rationales and critiques until the cows come home but it all comes down to that little internal guide, that quiet little voice that hasn’t steered me wrong in some 30-odd years of cinematic obsession. With all of that being said, my choice as the single best film of calendar year 2014 is…

– – –

1.

Wrong Cops

In a year filled with such stunning, critic-proof films as The Grand Budapest Hotel, Under the Skin and Obvious Child, what right do I have to select this incredibly gonzo little oddity as the best of the best? Let me see if I can’t try to break it down a little, before we circle around to that whole “internal voice” thing. Right off the bat, French musician/film auteur Quentin Dupieux is one of the most unusual, singular and amazing filmmakers currently living: it’s absolutely no hyperbole to place him in the same impressive echelon as folks like Luis Bunuel, Alejandro Jodorowsky or David Lynch. For my money, what makes an auteur is a singularly unified vision, the kind of vision that can be instantly recognized from film to film without falling into the territory of slavish duplication. In particular, I think of filmmakers like Wes Anderson or Scorsese: their films may (for the most part) be very different from each other but there’s always the overriding notion of returning to a particular universe.

Beginning with his 2002 debut, Nonfilm, Dupieux has been quietly and confidently blowing minds for the following decade plus. The hallmark of a Dupieux film is an amazing synthesis of the absurd and comic with the dark and deranged: his third film, the astonishing Rubber, is about a sentient tire (as in, the kind that goes on the wheel of a car) that “wakes up” with the ability to blow things up with its mind, falls in love with a human woman and sets out on a mission of revenge, all while the film’s “audience” (ie: us) watches the proceedings from the sidelines. The followup, Wrong, concerns a mild-mannered nebbish who loses his dog and stumbles into a bizarre world of pet cults, psychic pooches, the evolution of mankind and more repeated insanity than a thousand Groundhog Days stacked end to end.

While Dupieux’s previous films were mind-blowing, unforgettable pieces of cinematic insanity in their own rights, Wrong Cops is like Dupieux decided to just take it all to the next level, cut out the safety net and just go for it. On the surface, there’s nothing about Wrong Cops that should work: the cast is full of comics, which doesn’t always guarantee the sturdiest acting; Marilyn Manson plays a nerdy teenager; the humor is crude, scatological, politically incorrect and often outrageous (one of the main characters is a happily married father who stars in violent, homosexual porn as a side gig); there’s a sense of absurdity that can be downright confounding and the film is in constant motion, so jittery and kinetic as to be the cinematic equivalent of a facial tic. No one in the film can remotely be considered a “good” (or even sympathetic character) and the notion that Dupieux is constantly winking at us is never far behind.

And yet…and yet, for all of this marvelous insanity, Wrong Cops works so astoundingly well that it almost makes me misty-eyed. Dupieux is such an assured master of the surreal and bizarre, ala Bunuel, that we trust him with the wheel, even though we have no idea where he’s driving. Bits that seem like throw-away jokes (one of my favorites being the grievously wounded fellow who’s dragged all the way to a record exec’s office just so he can weigh in on whether a particular track is “cool” or not) all pay off, in the long run, and everything in this nonsensical universe eventually makes sense, even if it’s not in any conventional sense of the term. More than any film this year, Wrong Cops is a film that boldly says “Trust me: I know what I’m doing” and then goes on to prove that fact.

While the surreal filmmaking and script are sheer perfection, this would all collapse like a bad souffle if there weren’t such a rock-solid, amazing ensemble to hold it all together. The incredibly game cast, while includes Mark Burnham, Eric Wareheim, Eric Judor, Ray Wise, Steve Little and Arden Myrin, give it their all: when everyone involved seems this invested, it’s impossible not to get swept up in the madness. Hell, even Marilyn Manson puts his performance square between the goal posts: his scenes with Mark Burnham are a perfect combination of creepy, weird and sweet and pretty much form the bedrock of the film (the movie is actually an expansion of a short that primarily featured that relationship). Combine this with a truly awesome, trippy soundtrack, courtesy of good ol’ Dupieux (he’s also a famous French electro-artist who performs and records under the name Mr. Oizo) and Wrong Cops folds you up in its crazy, multi-colored, batshit world and never lets you go.

There were many films this year that I respected and plenty of films that I loved. Wrong Cops, however, was one of the few films that I actually felt like I “needed.” As someone who’s addicted to outsider fare like Taxidermia, Dogtooth and the like, I often find it incredibly difficult to get my “fix”: I might go years between truly astounding finds and, sometimes, it can feel a little like wandering through a desert in search of an oasis. Ever since I discovered Dupieux, however, I can finally get that jolt that I need so badly, on a semi-regular basis: in many ways, Dupieux is a filmmaker that seems to be making films just for me…how the hell could I not consider that the greatest thing ever?

Will Wrong Cops have any relevance to non-acolytes of the Church of Quentin? If you appreciate bold, uncompromising, exquisitely made films with a surreal bent and zero desire to coddle, there is no way you won’t completely fall in love with Dupieux and his filmography. For my money, one of the single most important qualities for a true lover of film to have is an open mind: you will not and cannot experience anything new and wonderful unless you’re willing to step outside your comfort zone and take that leap of faith. When it all comes together, like some sort of cosmic plan, the results can be life-affirming.

For all of these reasons and so many more, Quentin Dupieux’s Wrong Cops is my selection as the single best film of 2014, topping a crowded field and nineteen other contenders.

Stay tuned for the final wrap-up on 2014 as we prepare to return to our regularly scheduled broadcast here on The VHS Graveyard. It’s been a long journey but we’re finally home.

The Year in Review: The Best Films of 2014 (Part One)

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2014, A Field in England, Alan Partridge, best films of 2014, cinema, Enemy, favorite films, film reviews, films, Go For Sisters, Grand Budapest Hotel, Movies, Only Lovers Left Alive, personal opinions, The Babadook, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The One I Love, We Are the Best!, Witching and Bitching, year in review

And now, at long last, we get to the final stretch of the race: my selections for the Best Films of 2014. I’ve already listed my favorite horror films of the year but this is the overall list: everything gets thrown into the same pot, regardless of genre. Astute readers will definitely notice a little overlap with the horror list but I attempted to use two very different sets of criteria for judging the films: what may make a film one of the best horror movies of the year won’t necessarily make it one of the best overall films of the year and vice versa.

This was an especially difficult list to make this year for one main reason: I saw an awful lot of good-to-great films in 2014. I didn’t get a chance to see a lot of the “obvious” choices for Best of the Year, such as Nightcrawler or Boyhood, but I did manage to see most of the underdogs and “dark horses,” so to speak. None of this, of course, is by way of saying that my choices are any more valid than the mainstream: we just have slightly different priorities, that’s all.

For me, I define a truly great picture in a very specific way: it really has to move me. It can make me mad as hell, so giddy I’m karate-kicking the wall or so heart-broken that I want to die…but it damn well better make me feel something more than just entertained. Lots of films are entertaining (there are even parts of Sharknado that are entertaining, surprisingly enough) but that’s not quite good enough to make that kind of impression on me. After whittling the 350+ films I watched last year down to a shortlist of the very best 2014 titles, I’ve managed to whittle that down even further to my 21 favorite films of the year. Unlike the horror list, this won’t be in any particular order, save the top slot: if I thought whittling the list down to 20 was impossible (it was), then ranking them seems about as likely as flapping my arms and achieving liftoff.

With no further ado, I now present the first half of my Best of 2014 list. Make sure your trays are in the upright position, fasten your belts and prepare for take-off.

The Twenty-One Best Films of 2014

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The Grand Budapest Hotel

Is The Grand Budapest Hotel Wes Anderson’s “ultimate” film? Despite my never-ending love of and loyalty to Rushmore, I might need to concede this point. Everything about the film speaks to some aspect of Anderson’s back catalog: the fascination with miniatures; the blink-and-you-miss-’em cameos; the “missing father” dynamic that’s at the heart of nearly all his films; the immaculately fashioned production design; the gorgeous cinematography; the “iron fist in a velvet glove” repartee; the intentionally screwy timeline…it’s all here. Holding the whole production together, however, are two of the best performances of the entire year: Ralph Fiennes absolutely owns the film as the impossibly cool, suave M. Gustave but he’s very nearly upstaged by young Tony Revolori as the eternally loyal lobby boy, Zero. There’s a real sense of joy and wonder to the film, along with the requisite Andersonian sense of tragic romance and a supremely dark edge, as well: there’s a real sense of menace and violence to The Grand Budapest that’s strangely missing from most of Anderson’s other films. Plus, you get Willem Dafoe in one of his funnest roles in years. The Grand Budapest Hotel brings Anderson back to the fore in a big way.

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Only Lovers Left Alive

As a rule, I’m not the biggest vampire fan in the world but leave it to Jarmusch to force me to include a vampire flick on my Best of Year list. Only Lovers Left Alive is lush, atmospheric and hazy, the perfect complement to the Bohemian bloodsuckers at its center. There’s something swooningly romantic about the relationship between Adam and Eve, a romance that’s spanned across continents and centuries. Set against the decaying backdrop of modern-day Detroit, Jarmusch spins his usual web and everything about the film is as immaculate as miniature diorama: extra points for John Hurt’s delightful performance as the rakish Christopher Marlowe, Eve’s “shoulder to cry on” since the time of Shakespeare. This isn’t just one of the best films of the year: it’s one of the best films in Jarmusch’s long, distinguished career.

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We Are the Best!

Perfectly capturing the frustrations, joys and miseries of being young and on the fringes of “polite” society, We Are the Best! is, without a doubt, one of the most joyful, exuberant films I saw all year. There’s something undeniably kickass about watching the trio of young girls at the center of the film slowly gain confidence, leading up to the joyful middle-finger attitude that sends the whole thing off on a happy note. Were this just a peppy story, it wouldn’t have stuck the landing as one of the best of the year: writer-director Lukas Moodysson guides everything with an assured hand, however, giving the proceedings just enough bite to give them weight. The scene where Hedvig blows away the chauvinistic music teachers with her display of guitar pyrotechnics may be one of my favorites of the whole year: if you don’t stand and cheer, you probably have coal instead of a heart.

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Go For Sisters

I’ve followed legendary writer-director John Sayles career since I was a kid: Piranha (his first script) was one of my favorite movies, growing up, and I can still remember the first time I saw The Brother From Another Planet. Quite frankly, there’s no one else out there quite like Sayles and there never will be: with an almost uncanny knack for vivid characters and the ability to twist even the most straight-forward situation into a knot, Sayles is truly one of the keystones of “classic” indie film, right along with Jarmusch and Soderbergh. Go For Sisters is Sayles’ second home-run in a row, after the stellar Amigo (2010), and may be one of his best, most fun and most accomplished films yet. This time around, he gets phenomenal performances from LisaGay Hamilton and Yolonda Ross as former best friends who end up on opposite sides of the law, yet must rekindle their friendship in order to help Hamilton find her missing son. Edward James Olmos is reliably excellent as the former lawman-turned-private eye but the entire film, part and parcel, belongs to Hamilton and Ross: if there was any justice in this world, they’d both get nominated for Oscars.

– – –

A Field in England

Trippy, surreal, bizarre and intense, Ben Wheatley’s amazing A Field in England is the closest a film has brought me to insanity since the first time I watched Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain…umm…”altered,” shall we say.  For most of its runtime, the film is a strange little oddity about deserters during the British Civil War of the 1700s who stumble upon a strange, featureless and unbelievably foreboding field in the middle of nowhere. At a certain point, however, it’s like Wheatley cracks open the egg of knowledge right in your face, splattering your brain pan with so much terrifying insanity that it makes you physically ill. For one of the few times in my entire life, I sat staring at the screen, my mouth hanging wide, drooling everywhere: it’s no lie to say that, for one brief moment, I was standing on the downward slope of sanity, fully prepared to slide off into the abyss. Hyperbole? Maybe but we can talk after the film blows your head off and puts it back upside-down. This, friends and neighbors, is truly experimental cinema at its very best.

– – –

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

I’m going to assume that the sound I hear is all of the spit-takes out there, so I’ll give you all a moment to compose yourselves…ready? Good. How, exactly, did the Steve Coogan vehicle Alan Partridge end up on my Best of list? Isn’t this just another dumb big-screen version of another TV show/radio show/Broadway play/public access show/dinner theater-type thingamabob? Maybe yes, maybe no: I’ll admit to knowing nothing whatsoever about the character until I sat down to watch the film, so that certainly wasn’t the draw for me. Here’s what I can say, however: Alan Partridge is, without a doubt, the funniest film I saw in 2014, hands-down. In fact, I laughed so hard at the film that I was frequently crying, when I wasn’t almost falling out of my chair. Ladies and gentlemen: I haven’t laughed that hard in…well, I honestly can’t remember. Everything about the film is hilarious and quote-worthy: from the dream sequence involving a mob of Alans to the awesome dialogue to some of the very best sight gags I’ve ever seen, Alan Partridge is a film that keeps raising the comedy bar, yet effortlessly sails over it every time. Colm Meaney is marvelous as Alan’s put-upon and marginalized co-worker but Steve Coogan is an absolute god as the titular moron. Everything about this film is a complete winner: I’d be shocked if this isn’t considered a cult classic within the next decade or so…you can bet your forensic trousers on it!

– – –

The Babadook

In a year that seemed to split horror fans and critics in a million different directions, there was one thing that almost everyone could agree on: Jennifer Kent’s amazing debut film, The Babadook, was easily one of the highlights. Genuinely scary and with an air of originality missing from much popular horror fare, this Australian tale of a troubled mother and son facing down pure evil is old-fashioned horror given a bright, shiny new coat. If The Babadook were only a full-throttle horror flick, however, it never would have made it past my Best of Horror list. Instead, Kent’s film is just as much about the trials and tortures that parents must deal with when raising children, especially if said children are as immensely troubled as young Samuel is. When the film lets loose, it’s almost too raw to watch: the scenes where the mother tells her young son how much she hates him would be utterly horrifying, with or without the eerie specter of Mr. Babadook hanging over everything.

– – –

Enemy

The first thing you’ll notice about Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy is the sickly, jaundice-yellow hue that seems to infect every frame of the film like some sort of creeping mold, followed by the oppressively thick atmosphere of dread that hangs over everything like a pall. After that, you might notice how many truly odd things happen in the margins of the frame and how little explanation we get for anything that happens. Later on, you might notice how this seemingly simple tale of a man running across his doppelgänger keeps turning and folding over on itself, like a pulsating amoeba cleaving itself in two. By the time you get to the truly stunning finale, an absolutely terrifying revelation that’s the equivalent of waking from a dream and plunging into a nightmare, one thing should be clear beyond all else: Villeneuve’s film is the perfect horror tonic for our era, a surreal dreamscape where the rat race, our eternal search for immortality and our inability to resist flipping over as many rocks as we can results in our complete and utter destruction. Absolutely unforgettable, Enemy is, without a doubt, one of the finest films to come from a rather fine year.

– – –

Witching & Bitching

Alex de la Iglesia’s newest film, Witching & Bitching, opens with a gold heist that involves body-painted street performers (Silver Jesus for the win!) and climaxes with a pitched battle against a towering, blind fertility goddess. Stuffed between these two poles we get plenty of snarky “battle of the sexes” commentary (much of it quite politically incorrect, shall we say), some jaw-dropping practical effects, a sense of humor that can best be described as “out there” (one of the film’s best, most outrageous scenes involves someone hiding inside a toilet) and a romantic angle that starts as a joke and finishes in just about the sweetest way possible. This is a big, loud horror-comedy-fantasy that isn’t afraid to shoot for Peter Jackson by way of Steven Spielberg territory, while still manages to (usually) keep at least one foot anchored on solid ground. Even for a career as varied and delightful as de la Iglesia’s, Witching & Bitching is one varied, delightful film.

– – –

The One I Love

Without a doubt, one of the biggest, best surprises of the entire year, Charlie McDowell’s extraordinary The One I Love is that most impossible of things: an intelligent, trippy, doppelganger-themed love story that manages to shatter conventions left and right. The whole film is grounded by one of my favorite duos of the year, Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss: the two are so perfect as the imperfect couple looking to “fix” their broken marriage by way of shrink Ted Danson’s dubious “immersion” therapy that they almost overshadow the rest of the film. Note that I say “almost,” however, since The One I Love has a way of burrowing under your skin and taking root. At times laugh-out-loud funny, at times sinister, occasionally baffling and always brilliant, this was one of the freshest, most original films I saw all year. I know I’ve said this before but in a much weaker year, The One I Love would be a tough act to follow.

– – –

And there we have it: the first half of my Best Films of 2014, in random order. Tune in later as we finish off with the other eleven, including my pick for the very best film of 2014. What will take it all? Who will be left in the dust? Who will survive and what will be left of them? Stay tuned, loyal readers…stay tuned.

The Year in Review: The Best Films of 2014 (The Runner-Ups)

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2014, Best of 2014, cinema, favorite films, film reviews, films, Movies, personal opinions, runner-ups, year in review

In order to build a little suspense for the big reveal (as well as do a little 2014 house-cleaning), I decided to lead off with my runner-ups for Best Films of 2014. As I’ve stated elsewhere, I found 2014 to be a ridiculously rich year for film, especially if one were willing to color outside of the margins. If you didn’t find at least a couple exceptional movies last year…well, pardner…I reckon you just weren’t looking.

Since I had so many choices this year (I ended up watching 171 films that qualify as 2014 releases), there was lots and lots to sort through. Although my Best of Horror list was difficult, the Overall Best list has been particularly vexing. Faithful readers will notice some crossover with my horror list, obviously, although not as much as one might think: there should be a few surprises here, as well. Since I’ve already discussed some of the horror ones earlier, I’ll just list those but expect to read a word or two (or three) on the other runner-ups.

I feel a bit like a broken record but let’s go ahead and let the needle skip one more time: in a much worse year, any or all of the runner-ups would have assumed prime spots on my list. Unlike particularly fallow years in the past, I haven’t included anything on here that was just “okay,” “serviceable” or “meh”: I may not love all of the runner-ups but, at the very least, I respect the hell outta them. With that, I present the runner-ups for Best Films of 2014, in no particular ranking order.

Runner-Ups

Moebius — No dialogue, intense sexual violence and raw nerve family dynamics: fun for all ages! Or not, as it turns out, since Korean auteur Kim Ki-duk’s “happy’ tale about the destructive force of infidelity on a family is one of the most unpleasant films I saw all year. It’s also brilliantly made and should be required viewing for anyone interested in the dynamics of film: just don’t expect to walk out with anything resembling a smile on your face.

Someone Marry Barry — I have kind of a man-crush on Tyler Labine and I’m absolutely not ashamed to admit it. As with my concurrent crushes on Ron Perlman, Michael Smiley and Donal Logue, I’ll watch anything and everything that Labine is in: I think he has nearly perfect comic timing and a pretty impressive range. That being said, Someone Marry Barry is a pretty great film, with or without Mr. Labine. The ensemble cast is perfectly in-tune, the comedy is crude but allows for genuine warmth and there’s a really nice central message about the importance of loving people for who they are. Did I mention that it’s really, really funny? Cuz it’s that, too.

Why Don’t You Play in Hell? — Shion Sono’s gonzo Yakuza-as-filmmakers action-comedy is a barrel of fun from start to finish but not quite the all-out blast that it frequently promises to become. When the film is good, it’s almost legendary (the scene where young Mitsuko surfs on a giant wave of blood is absolutely unforgettable) but it too often becomes repetitive and seems a little aimless. Still, I must admit to loving the indie filmmaker angle and there’s something rather sweet about a film that seems to be equally influenced by Cinema Paradiso and blood-spattered Japanese gore comedies.

The Interview — Forget the hype, the endless press, the threats, the grandstanding, the chest-beatin’ and the Bible-thumpin’: is Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen’s “little film that could” actually any good? As a matter of fact, it’s quite good and this is coming from someone who is absolutely not an acolyte of the Church of Rog-aco. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that it’s the best comedy the collective group has ever made, including Pineapple Express and This is the End. I might stand alone but I’ll proudly state that the epic “Firework” finale is, without a doubt, one of the most badass cinematic moments my tired, old brain had the pleasure of witnessing all year: the film that leads up to it ain’t half bad, either.

LFO: The Movie — This was such a head-trip that I found myself thinking about it for days afterward…always a good sign. The bizarre Swedish film is initially so dense that I found myself completely, hopelessly lost: once it settles down into a more approachable tale about one weirdo’s ability to control people with a particular sound frequency, it sets the controls for the heart of the sun and never looks back. There’s nothing sympathetic or nice about our hapless lead, whatsoever, which makes LFO the kind of moral no-mans-land that might give some folks qualms. If the final five minutes don’t slap you upside the head, however, you probably weren’t paying attention.

The Missing Picture — Although Rithy Panh’s documentary was nominated for an Oscar last year, I only had the opportunity to see it this year and wow…talk about a gut-punch. Centered around the Khmer Rouge and their brutal massacre of innocent people in Cambodia during the ’70s, Panh uses a revolutionary technique where he crafts clay figures and uses these to re-enact both pre-and post-revolution life in a world that would become a living hell for him. Raw, painful and yet staggeringly beautiful and fanciful, at times, The Missing Picture is one of those films that demands to seen by as many people as possible.

I Am Divine — As a lifelong fan of both John Waters and Divine, this humble little doc was like manna from heaven. Full of great stories, interviews, insights and more than a few tearjerking moments, I Am Divine is a loving tribute to one of the most unique, beloved performers of our time.

The Final Member — A documentary about the world’s only penis museum could have gone several different ways (I swear that’s not a joke) but The Final Member ends up being endlessly surprising. Ostensibly about the quest to find and procure the first human donation to the collection, Jonah Bekhor and Zach Math’s fascinating film is actually about the human need for fame and how people will do any number of bizarre things to ensure that their name lives on long after they do. Probably not for everyone but quite fun for those with a bit of an open mind.

Whitewash — One of the most surprising films I saw all year and one that almost made it onto the official list. The premise is simple: Thomas Haden Church plays a snowplow operator who ends up stranded in the woods after a night of drunken debauchery that may or may not have involved running someone over with said snowplow. In reality, the film is nothing more than an opportunity for Church to stretch some massive acting muscles and becomes, essentially, a one-man show. You might think there’s nothing riveting about spending 90 minutes with some guy as he talks to himself in the woods but you would be dead wrong. As far as I’m concerned, this was the film that Locke was trying (and failed) to be.

Ida — Another film that almost made it onto the Best of list, Ida is a black-and-white throwback to the days when indie films all looked to Cassavetes and Jarmusch for inspiration and the visual image was as important, if not more so, than the spoken word. Ida is a beautiful, lyrical and unrelentingly sad film about a young Polish nun-initiate’s discovery of her true heritage amid the terrible legacy of the Nazis. This is another film for actual fans of the medium, filled with gorgeous cinematography, a moody, measured pace and some rock-solid acting from Agata Trzebuchowska and Agata Kulesza as the young nun and world-weary, booze-guzzling aunt Wanda. Purposefully old-fashioned and all the better for it.

Edge of Tomorrow — I’ve got nothing against Tom Cruise, the actor, on principle: the problem is that he so rarely makes films that I consider “must-sees.” From the outset, Edge of Tomorrow seems like it’ll be just another noisy, cluttered, sci-fi action film, something to give the punters a reason to drop major cash at an IMAX on Christmas Day. Along the way, however, something strange happens: Swingers’ director Doug Liman’s sleek, shiny film somehow becomes smarter, funnier and meaner than it should be. By the midpoint, it no longer feels like a by-the-numbers tentpole flick and begins to resemble something truly strange and, to be honest, kind of wonderful. Edge of Tomorrow was one of the few films that I regretted not seeing in a theater: that probably goes a long way towards describing my reaction to it.

The Art of the Steal — Another sleeper that should have been just another “direct to streaming” B-movie but ended up being so much more. Kurt Russell is fantastic as the aging stunt-driver-turned-criminal, Matt Dillon is quite marvelous as his ultra-sleazy step-brother and Jay Baruchel is a hoot as Russell’s always-faithful best buddy/whipping boy. The film is endless inventive, constantly funny and features a truly genius heist at its center. When I first started the film, it was just supposed to be a time-killer: minutes in, I was hopelessly hooked and never looked back. Easily one of the most fun movies I saw in 2014.

Blue Ruin — This almost ended up on my horror list but I decided to go purer with the definition this time around. At its heart, Blue Ruin is a sorrowful, uncompromising look at the terrible wages of revenge and how a man can be turned into a shell when all of the love in him has been scorched by hate. For my money, this was a much more effective, powerful film than the similar Cold in July, with a stunning lead performance from Macon Blair.

Ragnarok — This fun, Norwegian fantasy reminded me of prime, ’80s-era Spielberg and was a real blast: an archaeologist goes searching for a lost Viking ship and ends up finding something a whole lot scalier. In some ways, this is a companion piece to Troll Hunter and should be a must-see for anyone who bemoans the good ol’ days of family oriented fantasy adventure flicks, ala The Goonies.

Force Majeure — Yet another film that narrowly missed the official rankings. This flinty, sly little Swedish films deals with the fall-out from one husband/father’s unbelievably selfish act and the way it slowly tears his family in two. Full of lots of intricate details (the production design, in particular, is superb) and strong performances, Force Majeure takes aim at masculinity, fidelity, the institute of marriage and ski vacations, in general. Difficult to “love,” Force Majeure is incredibly easy to respect.

Child of God — I saw James Franco’s adaptation of As I Lay Dying and thought it was decent enough, if severely flawed in several key areas. That being said, it’s always refreshing to see a modern star who would rather adapt the classics than continue dipping from the same remake/sequel well. This time around, Franco turns to the world of Cormac McCarthy and the results are quite a bit more impressive. There’s nothing particularly pleasant about this story of one reclusive loner’s devolution into necrophilia and murder but there’s also precious little wrong with it: in particular, Scott Haze is a revelation as the animalistic Lester Ballard, turning in the kind of performance that should get him short-listed for every acting trophy in the book. When Scott is giving it his all, snot streaming from his face in thick ropes, saliva spewing everywhere, his entire body shaking and convulsing as if he’s about to explode…well, let’s just say that it doesn’t feel entirely like acting and leave it at that.

Haunter — At first, Vincenzo Natali’s Haunter seems like another in a long line of those “are they or are they not ghosts” films and it is, to a point, but it’s also about a hundred other things, all of which we gradually see as the film continues to unravel its myriad surprises. Just when the plot seems to be heading in a fairly standard, linear direction, Natali throws in a crazy corkscrew pitch and shakes the whole thing up. If the definition of a “sleeper” is a modest little film that surprises us by being unexpectedly great, well, look no further, my friends.

Dom Hemingway — There’s a lot to love about Dom Hemingway but none of it would be possible without Jude Law’s flat-out amazing central performance. Dom is a real shithead, a loud-mouth, crass, egotistical womanizer with anger issues and a constant need to blow his comfortable world to smithereens. Thanks to Law, he’s also ridiculously magnetic and impossible to tear your eyes away from. By the conclusion, you still might not agree with some of what he’s done (or any of it, for that matter) but I’ll be damned if you don’t kinda like the guy, anyway.

Big Bad Wolves — The most surprising thing about this Israeli film about a father enacting “justice” on a suspected child-killer, with the unwitting help of a dour police detective, is how flat-out funny it is. Yes, it’s about a child killer and yes, the violence punts straight into the end zone but it’s often laugh-out-loud funny, which is a tactic as effective as it is surprising. Despite this rampant sense of humor, Big Bad Wolves is just as often haunting and horrifying. Compare this to Denis Villeneuve’s nearly identical (minus the humor) Prisoners and it’s easy to see which film comes out on top.

Snowpiercer — I really liked, but didn’t love, Bong Joon-ho’s dystopic train-ride flick. Coming off as a spiritual descendent of Terry Gilliam’s ultra-grimey near-future flicks, Snowpiercer is full of fantastic setpieces and features a pair of intensely spirited performances in the person of Tilda Swinton (can we just deify her already and get it over with?) and Ed Harris (despite his relative lack of screentime). I never fully bought Chris Evans as the rebel leader, however, and too many of the film’s beats echoed similar dystopic films. Despite that, however, Joon-ho’s film is a massively entertaining thrill ride and exactly the type of action film we need more of these days. Extra points for the inherently ironic discussion of global warming and pollution that flows through every aspect of the film like a hidden, underground river.

Stoker — For his English-language debut, Korean auteur Park Chan-wook gifted us with the bizarre, surreal and eminently sensual “family drama” Stoker: should we have expected anything different from the genius behind Oldboy and Sympathy For Lady Vengeance? The entire cast is marvelous but the main trio of Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska and Matthew Goode are nearly flawless. While the film never gripped me as much as Chan-wook’s Korean movies, it’s still an incredibly mature, evocative and interesting little examination of madness and obsession.

ABCs of Death 2 — For this and the others below, please refer to the Best Horror Films of 2014.

Starry Eyes

Plus One

Hellbenders

Oculus

Here Comes the Devil

Toad Road

And there we have it: all of the 2014 films that I considered runner-ups to the best films of the year. Coming up…the main event. Stay tuned.

The Year in Review: The Best Horror Films of 2014 (Part One)

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2014, Best of 2014, cinema, favorite films, films, films of 2014, horror, horror films, horror movies, Movies, personal opinions, year in review

At long last, we now get into the really good stuff: my picks for the best horror films of 2014. As with many of my selections this year, there’s a great deal of confusion as to when some of these films actually came out: many of them played at festivals well before their release date (some even “debuted” last year) but I only had access to them this year. In order to help keep some semblance of order, however, I’ve decided to break my choices down into two categories: the best horror films of 2014 and the runner-ups.

Anyone who follows The VHS Graveyard knows that our tastes may be wide-ranging but our true love will always be for the scary stuff. In order to get the best idea of what this year had to offer, I screened 70+ horror films: the films were released anywhere from January 1st, 2013, all the way to the end of this past November. Despite coming close to the triple digits, there were still plenty of notable films that I missed this year: as the year progresses, I expect to see most, if not all, of them…in certain ways, this list continues to be a work-in-progress but it should also be ready for public consumption as-is.

Before we get into the actual list, a final word regarding horror in 2014: despite what naysayers and critics continue to report, horror in 2014 did just fine. Sure, there may have been plenty of terrible multiplex stinkers like Ouija and Annabelle but there was also an enormous glut of quality indie films and plenty of surprises that flew below the radar. There were so many quality films last year, in fact, that I find myself in a bit of a conundrum: on any given day, any of the films in my “Runners’ up” list might have made the “Best of” column…in any other year, they all would have. It’s a problem that will repeat itself once we discuss the best all-around films of 2014 but it’s a really good problem to have: for the first time in ages, we’ve got more quality films than hours in the day to watch them.

For purposes of my list, I’ve gone ahead and numbered the Top 11 (because, obviously, this list goes to 11), although I’m still not sure if the order is correct. Let’s assume that the number one choice is but let’s also assume that rank, in this case, is a little fluid. Without further ado, I know present my favorite horror films of 2014.

The Top 11 Horror Films of 2014

11.

ABCs of Death 2

I’m one of the people (apparently, the very few people) who really liked the first ABCs of Death, even if there were a fair amount of clunkers among the 26 shorts. When the film was good, it was astounding: when it was bad, it was also pretty astounding, of course, albeit for different reasons. This time around, the ratio of “great” to “awful” is much more balanced: to be honest, I didn’t really hate any of the shorts, although some of them were more tedious than others. When ABCs of Death 2 is firing on all cylinders, however, it’s just about the most fun film I saw all year. This is the perfect party movie: get a bunch of friends together, plenty of booze and let the good times fly. On an interesting side note, many of the foreign films in the first ABCs of Death were Asian, while the ones in this installment tend to come from South and Latin America. The ABCs of Death: making the world smaller, one hacked artery at a time.

10.

Toad Road

I don’t normally like “gimmick” films but the one behind Toad Road is pretty irresistible: completely blurring the line between fact and fiction, filmmaker Jason Banker rounded up a bunch of young druggies, via Vice Magazine, let them indulge in the hedonism that would normally take place behind closed doors and filmed the proceedings. Were that all there was to the story, Banker’s film definitely wouldn’t make this list. As it stands, however, the writer-director folds the drug-taking/partying aspect into a real head-fuck of a story that involves (maybe) finding the doorway to Hell in the middle of the woods. Since the “real” footage blends so seamlessly with the faked stuff, it creates a completely disorienting feeling, as if one is actually disappearing into the film. Twisty, tragic and more than a little terrifying, Toad Road is one of the finest treatises on wasted youth that I’ve ever seen.

9.

Oculus

One of my constant laments about modern horror films is the near complete lack of originality that’s become an inherent trait of the genre: nowadays, the average movie-going public doesn’t seem to want anything but sequels, remakes and “re-imaginings,” and most genre filmmakers seem only too happy to oblige. Mike Flanagan’s stately haunted mirror opus, Oculus, ends up being quite the booster shot to help inoculate against the disease: mature, frightening, exquisitely filmed and prone to some pretty shocking violence (the apple scene is a neo-classic, as is the jaw-dropping climax), Oculus is a film that doesn’t take its audience for granted and offers little in the way of hand-holding. We’ve had other “haunted mirror” flicks in the past but Flanagan’s imposing follow-up to his sleeper, Absentia, should shut the door tight on the imitators.

8.

Witching & Bitching

Without a shadow of a doubt, Alex de la Iglesia is one of my favorite writer-directors in this modern-day and age. A fearless innovator who’s been quietly ripping shit up since the early ’90s, de la Iglesia is like a crazy combination of Peter Jackson and Alejandro Jodorowsky, taking the zany, over-the-top fantasy-based humor of the former and the surreal humanism of the latter to create something wholly unique. While de la Iglesia’s range is impressive (genre-based or not, The Last Circus is one of the finest films I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching), I like him best when he’s in full throttle mode. Witching & Bitching takes audiences back to de la Iglesia’s early days, when nothing was sacred and one over the top setpiece would roll into another with little rest. This modest little film about witches and the men who fight/love them is crude, politically incorrect, gorgeously made, ultra vibrant and, quite simply, one of the most “alive” films of the entire year. I think my smile lasted for about a week after I saw the movie but it may have been longer.

7.

Borgman

Putting Borgman on a list of the best horror films of the year might seem like sort of an odd call but I’ll stand by it: this was one of the most harrowing, nightmarish films I’ve seen in some time. Ostensibly a retelling of Passolini’s Teorema, the film spins out in a million weird, unpredictable ways and often makes as sense as a fever dream. Is Borgman some sort of woodland spirit? The Devil? God? Is he even there? Are we even here? Think too hard about any of it and you’ll find yourself stuck fast in a world where Wes Anderson and Michael Haneke are equally beloved, if aloof, deities.

6.

A Field in England

Against the explosive backdrop of 17th Century England, a few Civil War deserters end up in a massive, featureless field and wind up melting your face down to the bone. Not their faces, mind you: there’s nothing obvious about this film, least of all any conventional notions of “violence.” No, dear reader, I mean that they’ll melt your face off, at least if you’re anything like me. It might sound like silly hyperbole but when auteur Ben Wheatley’s film really roars into life, it feels like a tornado is blowing through your skull cavity. Many films will claim to approximate a drug experience “for the sober”: A Field in England doesn’t have time for silly promises or any sympathy for the unprepared…it just flattens you and keeps on rollin’. Wheatley is another of the film gods in my modern pantheon, a fearless, uncompromising force of nature who mines British history and culture for some of the most unforgettable films I’ve ever seen. The film comes with a warning about stereoscopic images. Jodorowsky would be proud.

11-6? Check and mate. What are my top five favorite horror films of 2014 (along with all the runner-ups)? Tune in for the next installment and find out who ends up ruling the roost.