A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year

[11 of 13]

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE

(March 2016)

So in mid-January, Bad Robot stealthbombed us with the trailer for a heretofore unannounced “spiritual successor” to ¡Qué horror! 2008 title, Cloverfield, Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane (which began life as The Cellar, and was developed and produced under the code name Valencia).

The initial trailer--brilliantly orchestrated to Tommy James & The Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now”--certainly revved up my geek engine, and I was in constant fear of getting spoiled by the Internets before I had a chance to see the film.

Luckily, I was not, and here we are, with a ¡Qué horror! 2016 slot staked out in its own name.

I will, of course, not tell you anything that you can’t pick up from the trailer, other than this…

Though Trachtenberg has confirmed that “… [Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane] are not in the same timeline,” look who’s the Bold Futura Employee of the Month for February 2016…

John Goodman’s Howard Stambler…

Hrrmmm…

Maybe this is an alternate reality from the original Cloverfield, and an alternate reality Tagruato Corporation…?

Whatever the case, in this reality, 10 Cloverfield Lane is a solid title worthy of some ¡Qué horror! love…

 

(10 Cloverfield Lane OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2016

Candidate #9

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE

(March 2016)

So in mid-January, Bad Robot stealthbombed us with the trailer for a heretofore unannounced “spiritual successor” to ¡Qué horror! 2008 title, Cloverfield, Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane (which began life as The Cellar, and was developed and produced under the code name Valencia).

The initial trailer--brilliantly orchestrated to Tommy James & The Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now”--certainly revved up my geek engine, and I was in constant fear of getting spoiled by the Internets before I had a chance to see the film.

Luckily, I was not, and here we are, with a ¡Qué horror! slot staked out in its own name.

I will, of course, not tell you anything that you can’t pick up from the trailer, other than this…

Though Trachtenberg has confirmed that “… [Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane] are not in the same timeline,” look who’s the Bold Futura Employee of the Month for February 2016…

John Goodman’s Howard Stambler…

Hrrmmm…

Maybe this is an alternate reality from the original Cloverfield, and an alternate reality Tagruato Corporation…?

Whatever the case, in this reality, 10 Cloverfield Lane is a solid candidate for some ¡Qué horror! love…

 

(10 Cloverfield Lane OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

LÅT DEN RÄTTE KOMMA IN
(LET THE RIGHT ONE IN)
(Review)

“Let the right one in,
Let the old games fade,
Put the tricks and schemes, for good, away…”
-- Morrissey
“Let The Right One Slip In”


1982, Sweden: Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is 12 years old, bookish, bullied, and quite possibly just a wee bit maladjusted. And when he gets some new next door neighbours—who are definitely more than what they seem—Oskar’s world opens up in ways he could never have anticipated.
That’s Tomas Alfredson’s Låt den rätte komma in (Let The Right One In) in a nutshell, and it’s quite simply a fascinating and darkly alluring cinematic experience unlike any other.


Now, if you’ve already heard of Låt den rätte komma in, chances are, you already know what supernatural creature is at the centre of its narrative. And if this is the first time you’ve heard of the film, then I really should let you try and see it as unaware as you can possibly be, to further enhance the piece’s striking originality.
(Suffice it to say that said creature is—as is the cyclical way of these things—currently enjoying a renaissance, most visibly on the big and small screens.)


Despite it’s having that supernatural element though (which, by the way, has all the romanticism others have imbued it with totally stripped away), Låt den rätte komma in is also about how the bonds of friendship and love can form from a mutual longing and loneliness (as well as need; there is that, too). It’s about the painful and cruel world of adolescence. It’s about learning to be free of the oppressor, without becoming one yourself. It’s about making the distinction between the need to inflict injury, and the want.


Låt den rätte komma in is decidedly one of the most unique horror films I’ve seen in quite a long while, with a pair of exceptional central performances by Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson, both newcomers found in open castings. (There are no professional child actors in Sweden.)
And while the film may have some perhaps familiar elements, Alfredson and John Ajvide Lindqvist—who adapted his own debut novel for the screen—never quite play with them the way you might expect.
One of Alfredson’s most interesting choices is to juxtapose Oskar’s roiling adolescent angst with the frigid setting and Hoyte Van Hoytema’s coolly controlled cinematography, creating a feeling at once both unsentimental, yet strangely moving, and giving us the intimation of something very dark and unsavoury lurking at the heart of Oskar, waiting to flower into something particularly venomous.
Which all then leads to an ending that can be read as either completely liberating, or merely the doorway to a terrible prison.


If you’re a horror fan and you haven’t seen this one yet, you really do owe it to yourself to seek it out, particularly since it’s already on its way down the Hollywood English-language remake road.*
And hey, there’s that title. I mean, Morrissey. Come on. You have to check it out now, right?


“Let the right one slip in…
Slip in…
Slip in…

“And when at last it does,
I’d say you were within your rights to bite
The right one and say, ‘What kept you so long?
‘What kept you so long?’”
-- Morrissey
“Let The Right One Slip In”


* Actually, the Hollywood version—to be brought to us by Cloverfield director Matt Reeves—will actually be another adaptation of Lindqvist’s novel, as opposed to being an English-language redux of Alfredson’s film.

Parting shot: Amongst a deluge of honours, Låt den rätte komma in—which quickly grew to be a darling on the festival circuit and within numerous critics’ circles—won Best Narrative Feature at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival. (I tracked the film in some Afterthoughts past, which can be found in the Archive, alongside a review of Cloverfield)

(OS’s courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of beyondhollywood.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best, Most Recent Horror Movies I’ve Seen
[10 of 13]
CLOVERFIELD (January 2008)


… following in the wake of Bong Joon-ho’s Gwoemul and Frank Darabont’s The Mist, Cloverfield is clearly another towering entry in the annals of creature features, a pulse-pounding monster movie for our post-9/11, YouTube world of instant documentation, upload, and access, where creatures can exist and wreak havoc on both the silver screen and the World Wide Web.

Read the entire review here.

(Cloverfield OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (103)
SCREAM, BABY, SCREAM 2008

The nominees for this year’s Scream Awards have just been announced, and those that have got me jazzed are:


30 Days of Night
Best Horror Movie
Best Comic Book Movie


Battlestar Galactica
Best TV Show
Best Actor in a Science Fiction Movie or TV Show (Edward James Olmos)
Best Actress in a Science Fiction Movie or TV Show (Tricia Helfer)
Best Scream To Comic Adaptation


Cloverfield
The Ultimate Scream
Best Science Fiction Movie
Best Screamplay (Drew Goddard)
Best Actress in a Science Fiction Movie or TV Show (Odette Yustman)
Breakout Performance (Jessica Lucas)
Breakout Performance (T.J. Miller)
Breakout Performance (Odette Yustman)
The Holy Sh!t Scene of the Year (The Statue of Liberty/Empire State Building Attack)
Best F/X


The Dark Knight
The Ultimate Scream
Best Fantasy Movie
Best Sequel
Best Comic Book Movie
Best Director (Christopher Nolan)
Best Screamplay (Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, & David S. Goyer)
Best Superhero (Christian Bale as Batman)
Best Villain (Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent/Two-Face)
Best Villain (Heath Ledger as The Joker)
Best Actor in a Fantasy Movie or TV Show (Christian Bale)
Best Actor in a Fantasy Movie or TV Show (Heath Ledger)
Best Actress in a Fantasy Movie or TV Show (Maggie Gyllenhaal)
Best Supporting Performance (Michael Caine)
Best Supporting Performance (Gary Oldman)
The Holy Sh!t Scene of the Year (The Batmobile/Batpod Chase)
The Holy Sh!t Scene of the Year (The Big Rig Flips Over)
Most Memorable Mutilation (The Pencil Trick)
Best F/X
Best Line (“I believe whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stranger.”: The Joker)
Best Line (“I will now make this pencil disappear.”: The Joker)
Best Line (“Why so serious?”: The Joker)


Dexter
Best TV Show
Best Actor in a Horror Movie or TV Show (Michael C. Hall)
Best Actress in a Horror Movie or TV Show (Julie Benz)


Funny Games US
Best Remake
Best Actress in a Horror Movie or TV Show (Naomi Watts)


Hancock
Best Fantasy Movie
Best Superhero (Will Smith as John Hancock)
Best Actress in a Fantasy Movie or TV Show (Charlize Theron)
Best Supporting Performance (Jason Bateman)


Hellboy II: The Golden Army
The Ultimate Scream
Best Fantasy Movie
Best Sequel
Best Director (Guillermo del Toro)
Best Superhero (Ron Perlman as Hellboy)
Best Actor in a Fantasy Movie or TV Show (Ron Perlman)
Best Actress in a Fantasy Movie or TV Show (Selma Blair)
Best Supporting Performance (Doug Jones)
Breakout Performance (Anna Walton)
Most Memorable Mutilation (Attacked By The Flesh-Eating Tooth Fairies)
Best F/X
Best Line (“I’m not a baby… I’m a tumor.”: The Tumor)


Heroes
Best TV Show
Best Superhero (Masi Oka as Hiro Nakamura)
Best Villain (Zachary Quinto as Sylar)
Best Actress in a Fantasy Movie or TV Show (Hayden Panettiere)


Iron Man
The Ultimate Scream
Best Science Fiction Movie
Best Comic Book Movie
Best Director (Jon Favreau)
Best Screamplay (Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Arthur Marcum, & Matthew Hollaway)
Best Superhero (Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man)
Best Villain (Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane)
Best Actor in a Science Fiction Movie or TV Show (Robert Downey, Jr.)
Best Actress in a Science Fiction Movie or TV Show (Gwyneth Paltrow)
Best Supporting Performance (Terrence Howard)
The Holy Sh!t Scene of the Year (Escape From Ten Rings Hideout)
The Holy Sh!t Scene of the Year (Iron Man’s First Flight)
Best F/X
Best Line (“I am Iron Man!”: Tony Stark)


Lost
The Ultimate Scream
Best TV Show
Best Actor in a Fantasy Movie or TV Show (Terry O’Quinn)


The Mist
The Ultimate Scream
Best Horror Movie
Best Director (Frank Darabont)
Best Screamplay (Frank Darabont)
Best Actor in a Horror Movie or TV Show (Thomas Jane)


El Orfanato (The Orphanage)
Best Horror Movie
Best Screamplay (Sergio G. Sanchez)
Best Actor in a Horror Movie or TV Show (Fernando Cayo)
Best Actress in a Horror Movie or TV Show (Belen Rueda)


Pushing Daisies
Breakout Performance (Anna Friel)


The Ruins
Best Horror Movie
Best Actor in a Horror Movie or TV Show (Jonathan Tucker)
Best Actress in a Horror Movie or TV Show (Jena Malone)
Most Memorable Mutilation (The Leg Amputation)


Saw IV
Best Sequel
Best Villain (Tobin Bell as Jigsaw)
Most Memorable Mutilation (The Autopsy)


Southland Tales
Best Science Fiction Movie
Best Actor in a Science Fiction Movie or TV Show (Dwayne Johnson)


The Strangers
Best Horror Movie
Best Actress in a Horror Movie or TV Show (Liv Tyler)


Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Best Horror Movie
Best Director (Tim Burton)
Best Actor in a Horror Movie or TV Show (Johnny Depp)
Best Actress in a Horror Movie or TV Show (Helena Bonham Carter)
Best Villain (Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin)


Teeth
Most Memorable Mutilation (Bitten By Vagina With Teeth)


Wanted
Best Fantasy Movie
Best Comic Book Movie
Best Actor in a Fantasy Movie or TV Show (James McAvoy)
Best Actress in a Fantasy Movie or TV Show (Angelina Jolie)
The Holy Sh!t Scene of the Year (The Reverse Kill Shot)
Best F/X

Congratulations, one and all.
Reviews of all the above films and television shows can be found in the Archive.

Other nominated films also reviewed here at the Iguana are:
Beowulf (Best Fantasy Movie; Best F/X);
The Eye (Best Remake);
Halloween (Best Remake; Best Director [Rob Zombie]);
I Am Legend (Best Science Fiction Movie; Best Actor in a Science Fiction Movie or TV Show [Will Smith]; Most Memorable Mutilation [Attacked By The Infected]);
The Incredible Hulk (Best Fantasy Movie; Best Comic Book Movie; Best Remake; Best Superhero [Edward Norton as The Hulk]; Best Actor in a Fantasy Movie or TV Show [Edward Norton]; Best Line [“Hulk Smash!”: The Hulk]); and
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Best Science Fiction Movie; Best Sequel; Best Actor in a Science Fiction Movie or TV Show [Harrison Ford]; Best Supporting Performance [Shia LaBeouf]).

Among this year’s board (who advised on categories and determined nominees in each category) are: Wes Craven, Neil Gaiman, Tim Kring, Eli Roth, Guillermo del Toro, Kevin Smith, and Stephen King.
Beginning September 12 (Friday) through October 17, voting will be open at scream.spike.com.
The awards will take place on October 18, Saturday, at The Greek Theater in Los Angeles, CA, and will premiere on Spike TV on October 21, Tuesday (9:00-11:00 PM ET/PT).

(Images courtesy of aintitcool.com, bloody-disgusting.com, empireonline.com, impawards.com, rickbrotherton.com, scifi.com, shocktillyoudrop.com, spike.com, and yahoo.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (81)
HITCHHIKING TO SATURN 2008 (2)

So this year’s Saturns (held last night at the Universal Hilton Hotel in Universal City) have come and gone, and the notable wins are:

300:
Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film
Best Direction (Zack Snyder)

Blade Runner:
Best Special Edition DVD Release (5 Disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition)

Cloverfield:
Best Science Fiction Film

Dexter:
Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series

Eastern Promises:
Best International Film

Heroes:
Best Television Series on DVD (Season 1)

Lost:
Best Network Television Series
Best Actor on Television (Matthew Fox)
Best Supporting Actor on Television (Michael Emerson)
Best Supporting Actress on Television (Elizabeth Mitchell)

The Mist:
Best Supporting Actress, Film (Marcia Gay Harden)

No Country For Old Men:
Best Supporting Actor, Film (Javier Bardem)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street:
Best Horror Film
Best Costume (Colleen Atwood)

Twin Peaks:
Best Retro Television Series on DVD (The Definitive Gold Box Edition)

I’m happy for Lost, naturally, though Elizabeth Mitchell’s win for Best Supporting Actress on Television was actually a tie with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ Summer Glau.
For my money (and the tremendous work she’s put in on Lost), Mitchell should have taken the category, lock, stock, and barrel.
And, as with any other awards night, there were the disappointments: El Orfanato, Stardust, Battlestar Galactica, and Pushing Daisies, all getting shut-out, as well as a bunch of other criminal calls (Jennifer Love Hewitt over Anna Friel and Evangeline Lilly?!), but hey, there’s some awfully neat stuff up there, so I’ll just accentuate the positive…
Oh, and aside from Guillermo del Toro receiving the George Pal Memorial Award for his “visionary genius,” Matt Reeves was also recognized with The Filmmakers Showcase Award, for directing Cloverfield.

To all the nominees and winners at this year’s Saturns, congratulations. (You can find a complete—and downloadable—list of winners here.)

Parting shot: Reviews of 300, Cloverfield, Eastern Promises, The Mist, No Country For Old Men, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, can be found in the Archive, along with episodic recaps/reviews of Dexter, Heroes, and Lost.

(Images courtesy of impawards.com [Lost]; bloody-disgusting.com [Cloverfield OS]; ew.com [Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men]; filmz.ru [Marcia Gay Harden in The Mist]; and empireonline.com [Guillermo del Toro].)

DIARY OF THE DEAD
(Review)

“Jason always wanted to be a documentary filmmaker. But for his senior class project, he decided to try to make a horror film. That’s what he was shooting on that first night. The night when… everything changed.”
-- Debra

There were a number of recent horror movies (most from 2007) that chose to utilize the shakycam aesthetic popularized by The Blair Witch Project. Some of these, in turn, seemed to have drawn inspiration from the same spot in the collective unconscious, using the DIY doc approach to address some of the issues and anxieties we, as a media-driven society, face in this age of cell phone cameras and YouTube.
One of those films was George Romero’s fifth cinematic journey to the zombie-ridden world he created four decades ago, Diary of the Dead.

Diary chronicles the first days and nights of this new age where the dead are no longer content to stay still once they’ve stopped breathing. We view this radical and very sudden change through the eyes (and lenses) of a group of students from “the Pitt,” the University of Pittsburgh, who are in the woods shooting a horror movie entitled The Death of Death.
When the fit hits the shan though, the horror movie becomes all too real.

Now, first off, despite its low budget, I do think Diary is a far more ambitious entry in Romero’s Dead series than his previous Land of the Dead. It’s also arguably more of a horror movie for the YouTube generation than another recent shakycam horror film, Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield.
However, that’s only because Diary is far less subtle in its approach.
That, for me, is one of the biggest problems of Diary: the social commentary is so heavy-handed, these kids make Michael Moore look like the Sultan of Subtle. Of course, to be fair, what we’re supposed to be seeing in Diary is a senior film student’s project, The Death of Death, so maybe the clumsy, elephantine manner in which the points are made is part of Romero’s overall scheme.
But the truth is, this isn’t actually Jason Creed’s The Death of Death that we’re watching, is it? It’s George Romero’s Diary of the Dead.

Now, when I look back at Night of the Living Dead, the social commentary is present, but it isn’t shoved down your throat. There are gut punches, certainly, particularly in the film’s final moments, but these moments aren’t accompanied by a voice-over and stock footage that belabour the point till it feels like Romero is bludgeoning me with his thoughts on why the human race may not deserve to be saved from its own largely self-propelled destruction.
And I haven’t seen either Romero’s Dawn nor Day in a yonk’s age, but I don’t recall them being as blatant and bullish as this.

There’s also the matter of Romero’s swipes at some of the other zombie-come-latelies. Yes, I do realize it is his party, but when he repeatedly makes reference to the speed at which dead things are supposed to move, and whether any dead person will come back to re-animated life or only those that have been bitten beforehand, I just have the distinct urge to yell, Yes, we get it! Now get on with the movie!
There are also the not entirely successful post-modern, self-referential touches, such as when Tony (Land of the Dead’s Shawn Roberts) refers to The Death of Death as a “Stupid f*cking mummy movie,” while their professor, Andrew Maxwell (Scott Wentworth, from TV’s Kung Fu: The Legend Continues), quickly adds, “With an underlying thread of social satire.”
Romero is, of course, referring to his own zombie movies, and though I imagine it was meant to be self-deprecating, it doesn’t quite play like Romero taking the piss out of himself. Instead, it comes off as an arm-waving tactic, drawing attention to this very film, which, if you hadn’t yet figured out, isn’t meant to be just another stupid f*cking zombie movie.

My biggest problem though, the one I feel is the key to why I quickly felt a certain distance from the actions on-screen, is the less than satisfactory performances from the cast.
Sadly, the most obvious culprits in this case are Josh Close (who plays Jason Creed, and is the main documenter of the action) and Michelle Morgan (who plays Jason’s girlfriend, Debra Moynihan). Not only are they the most prominent characters in the group, but since Jason is the driving force behind The Death of Death, he is basically the eye through which we are viewing the film.
And, to put it bluntly, Jason is a d!ck.
Jason’s character is so singularly off-putting and irritatingly fixated, that even when I get his point, I end up not giving a rat’s a$$ because he’s so distinctly unlikeable. And Close—who appeared in The Exorcism of Emily Rose and the straight-to-DVD feature The Plague—does nothing whatsoever to make the character seem sympathetic. (You can’t really admire a guy who holds his self-appointed responsibility as a “shooter” to be more important than actually lending a helping hand to a friend who’s being accosted by a flesh-hungry zombie. This happens more than once, people.)

I get the climactic debate, about chronicling and disseminating the truth, against self-preservation, but Close’s Jason doesn’t seem at all convincing in this pivotal moment (just one of several that he flubs), his words hollow and without any genuine conviction.
Morgan doesn’t help much either, her Debra never really coming across as an actual person. Debra’s occasional professions of love for Jason may just as well be Morgan reading off items on a grocery list.
Or lines from a script.
And tragically, that’s what most of the cast sound like, as if they’re spouting lines that aren’t really theirs to begin with.
I’m honestly not sure how closely Romero stuck to his script, or, if like Cloverfield, there was a fair amount of improv that went on in Diary. Because if there was, then I guess it boils down to the acting talent of the cast.
None of them seem natural, which of course, just draws attention to the fact that this is a fiction, and not a document of an actual occurrence, thus compromising the film’s basic integrity. I mean, if Cloverfield succeeded in making me buy the notion of a giant monster ravaging New York City, then I’d like to think convincing me of a zombie epidemic would be easier, right?
As it is, I can at the very least, look back at Land of the Dead and say, Hey, at least Romero had actors in it.

I wanted to like this, truly I did, and I take no pleasure in the negative vibe this review is oozing. To be honest, I don’t hate Diary; that would be for far less ambitious and lazy films (like, say, Steve Miner’s Day of the Dead redux).
Diary, like all the other Romero Dead films, is saying something. Something important.
I just wish he’d said it in a softer, and more convincing tone.

Parting shot: Reviews of Romero’s Land of the Dead and Miner’s Day of the Dead, can be found in the Archive, along with other recent zombie cinema entries, 28 Weeks Later, Plane Dead, and Boy Eats Girl.
The article “Revelations (Getting at the Truths of Apocalypse Cinema)”—which discusses Zack Synder’s Dawn of the Dead remake and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later—can also be found in the Archive.

(Diary of the Dead OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; images courtesy of fangoria.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (62)
CLOVERFIELD DVD AND THEN SOME...


With Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield laying siege to store shelves on April 22, Paramount is giving you your choice of four U.S. retail exclusives…


Suncoast and FYE offer the DVD in limited steel book collectible packaging, while Best Buy offers a bonus disc (TJ Miller’s Video Diary), for those of you who can’t get enough of Hud.


Meanwhile, Target’s Deluxe Edition will include a music CD (Rob’s Goin’ To Japan Party Mix), the track list of which includes:

OK GO - "Here It Goes Again"
Goldfrapp - "Ooh La La"
Coconut Records - "West Coast"
Scissors for Lefty - "Got Your Moments"
The Vapors - "Turning Japanese"
Parliament - "Give Up the Funk"
Of Montreal - "Wraith Pinned to the Mist"
The Blood Arm - "Do I Have Your Attention?"
Bright Eyes - "Four Winds"

And finally, Kmart and Sears offer a free Cloverfield ringtone with the DVD.
So take your pick and bring Cloverfield’s beastie home. You know you want to…

Parting shot: A review of Cloverfield can be found in the Archive.

(Cloverfield DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com; steel book packaging image and TJ Miller’s Video Diary cover art courtesy of cinemablend.com; Rob’s Goin’ To Japan Party Mix cover art courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)