A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[13 of 13]
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (March 2009)


… Dennis Iliadis’ grimly violent The Last House on the Left—a reworking of Wes Craven’s infamous debut feature— [is] certainly a very adult and ballsy piece that effortlessly leapfrogs over its recent remade ilk and is officially the first 70’s/80’s horror remake that I’m actually satisfied with.

Read the entire review here.

Parting shot: Well, that’s it for this year’s list. Let’s see what the next dozen months have to offer horrorwise, so we can see how those titles will impact 2010’s rundown.
Happy Halloween!

(The Last House on the Left OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[12 of 13]
THE CHILDREN (December 2008)


As if the French weren’t bad enough, the holiday season gets yet another kick in the nuts in Tom Shankland’s shocking The Children.

Read the entire review here.

(The Children UK quad courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[11 of 13]
SPLINTER (October 2008)


Toby Wilkins’ Splinter is a frisky blast of low budget horror that grabs you from the get-go… and introduces us to one of the freakiest cinematic beasties from 2008.

Read the entire review here.

(Splinter OS courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[10 of 13]
DEAD SET (October 2008)


[Dead Set is] a thrilling and gory look at the collision of catastrophe and entertainment, where the idea of reality television as goldfish bowl is taken to its bleakest extreme.

Read the entire review here.

Parting shot: Yes, this initially burst onto the scene as a 5 episode TV series, but, a) there was a feature-length cut subsequently aired, which joined the episodes into one unholy union, and so Dead Set does technically exist as a feature; b) it is available on DVD, so you can watch all 5 episodes consecutively, as if it were a movie; and c) this is a hell of a lot better than many a zombie movie lurching out there in the multiplex wilds.

(Dead Set DVD cover art courtesy of dvdactive.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[9 of 13]
DEADGIRL (September 2008)


[Deadgirl] doesn’t mess about, and rather single-mindedly, goes straight for the gut, and, in a very welcome surprise, also goes for the heart. For anyone who’s survived the psychic minefield of high school, there are some rather familiar feelings on display here, amidst all the blood and gore.

Read the entire review here.

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

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[8 of 13]
VINYAN (August 2008)


Fabrice Du Welz’s Vinyan… [is] another film from the Belgian writer/director that stretches the boundaries of the modern horror film.

Read the entire review here.

(Vinyan French OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[7 of 13]
EDEN LAKE (May 2008)


… Eden Lake is still a particularly brutal bit of horror, which takes place in a world where justice—worldly or cosmic—does not seem to exist, and where the comeuppances happen to those who, arguably, deserve it the least.

Read the entire review here.

(Eden Lake UK quad courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[6 of 13]
THE OBJECTIVE (April 2008)


… The Objective is ultimately about a government’s hunger for power, and how all else falls by the wayside in light of that all-encompassing yearning for the upper hand.

Read the entire review here.

(The Objective OS courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[5 of 13]
SURVEILLANCE (February 2008)


Though this is nominally a thriller, as with most of her father’s work, [Jennifer] Lynch’s Surveillance does what the best horror movies should do, unsettle, disturb its audience.

Read the entire review here.

(Surveillance OS courtesy of impawards.com; design by Jeremy Saunders.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[4 of 13]
LÅT DEN RÄTTE KOMMA IN
(LET THE RIGHT ONE IN) (January 2008)


[Låt den rätte komma in is] quite simply a fascinating and darkly alluring cinematic experience unlike any other.

Read the entire review here.

(OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[3 of 13]
THE BRØKEN (January 2008)


[Director Sean] Ellis succeeds in doing, with a tremendous and confident flourish, what those [other] films so clearly failed to do: present us with an involving, creepy, and ultimately disconcerting narrative that plays on certain common fears.

Read the entire review here.

(The Brøken French OS courtesy of beyondhollywood.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[2 of 13]
[REC] (August 2007) / QUARANTINE (October 2008)



So I’ve finally gotten the opportunity to see Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s [REC]. Lo siento, Senor Balagueró, but as I explained in my Quarantine review, seeing your original has turned out to be a quest for me.
And now that I’ve completed the quest, writing a review for [REC], in light of my Quarantine review, just seemed to be an invitation to, a) repeat myself, or b) have the review be a compare/contrast write-up.
Thus, I’ll just use this opportunity to say this about [REC]: brilliant. It’s great to see Balagueró operating in this chaotic and improvisational first-person POV horror milieu, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t repeat it here, that [REC] kicked off the recent slew of shakycam horror that counts Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield, George Romero’s Diary of the Dead, and of course the Dowdle Brothers’ Quarantine, amongst its ranks.
If you happened to see Quarantine first, then you really must check out [REC].

Thus, we actually get 14 horror movies in this year’s ¡Qué Horror!, and that’s always a good thing… ([REC] and Quarantine share one slot since they’re roughly the same film, but at the same time, are quite different cinematic animals, really.)
In a way, I’m glad I got to see Quarantine first. Yes, it’s a terribly effective horror film (which is why it made the ¡Qué Horror! cut in the first place), but [REC] does manage to hit harder because of the unfamiliar faces in front of the camera, and the ultimate nature behind the infected, which is fundamentally different from that used in Quarantine.
It’s a narrative element that fits very smoothly in the Spanish setting, and manages to induce that much more shuddering during post-viewing contemplation…
If I had seen [REC] first, I suspect that even though I would have still enjoyed Quarantine, there would probably have been a teeny niggling streak of dissatisfaction with the changes, even if those same changes make Quarantine, in turn, fit more smoothly into the post-9/11 American milieu. (See what I mean about the compare/contrast?)

Anyway, I’ll just leave off with this: Now I’m really revved to see [REC] 2!

Oh, and you can read the entire Quarantine review here.

([REC] and Quarantine Spanish OS’s courtesy of impawards.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I’ve Seen in the Past Year
[1 of 13]
À L'INTÉRIEUR (INSIDE) (May 2007)


Make no mistake, À l'intérieur is extreme horror that brings the goods, a brazen bit of Grand Guignol that will find its audience riveted, watching slack-jawed over stretches of running time, as the onscreen atrocities—supervised by Jacques-Olivier Molon—just escalate to terribly ridiculous heights.

Read the entire review here.

(À l'intérieur OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2009
The Preliminaries (2)

Before I get to last Halloween’s rundown, just some random statistics.
While ¡Qué Horror! 2008 had two sequels (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later and Eli Roth’s Hostel: Part II), three film adaptations (The Mist, from Stephen King’s novella; The Ruins, from Scott B. Smith’s novel; The Midnight Meat Train, from Clive Barker’s short story), and one foreign-language film (Juan Antonio Bayona’s El Orfanato), this year’s batch will include two remakes, one film adaptation, three foreign-language titles, and one entry that finds its origins in TV.

Now, for the record, ¡Qué Horror! 2008 looked like this:

The Last Winter (Dir: Larry Fessenden; September 2006)
Joshua (Dir: George Ratliff; January 2007)
The Signal (Dirs: David Bruckner, Jacob Gentry, Dan Bush; January 2007)
Teeth (Dir: Mitchell Lichtenstein; January 2007)
28 Weeks Later (Dir: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo; May 2007)
Bug (Dir: William Friedkin; May 2007)
El Orfanato (The Orphanage) (Dir: Juan Antonio Bayona; May 2007)
Hostel: Part II (Dir: Eli Roth; June 2007)
The Mist (Dir: Frank Darabont; November 2007)
Cloverfield (Dir: Matt Reeves; January 2008)
The Ruins (Dir: Carter Smith; April 2008)
The Strangers (Dir: Bryan Bertino; May 2008)
The Midnight Meat Train (Dir: Ryuhei Kitamura; July 2008)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2009
The Preliminaries (1)

It’s getting to that time of year again, when I have 12 months’ worth of film viewing to look back on so I can compile a rundown of the 13 best horror movies from that time frame.
Given that when I put together ¡Qué Horror! 2008, I had yet to have seen certain key titles from that period, and this past year has proven to be a time to play catch-up as best I could, there’s a bit of an overlap between ¡Qué Horror! 2009 and last year’s batch.
So I decided to tweak the parameters of the list somewhat. Instead of a rundown of the 13 Best, Most Recent Horror Movies, I just chose the 13 best horror movies I’d seen for the first time in the past 12 months, regardless of initial public screening date.* (I did, in fact, manage to finally see a key 1995 vampire title earlier this year, but as you’ll note, it didn’t make the list; wasn’t too enamoured of it…)

Also, another deviation from last year’s ¡Qué Horror! will be its frequency: last year, I posted one entry a day for the last 13 days of October, culminating on Halloween.
Now, you’ll have noted that the Iguana isn’t as active as it was in the heyday of its first two years (long, involved story not really pertinent to this post). As such, I can’t really say I’ll be able to replicate last year’s feat, so I’ve decided to start posting as early as October 1, on an irregular basis. I may even post more than one title on any given day. That should give me enough wiggle room to get through all 13 films before October 31 comes around.
That should also give you time to hunt this year’s baker’s dozen down for a Halloween frightfest marathon, should you so wish it.
(The cut-off viewing date for this year’s batch is September 30, and there are only about 7 hours left of that; any horror film I may see for the first time this October will be eligible for ¡Qué Horror! 2010.)

Now, before I leave you to it, I’d be terribly remiss if I didn’t publicly thank my nephew Jeb, who’s responsible for my having had the opportunity to see eleven of this year’s formidable batch.
Many, many, many thanx, Jeb. This would have been a sad-a$$ ¡Qué Horror! without your invaluable help.

Next, in The Preliminaries (2), I’ll have a rundown of ¡Qué Horror! 2008.

* Which is the date listed with each title.

AFTERTHOUGHTS (105)
WELL, IF IT ISN’T OSCAR 2009


For the record, going into the awards night, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire had 10 nominations spread over 9 categories (it had 2 of its songs going up for Best Original Song), and by the time Wolverine brought the show to a close, it had 8 to its name.
Brilliant!
That’s…


Slumdog Millionaire
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Achievement in Directing (Danny Boyle)
Adapted Screenplay (Simon Beaufoy)
Achievement in Cinematography (Anthony Dod Mantle)
Achievement in Film Editing (Chris Dickens)
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures [Original Score] (A.R. Rahman)
Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures [Original Song] (“Jai Ho,” Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Gulzar)
Achievement in Sound Mixing (Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Resul Pookutty)


And in the one foregone conclusion of the night, Heath Ledger was awarded a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his hypnotic work in The Dark Knight.

In some of the other performance categories, Kate Winslet took home the Best Actress award for Stephen Daldry’s The Reader (it should be noted that Daldry also directed Nicole Kidman to her Oscar for The Hours), while Sean Penn was honoured with Best Actor for his work on Gus Van Sant’s Milk (Van Sant also steered Robin Williams to an Oscar as well).*
Dustin Lance Black’s Original Screenplay award for Milk should also be noted at this point.


On the awards night itself, it certainly had a different feel to it, with its own fair share of priceless Oscar Moments (Boyle’s Tigger bit; Kate Winslet’s da’s whistle).
So, congratulations, not just to everyone involved with Slumdog Millionaire, but also to Hugh Jackman (The Reader bit in the opening musical number was hilarious), Bill Condon, and Michael Giacchino. Good on all of you! (And to Winslet, for giving Peter Jackson that shout-out in her speech.)

* I recommend both Milk and The Reader, making a point to see the latter also doubling as a very nice cinematic way of bidding adieu to Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella.
Additionally, reviews of Slumdog Millionaire and The Dark Knight can be found in the Archive.

Parting shot: Though I’m an avowed David Fincher fan (who’s still greatly miffed about the past Oscar shut-out of Zodiac), I’ve still to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, thus, my non-mention of its specific wins above. (How do I know if I’m happy about the wins if I haven’t seen the movie yet?)

Parting shot 2: It was neat seeing Janusz Kaminski (and his Oscars) in the Pineapple Express comedy short, even if the short itself was pretty uneven.

Parting shot 3: I just have to wonder why the “live” broadcast over ABS-CBN 2 was edited, leaving out (among other things) all 3 shorts categories and the end credits…

(Images courtesy of AMPAS and latimes.com [Oscar statue, photo by Albert Watson], impawards.com [Slumdog Millionaire OS], time.com [the Joker image from The Dark Knight], and ew.com [Oscar night images].)