A Rundown of the 13 (plus) Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year
[8 of 13]

The Serial Killer Thriller Runners-Up

DAS LETZTE SCHWEIGEN
(THE SILENCE)
(July 2010)



Twenty-three years ago, an 11-year old girl was raped and murdered, and when another 11-year-old disappears, the tragic event not only impacts on the girl’s parents, but also those personally and intimately involved with the original crime.
As the UK quad below points out, if you’ve seen AMC’s The Killing, you’ll find echoes of that show here, though one must keep in mind that,
A) Das letzte Schweigen was made before The Killing premiered on AMC, and
B) Forbrydelsen, the original show upon which AMC based The Killing, was made before Das letzte Schweigen, and
C) Forbrydelsen and Das Schweigen, the novel by Jan Costin Wagner that Das letzte Schweigen was adapted from, were both released in the same year, 2007.


Just so you know.

AKMAREUL BOATDA
(I SAW THE DEVIL)
(August 2010)

Kim Ji-woon’s one of my favorite Korean directors, alongside Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook, and his Akmareul Boatda is brutal.

Here, frequent Kim collaborator Lee Byung-hun goes all bloodthirsty vigilante on a serial killer (Choi Min-sik, who starred previously in Kim’s Choyonghan Kajok, though is probably best known for his role in Park’s Oldboy), in a film that mashes up the revenge fantasy and the serial killer thriller quite ably.

And like I said, brutally. Be forewarned…

* If you’re also into Kim, you should check out the anthology film, Inryu Myeongmang Bogoseo (Doomsday Book), if only for his contribution, Chunsangui Pijomul (“Heavenly Creature”), where a robot apparently achieves enlightenment.

TSUMETAI NETTAIGYO
(COLD FISH)
(September 2010)
Loosely based on actual Japanese serial killer cases, Sion Sono’s Tsumetai Nettaigyo is an excellent and sordid piece that chronicles the manner in which an unassuming tropical fish store owner is dragged towards dark and violent depths due to a chance encounter with a rival pet store owner.




A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE
(September 2010)


In the same manner that Gareth Edwards’ Monsters was essentially an indie character piece with alien monsters running all about the place, Adam Wingard’s A Horrible Way To Die is an indie character piece with a serial killer as one of its characters.
The pacing, the narrative structure, the entire general approach to the material is very tellingly from this particular branch of the vast and sprawling cinematic tree, so whether or not you enjoy this film will probably be dictated by where indie character pieces fall on your personal movie tastes barometer.
You’ll either like and applaud the efforts of Wingard and writer Simon Barrett in applying that template onto genre material, or you won’t.

If you do like it, though, you’ll also find some nice performances by Amy Seimetz as a woman recovering from both alcohol and a very bad relationship, Joe Swanberg as a fellow AAer who shows an interest in Seimetz’s Sarah, and the ever-reliable AJ Bowen, who’s continued to impress since I first caught sight of him in past ¡Qué Horror! title, The Signal. Here, he plays Garrick Turrell, the aforementioned serial killer who has “several fan sites on the Internet dedicated to him, and a Facebook fan page with membership in the hundreds of thousands.”

Though I was never really that bowled over by Barrett’s past work on scripts for Dead Birds or Red Sands, I do appreciate what he’s done here, and heartily look forward to his subsequent collaborations with Wingard, which includes the very buzz-y festival darling, You’re Next, which plays an interesting variation on the home invasion template. (The other collaborations are shorts for the anthologies The ABCs of Death and V/H/S.)

(Das letzte Schweigen OS, The Silence UK quad, Tsumetai Nettaigyo OS, A Horrible Way To Die OS courtesy of impawards.com; Cold Fish UK quad courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; I Saw the Devil OS courtesy of phantomcitycreative.com; A Horrible Way To Die DVD cover art courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2012

Candidate # 29

V/H/S

(January 2012)

Brought to us by a crowd of familiar genre names (most of whom are also quite at home on the ¡Qué Horror! front) and tied together by a concept from Bloody Disgusting’s Brad Miska, V/H/S takes on two standard horror sub-genres, one (found footage) currently more popular in the mainstream than the other (horror anthology), and does both of them exceedingly proud.

Surrounded by the preponderance of mediocre and derivative found footage titles in this day and age, V/H/S crashes the party and kicks all of the bland and terribly unimaginative pretenders in the ‘nads, planting a decisive flag to prove that the form isn’t just a way for Hollywood to make a quick profit from a low production cost, but can also take the audience to some really strange and interesting places. (Even when you may guess where the story’s headed--which happened to me a number of times--the end result is still worth seeing and still holds some startling moments.)

The segments are, to wit:

“Tape 56,” directed by Adam Wingard and written by Simon Barrett, who brought us fellow ¡Qué Horror! 2012 candidate, A Horrible Way To Die, and who also both appear in the fragmented segment which acts as the connective tissue of the anthology;

“Amateur Night,” helmed by one-third of The Signal directing team, David Bruckner, and written by Bruckner and Nicholas Tecosky;

“Second Honeymoon,” written and directed by Ti West, who brought us past ¡Qué Horror! title, The House of the Devil, as well as current contender The Innkeepers (which I’ve already seen but have yet to write about here at the Iguana). This one stars Joe Swanberg, from A Horrible Way To Die, who also directs another V/H/S segment (see below);

“Tuesday the 17^th,” written and directed by Glenn McQuaid, who brought us I Sell the Dead, a previous effort I must confess, I wasn’t too overly fond of;

“The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger,” directed by Joe Swanberg and written by Simon Barrett;

and “10/31/98,” written and directed by the Radio Silence collective of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, and Chad Villella, who also appear in the segment.

Truly exceptional work from all concerned, and I, for one, am excited to see what all these gentlemen have up their sleeves next…

(V/H/S OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2012
Candidate # 1

A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE
(September 2010)


In the same manner that Gareth Edwards’ Monsters was essentially an indie character piece with alien monsters running all about the place, Adam Wingard’s A Horrible Way To Die is an indie character piece with a serial killer as one of its characters.
The pacing, the narrative structure, the entire general approach to the material is very tellingly from this particular branch of the vast and sprawling cinematic tree, so whether or not you enjoy this film will probably be dictated by where indie character pieces fall on your personal movie tastes barometer.
You’ll either like and applaud the efforts of Wingard and writer Simon Barrett in applying that template onto genre material, or you won’t.
If you do like it, though, you’ll also find some nice performances by Amy Seimetz as a woman recovering from both alcohol and a very bad relationship, Joe Swanberg as a fellow AAer who shows an interest in Seimetz’s Sarah, and the ever-reliable AJ Bowen, who’s continued to impress since I first caught sight of him in past ¡Qué Horror! title, The Signal. Here, he plays Garrick Turrell, the aforementioned serial killer who has “several fan sites on the Internet dedicated to him, and a Facebook fan page with membership in the hundreds of thousands.”

Though I was never really that bowled over by Barrett’s past work on scripts for Dead Birds or Red Sands, I do appreciate what he’s done here, and heartily look forward to his subsequent collaborations with Wingard, which includes the very buzz-y festival darling, You’re Next, which plays an interesting variation on the home invasion template. (The other collaborations are shorts for the anthologies The ABCs of Death and V/H/S, which is debuting at Sundance 2012.)


(A Horrible Way To Die OS courtesy of impawards.com; DVD cover art courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)