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

DON'T BREATHE

(March 2016)

"There's nothing a man cannot do once he accepts the fact that there is no God.”

After teaming up with Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures on the Evil Dead remake, Fede Alvarez again works under Raimi’s auspices on the taut and twisted little motherf*cker known as Don’t Breathe.

Written by Alvarez and his Evil Dead co-writer Rodo Sayagues, and co-opting both the star (Jane Levy) and composer (Roque Baños) of same, Don’t Breathe is the vicious tale of three young thieves who pick the wroooong house to break into.

Alvarez displays masterful control of tension and space/setting here, taking along familiar genre faces like Dylan Minnette and Stephen Lang along for the ride.

(Don’t Breathe OS’ courtesy of twitter.com & impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017

Candidate #1

DON'T BREATHE

(March 2016)

"There's nothing a man cannot do once he accepts the fact that there is no God.”

After teaming up with Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures on the Evil Dead remake, Fede Alvarez again works under Raimi’s auspices on the taut and twisted little motherf*cker known as Don’t Breathe.

Written by Alvarez and his Evil Dead co-writer Rodo Sayagues, and co-opting both the star (Jane Levy) and composer (Roque Baños) of same, Don’t Breathe is the vicious tale of three young thieves who pick the wroooong house to break into.

Alvarez displays masterful control of tension and space/setting here, taking along familiar genre faces like Dylan Minnette and Stephen Lang along for the ride.

(Don’t Breathe OS’ courtesy of twitter.com & impawards.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2013 Candidate # 13

¡Qué horror! 2013

Candidate # 13

EVIL DEAD

(March 2013)

So, here we are.

For the record, I loved Sam Raimi’s original, then was kind of, sort of let down that the sequel was basically a remake of the first film on a bigger budget (just as Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado was), and was even less thrilled by the Deadites meet The Three Stooges vibe of Army of Darkness.

And where does Fede Alvarez’s remake stand in all of this?

Well, it’s got a ¡Qué horror! candidate slot this year, so that should tell you something.

Is it the original though?

Most certainly not (and I never expected it to be).

I watched the original pretty much cold; all I knew going in--courtesy of a friend who’d seen it while on vacation in the States--was that a (spoiler!) girl gets raped by some trees.

I watched the original, alone, past midnight, on video.

And, well, here we are…

I’m no longer the same kid who watched Raimi’s original all those years ago.

I’m that kid, three decades or so worth of horror movies later, so this experience in no way replicates that one.

What we find in Alvarez’s remake though, is an astounding level of goreletting I don’t think I’ve seen in recent years outside of what I’ve come to think of as the French School of Bizarro Horror.

This is intense, insane, cringe- and shudder-worthy stuff.

You have officially been warned.

So if you want to get your gorehound on, look no further than this definite article-less remake. (Watch out for the audio callbacks to the original, as well as a bit of post-credits fun.)

Like the man says, “Groovy.”

(Evil Dead OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

DØD SNØ
(DEAD SNOW)
(Review)


Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola kicks off Død snø (Dead Snow) to Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” and this rousing (yet vaguely sinister) tune ushers us—without much ado—into this fun Nazi zombie romp.
Yes, you read that right.
Nazi zombie.
How cool is that?!


A bunch of med students are off in the snow-capped mountains for Easter vacation, and, well, they run into those pesky Nazi zombies, and much screaming, and bloodshed, and running around (yes, these are post-28 Days Later deadheads) ensue.
Now, despite that smirk-guaranteed premise (Nazi. Zombie.), Død snø isn’t a horror-comedy on the order of Shaun of the Dead, but rather a horror film that straddles two sub-genres (the zombie romp and the isolated-cabin-in-the-wilderness thriller), with some comedic touches thrown in for good measure.
Think a more sedate version of a latter day Evil Dead installment, when the humour was quickly encroaching on the material. To be clear, there aren’t any Three Stooges or dismembered-hand-giving-the-hero-the-finger moments in Død snø (I did say “more sedate”). But there are some laughs and over-the-top insanity amidst the shouty, gory bits.


In point of fact, early on in Død snø, the horror film milieu is acknowledged, with Evil Dead actually mentioned, a cheeky swipe all in line with Død snø’s sense of fun within a horror movie context; it’s also a sentiment I happen to agree with, a feeling that’s been with me ever since I was vaguely disappointed after seeing Evil Dead 2 for the first time.
Of course, what Evil Dead 2 and Død snø share is that both are rather fun experiences at the cinema. That common trait notwithstanding, Død snø does have its shortcomings, among them, the vaguely insubstantial back story to the wild goings-on. (And yes, Evil Dead did have a very basic back story as well, but somehow, the rest of the audacious proceedings more than made up for its rather elementary nature.)


Still, Død snø does have its moments, and has piqued my interest, not just in a proposed sequel (here’s hoping Wirkola hits it spot on a second time out), but also the reported Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, in which we find the titular siblings all grown up and having turned their childhood trauma into their livelihood. (In this case, I’m hoping Wirkola can get right what Terry Gilliam fumbled in The Brothers Grimm.)


(Død snø OS courtesy of twitchfilm.net; images courtesy of twitchfilm.net, empireonline.com, & shocktillyoudrop.com; Dead Snow OS courtesy of rushprint.no.)