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

[11 of 13]

13 SINS

(March 2014) 

"... Great wealth is within your grasp. 36 hours from now, you can be a very rich man. All you have to do is complete 13 challenges.”

The last time Daniel Stamm was hanging ‘round these parts was for the ¡Qué horror! 2011 candidate, The Last Exorcism.

This time out, he barges into the Final 13 by helming the English language remake of Chukiat Sakveerakul’s 13 Game Sayawng, where a grotesque game show gradually turns its contestants into savage cutthroats, all for that next bit of green.

“I will dance with the Golden Toad.”

Not only is the action relocated to New Orleans, but the stakes are amped up considerably for the film’s protagonist, Elliot Brindle (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’s Mark Webber): he’s got a pregnant soon-to-be wife (True Blood’s Rutina Wesley) and mentally disabled brother (Devon Graye, who played teen-aged Dexter Morgan) who are depending on him.

And while there are certain elements from the original which have been excised (thankfully, the awkward tonal shifts and, less so, the active female supporting role), there are also welcome additions: among them, a deeper glimpse into the game’s backstory, and some familiar genre faces (Ron Perlman and Pruitt Taylor Vince).

Plus, George Coe (who currently voices Woodhouse on Archer) doing the “Game Voice.”

“So says the Golden Toad: ‘A brave arm makes a short sword long.’”

The changes from the original (which include the specifics of most of the game’s challenges) serve to tighten the narrative’s plot and thematics, and also serve to foreground the dark empowerment and paranoia that engulfs Elliot as he gets further along in the game.

Ultimately, 13 Sins is not only a more refined and polished version of 13 Game Sayawng, it’s also a harder-hitting and more emotionally potent piece.

“Try to think of this in the most positive, empowering way as a gun pointed to your head.”

Parting Shot: This could actually make an interesting double feature with Cheap Thrills...

(13 Sins OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

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

[2 of 13]

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE

(January 2013) 

After having given us Mulberry Street and Stake Land, the dynamic duo of Nick Damici and Jim Mickle--as co-writers, with Mickle in the directorial chair--take on an English-language remake of Jorge Michel Grau’s Somos Lo Que Hay. 
Now, while I was not as enamored of Somos Lo Que Hay as others, I was floored by Mickle and Damici’s take on the material, producing what is, undoubtedly, the best film they’ve crafted thus far.
To call it a remake would quite possibly be misleading though, as it does a whole lot more than simply transplant the narrative from Mexico to the Catskills, but rather, it essentially just takes the core idea (a family of cannibals trying to exist in contemporary society) and then deviates significantly from the original.

Mickle and Damici’s We Are What We Are is an excellently measured piece that takes a look at the collision of religion, tradition, and the always complex and complicated bonds of family, as triggered by the devastating effects of a torrential storm.

It’s a tortured family drama dressed up in one of Buffalo Bill’s cast-off “suits”; there’s the inherent and underlying gruesomeness of the idea that wraps around it, but what really matters is what’s beneath it--the troubled, beating heart of family.

There’s an excellent cast here, which includes Michael Parks, Bill Sage, Wyatt Russell (son of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn) and Stake Land alumna Kelly McGillis, with a brief appearance by Larry Fessenden (yay!).

The central performances that need to be highlighted though, are those by Martha Marcy May Marlene’s Julia Garner and Ambyr Childers, who bring a haunted, wan translucency to the Parker girls, poor unfortunates burdened with the responsibilities of tradition that they may not want in the first place.

 “It’s a family drama with horrific backdrop. But I don’t think of it as a horror movie, and I hate that we have to classify things or put things in specific genres in order for it to be seen as something. So for marketing purposes, I hope people see it as a horror film and then when they see it go, ‘That wasn’t really a horror movie.’”

--Jim Mickle

Parting Shot: What’s interesting in the wake of We Are What We Are are the discussions for a prequel and a sequel, the latter to be handled by Jorge Michel Grau.

Now that sounds, errr… yummy…

(We Are What We Are OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2014

Candidate #5

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE

(January 2013) 

After having given us Mulberry Street and Stake Land, the dynamic duo of Nick Damici and Jim Mickle--as co-writers, with Mickle in the directorial chair--take on an English-language remake of Jorge Michel Grau’s Somos Lo Que Hay. 
Now, while I was not as enamored of Somos Lo Que Hay as others, I was floored by Mickle and Damici’s take on the material, producing what is, undoubtedly, the best film they’ve crafted thus far.
To call it a remake would quite possibly be misleading though, as it does a whole lot more than simply transplant the narrative from Mexico to the Catskills, but rather, it essentially just takes the core idea (a family of cannibals trying to exist in contemporary society) and then deviates significantly from the original.

Mickle and Damici’s We Are What We Are is an excellently measured piece that takes a look at the collision of religion, tradition, and the always complex and complicated bonds of family, as triggered by the devastating effects of a torrential storm.

It’s a tortured family drama dressed up in one of Buffalo Bill’s cast-off “suits”; there’s the inherent and underlying gruesomeness of the idea that wraps around it, but what really matters is what’s beneath it--the troubled, beating heart of family.

There’s an excellent cast here, which includes Michael Parks, Bill Sage, Wyatt Russell (son of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn) and Stake Land alumna Kelly McGillis, with a brief appearance by Larry Fessenden (yay!).

The central performances that need to be highlighted though, are those by Martha Marcy May Marlene’s Julia Garner and Ambyr Childers, who bring a haunted, wan translucency to the Parker girls, poor unfortunates burdened with the responsibilities of tradition that they may not want in the first place.

 “It’s a family drama with horrific backdrop. But I don’t think of it as a horror movie, and I hate that we have to classify things or put things in specific genres in order for it to be seen as something. So for marketing purposes, I hope people see it as a horror film and then when they see it go, ‘That wasn’t really a horror movie.’”

--Jim Mickle

Parting Shot: What’s interesting in the wake of We Are What We Are are the discussions for a prequel and a sequel, the latter to be handled by Jorge Michel Grau.

Now that sounds, errr… yummy…

(We Are What We Are OS courtesy of 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.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2011
Candidate # 15

LET ME IN
(September 2010)


Like Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, this is arguably a remake that didn’t need to be made. But, again like Snyder’s redux, this is a particularly well-made film that (now that it exists) deserves to be placed alongside the original.
The original, of course, is Tomas Alfredson’s Låt den Rätte Komma In (Let the Right One In), and to be completely fair, Matt Reeves’ Let Me In is, according to the end credits, based on both John Ajvide Lindqvist’s screenplay and his novel, upon which the Swedish film was based.
Certainly, Reeves’ effort boasts an impressive (though at the same time, recognizable) cast, which has veterans Richard Jenkins and Elias Koteas, as well as two of the best young actors out there right now, The Road’s Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Hit Girl herself, Chloë Grace Moretz. There’s also Michael Giacchino on the score.

And while there are a few bits where the CGI doesn’t quite cut it, there are also a few bits that paint Let Me In in darker shades than its predecessor.
It should also be noted that this is the first film brought to us by the newly reconstituted Hammer Films (after the web serial Beyond the Rave), and if they sustain this level of quality for their subsequent feature productions, then that’s certainly good news for horror cinema.
When all is said and done though, I do admit to missing two things in this English-language remake: the first, a key shot, entirely absent here; and the second, the Morrissey reference in the title.
Oh, well.
Can’t win ‘em all…


Parting shot: Reviews of Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield and Tomas Alfredson’s Låt den Rätte Komma In (both past ¡Qué Horror! titles) can be found lurking in the Archive.

(Let Me In OS’ courtesy of slashfilm.com & aintitcool.com [Fantastic Fest OS].)

THE LAST HOUSE
ON THE LEFT
(Review)


Ever since Michael Bay’s brazen culpability in the decision to redo Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre—officially kicking off the 70’s/80’s horror remake wave we’re still in the clammy grip of—I’ve been waiting for that particular remake that would actually stand on its own as a valid piece of modern horror cinema.
I look at Tom Savini’s remake of Night of the Living Dead, or Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead redux; we didn’t particularly need them, but they were excellent updates of their originals nonetheless.
I’ve also yet to see this generation’s The Thing or The Fly, remakes that actually transcend not just the original source material, but also the boundaries of genre cinema as well.
And while Dennis Iliadis’ grimly violent The Last House on the Left—a reworking of Wes Craven’s infamous debut feature—may or may not be in that esteemed league,* it’s 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.


As with the original, Iliadis’ Last House follows the ordeal of a family who gets the chance to turn the tables on a bunch of criminals who have just perpetrated a heinous act on one of its own.
Iliadis takes a script by Adam Alleca and Carl Ellsworth (who wrote Disturbia, and previously worked with Craven on the script for Red Eye), and with a pretty solid cast, crafts a tense and disturbing portrait of the strength of filial bonds and the universality of violence.
It’s brutal, this, and Iliadis gets some excellent performances from the likes of young actors Spencer Treat Clark (Bruce Willis’ son in Unbreakable, all lookee-he’s-growed-up-now!) and Sara Paxton (Aquamarine’s mermaid, and soon to be seen on TV’s The Beautiful Life), and more seasoned thespians like Monica Potter, Tony Goldwyn (who I still think of as either Tarzan, or the bad dude in Ghost), and Garret Dillahunt, who stole most of the best bits in the second and final season of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, playing the ultimate role-playing geek living in his mother’s basement, the awesome John Henry.
With Dillahunt and Goldwyn as the heads of their respective families, Last House presents an unflinching depiction of how far ordinary people are willing to go to avenge a loved one.


This one’s intense, and yes, I’ll say it again—brutal, with some great work by KNB EFX, including a gloriously gory kitchen appliance-assisted Grand Guignol bit. (True, it’s a scene that, arguably, may have been unnecessary, but it’s still a shocking bit of grue!)
Hands down, this wipes the floor with the collective a$$es of all those other recent horror remakes, including those of Craven’s Hills Have Eyes films.
By pairing the onscreen violence with performances that manage to delineate personalities that elicit our sympathies (or our antagonism), Last House quickly proves to be much more than a misguided exercise in reheating cinematic leftovers in the hopes of cashing in on a recognizable brand name.
No, this is a grand, catered affair, whose dishes rework the classic recipe into something very contemporary, and yet, ultimately timeless.
So come on in, if you’ve the stomach for it. Just bring lots of napkins to sop up the mess.
Lots and lots of napkins…


* It would be difficult for me to judge whether Iliadis’ take transcends Craven’s version, as I’ve yet to have the opportunity to see the original…

Parting shot: Aside from Iliadis’ Last House, the only other recent ‘70’s horror remake I actually like is John Moore’s The Omen.
I do still have a bunch of issues with it (and yeah, that was another remake we really didn’t need to begin with), but it does have some great cinematography, courtesy of Jonathan Sela.


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

QUARANTINE
(Review)


Being the Jaume Balaguero slut that I am, I really tried my darnedest to see [REC] when it was first unleashed, but that just didn’t happen. Then, I told myself that I’d see [REC] first before I would ever be unfaithful and lay eyes on its English-language remake, Quarantine.
Yeah.
That didn’t happen either.
And finally, it came about that I simply couldn’t keep putting off Quarantine in favour of its progenitor any longer, so, here I am, with my thoughts on Quarantine.


This very nearly breathless exercise in first-person, handheld POV horror sees Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott Percival (The Practice’s Steve Harris) doing a piece for The Night Shift, where Angela gets to live her dream for a night—being a fireman.
Well, actually just shadowing a crew of firefighters, first in the station, during their downtime, and later on, when they’re called in for what turns out to be a medical emergency with horrifying ramifications, gradually turning her dream, yes, you guessed it, into a nightmare…


Under the very able and deft direction of John Erick Dowdle (assisted by his brother Drew, who’ve made the example of the Coen brothers their own career template), the palpable tension of a collection of people trapped in a building under very intense conditions is only too evident, as events spiral out of control and hysteria steadily escalates into maddening terror.
And while this is a piece of ensemble horror, credit needs to go to Carpenter, who should be familiar to you from Scott Derrickson’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose, as well as Showtime’s Dexter. As Angela, she’s practically onscreen for the entire length of the film, and is the audience’s “in” to the chiller’s narrative, the gamut of emotions she runs—excitement to anger to indignation to anxiety to balls-out shivering hysteria—mirrors our own, as things rapidly go from bad to oh-so-very-frakking-worse.


Though this doesn’t have the Cloverfield advantage of a cast of relative unknowns (thus heightening the suspension of disbelief), we do get Johnathon Schaech as the 70’s porn-mustachioed fireman Fletch.
And that’s a pretty fair trade-off, I think.
It’s also a credit to everyone involved with Quarantine (including DP Ken Sang and editor Elliot Greenberg, for making the cinematic sleights of hand invisible) that the film’s scares outshine that mustache, ‘cause it truly is a scarifying one, people.
There’s also a very neat Doug Jones appearance in here; trust me, you’ll know Dougie when you see him…


It’s interesting to note that the Dowdles co-wrote the Quarantine script working off [REC]’s Spanish script, since the adaptation began while [REC] was still being completed.
It was in the same week that they completed and presented their Quarantine script that they first saw [REC], and though it did then inform the subsequent development and shooting of Quarantine, this didn’t tread the usual path most remakes take.
And now that Quarantine has proven to be a very effective film in its own right*, it only makes me even more eager, to see both the original [REC], and its impending sequel, [REC] 2, which is said to give the material an Aliens spin, as camera-mounted military types enter the picture to clean up the bloody mess.
Woo-hoo! Fun times!!


* It’s a testament to the achievements of the Dowdle brothers—whose tag-team work on The Poughkeepsie Tapes got them the Quarantine gig—that they were handpicked by M. Night Shyamalan to kick off the “Night Chronicles” with Devil.
The Night Chronicles will encompass three horror films that will find their genesis in original stories by Shyamalan, to be scripted and directed by individuals chosen by him as well.
Devil is to be scripted by Brian Nelson, who’s worked with director David Slade twice, helping to adapt 30 Days of Night for the big screen, and before that, on Hard Candy.


Parting shot: Incidentally, Quarantine—and of course, [REC]—plays like an early Cronenberg mash-up, taking the setting, an apartment building, from one of his films which I haven’t seen (Shivers), and releasing the threat from one of his films which I have seen, and which is reviewed here at the Iguana.
Other films’ reviews accessible in the Archive are shakycam POV horror titles that followed in [REC]’s wake, Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield and George Romero’s Diary of the Dead; Jaume Balaguero’s features Los sin nombre, Darkness, and Frágiles; as well as films featuring Jones (Guillermo del Toro’s El laberinto del fauno and Hellboy II: The Golden Army) and Schaech (Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation).
Schaech’s work on cable TV’s Masters of Horror is also tackled in the Archive.

(Quarantine Spanish OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

MIRRORS
(Review)

In my review of Kim Sung-ho’s Geoul Sokeuro (Into The Mirror)—upon which Mirrors is based—I make note of a quote from director Alexandre Aja where he states that he “…decided to start from scratch and not connect with the original Korean movie.”
Well, he does take some of Geoul Sokeuro’s principal elements—the troubled cop forced to moonlight as a security guard; the department store ravaged by a fire; the sinister, eponymous mirrors—as well as the original’s final climactic kick, and basically streamlines the narrative, pruning the varied facets Kim stuffed into his film.
What we then get is a “reimagining” that recalls Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (which Aja freely admits is his “favorite movie ever”), dotted by some rater-R gore, and shadowed by fleeting echoes of John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist, and Hideo Nakata’s water fixation.


I think my biggest problem with Mirrors is that it has no genuine sense of tension in its narrative, unlike Aja’s audacious—and so very aptly titled—Haute Tension. Even Aja’s follow-up, his remake of The Hills Have Eyes, already not as piano wire-taut as Haute Tension, still ended up playing better than Mirrors.
The unfolding of the film’s central mystery—which of course lurks in the darkness of the department store’s history—isn’t handled very well either, clumsily relayed to us via expository flashbacks and some phone calls by Kiefer Sutherland (who plays Mirrors’ lead, cop-turned-security guard Ben Carson) to his hapless infob!tch (more on that later).
And the decision to more properly pin down the true nature of the film’s mirror-centred phenomena doesn’t really do it any favours either; the original’s eclectic mix of narrative elements was certainly a lot more interesting than Aja’s simplified approach.


There’s also a whole lot of underutilization going on here as Amy Smart (who I’ve had a soft spot for ever since Felicity) is given the brief and thankless job of being Ben’s patient, younger, bartending sister Angela, before being brutally dispatched in the film’s “jaw-dropping” gore highlight brought to us by the most excellent N & B of KNB EFX, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger.
Then there’s Guy Ritchie cohort Jason Flemyng, who’s given the brief and thankless job of being Larry Byrne, Ben’s cop friend and seemingly always available infob!tch, just a phone call away. (I haven’t actually checked, but it’s entirely possible that Flemyng spends as much screen time as a voice over a cell phone, as he does in the flesh.)
The film also doesn’t do very much with Mary Beth Peil (Grams, from Dawson’s Creek), who plays a pivotal role in the proceedings.


There are a few nice touches, mind; some subtle creeps—the handprint and doorknob bits are effective—and the aforementioned gory sequence involving Smart, being the ones that most readily come to mind.
Those bright spots however, are vastly outnumbered by scenes of a flashlight-wielding Sutherland walking about the husk of the fire-gutted department store or talking to Flemyng over his cell, which all then leads up to a disappointing WWE climax as Ben goes toe-to-toe with the film’s big bad.


I really wanted to like this one, wanted it to be the Aja film that would hands-down kick my a$.
But it isn’t, and now I’ll have to wait for Aja’s Piranha remake (in 3D, no less!), which I sincerely hope will be bucketloads of thrilling, popcorn horror fun.
Note though, Monsieur Aja, that I loved the Joe Dante original (which still swims about in the murky, nostalgia-laced deeps of my horror geek brain), so expectations will be high.
Oh, and one more thing: let’s have another original soon, eh?


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

(Mirrors French OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)