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

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
(Review)

So I’ve just gotten to see the Coen Brothers’ latest, and I can see what the critics are raving about.
Now, I’ve mentioned ‘round these parts before that I’ve loved the Coens ever since they kicked my a$$ with their debut, Blood Simple. Admittedly, that could be construed by some as an indication that I’d be unfairly predisposed towards anything they’d put out. Let me assure you though, I’ve missed some of their oeuvre (The Hudsucker Proxy and Intolerable Cruelty) and wasn’t terribly fond of The Big Lebowski, so this one might have gone either way.
Their adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel though, proves to be a riveting piece of cinema that is certainly one of 2007’s best.

Josh Brolin is Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam veteran who comes across a bunch of dead bodies, a whole lotta drugs, and a whole lotta cash. Soon, he’s got a stone cold killer named Anton Chigurh (a truly frightening Javier Bardem) on his heels, with Tommy Lee Jones’ Sheriff Ed Tom Bell trying to lend a hand, while reeling at how increasingly strange and bizarre life has become in the year 1980.
Asking the same basic question Scott Smith‘s A Simple Plan posed—what happens when an otherwise good man finds a crapload of dirty money and makes off with it?—the Coens’ adaptation of McCarthy’s novel is, on one level, the tale of the disastrous results one bad choice can engender.
On another level though, it’s about the inevitability of the future, no matter how unsettling and alien it may be, and how one responds to the juggernaut of time: one can either accept it with as much grace as can be mustered to temper the resignation, or one can struggle against it and face the consequences of that decision.
The message isn’t a comforting one, but then again, truth sometimes isn’t.

No Country For Old Men also displays two qualities film aficionados have come to admire in the Coen Brothers’ work: a great script and some great performances.
Jones is fantastic as the laconic and vaguely bewildered lawman faced with the inexplicable violence of this case, but then again, this is Tommy Lee Jones, so that’s hardly a surprise. And as much as Brolin’s performance was an eye-opener, the man who steals the show here is most definitely Bardem.
Whatever else may happen this awards season, Bardem is going down in my books as one of the Scariest Psycho Baddies of 2007: Chigurh’s like the T-1000, but with a really dodgy haircut. Bad news, kiddies.

At the moment, these are some of the nominations No Country For Old Men is up for: at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, it’s up for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, as well as two nods for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role (for Jones and Bardem).
At the Golden Globes, it’s up for Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture (Bardem), and Best Screenplay.
And it’s on 13 of this year’s BAFTA longlists, which will be slimmed down during a second round of voting which closes on January 14; see Afterthoughts (39).
No Country For Old Men also took top prizes at any number of critics’ awards late last year including the Toronto Film Critics Association, D.C. Area Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review, Southeastern Film Critics Association, and the Las Vegas Film Critics Association, with a healthy portion of the Supporting Actor nods going to Bardem.
So, you know, don’t just take my word for it.

It will be recalled that Sam Raimi adapted Smith‘s A Simple Plan for the big screen, and that film is still Raimi’s best. It will also be recalled that Joel Coen worked with Raimi on The Evil Dead, so the fact that they eventually both directed films adapted from novels that ask the same basic question is interesting to note.
Now, as to whether No Country For Old Men is the best Coen Brothers film (as some critics have gone on the record as saying) is still up in the air for me. I honestly need to give that one a think. Blood Simple still holds a special place in my film geek’s heart (and I’m certain it always will), as does Barton Fink and The Man Who Wasn’t There.
So, the Coens’ best? I can’t say at the moment.
I do know this though: it’s a film that manages to find, amidst the blood and violence of an impending and uncertain future, instances of strange, mesmerizing beauty: in the bleak vistas of West Texas; in the stark, brittle sound of boots on the pavement; in the recollection of an old and tired man’s dream.

One of 2007’s best?
As I mentioned way up there in the first paragraph, most definitely.

Parting shot: Also notable in the film’s cast are Trainspotting’s Kelly MacDonald, who brings a sense of unassuming spunk and quiet defiance to her role of Carla Jean, Llewelyn’s wife, and all-too-briefly, Beth Grant (who I first took notice of in Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko) as Carla Jean’s mother, Agnes.

(No Country For Old Men OS courtesy of impawards.com; novel cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

DEAD MEAT
(Review)

Mad cow disease has mutated in the Irish countryside, and now, not only are infected cattle attacking humans, but they’re passing on a virus that turns anyone bitten into a zombie!

Yup, it’s another zombie movie.

Written, edited, and directed by Conor McMahon, Dead Meat is the sort of low-budget horror movie that lives and dies by its gore, the sort of over-the-top, fairly ludicrous school of schlock seen in early Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson. This is the kind of movie where eyeballs are sucked out by hoovers, and shovels and high-heeled shoes become deadly weapons when hurled just so.

Sadly, this is nowhere near as horrific as The Evil Dead, nor as ridiculously entertaining as Dead Alive. Save for some passably effective bits once night falls on our erstwhile heroine Helena (Marian Araujo) and her fellow uninfected, most of Dead Meat just lies there, much as its title suggests, rotting under the merciless gaze of seasoned horror geek eyes and the shadow of far better horror/comedy efforts from the past.
Admittedly, Dead Meat is perhaps a better watch than, say, Dead And Breakfast, but it’s still far from a good way to spend an hour and some twenty minutes.
As ridiculous as the song that plays during the end credits roll is (“Dead Meat,” written, composed, and performed by David Muyllaert, who also plays local gravedigger and male lead Desmond), it does signal an end to the less-than-stellar proceedings, and that’s always a good thing.

(Dead Meat DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

SPIDER-MAN 3
(Review)

Let’s kick off with a scorecard, shall we?
I loved Spider-Man. I thought it was a thematically cohesive film that made good use of the superhero origin cinematic template (where roughly the first half of the film depicts the main character growing into his heroic role, without the primary colour swirl of his trademark costume), allowing us to witness the life of Peter Parker, come to care for him, and thus, make us willing to take the journey of discovery with him.
I did not love Spider-Man 2. Though it arguably had a more human antagonist in Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, I thought the script was overly burdened by plot contrivances and was manipulative of the audience. And the over-dependence on CGI that was nowhere near flawless was a major sticking point as well.
All this was conveniently brought back to me in the wake of the images that accompany the third installment’s opening credits.
And what do I think of Spider-Man 3?
Let’s see…

To put a bullet in the back of the suspense’s head, I actually like it more than Spider-Man 2. But, like the beleaguered Peter Parker, it’s got a lot of problems.
Big problems.
I wish it were as simple as saying, “Well, if they’d just dropped a villain or two here, shaved off a subplot there, then maybe the movie would have been better.”
It isn’t, though. Not really.

The thing is, given what they were attempting to do, the story Sam Raimi set out to tell, I can see the roles each villain had to play.
Let’s take a look at Harry first (or, as the end credits so unimaginatively dub him, the “New Goblin”).
Harry is the most important villain of the piece, I don’t think that’s even in question. He is Parker’s best friend, we’ve watched his character arc over the Spider-Man films as he progressively became the obsessed, revenge-driven son, and perhaps most importantly, he was shown entering the arsenal of his late, deranged father at the end of the second installment, after having discovered that Peter and Spider-Man are one and the same individual.
Everything was set up for a cataclysmic confrontation between these once-best friends.
And, truth to tell, perhaps the most interesting beat in Spider-Man 3 is when Peter (after having almost killed him with one of those Goblin grenades) actually asks a scarred Harry for help to battle Venom and the Sandman in order to rescue Mary Jane. Harry says “No,” Parker leaves, faithful butler Bernard (nicely played by John Paxton, incidentally, father of Aliens’ Bill Paxton) tells Harry what he knows: the elder Osborn caused his own death, thus rendering all of Harry’s hate towards Spider-Man null and void. (True, this smacks of plot contrivance, as Bernard could have spoken up far sooner, thus saving Harry and Peter a whole lot of heartache, but what can you do? It’s not like plot contrivances are anything new to this franchise anyway.) Harry then goes off to help his friends, and proves that the words he spoke early on in a hospital bed were the truth.
Now, as painful as Harry’s death was (really the only moving part of the entire film), the sacrifice is essential since this is all meant to be a lesson for Parker (and his words during the final voice-over say as much).
The funny thing is though, the redemption Harry earns is far more evident and potent than Peter’s. And let’s face it, Peter has a hell of a lot to redeem himself for, not just in Mary Jane’s eyes, but in the audience’s as well.
(It should also be noted, where Harry is concerned, that what at first seems to be a painful soap opera cliché, the convenient bout of memory loss, becomes essential to Harry’s pivotal decision in the third act. Harry needed to know what it was like to “come home,” to live without the burning desire for revenge, for him to truly understand the price he was paying for his Spider-Man vendetta, and so that he would have something to fall back on, once Bernard pulls the rug out from under Harry’s hate for Spidey. That amnesia-induced idyll for Harry was there so that his choice to help Peter—despite the bit with the grenade in the face—would actually have resonance and not seem like some mawkish Hollywood convenience.)

Secondly, Venom.
I know this is asking a lot, but let’s put aside all the problematic plot point baggage that comes with Venom, since it does have a role to play in this erstwhile morality play.
Venom is here to show Peter what can happen if he allows his emotions to rule him, if he allows his aggression to come to the fore and shadow his very soul.
This is all very weighty, so why is it that when Venom does seem to take full hold of Peter, it turns him into a sleazy loser? (A sleazy, dancing, and piano-playing loser, to be precise.)
Why does Venom turn Eddie Brock (the still-reeking of That 70’s Show Topher Grace) into a vicious, snaggle-toothed steroid monstrosity, while turning Parker into a pathetic nimrod who would put John Travolta on a Saturday night in the 70’s to shame? (And Travolta really doesn’t need any more embarrassment in his life.)
I’ve always had a bit of a problem with Raimi’s sometimes ill-placed penchant for humour (most famously in that terrible collision of The Evil Dead and the Three Stooges, Army of Darkness), but in a film that arguably should have been the darkest of the series thus far, given its subject matter, there are moments (and stretches) during its 2 hour and 20 minute running time where the laughs are just so out of place, it’s not merely embarrassing, it’s downright painful.

Thirdly, Sandman.
Giving a run for Doc Ock’s money in the Let’s Humanize the Baddie sweepstakes, Flint Marko (played fairly effectively by Thomas Haden Church) is here to give Peter an opportunity to forgive the nominal reason for his Uncle Ben’s death.
This is essential since a major factor in Peter’s choosing to take on the mantle of Spider-Man was because of his uncle’s death. But there was always that element of revenge and bitter hatred and guilt and self-loathing that came with the package. In finding the grace to forgive Marko (whether he actually meant to pull the trigger or not), Peter thus relieves himself of much of the weight that burdens his soul, and hopefully, allows him to learn from all his tribulations and become a better person, man, and hero.*
This is, I feel, one of the greatest shortcomings of Spider-Man 2, that we don’t really see if Peter has changed. He makes his choice, chooses to be Spider-Man, thus sacrificing his love for Mary Jane, but he still ends up getting the girl, who ditched a well-meaning if boring fiancée at the altar to be there for her arachnid love.
And though asking Mary Jane to dance isn’t really that much better (for all we know, Parker just wants to relive his Dancing Venom days), at least there is an inkling of a man who is trying to atone by Spider-Man 3’s end.

So where does all that really leave us?
With the frustrated knowledge that here was an interesting story actually worth telling, but somehow, it just got garbled and mixed up and resulted in the deeply flawed film that is Spider-Man 3.**
Which is sad, because this was ambitious, and had some genuinely interesting moments (mostly within the Harry subplot).
That said, it also had some truly horrendous moments. Not only did the whole protracted Venom-influenced Parker sequence (particularly the piano-and-dance number) seem like it was hijacked from some other, more frivolous film, but like Spider-Man 2, 3 commits the major sin of introducing us not to characters, but to plot complications.
In 2, it was Mary Jane’s astronaut fiancée; here, it’s Gwen Stacy. Bryce Dallas Howard (excellent in The Village and passably acceptable in Lady in the Water) is severely underutilized here, as the plot complication meant to give Brock more reason to hate Parker, and to be a bone of contention between Mary Jane and Peter.
But do we really know anything about her as a person? Not really. As I said, she really isn’t a person to begin with; she’s a plot complication. And to do that to a character like Gwen Stacy, who carries a lot of weight in the Spider-Man comic book mythos, is another whole can of worms.
All things considered though, she’s probably in a better position than astronaut fiancée guy; all he really got to do was be Mary Jane’s Kissing Slut, before getting dumped by her.

Which, in a roundabout sort of way, leads me to another point: as the films progressed, I came to realize these weren’t exactly characters I had grown to like. I mean, I liked them well enough at the beginning, but as I got to know them better, I realized they weren’t particularly nice people.
What Mary Jane does to her fiancée is terrible enough, but to see no hint of remorse on her part…
And Parker. Oh boy. This is not just a flawed character. This is a sad, confused, messed-up guy who never really seems to learn anything. (Although, to be fair, that last dance could be the start of a more mature Peter. Of course, if that happens, it probably won’t be Tobey Maguire in the role any more; which is quite possibly a good thing, as the apparent actor’s fatigue he displayed in Spider-Man 2 has given way to an erratic and agonizingly uneven performance here.)

I could go on—the iffy performances of some of the cast, the (equally and still) iffy CGI, the epileptic pacing, the reliance on plot contrivance and convenience to fuel the narrative, the stunningly needless and grotesquely indulgent Stan Lee cameo, and on and on—but that would be flogging an already lame horse.
If the Raimi brothers (Sam and co-writer Ivan) had perhaps done one more sweep over the script for another draft, and figured out a better way to inject the levity into the proceedings, then this might have been the best of the Spider-Man series thus far.
As it is (and in the questionable tradition of the X-Men franchise), it’s the monstrously flawed third installment that will nonetheless make a squillion dollars worldwide and get the studio to salivate at the prospect of the next cash cow (sorry, I meant “film”) in line.

* It also prevents him from becoming Batman.

** And certainly not the “silly” one George Lucas said it was.

(Spider-Man 3 OS courtesy of aintitcool.com.)