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

[3 of 13]

JAMIE MARKS IS DEAD

(January 2014)

It's been six years since Carter Smith's debut feature, The Ruins (which wound up on the ¡Qué Horror! 2008 list), and he returns to these parts with another adaptation, Jamie Marks Is Dead, based on Christopher Barzak’s Locus nominated One For Sorrow.

Opening with the discovery of the corpse of the titular Jamie Marks (Noah Silver), it takes a while for the supernatural creeps to fully kick in, and when they do (at around the 20 minute mark), they’re pretty low key and actually have a lot of longing and aching poignancy in the mix.

But this in no way diminishes their unsettling and disturbing potency. (Note that the trailer is a tad misleading, seeming to suggest a fairly typical Hollywood ghost story, when the actual film is most definitely an atypical tale of the restless dead.)

Shot with a wintry melancholy by Darren Lew (his first feature work) and with Penny Dreadful’s John Logan as one of its executive producers, Jamie Marks Is Dead may not even register as “horror” for some, but there’s a gripping sadness here beneath the otherworldly elements that’s rooted in the horrors of existence and memory, of the need to belong and to be wanted, wrenching emotions that, sadly, even the quick are all too familiar with.

(Jamie Marks Is Dead OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

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

[2 of 13]

THE BABADOOK

(January 2014)

Jennifer Kent's feature debut is the exquisitely dark contemporary fable, The Babadook, in which overstressed Amelia (Essie Davis) must single-handedly cope with the handful of holy terror that is her six-year-old son Samuel (Noah Wiseman).

Toss in a disturbing children’s book (designed and illustrated by Alex Juhasz, who won an Emmy for the opening title sequence of United States of Tara) and that bubbling pot of parental anxiety just overflows disastrously.

Those blurbs on the UK quad below? In this day and age of sadly overblown hyperbole (“Best! Movie! Ever!”), they’re very definitely well-earned…

Parting Shot: Another disturbing aspect of The Babadook?

Daniel Henshall, in a small role; seeing the man who played “Australia’s worst serial killer” in ¡Qué Horror! 2012 title, Snowtown appear as a rather nice and decent fellow… very troubling indeed…

Parting Shot 2: Kent’s 2005 short film, “Monster,” can be found on Vimeo here.

It’s pretty much a 9 minute rudimentary blueprint for The Babadook.

My humble suggestion: if you plan to watch The Babadook, do that first, and then, if you’re curious, check out “Monster.”

(The Babadook OS and UK quad courtesy of impawards.com.)

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

[1 of 13]

WENDIGO

(January 2001)

"Wendigo is hungry. Always hungry. Its hunger, never satisfied.”

When I first saw Larry Fessenden’s The Last Winter, I had already been aware of both Habit and Wendigo, but had never had the opportunity to nail either one down for a proper watch.

Having been deeply impressed by The Last Winter (which grabbed itself a ¡Qué Horror! 2008 slot) I subsequently increased my efforts to see both of Fessenden’s earlier films, without much success.

Until now.

Just in time for the upcoming Blu-ray release of “The Larry Fessenden Collection” (more on that later), Wendigo glided right up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, “Hey, look at me! I’m an awesome horror movie!”

And Wendigo was absolutely right.

In a teeny nutshell, Jake Weber and Patricia Clarkson get away from the city with their son (played by Malcolm in the Middle’s Dewey, Erik Per Sullivan), with spectacularly horrible results.

And while that’s all I’ll say as far as what the film is about--at any rate, some of you may be able to glean some of its thematic preoccupations from the title alone--I will go on the record as saying it makes for an excellent companion piece/double bill with The Last Winter, and, if anything, has made me even more antsy to finally see Habit.

Which may become significantly easier, with the upcoming Collection, which will feature Fessenden’s No Telling, Habit, Wendigo, and The Last Winter, all remastered in high-definition. The Collection will be released on October 20, to celebrate 30 years of Glass Eye Pix, Fessenden’s indie production company that has also brought us Jim Mickle’s Stake Land, Ti West’s The House of the Devil, and Adrián García Bogliano’s Late Phases (to name a select ¡Qué Horror! few).

So, yeah. Wendigo.

See it. Or wait for The Larry Fessenden Collection.

I know I will…

(Wendigo DVD cover art courtesy of fandango.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2015 The Preliminaries

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2015

The Preliminaries

This has been, shall we say, an “eventful” year. You can tell if stuff’s happening by the number of posts I make (which of course, reflects the number of excellent, ¡Qué horror! worthy films I’ve managed to see).

Now, while it’s entirely possible that most of the past 12 months’ crop of horror just wasn’t really up to snuff, it’s also equally possible that I didn’t have enough time to go around to sit down and see stuff.

To be fair, maybe it’s a bit of both.

At any rate, here we are, another October, and another ¡Qué horror! 13.

Before we deep dive into the final rundown, let me just say for the record, 12 of the following films came from the Candidate posts, and the 13^th, the TV entry, I wasn’t able to make a separate Candidate entry for, so you’ll just find out what it is at the very tail end of the rundown. (Though if you’re a regular ‘round these parts and have been following the annual ¡Qué horror! rundowns, then it won’t be too hard to guess which TV show takes that slot this year…)

Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this title before we hit the main rundown…

SPRING

(September 2014)

Brought to us by the dynamic duo of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead* (whose Resolution--go ahead! Click! Monsieur Benson was cool enough to leave a comment!--carved out a slot for itself on the ¡Qué horror! 2013 rundown), Spring has some horror elements in it, but is decidedly not a horror film.

Ultimately, it actually plays opposite of how usual entries in the specific horror hybrid genre that it finds itself in unfold. (Yes, I’m actively avoiding spilling the beans here, but if you’ve seen the other one sheet, then you’ll know what kind of horror hybrid it is…)

So, aside from the 13 titles in the main rundown, make it a point to check out Spring, with Martin Kefauver himself, Lou Taylor Pucci!

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system… the 2015 main rundown…

* Additionally, their contribution to V/H/S: Viral (“Bonestorm”) was also one of the few brazenly bright and audacious spots in an otherwise… problematic anthology.
(Nacho Vigalondo's "Parallel Monsters" was awesome too!)

(Spring OS courtesy of twitchfilm.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2015

Candidate #17

LAST SHIFT

(October 2014)

"I am safe in the arms
Of my master, my king,
On the last day, I will follow,

My soul, I will bring…”

Anthony DiBlasi has become something of a regular ¡Qué horror! fixture ever since his excellent adaptation of Clive Barker’s Dread slotted itself neatly into the 2010 final rundown. (His Cassadaga was a 2012 Candidate. Additionally, he also Executive Produced Ryuhei Kitamura’s The Midnight Meat Train adaptation, which settled comfortably into the 2008 final rundown.)

He’s back ‘round these parts with Late Shift, where rookie cop Jessica Loren (Juliana Harkavy) is given her first assignment: be the sole officer on-site at a police station that’s being shut down in favor of a brand new one.

And since we’re here hip-deep in this year’s ¡Qué horror! Candidate rundown, then you know that Jessica’s first shift on the job goes spectacularly awry as only one can in a horror movie…

It’s an interesting take DiBlasi has on the traditional haunted house set-up, where the protagonist spends a portion of the running time wandering the (supposedly) empty halls and rooms of the structure, while the weird goings-on begin to gradually escalate in frequency and intensity.

So, yes, the manner in which Last Shift unfolds will be familiar to the long-time horrorhead, but, there is also a lot to be said for a masterful execution of this kind of horror film, and Last Shift is a chillingly efficient take, with well-timed and disturbingly executed funhouse scare/set pieces strewn about the film’s nearly hour-and-a-half running time.

“Missy, if you can’t handle one night alone in an empty police station, then I think you picked the wrong line of work.”

(Last Shift OS and Blu-ray cover art courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2015

Candidate #16

WENDIGO

(January 2001)

"Wendigo is hungry. Always hungry. Its hunger, never satisfied.”

When I first saw Larry Fessenden’s The Last Winter, I had already been aware of both Habit and Wendigo, but had never had the opportunity to nail either one down for a proper watch.

Having been deeply impressed by The Last Winter (which grabbed itself a ¡Qué Horror! 2008 slot) I subsequently increased my efforts to see both of Fessenden’s earlier films, without much success.

Until now.

Just in time for the upcoming Blu-ray release of “The Larry Fessenden Collection” (more on that later), Wendigo glided right up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, “Hey, look at me! I’m an awesome horror movie!”

And Wendigo was absolutely right.

In a teeny nutshell, Jake Weber and Patricia Clarkson get away from the city with their son (played by Malcolm in the Middle’s Dewey, Erik Per Sullivan), with spectacularly horrible results.

And while that’s all I’ll say as far as what the film is about--at any rate, some of you may be able to glean some of its thematic preoccupations from the title alone--I will go on the record as saying it makes for an excellent companion piece/double bill with The Last Winter, and, if anything, has made me even more antsy to finally see Habit.

Which may become significantly easier, with the upcoming Collection, which will feature Fessenden’s No Telling, Habit, Wendigo, and The Last Winter, all remastered in high-definition. The Collection will be released on October 20, to celebrate 30 years of Glass Eye Pix, Fessenden’s indie production company that has also brought us Jim Mickle’s Stake Land, Ti West’s The House of the Devil, and Adrián García Bogliano’s Late Phases (to name a select ¡Qué horror! few).

So, yeah. Wendigo.

See it. Or wait for The Larry Fessenden Collection.

I know I will…

(Wendigo DVD cover art courtesy of fandango.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2015

Candidate #15

UNFRIENDED

(July 2014)

As with Nacho Vigalondo's Open Windows, Unfriended takes place entirely on a computer screen, this time, belonging to one Blaire Lily (Shelley Hennig, currently on MTV's Teen Wolf).

But while Vigalondo’s effort gets wildly ambitious as it unspools, Unfriended chooses to keep its narrative space controlled, and ultimately, it’s this choice that allows it to keep a tight focus on the horror movie shenanigans that ensue.

Directed by Leo Gabriadze from a script by Nelson Greaves, Unfriended has some heavy producing hitters in the forms of Timur Bekmambetov and Jason Blum.

It’s also an interesting double bill with fellow ¡Qué horror! 2015 candidate, Some Kind of Hate, sharing some of its thematic concerns like the casually cruel emotional violence the youth can so callowly and callously inflict on each other.

(Unfriended Netherlands OS courtesy of impawards.com.)