Thursday, January 15, 2009

The Golden Trousers Horror Films Of '08

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Tis the time to look back at the Best Spooky Flicks of 2008. Mwah-ah-ah! Wrap yourself in a velvet cape and affect your best Vincent Price voice, y'all. As with every year 2008 was hit or miss - horror's such a difficult genre to be in love with sometimes - but there were some real humdingers that made their way onto screens this year, which I will gladly make love to now for all of you to watch.

Just... there will only be six of us, myself included, in this Horror Movie Orgy. It's a Top 5, that is. I have five runners-up but I have myriad issues with 6-10 so I'm not bothering ranking them specifically, but here they be:

Runners Up: Otto, or Up With Dead People;
Cloverfield; Rogue; The Strangers; Stuck

But beyond that, it's all good. So let's get it on with...

The Golden Trousers Horror Films Of '08

#5 - Splinter - This movie came out of nowhere, disappeared just as quickly, but left its mark. I don't think I'd heard anything about it until reading it was playing at a local theater. I went, saw it, enjoyed it, and then it was gone like a weird and unsettling dream that you'd rub out of your eyes in the morning. But it does what it wants to do so simply and straight-forwardly without trying to get away with any dopey bullshit that my admiration for the flick grew more and more. It takes some people, throws them into an enclosed space, and then just heaps some a load of unspeakable nightmare stuff on top of them and see whats sticks. It's a treat. It's out on DVD on January 27th so y'all should check it out then.

#4 - Teeth - One of the best times I had at the movies this year. I already gave credit to lead actress Jess Weixler the other day, but I really hope we hear bunches from the director Mitchell Lichtenstein in the future. Another flick that does what it sets out to do simply and with great humor.

#3 - [REC] & Quarantine - I don't feel guilty about putting both these films in the same spot - as far as I'm concerned it's the rare case of the remake being just as solid as the original. If we were talking immediate scare impact here, then this would be my #1 horror movie of the year - no movie made me more afraid of walking around my dark apartment after watching it than the Spanish version, and then when I saw the remake in theaters a few months later I found myself surprised to be just as tense as I'd been watching the Spanish version even though they are for all intents and purposes, save a couple moments, exactly the same film. Also, [REC] hasn't and probably won't get any release here in the States, but (thanks Sean) you can buy a DVD of it via here, so do that if you've been dying to catch it.

#2 - Fear(s) of the Dark - Beautiful and horrifying and utterly transfixing. I was worried going in that the segments might not flow well - it's directed and animated by several different artists and then edited together so some segments overlap - but it worked wonderfully, and every bit of it has stuck with me months after seeing it.

#1 - Let the Right One In - No question. A horror masterpiece. But you'll be hearing more on this one tomorrow.
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Let the Right One In" is amazing. The pool scene? Wow.

Anonymous said...

Appropriate that you gave Teeth a Pantie Award

Anonymous said...

"Let the Right One In" wasn't just the best horror movie of the year, it was the best movie of the year, period.

It's rare that a film dazzles me the way "Let the Right One In" did.