Well,
time to take out the pumpkins, mop up the blood & entrails, and perform the
yearly exorcism, another Halloween has been and gone. Which also means my yearly Horror Movie
Challenge is over too, and once again it has been a success. This year I once again improved upon the
previous, by two films this time for a total of forty four movies! It should be noted that I did see other,
non-horror stuff this month too, but doing this many has made me wonder how the
hell the guys that go for 100 movies do it.
Have they not friends, family, lives?
Perhaps not, but there are still only so many hours in the day, and gore
movies one can take in a single sitting.
I already plan to go through some nicer, happier things from my DVD pile
over the next week to get out of the mindset, like Moomins on the Riviera. But before I do though, let’s have on here
both a final call for donations to Crisis, and a post mortem of the experience.
First
things first; here’s a list of all the films I covered this year. For more on them, have a look at my Tumblr or Instagram accounts. Unless I specifically noted, these were films
I was seeing for the first time, on disc.
2.
The Gatehouse (Cinema)
4.
The Church
12.
Chaw
15.
The Burning
17.
Shiver
18.
Raw (Cinema)
23:
The Sacrament
28.
The Carrier
30.
Botched
31.
Kolobos
32.
The Resurrected
33.
Worst Fears
36:
Hellions
37:
The Bat
38.
The Sentinel
39.
Ouija
41.
The Antichrist
43.
Leviathan
Seriously,
that’s quite a selection. I should
mention that the past month for me seems to have gone by really slowly, and I
put that down to me just having a tonne of new memories to process from all
this. Now, let’s have a few special
awards for the films I saw.
Best
New Release/Preview Film
Now
this is a tough one, there have been a few particularly strong cinema releases
this year. For example, Train to Busan
was a Korean title that didn’t reinvent the zombie genre, but gave it the shot
in the arm it needed, with a lot of style, playing with the rules a bit, and
for doing what World War Z failed to do and make a proper blockbuster out of
the undead. But there has also been the
BFI London Film Festival, the “Cult” strand in particular has been a source of
a huge number of pretty impressive titles.
Into the Forest, A Dark Song, Prevenge, and many more are very strong
titles that I am greatly looking forward to pushing people to try when they get
official release in the near future. But
of all of the ones I saw there, my pick for the top new horror film of the
batch is going to be this “Cult” strand’s gala film, The Autopsy of Jane
Doe. A highly original concept, superb
cast and crew, and for managing to take a story set around an autopsy, shown in
unflinching detail, and yet avoid being just a gore-fest, this greatly
impressed me, and I reckon this is going to be the next “break out” horror hit.
Best
Discovery
It’s
not just been new stuff of course, I’ve also seen plenty of older titles for
the first time too, but I have to say, this has been a lot more variable in
quality. There are a few films I’ve seen
that I’ve really enjoyed for the sheer weirdness or “so bad it’s good” factor,
such as Holocaust 2000 and The Carrier (more on that one in a moment). However, in terms of pure quality, my winner
for the best pre-2015 film I watched for the first time is the second oldest
film I saw (but only by a year), The Cat & the Canary. This was the first film by director Paul Leni
I’ve ever seen, and what a talent he was, bringing a lot of the German
Expressionist movement to Hollywood, it must have been a big influence on a lot
of the later Universal Horrors. It’s sad
that he passed away before that movement began in earnest, who knows what he
would have done in the sound era.
Incidentally, I have discs for two of the remakes of this film (the Bob
Hope one and the 70s one), it will be interesting to see how they stack up to
the original (spoiler: probably not well).
Best
Rewatch
There
were a few old favourites I went back to over the season, but they all had some
new twist to them. For the last film,
Ghostwatch, it was so I could take part in The National Séance online event,
rewatching it on the anniversary, at the exact time of the original broadcast. It still chilled me, even though I was paying
attention to the #NS16 Twitter feed all the way through. Halloween was with an introduction by Dr.
Mark Kermode, just after one of his “Live in 3D” shows at the BFI, and it was
my first time seeing it on the big screen.
As the BFI is having a John Carpenter season at the moment, I figured I
should see at least one thing there.
Likewise, I can now confirm that Phantom of the Paradise also works well
properly projected, thanks to Mr. Edgar Wright, who also provided an excellent
introduction in person, along with Swan himself Paul Williams sending us a
little video wishing us well too. But my
nod for best rewatch has to go to Phantasm, as this was the UK first showing of
the new Remastered edition J.J. Abrams helped produce, and it looked &
sounded gorgeous. As a bonus, creator
Don Coscarelli was on hand for a fine Q&A, he is the loveliest guy in the
world! Of course, the showing was with a
note of melancholy, as it had to be dedicated to The Tall Man himself, the now
sadly departed Angus Scrimm. Given the
number of people seeing it for the first time that night though, I’d say he’d
gained a bunch new fans.
Best
Film Experience
As
you can note from that last section, movie viewing is rarely ever only just about
what you watch, it’s the circumstances of how you watch it, with who, and
where. Those examples above are some of
the special screenings I’ve seen this month, and the London Film Festival did
give a bunch more. It amuses me that
between the Q&As for A Dark Song and Prevenge, I’ve seen both of the stars
of Sightseers (Steve Oram & Alice Lowe) in the flesh for different films
within a week. There was also seeing
Christopher Lloyd in person for the Q&A for I am NOT a Serial Killer, and
bumping into Edgar Wright & Julian Barrett* after the screening for The
Autopsy of Jane Doe. But easily the best experience actually goes to a
different film festival, Raindance, for the showing of The Gatehouse. That was a good screening because not only
was I with more than a few friends in the audience, but the writer/director
Martin Gooch is a friend of mine too, it was good catching up in the pub
afterwards. It gave the whole thing a
wonderful atmosphere, and the fact it was shown in the Vue Regent Street,
formally the Apollo where SCI-FI-LONDON used to be held, added to a nostalgia
factor. The fact that the film was
superb on top of all that was icing on the cake really.
The
“Came Outta Nowhere!” Award
This
is a special note for titles that I enjoyed a hell of a lot more than I thought
I would, and I’m splitting this into new releases and discovery again. For a new film, that would be the only big
studio release for this Halloween season (since Paramount pushed back Rings to
early next year for some reason), Ouija Origin of Evil. My expectations were low given how bland the
first one was, but Mike Flanagan managed to turn the franchise around with a
prequel that exceeded the original by a country mile (and when’s the last time
that happened?). Better writing, better
characters, better scares, better atmosphere, a success all round! I might pick it up on disc when it comes out,
which given I can’t wait to take the disc of the original to Computer Exchange
is saying something.
For the discovery,
I must admit I did have more fun with The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb than I was
expecting (and from what I gather most Hammer fans ever have), but my award
here has to go to Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight. My interest in this one was already piqued
thanks to Jim Sterling’s defence of it (although I must say I didn’t quite
share his joy of Silent Hill Revelation), but what a blast this one is. Billy Zane hamming it to perfection, a truly
bonkers backstory and lore, some great monster and gore gags, the odd truly
effective chill scene, Dick Miller, it’s a lot of fun. Although Crypt Keeper, what happened to the
film we were promised at the end, Dead Easy?
It can’t have been much worse than Bordello of Blood. Speaking of…
Worst
Film
Hoo
boy, this was a hard fought category from the DVD shelves. Bordello of Blood was a complete mess;
misogynistic, idiotic, undid a lot of the good will Demon Knight set up. The only reasons it’s not got the nod are
because the Crypt Keeper bits did raise a smile, and I’d feel bad about slating
any film with Aubrey Morris in the cast.
I did toy with Silent Hill Revelation down to how much this mangled the
feel of the franchise, plus for any excuse for the #FucKonami tag. But the absolute loser was a “horror comedy”
that was in no way scary, actively deadened all humour in its presence, and
just actively pissed me off; Botched. I
have to admit, I mainly got this for Sean Pertwee, and that was a
disappointment, as he has a grand total of two scenes, and hampered by an awful
Russian accent. I really should have
seen the warning signs; can a film really be said to “star” Stephen Dorff,
isn’t it more honest to say “he’s here, he might have a career any day now”?
The
“What the Fuck am I Watching?” Award
With
all genre fare, a good amount of weirdness is inevitable, but in a way, the two
things that would have most likely to make this one I was already a bit spoiled
for. The Carrier is a deliriously odd
experience to watch, from the rather odd acting choices to “CATS OR DEATH?”,
but the trailers had already prepared me somewhat for it. Actually, I will note it’s that rarest of
thing of a horror movie with a weird trailer, where it does manage to not just
live up to, but exceed the trailer. Gyo
Tokyo Fish Attack I was also prepared for since I’ve read the original Junji Ito
work, so the plot involving fish on walking machines spreading a killer smell
that didn’t take me surprise; sadly, that had none of the style of the manga,
so it kind of fell flat. The winner for
this prize in the end though has to go to Hellions; the story itself is fairly
standard horror stuff (demonic trick or treaters), but it’s the presentation
that’s odd, the whole thing goes in these bizarre, hallucinogenic tangents so
often, with no apparent cause, that I was constantly left wondering what the
hell was going on. Unlike say Videodrome
where that was part of the story, this was just a mess, which had you wondering
if there even was a story by the end.
An
honourable mention though must go to the very first film I watched of this
year’s challenge, The Initiation. Not
the whole film itself, it’s a fairly boiler plate slasher, with the odd
interesting touch. However, I bring this
up for one moment in particular, from the costume party about halfway
through. Behold!
Even
now I’ve posted that screenshot, I wonder “did I really just see that, or just
imagine it?”
Honourable
Mentions
I
have to give a special shout out to two more things I watched around this time
that I can’t really count for the challenge, but I want to discuss anyway. Firstly, at the Raindance festival, I got to
see something I had been looking forward to for quite a while, but just missed
out on being part of the challenge by a matter of hours, Don’t Knock Twice. This was from Caradog James, who’d
also directed The Machine, a movie I adore, and is a wonderfully done tale of
family strife and demons. Wish I could have talked about it for the challenge properly, but still, definitely one for everyone to keep
their eyes open for when it’s released.
Secondly,
not a movie, but a webseries I’ve been enjoying over this month is Mina Murray’s
Journal, a modern take on Dracula which pretty directly updates the diary entry
format of the original to the present day.
The brainchild of James Moran (Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii,
Severance, Tower Block…) this is coming towards the end of its first batch of
episodes, and has done a good job of covering the first part of the journey,
including the journey to Castle Dracula.
Really likeable stuff, if you haven’t seen it yet, now’s a good time for
a catch up, if only to get a glimpse of Renfield’s Tumblr account.
The
State of the Genre
I’d
like to wrap this all up with some final thoughts on how is the horror at the
moment. To be honest, I’d say it’s in a
pretty good place right now, as there have been a string of big successes that
have been widely accepted by audiences and critics over the last few years,
such as The Babadook, It Follows, and more.
What I saw at the London Film Festival showed that there’s a lot more
out there that’s ready to make potentially just as big of a splash. Hell, one of the films I saw there this year,
Raw, won the Sutherland award for First Feature, which means that it’s the
second year in a row an unashamed genre work took the prize after The Witch in
2015 (doubly impressive considering the... effects Raw has had on someaudiences). A whole bunch of new voices
are entering the field, and there’s a definite sense of a breath of fresh air
coming with them. On general release
too, we’ve been having some fantastic stuff catch on, such as The Girl with All
the Gifts in later September, and on that note, it’s cool that there’s a major
new influx of British productions leading the way, redefining what British
films look like, especially with the like of Under the Shadow, entirely made in Persian. Even horror sequels
recently have been of a higher standard, with Ouija Origin of Evil and Blair
Witch standing on their own remarkably well.
So yeah, I’ve got a good feeling about where horror movies are right
now, and there’s a lot more interesting stuff on the horizon. Hopefully I won’t have to wait until next
year’s challenge to experience it.
That’s
all for my challenge this year. Remember,
if you liked any of what I had to say, or are thinking of checking out some ofthe movies covered, please offer a few pennies to Crisis, that’d be cool of you. Goodnight Boils and Ghouls!
*Mr.
Barrett (Howard Moon from The Mighty Boosh) was around because of his new
comedy film Mindhorn, which I also saw at the festival; a tonne of fun that
one, do seek that out when it’s released early next year.
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