meme time
Day 11 ? A photo of you taken recently
Took this one myself as you can probably tell. :p I don't like taking pictures of myself.
Day 12 ? Whatever tickles your fancy
I thought this list was outstanding so, I'm sharing it with you.
From www.bloody-disgusting.com.
The Best 20 Horror Films of the Decade with their notes on each for why it was chosen.
Honorable Mention Frailty - Frailty, a film about a delusional man who forces his two sons to accompany him on a killing spree and which deals with the crimes' after-effects on one of the grown-up sons in the present day, came and went quietly in 2002. But its reputation has grown over the years, mostly due to good word-of-mouth from those who have since discovered just what an underrated gem it really is. Bill Paxton directs and stars, in a creepy performance as the aforementioned father who hallucinates a vision he believes was sent by God ordering him to seek out and kill "demons" that have taken on human form. The nature of the murders is grisly, although there's not much blood in the film; Paxton wisely chooses to focus on the moral implications of the killings rather than their gruesome details. What results is a small-scale, thought-provoking horror film that deserves a second look.
20. Cloverfield - Just when we all thought we were over the "shaky-cam" craze, along came Cloverfield, the J.J. Abrams-produced monster movie that melded the terrifying first-person realism of The Blair Witch Project with the large-scale destruction of the Godzilla movies. A brilliant conceit, to be sure, backed by a genius early marketing campaign that followed the less-is-more philosophy to tantalizing effect. Luckily for audiences, it was a philosophy carried over from the film itself, which particularly in the early going milked our anticipation with maximum effectiveness while showing only brief glimpses of the creature. Much like Blair Witch nearly ten years earlier, Cloverfield helped prove, particularly in its first half hour, that what you don't see can be the scariest thing of all.
19. American Psycho - Considered a disappointment at the time of its release, this adaptation of the novel by Bret Easton Ellis has grown in stature through the years and become something of a cult classic. Much of this can be attributed to Christian Bale's disturbing/darkly hilarious turn as serial killer/Manhattan businessman Patrick Bateman, a role that in hindsight couldn't have been played by any other actor. Along with The Rules of Attraction, the film is also perhaps the purest distillation of the Ellis aesthetic ever put to celluloid; it's "Me Decade" as surreal, blood-soaked horror show. At its best, the film reflects our own narcissism, and the shallow American culture it was spawned from, with piercing effectiveness. Much of the credit for this can go to director Mary Harron, whose off-kilter tendencies are a good complement to Ellis' unique style.
18. The Devil's Backbone - Following the Weinstein-butchered Mimic, his disastrous first foray into American filmmaking, Guillermo del Toro went back to his roots and crafted this elegant and deeply-felt ghost story set during the Spanish Civil War. Like Pan's Labyrinth, which del Toro has called Backbone's "spiritual sequel", it's alternately a gut-wrenching portrait of childhood in a time of war and a skin-crawling, evocative nightmare. It's also the rare horror film that functions equally well as a human drama, and that's due to del Toro's skill at writing full-blooded characters we can truly care about. At the end of the day, the film ultimately works so well because del Toro understands that at the core of every good horror story, whether explicit or not, lies a beating human heart.
17. May - Lucky McKee's twisted tale about a miserably lonely and awkward young woman who resorts to murder was criminally under-seen at the time of its release (no thanks to Lion's Gate, which essentially dumped the film), but its standing has grown among lovers of idiosyncratic horror over the years. Playing the title character is Angela Bettis, who manages to remain sympathetic even as she begins her killing spree late in the film; her performance is so generously complex that we continue to hope for her redemption even as the blood begins to flow. The plotting itself manages to sidestep the usual slasher tropes as it slowly and inexorably unravels, all leading up to a quietly haunting conclusion that is as heart-wrenching as it is unnerving. If you haven't seen it yet, give this one a try.
16. Paranormal Activity - Sure it was just released this year, but don't discount Paranormal Activity just because it's so recent. Forget the lame tacked-on studio ending; overall it's a genuinely scary film that turns the screws of audience anticipation with merciless skill. Director Oren Peli understands well the art of suggestion, and by the end he manages to build an atmosphere of almost unbearable dread. Of course, with a budget of only $15,000 you don't have much choice but to keep the source of all the spooky goings-on off-screen, but Peli deserves props for milking the maximum amount of tension out of the spare, modern setting - an ordinary, cookie-cutter tract home in San Diego. It doesn't sound very scary, but Peli manages to make it terrifying. If you aren't white-knuckling your armrest at least once or twice while watching it, you probably don't have a pulse.
15. Battle Royale -
No wonder this is Quentin Tarantino's favorite film of the last ten years. Like his best movies, it's a go-for-broke extravaganza: fun, provocative, ultra-violent, and bound to arouse controversy (which it did). It's a pretty simple idea: a class of forty-odd young Japanese teenagers are thrust into a deadly game on a deserted island in which they must fight each other to the death until only one is left standing. If they fail at this, the collars fixed to the survivors' necks will explode. What follows is a breathless chain of events as each individual reacts in his/her own way: some instantly become ruthless killers; others commit suicide; a few strike up allegiances in hopes that they can find a way off the island. It's this quality that makes the film more than just an empty provocation - it builds character through action, a method all good filmmakers should seek to emulate.
14. Audition - Considered by many to be Takashi Miike's masterpiece, this cringe-inducing, seriously disturbed film boasts one of the most unbearable scenes of torture in movie history. The story introduces us to a lonely widower whose producer friend sets up a fake movie audition for several young ingénues in hopes of finding him a wife. Unfortunately for the widower, the mild-mannered young woman he chooses isn't exactly all she appears to be. The audience soon becomes aware of her not-insignificant dysfunctional tendencies in a series of shocking scenes, one of which just might make you lose your lunch (which, come to think of it, would be actually be a pretty fitting response). It's revolting in the best possible way; the prolific Miike goes for the jugular here, and he cuts deep. Or, as the sadistic femme fatale of the film might say, "Kiri Kiri Kiri Kiri!"
13. Drag Me To Hell - Sam Raimi's return to gross-out form is a fun romp that's by turns hilarious, gag-reflex-inducing and unsettling. Alison Lohman plays a young loan officer who has a curse put on her by an old gypsy woman after turning down an extension on her mortgage. Soon enough the demons from down below slowly begin to circle, and her efforts to countermand the curse become more and more desperate as the ticking clock winds down. Raimi is a master at this sort of thing, and much like in the Evil Dead films (particularly the second movie) he manages to keep us simultaneously laughing and screaming as we are treated to a series of increasingly inventive and maniacal set pieces. This is escapist entertainment at its best, and it almost makes you want to forgive Raimi for Spiderman 3. Almost.
12. Inside - One of the most audacious, brutal, unrelenting horror films ever made, Inside is perhaps the crown jewel of the new wave of extreme French horror films that have gained notoriety in the latter half of the decade. The movie follows a pregnant widow through a night of almost unbelievable pain and misery, as she is stalked by a scissors-wielding crazy woman who is convinced the baby is actually hers. Directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury handle the gory elements of the story with aplomb, but what really makes Inside so queasily effective is their skill at wringing the maximum amount of suspense out of the hair-raising setup. As if that weren't enough, they even manage to work some pitch-black comedy into the mix. A shocking piece of cinema which provides further evidence that the French aren't such pussies after all.
11. [REC] - Out of all the "shaky-cam" films produced in the wake of The Blair Witch Project, this one is arguably the best, a seriously scary Spanish import that utilizes its P.O.V. camerawork more effectively than any of its predecessors. While the film takes awhile to get going, once the action starts it hardly ever lets up. The movie follows a TV news camera crew, police officers, firefighters and the residents of an apartment building as they fight for survival against a zombie outbreak after being sealed inside the structure in a quarantine procedure. The limited first-person viewpoint suits the enclosed setting well; it's not necessarily what we're seeing in front of us but what could be coming at us from just off-camera that's most terrifying. There's nothing all that deep here, but that's not really the point. When it comes to visceral scares, [REC] has few peers.
10. Saw - Perhaps the most influential horror film of the decade, Saw kick-started a franchise that became the highest-grossing in horror history (not adjusting for inflation, of course). The film has its detractors (although perhaps their disdain is directed more at the endless succession of sequels that followed), but in light of its measly $1.2 million price tag the film's quality relative to bigger-budget horror films is striking. It also takes itself seriously, which came as a breath of fresh air following the trend of wimpy tongue-in-cheek horror that had dominated the multiplexes post-Scream. More than anything, this twisted morality tale is a film made by horror fans, for horror fans; it's gory, it's depraved, and best of all it introduced a new horror icon in Jigsaw. For that, and for the films it paved the way for, we should be thankful.
09. Trick R' Treat - Michael Dougherty's horror anthology is so good that its lack of a theatrical release (thanks a lot, Warner Brothers) borders on the criminal. Maybe the studio was scared off by the film's candid black-heartedness; Hollywood often shies away from portraying the deaths of children onscreen, but when it's done without apology, and even with a dose of humor (as it is here), the filmmakers may as well start digging their movie an early grave. Luckily, the horror community has rallied behind the film, a new Halloween classic that showcases four stories of madness and mayhem set during All Hallow's Eve. When all is said and done, perhaps Trick ‘r Treat's greatest contribution to the world of horror cinema is proving that straight-to-DVD films can be just as good, if not better, then their theatrical counterparts.
08. Dawn of the Dead - In a time when most remakes pale in comparison to the originals, Dawn of the Dead is something of a minor miracle. Sure, it's not as good as Romero's version. It's not even as smart. But Zack Snyder brought an energy and a style to it that succeeded in making us forget about all that. Truly, you can analogize the two films based on their zombies alone - where Romero's lumbered and took their time (in a good way), Snyder's came at us, fast, with teeth bared like rabid dogs. He truly made his own version of Dawn of the Dead, his own way, with a distinctly 21st century sensibility. And why shouldn't he have? There's no way to really top the 1978 incarnation, so it makes perfect sense to just go for broke. And therein lies the beauty of Snyder's film - he wasn't out to best Romero; he just wanted to outrun him. And it worked.
07. 28 Days Later - Zombie movie? Political allegory? Humanist drama? 28 Days Later is all of those things and more - a genuine work of art by a director at the top of his game. What's so amazing about the film is the way it so expertly balances scenes of white-knuckled, hell-for-leather horror with moments of intimate beauty. The "zombies" themselves - human beings infected with a blood-borne virus that causes them to fly into a murderous rage - are terrifying in part because of how quickly they transform. It's not a slow, gradual conversion as in Romero's Living Dead films but a near-instantaneous one that forces those around the victim to make a split second decision - kill or be killed? Of course, none of this would have mattered had Danny Boyle not been the one at the helm; it's undeniably his movie, and it's a transcendent movie-going experience.
06. The Ring - The Ring was not only the first American "J-Horror" remake out of the gate; it also still stands as the best. Some prefer Ringu, Hideo Nakata's Japanese original, but Verbinski's version is simply a better film. Witness the expertly paced opening scene, which stands as one of the scariest prologues in horror movie history and trumps the original by a mile. Witness the haunting and abstract imagery on the videotape itself, much more disturbing than in the Japanese film. Witness lead actress Naomi Watts, turning in a full-blooded performance as the reporter investigating the mysterious killer video tape. Koji Suzuki, the writer of the book the Japanese film was based on, gets credit for that ingeniously simple premise. Verbinski gets credit for (re)interpreting it with such craftsmanship, and doing Nakata one better.
05. Session 9 - As they often say in real estate, location is everything. And Brad Anderson couldn't have set his nerve-wracking, slow-burning horror opus in a better one: an abandoned New England mental hospital. Of course in filmmaking, location really isn't everything, and Anderson clearly understands that. Which is why Session 9 isn't just a cheap, hack ‘n' slash, instantly-forgettable type horror film, but a psychologically probing, deeply unsettling journey off the edge and into the abyss of the human mind. The film is old-school in a lot of ways, particularly in that it doesn't just rely on cheap shocks to scare the living daylights out of us. Indeed, the scariest moments in the film are those that involve disembodied voices, eerie visuals and the mere suggestion that something horrible is about to happen. This is the stuff bad dreams are made of.
04. The Mist - Frank Darabont, known for helming adaptations of Stephen King's more dramatic works, totally nailed this adaptation of King's short story about a group of small town folk who become trapped inside a grocery store when a mysterious mist rolls into town and simultaneously unleashes a host of nasty creatures. The scary stuff works extremely well (including a mostly-great use of CGI), but what really drives this one home is Darabont's focus on the divide that forms between two factions of the townspeople - the paranoid, Bible-thumping types led by rabid fundamentalist Mrs. Carmody (played by a great Marcia Gay Harden) and the more rational-minded, decidedly left-wing members of the populace. Love or hate that downer of an ending, this allegorical microcosm of Bush Jr.-era America is spot on, and elevates an already-excellent film to even greater heights.
03. Descent - This Neil Marshall-directed film begins as a tale of gung-ho female empowerment and ends in a blood-soaked orgy of every-woman-for-herself pandemonium. One of the scariest films of this or any decade, The Descent is so effective because Marshall understands how to layer on the frights. It would be bad enough if this group of female spelunkers was facing flesh-eating humanoids in a normal, everyday setting, but the fact that they're battling them while trapped in a series of claustrophobia-inducing caverns is almost too much to bear. Marshall is an expert at conveying an all-consuming dread and disorientation, but what really makes the film work is that he takes the time to give the characters actual personalities so we truly care what happens to them. Ultimately, The Descent is the purest kind of horror film - ruthless, unforgiving, showing no mercy.
02. Shaun of the Dead - Shaun of the Dead isn't just the best horror-comedy of the decade - it's quite possibly the best horror-comedy ever made. Edgar Wright's film about a couple of aimless English blokes caught in the middle of a zombie pandemic seemingly came out of nowhere and went on to become one of the biggest cult films of all time. It's a case of all the right elements coming together at just the right moment - not only is the film smartly and stylishly directed, but the endearing performances by the entire ensemble cast are pure comic gold. Wright also takes a page out of Romero's book by providing a sharp satiric subtext that serves to elevate the film above mere slapstick. Simply put, Shaun of the Dead is about as close to perfection as movies get; intelligent, thrilling, one-of-a-kind.
01. Let the Right One In - It's rare enough for a horror film to be good; even rarer are those that function as genuine works of art. Let the Right One In, adapted from the novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist, is one of those films - an austerely beautiful creation that reveals itself slowly, like the best works of art do. The simplicity of the story - a young boy, bullied in school, meets a young girl who just happens to be a 200-year-old vampire - allows Swedish director Tomas Alfredson to focus on these two pre-teen characters with a penetrating insight that not only makes it a great vampire film but a great coming-of-age film as well. Of course, calling it a coming-of-age story is likely selling it short. Because at its core, Let the Right One In is, simply, a human story, a pensive meditation on the transcendent possibilities of human connection. Most of all, it's a film that sticks with you, and whose stature will continue to grow in the decades to come.
Day 13 ? A fictional book
Dead Until Dark - Charlaine Harris
Day 01 ? Your favorite song
Day 02 ? Your favorite movie
Day 03 ? Your favorite television program
Day 04 ? Your favorite book
Day 05 ? Your favorite quote
Day 06 ? Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 07 ? A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 ? A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 ? A photo you took
Day 10 ? A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 ? A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 ? Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 ? A fictional book
Day 14 ? A non-fictional book
Day 15 ? A fanfic
Day 16 ? A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 ? An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 ? Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 ? A talent of yours
Day 20 ? A hobby of yours
Day 21 ? A recipe
Day 22 ? A website
Day 23 ? A YouTube video
Day 24 ? Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 ? Your day, in great detail
Day 26 ? Your week, in great detail
Day 27 ? This month, in great detail
Day 28 ? This year, in great detail
Day 29 ? Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 ? Whatever tickles your fancy
Took this one myself as you can probably tell. :p I don't like taking pictures of myself.
Day 12 ? Whatever tickles your fancy
I thought this list was outstanding so, I'm sharing it with you.
From www.bloody-disgusting.com.
The Best 20 Horror Films of the Decade with their notes on each for why it was chosen.
Honorable Mention Frailty - Frailty, a film about a delusional man who forces his two sons to accompany him on a killing spree and which deals with the crimes' after-effects on one of the grown-up sons in the present day, came and went quietly in 2002. But its reputation has grown over the years, mostly due to good word-of-mouth from those who have since discovered just what an underrated gem it really is. Bill Paxton directs and stars, in a creepy performance as the aforementioned father who hallucinates a vision he believes was sent by God ordering him to seek out and kill "demons" that have taken on human form. The nature of the murders is grisly, although there's not much blood in the film; Paxton wisely chooses to focus on the moral implications of the killings rather than their gruesome details. What results is a small-scale, thought-provoking horror film that deserves a second look.
20. Cloverfield - Just when we all thought we were over the "shaky-cam" craze, along came Cloverfield, the J.J. Abrams-produced monster movie that melded the terrifying first-person realism of The Blair Witch Project with the large-scale destruction of the Godzilla movies. A brilliant conceit, to be sure, backed by a genius early marketing campaign that followed the less-is-more philosophy to tantalizing effect. Luckily for audiences, it was a philosophy carried over from the film itself, which particularly in the early going milked our anticipation with maximum effectiveness while showing only brief glimpses of the creature. Much like Blair Witch nearly ten years earlier, Cloverfield helped prove, particularly in its first half hour, that what you don't see can be the scariest thing of all.
19. American Psycho - Considered a disappointment at the time of its release, this adaptation of the novel by Bret Easton Ellis has grown in stature through the years and become something of a cult classic. Much of this can be attributed to Christian Bale's disturbing/darkly hilarious turn as serial killer/Manhattan businessman Patrick Bateman, a role that in hindsight couldn't have been played by any other actor. Along with The Rules of Attraction, the film is also perhaps the purest distillation of the Ellis aesthetic ever put to celluloid; it's "Me Decade" as surreal, blood-soaked horror show. At its best, the film reflects our own narcissism, and the shallow American culture it was spawned from, with piercing effectiveness. Much of the credit for this can go to director Mary Harron, whose off-kilter tendencies are a good complement to Ellis' unique style.
18. The Devil's Backbone - Following the Weinstein-butchered Mimic, his disastrous first foray into American filmmaking, Guillermo del Toro went back to his roots and crafted this elegant and deeply-felt ghost story set during the Spanish Civil War. Like Pan's Labyrinth, which del Toro has called Backbone's "spiritual sequel", it's alternately a gut-wrenching portrait of childhood in a time of war and a skin-crawling, evocative nightmare. It's also the rare horror film that functions equally well as a human drama, and that's due to del Toro's skill at writing full-blooded characters we can truly care about. At the end of the day, the film ultimately works so well because del Toro understands that at the core of every good horror story, whether explicit or not, lies a beating human heart.
17. May - Lucky McKee's twisted tale about a miserably lonely and awkward young woman who resorts to murder was criminally under-seen at the time of its release (no thanks to Lion's Gate, which essentially dumped the film), but its standing has grown among lovers of idiosyncratic horror over the years. Playing the title character is Angela Bettis, who manages to remain sympathetic even as she begins her killing spree late in the film; her performance is so generously complex that we continue to hope for her redemption even as the blood begins to flow. The plotting itself manages to sidestep the usual slasher tropes as it slowly and inexorably unravels, all leading up to a quietly haunting conclusion that is as heart-wrenching as it is unnerving. If you haven't seen it yet, give this one a try.
16. Paranormal Activity - Sure it was just released this year, but don't discount Paranormal Activity just because it's so recent. Forget the lame tacked-on studio ending; overall it's a genuinely scary film that turns the screws of audience anticipation with merciless skill. Director Oren Peli understands well the art of suggestion, and by the end he manages to build an atmosphere of almost unbearable dread. Of course, with a budget of only $15,000 you don't have much choice but to keep the source of all the spooky goings-on off-screen, but Peli deserves props for milking the maximum amount of tension out of the spare, modern setting - an ordinary, cookie-cutter tract home in San Diego. It doesn't sound very scary, but Peli manages to make it terrifying. If you aren't white-knuckling your armrest at least once or twice while watching it, you probably don't have a pulse.
15. Battle Royale -
No wonder this is Quentin Tarantino's favorite film of the last ten years. Like his best movies, it's a go-for-broke extravaganza: fun, provocative, ultra-violent, and bound to arouse controversy (which it did). It's a pretty simple idea: a class of forty-odd young Japanese teenagers are thrust into a deadly game on a deserted island in which they must fight each other to the death until only one is left standing. If they fail at this, the collars fixed to the survivors' necks will explode. What follows is a breathless chain of events as each individual reacts in his/her own way: some instantly become ruthless killers; others commit suicide; a few strike up allegiances in hopes that they can find a way off the island. It's this quality that makes the film more than just an empty provocation - it builds character through action, a method all good filmmakers should seek to emulate.
14. Audition - Considered by many to be Takashi Miike's masterpiece, this cringe-inducing, seriously disturbed film boasts one of the most unbearable scenes of torture in movie history. The story introduces us to a lonely widower whose producer friend sets up a fake movie audition for several young ingénues in hopes of finding him a wife. Unfortunately for the widower, the mild-mannered young woman he chooses isn't exactly all she appears to be. The audience soon becomes aware of her not-insignificant dysfunctional tendencies in a series of shocking scenes, one of which just might make you lose your lunch (which, come to think of it, would be actually be a pretty fitting response). It's revolting in the best possible way; the prolific Miike goes for the jugular here, and he cuts deep. Or, as the sadistic femme fatale of the film might say, "Kiri Kiri Kiri Kiri!"
13. Drag Me To Hell - Sam Raimi's return to gross-out form is a fun romp that's by turns hilarious, gag-reflex-inducing and unsettling. Alison Lohman plays a young loan officer who has a curse put on her by an old gypsy woman after turning down an extension on her mortgage. Soon enough the demons from down below slowly begin to circle, and her efforts to countermand the curse become more and more desperate as the ticking clock winds down. Raimi is a master at this sort of thing, and much like in the Evil Dead films (particularly the second movie) he manages to keep us simultaneously laughing and screaming as we are treated to a series of increasingly inventive and maniacal set pieces. This is escapist entertainment at its best, and it almost makes you want to forgive Raimi for Spiderman 3. Almost.
12. Inside - One of the most audacious, brutal, unrelenting horror films ever made, Inside is perhaps the crown jewel of the new wave of extreme French horror films that have gained notoriety in the latter half of the decade. The movie follows a pregnant widow through a night of almost unbelievable pain and misery, as she is stalked by a scissors-wielding crazy woman who is convinced the baby is actually hers. Directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury handle the gory elements of the story with aplomb, but what really makes Inside so queasily effective is their skill at wringing the maximum amount of suspense out of the hair-raising setup. As if that weren't enough, they even manage to work some pitch-black comedy into the mix. A shocking piece of cinema which provides further evidence that the French aren't such pussies after all.
11. [REC] - Out of all the "shaky-cam" films produced in the wake of The Blair Witch Project, this one is arguably the best, a seriously scary Spanish import that utilizes its P.O.V. camerawork more effectively than any of its predecessors. While the film takes awhile to get going, once the action starts it hardly ever lets up. The movie follows a TV news camera crew, police officers, firefighters and the residents of an apartment building as they fight for survival against a zombie outbreak after being sealed inside the structure in a quarantine procedure. The limited first-person viewpoint suits the enclosed setting well; it's not necessarily what we're seeing in front of us but what could be coming at us from just off-camera that's most terrifying. There's nothing all that deep here, but that's not really the point. When it comes to visceral scares, [REC] has few peers.
10. Saw - Perhaps the most influential horror film of the decade, Saw kick-started a franchise that became the highest-grossing in horror history (not adjusting for inflation, of course). The film has its detractors (although perhaps their disdain is directed more at the endless succession of sequels that followed), but in light of its measly $1.2 million price tag the film's quality relative to bigger-budget horror films is striking. It also takes itself seriously, which came as a breath of fresh air following the trend of wimpy tongue-in-cheek horror that had dominated the multiplexes post-Scream. More than anything, this twisted morality tale is a film made by horror fans, for horror fans; it's gory, it's depraved, and best of all it introduced a new horror icon in Jigsaw. For that, and for the films it paved the way for, we should be thankful.
09. Trick R' Treat - Michael Dougherty's horror anthology is so good that its lack of a theatrical release (thanks a lot, Warner Brothers) borders on the criminal. Maybe the studio was scared off by the film's candid black-heartedness; Hollywood often shies away from portraying the deaths of children onscreen, but when it's done without apology, and even with a dose of humor (as it is here), the filmmakers may as well start digging their movie an early grave. Luckily, the horror community has rallied behind the film, a new Halloween classic that showcases four stories of madness and mayhem set during All Hallow's Eve. When all is said and done, perhaps Trick ‘r Treat's greatest contribution to the world of horror cinema is proving that straight-to-DVD films can be just as good, if not better, then their theatrical counterparts.
08. Dawn of the Dead - In a time when most remakes pale in comparison to the originals, Dawn of the Dead is something of a minor miracle. Sure, it's not as good as Romero's version. It's not even as smart. But Zack Snyder brought an energy and a style to it that succeeded in making us forget about all that. Truly, you can analogize the two films based on their zombies alone - where Romero's lumbered and took their time (in a good way), Snyder's came at us, fast, with teeth bared like rabid dogs. He truly made his own version of Dawn of the Dead, his own way, with a distinctly 21st century sensibility. And why shouldn't he have? There's no way to really top the 1978 incarnation, so it makes perfect sense to just go for broke. And therein lies the beauty of Snyder's film - he wasn't out to best Romero; he just wanted to outrun him. And it worked.
07. 28 Days Later - Zombie movie? Political allegory? Humanist drama? 28 Days Later is all of those things and more - a genuine work of art by a director at the top of his game. What's so amazing about the film is the way it so expertly balances scenes of white-knuckled, hell-for-leather horror with moments of intimate beauty. The "zombies" themselves - human beings infected with a blood-borne virus that causes them to fly into a murderous rage - are terrifying in part because of how quickly they transform. It's not a slow, gradual conversion as in Romero's Living Dead films but a near-instantaneous one that forces those around the victim to make a split second decision - kill or be killed? Of course, none of this would have mattered had Danny Boyle not been the one at the helm; it's undeniably his movie, and it's a transcendent movie-going experience.
06. The Ring - The Ring was not only the first American "J-Horror" remake out of the gate; it also still stands as the best. Some prefer Ringu, Hideo Nakata's Japanese original, but Verbinski's version is simply a better film. Witness the expertly paced opening scene, which stands as one of the scariest prologues in horror movie history and trumps the original by a mile. Witness the haunting and abstract imagery on the videotape itself, much more disturbing than in the Japanese film. Witness lead actress Naomi Watts, turning in a full-blooded performance as the reporter investigating the mysterious killer video tape. Koji Suzuki, the writer of the book the Japanese film was based on, gets credit for that ingeniously simple premise. Verbinski gets credit for (re)interpreting it with such craftsmanship, and doing Nakata one better.
05. Session 9 - As they often say in real estate, location is everything. And Brad Anderson couldn't have set his nerve-wracking, slow-burning horror opus in a better one: an abandoned New England mental hospital. Of course in filmmaking, location really isn't everything, and Anderson clearly understands that. Which is why Session 9 isn't just a cheap, hack ‘n' slash, instantly-forgettable type horror film, but a psychologically probing, deeply unsettling journey off the edge and into the abyss of the human mind. The film is old-school in a lot of ways, particularly in that it doesn't just rely on cheap shocks to scare the living daylights out of us. Indeed, the scariest moments in the film are those that involve disembodied voices, eerie visuals and the mere suggestion that something horrible is about to happen. This is the stuff bad dreams are made of.
04. The Mist - Frank Darabont, known for helming adaptations of Stephen King's more dramatic works, totally nailed this adaptation of King's short story about a group of small town folk who become trapped inside a grocery store when a mysterious mist rolls into town and simultaneously unleashes a host of nasty creatures. The scary stuff works extremely well (including a mostly-great use of CGI), but what really drives this one home is Darabont's focus on the divide that forms between two factions of the townspeople - the paranoid, Bible-thumping types led by rabid fundamentalist Mrs. Carmody (played by a great Marcia Gay Harden) and the more rational-minded, decidedly left-wing members of the populace. Love or hate that downer of an ending, this allegorical microcosm of Bush Jr.-era America is spot on, and elevates an already-excellent film to even greater heights.
03. Descent - This Neil Marshall-directed film begins as a tale of gung-ho female empowerment and ends in a blood-soaked orgy of every-woman-for-herself pandemonium. One of the scariest films of this or any decade, The Descent is so effective because Marshall understands how to layer on the frights. It would be bad enough if this group of female spelunkers was facing flesh-eating humanoids in a normal, everyday setting, but the fact that they're battling them while trapped in a series of claustrophobia-inducing caverns is almost too much to bear. Marshall is an expert at conveying an all-consuming dread and disorientation, but what really makes the film work is that he takes the time to give the characters actual personalities so we truly care what happens to them. Ultimately, The Descent is the purest kind of horror film - ruthless, unforgiving, showing no mercy.
02. Shaun of the Dead - Shaun of the Dead isn't just the best horror-comedy of the decade - it's quite possibly the best horror-comedy ever made. Edgar Wright's film about a couple of aimless English blokes caught in the middle of a zombie pandemic seemingly came out of nowhere and went on to become one of the biggest cult films of all time. It's a case of all the right elements coming together at just the right moment - not only is the film smartly and stylishly directed, but the endearing performances by the entire ensemble cast are pure comic gold. Wright also takes a page out of Romero's book by providing a sharp satiric subtext that serves to elevate the film above mere slapstick. Simply put, Shaun of the Dead is about as close to perfection as movies get; intelligent, thrilling, one-of-a-kind.
01. Let the Right One In - It's rare enough for a horror film to be good; even rarer are those that function as genuine works of art. Let the Right One In, adapted from the novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist, is one of those films - an austerely beautiful creation that reveals itself slowly, like the best works of art do. The simplicity of the story - a young boy, bullied in school, meets a young girl who just happens to be a 200-year-old vampire - allows Swedish director Tomas Alfredson to focus on these two pre-teen characters with a penetrating insight that not only makes it a great vampire film but a great coming-of-age film as well. Of course, calling it a coming-of-age story is likely selling it short. Because at its core, Let the Right One In is, simply, a human story, a pensive meditation on the transcendent possibilities of human connection. Most of all, it's a film that sticks with you, and whose stature will continue to grow in the decades to come.
Day 13 ? A fictional book
Dead Until Dark - Charlaine Harris
Day 01 ? Your favorite song
Day 02 ? Your favorite movie
Day 03 ? Your favorite television program
Day 04 ? Your favorite book
Day 05 ? Your favorite quote
Day 06 ? Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 07 ? A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 ? A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 ? A photo you took
Day 10 ? A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 ? A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 ? Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 ? A fictional book
Day 14 ? A non-fictional book
Day 15 ? A fanfic
Day 16 ? A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 ? An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 ? Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 ? A talent of yours
Day 20 ? A hobby of yours
Day 21 ? A recipe
Day 22 ? A website
Day 23 ? A YouTube video
Day 24 ? Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 ? Your day, in great detail
Day 26 ? Your week, in great detail
Day 27 ? This month, in great detail
Day 28 ? This year, in great detail
Day 29 ? Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 ? Whatever tickles your fancy