IGN.com's Mike Bracken Defends his Controversial Top '05 Horror Film!

Check this post by IGN.com's Mike Bracken. Seems the horror community is up in arms against his top pick of '05. Murder is murder regardless of whether kids are involved or not!


"What makes Murder-Set-Pieces so good to me is that it genuinely unsettled me during my first viewing of it. The scene in the bathroom honestly shocked me--you simply don't see those sort of scenes (whether you like them or not) in mainstream horror films. I'm a fan of guys pushing the envelope (which is one of the reasons why I love Takashi Miike as much as I do. I see a ton of films in a year--and very few of them ever do anything that shocks me or leaves me feeling shaken after the viewing is over. Land of the Dead and Devil's Rejects are very good films, but neither film left me disturbed. To me, good horror cinema is about being subversive and unsettling--what's subversive or unsettling to me may not be the same for you.

Plus I've always been a sucker for nihilistic movies (I love Mike Leigh's Naked, for instance) and there's a genuine sense of nihilism that colors just about every frame of MSP. That's a dark and dangerous world in that film--I'd never want to live there, but I enjoyed my brief layover while watching the film.

Honestly, though, I almost didn't number the entries on the list for this very reason. To me, the top four on the list are almost interchangeable because they're all great films. Any of the top three could have easily been placed in the number one spot. Doing that though seemed almost like a cop-out to me. I knew MSP would be a controversial pick going into it (although I know a lot more people who like it than don't), but it was the film that impressed me most last year.

Hope that clarifies a bit.

Mike B."