Horror movies get a bad rap because they are cheap to make and big stars aren't necessarily needed to ensure box office success (as Paranormal Activity recently proved). The term itself "horror" is often narrowed by the public at large to include nothing aside from slashers, when in fact 2007's Academy Award winner for Best Picture, No Country for Old Men, was described by the filmmakers as "a horror film." The 2008 Best Picture, Slumdog Millionaire, was directed by Danny Boyle who was, before that, best known for his more pulpy pictures (Shallow Grave, 28 Days Later, Sunshine). Here at HDC we cover everything from traditional slashers, to ghostly comedies, to comic book monsters, to alien invasions — and everything in between that can be considered "in the genre".
As much fun as it can be to craft a withering review — pushing the thesaurus to its bursting point, and calling up every poison pun in my arsenal — I do generally try to find something I like in every movie I see. Sometimes a movie may not be bad per se, but it's a matter of taste or expectation.
Expectation is an especially slippery slope… three movies in particular wound up on this list because that very pitfall.
10. District 9
Why, whatdya you know? Here's an expectation vs. reality movie, now! I'd heard so much gushing about District 9 after its screening at Comic Con, I thought it was Second Coming of Peter Jackson (who produced, but had little creatively to do with the making of the film). Having his name on the poster added cachet, but my hopes were dashed once I realized I'd have to spend the entire time with such an unlikable protagonist. Sharlto Copley plays the clumsily-named Wikus Van De Merwe as a straight-up bastard, which would be fine if there were something to connect to. He's not villainous, nor is he believably sympathetic, so when things start to go awry for him I just didn't care. While the ad and PR campaign for the movie played up the "aliens-apartheid" angle, the movie itself was pretty much all about Wikus, who goes from buffoon to badass without much molting at all.
9. Alien Trespass (limited)
No expectation here. This was just a dopey monster movie with a cute premise that did not work. Alien Trespass had a lot going for it: a sweet, simple story; excellently wooden, pre-Method era styled acting by Eric MacCormack and Robert Patrick; uncanny videography which approximates 35 mm Technicolor; noteworthy attention to poodle skirt and Cadillac fin detail; a strong, proactive female character well-played by The 4400's Jenni Baird; and some really kooky, cheesy space invaders straight out of a B-movie I'd expect to see lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000. What Alien Trespass lacked is much-needed corniness. While it was a bold move to try and make a movie that wasn't supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, the fact that it's at all funny is what sunk it.
8. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Another x-out mark against any film, no matter what its budget or star power, is whether or not it can command the almighty 21st century attention span (which, as Dennis Miller once said, is that of a ferret hepped up on double espressos). For me, this movie was just unforgivably dull in spite of its barrage of never-ending eye-candy. X-Men Origins: Wolverine did manage to redeem itself in the end with an almost movie-saving third act, but I had to sit through an awful lot of Wolverine's self-loathing rants, meaningless explosions, ignored plot holes, and mind-numbing angst before I got my doggie biscuit.
7. The Uninvited
Predictability without panache is another thing that will turn me against a movie; which is not the same as "giving the people what they want" (see: expectation). Even if I had not been familiar with the Korean original (A Tale of Two Sisters), I would have seen the so-called twist coming from two blocks away and within the first five minutes of The Uninvited… After that I was stuck just sitting there, waiting to see how they'd decide to reveal it. Turns out, it wasn't worth the trip.
6. Angels & Demons
Angels & Demons was much gorier than its blockbuster predecessor, The Da Vinci Code — but it was still pabulum for the masses in a PG-13 format, starring everyman Tom Hanks and guided by popular director Ron Howard. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but some episodes of "CSI" are more gruesome and have more suspense. It's not a bad movie but it's own middlin' tone is what landed it here in the middle of the dog-pile this year.
5. Where The Wild Things Are
Here's another movie that landed on the list because of a difficult protagonist. Max is a spoiled little brat. I wasn't a fan of the book as a child (I didn't not like it; I just don't remember if it was on the reading list), but I do know there had to be a lot of padding to stretch the story into a feature-length film. I also know that director Spike Jonze said in interviews that he would have liked to have made a scarier movie. I think it could have been better that way; as it is, the monsters are too casual (I didn't care for their everyday voices) and while they do things which may frighten smaller children I don't think in the long run Where The Wild Things Are will have the same psychologically scarring impact as, say, Coraline.
4. Deadgirl (limited)
This off-kilter zombie movie was pretty bleak and quite disgusting. It was definitely not scary or suspenseful in any way, and there was no humor to offset the exploitative themes. There wasn't really a moral point of view in Deadgirl… things just kind of happened. The ambivalence of its tone was somewhat disturbing (which would have been fine), but mostly for me it was just tedious. There's also no way around Deadgirl's floundering script. The crux of the dilemma may have been interesting to some (is it really rape if she's a zombie?), but the film's running time far outlasts any substantive exploration of the big ethical questions. In the end, all I really remembered was the mind-numbing barrage of exposition and subsequent morbid sex acts.
3. Surveillance (limited)
Writer-director Jennifer Lynch's pretentious coattail ride proves she's no daddy's girl. This spare exploitation flick wrapped in riddles just plain sucked. It not only looked cheaply made, it was boring as, well, Hell.
2. Halloween II
I had some expectation going in here, since I am a diehard Rob Zombie fan; but this one almost killed me. To begin with, it was an ugly movie. Gauging from the veiled apologies from Zombie and the cast, H2 was written in only three weeks, shot in 33 days, and then the script changed daily (and also, the actors could improvise and say whatever they liked… um, there's a reason for writers and there's a reason for actors). Still, that's no excuse for the abominable overuse of gimmicky shooting and editing tricks such as repeated ultra slow frame rate use (which actually speeds things up, making heads look like they're spinning), chainsaw-like quick cuts, skip-framing and goofy, drawn out slow-motion sequences out of nowhere. The music was also an assault on the senses, practically bashing my head in with relentless bass tones. The main reason H2 didn't take the top spot is by the grace of Malcolm McDowell.
1. Ninja Assassin
Ninja Assassin isn't as offensive to me as some of my other picks but I do believe it was the stupidest, most blunt, ham-fisted I saw all year. It was under-lit, oversaturated with CGI, overwrought with faux emotion, and overstuffed with cheesy musical montages accompanied by visual effects. The ninja assassin is a deeply troubled and angry mercenary, Raizo, who teams up with Europol librarian, Mika — together they fend off and fight nefarious underworld types. There was a somewhat supernatural undercurrent to the pulverizing proceedings, but it wasn't enough for the genre fans. (Or fans of logic, sense and reason.) What's worse, the uber-villain, played by martial arts popcorn movie 80s-fave Shô Kosugi, came off far too cartoony; therefore the flashbacks to Raizo's abusive past at his master's hands completely lose their punch. Ninja Assassin may have opened at #1 recently, but it's also #1 as Worst Genre Movie of 2009.
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Ten Best Genre & Horror in 2009 [coming soon]