Horror-101

Armando’s Best and Worst of ‘09

2009 will ultimately be remembered as a good year for horror. In compiling my list of the most notable efforts of the year, I not only considered box office take and the cinematic artistry of the films, but also the means by which each film delivered its horror to their particular target audiences—whether it was an accessible but well-made PG13 horror film or an intense, truly disturbing experience for a daring few. I’ve also pointed the few films this year which I found to be near complete clunkers. Not too surprisingly, these films were the ill-advised, high-profile studio projects that couldn’t capture the craft of those films from years gone by but were instead inept, sterile efforts. Agree or disagree, here are the best and worst horror films of 2009.

The Best Horror Films of 2009

10. Make-Out With Violence
Boy meets girl. Girl dies and comes back as a zombie. Boy continues to be in love with girl. Part zombie film and part John Hughes high school dramedy, this fusion of genres is superbly executed by the Texas film collaborative The Deagol Bros. Make-Out With Violence has enjoyed much success on the film festival circuit but has yet to find a distributor. And that’s a cinematic crime. It’s a deeply affecting movie that has all the elements of an indie success story: a talented young cast, exquisite digital cinematography, and a perfect indie rock score. This one will be a pleasure for those to discover once a company (or the filmmakers themselves) get the sense to put it out in DVD in the near future. Someone please release this movie!

9. Jennifer’s Body
Written smartly by a woman, directed strongly by a woman, and acted solidly by two young promising actresses, Jennifer’s Body is a great but sadly misunderstood horror film. Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried play high school BFFs whose friendship hits the rocks when Fox’s character becomes a man-eating demon. Oozing with feminist issues, it couldn’t gain favor with the throbbing male horror movie-going audience at the box office. Yet Diablo Cody’s script and Karyn Kusama’s direction brings the two best realized female characters seen in a fright flick in years, with one hell of a great lesbian scene to boot. I argue that this movie is proof that Megan Fox can — gasp! — act.

8. Trick ‘r Treat
Trick ‘r Treat was the closest we’ve gotten to a full revival of the fun anthology horror film. Flawed by a narrative structure that doesn’t quite connect all the dots, it still delivers with terrific fright moments. Taking cues from classics like Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt, this long-shelved film should have been given a full theatrical release, but instead its charms were enjoyed warmly on horror fans’ DVD players this past Halloween season.

7. Paranormal Activity
When a film budgeted at a paltry 15 grand becomes a sensational $100 million+ blockbuster, something must be said about the achievement. A hat should be tipped in respect. A couple in a suburban home documents the movie’s namesake as events go steadily south. The film’s success was partly a miracle of internet marketing, but the movie’s scares are so deceptively simple yet so potently effective that more genre filmmakers should take notes from what this film did right. Simplicity, even in horror film, is zen.

6. The House of the Devil
A college coed takes on a babysitting gig unaware of a cult of Satanist that have set their sights on her. Director Ty West abandons hyperactive horror antics to deliver this pitch-perfect 80s homage. Charming with its likable innocent female lead (Jocelyn Donahue) and seemingly sleepy pacing, the story’s sense of normalcy is there to be shattered as the movie rages in its last 15 minutes with utterly terrifying action. Be on the lookout for a delightfully creepy Tom Noonan.

5. Grace
An impressive feature film debut by Paul Solet, Grace marks the return of unnerving body horror missing from the cinema since David Cronenberg decided to take on more mainstream subject matter. A young woman obsessed with motherhood delivers a dead baby and continues to ween its monstrous appetites when it comes back to life thirsty for blood. It couldn’t make it to American theaters due to its nerve-wracking, subversive premise, but the film delivers some of the most artistic, shocking images of the year.

4. Zombieland
General audiences got it right by patronizing this inspired horror/comedy effort. Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson make up an odd duo brought forceably together in world full of zombies. Ruben Fleischer’s film was arguably a bit more comedy than horror, but it was so well-executed and terrifically cast that you can’t help but to be won over by the best zombie film in recent memory. And it has the best cameo of the decade, hands down.

3. Drag Me to Hell
Sam Raimi’s highly awaited return to horror may not have performed madly at the box-office, but it performed as the best-crafted mainstream horror film in quite some time. Alison Lohman plays a woman whose random act of unkindness marks her for death by an old gypsy woman. For a simple curse tale, the magnificently shot ride is made so fun by Raimi’s kinetic directorial style and physical comedy antics that I must decree that it was the general audience who was wrong in turning their back on this one this past summer.

2. Antichrist
Conceived as a escape from personal depression, director Lars Von Trier juxtaposes the most upsetting images put on film in recent history with some of the most arresting and beautiful. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe play a married couple who tragically lose their child and retire to the wilderness with the intention to heal. Instead, they descend into madness. Equal parts art and horror, this upsetting film will haunt you and leave you thinking for a very long time.

1. Martyrs
This astoundingly intense French effort by Pascal Laugier, released only on DVD in America, earns my top spot. Two women are best friends. One is severely disturbed and the other attempts to help her, but in doing so discovers an unimaginable horrific conspiracy. It starts as a bloody, psychological horror film but then turns into the most outlandish (but thought-provoking) “torture porn” film ever. It’s not for the faint of heart… and that’s how I like my horror films!

A couple of honorable mentions go to The Final Destination (for its fun 3D horror action) and Sorority Row (for its “pop”-horror script): both films that I generally enjoyed but failed to overall garner a spot on my top ten list.

The Worst Horror Films of 2009

3. A Haunting in Connecticut
Two thirds into its run, this intriguing haunted house film chickens out and delivers one of the most shameless, incongruous and clichéd happy endings tacked to any film in ages. I’ve heard that the ending of the film is the same as the that of the source book, but I still passionately argue that it doesn’t work. Replete with shadow ghostly images, black and white ectoplasmic horrors, and corpses carved up with obscure runes, the movie ends with one big, stinking cope out plot twist.

2. Friday the 13th
Yet another in a line of slick, ill-advised, Hollywood horror remakes, the highly-anticipated reboot of Jason Vorhees was a display of dumbed-down scriptwriting at its best. Asinine twenty-something characters were sliced and diced in an uninspired slasher tripe of a story that featured such non-sense as Jason keeping a woman alive and dwelling in an electric-powered basement dungeon complex. Who the hell pays that electic bill? The stupid script will not tell you. Better luck with the unavoidable sequel.

1. Halloween 2
As horror fans, we don’t go to horror films to simply watch people butchered without reason. Terrible things happen with causes and consequences. Adored genre filmmaker and rocker Rob Zombie forgot to put a story in the sequel to his successful remake of Halloween. The movie is incoherent, lurid for its own sake, and doesn’t have a single character you give a damn about. Hoping that the audience would identify solely with the mute Michael Myers, Zombie shoehorns his wife Sheri Zombie in the absurd role of Myers’ spectre mother as she leads her son along with a white horse through senseless carnage. Malcolm Mcdowell’s Dr. Loomis is presented as a despicable media-whore and Scout Taylor-Compton’s Laurie Strode is reduced to a weak, unsympathetic emo-bitch. The movie should be considered an insult to everything John Carpenter did right in the original film. Luckily, we hear Zombie won’t be back for the third iteration.

Arguably, more movies could be added to my worst list, but efforts such as My Bloody Valentine, The Unborn, The Uninvited, and The Last House on the Left would fall on the category of the utterly mediocre.

Horror in the 2000s ended strongly with a crop of crafted, ballsy, if not all-together well-received films that will age like fine wine.

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