HONORABLE MENTIONS:
GRINDHOUSE (2007) - Probably one of the better theater experiences of the decade for horror fans, but Planet Terror is too goofy for the Top 20, and Death Proof is more of a tribute to car and girl-gang movies than it is horror.
WILLARD (2003) - Glen Morgan's criminally underrated remake probably threw some off by being more of a Hitchcockian character study than just a slasher about a guy who controls rats. But it needs to be seen for Crispin Glover's performance, which might be the best of his career.
1408 (2007) - A very effective ghost tale, thanks to a very good performance from John Cusack (who more or less has to carry the whole movie by himself). But I've found its power slightly diminishes with each viewing. Besides, there's a much better Stephen King adaptation to lavish praise on, and we'll get to that in a bit.
LAND OF THE DEAD (2005) - Yeah, it's fun...but it doesn't really stack up to Romero's first three Dead films.
SESSION 9 (2001) - I went back and forth on whether to give this the #20 spot over the film that I eventually did choose. Session 9 is an excellent creepfest, make no mistake about it. I don't know...maybe I just couldn't bring myself to include a David Caruso film in my Top 20.
THE TOP 20 HORROR MOVIES OF THE DECADE (2000-2009)
20. PITCH BLACK (2000)
Not a horror movie, you say? Well, it is about being stranded on a completely dark planet with a vicious serial killer and a race of man-eating aliens. I'd say "horrific" sums that situation up pretty well. Plus, it just really delivers, thanks to great mood, tension and - yes - a damn good performance from Vin Diesel. I don't know why Diesel and writer/director David Twohy thought the natural follow-up would be inserting Riddick into a mythology-driven space opera, but hey, the resultant disappointment of The Chronicles of Riddick is their cross to bear, not mine. At least we'll always have Pitch Black.
19. SLITHER (2006)
James Gunn's hilarious tribute to the gross-out horror comedies of the '80s would probably be higher on my list if I was able to watch it without thinking of how much better Night of the Creeps did essentially the same story. Still, this film is a blast, and it's always great to see Nathan Fillion in a lead role.
18. THE MIST (2007)
Here's that other Stephen King adaptation I mentioned earlier. Frank Darabont had already proven his mastery of King's dramatic work with The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Here, he showed that he could knock King's horror out of the park as well, with a perfect old-school monster movie. And that ending? Oh, man. Darabont made up for the fact that King's novella ends on a somewhat flat note by creating one of the best endings in horror history. King himself said the film's climax was so good, he wishes he had thought of it.
17. MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN (2008)
I remember when I first read Clive Barker's awesome (and gruesome) short story Midnight Meat Train. I thought about how cool it would be if it was made into a movie...and then resigned myself to thinking it would never happen - at least not with that title, and certainly not with that ending. And yet here it is, with title and crazy finale intact. The best Barker adaptation since Candyman.
16. HOSTEL: PART II (2007)
It has become cool to hate on Eli Roth, but screw that. Yes, he's a sometimes overzealous self-promoter, but he's also an enthusiastic advocate of the horror genre as a whole, and I don't see anything wrong with that. At least the guy actually knows his stuff. As for his own movies, Cabin Fever has its flaws, but its very oddness is also what has made it grow on me more and more over the years. Then we have the two Hostel films, which are often accused of being nothing more than "torture porn," which unfortunately ignores the sly wit and satire that Roth actually employs in the two movies (and, for the record, there's really not as much torture and extreme gore in these films as some critics make it sound - definitely not as much as there is in other films that fell under the torture porn label). I'm giving the nod to the second film because I think it's Roth's most confident film-making job. It never veers into any unnecessary tangents, and I think interweaving the two stories of the girls who are destined to become victims and the businessmen who have paid to victimize them works very well.
15. BUG (2006)
William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, finally returned to the horror genre...and nobody cared. Huh? What happened? Well, perhaps it's the fact that film's marketing mislead people into believing this really was a movie about microscopic little bug, when really it's all about the most frightening thing of all - a shattered human mind. Michael Shannon's turn as a paranoid ex-soldier convinced he's the victim of government experimentation is one of the better genre performances of the decade, and Ashley Judd is quite good as well. The final scene, where Judd not only buys into Shannon's madness but then goes on to take it to a whole new level by herself, is scary in a way that even the best slasher or supernatural film could never hope to achieve.
14. AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000)
Mary Harron's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' controversial novel is nowhere near as graphic as the book, nor does it ever become bogged down in long rants about consumerist desires. Oddly enough, this makes it work almost better than the novel, as we can instead fully concentrate on the twisted psyche of (possible) serial-killer Patrick Bateman. Even if Bale continues to turn in disappointingly boring performances like he did in Terminator: Salvation and Public Enemies, he'll forever be in my cool book for his work here.
13. JEEPERS CREEPERS (2001)
There's a part of me that doesn't enjoy liking this movie, given that it's written and directed by convicted child molester Victor Salva. But if you can separate the art from the artist, what you find is one hell of a well made monster movie - the kind of film that just doesn't get made all too often anymore. I love the mythology of the Creeper (and I especially love how neither this film nor its sequel even bother to try and explain his origins), and I think the first 30 or so minutes of the movie is some of the best filmmaking the genre had seen in quite some time.
12. THE SIGNAL (2007)
A very under-appreciated gem that will hopefully find the cult audience it deserves. The Signal tells the tale of a fictional city where, on New Year's Eve, a mysterious transmission over every television, radio and cell phone drives everyone in the city insane. There are two things that make this film so memorable. For one, it is written and directed by three different filmmakers, with each one helming his own section of the movie and giving it its own distinctive flavor. But what I enjoyed even more is that 9 times out of 10 in a movie like this, the main character will be the one person who was somehow not affected by the transmission. But not here. Everyone is affected, including the hero, which means you can never really trust what the movie is showing you. It's a nice and unique touch.
11. BATTLE ROYALE (2000)
What can I say? You make a movie about a class of middle-school students forced to kill each other on an island or else their heads will be blown up by an explosive collar around their neck, and I'll include it on my list of the top horror films of the decade.
10. INSIDE (2007)
The wave of extreme French horror that hit in the second half of the decade was one of the most exciting movements the genre had seen in awhile (personally, I'll take these over J-horror any day). The best of the bunch was Inside, which takes the typical "victimized woman" horror story to a whole new level. Here, a young pregnant women is terrorized in her home the night before she is scheduled to have labor induced, by a psychotic woman obsessed with cutting the child out of the other woman's stomach. Both actresses give excellent performances, making these real characters, and you just can't believe how far this film continues to push the envelope.
9. SAW (2004)
This is another one of those series that horror snobs are not supposed to like, even though it's ever evolving storyline is actually a pretty cool and unique approach to a horror franchise. Let's face it, most horror franchises eventually begin ignoring their own continuity, whereas Saw makes it so that you really can't watch a new entry without being familiar with what came before. It's the ultimate fan-service series. But, anyway, I could go on and on about how this series is unfairly maligned as a whole, but instead let's just concentrate on how good the first film actually was. Sure, there's the pretty terrible Cary Elwes performance to deal with, but other than that the original Saw movie was quite the treat - buoyed by a great villain, an awesome twist ending, and a slightly more intellectual approach than one would probably expect from a film of this kind. In terms of the whole series, I enjoy the second film the best. But the first movie is one of the most innovative horror films of this era, and deserves this spot accordingly.
8. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008)
Alright, are you happy, vampire fans? Actually, this is much more than just throwing the current fad a bone. In fact, Let the Right One In came along at just the right time, when the depressing teeny-bopper vampire craze was threatening to permanently file down the teeth of one of horror's most indelible monsters. Then this movie (not to mention the excellent novel on which it is based) showed up, reminding us all how powerful a well-done vampire story can actually be. If you would rather watch Twilight than this, there is something very wrong with your taste.
7. 28 WEEKS LATER (2007)
I was going to include both 28 ____ Later films as a tie here, but at the last moment decided that was too much of a cheat (although know that, in my heart, that's really the case). So why did I go with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's sequel over Danny Boyle's more acclaimed original? Well, although I think 28 Days Later is a better movie than its sequel, I think 28 Weeks Later is a better horror movie than its predecessor. I know, I know...that's one of those statements that makes a lot more sense in my head than it does when I actually say it. So let me just say that I think 28 Weeks Later's slightly more nihilistic tone makes it even more disturbing than the first film. After all, the first film shows an epidemic created out of an accident, but ends in a somewhat hopeful manner. The follow-up says "forget that...you might think we have this solved, but this problem ain't going anywhere." Here's hoping if a third film is ever made, it's up to par with the other two, and can be included in my Best Horror Movies of 2010-2019 list.
6. DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004)
When I first heard of this movie being made, I was pretty furious. If you had told me then that it would later end up on my Best Horror Movies of the Decade list, I would have thought you were crazy. But it earned it. OK, forget about the name for a second (if this had been called anything else, there wouldn't have been half as much bitching about it). And let's finally get past this whole silly "zombies can't run" argument. They're fictional creatures...they can do whatever the hell the story demands them to do. Plus, they ran in Return of the Living Dead and Re-Animator, and you sure weren't bitching about it then. Once you get past these two actually-unimportant criticisms, you find one hell of an exciting zombie film, with a fun mix of characters, and one of the best opening sequences in horror movie history.
5. DRAG ME TO HELL (2009)
Will we ever get Evil Dead 4? Who knows? I'm certainly not hopeful. But at least now we know that if it ever does happen, Sam Raimi is certainly still up to the task, as he proved with this triumphant return to the genre (well, triumphant in quality, if not in box-office). Even with a PG-13 rating, Raimi reminded us that sometimes the old tricks still work the best, and gave us one of the most fun horror films in recent memory.
4. MAY (2002)
I've been championing this film to just about everyone I know since first seeing it years ago, but at this point I've given up hoping for it to ever have the huge following I think it deserves. But oh well, it's everyone's loss, as Lucky McKee's dark fairy-tale of a weird, lonely girl (a superb Angela Bettis) who just wants some friends (or at least parts of them) is one of the best off-beat character pieces in the genre's history. It also has one of the best (and unexpected) final shots of any film I've ever seen. It's a testament to both McKee's script and Bettis' performance that I would totally date May if she was a real person...even if it meant risking my life.
3. THE DEVIL'S REJECTS (2005)
In between his "Texas Chainsaw Massacre on a diet of MTV and LSD" House of 1000 Corpses and completely fucking up his Halloween films, Rob Zombie somehow delivered one of the greatest exploitation tributes I've ever seen (this is the movie I think Rodriguez and Tarantino wanted to make with Grindhouse). Whether or not it was just a happy accident is beside the point - this is a damn powerful film, and I love how it messes with its audience in getting them to eventually root for some of the most psychotic and unappealing characters you could have. And now I can never hear Freebird and not think of this movie.
2. SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004)
What is there left to say about Shaun of the Dead? Yes, it's a horror-comedy, but it's also the best non-Romero zombie movie ever made, period. And although it is primarily played for laughs, it's real strength comes in the fact that it doesn't ignore the actual horror of the situation, either. The last act contains some pretty emotional stuff, and it works because you really do care about these characters. Just brilliant filmmaking, any way you look at it.
1. THE DESCENT (2005)
Oh, how I love this film. From it's perfect use of darkness and claustrophobic setting, to its memorable creatures, to its brilliant decision to use an all-female cast (we usually assume the final survivor will be a girl, so this movie wisely cuts out the middle-man, literally, and doesn't give us any male characters to waste our time with). Neil Marshall created an instant horror classic with this one. I'm not all that excited about the upcoming sequel (especially since it follows off of the far-inferior American ending of the first film, instead of the much-better British original ending), but no matter how that movie ends up being, this first film will always be one of my all-time favorite horror movies.
20. PITCH BLACK (2000)
Not a horror movie, you say? Well, it is about being stranded on a completely dark planet with a vicious serial killer and a race of man-eating aliens. I'd say "horrific" sums that situation up pretty well. Plus, it just really delivers, thanks to great mood, tension and - yes - a damn good performance from Vin Diesel. I don't know why Diesel and writer/director David Twohy thought the natural follow-up would be inserting Riddick into a mythology-driven space opera, but hey, the resultant disappointment of The Chronicles of Riddick is their cross to bear, not mine. At least we'll always have Pitch Black.
19. SLITHER (2006)
James Gunn's hilarious tribute to the gross-out horror comedies of the '80s would probably be higher on my list if I was able to watch it without thinking of how much better Night of the Creeps did essentially the same story. Still, this film is a blast, and it's always great to see Nathan Fillion in a lead role.
18. THE MIST (2007)
Here's that other Stephen King adaptation I mentioned earlier. Frank Darabont had already proven his mastery of King's dramatic work with The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Here, he showed that he could knock King's horror out of the park as well, with a perfect old-school monster movie. And that ending? Oh, man. Darabont made up for the fact that King's novella ends on a somewhat flat note by creating one of the best endings in horror history. King himself said the film's climax was so good, he wishes he had thought of it.
17. MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN (2008)
I remember when I first read Clive Barker's awesome (and gruesome) short story Midnight Meat Train. I thought about how cool it would be if it was made into a movie...and then resigned myself to thinking it would never happen - at least not with that title, and certainly not with that ending. And yet here it is, with title and crazy finale intact. The best Barker adaptation since Candyman.
16. HOSTEL: PART II (2007)
It has become cool to hate on Eli Roth, but screw that. Yes, he's a sometimes overzealous self-promoter, but he's also an enthusiastic advocate of the horror genre as a whole, and I don't see anything wrong with that. At least the guy actually knows his stuff. As for his own movies, Cabin Fever has its flaws, but its very oddness is also what has made it grow on me more and more over the years. Then we have the two Hostel films, which are often accused of being nothing more than "torture porn," which unfortunately ignores the sly wit and satire that Roth actually employs in the two movies (and, for the record, there's really not as much torture and extreme gore in these films as some critics make it sound - definitely not as much as there is in other films that fell under the torture porn label). I'm giving the nod to the second film because I think it's Roth's most confident film-making job. It never veers into any unnecessary tangents, and I think interweaving the two stories of the girls who are destined to become victims and the businessmen who have paid to victimize them works very well.
15. BUG (2006)
William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, finally returned to the horror genre...and nobody cared. Huh? What happened? Well, perhaps it's the fact that film's marketing mislead people into believing this really was a movie about microscopic little bug, when really it's all about the most frightening thing of all - a shattered human mind. Michael Shannon's turn as a paranoid ex-soldier convinced he's the victim of government experimentation is one of the better genre performances of the decade, and Ashley Judd is quite good as well. The final scene, where Judd not only buys into Shannon's madness but then goes on to take it to a whole new level by herself, is scary in a way that even the best slasher or supernatural film could never hope to achieve.
14. AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000)
Mary Harron's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' controversial novel is nowhere near as graphic as the book, nor does it ever become bogged down in long rants about consumerist desires. Oddly enough, this makes it work almost better than the novel, as we can instead fully concentrate on the twisted psyche of (possible) serial-killer Patrick Bateman. Even if Bale continues to turn in disappointingly boring performances like he did in Terminator: Salvation and Public Enemies, he'll forever be in my cool book for his work here.
13. JEEPERS CREEPERS (2001)
There's a part of me that doesn't enjoy liking this movie, given that it's written and directed by convicted child molester Victor Salva. But if you can separate the art from the artist, what you find is one hell of a well made monster movie - the kind of film that just doesn't get made all too often anymore. I love the mythology of the Creeper (and I especially love how neither this film nor its sequel even bother to try and explain his origins), and I think the first 30 or so minutes of the movie is some of the best filmmaking the genre had seen in quite some time.
12. THE SIGNAL (2007)
A very under-appreciated gem that will hopefully find the cult audience it deserves. The Signal tells the tale of a fictional city where, on New Year's Eve, a mysterious transmission over every television, radio and cell phone drives everyone in the city insane. There are two things that make this film so memorable. For one, it is written and directed by three different filmmakers, with each one helming his own section of the movie and giving it its own distinctive flavor. But what I enjoyed even more is that 9 times out of 10 in a movie like this, the main character will be the one person who was somehow not affected by the transmission. But not here. Everyone is affected, including the hero, which means you can never really trust what the movie is showing you. It's a nice and unique touch.
11. BATTLE ROYALE (2000)
What can I say? You make a movie about a class of middle-school students forced to kill each other on an island or else their heads will be blown up by an explosive collar around their neck, and I'll include it on my list of the top horror films of the decade.
10. INSIDE (2007)
The wave of extreme French horror that hit in the second half of the decade was one of the most exciting movements the genre had seen in awhile (personally, I'll take these over J-horror any day). The best of the bunch was Inside, which takes the typical "victimized woman" horror story to a whole new level. Here, a young pregnant women is terrorized in her home the night before she is scheduled to have labor induced, by a psychotic woman obsessed with cutting the child out of the other woman's stomach. Both actresses give excellent performances, making these real characters, and you just can't believe how far this film continues to push the envelope.
9. SAW (2004)
This is another one of those series that horror snobs are not supposed to like, even though it's ever evolving storyline is actually a pretty cool and unique approach to a horror franchise. Let's face it, most horror franchises eventually begin ignoring their own continuity, whereas Saw makes it so that you really can't watch a new entry without being familiar with what came before. It's the ultimate fan-service series. But, anyway, I could go on and on about how this series is unfairly maligned as a whole, but instead let's just concentrate on how good the first film actually was. Sure, there's the pretty terrible Cary Elwes performance to deal with, but other than that the original Saw movie was quite the treat - buoyed by a great villain, an awesome twist ending, and a slightly more intellectual approach than one would probably expect from a film of this kind. In terms of the whole series, I enjoy the second film the best. But the first movie is one of the most innovative horror films of this era, and deserves this spot accordingly.
8. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008)
Alright, are you happy, vampire fans? Actually, this is much more than just throwing the current fad a bone. In fact, Let the Right One In came along at just the right time, when the depressing teeny-bopper vampire craze was threatening to permanently file down the teeth of one of horror's most indelible monsters. Then this movie (not to mention the excellent novel on which it is based) showed up, reminding us all how powerful a well-done vampire story can actually be. If you would rather watch Twilight than this, there is something very wrong with your taste.
7. 28 WEEKS LATER (2007)
I was going to include both 28 ____ Later films as a tie here, but at the last moment decided that was too much of a cheat (although know that, in my heart, that's really the case). So why did I go with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's sequel over Danny Boyle's more acclaimed original? Well, although I think 28 Days Later is a better movie than its sequel, I think 28 Weeks Later is a better horror movie than its predecessor. I know, I know...that's one of those statements that makes a lot more sense in my head than it does when I actually say it. So let me just say that I think 28 Weeks Later's slightly more nihilistic tone makes it even more disturbing than the first film. After all, the first film shows an epidemic created out of an accident, but ends in a somewhat hopeful manner. The follow-up says "forget that...you might think we have this solved, but this problem ain't going anywhere." Here's hoping if a third film is ever made, it's up to par with the other two, and can be included in my Best Horror Movies of 2010-2019 list.
6. DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004)
When I first heard of this movie being made, I was pretty furious. If you had told me then that it would later end up on my Best Horror Movies of the Decade list, I would have thought you were crazy. But it earned it. OK, forget about the name for a second (if this had been called anything else, there wouldn't have been half as much bitching about it). And let's finally get past this whole silly "zombies can't run" argument. They're fictional creatures...they can do whatever the hell the story demands them to do. Plus, they ran in Return of the Living Dead and Re-Animator, and you sure weren't bitching about it then. Once you get past these two actually-unimportant criticisms, you find one hell of an exciting zombie film, with a fun mix of characters, and one of the best opening sequences in horror movie history.
5. DRAG ME TO HELL (2009)
Will we ever get Evil Dead 4? Who knows? I'm certainly not hopeful. But at least now we know that if it ever does happen, Sam Raimi is certainly still up to the task, as he proved with this triumphant return to the genre (well, triumphant in quality, if not in box-office). Even with a PG-13 rating, Raimi reminded us that sometimes the old tricks still work the best, and gave us one of the most fun horror films in recent memory.
4. MAY (2002)
I've been championing this film to just about everyone I know since first seeing it years ago, but at this point I've given up hoping for it to ever have the huge following I think it deserves. But oh well, it's everyone's loss, as Lucky McKee's dark fairy-tale of a weird, lonely girl (a superb Angela Bettis) who just wants some friends (or at least parts of them) is one of the best off-beat character pieces in the genre's history. It also has one of the best (and unexpected) final shots of any film I've ever seen. It's a testament to both McKee's script and Bettis' performance that I would totally date May if she was a real person...even if it meant risking my life.
3. THE DEVIL'S REJECTS (2005)
In between his "Texas Chainsaw Massacre on a diet of MTV and LSD" House of 1000 Corpses and completely fucking up his Halloween films, Rob Zombie somehow delivered one of the greatest exploitation tributes I've ever seen (this is the movie I think Rodriguez and Tarantino wanted to make with Grindhouse). Whether or not it was just a happy accident is beside the point - this is a damn powerful film, and I love how it messes with its audience in getting them to eventually root for some of the most psychotic and unappealing characters you could have. And now I can never hear Freebird and not think of this movie.
2. SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004)
What is there left to say about Shaun of the Dead? Yes, it's a horror-comedy, but it's also the best non-Romero zombie movie ever made, period. And although it is primarily played for laughs, it's real strength comes in the fact that it doesn't ignore the actual horror of the situation, either. The last act contains some pretty emotional stuff, and it works because you really do care about these characters. Just brilliant filmmaking, any way you look at it.
1. THE DESCENT (2005)
Oh, how I love this film. From it's perfect use of darkness and claustrophobic setting, to its memorable creatures, to its brilliant decision to use an all-female cast (we usually assume the final survivor will be a girl, so this movie wisely cuts out the middle-man, literally, and doesn't give us any male characters to waste our time with). Neil Marshall created an instant horror classic with this one. I'm not all that excited about the upcoming sequel (especially since it follows off of the far-inferior American ending of the first film, instead of the much-better British original ending), but no matter how that movie ends up being, this first film will always be one of my all-time favorite horror movies.
I think Willard is worth it's weight in gold for the music video at the end.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting choice to American Psycho as a horror film. It is one of my favorite movies of all time, but I never thought of it as a horror film
ReplyDelete