Jan 12 2011

Top 10 Horror Films of 2010

Written by: Nathan Bartlebaugh

When discussions of the year’s best films and awards come round, horror movies often get slighted. And yet, every year, there are at least a handful of films and performances in the genre which stand out and above the rest. This year was slower in terms of horror, but there was enough product on the foreign and indie fronts to keep things interesting.

Yes, Adam Green’s Hatchet 2 was one of the poorest films of the year, but he also gave us Frozen, a compelling and haunting survival thriller. Zombies were run through the shredder with big budget gloss like Resident Evil and pop mediocrity like The Walking Dead, but the Brothers Deagol gave the undead a twisty unnerving spin with Makeout With Violence.  Vampires weren’t all sparkle and mope in the Spierig’s Daybreakers and low-budget ghosties got to be creepy again in Lake Mungo.

Independent horror had a rather good year, with a few titles breaking into the mainstream like Buried and The Last Exorcism.  Although Asia has slowed down as a reliable provider of ghastly goodness, Scandinavian horror has been gaining ground. 2010 brought us everything from American remakes of Swedish vampires to not one but two variations on the darker side of Santa Claus and even a faux documentary on troll hunting. In the end, horror fans had to look harder but had a greater variety of offerings than they have had in previous years.

Here, then, are the ten films that most impressed me in 2010.

10. The Crazies

The first entry on this list that makes a case for remakes. As a general rule, cherry-picking older horror and giving it a quick do-over is not something I’m in favor of. However, in the case of Breck Eisner’s The Crazies, the impulse to do a popcorn renovation of Romero’s jumbled and pretentious 70′s shocker results in a winner. Whats this one got that the original doesn’t? Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell for starters, both giving solid performances as a couple trying to survive the zombie-esque epidemic sweeping through the little town of Ogden Marsh. There’s far less of Romero’s preachy screed and more legitimate thrills, wrapped up in a visually nervy shell by Eisner. This is a briskly paced and economical horror movie that trades up the hemoglobin for some welcome humor.

 

9. Frozen

Adam Green’s Frozen is one of the most unique pieces of survival horror I’ve recently seen. The set-up is simple, the logistics are plausible, the characters dynamic, and the threat is terrifyingly real. The result is a picture that authenticates those feelings of helplessness, mounting dread and blood-chilling desperation that come with similar real-life scenarios. Following the unfortunate situation of 3 skiers stranded on a chairlift over a long holiday weekend, Frozen generates the same kind of tension and primal disquiet that Jack London captured in his piece of short fiction ‘To Build a Fire’. Green defected after this to return to the slog of his half-baked slasher franchise Hatchet, but his heart and talent seem to lie with telling realistic stories with a grim and fearsome bent.

 

8. The Last Exorcism

While there are no doubt those who would disagree with me, I’m of the opinion that Eli Roth is one of the worst things to happen to modern horror. Roth’s glut of gory and tone deaf geekshows have helped pave the way for that cruddiest of recent trends, ‘torture porn’. So color me surprised when a film bearing Roth’s fingerprints and producing credentials turns out to be the very antithesis of everything the man has ever done. Exorcism was marketed like a jump-scare occult thriller but is in reality more sedate, thoughtful and unnerving than that. Patrick Fabian gives a nuanced and truly interesting turn as an agnostic evangelical minister who has lost his faith and now conducts exorcisms to help expose the charlatanism at the heart of it all. What he finds on this one last hurrah is much different than he, or the audience, expects. I was often surprised how far this one goes into the debate between genuine faith, rational science and religious fanaticism. If it weren’t for the ham-stringing final minutes, this might be higher on the list.

 

 

7. Rec 2

Rec 2 is one of those sequels that seamlessly expands the original and actually surpasses it. Rec was a well-made creepy horror but the second tells a better story with more immediacy. Balaguero and Plaza change-up the  slow-building horror format of the first, transforming the setting and their antagonists into something better suited for an edge-of-your-seat action picture, populated with endless jump scares, twisting of narrative perspective and as many nightmarish death scenes as possible. There are few let-ups between attacks and revelation, and each sequence is tied so precisely to the next that they form an ever-coiling spring of suspense. If the character work isn’t as well done as the first go-round, there’s more overall invention and suspense this time. I’d gladly watch a third installment, especially if the team can find a new wrinkle in their premise.  

6. Buried

 ‘Buried’ works splendidly, in spite of it’s odd premise, and all involved commit to the reality and limitations of their story.  Doing this takes Buried out of the realm of being an ‘exercise’ or ‘experiment’ and breaks down the artistic wall between the film and the viewers. As immediate and direct as that earliest of cinematic thrill-rides, The Great Train Robbery, Buried achieves a kind of movie-going perfection. We are there, in that box, with Paul, and the air is running out. By the end, when it’s all said and done, we finish up exhilirated and a bit exhausted. Suddenly, we need an escape from our escapism. This is Ryan Reynold’s best performance to date and he proves he can carry a whole film even when trapped on his back in a coffin deep in the Earth.

5. Let Me In

A remake of the excellent 2008 Swedish vampire drama ‘Let the Right One In, Reeves’ rendition isn’t a shot for shot recreation or a mainstream dumb-down of the unsettling and hauntingly poignant original. Instead, the experience is like visiting a really great funhouse attraction, except this time you get the opportunity to peek into rooms that were closed on the first go-round. Atmospheric, elegantly creepy, and subtly changing emphasis and scope, Let Me In spins the same story with more focus on the beguiling relationship at its center, the growing bond between a bullied 12-year old boy and the lonely vampire next door. As a filmmaker Matt Reeves makes Let Me In more fearsome and less languid than Alfredson’s, but he doesn’t do away the haunting atmosphere.  American audiences rarely get to enjoy a thriller done with such restraint and passion. The world has three Twilight films, is it such a crime that now we also have two very good films based off Let The Right One In?

 

4. Make Out with Violence

 Make Out With Violence is a wonderfully strange and challenging film.  The Deagol Brothers, a filmmaking troupe who arent really brothers or named Deagol, have put together something really odd here; a teenage comedy with heart-felt laughs, an art-house drama with real pathos, and a horror flick with a human dread that reaches down into the bones. When teenage Wendy goes missing, her friends and family withdraw into mourning and despondency. And then Wendy comes back as a zombie, rotting away, craving living flesh and confusing and confounding the Darling boys, one of which has a tragic crush on her. Beyond the Malick-esque, tranquil cinematography and the Hughes-esque setting, this is indeed a horror story growing in it’s own particular grimness. In between gruesome scenes of Wendy consuming meat shakes, rats and a couple of full-grown dogs, there’s a tender and honest exploration of grief and loss. It’s a singular film and one that deserves to be seen. Just don’t expect to walk away smiling.

 

3. Lake Mungo

Faux docu horror has garnered a second wind with the Paranormal Activity franchise, but here’s a film, created about the same time as the first PA, that bests those movies  by channeling the melancholy and creepy mystery of classic ghost stories. When young Alice Palmer drowns swimming at a local dam, her death affects and impacts not just her family but the community around her. Like that other Palmer before her, she throws all other characters of the story into her orbit despite the fact she’s gone. Presented like a documentary, it has less seams than the PA films and has the atmosphere of an expose like Unsolved Mysteries. This is diverting because it sets us up for a generic, one-trick spook show and then reveals layers of creepiness underneath that are more worthy of a great Twilight Zone episode or a Saki story (or both). There is a single shot near the picture’s end where Alice is alone in the dark at Lake Mungo and captures an image on her cell phone. Who that figure in the dark really is and what they represent is easily predicted but no less genuinely shocking. Heres a film that gave me reall goosebumps up the back of my neck.

 

2. Heartless

British director Philip Ridley has only a few films to his name and all of them are obscure. His earlier works, Reflecting Skin and The Passion of Darkly Noon were American gothic trifles that while esoteric and imaginative were not completely successful. Returning to the land of his birth, Ridley spins a lavish and achingly strange story of a sad young man, face besmirched with a birth mark, who finds himself struggling against the forces of heaven and hell as he comes to terms with finding the light in darkness. It has the pontential to be terrifically prententious, but Jim Sturgess as the protag gives the movie a beating heart and sensitivty that meshes with the more fantastical elements to create a Grimm’s fairy tale by way of Clive Barker. Here is a movie with furnace-dwelling demons, beings birthed from cocoons of charred skin, and gangs of creepy saurian chavs and it still manages to work as a human drama. When all is said is done, Heartless isn’t just a great horror movie, it’s also a stirring work of art.

 

1. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

It dawns on me that I was most enamored by monsters and horror when I was a child. Part of my current fascination is based off a wistful nostalgia that correlates the two together. It’s no surprise then that this feature length version of Jalmari Helander’s delightful Rare Exports shorts was my fave horror movie of the year. It’s a throwback to the Spielberg and Dante films of the 80′s and spins a dark fable about an mythological, monstrous Santa Claus from Lapland foklore. With an excellent child performance and an atmosphere and tone that takes it’s mind-bogglingly goofy story seriously, RE isn’t a satirical lark or a watered down thriller for kids. There are set pieces and creatures in the movie that recall Carpenter’s The Thing and Helander isn’t afraid of mixing adult dread with childlike wonder. Visually, this is a lovely and gorgeous film and the cold chill of the mountain range can be felt on every frame. Of all the Christmas-themed horrors, RE is the only that seems to respect the spirit of the holiday in question. There’s the smell of a raucous B-movie like Killer Klowns but with the tone of those would-be Zemeckis yuletide spectacles Polar Express and Christmas Carol. Rare Exports is a horror movie that children can enjoy but adults might find the most to savor here.

By Nathan • Featured, Film • 4 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,