Top Whore-Ers of the 2000's

Much better decade for the genre! So much so, that I am deciding to do a top 5 (or possibly more) depending on the year. Leggo




2000
5. Final Destination
4. Unbreakable
3. Ginger Snaps
2. The Gift
1. American Psycho


Not a bad start up for the decade! A pretty respectable top 5, Final Destination was the start of one of the hugest franchises of the decade, Unbreakable continued the streak of Shamaylan's success, Ginger Snaps has to be one of the best werewolf movies ever, and The Gift is such an underrated joy. But in the end, for sheep depravity and a balls to the walls performance by Christian Bale, I couldn't help but run with American Psycho.










2001
5. Jeepers Creepers
4. May
3. The Others
2. Donnie Darko
1. Frailty


This was such a great year, maybe I'm biased as Fuck and a lot of it was trash but this was the year my parents started letting me see a lot of these movies so screw it. Frailty was a no-brainer for me though, the twist alone gets me every time.








2002
5. Cabin Fever
4. Panic Room
3. Signs
2. The Ring
1. 28 Days Later


This was a stellar year as looking through, I could have easily tacked on another good 5 movies that I was proud to list. 28 Days Later gave invention and life back to a genre that is rather dead (major pun intended) so I can't not vote that one.










2003
5. Wrong Turn
4. Freddy Vs. Jason
3. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
2. High Tension
1. House of 1000 Corpses


Another great year! I had such a blast seeing these and many more this year. House of 1000 Corpses was pure nightmare fuel from beginning to end and therefore was my horse to back.








2004
5. Secret Window
4. Saw
3. Open Water
2. Shaun of the Dead
1. Dawn of the Dead


I can't believe the original Saw is 16 fucking years old. Jesus. Another awesome year, but when I think of near perfect remakes, Dawn of the Dead immediately comes to mind.









2005
5. Wolf Creek
4. The Devil's Rejects
3. Hostel
2. War of the Worlds
1. The Descent


How can it not be The Descent? Claustrophobia, paranoia, physical danger, the movie really touched on more than one type of fear and it did it all with such brauva.








2006
5. The Hills Have Eyes
4. Saw III
3. Hatchet
2. Bug
1. Pan's Labyrinth


Probably such a cliched choice but I can't help, Pan's Labyrinth really won me over and similar to The Descent, really touched on several different types of features and did it with such a beauty.






2007
05. The Poughkeepsie Tapes
04. Sweeney Todd
03. Grindhouse
02. Trick R' Treat
01. REC


THIS IS THE YEAR! If I had to guide anyone to a variety of movies based on the year they came out, I'd happily and easily refer them here. There was even a good 5-6 options I left off that I was bummed about. Tough call, but REC
was a 75 min heart attack.



2008
5. The Ruins
4. Eden Lake
3. Midnight Meat Train
2. The Strangers
1. Lake Mungo


Maybe I was a bit spoiled by the previous year, but this one just felt....meh. Lake Mungo, on the contrary to Trick R' Treat, took a genre that I am NOT a huge fan of (the found footage/documentary genre) and really made it feel authentic and chilling all at once, and I'm not just talking about THAT scene




2009
5. Sorority Row
4. Splice
3. Orphan
2. Dead Snow
1. Drag Me To Hell


A pretty fair way to end the decade! A lot of remakes this year, most of which were hits others were....choices. Drag Me To Hell felt like a rollercoaster from beginning to end, inventive, fun, and proof that you can be a boss with a PG-13 rating.

Top dogs *Non horror* : 2000-2009

2000

3. Chicken Run

2. Best In Show

1. Requiem For A Dream 

2001

3. Ghost World

2. Monsters, Inc.

1. Moulin Rouge

2002

3. Gangs of New York

2. About Schmidt

1. Chicago

2003

3. Kill Bill

2. Finding Nemo

1. Thirteen

2004

3. Finding Neverland

2. Eternal Sunshine

1. Million Dollar Baby

2005

3. Brokeback Mountain

2. Crash

1. A History of Violence

2006

3. Notes on a Scandal

2. The Last King of Scotland

1. Little Miss Sunshine

2007

3. No Country for Old Men

2. Eastern Promises

1. Atonement

2008

3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2. Wall*E

1. Milk

2009

3. Coraline/Precious

2. Up

1. Inglorious Basterds

Forget Me Not

If Forget Me Not was an essay, it would be one with some pretty good body paragraphs and a rather disappointing conclusion and flimsy beginning. Shame that it had so much potential but unfortunately Forget Me Not just doesn't really know how to start or end with power.

Forget Me Not is all about Sandy (Carly Schroeder from Mean Creek) and her friends enjoying their time on graduation weekend. They should be having a blast, but after an odd encounter with an unidentified girl while playing the game "Forget Me Not" (which pretty much just looks like Hide and Seek in a graveyard), things begin to go wrong. It's up to Sandy to find out why this is happening and how to stop it before her and all of her friends are completely forgotten.

My favorite thing about this movie is easily what happens after each person is killed; the memory of them is totally erased. It's a pretty inventive idea that actually hasn't been done to death which is a rarity in basic slashers such as this one. Not only is it creepy based merely on the idea of totally losing any type of memory of your friend after they're gone, but it also adds an extra layer of mystery about Sandy when her friends start disappearing. It makes you wonder if everything is at is seems or if there's something going on with her that's being saved for the grand conclusion.

For a low budget horror movie, the effects were pretty decent as well. I loved how the ghosts would show up on the scene and the most recently murdered friend would join them. So by the end of the movie, the main characters are being chased by their entire clan....who they pretty much have no memories of. Weird. The death scenes aren't out of this world amazing, but at least it's not like most other horror movies where everyone just gets stabbed or ripped apart; everyone dies in completely different ways, and I'd be lying if I said that the death scenes involving an open grave and a wood chipper didn't bring a smile to my face.

Now for the bad....the beginning scenes are absolutely painful to endure. I've never met anyone in my life that speaks as ridiculously asinine as the characters in this movie do. It's so ridiculously contrived you would swear that some parts of this movie were written by someone with the attitude of a 60 year-old on how the youngsters communicate. 4 minutes in, and I couldn't wait for the death scenes to start happening just to get the characters to stop talking. It's quite odd how the performances get stronger as the circumstances get less and less realistic. You would think acting like a partying teenager would be easier than acting like a teenager getting chased around by a recluse ghost who makes your entire memory fade away.

As for the ending, I was pretty disappointed as well. Towards the climax, several ideas popped into my head about what I thought/was hoping the big twist would be (because you know there's going to be one...come on). Sadly enough, none of these ideas happened on screen. The final scenes feel so choppy, rushed, forced, and nonsensical (even by this movie's logic...shit doesn't add up), you would almost swear that this was the ending to a completely different horror movie and not the one that started building promise after the initial painful and stiff opening scenes. Just do yourself a favor, turn off the movie around the point the remaining characters head to the convent/hospital and we can forget the rest of it ever happened. :)

2/4



Friday the 13th

I'm probably going to movie review hell for saying this but IDGAF....Friday the 13th was actually a pretty good remake. Sure it's nothing but Jason killing horny, drunken, druggie teenagers for 90 minutes, but it's not like the original was anything different so I won't knock this version down for dumbing down the original.

In this Friday the 13th, we actually get to watch Jason plow through two groups of teenager. In the first 30 minutes, Jason demolishes a group of teens (my favorite death was the one with the sleeping bag), and saves one of them named Whitney (Amanda Righetti), because of her strong resemblance to his mother. He keeps her as his pet in his dungeon/home? type of deal. Soon after, her brother Clay (Jared Padalecki) runs into a new group of teens while looking for Whitney. As expected, it's not long before this group is meeting their end at any sharp object within Jason's grasp.

People don't go to Friday the 13th for an intriguing plot, Oscar-worthy performances, or a grand twist they didn't see coming. They go to see tits, blood, and the occasional good one-liner thrown in between each kill. And overall, I would say that this one delivers each of those. There's tons of nudity and sex (Julliana Guill gets a large opportunity to show off her well...largeness). Willa Ford also gets a nice chance to show off her assets as well, despite being in the movie for as long as her singing career lasted. A lot of the kills are pretty neat as well. The death scenes involving a sleeping bag, a bow and arrow, and a machete through the head were easily the best. Hell, there's even a death at the end that I didn't really see coming. As for humor, I would say it has some of that as well, thanks mainly to the token stoner and black guy.

As for the negatives...my main one is that everything has the the tendency to be too dark and/or fast. Michael Bay and Marcus Nispel (who created the very music video-ish Texas Chainsaw Massacre) have the tendency to film everything like you're in a windtunnel. Tons of shit is flying in front of your face but you couldn't be any more clueless as to what's going on. Another is in the structure of the film. I much preferred the first group of people that dies in the first half hour to the second group that takes up the rest of the movie. It just seems a bit pointless and tedious to me to kill a whole group of teens after setting them up for it....only to do the exact same thing over again. Repetition in a 90 minute movie isn't cute.

Overall, Friday the 13th gets the job done. Skin is shown, skin is impaled, things are smoked, liquids are consumed, and brain cells are on vacation. Which is exactly what's expected when watching a movie like Friday the 13th. Let's just hope that this one is the last Jason remake and no one comes up with the bright idea of Saturday the 14th for a sequel.

3/4

Wrong Turn 3

I would love to meet the people that decide which ideas are solid enough to be turned into movies. What the fuck is being said no to when movies like Wrong Turn 3 are given the permission to exist? Wrong Turn 3 is an absolute shitfest, and easily one of the worst horror movies I have seen in years.

The original Wrong Turn, while maybe not the most original movie (hey there Deliverance), at least seemed to have a point in being made. I thought it delivered some legit thrills, was pretty entertaining, and minus the nonstop, never-ending obnoxious shrieking from Emmanuelle Chriqui....I believe that Wrong Turn was pretty fair in terms of performances as well. And then the straight-to-DVD sequel rolls around. And even though it felt like a cheap knock-off of the first movie, it at least had one or two surprises and a couple good scares. Wrong Turn 3 provides nothing. I see no point in this movie being made at all.

The story is so fucking retarded. This chick Alex (played with absolutely no intensity, excitement, or originality by Janet Montgomery) watches all of her friends gets murdered in gruesome traps, and pretty much hides out until a bunch of convicts and the cops escorting them show up. Wouldn't there be a bit MORE security when transporting convicts? If the hillbilly is so intelligent, then why didn't he just kill Alex off before she ran into the other people? How did she avoid danger? And considering this does take place in West Virginia like the first two movies, wouldn't people know to stay the fuck away from this? Absolutely retarded.

Thrills and chills obviously took a vacation as well. There's absolutely nothing scary or even creepy going on here. Just the standard cat and mouse game. Someone talks. Someone else walks into a trap that destroys them (in some of the worst CGI ever). Hillbilly laughs. People run. And repeat. And no, I'm not downplaying the movie's routine. It really is that fucking dull and montonous. Once you've seen one person get dissected by the hillbilly's trap, you've pretty much seen the entire bit of this 90 minute torture chamber of a movie.

And if the lack of thrills, humor, and a solid storyline aren't enough to say no thanks, the performances are so goddamn awful it's like a gun to the head. Janet Montgomery (while hot) can't act her way out of a paper bag. You never really feel like she's even remotely terrified, sad, or even peeved off. She goes through the motions in every line she delivers and puts herself on auto-pilot. And the prisoners' dialogue and performances are fucking ridiculous. Every one of them overracts and speaks like an angry middle schooler that just got out of juvie. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. I'm gonna fucking kill you. Get the fuck up. Die. Yeah, it must have taken years to write this great American script.

Wrong Turn 3 is an embarassing movie on everyone's parts. It's not scary, the acting is shit, it's boring, the effects suck, and it doesn't even have any sense of humor or fun in it. When the obligatory part 4 comes out, just avoid this like a tedious, neverending plague of grotesque bullshit.

0/4



The Final Destination

The Final Destination (what a dishonest title) is totally different then the first three in the series. Petty things like character development and fairly solid performances are totally out the window. There's something so unapologetic about how TFD plays out. This is a bittersweet compliment.

Like I just said, in terms of story and performances/characters, this is easily the worst in the franchise. Just about everyone either overdoes it and/or doesn't play it up enough. You really don't give a shit who dies, and I would be lucky if I could remember one thing that's said by each of the characters. This is easily the least interesting set of victims throughout the Final Destination series.

On the other hand, there's something so...bold about the formula for this one. While I wish it would have been a bit longer in order to flesh out some story elements, I felt like this one flew by at a brisk 80 minute time, which already gets some bonus points from me. There's very little downtime between kills which often pleased the inner gorehound in me. Some of the effects are really awesome as well, I loved the format used for the recreation of the accidents in past Final Destination movies, and the scene at the end that creates the big accident in this movie.

So, while I wish that The Final Destination had tried to be more of...well, a movie, I have to give it some props on the awesome pace, and new twist or two with how the deaths play out (I loved the visual clues that the main guy received before each death). It's not a great movie by any means, but for filler gorefests...you could do a lot worse.

2/4

The Last House on the Left

Continuing with the recent theme of expressing brutality for no other reason then just to kill time and try to entertain people is The Last House on the Left, a disgusting, vile, hideous, pointless movie.

The story (if you can even call it that) plays out like this; Mari (played by Sara Paxton in one of the only highlights of this movie) is raped, tortured, and left for dead. And ironically enough, the criminals end up staying at her parents house for refuge from the storm. Mommy and Daddy become upset once they realize how fucked up their daughter is, and decide it's time to bring down the house.

And that's about it. The plot is so threadbare it can literally be summarized in one sentence. I bet the only reason that there was a "story" created is so that it would be plausible for harsh, unscary torture scenes to follow. The rape scene is one of the most disgusting scenes I've seen in a movie in a long time. It feels like it will never end and is just totally unnecessary and ridiculous to watch. It's not scary or even entertaining. It's just fucking vile.

Nothing scary happens in The Last House on the Left. Literally it's just people being tortured and killed for the entire movie (which feels like it will never end). I felt like there was an interesting idea here with the parents. Since they are bringing pain onto the criminals, are they any better? Is revenge justfication for brutality? But nope, fuck that shit. Let's just throw in some more torture porn because God knows we don't have enough of that.

The Last House on the Left is a sadistic, unenjoyable piece of trash. There's no humor and no real frights here. Just nasty bullshit trying to convince you that it's scary and entertaining. Fail on both parts.

0/4

Orphan

From what we've seen in horror movies in the last decade (Orphan, The Omen, The Children, Wicked Little Things), children are evil. Anyone considering having/adopting children should think twice, and then head over to the nearest Petsmart. But, Orphan has a neat twist or two that sets it out from the standard evil child movie.

Isabelle Fuhrman was the perfect choice as Esther in this movie. She conveys a real sense if innocence in the earlier scenes, and totally knows how to bring on her bad little bitch side later on in the movie. She'll smile in your face and kill the shit out of you within the same second. There's an ominous prescence that surrounds Esther even when she isn't plotting someone's death.

Props go out to the movie on actually being able to convey horror without having to resort to blood and gore every two seconds. Though one or two scenes is quite brutal (pray for that nun), the movie rarely uses blood to get the point across. It more so relies on the terrifying situation of knowing someone's up to no good, but not knowing why or how they are committing the crimes.

Orphan isn't perfect though. I wish the movie was a bit shorter (124 minutes isn't exactly that Tanner friendly) and some of the scenes towards the end with Esther in her father are just...really fucking weird. Besides those minor nitpicks, Orphan is a solid entry into the "Just another reason why children suck" franchise.

3/4

Where the Wild Things are

You know when you get a present that looks so awesome and cool from the outside, but once you get more familiar with the contents of the present, you find that it's really disappointing and no match to the outside of it? That's Where The Wild Things Are in a nutshell. It's a beautiful, pointless bore.

WTWTA starts off really...terribly. The little kid is annoying as fuck and acts like he belongs in a mental institution. He's obnoxious, has weird outbursts, and even bites his Mom like she's a fucking happy meal. I think the viewer was supposed to find these scenes as funny or cute. They're not at all, they're just ridiculous and weird.

Once he meets the wild things, the movie starts to rise for a bit. All of the creatures are beautifully created, and the actors providing their voices to the characters really give a heart and soul to these animals, which are a lot more similar to the little boy then you would imagine. But, after he originally meets the monsters, things go back downhill.

For creatures labeled as "wild things", these creatures really aren't wild, or terribly interesting at all. In fact, they could easily be people who just haven't shaved in like..decades. There's never really any tension or suspense in this movie. It's pretty much just countless scene after scene of tedious conversation that goes absolutely nowhere and doesn't serve a point at all. It's talking just for the sole purpose of saying something, while ironically not saying anything at all.

The movie just lacks any focus or point at all. You don't really learn anything about the child, and you rarely hear anything about the monsters. Scenes about those two subjects sure as hell would have been a lot more interesting then watching the monsters jump on each other while building forts and all that bullshit.

WTWTA just fails to really do...anything. It's not entertaining, there really is no heart or brain to anything that occurs throughout the movie. You don't really care what happens as a result of the lack of tension and insanely unlikeable lead character. The visuals are beautiful and the actors voicing the monsters are pretty much the only highlight. Some books should never be made into movies, and that is a category where WTWTA lies. A pointless bore.

2/4

The Lovely Bones



The Lovely Bones is easily one of my biggest disappointments of 2009. The acting is great and the visuals and cinematography are beautiful. And unfortunately, that's where the praise runs out for me.

First off, one of my biggest problems was the narration. The main character lays it on so thick that it almost takes away from the gravity of her situation. Seriously, everything she says issssss likeeeeeee soooooooo slowwwwww forrrrr emphaassssiisssss. It gets old quickly.

I also had problems with the way in which all the characters dealt with the murder. Susie's parents act in the total clichéd way, and the movie never really shows us the authentic grief that parents who just lost a child would feel. Susan Sarandon shows up in the middle for some really awkward attempts at humor. And about 5 minutes after Susie is murdered and dismembered, she's off dancing and Vogue-ing in the in between world with this other dead chick. Yeah, cause that's plausible.

Another thing that kind of bugged me was the motivation of the killer. You never really understand why he is doing what is he doing. All of his scenes just feel so...lame. There's no element of surprise or mystery, all of his scenes seem like something you would see off of a version of Susie's story on the Lifetime channel.

Overall, The Lovely Bones just doesn't measure up to the awesome performances. It's too long, too nonsensical, and too silly to really be able to fully express Susie's story to the best way. The problem is that real emotion isn't displayed on screen, but someone's performance of emotion. It's just..fake all-around.

1/4

Halloween 2

Call me a weenie but Jesus Christ why is this movie so Damn angry!?

1/4



The Box

Sometimes I feel like directors sit around and ponder things like, "Hmm, if we make a movie that will make people think, will we get tons of brownie points even if the movie doesn't make one bit of sense?". The Box is one of those movies. Not one bit of this goddamn shit is anything dealing with logic.

First off, the performances are so flat overall. This is easily Cameron Diaz's worst performance in years, if not ever. She sounds so monotone the whole time and her accent is totally ridiculous. It's like equivalent to speaking in a Texan accent after getting into a losing battle with Vodka. Sandy from Spongebob is less laughable as a true Texan. James Marsden doesn't fare much better either, his role is pretty much sized up as looking shocked or looking confused. Get that Oscar, dude.

My biggest problem with this movie (or at least..one of the main ones)....NOTHING MAKES SENSE. Holy shit, the plot is like taking about 50 different things, throwing them at the screen, and seeing what sticks. Nothing works together and if you really think about it, the movie gives you way more questions then it does with answers. You never really buy the characters' motivations in this movie. Yes, they need the money, but for people who are as educated and well-spoken as these two..they sure act like a bunch of bumfucks who consider a dollar as a ton of money. After the button is pushed, things just go totally downhill. People show up (generally with bloody noses), act weird as fuck (generally laughing while doing this), and really serve no purpose to the plot. It was just like a lame attempt at trying to be scary, at which the movie also fails considering nothing scary happens within the two hour length. The ending/twist is a total joke also. It just doesn't really explain itself well and you're left scratching your head more then you are admiring the creativity within the premise. The movie was based on a classic episode of the Twilight Zone called "Button, Button". I would say your way better off just looking up that for free instead of investing any time, energy, or thought into The Box.

1/4