Posted Fri Oct 9, 2009 at 11:30 AM PDT by Mike Attebery
In preparation for Halloween, High-Def Digest has scraped together a maggot-infested candy bowl of fun!
What's in the Goodie Bag? --- Horror Blu-rays for this Halloween season.
by M. Enois Duarte (The HDD Crypt Keeper)
Greetings, foolish mortals, we interrupt your regular terror-vision program to make a special announcement: It's that time of the year again! That's right, kiddies, instead of rotting your gray matter with useless moving pictures, full of romance and drama, I'm going to improve it with despicable tales of terror and nauseating festivities. It's a time to snuggle next to a warm body (you know, before it gets cold), light some hellish candles, and hang out in front of your crypt theater.
As the dead rise from their graves and bang away at your doors with frightful delight, here at High-Def Die-gest, your pal, the Crypt Keeper, has been invited to exorcise my top picks in celebration of the year's most fearsome season. 2009 has been a spooktacular year for some truly terrifying sights in high definition, as studios have opened their vaults and unleashed horror titles by the hearse-load!
To make things quesy-er, I've decided to grade, or should I say degrade, them into three stomach-churning categories according to their contribution to horror cinema and in alphabetical order, offering you ghouls the best variety in scares and creepy laughter. So, without further ado . . .
Frights! Camera! Hack-tion!
MILD DECOMPOSITION (Grade A Top Choice Flesh) |
As the only film in the list to win Best Picture, along with other major top honors, 'The Silence of the Lambs' has rightfully and unquestionably earned its place as a brilliant masterpiece of horror cinema. With one of the most indelible psychopaths ever, the film is also the first of its kind to blur the line between suspense thriller and horror to create a spine-tingling tale about serial killers and dreams of screaming lambs. What starts as a basic story about saving the life of a senator's daughter, slowly turns into a battle of the wills between the two protagonists and their mutual interests. It's a brilliant and disturbing narrative about self-discovery for a young female FBI cadet. It works best when served in a dim-lit room with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
|
|
Others Worthy of the Cleaver: |
MOLDY AROUND THE CORNERS (It's Still Good, Just Pick Off the Maggots) |
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003) In terms of quality remakes, this Marcus Nispel/Michael Bay collaboration stands above the rest and is notable for starting the unfortunate trend of "reimaginings" which continues today. But this retread of the Tobe Hooper bombshell works by recreating the original's terrifying atmosphere and conveying a sense of an inescapable nightmare. Thought of more as a modernized version of a hugely-influential masterpiece, the drive-in shocker is grislier, gorier and quite possibly more frightening than its predecessor. With its highly-intense and frenzied visual pace, the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface and his deranged family of cannibals has never looked so good. Despite being unnecessary, the film is an effective revisit of a slasher classic which other remakes and reimaginings fail to duplicate.
|
|
Others Worthy of the Cleaver: |
A FESTERING, PUTRID STENCH |
I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER The bigger question here is why bother with a sequel, when the first one was so mind-numbingly average and hackneyed? There's only so much that can be done with a raincoat and a random tool for picking at oversized ice cubes. And it was done a million times better in 'Basic Instinct' than in this repeat of part one! Chalk full of uninspired directing, terrible performances, and the most convoluted plot holes, this over-budgeted thriller minus all the thrills is best described as a comedy, because there are more laughs to be had than screams. The only cringe worthy moment in this bargain-bin purchase is when the busty femme fatale musters the chutzpah to utter the same line from the first movie --- but this time, at a grave site! There's definitely something wrong when a Rastafarian Jack Black and the king of B-horror acting Jeffrey Combs are the highlight of your scare tactics.
|
It's truly a sad day when horror movies, no matter how well-intentioned or original, begin to feel like a remake of something else. Coming from the same imagination that conjured the likes of 'Blade' and 'The Dark Knight', many expected a shocking ghost story like no other. Instead, this limp-fest about paranormal possessions, Nazi experiments and the bond between twins should come with a manual on Jewish folklore to make better sense of the overly-complicated plot. While having little to do with the J-Horror approach, the movie is so heavily indebted to the subgenre that more time is spent trying to "name-that-scene" than being scared stupid. More emphasis on the stupid than the scared. The only frightful things in this mess are an eyeball that changes color, a kid that needs more sun, and a contortionist living in an old-folks home.
|
|
Others Worthy of the Cleaver: |
|
WANTS FOR NEXT YEAR (Now, This is What I Can Sink My Teeth Into) The list may look a bit daunting and comprehensive (this is actually the short version!!), but this past year saw quite an abundance of scary movies released in high definition. So, here's hoping for the best and that studios will take note of what horror aficionados really hunger for and of what will truly please our insatiable appetites. Some of these are available on Blu-ray in other parts of the world. But since they're region locked, here's hoping for a North American release. Please share your own wish list in the forums. 'Alien,' 'Aliens,' 'All the Boys Love Mandy Lane,' 'Alone in the Dark (1982),' 'The Birds,' 'Black Sabbath,' 'Blade,' 'Blood and Black Lace,' 'Braindead (Dead Alive),' 'Bride of Frankenstein,' 'The Brood,' 'The Burning,' 'Candyman,' 'The Changeling,' 'The Children (1980),' 'Dead Snow,' 'Dellamore Dellamorte (Cemetery Man),' 'Dementia 13,' 'Demons,' 'Les Diabolique,' 'Don't Look Now, Dracula (1931),' 'Eden Lake,' 'Evil Dead,' 'Feast,' 'The Fog (1980),' 'Frankenstein (1931),' 'Freaks,' 'Fright Night,' 'From Beyond,' 'Ginger Snaps,' 'The Haunting (1963),' 'Haute Tension (Switchblade Romance),' 'Horror of Dracula,' 'The Howling,' 'Idle Hands,' 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 and 1978),' 'Jaws,' 'Jeepers Creepers,' 'The Legend of Hell House,' 'Maniac,' 'Martyrs,' 'The Mask of Satan (Black Sunday),' 'May,' 'Night of the Living Dead (1968),' 'A Nightmare on Elm Street,' 'Nosferatu (1922),' 'Peeping Tom,' 'Pet Sematary,' 'Phantasm,' 'The Prowler,' 'Psycho,' '[REC],' 'Re-Animator,' 'Rear Window,' 'Return of the Living Dead,' 'The Ring,' 'Rosemary's Baby,' 'Scream,' 'Se7en,' 'The Serpent and the Rainbow,' 'The Stepford Wives (1975),' 'Shadow of the Vampire,' 'Suspiria,' 'A Tale of Two Sisters,' 'The Tenant,' 'What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,' 'White Zombie,' 'Zombi 2'. Please note the following titles are set for release after the publication of this list and we eagerly await their arrival: '100 Feet,' 'Angel Heart,' 'Blood: The Last Vampire,' 'Cujo,' 'Frailty,' 'Ichi the Killer,' 'Monster Squad,' 'My Bloody Valentine,' 'Near Dark,' 'Not Forgotten,' 'Offspring,' 'Satanic Panic,' 'Seventh Moon,' 'The Thaw,' 'Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead.' |