A Brutal Year In Review – Part Three – Independent, DTV and Non-Hollywood Horror
by Marc Patterson – Editor-in-chief
After talking about the best of the larger studio based horror films and giving an overall picture of the genre in my first two parts of this year in review it’s time to turn to the best of independent horror and non-Hollywood productions. For me, this is where the most interesting things in the genre are happening. Whether it’s something fresh hitting the festival circuit like Red, White & Blue, or an masterful import being slid through the cracks like Lake Mungo, 2010 was actually quite an awesome year for horror. There’s so much more to be excited about in what the independent non-studio based horror films have to offer. In many ways, this is my true “best of” list.
As per usual I’m bucking the norm to pick 5 or 10 of my favorites. Rather I’m just selecting my absolute favorites from the year and letting that final number fall where it may. So with that… let’s go!
Enter the Void (no review available)
While it’s really pushing the line to call this film a horror film there has simply been no other film this year that has indelibly left a mark on me as a fan of cinema than Enter the Void. Gaspar Noe is undoubtedly my favorite filmmaker working today (who doesn’t work nearly enough) and Enter the Void is bar none the most profoundly affecting film I’ve watched in years, and I’m talking YEARS. I can’t think of a film that has stirred such a reaction from me since I watched my first David Lynch film over fifteen years ago, (and that film was Eraserhead). When I watched Enter the Void it was like dropping LSD and then being beaten mercilessly down into the rabbit hole. The film is a total immersion into the idea of cinema as a visual medium and art, and takes that concept to extremes. In the mere opening credits it destroys the idea of 3D as the ultimate cinematic experience, spits on Hollywood, and pisses all over the face of James Cameron. And while I don’t want to speak for Noe, I’m certain it was somewhat intended. Noe is quite outspoken regarding his animosity towards Hollywood.
The real brilliance of the film doesn’t rely on simple visual trickery, though indeed the visuals are a significant part of the film. For much of the film the camera never stops moving as if the entire two and half hour run time (yes, it’s that long) is nearly one non-stop continuous shot where we watch in suspended floating animation from the lead character’s POV. I can’t even begin to break this film down in the space I have here. The editing is so superb that it’s nigh to impossible to detect where one shot cuts into another. It’s just a technically brilliant film.
Beyond the technical achievements at hand Gaspar Noe provides his own unique riff on The Tibetan Book of the Dead, giving it perhaps one of the most cinematic and metaphysical treatments than any other filmmaker has attempted. We literally travel through death and rebirth and go to some shocking places along the way. Whereas his previous work was rooted in the new French extremism, Enter the Void took a step away from that being a film expressing more universal thoughts on humanity and our essence.
Clearly I’m gushing. If you haven’t at least experianced the opening credit sequence, please turn down the lights, crank the volume and do so now.
7 Days (My Review)
7 Days (Les 7 jours du talion) came along so early in the year that I nearly forgot all about it, and would have dismissed it as a 2009 entry, until one of our regular readers reminded me of it. I’m glad he did because truly this was one of the years best. Laurent – hats off to you!
There are films about revenge, and then there are films about revenge. Sounds duplicitous, but bear with me. Very few filmmakers have the capability to present a revenge film and ground it in any sense of reality. Lots of folks are talking about how wonderful I Spit On Your Grave was. But here’s something to consider: revenge is hollow and unsatisfying. Fran Lebowitz be damned, I don’t believe in taking revenge at every possible opportunity because revenge doesn’t solve anything. It doesn’t make you whole again, and in 7 Days, it doesn’t bring back a dead child. Precious few filmmakers get this and are capable of showing it. As an example Chan-wook Park is one who does. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is perhaps the best film focused on the cyclical, and fruitless, nature of revenge. However, in 7 Days French Canadian filmmaker Daniel Grou displays his understanding of something far more introspective and projects that understanding to the audience in a kind of way that will move one to tears, and at the same time make one wince at every turn. It could easily be seen and dismissed as just another torture flick, but indeed this is far more. It’s one of the most moving experiences I’ve had watching a film this year.
Deadfall Trail (My Review)
Go ahead. Call me a low down dirty liberal hippy, because this is where my true colors start to show. Deadfall Trail is superficially your typical backwoods slow burning horror film. It pins three men against each other as they tackle a spirit quest survival weekend in the wilderness of Arizona. When an accident happens it forces the men to make hard choices and ultimately they turn against each other in a tug of war to survive.
Some will watch this film and see nothing more. I watched this film seeing so much more. We have three characters and each of them represents a facet of our culture. One who is passionate about our world, the environment. Call this the activist. The other is the typical suburbanite, blind to a larger world outside of the 9-5. In the middle is a man who could be considered “awake”, but still locked into the daily grind. These characters, who represent various facets of our society find themselves locked in a kind of mortal combat against each other and as the film progresses it becomes increasingly difficult to point in any one direction and say who is the protagonist, and who is the villain. By the end of the film not only have you seen what on the surface can be called an original horror film, but sub-textually it’s a film that does a great job in making some intelligent statements about who we are as a species, and how we relate to our planet. Well accomplished environmentalist horror if you ask me.
Someone’s Knocking At the Door (Ben’s Review from Gorezone)
Oh, the schlockers, shockers, and punk rockers… Someone’s Knocking at the Door set the bar for indie shock horror this year. It was a little like Flatliners meets an acid trip from hell with lots of rape by giant cocks. The first time I watched this it was a heavy assault to my senses that I wasn’t prepared for. I had to watch it a second time just to settle in and fully “get” what was going on. Because of the intended hallucinatory aspect to the film it’s not easy to follow. All you really know is that there are a bunch of college pre-med students bombing on all sorts of pills and getting killed in the most sexually graphic of ways.
While it certainly would appear I might have liked this for the glossy extreme sexual violence I actually liked that filmmaker Chad Ferrin exhibited fearlessness in making something so extreme but also so original. Others have likened it to grindhouse films or 70’s acid trip films. I didn’t get that vibe, and I don’t really think those critics have seen much grindhouse or else they might know better. In some ways I felt like it was a more polished version of a Richard Kern film. What’s more? It sounds almost ludicrous to say it, but in modern horror there’s not that many filmmakers out there doing anything interesting with gore. You have Ryan Nicholson out there doing some rather edgy shit and Adam Wingard before he went more trippy art-house, but when you look at the broad scope there’s really not much. Chad Ferrin stands out there a little on his own in this regard, so it was really great to see.
Before I move onto the next I have to give “big up’s” to Vicious Circle Films who have had the cojones to release such a film this year. Matter of fact – they’ve maintained a fairly decent batting average for releasing some pretty edgy, non-mainstream film over the course of the whole year.
Cropsey – (No review available)
This past year saw me consume more documentary films than ever before. I’ve never been huge on documentaries in the past, but once I started watching them I was hooked. It’s kinda like switching from reading fiction over to non-fiction. There’s inherently something more interesting going on, especially when the topic is one that rings so close to home. Cropsey is the only documentary I watched this year that settled into the arena of true horror.
Cropsey is the story of a real life boogeyman living on Staten Island, AKA – the dump of New York City. Kids grew up telling each other stories of Cropsey in summer camps, how he’d come to steal away children and slash them up, eat them, and whatever else they could fabricate into this urban legend. Only one thing about that; on Staten Island Cropsey was no urban legend. He was a very real man, embodied in a deranged caretaker named Andre Rand, who worked for Willowbrook Mental Institution, a dumping ground for mentally ill children. Ten years after Geraldo Rivera exposed the rampant abuse at Willowbrook the institution was finally shut down, but Rand never left. Over the years various children went missing and eventually, the body of one, a young girl named Jennifer, was found. Filmmakers Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio pick up the story where Rivera left off, trying to uncover and separate the truth from the myth, and the facts about Andre Rand, who some propose to be innocent, a man who just happened to be easy to martyr over these tragedies. It’s an insanely fascinating account and is helped that Zeman and Brancaccio take such a studied and journalistic approach to their work that it can’t be dismissed as hack or sensationalistic filmmaking. No question about it, this was one of my favorites of the year.
Lake Mungo (My review)
Lake Mungo was a shocker. Not in the Italian splatterfest kind of way. Rather it was a total sleeper in that it crept up on me and shocked the hell out of me with its prowess when I saw it. It was clumped in with a bunch of sub-par mediocre films that now define the Afterdark Horrorfest collection. It never got a proper theatrical showing, outside of the one weekend under-promoted Afterdark event. So, like most horror fans I had to wait until it hit DVD to watch it. When I popped Lake Mungo in the DVD player it immediately captivated me. It was shot in the now familiar cinema verité style, but more as a documentary. Technically speaking it was so well put together you actually thought you were watching a documentary. Lake Mungo follows a family in the wake of their fifteen-year old daughter Alice, who they now believe to be haunting them from the afterlife. In the same manner that The Last Exorcism had you guessing till the very end as to whether or not there were demons at hand Lake Mungo straddles the same line attempting to separate a grieving family from the hysteria that plays on the mind in the aftermath of such a tragic event. The result was a superbly written, phenomenally acted, and genuinely creepy film that had me telling everyone to go and rent it immediately. Matter of fact – I’m still telling people to do so, and if you haven’t seen it, consider yourself on notice.
Long Pigs: (my review)
No budget films are a real hit and miss proposition around here. Believe me – I’ve seen a plenty this past year. But Long Pigs really stood out amongst the rest and even held its ground enough to make it to this list. Again, as you can see is becoming a trend in this list, Long Pigs took the perspective of a documentary piece, but never did the favor as to letting the audience know it wasn’t real, even though we’re positive it is. As a matter of fact, if I were to ask filmmakers Chris Power and Nathan Hynes to this day they would probably stand by their story. That story happens to follow an everyday, average next-door kinda guy Anthony McAlister. What makes Anthony so unique? He’s a cannibal. He loves eating the “Long Pig”, a Polynesian term for human flesh. We follow Anthony as he scuttles through an average day, which in this case includes picking up a street prostitute, taking her back to his place, and devouring her. Not alive mind you. No, Mr. McAlister is more like the Anthony Bourdain of cannibals. He’ll properly gut and butcher, and select the finest cuts for whatever dish he’s making. From appearances it would seem he’s a rather accomplished cook as well. This darkly comedic tone quickly turns sour though, which is where the film really gets interesting. The camera slowly turns around and we end up seeing ourselves in the lens. We begin to question the media, in how far is going too far when we’re covering a story, or sensationalizing a story to gain viewers, readers, etc. When the topic of child abduction comes into play we again are forced to reckon with ourselves. How can we acceptably justify the loss of life if it’s a prostitute, but not that of a child? The fact that Long Pigs did this intelligently and smartly, while never compromising character was simply brilliant and for that reason has well earned a spot on this list.
Finally, I’d like to highlight a few of the years best short films. I’m not going to provide write-ups, but rather just list out my favorites, and provide you links to my previous reviews.
Best Shorts: (in no particular order)
1. Night of the Punks
2. Drew Daywalt’s Doppleganger
3. Off Season
4. Loma Lynda’s The Red Door
5. Simone
