I’m turning 30 in July. This is upsetting to me. So, naturally, I’ve been spending a lot of time sitting on an ottoman, like a 5 year old, in front of my DVD collection, pulling down horror gems, and staring blankly at their front and back covers. It turns out a ton of amazing horror films were made the same year I was fired from my mother’s womb, like a tiny ginger fireball. I know that this assertion has been made before, especially recently with it being an even 30 years later and all, but I’d like to share my evidence for stating, definitively, that 1981 was the greatest year in the history of horror.

Exhibit A: AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON

FANGORIA #14, on the stands in July of 1981

I could present this film, and only this film, and some of you would still be with me. John Landis crafted a pitch perfect horror film with his 1981 classic. AMERICAN WEREWOLF has equal parts chills, thrills, gore, and so much fucking more. I watch this film first and foremost every October of my life to set the mood for Halloween. I’ve even had the pleasure of programming it for the Coolidge’s Halloween Horror Marathon as one of our secret titles, and it plays to an audience brilliantly. It is the crown jewel of werewolf movies. Rick Baker pulls of the greatest werewolf transformation in the history of cinema! It happens right before your eyes! No CGI, no animation, simply the most amazing practical effects you’ve ever seen. I must have dressed up as a werewolf at least 4 years in a row for Halloween because of this flick. My costume was made out of brown felt and it had a black yarn tail that made me look more like Black Beauty than a post Creedence Clearwater David Kessler. There are elements of this flick that still scare the daylights out of me, especially when David and Jack decide to veer off the path into to the moors and the beast begins to circle…I get CHILLS! Going on like this is making me want to see it on the big screen again, maybe it’s time for a 30th anniversary screening to back up this stupid blog post…

(Honorable mention goes to Joe Dante’s 1981 THE HOWLING, which is also pretty awesome, and has an almost equally eye-popping wolf out from FX legend Rob Bottin)

Exhibit B: THE EVIL DEAD

The Evil Dead (1981)

My favorite horror sub-genre is the splatter film. A horror film that goes so far beyond “over the bar” that it winds up back on its feet, covered in a gelatinous aura of pure carnage and gore, holding an axe while laughing maniacally. THE EVIL DEAD is the prime example of this. It contains atrocities so far beyond human conception that the film had to be made a second time, just to get it right. It’s the simple story of friends encountering demonic spirits while spending a weekend at a cabin in the woods, but really it’s much more. It’s the birth of one of the most classic horror heroes ever, Ash Williams, and it launched a cult career for the man who portrayed him, the incontinent Bruce Campbell. This classic splatter-fest had “midnite movie” written, in blood, all over it back in 1981 when it made its debut and what began 30 years ago is now a classic horror trilogy.

Reason Number 3: JASON VOORHEES MAKES HIS MURDEROUS DEBUT

A favorite among iconic horror slashers, Jason is one of the Frightful Four. It’s between him, Michael Myers, Freddy Kruger, and Leatherface for most fearsome leading man. No one debates this. FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 gave us the silver screen debut of  Jason, albeit in his bag-over-the-head form. It wasn’t until the spear gun kill scene in Part 3 that we first see Mr. Voorhees put in his famous goal tending equipment for the first time. We all know that it was Jason’s mom who dices up a bunch of overly hormonal camp counselors in order to avenge the negligent homicide they facilitated by boning in the woods while little Jason was drowning. Well, here in part two, we get to see him all grown up and cutting loose throughout Camp Crystal Lake. Sure, Mrs. Voorhees kicked off the franchise, but it isn’t her severed head that carries the next dozen films. It’s Jason’s lumpy, undead, hockey-masked head that we hold so dear. Also, there’s this booty.

(Honorable mention here goes to HALLOWEEN 2 (1981) and PIRANHA 2: THE SPAWNING (1981), two other films that began a sequel trend that would spiral out of control throughout the 1980’s and the Horror genre in general)

Reason Number 4: TOM SAVINI IS A BOSS! (or THE BURNING and THE PROWLER)

THE PROWLER onesheet (1981)

Tom Savini will go down in history as one of the greatest special effects make-up artists of all time. Almost every film he has touched has become a classic; such as DAWN OF THE DEAD, FRIDAY THE 13th, and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2. His shotgun scene in MANIAC is the stuff of legend, and his handling of the death of Captain Rhodes in DAY OF THE DEAD is probably the best zombie kill of all time. Savini had made his name the year before with FRIDAY THE 13th, but ‘81 would prove to be a pretty awesome year for the man. His kills in THE BURNING and THE PROWLER, both incredibly underrated slashers, help push these two films over the edge, and into cult status. Savini’s astonishing work in these films is what drives people to seek them out. There aren’t too many effects men with that type of pull. We were able to screen an amazingly mint 35mm print of THE BURNING recently, and our audience was truly thrilled to see it in its original glory. It really is the greatest summer camp slasher of them all. THE PROWLER is available on Blu Ray from Blue Underground, and I highly recommend checking it out. There’s a shotgun kill at the end of this flick that rivals Savini’s earlier 12 gauge work in MANIAC! You can check it out here, but beware of spoilers!

Exhibit 5: YOUR SPECIAL OCCASION IS NOW DRENCHED IN BLOOD!

Slasher films have always been popular. They were around in the 60’s and 70’s, but 1981 was certainly a high water mark for the genre. Running out of originality room, as the slasher film prides itself on following strict formula, the early 80’s saw a rise in slashers that went after what we love most of all: our holidays. Following the success of HALLOWEEN and FRIDAY THE 13th came a slew of date specific murder. Let’s start with the Birthdays! 1981 gave us the amazing kid-slasher BLOODY BIRTHDAY, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. Both of these flicks pride themselves on shock value. BLOODY BIRTHDAY delivers a handful of murderous, voyeuristic,  little kids, who are more likely to cut you than their birthday cake. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME has some extremely outlandish kills in it that are pretty much listed right on the film’s poster. As we know, nothing leads to murder as often as love, so it was only a matter of time before MY BLOODY VALENTINE would put a pick axe through our hearts. The characters that populate these slashers are almost always teens, so slashers based around school activities were obviously on the rise. In 1981 alone we were given the Troma release GRADUATION DAY, Linda Blair in HELL NIGHT, the collegiate killer FINAL EXAM, and the Boston-set NIGHT SCHOOL. (Check out the Boston aquarium scene in the trailer!) Some of these, of course, are more worthy attempts than others, but the sheer volume of slashers put out in 1981 is significant.

Extremely Thin Concluding Statement: THE THING WAS SHOT IN 1981!

Yeah, I know. It wasn’t released until June 0f 1982. BUT,  the simple fact that this thing went into the can in 1981 is a major boost to the year’s horror credibility. We live in a time where horror remakes are king at the box office. Unfortunately none of them will ever be as good as John Carpenter’s vision of 1951’s THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD. This THING set the remake bar so damn high, that everyone else to attempt a horror remake since has been doomed to mediocrity of failure. I know that this is because we all hold this particular film in mind. Director John Carpenter broke frozen ground with this milestone in special effects and gore. Effects master Rob Bottin instantly became one of my childhood heroes as soon as he made a severed head sprout legs and walk, and he did all of this work in the year of my birth, 1981.

Rob Bottin creates the greatest creature effects of all time. In 1981.

I’ve spent the entire week with my head in all of the old Rocketeer stories, and I have drawn a conclusion about Stevens’ work: he’s one of the best there ever was. It’s no wonder they turned the adventures of Cliff Secord into a film, and a damned good one at that. Dave’s panels jump off of the page with a type of kinetic energy that is unmatched in the medium. He’s able to get so much story across in just half of a page (he had to move quickly, as the first chapters were merely second fiddle tales in larger books).

The Rocketeer is a throwback to a simpler time. The popular (and revolutionary) trend in 80’s comics was the anti-hero. Creators were turning iconic characters into more complicated and darker versions of themselves, and those books are now considered masterpieces. Steven’s art-deco designs and 1930’s setting could have been viewed as back-peddling in a time of violent progress in comics, but The Rocketeer was an instant sensation. It’s easy to see why. He created a heroic character that flies with a rocket-pack, punches gangsters in the face, battles vengeful carnies, and gets the girl. Perfect.

Like many, my first exposure to THE ROCKETEER was the 1991 Joe Johnston film, starring Bill Campbell (second cousin to Bruce) and Jennifer Connelly (whom I had just gotten over in LABYRINTH, but fell head over heels again in this). My 10 year old brain exploded when I first saw this flying dude on the big screen. My brothers and I wore out multiple copies of that VHS tape, and I still watch it whenever it pops on cable. Even though the film is Disney-fied, the core of Stevens’ character and, most importantly, his designs are intact.

If you were ever a fan of this character, I’d highly recommend picking up both the new comic, and the beautiful hardcover re-issue of all 8 chapters IDW has put out. The color corrected pages really pop, and before anyone gives me shit about praising re-coloring, I have the old paperbacks, those early, pixelated printing days don’t do the art as much justice. Think of it as a new, hi resolution transfer.

Look into Dave Stevens if you aren’t already hip to this late, great artist. Not only did he create this amazing character, he also did the story boards for Michael Jackson’s THRILLER and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, AND he drew babes exceedingly well.

First of all, if you hated Scream 4 because it wasn’t as good as the original, fuck you. How could it be? At the time of Scream’s release, no one had seen anything like it before. The opening minutes of that film take the fourth wall, slap it in the face for hanging around for so long, and throw it into traffic. In Scream, Craven introduced characters that were aware of the genre they found themselves in, and they actually used their geeky smarts to try to survive. Horror became self-aware from this point on. You’ll never be able to recreate a genre big-bang like this, so all you should have been hoping for was a fun time watching a movie with horror nerds being stabbed to death. That’s it. And that’s what Craven delivers here.

Say what you will about the Scream sequels, the idea that they go all meta is a pretty interesting one. The “Stab” movies of the Scream diegetic space create a few memorable scenes, especially the opening to Scream 2, where Jada Pinkett is murdered in front of an audience of gawking “Stab” fans. In Scream 4, the meta-ness is cranked up to a level as ridiculous as it should be. Instead of art imitating life, you have art taking a true story and spiraling it out of control to the tune of 7 sequels, taking you as far away as possible from the source material. (It’s interesting to note that Craven had this happen to his Freddy Krueger character across just as many follow up films.) In this 4th installment the “Stab” movies are a hit, people worship the characters from the films, throw parties centered around “Stab” marathons, and they gather to talk about the movies they love. If all of this seems weird to you, fine. But people do this sort of thing in celebration of the horror genre. Trust me. So, it’s no wonder that within the world of “Stab” mania, in the town of Woodsboro where it all began, on the day that Sydney Prescott returns to declare herself a victim no longer, that a psycho in a Ghostface mask begins hacking up young people once again.

One thing that the OG Scream had going for it was a bunch of attractive, and promising young actors in the cast. Guys and girls alike were all babes in the first film, and their performances were great (where have you been Matthew Lillard?). I had my first actress crush on Rose McGowan’s Tatum. Although filled with a cast of beautiful people, the performances in Scream 4, are no where near as strong as in that original, with one exception. Hayden Panettiere is pretty wonderful as Kirby Reed. She plays the more prominent horror buff in the film, is a knockout, and is the only new character worth watching. I hope she keeps doing genre stuff. Marley Shelton (Grindhouse) is the other welcomed addition to the cast. She plays Deputy Judy, and serves as one of the stronger Red Herrings of the film. But I don’t mean to say that the other actors are bad, they do their job well, and their job is getting brutally stabbed to death.

While the victims in Scream 2 and 3 seemed to be killed off camera with minimal blood letting, the gore in 4 is certainly back up to top form. The stab wounds are gnarly, the blood is a dark corn-syrupy mess, and we even get a slit throat early on. One scene in particular, where Sydney walks into Olivia’s blood-spattered bedroom in the aftermath of her murder, is particularly unsettling in a film you feel as though you’re prepared for, violence-wise. I mean, this is some straight up Tate-LaBianca redecorating here. Aside from a couple of goofy moments that could have been left on the cutting room floor (I’m looking at you Anthony Anderson) the kills in this film are a lot of fun.

I won’t spoil the reveal at the end, but I will say that I was fine with it. It wasn’t as much of a stretch as the previous two unmaskings, and it hits close to home for Sydney Prescott. Anyone who tells you this movie sucks is a douche bag who forgot how to have a good time a loooooong time ago. No, it’s not going to terrify you, but it will have you laughing, jumping and trying to guess who-dunnit. If you’re expecting Craven to re-invent the genre here, DON’T. He already did that in 1996, now grab some popcorn and enjoy one more romp through the world of meta-movie awesomeness he created for you.

Director Ho-Cheung Pang has crafted a gorgeous and effective slasher film with DREAM HOME. The opening minutes of the film provide both an eye-widening glimpse of the economic conditions people are facing in modern Hong Kong, as well as a kill that had me climbing up the wall trying to escape its brutality. This opening scene, I might add, is the tamest of the film.

The story centers around Sheung (Josie Ho), a young woman who has faced many a hardship in her life. All she wants, is an apartment with a view of the ocean, like her grandfather always hoped for. Sheung has a sick father, has seen her childhood friends evicted by vicious thugs, works a slew of jobs, has a dooshy boyfriend, a younger brother in her care, and she has seen her mother and grandparents die before getting up to a standard of living that is ideal. Her money never seems to be enough to move, and her family life only gets darker. The social and economic pressures seem too much for Sheung to overcome.

All of this drives her to murder when a deal to purchase her dream apartment falls through. What follows is the most vicious killing spree I’ve seen on film since Alexandre Aja’s HIGH TENSION. We’re talking scenes that will make the most hardened horror aficionados turn their heads. One murder in particular was so harsh that I doubted that I could enjoy the remainder of the film! The shuffled order in which the narrative is told caused me to be disgusted in the beginning when the crimes were seemingly senseless. But, as the story unfolded, (the motive is being told through flashbacks while the carnage unsues) I became more comfortable with her crimes. The directer has complete control over this story structure. Never does it feel forced, or are you shown anything you don’t need to see. The film un-fogs itself like a bathroom mirror, slowly but surely, to clarity.

The majority of the gore effects are practical in this film, and they are out of this world. This is the type of unnaturally good special effect work that makes you wonder why CG is used at all in horror. There are one or two instances of digital work and they are fine; though unnecessary.  Nothing can match the imperfect perfection of the practical make-up. There is a bit of chaos to the gore that causes it to be reminiscent of work form the likes of Tom Savini and Rob Bottin. The final act of the film, if we were watching a fireworks display, is a blood-spatterd grand finale.

I can’t wait to see this one with an audience.

In the books leading up to this fourth one, Wolverine, Deadpool, Angel, Psylocke, and Fantomex have battled their way through the new Four Horsemen. You know, War, Pestilence, Famine and Death. Angel himself once occupied the role of Death as Archangel, so he’s got some mixed emotions about the mission. We see him mulling over shit in his head and really trying hard to NOT murder his teammates, as the voice of his Apocalypse programming attempts to take over. In issue 3 we saw that his fellow X-Forcers have actually taken preventative measures by training in the Danger Room to take Angel down (which really ruffles his feathers when he walks in on it. Imagine walking into a room full of your friends exploiting your weaknesses in order to bring about your death? Like Junior High all over again!). This is a pretty great example of how this book works all of the more interesting angles.

The previous issue left us on a cliff hanger note where Psylocke was positioned to snuff out the child-like, newly reincarnated Apocalypse, Angel had been taken out by Famine, while Fantomex and Wolverine had just avoided being killed thanks to Fantomex’s control over the realities of his opponents. This new issue opens with Fantomex and Wolverine facing off against endless scores of “goons” as Logan calls them, leaving him to wonder if  “this is the band of faceless goons that finally take us out.” This great moment in issue 4 exemplifies Fantomex’s power to a greater extent, when he utilizes his reality distortion and deception skills to confuse Pestilence, Death and Famine.  The three horsemen are tricked into thinking they have just killed Wolverine (in a pretty gruesome panel) when they have actually been transported to another planet altogether! Fontomex’s misdirection not only fools the Horsemen, but the reader as well, as the illusion has actually continued from the previous issue! This is Inception level mindfuckery going on here! The heroes (read: assassins) reach Apocalypse’s chamber, where they hope Psylocke has already done the dirty deed, only to find her defending the boy! Oh Snap! They had been so concerned about Angel that they hadn’t counted on the psychic ninja chick’s maternal instincts to kick in upon meeting the doe-eyed would be destroyer of all things! Needless to say, Angel is pissed, and wants him dead. After some in-fighting, they all finally decide that it is kind of bullshit that they’re there to kill a kid, so they decide to bring him back and rehabilit…BLAM! Just like that, Fantomex shoots the kid in the head! End of issue. Just when you thought that all of the bad-assery you have witnessed was about to come to a happy, hippie, “We are the World”, typical X-Men conclusion, a masked mutant shoots a blue kid in the head! What are you reading that’s better than that?

I forgot to mention the amazing artwork by Jerome Opeña AND how Deadpool revives Angel by feeding him his own flesh, so the pick below should take care of both of those items. Enjoy.

9) Northlanders: Every book in the series – This was one of the best comic reading decisions I made this year. Brian Wood has always been a favorite writer of mine, so there was really no excuse to have stayed away form this series for as long as I did. Vikings. Sword-swinging, axe-wielding, beard-twirling, blood-soaked vikings. Each storyline features a new set of characters to get to know, and it’s based, roughly, in period appropriate settings. This is pulp, viking awesomeness that I now can’t get enough of. Throw on some Sunn o))) or some Burzum, crack open a beer, and sit outside in the snow while reading this one for the closest possible Norse experience.

8 – The Uncanny X-Force is formed - With so much going on in the X-books these days, it was refreshing to see a small team of new and classic X-Men come together for a pretty badass purpose; they are going to kill Apocalypse. Rad right? And who better to lead a team against the Darwinian super mutant than Archangel. Apocalypse put this dude through so much, with that whole forcing him to be his Angel of Death and cutting his wings off – thing, so it’s no wonder that Warren Worthington would be the go to guy to cut down the reincarnated Apocalypse in child form. Throw in Psylocke, Wolverine, Deadpool, and Fantomex, and you have a team of perfect killers. The Danger Room training sequence where Psyloche is killing Archangel over and over again as a contingency plan is a great example of the lengths the characters are prepared to go to see their job done. Even cooler are the new Four Horsemen of Apocalypse. Great stuff here.

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7) Lobo VS Green Lantern – Geoff Johns had an amazing year with his run on Green Lantern. His single issues of this particular book are just as entertaining as the story arc as a whole, which is a talent lost in this day and age. A single issue of any given comic book should be fun, not just dialogue or filler material acting as exposition for next issue. The first comic I ever bought was a copy of Spectacular Spider-Man #184, it was the sixth part of a story-line which brought back Harry Osborne as the Green Goblin, yet it didn’t matter that I hadn’t read the 5 previous issues, this book kicked-ass on its own. I was reminded of this when reading Green Lantern #55. Even If I hadn’t read all of Blackest Night and the GL issues that followed, I would still be laughing and loving this amazing issue. The only exposition needed here is the one line where Hal Jordan describes Lobo as “the only person I’ve ever seen give Superman a bloody nose”. Pure awesome.

6) Dick Grayson as Batman/ Batman V.S. Robin – This series grew on me more and more as I was reading it. I really love the idea of the original Robin having to reluctantly take on the mantle of Batman and then train a much more bad ass Robin in the process. The dynamic duo’s dynamic is reversed in this series, with Grayson’s Batman being almost light-hearted at times, and Damian Wayne’s Robin as a brooding, violent, sour-puss. The must read issues are 10 – 12 where a pre-programmed Damian tries to murder the Batman.

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5) Batman Returns: Not the Tim Burton flick – ‘Nuff Said

4) The X-Men are cool again – This book really brought the X-Men back for me. The stunning artwork by Paco Medina (Deadpool) really sold me on this one. The fact that they are facing a horde of vampires may seem like some Twilight and True Blood bandwagon bullshit at first, but remember the X-Men have been scrapping with Dracula since waaay back in the day, so it fits, and it’s awesome. Any X-Men comic that features a “fastball special” (the hi-tech battle maneuver where Wolverine gets tossed like a baseball by Colossus) is one for the history books in my opinion. This book will be awesome as long as Paco is drawing it. His art reminds me of Joe Madureira’s run on Uncanny X-Men. Lot’s of bright colors and excellent depictions of mutant powers. The X-Men should not be as dark and as dreary as the Hellblazer books, which is where some creators tend to take them Most of us were first exposed to these charaters in cartoon form, so we expect them to be vibrant, with story lines that are just as clear cut as the lines of the panels. Until now the X-Men have been too muddy, in composition and in story. So I can get behind a plot of “Hey we have to fight these vampire” with some awesome art. Long live Paco Medina and his easier X-Men.

3) Mark Millar’s Nemesis - This is a brutal book. The premise is simple enough, in the real world (our world) there is a virgin-white super-villain who is so good at killing cops, he can hand them a card with the precise date and time of their death. He brings about these deaths in such a manner that it could almost be considered art if not for the immense body-counts. He turns the world around these hero-cops into a giant game of mouse trap, where each player places himself deeper and deeper in peril as he tries to escape the time stamped on that card. Awesome right?

2) The Sentry tears Ares in two and then crumbles Asgard in a show of extreme bad-assery – Siege was a great series. It ended the “Dark Reign” stuff pretty epically, and in just 4 parts! I loved the brevity of this bad-ass brawl; it was over as quick as it started thanks to the force of nature that is the Sentry. He is probably the most interesting Marvel character to have emerged in the last 10 years, and he started as an April fools joke (Google it)! The duality of the character is wonderful, as The Sentry literally is his own greatest villain! Or maybe not, maybe The Void isn’t some separate and dark other half; maybe Bob Reynolds is just a supremely powered being who is so screwed up mentally, that when he has a bad day entire cities crumble and gods get torn in half. Either way, Bob was a threat so severe that he could only be stopped by the re-formation of the original Avengers.

1) Blackest Night – Hands down, the most exciting comic book series in the last 20 years. Never have I clamored to get every single variant cover and side story I could get my hands on. This is DC Comic’s vision of the zombie apocalypse. The dead heroes and villains of that universe clawed their way through the dirt in order to return to the living and literally tear out the hearts of their friends and loved ones. This story was vicious from the very beginning. From the opening brawl between the Flash, Green Lantern, and the newly re-animated evil corpse of their friend The Martian Manhunter, I knew this would be an amazing tale. While Marvel had their Marvel Zombies series set far off on an alternate world, DC actually desecrated their dead, and killed off a lot of its living heroes and villains in the process. If you haven’t read this yet, leave your house now and buy every single volume of what is certainly the best zombie comic book story ever told.

Even the poster for Dogtooth was one of the best of the year!

10 – Now these films are in no particular order. Since I had such trouble coming up with them, I would be lying if I tried to pinpoint one of these as the “#1″ film of the year. Certainly, my #10 is the most unsettling. I had the opportunity to see Dogtooth at the MFA over the Summer. Jesse Hassinger and I watched the trailer in the Coolidge’s programming office and it spoke instantly to the two of us. The appeal was based on the fucked up imagery presented in the 2 minute clip; children on all fours barking for their father, a bloody sink, a young man decapitating a cat with gardening shears, knife play, and multiple assaults with VHS equipment. Sure enough, it was right up my alley. The premise is pretty simple, in Greece, a father and mother want to keep their three children safe from bad influences by keeping them confined within the compound walls of their rural home. They do this by telling them that there is a vicious “cat” that lives beyond the walls, and that it had previously eaten a sibling that none of them can remember. Their father tells them that they will be ready to venture forth into the world only after one of their canine teeth fall out. I should mention that these “children” are well into their 20’s and 30’s, and that familial tension fills each room of their home like the oxygen they breathe. The parents’ plan begins to unravel, obviously, mostly because masturbation can only take you so far in life, and these kids are forbidden to mingle. I knew this film would make my list during the screening based solely on the reaction of one man sitting to our left, who could not help but “booo” and “hisss” the film, even at one point exclaiming that it was “the worst film” he had “ever fucking seen”. Yes.

9 – Winter’s Bone is a pretty bad-ass detective film noir. It did really well at Sundance last year and we were excited to be getting it at the Coolidge. I was able to watch it during its run on film, which did not happen often enough this year for me and our movies. I immediately loved the character of Ree Dolly. I think Jennifer Lawrence should be given something for her amazing performance as a sister to two children who must also play the roles of mother and sleuth after her father goes missing. The elusive Daddy Dolly has vanished, and subsequently his bail jump threatens the only thing she has left, her home. John Hawkes also made this film for me in his role as Uncle “Teardrop” Dolly. The skeletal Hawkes plays a character that is so imposing and dangerous, that you feel you must keep an eye on him at all times so he doesn’t shiv you while your back is turned. I don’t want to give anything away (after all this is a mystery story), but I do have to say that there is a vicious scene involving a corpse, a boat full of women, and a chainsaw. Brutal.

8 – Piranha…whats that?…oh stop it. Wait just a second and let me explain, this is my goddamned list and I’ll put a flesh eating fish movie on it if I want to. Now, Alexandre Aja has directed some stuff that I enjoy. I truly believe that High Tension is a perfect horror film, if not for the last 10 minutes (even still those last few minutes feature the best gore this side of  1980s’ Maniac). At my core, I am a monster lover and a gore-hound, so how could I not include this immensely fun film here. Joe Dante’s original, Roger Corman produced classic, Piranha (1978), was a favorite of mine growing up. I loved all of the Corman creature features dearly, especially The Bees (1978). This new Piranha really captured the fun and insanity of these types of films. Yes, it is off the wall, yes, it is over the top, yes, the performances are mostly crap, (with the exception of the mighty Ving Rhames), but I would argue that all of this adds up to make one helluva fun time. Sure it has annoying “Spring breakers”, but you get to see those fucks eviscerated by prehistoric, man-eating fish! Oh, and Jerry O’Connel’s severed penis. Ouch.

Nuns with guns, yo.

7 – Ben Afleck is a decent director. Don’t believe it? Watch this flick and then tell me you didn’t have a good time. Some of my friends have described it as a “lame version of Heat“. I disagree with the “lame” part. This is the comic book version of Heat. The lose yourself in a movie – have fun laughing at the bogus accents – oh man those nun masks remind me of Point Break, version of Heat. The Town has all of the suspense needed for a heist movie. It has the expertly pulled-off bank jobs, and it even has a really exciting car chase sequence through the North End of Boston that Afleck silly-puttied onto his flick directly from the headlines. The final Fewnway park sequence gives all of us Bostonians just what we’ve always wanted; automatic gun fire outside of Fewnway Park! Throw in Pete Postlethwaite as a vicious, I-can’t-fuckin’-wait-til-you-get-what’s-coming-to-you, mick gangster, and you have one of the most enjoyable movie watching experiences I had this year. Nuns. kehd.

6 – Shutter Island is pretty solid horror flick. And I do mean “horror”, this one has some pretty great visual scares in it. It is dark, and atmospheric, and possesses an old school film noir quality that isn’t easily replicated in this day and age. I had been eagerly anticipating this film as I prepared promotional materials for it on the Coolidge website, and it was one of the few that I was able to sit down and watch at the ‘Lidge this year. I do have a bias in selecting this, however. The Coolidge was fortunate enough to be selected by director Martin Scorsese as his venue for screening films to inspire the cast of the then filming Shutter Island. He had seen our theatre the year before , during our Award ceremony honoring his editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and really took a liking to the place. So, he decided to screen the Robert Mitchum film Out of the Past here, as an inspiration. I was able to talk with Mr. Scorsese and Mark Ruffalo in the lobby before and after the screening, both of whom were really awesome dudes who showed genuine appreciation for the work that we do at the Coolidge. I really couldn’t wait to watch the film in the theatre where the cast of the film I was watching had watched a film to inspire their performances in the film that I was watching. Whew!

5 – Valhalla Rising was one of the more unique movie going experiences I had this year. This one wasn’t in theatres for

One-Eye axes his gods a question.

long, and lucky for me, The Brattle carried this flick for a little while before it returned to Asgard. I fell asleep, dizzy from Brattle beer, during the boat journey scene, and awoke with the characters in the New World. Normally falling asleep during a flick would mean it was crap, but the rocking of the boat and the dreamy sepia tone really took me to another place, literally. You really can’t go wrong with this one, it’s like Gladiator meets The Holy Mountain with Vikings! Despite the extreme violence, the film gets pretty sleepy at times, and at others, it is downright trippy. Mads Mikkelson owns as the supernaturally strong, mute, one-eyed warrior named…of course, One Eye. I remember this one sticking with me long after the screening. Numerous times over the following weeks I would find myself turning around to my Coolidge Programming and Operations office mates, Andy and Jesse, and saying, “Valhalla Rising was really sweet”. Metal.

Bansky is one crafty monkey.

4 – Exit Through the Gift Shop was a pretty great “doc” that I was able to catch over at the Kendal. Banksy’s graffiti is a lot of fun, and I was immediately interested in a film that carried the usually secretive artist’s name. His promotion of the film saw some of his artwork pop up in Boston and Cambridge during it’s run, which added to my interest. The film is the story of a French videographer who has a passion for his camera and art. That passion turns to shit after he discovers that being a “street” artist could earn him some big bucks. It’s all send up, a commentary about the current fads of industrial art, but it is all incredibly funny and ultimately enlightening.

3 – Inception was my first cinematic IMAX experience, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Christpher Nolan is one of the only directors shooting mainstream film specifically for the IMAX capabilities, and it really makes for a great time in a theatre. I didn’t love this movie, but I loved the experience of this movie. Inception is as smart as a film of its kind can be. It is a heist film, which are usually complex plot boilers. Nolan throws the issue of dreams in into the mix and births a dizzying and well dressed hybrid of a movie. I hate to have yet another DiCaprio film on this list, I seldom enjoy him in roles. For me, watching Leo is like watching the word “ACTOR” wearing a suit and reciting lines. He’s the personification of the sad face version of those happy and sad actor face mask thingies, youknowmsayin’? Even still, the supporting cast here is great; Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon Levitt are great in this flick. The imagery is gorgeous, and the complexity of this films concept is really what made it for me. Layers.

2 – Black Swan is the best film yet from Darren Aronofsky. I loved The Wrestler and everything else this director has made, but this one is by far his best. My friend Evan described this film as “Bring It On meets Videodrome“, and that is best snipe I’ve heard for the film so far. It is much more David Cronenberg than anything else, comparisons should have been made to his The Fly (1986) rather than to The Red Shoes, although the later is certainly valid. Natalie Portman is phenomenal in this film. She plays a character that goes through a truly horrific transformation. Her nightmares carry over into her waking hours and Aronofsky knocks all of these daymares out of the park. The climax of this film was shocking, beautiful, horrific, and cathartic. Honk.

1 – True Grit is the most recent film that I’ve seen, but even it if wasn’t, it would still be high on this list. The Coens are fantastic, we know that, and I’ve actually just wasted your time by repeating it. This is exactly the type of material they thrive on, biblical, eye-for-an-eye-raw, with a small cast of amazing and fleshed-out characters. Jess Bridges is really fun to watch as Rooster Cogburn. He’s the druken master marshall of the wild west. A whiskey soaked, and one-eyed hero for all time. Every actor that appears onscreen is at the top of their game, especially Barry Pepper as “Lucky Ned Pepper”, who I would like to believe is his great grandfather (don’t look it up just believe it). This film is as gorgeous as it is brutal, go see it now. Pow!

]]> http://www.atozombies.com/reviews/my-top-ten-movies-of-2010/feed/ 2 http://www.atozombies.com/reviews/the-dead-revives-the-zombie/ http://www.atozombies.com/reviews/the-dead-revives-the-zombie/#comments Tue, 28 Sep 2010 04:54:55 +0000 Mark http://www.atozombies.com/?p=65 This new zombie flick from the Ford brothers promises to be the answer to all of the “zomedies” that Hollywood has been churning out in the last few years. Don’t get me wrong, Shaun of the Dead and the Bill Murray scene in Zombieland are great examples of how to marry laughter to walking corpses. But zombies are supposed to be scary. A desecrated human body should still be a taboo, and when one starts walking toward you with an intent to consume your flesh, turning you into a walking worm farm, it should be fucking terrifying. Well…here’s to being afraid again.

THE DEAD trailer