Alternate Takes 12.13.08: Top 5 Horror Movies of 2008

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 12.13.2008

In Part 2 of Alternate Takes year end review, we look at the Top 5 horror movies released in 2008. From Diary of the Dead to Cloverfield, who ranked first?



Welcome to Week 31 of Alternate Takes.

I guess I need to reiterate my rules for these year-end Best Of lists. A few people complained about The Dark Knight and Iron Man being left off last week's list even though in the introduction I stated

One last rule is there will be no repeating movies on separate lists. If a movie makes the Top 5 list in my Best Movies of the Year finale, it won't be listed on the smaller lists so I can showcase more movies that would otherwise be overlooked. What this means is don't expect The Dark Knight to be listed on my Top Action/Adventure movies list because it's showing up on the final Top 5.

I assumed that paragraph explained why The Dark Knight wasn't on the list. Guess not. I want to list 5 different movies each week and then end the year give my Best 5 Movies of 2008. If I put The Dark Knight on the Action genre list, I would only be cutting and pasting it onto the final list. I would rather talk about other movies I liked, such as Rambo, instead of repeating movies on different lists. Simple.

Here is the schedule for the year-end lists:
Dec. 06 - TOP 5 ACTION/ADVENTURE MOVIES
Dec. 13 - TOP 5 HORROR MOVIES
Dec. 20 - TOP 5 COMEDIES
Dec. 27 - THE TOP 5 MOVIES OF 2008


And ... here ... we ... go......


THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL



Directed by Scott Derrickson
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Kathy Bates, Jaden Smith, John Cleese

This is a movie that I don't mind being remade. The original was shot following a World War and approached the material with thoughts of a world still at war, people who did not understand what it meant to live in peace. It is kind of like how we live in the world today, in the middle of never ending wars fighting for whatever it is we are fighting for. I also really like Keanu Reeves as the alien, as he is a perfect choice based simply on his monotone acting. It fits well with the original Klaatu. I don't know if it will be good, I have doubts it will, but we live in a world today that makes the story meaningful and just a little scary. I know this is more a science fiction movie but I look at the story as a typical horror story, about someone sent to eradicate us for our sins. On that note, this week I am going to approach Part 02 of my year-end review with my Top 5 Horror Movies of 2008. There should be less confusion with this list, as there is not a horror movie on my year-end Best Of list, so what I list here is what you get. I also don't have a list of runner up's because this was a really weak year for horror movies.



TOP 5 ALTERNATE TAKES SPECIAL EDITION:
2008's TOP 5 HORROR MOVIES

#5 - Diary of the Dead

Directed by George Romero
Cast: Michelle Morgan, Josh Close, Shawn Roberts, Amy Lalonde

Nine years after The Blair Witch Project, we get a year with two similar styled movies hitting my Top 5 Horror Movie List. The lesser of the two movies is the latest in George Romero's zombie franchise. While it may not have gotten great reviews when it came out, I feel Diary of the Dead is a solid addition to the previous installments. The movie follows a group of student filmmakers making a horror film when the zombie outbreak occurs. The director of the project decides he will keep his camera handy and record the events as they take place for historical purposes. Most of the kids are very unlikable and annoying, but that is a staple of all Romero's zombie films all the way back to Night of the Living Dead. The footage is much more organized than that of Blair Witch or Cloverfield, there is a voiceover used to explain what has happened and give narration to the events at hand and there is music added. This is explained by the fact it was edited after the incident by the survivors to show everyone what really happened without government or media spin play. In the same way that Dawn of the Dead was a lesson against consumerism, Diary of the Dead is a lesson about the Internet and the age of instant access information. In the age of MySpace and You Tube, the information was able to get conveyed across the world in seconds. There is one point where the director uploaded his information and got 44,000 hits in only seven minutes. The media and government are no longer able to cover up the devastating facts when everyone has a camera at their access. There are a number of great moments in the film, including a particular taboo moment when one of the girls goes home to find her family and is immediately greeted by her little brother. There is also a great homage to the original Night of the Living Dead when the kids gather together in an Amish man's barn and find themselves under siege. My only real complaint is the cameramen who refuse to help their friends while preferring to shoot the footage. Regardless, this is a solid addition to the Romero zombie canon and the mixture of hand held documentary filmmaking, surveillance camera footage and internet footage is inspired and well done. The last line of the movie clinches it for me. This is a movie that deserves an audience.

Are we worth saving? You tell me.


#4 - The Midnight Meat Train

Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb, Brooke Shields, Vinnie Jones
CLICK HERE TO READ MY ORIGINAL REVIEW

One of the greatest disappointments of 2008 for horror fans is the burial of Clive Barker's Midnight Meat Train upon its theatrical release. Barker had optioned a couple of his movies and stated he planned to create a film series to stand alongside his Books of Blood series. Unfortunately, Lions Gate fucked them over and only released the movie in budget theaters (read: dollar movies). There was no chance the movie would succeed in this environment and it did not, ultimately dying a quick death. That is a shame. What resulted was a dark, grim horror movie without a glimmer of hope, a movie devoid of comedy. It is a horror fan's dream movie, or should that be nightmare? Bradley Cooper turns in a star performance as Leon, a photographer who gets an opportunity to have his photographs shown at an art show held by expert Susan Hoff (Brooke Shields). She asks him to try to find darker subject materials for his portfolio and he chooses to start following a man who might be an infamous subway murderer (Vinnie Jones). I won't say too much here so as not spoil the movie, but the man he is following is the murderer and he knows Leon is trailing him. This movie is dark, bloody and has just about everything a true horror fan would want in a movie. Most of you never had the chance to see it because Lions Gate would rather withhold this while we get shit like Prom Night instead. If I made a Bottom 5 list of horror movies, Prom Night might go there. This is a Top 5 list and The Midnight Meat Train belongs there.

Step away from the meat.


#3 - The Ruins

Directed by Carter Smith
Cast: Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, Laura Ramsey, Shawn Ashmore, Joe Anderson
CLICK HERE TO READ MY ORIGINAL REVIEW

The Ruins is a movie that has a lot going for it, only to disappoint with the ending. While most people point to Jena Malone as the high point of the actors, I was very disappointed by her in this film. I have been a huge fan of Malone and think she is great in Donnie Darko, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys and the wonderful Saved! . Even in Pride & Prejudice, where I find her annoying, I realize she is supposed to be acting like that. In The Ruins I found her annoying but I really felt it was bad acting. She never seems real and drags the scenes she is in to a lower level. I find her co-stars, especially Jonathan Tucker and Shawn Ashmore, to be a great improvement. This is good since the movie is about people being trapped and slowly driven into the horrific situation. It starts with them on vacation, in a safe place, and then quickly takes them into the danger zone, in this case ruins populated by evil vines. Yeah, the bad guy is plants, but that is not the real horrific situation. The kids are trapped on the ruins by natives with guns who believe, if the kids leave, the curse will spread with them. The natives kill anyone who is touched by the vines and tries to escape. I was disappointed with the ending, although if you include the novel, there are four different choices. The book kills all the kids. That would be better than the theatrical version I saw which annoyed me to no end. The other two alternate endings include one that recalls the ending of Carrie and the second, a more sinister ending, sends the viewer away with a more down ending. That final one would seem better than what I saw in the theater. Despite the weak ending, the movie is full of dread and uses great claustrophobic terror to tell the story. Sure, vines aren't that scary but this is not about a monster, it is about innocents trapped in a hopeless situation. It is a dark and dreary movie and is rewarding for those looking for something different in a world full of cheap monster movies.

You don't even know our names. You don't know any of our names. I'm Jeff. Jeff Dean McIntyre. Winnetka, Illinois. Twenty-two years old. I was going to be a doctor. That was my dream. That's all I wanted. You should know her name, too. Her name is Amy! She's not going to die in this fucking place!


#2 - Cloverfield

Directed by Matt Reeves
Cast: Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel

First, I'll mention this movies downfall and the reason I did not watch it in theaters. I have a propensity for motion sickness and the handheld action in this movie can be very nauseating. With that out of the way, this is one of the most brilliant ideas for a horror movie I have ever seen. If there was an award for Best Viral Marketing, this would rank right up there with The Blair Witch Project for creativity. The difference is that Cloverfield is actually a great movie. The reason for the handheld camera work is simple and works well for the story. A guy is leaving the country for his job and his friends are throwing a going away party in his honor. One of the friends is given a video camera to document this farewell and gets a whole lot more than he bargained for when giant monsters attack New York City. This is the second movie on the list that is a video documentation of horrific events and it is great here to see everything that happens during the attack from the confused victim's point of view. This is not a movie about people who will be heroes and save the day like Godzilla. It's also not about the military's efforts at containing the threat like 2006's awesome The Host. This is about the nameless people who run in fear on the streets and can only watch the devestation as it happens around them. The fact we only get glimpses early in the movie at the monster and our best view comes from televisions and news cameras pounds the point home that this is about the victims of an attack, not the heroes. How the friends are able to get the footage is a little mechanical - Rob wants to find his ex girlfriend who is trapped somewhere in Manhattan, and his friends follow - video camera in tow - to find her. The soldier who allows them to return to the warzone to find their friend almost stretches believability to the limit. Despite these mechanizations of the plot, the movie is plain scary and very, very interesting. You watch the subway scene and tell me it isn't frightening. Cloverfield is a great idea, a solid movie and a fantastic addition to the horror genre. For those who complained they never explained where the monster came from I point you to the end of the movie, during the home video footage at the amusement park. Look carefully at the water in the background. Blink and you'll miss it.

Okay, just to be clear here, our options are: die here, die in the tunnels, or die in the streets. That pretty much it?


#1 - Otis

Directed by Tony Krantz
Cast: Bostin Christopher, Ashley Johnson, Daniel Stern, Illena Douglas, Kevin Pollak, Jere Burns, Jared Kusnitz, Tracy Scoggins, Jere Burns
CLICK HERE TO READ MY ORIGINAL REVIEW

My favorite horror movie of the year is one that was not released in theaters. Going straight to video, Tony Krantz's second directorial feature (following 2007's Sublime) is a brilliant horror satire that was carried by a spectacular breakout performance by star Bostin Christopher. Christopher plays Otis, a man child who has lived his life under the thumb of his bully brother, portrayed with great gusto by Kevin Pollak (The Usual Suspects). When he is not working his menial job as a pizza delivery driver, Otis lives every day in a fantasy world where he pretends to live out the perfect high school life. Unfortunately, that means finding a girl to play out the role of the cheerleader he takes to the prom. That is where the horror comes into the film as Otis chooses to kidnap his dream girl, forcing her to play out his fantasies - or else. We see what the "or else" is at the beginning because Riley (Ashley Johnson from Growing Pains) is not the first girl he has kidnapped to fulfill his dreams and none of the previous girls lived to the final date. Things in this movie are turned on their head when Otis decides to involve the worried family of the kidnapped girl, forcing them to give him their blessing to "date" their daughter. The family is awesome - Daniel Stern (City Slickers) and Illeana Douglas (Stir of Echoes) as the parents and newcomer Jared Kusnitz as the younger brother. When the family decides they are going to take matters into their own hands, as the officer in charge (a wonderfully smarmy Jere Burns) turns out to be incompetent, the movie rises to an even higher level. The movie is darkly funny and one of the best horror movies I have seen in a long, long time.

Just play - play along!