Faculty of Horror's Best of 2017

If you love horror film, and are not listening to the Faculty of Horror podcast, get ON it. Andrea Subissati and Alexandra West are smart and funny and provide a fascinating feminist take on horror film.

Check out Episode 58: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste for a their picks of their favourite (they're Canadian!) horror and horror-adjacent films of 2017.

Since they talk fast and there isn't a movie list on their website, here's their list. Descriptions are from IMDB, of course.

Burke and Hare (2010)

I was reading John Landis's book Monsters in the Movies, which is, like Landis himself, completely delightful. 

In it, he explores movie monsters, mostly through showing poster and film images and making short, snarky comments about them.  He also interviews horror icons like Ray Harryhausen, Guillermo del Toro, Sam Raimi and Christopher Lee.  Great fun.  Anyway, in it, he casually mentions his film, Burke and Hare.  What?  I'd never even heard of it!

Maybe it's a British thing, but I don't even remember seeing Burke and Hare released over here.  It's an old British story, about two grave robbers who sell bodies to a medical school.  Then, when the supply of bodies dry up, they start making their own corpses (by killing people). 

Have I mentioned the cast?  It stars Simon Pegg (of the brilliant Shaun of the Dead) and Andy Serkis (Gollum!) as Burke and Hare, and the cast includes an impressive roster of British actors.  Bill Bailey, Tom Wilkinson, Tim Curry, Hugh Bonneville, Ronnie Corbett, Jenny Agutter and Stephen Merchant among others.  Oh, and a few cameos I won't spoil. 

With that cast, it's bound to be funny, and it is.  But it also looks amazing.  It's beautifully filmed and designed, with gorgeous sets and great costumes.  There's also a bit of a romance for Burke (Pegg) with Isla Fisher, playing an actress.  It's not perfect ... but it is charming and funny, and lovely to look at and clearly, for Landis, a labor of love.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)

"You think you know the story."  I loved this movie so much that I'd like to hug it and hold it and call it George.  It's as if Joss Whedon wrote it especially for me.

This movie has as its basic plot the plot of so many other horror movies:  A group of attractive young adults of mixed gender and race (depending on the year made, that is) take a trip into the backwoods to stay at a cabin/house/abandoned mental hospital and have sex/get drunk/etc.  Spookiness and gory, possibly creative murders ensue.  And yet this movie is so much more than that.  Have you seen it?  Go and see it!  Seriously.

It's officially spoilery to say anything else about the movie, but as the movie itself starts by letting you know you're in for something unusual, I guess we'll have to crack on.  The movie starts not with our young heroes setting off on their journey, but with two middle management looking middle-aged guys in white dress shirts in a laboratory.  We see them banter and talk about their latest project and then BANG, in a shot that made me jump (and I never jump), the title hits the screen in huge, blood red letters.  Right across the dull laboratory set up as the two middle managers wheel off in a golf cart.  Fabulous.

Suffice it to say, there is much more than meets the eye in this film.  But along the way, there is utter hilarity.  You have to love the movie for having Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins as the dryly hilarious management guys.  And Fran Kranz as stoner Marty was completely hilarious.  And even the rest of the group, from the alpha male to the hot girlfriend to the smart guy (he wears glasses in one scene!) to the hot girl's smart friend are interesting, slightly complicated characters.

And the amazing creativity as the story unfolds!  It becomes clear (SO SPOILER) pretty early on that this cabin and these kids are part of some sort of scientific experiment or something.  And when the kids get into the laboratory and we see some of the other horrors in reserve--it's just awesome.  A horror movie fan's dream--not in a pandery way, but in a smart, respectful way.  Blink and you'll miss the twins from the Shining.  And is that the werewolf from American Werewolf in London?  So cool.  I've never wished so much for a freeze button at the movie theater.

So in short, it's an amazing film--smart, funny, thrilling, beautiful to look at (if you don't mind a little gore)--and it turns horror movie cliches upside down.  Truly one of the best movies I've ever seen.  Yay!  All praise to you, Joss Whedon.  All is forgiven for those bad, last years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

"When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."

Dawn of the Dead is a completely awesome remake of a classic 1978 George Romero zombie movie, which pays tribute to the original, but is wholly its own film, and one of the best horror films I've ever seen.

Indie actress Sarah Polley plays Ana, a nurse whose horror begins when a neighbor girl walks into the house, bites Ana's husband, who turns into the snarling, bloodthirsty undead.  She escapes, takes off in the car, and we see the complete, rapid destruction of civilization, at least in her Milwaukee suburb.  We also see one of the most horrifying car crashes, captured from a helicopter POV shot.

And then the credits start:  "The Man Comes Around" by Johnny Cash, played against truly chilling footage of the ensuing disaster.  And we're barely even ten minutes into the movie!  Ana meets up with a few survivors and they make their way to a nearby shopping mall.  Survivors include Kenneth (Ving Rhames), Michael (Jake Weber), and Andre (Mekhi Phifer) and his pregnant wife Luda (Inna Korobkina).  And can I just say how awesome the casual diversity in this film is?  Diversity is not throwing in one person of color; it's having a truly color blind cast, with actual characters that exist outside of their skin color. 

They meet up with some thuggish security guys, the leader of whom is C.J (Michael Kelly), but soon realize they all need to work together to fight whatever it is is going on outside.  One of the best aspects of this movie is C.J.'s character development.  He goes from a selfish jackass to a quietly self-sacrificing guy--an arc you don't see in a lot of major movies, much less horror.   Although the action in this movie seldom stops, and the blood and gore are plentiful, it's the character development and the performances, grounded especially by Polley, Weber and Rhames, that make this film so wholly satisfying.

And as long as this is the girls' POV on horror film, I can't not mention that this film is crazy full of handsome men with gorgeous arms handling major weaponry.  A girl totally has her pick of film crushes in this film--I choose smart normal guy Michael, who has a unexpectedly deep gravelly voice, and looks amazing in a black tee shirt.

Another awesome aspect of this film is the deep appreciation the filmmakers show to the original.  When Tom Savini shows up as a sheriff advising people to 'blow their heads off', you know you're in the hands of those who appreciate horror.  IMDB has a fascinating trivia list of all the nods they made to the original.  A couple more bits of trivia:  the word zombie is never used in this film, nor is it ever really determined where how the infection spread.  Like I said, the movie hits the ground running and never lets up.  It's an amazingly well made movie, and one of the best movies I've seen in any genre.

The Uninvited (2009)

They say you can't judge a book by its cover--however, with horror films, you sometimes can.  Think of classic posters like that for Halloween, and The Exorcist.  Then think about the posters for slasher films like Happy Birthday to Me or any poster that includes scantily clad women and dripping blood.  There's a definite difference between a horror movie poster with pretensions to art (or even a mainstream audience) and one that is clearly b-movie material.

Here's the thing about The Uninvited:  This poster tells you NOTHING about the film.  It definitely doesn't tell you that it's a remake of an acclaimed Korean horror film (A Tale of Two Sisters), and it doesn't tell you that it stars high-caliber acting talent like David Straithairn.  But once you get past that, and actually pick up this movie, it's a pleasant surprise.

As the movie begins, teenager Anna is being released from a mental institution, where she had been placed after the death of her mother and her suicide attempt.  She returns home (to a beautiful, beautiful Maine home) to her father, her sister and her father's creepy new girlfriend where she tries to figure out what happened the night of her mother's death.

The Uninvited is beautifully filmed and makes the most of its gorgeous Maine location and amazing house.  Universally well-acted, the characters are strong, engaging and complex.  There's no doubt about it--this is a really good horror film.  There's only one problem:  It's not scary.  It's interesting, it has compelling plot twists, it features some spooky imagery . . . but no scares.  Still good, though! 

The Crazies (2010)

It's so nice to be pleasantly surprised by a horror film--particularly a remake. Expectations tend to be awfully low for remakes, even if, as in this case, we haven't seen the original.

The Crazies is a remake of a 1973 film by George Romero and it's about a small Iowa town where people start to act a little "crazy." (A little bit like zombies actually.) Could it be something in the water? The government comes in and makes everything much better, as usual. And that's about it for the plot.

What makes this film better than average is what it DOESN'T have: the overused cliches of contemporary horror films. It does not have 1) a large cast of forgettable characters who get killed off one by forgettable one in new and unusual ways, 2) gratuituous gore, 3) overwrought music, and 4) telegraphed "jumps" (cats jumping out of closets, etc.).

What is does have is a solid, fast-moving plot and an outstanding cast of only about four characters, all of whom are complex and realistic. The always engaging Timothy Olyphant plays the sheriff trying to get to the bottom of all this "craziness", Radha Mitchell plays his semi-grating pregnant doctor wife, and Danielle Panabaker plays the doctor's assistant.

All the actors are good, and characterizations are pretty strong. But it's the fourth actor and character that brings this movie to a whole new level. Although a secondary character to the 'hero' sheriff, Joe Anderson as the deputy sheriff plays a surprisingly complex character. He brings depth and humor to the role, and his performance is probably one of the best I've ever seen in a horror film. All in all, it's a darned good contemporary horror film.

Black Christmas (1974)

One of the first movies in the slasher genre, Black Christmas is set in a sorority house over Christmas break and the girls are receiving scary, psycho phone calls. And then they start being killed by some unseen intruder. And the calls are coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!

With its sly wit and restrained gore, the film rises above the genre. Although the line between horror and psychological thriller are pretty thin here, there are genuinely unsettling (perhaps supernatural) moments in the film, particularly during the phone calls. This film features a good performance by Olivia Hussey as a pretty tough heroine, as well as a crazy performance by Margot Kidder, who appeared to be completely out of it in all of her scenes and never appears without a cocktail in her hand. Shelley Winters plays the boozy housemother and adds lots of humor to the film and don't forget to look for Andrea Martin in an almost unrecognizably straight role. John Saxon, that mainstay of horror films, shows up as a police detective and in a great departure from many horror films, the police are concerned and helpful to the sorority girls.

As it was filmed in 1974, this film sports some truly hilarious clothing and hairstyle decisions. One of the girls' boyfriends goes around sporting a giant (GIANT) fur coat and it's pretty much impossible to concentrate on anything he says. For a film set in a sorority house and made in the 1970s, it has a refreshing lack of t & a-type exploitation. Especially considering that Bob Clark went on to film Porky's (and A Christmas Story)! (Note:  This film was remade in 2006, which was apparently a big year for remaking classic horror films of the 1970s.  See also The Wicker Man. )

Ginger Snaps (2000)

Ginger Snaps is a Canadian horror film about two sisters who have a death obsession. The stylish film begins with a series of elegant staged photographs of fake death scenes. The credits sequence alone is worth the price of admission. The girls are outcasts in their school and devoted to one another, with a possible suicide pact planned. However, everything turns upside down when the older sister gets bitten by a werewolf. She gets her period at the same time (little symbolism there much?) and begins dressing sexily and acting uncharacteristically. Her sister, the younger, frumpier one, finds herself with the task of cleaning up for her sister, covering up for her sister and attempting to find a way to save her life. She enlists the attractive drug dealer in town for help.

One of the best aspects of Ginger Snaps is its fully developed and unique characters. The sisters are strong, complex characters and their complicated relationship is portrayed really effectively. As opposed to most romantic bad boy leads in teen horror movies, the drug dealer is smart, ambitious, AND pretty. Plus, he's able to see beyond people's looks to their personalities. All of the characters in this film are non-stereotypical and complex, as well as non-traditional-looking. There is no way that an American horror film would allow the younger sister to remain her frumpy self – there would have been a makeover planned at some point.

The film is a bit on the gory side, maybe even a little unnecessarily so. But the characters are so interesting and the plot has such unexpected twists that any complaints about the film are mere trifles. This film has a number of sequels as well as prequels.  It's like Friday the 13th for Canadians!

The Wicker Man (1973)

The Wicker Man is a fabulous movie, which was not nearly well known enough here in America (until the wretched remake, that is*).

In this well-written gem, an upright policeman goes to a Scottish island looking for a missing girl about whom he received an anonymous letter. The people of the island are not particularly helpful with his search.  During his investigation he discovers all sorts of indecent goings-on--sexual, pagan rituals that make the good church-going policeman quite uneasy and rightly so.

It's an incredibly well-written story, with a simple, but interesting plot with a truly shocking ending. Set in contemporary times, it sustains an uneasy atmosphere and includes a number of sometimes funny, but often unsettling folk musical numbers. It also includes a fabulous performance by Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle, pagan leader with quite the head of hair. There's lots of excellent quotes by Lord Summerisle such as "Do sit down, Sergeant. Shocks are so much better absorbed with the knees bent." It's a terribly quotable script. Despite all of the quirky townspeople, odd musical numbers and showy performance by Lee, Edward Woodward keeps the film from turning campy with his excellent, restrained performance.

This film also has quite an interesting backstory.  This website explains the backstory well, and outlines the various versions.  Try to find the version with 97 minutes (at least) of footage. The hacked-up American version (at 88 minutes or so) is too choppy to establish the suspenseful tone.

* Watch out for the 2006 remake starring Nicholas Cage that completely destroys the original story and inserts a matriarchal society of evil.  The movie, made by the always charming and not at all misogynist Neil LaBute, includes a truly bewildering number of scenes where Cage's character beats up women and provides only unintentional humor, mostly due to Cage's wild overacting.  Check out any video on YouTube that mentions this movie and bees for a sneak peek.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Ah, The Blair Witch Project.

If I may make a very personal digression, this movie totally brings me back to 1999. I remember how crazy the buzz was about this film – my friend Tim and I were terribly excited for it to finally open in our town. We rushed over to the one theater in town that it was showing at for the first midnight showing and were absolutely astounded by the massive crush of people trying to get tickets. No luck that night, but we finally got tickets for later in the week and still had to stand in line that night to get in the theater. I've never seen this theater so full, or the audience so excited. And it was well worth it. It was a great film and a great experience and I slept with my light on for three days.

The Blair Witch Project begins with text on the screen saying that three film students disappeared in the woods and were never found and what we are about to see is the footage from their trip. The rest of the film is the film that these students shot; we see the whole film through the cameras of Heather, Mike and Josh. They go into the woods to investigate the "Blair Witch" legend and lose their way and are soon beset upon by mysterious forces. Again, as with all truly great horror films, The Blair Witch Project is not afraid to take time to build up suspense.

The story is very simple:  being lost in the woods and how the characters respond to this situation, each other and the increasingly menacing atmosphere in the woods. You really don't see much in this film, and as always, what you don't see and imagine is far scarier than anything the filmmakers would directly show you. Why are there piles of rocks outside their tents? What was in the bundle of sticks? Was that a baby crying and where is Josh?

Excellent film that became a true cultural phenomenon with practically every show and form of media mocking and playing on the images in the film. Plus, the Blair Witch actors were on the cover of Time and Newsweek. Astounding. And the story behind the film is as interesting as the film itself: the actors were sent out into the woods to film without knowing what to expect or what was happening. Even knowing the behind-the scenes details does not dilute any of the scares. It's a great modern, classic horror film.

The Exorcist (1973)

What is there to say about one of the best horror films of all time?

Landing at or near the top of best horror films of all time, The Exorcist scared the tar out of me as a kid, and even in high school. Watching it as an adult, although it's not nearly as scary, it is a really well-made, complex horror film which has a number of levels of interpretation. Long story short (and everybody knows it anyway), a young girl named Regan acts strangely and is found to be possessed by a demon after playing with a Ouija Board. Before her mother comes to this conclusion, however, she has her daughter undergo much medical testing. Finally, her mother calls upon a priest (with his own issues and a background in psychiatrics) to exorcise her daughter's demon(s).

The best aspects of this film are how the filmmakers are not afraid to take time to build up suspense, and take time to establish the characters of Regan and her mother before throwing them into the possession nightmare. Even after 30 years, the film has some genuinely shocking parts and was banned in Britain for many years (and may even still be banned today). The special effects are good and not distracting and limited to "necessary" effects. And the film is not just about demonic possession, but encompasses broader subjects like adolescence, family relationships, The Church, ancient evil, modern medical practices and their fallibility. And it's genuinely scary, particularly to this lapsed Catholic. It's so very much about what is unknown in the world. What else can you say?

The Ring (2002)

The Ring is an American remake of the Japanese horror film Ringu, and in keeping with general American style, turned a spare, suspenseful film into an over-the-top, overly explained, rather clichéd one. Like the original, it's about a reporter investigating a videotape that apparently kills its watchers within seven days. Her niece mysteriously dies after watching the videotape, which piques her curiosity, if not really her compassion. You never get a sense that Watts had any emotional connection to her niece, or for that matter, anyone else.

The tape itself is gratuitously weird and includes lots of iconic horrific images, if not many actual clues to the mystery. The investigation she undertakes is very Hollywood, lots of breaking into file rooms and destroying a poor archiver's hard work by throwing files into chaos. The actual story behind the tape is much more complicated and less realistic than the story in the original film. Plus, the reporter's son, who was sweet and sympathetic in the original, is needlessly creepy.  It's as if he's doing his best Haley Joel Osment and you just want to say, honey, this ain't The Sixth Sense. Not by a long shot.

Although The Ring is not a terrible movie, it certainly suffers in comparison with the original. Where Ringu had sympathetic, complex characters with complicated relationships, The Ring offers only character traits and clichéd relationships. Also, The Ring attempts to do too much, with its unnecessarily complicated plot twists and half-assed indictment of tv and motherhood. Also, there is much gratuitous animal and human violence, none of which seems to bother our intrepid heroine. However, it was fairly popular in the theater and many people seemed to find it genuinely scary, so something in it must appeal to people. There are some genuinely spooky bits, but it shows too much and is unnecessarily complicated and violent. (2.5/5)

Ringu (1998)

Ringu is a Japanese horror film that we checked out after seeing the American remake (The Ring), which was pretty heavy-handed, yet intriguing enough in its premise to make us curious about the original. The story concerns a journalist who is investigating a videotape which allegedly cause the death of anyone who watches it. She gets involved because her niece died mysteriously after watching it. With the help of her psychic ex-husband, she researches the tape and tries to figure out how to save her life and the life of her incredibly adorable little son.

In stark contrast to the American remake, they proceed on a logical, realistic investigation to find out the story behind the tape. Also, unlike the American remake in which every scene rain is pouring down on our hapless protagonists and the settings all look like East Berlin, much of Ringu takes place in bright, sunny, everyday settings. God bless a filmmaker who is so skilled at building a tense, suspenseful atmosphere that they don't need to rely on the hoary clichés used by hack filmmakers.

Dialogue is fairly limited, and both the acting and directing is pleasantly spare and streamlined. The filmmakers are not afraid to take time to build up actual suspense and they are masters at proving the old axiom that what you don't see is much scarier than what you actually see. With its fully realized characters, complex relationships and intricate, coherent plot, Ringu is a wonderful modern horror film. Particularly when viewed in conjunction with its hackneyed American remake. Although the remake was very popular, hopefully it will lead people to check out the original for a far superior and sophisticated horror movie experience.

The Stand (1994)

Although Stephen King is mostly known for bad movie adaptations of good books, this six-hour tv movie actually does a pretty good job of transferring book to film. The Stand is a massive tome and having six hours to lay out the plot, which concerns a world ravaged by an epidemic of flu and the survivors coming together to battle over good and evil, really helps. Even so, it probably could have been told in a few less hours. It's a bit of long haul.

The Stand benefits greatly from its excellent casting. Gary Sinise, Ray Walston, Jamey Sheridan, and Adam Storke are all perfect movie representations of their book counterparts. Gary Sinise, in particular, completely embodies the role of Stu Redman, a tough, taciturn and exceedingly sexy hero. However, Molly Ringwald is genuinely terrible and her Pretty In Pink-era mannerisms do nothing to flesh out her character, the strongest and most likable female character in the book. Also, the costume designer was clearly on crack, because Molly wears the most outrageously inappropriate outfits for crossing the countryside on a motorcycle - tights, miniskirts, berets. Who thought that was a realistic choice?

The film interweaves the various character arcs skillfully and it's faithful to the book, but not too faithful. Some of the omissions that the filmmakers made work very well, such as cutting out Trashcan Man's back story. One more aspect that should have been cut out was every instance of Stephen King's extended cameos. Really more a bit part than a cameo, King is stilted and awkward and should really stick to writing rather than acting. Also, there are a few too many references made by characters to "making our stand." It grows quite tiresome, although it would make for a fun drinking game. Despite these small irritants, The Stand is a darned good adaptation of a great novel and it's a pleasure to see these well-written characters and situations on the big screen.