MY 50 FAVOURITE HORROR FILMS: 30 TO 21

More horror to make you poo your pants...


30. May (D. Lucky McKee, 2002)
Writer/Director Lucky McKee’s story of lonely, socially inept veterinary nurse May (Angela Bettis) who yearns for the love and companionship of the perfect friend is a disturbingly brilliant and moving little fable. May is a tragic, horrific, yet sympathetic character brought vividly to life by the wonderful Bettis, who to my mind is one of the finest actresses of her generation. Ably supported by Jeremy Sisto and Anna Faris, Bettis is compulsively watchable as she shows us the gradual fracturing of a mind and the obsessive and horrific lengths May will go to, to not be alone. McKee's script is strange, twisted, sad and poignant and his direction is artful and actor centric. He and Bettis are good friends and she appears in most of his films, almost as a muse. Their team works. More please.



29. Ju On: The Grudge (D. Takashi Shimizu, 2002)
There's been lots of different versions of this coldly creepy and highly unsettling Japanese chiller about a deadly supernatural curse, including a Korean remake, a Japanese TV remake, and a US remake starring Buffy herself as directed by the original's Japanese director. I've only seen the original and the US remake. The US remake is good but its obviously larger budget and slightly awkward and unnecessary inclusion of American characters in to a Japanese mythos stymies it somewhat. For me, the original remains the best and most effective. The scene of a poor tormented woman seeking refuge in her own bed...only for the murderous ghost to creep up over her from under her duvet is one of the simplest and scariest concepts in modern horror. Brrr!

28. Black Swan (D. Darren Aronofsky, 2010)
Darren Aronofsky's psychological art house horror sees childlike Ballerina Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) taking on the dual role of Odette and Odile in Swan Lake. Fine playing sweet, innocent Odette, the white swan, Nina has trouble embracing the darkness to play Odile, the sinister, devilish black swan. Pushed by her manipulative producer (Vincent Cassell) and overbearing mother (Barbara Hershey), and feeling threatened by newcomer dancer Lily (Mila Kunis), Nina begins to crack, believing she really is turning in to a black swan and doing all sorts of terrible things as a result. This is essentially a werewolf tale...but with a swan instead of a wolf. Aronofsky has stated as much. What it certainly is, is one utterly riveting film, beautifully directed, unsettling in places, and featuring a mesmerising (and Oscar winning) lead performance from Natalie Portman who is ably supported by Kunis, Vincent Cassell, Winona Ryder and Barbara Hershey. The ballet sequences are stunning, while ome of the main underlying themes of confronting and embracing sexuality, though nothing new, is wonderfully and artistically handled. In many ways Black Swan reminds me of Neil Jordan's splendid The Company of Wolves in its themes and approach. Simply, Black Swan is a great film, horror or otherwise. See it.

27. Bride of Frankenstein (D. James Whale, 1935)
James Whale's sequel to his own film version of Frankenstein is a wonderfully odd, darkly camp, blackly humorous classic. Taking elements from Mary Shelley's original novel which weren't used in the first movie, Whale spins a tale that sees a chastened Doctor Frankenstein being sought out by the nefarious Dr Pretorius and then being seduced in to helping Dr P with his own bizarre life creating experiments. Pretorius has also made a deal with Frankenstein’s Monster to receive his aid and to study him in exchange for the promise of creating the Monster a companion, specifically a bride. With the eventual creation of the Bride in the stitched together form of the lovely and wonderful Elsa Lanchester, who's all too brief performance is every bit as iconic as Karloff's, we get a twisted take on unworkable and unrequited love. If you've never seen this film, do yourself a favour and seek it out. Gorgeous photography and art direction help to make it essential viewing for any self respecting film fan. And to this day Lanchester's Bride remains a classic goth fox.


Here comes the Bride!

26. The Mist (D. Frank Darabont, 2007)
Frank Darabont's adaptation of Stephen King's novella is a low budget high impact tale of humanity (or lack thereof) and how we behave when we are thrown together under the worst of circumstances. A small US town gets covered in a thick mysterious mist presumed to have escaped from a nearby military base. Within the mist there are all sorts of nasty killer creatures looking to munch on the locals, many of whom take refuge in a large supermarket, barricading themselves in as best as possible. What follows is a tense, scary and tragic microcosm of human society filled with people who may end up killing each other before the monsters get a chance to. Expertly written and directed by Darabont and filled with excellent actors led by Thomas Jane, The Mist's greatest trump card, though, is its ending: a horrifically tragic and soul crushing finale. With The Mist, Darabont proved yet again that he is a master filmmaker, especially when adapting the work of Stephen King. Please make King's Cell next, Frank.

25. Night of the Living Dead (D. George A. Romero, 1968)
George A. Romero's black and white zombie classic sees the dead coming back to life to eat the living with a small group of disparate souls hiding out in an abandoned farmhouse in an effort to try and survive the ghoulish apocalypse. And there's not much more plot than that. But, like all great horror movies and genre movies in general, NotLD is really all about us. It's about human beings and how we behave to each other, how society works and doesn't work. With NotLD Romero and co-writer John Russo created a brand new sub-genre – the zombie movie. Before NotLD, zombies were just dull-brained slaves. Post NotLD and zombies became deadly flesh hungry ghouls. Without Romero there would be no 28 Days Later, no Walking Dead, no Shaun of the Dead amongst many, many others. But Romero didn't just sit on his Laurels (an in joke there), he went on to make more zombie films with Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead. Romero uses his zombie tales as social commentary on the particular eras they are made in – be it 60's Vietnam and race relations with Night, rampant 70's consumerism with Dawn, 80's militarism with Day, and 2000's gated communities, economic woes, social media and sectarian fears with Land, Diary and Survival. All hail the great god of the zombies. All hail George!

24. Near Dark (D. Kathryn Bigelow, 1987)
Kathryn Bigelow's stylish 1987 vampire western is a revolutionary film in the vampire movie sub-genre. For the first time vampires move well away from their usual gothic image, becoming feral, blood hungry nomads who prowl the vast lands of the US mid-west sadistically preying on rednecks in bars and on whoever else crosses their paths with a pulse. In this tale, easygoing cowpoke Adrian Pasdar falls for cute vamp Jenny Wright who also takes a shine to him. Unbeknownst to Pasdar, she goes and turns him in to a vamp too (though the term vampire is never used in the film and there are no fangs or glowy eyes, just throat slashing and blood drinking). Pasdar then joins her band of vamps for a while before deciding its not the (un) life for him and goes and sets out to return home to his dad and little sister. Near Dark is a stylishly bloody lesson in how to successfully reinvent a classic monster. Unfortunately it was a box office flop, losing out hugely to the other vampire movie of 1987 – the glossy big budget pop video antics of The Lost Boys, another attempted reinvention of the vampire myth. Nowadays Near Dark is rightfully regarded as a classic genre changing film, while The Lost Boys is mostly thought of as just a fun little teen movie with a great soundtrack. And what became of Near Dark’s director Kathryn Bigelow? Point Break, a divorce from James Cameron, and an Oscar for The Hurt Locker is what.



23. Martyrs (D. Pascal Laugier, 2008)
Part of the current French new wave of horror, director Pascal Laugier's Martyrs is one truly horrible film. It is also utterly brilliant! The central idea doesn't reveal itself until fairly late in to the movie, after the film has led its audience on a twisty turny tale full of bloody revenge and potential madness. In the end, what this film is about is something so disgustingly ingenious that you have to applaud it. This is deeply intelligent filmmaking. But also almost unwatchably painful filmmaking as it delves deep, deep down in to horrendous cruelty and brutality, driving home its ideas like a repeated sledgehammer to the gut. To describe any of the plot in more detail would be a disservice. If you like intelligent horror and have a strong stomach and a reasonably stable mind then seek this out now. But be warned! It is a deeply unpleasant experience. I loved the film but I fear it too and have no wish to see it again any time soon.

22. The Blair Witch Project (D. Eduardo Sanchez, Daniel Myrick, 1999)
If you don't like the ongoing craze for found footage films then you know who to blame. Back in 1999 when the internet was still young two aspiring filmmakers with no money but lots of new media savvy had a great idea. Make a zero budget horror movie pretending it came from found footage discovered after a band of students went in to the woods to investigate the local legend of a child killing witch. Then promote the resulting movie through its own interactive website, selling the events caught on cam as real while also filling in the whole witch mythology via fake historical documents and reports. And lo, the audiences did buy it. To the tune of $240 million world-wide. It didn't hurt that the movie itself was actually brilliant, being an edgy, highly creepy, highly effective little spook story that relies on characters, atmosphere and subtle sound effects as well as the power of suggestion to scare. I still think that its end sequence is one of the best end horror film sequences ever – no gore, no shock, just that utterly creepy and unnerving final image. Great movie then, plus a genuine phenomenon and trendsetter. Shame the sequel was pants.



21. Night of the Demon aka Curse of the Demon (D. Jacques Tourneur, 1957)
The second film in this countdown by French-American director Jacques Tourneur is a wonderfully creepy and classy British supernatural chiller based on the story Casting the Runes by M R James. American professor of psychology Dana Andrews travels to the UK to attend a conference only to get caught up in the dark world of curses, demonology and black magic. For much of the film we are led to believe that the nasty goings on are most likely nothing but a bunch of hocus pocus and psychological suggestion. However it eventually becomes clear that this is not the case as Andrews' investigations in to a possibly murderous sorcerer lead to him being cursed with a demon coming to take his soul. Like all Tourneur's films Night of the Demon is beautifully shot and is full of tension, mood and atmosphere and has a couple of very effective jump scares, the best involving the sudden appearance of a loudly hissing black cat. Creepy and effective, this was a film ahead of its time in many ways. Yes, the actual demon FX are a bit ropy, but by then you have been well and truly pulled in to its deadly serious and coldly creepy world of black magic and murderous demon worship.




20 to 11 will follow soon.

Black Swan Ruffled My Feathers

Wow!

Black Swan tells the disturbing tale of Nina (Natalie Portman), a beautiful, talented but also reserved and immature ballerina who’s quickly reaching the age when the chance to become a Principal Dancer and a major star is starting to slip away from her. However her Ballet Company’s director (the great Vincent Cassel) sees something in Nina and gives her the lead in his upcoming production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. But this means Nina playing two distinct characters – the sweet, innocent, virginal Odette, a princess cursed by a sorcerer to live as a swan, and Odile, said sorcerers dark, duplicitous, passionate daughter who tricks Odette’s Prince in to betraying his one true love. And while Nina has no problem portraying the innocent, fragile Odette, she finds it impossible to capture the dark inner passion of Odile, to allow herself to become the Black Swan. Nina’s major problem is that despite her age (28) she is still effectively a little girl. She’s immature, not yet having become a woman with the experiences of life and of the world that most have gained by that age. The main experiences here being of sex and passion. Nina lives with her mother who has effectively isolated her from life, from growing up and maturing. She smothers Nina, giving her no privacy at home, treating her as if she were still 8 years old. But as Nina starts pushing herself to embrace what being the Black Swan means by exploring her own inner passions, by letting herself go, weird and scary things start to happen. She starts seeing physical transformations in herself – scratches and marks appearing on her body. And then, later on, feathers breaking through her skin and reflections of herself taking on a life of their own. At the same time she is also becoming more and more convinced that the new addition to the company, the flirtatious Lily (Mila Kunis), is out to get her. That she’s looking to replace her, just as Nina has unwittingly done to the now broken figure of the previous Lead Dancer, Beth (Winona Ryder).

Hmm…all sounds a bit odd and freaky I hear you say. Yep, that it is. But in the very best way possible.

I reckon that with Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky, director of Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain and The Wrestler, has done his best work to date. This is utterly brilliant stuff. It’s an exquisite, disturbing, intelligent and artful film. I especially love how he films the dancing with energetic close in cameras following the dancers as they move. And then there's his fantastic time and location transitions while tracking Nina’s face or following the back of her head. Everything we see is stylised and intimate with the entire story being shown from Nina’s perspective. It is the self-view of a fragile, immature, isolated, frightened, yet deeply committed and ambitious girl. All of the nightmarish imagery we see is through her eyes. It is how she sees others and herself – the injuries, the blood, the grotesquely beautiful transformations. With Black Swan, Aronofsky pretends to be ambiguous. Is this all actually happening for real, or is it all purely in Nina’s head? The truth is, though, that Black Swan really isn't ambiguous at all. Not if you’re a reasonably smart human being who can see at least some of what this film is really all about.

So, having now set myself up for a fall, here’s what I think Black Swan is all about.

*WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD*

I see Black Swan as an allegory for the female journey to full-on womanhood with all the physical and emotional issues, problems and insecurities that journey entails - not to mention the various (and not always helpful) male and female attitudes and peer pressures. It’s also about what roles/personas girls might adopt throughout that journey, or might be forced upon them as they mature. Some of those roles/personas are shown in the characters of Nina, the immature, innocent child looking to grow up; Lily, the sexually confident and worldly young woman; Beth, the spurned older woman who is feeling unattractive, unwanted and redundant. And then there’s Nina’s mother, who is just that – the ‘mother’, the only thing that defines her. These female personas are all potential aspects of Nina’s own character. And she fears them. But she must confront them throughout the film so as to banish her fear and take control, to try and become the ‘perfect’ woman and deliver the ‘perfect’ performance as both Odette and Odile. And what better backdrop to this artistic female allegory than that of ballet, a world built upon female competition, continual striving for physical perfection, delicate beauty and fleeting youth. The world of ballet is a world full of women who’s ability to perform is in large part down to their age and the intense physical sacrifice, pain and punishment their art demands of them. It is a world where they have to become something that others determine and to continually adopt roles and personas. It is a world where there is always a younger, hungrier version snapping at the heels and where obsolescence is something that happens quickly and is especially cruel.

Specifically, though, Black Swan is about immature Nina's breakdown - or break through if you will.

For it is only by taking on the dual role of Odette and Odile (The White and Black Swan) that she finally forces herself to make the transformation in to a fully sexually mature woman. And maturing sexually is key here - complete with seduction, arousal, gay fantasies and masturbation. Indeed, the final shot of Nina dressed in virginal white and lying flat on her back in a dreamily satisfied state with blood on her lower body is a blatant allegorical image of the final transformation in to being a woman. The film shows us that this process of maturing sexually and emotionally, of growing up and dealing with all the trials and tribulations of becoming someone else, becoming someone more, is often painful and deeply troubling. These are age-old themes that have been told and retold throughout time in various folk tales and in classic and popular fiction. From my own pop culture bias the entire second season of Buffy is pretty much about the same thing – a young woman’s sexual awakening and painful transformation in to womanhood. As a film, Black Swan makes for a fine companion piece to Neil Jordan’s lush and dreamlike The Company of Wolves and John Fawcett’s excellent Ginger Snaps, being that they all share the same main theme.

Anyway, that’s what I reckon. But I could very well be wrong.

Whew! Almost done. But I can’t finish without a major shout out to Natalie Portman.

Unfortunately the flat acting of the Star Wars prequels along with various other stuff she’s done over recent years had lulled me in to thinking that Natalie as an actress was actually nothing that special. As far as I was concerned her stunning turn in Leon (aka The Professional) when she was only 12 was by far her best work.

Until now.

Yes, the entire Black Swan cast are great (yay for Ksenia Solo). But make no mistake this is Natalie’s film all the way. And she is quite astonishing. She captures perfectly the frailty and immaturity of Nina as well as her internal yearning to become what she needs to become. But there is also an intense fear beneath everything that she does - fear of failure, of letting go, of growing up, of becoming like Beth, or her mother. And when Nina eventually starts freaking out, when she is struggling with the emerging Black Swan, Natalie is ethereally frightening with her dramatic weight loss, wide-eyed paranoia, and violent outbursts. Purely on a physical level she is incredible, being totally convincing as an experienced ballerina, a job that requires huge physical stamina, ability and precision. The dancing Natalie does is beautiful as is all of the dancing on show. I don’t know that much about ballet, although I do have an appreciation for it, but I do know that it is enormously hard work that takes years of dedicated and painful practice, making what Natalie achieves here all the more impressive. If she doesn’t at least get Oscar nominated then the world has gone truly insane.

In closing, Black Swan is an excellent film and one of the very best of the year. It requires its audience to think about theme and allegory and emotion rather than to simply follow a plot. Most will consider it an art house film, some a horror film, some a psychological drama. And Black Swan is partly all of that. And more. It is a weird, disturbing, yet also beautiful and poetic film that should under no circumstances be missed. Ms Portman, I’m sorry I ever doubted you. 5+ (out of 5)

Trailer:

The wisdom of Kenzi

Canada's current hit supernatural fantasy TV show Lost Girl is a pretty so so affair - kinda like Charmed but with more sex and skin. However Ksenia Solo as heroine Bo's streetwise sidekick Kenzi is great and single handidly makes it worth watching. Just give her her own show already. And it's not just me who thinks she's great either. Ksenia has a supporting role in Darren Aronofski's upcoming movie Black Swan alongside Natalie Portman.

In the meantime here's some of Kenzi's highlights...