Y2K did not plunge us into a world of darkness and despair, much to the chagrin of all the people who’d gotten off of the grid in the 1990s and were living in the woods in a ramshackle trailer, eating beef jerky and drinking their own urine. The first decade of the 21st century will forever be viewed through the lens of 9/11 and the changes it wrought on us psychically. For at least the first half of the decade, the biggest horror show around was the footage we watched on the nightly news. I may not be far enough removed from the “aughts” to speak with any kind of perspective about those years.
The movies were slow to react, out of both respect and also general confusion. No one knew what to think and where to go to think it. Our framework for horror (make that “terror”) changed in one day. If I can offer any insight into what the darker corner of popular culture reflected at this time, I’d venture to say that horror movies got more personal, and more invasive. The stakes seemed higher and the playful undercurrent that was present in the 1980s and the 1990s is largely absent here. Horror got meaner. More random. More confusing.
Huh. Maybe I have more of a handle on the decade than I
thought.
Four college students, vacationing in Mexico, meet another world traveler, looking for his brother, who was investigating Mayan ruins nearby. They agree to make a day of it, and go into the jungle. They find the ruins, and also some villagers who do not want them around, and they are willing to shoot them with arrows to make sure the Americans get the point. Later, trapped at the top of the Myan ziggurat, they start formulating a way out of the jungle, past the villagers. They can hear a cell phone ringing, down in the darkness of the central shaft that runs deep into the ruins. Maybe it’s the missing brother? Maybe they can call for help with the phone? Maybe all of their best-laid plans are going to go pear-shaped on them and make their stone perch into a pressure cooker.
Like The Descent, this movie lives in the “survival horror” sub-genre. However, the film has a really interesting premise that, if you can willingly suspend your disbelief, carries overtones that are nearly eldritch in nature. The story is loaded with mishaps, misfortune, and a menace that has to be seen to be believed. The Ruins is a wonderfully weird little movie that I guarantee you’ve not seen before.
Scott Smith wrote the screenplay, based on his novel (he
also wrote A Simple Plan, if you liked that movie). He actually sold the
option to the film rights while the novel was being written. Boy, some people
have all the luck.
A cleaning crew, sent to an abandoned mental hospital to remove the asbestos in the walls, become unlikely investigators of the occult as they encounter strange artifacts and mysterious goings-on, including a number of audio tapes, the eponymous sessions, involving a psychiatrist and a woman trying to work through what happened to her family. What starts out as unsettling becomes paranoid and creepy as the crew realizes they are not alone, and someone or something is actively working against them.
The film is largely bloodless, deeply psychological, and requires a commitment to watch, like a lot of French and Italian cinema. I know that sounds negative, but I mean it in the nicest possible way. Session 9 is one of the first of the “new indy” horror films that didn’t play by the rules and as a result, got some well-deserved attention from people who would otherwise have turned their noses up at it.
Director Brad Anderson and screenwriter Stephen Gevedon, both newcomers to horror, are proof that sometimes you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. Specifically, they sought to subvert the conventions of the genre to create a horror story that scared you in a more subtle and impactful way, and it succeeds way more than it fails. By the time Mike, played by Gevedon, gets to the tape with session 9 on it, they have laid out enough puzzle pieces to enable you to solve it. That we might arrive at very different solutions from watching the movie is beside the point.
A group of women, gathered together for a weekend spelunking adventure (and a show of support for their friend who recently lost her husband and child) strike out in search of the path not taken by exploring a cave system that is not found in their guidebook. But all of their combined experience doesn’t prepare them for what they find, and what it does to them as they quickly go from self-discovery to self-preservation only adds to the tension.
This movie is oddly specific and that’s what I like about it. There is no genre of “Cave Horror” to worry about “the rules” or other movies to compare it to. In that respect, The Descent is alone, and also, it’s out there where the buses don’t run. This movie covers multiple fears in a single swath (claustrophobia? Check. Things that go Bump in the Dark? Check. How well do you really know your friends and what are they really capable of? Check.) and while it may start somewhat slowly, that pace is very much like climbing the first, largest hill on a particularly harrowing roller coaster.
Neil Marshall, the British director who gave us the excellent werewolf romp, Dog Soldiers, directed this movie, and even though it’s set in America, the production and cast are all British. There’s even a more dour and downbeat ending that the UK audience got that us Americans did not (but if you get the unrated edition, you’ll be able to fully bum yourself out). The Descent is a unique and interesting tension-filled ride that does not let up once it gets going.
A young couple walking home after a street festival...a school principal with a dark secret...a group of young trick or treaters out for a bit of mischief...a quartet of young, nubile women on the prowl for a good time...a grumpy old man fuming about Halloween...and the witness to all of them, a cute little trick ‘r treater named Sam. These narratives intertwine and collide on the eve of Samhain, also known as All Hallow’s Eve; a time when costumes are worn, candy is distributed, and other time-honored rituals are carried out, and woe be unto whoever decides to break one of those Halloween traditions.
Written and directed by Michael Dougherty, this little gem makes the most of Anna Paquin and Dylan Baker, but that’s not a dig on the rest of the cast, who all make the most of their brief screen time. The movie has a lot of gallows humor in it, making it tonally similar to Tales From the Crypt. The non-linear storytelling used throughout is a lot of fun and reminds me of Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train. Sam, the little scarecrow kid, is a great invention; half horror host, half harbinger, able to interact directly with the people in the segments. The last character that could do that was Freddy Kruger, but Sam is a lot creepier and not nearly as over-exposed.
Trick ‘r Treat was intended for a wide theatrical release in 2007 and got pushed back until it went straight to video in 2009. As Halloween-themed movies go, Trick ‘r Treat has vaulted to the top of my go-to list.
When a teenage girl dies seven days after watching a cursed video tape (a local urban legend), her aunt, played by Naomi Watts, decides to investigate the circumstances around her baffling death. This leads her to watch the VHS cassette, after which, she gets a phone call and is told she has “seven days...” With the deadline fast approaching, the aunt uncovers the truth about the unsettling images on the tape, but she may be too late to stop the curse from taking another life.
When Ringu (1998) made piles of cash at the box office (and ushered in a wave of Japanese horror movies, or “J-horror” as the kids like to say), it was surely inevitable that an American film company would re-make it. Thankfully, the director, Gore Verbinski, was interested in keeping the integrity of the original, resulting in the best American version of a J-horror film, one that stands on its own and (I know this is heresy) is more satisfying in some ways to watch.
The Japanese version of the story (based on a bestselling
book by Koji Suzuki) does not bother to explain itself to its target market,
and thus, while extremely effective and unsettling, western audiences were baffled
as to the what and the why of the story (I know I was). Verbinski made the
smart decision to depict more of the backstory to better explain what we are
seeing (and being freaked out by) on the screen. If you want a better and more
credible explanation of how such horrors came to be, this is the version you
need to seek out. If you must view a J-horror movie, watch Ju-On (1998)
instead.
