So, here we are for the best movies of the decade. It’s not been a bad decade, despite what some people might have you believe. Critics will often point toward the seemingly endless and pointless run of remakes, from 2 year old Asian movies to 20 year old American movies. However, just as the 80s had a lot more to offer than the low-grade slasher movies that some people always compain about, so this deacde had given us some of the most impressive and extreme horror of all time.
There were a few trends, ranging from the bloodless PG-13 horror market that’s run from The Ring through to Twilight, to the so-called “torture porn” that gotten so many tabloids foaming at the mouth. Mostly, this decade has been about breaking barriers, from independently produced movies like Cabin Fever and Paranormal Activity that clean up at the box office to the sheer extremities of the French new wave.
So, in looking forward to what the next decade can bring us in the genre, here are my picks for the top 10 movies of the decade:
10. Requiem For A Dream (2000)
Some people might be confused by the inclusion of this movie on a horror list, but Darren Aronofsky’s intense study of addiction certainly belongs here to my mind. The story is quite simple – following the disintegration of heroin addict Harry, his similarly drug addicted friends and his unfortunate mother. But, the film never lets up and by the end it’s hard to look away from the screen even as the characters descent into their own personal hells.
For his second movie following the ingenious low budget Pi, Aronofsky delivers an assured adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.’s source novel. He gets extremely strong and affecting performances from all of his cast, most especially Ellen Burstyn (who was nominated for an Oscar for this role) and Marlon Wayans in a rare dramatic performance (look at his god-awful role as Snails in Dungeons and Dragons – shot at the same time as this! – for a reminder of how bad he can be). The editing style is unique and helps drive the movie, especially in the repeated shooting up sequences and the traumatic climax. The final master-stroke is Clint Mansell’s fantastic score with the Kronos Quartet, one of the best score of the last decade if not of all time.
If many Hollywood movies can be described as a “feel-good” movie, then this is a “feel bad” movie. There’s no happy ending here, no redemption, no hope. The finale is a literal descent into hell that’s scarier than any CGI demons could be. I’ve heard it described as a must-see movie that you can only see once. That’s a good description – most people would not want to experience this twice, but I recommend the experience nonetheless
9. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) (a.k.a. El laberinto del fauno)
During the Spanish civil war, a young girl named Ofelia is taken by her mother to live with her new father, a fascist army Captain named Vidal. She hates the man, but her mother is very sick and pregnant with a new baby boy. While exploring the grounds around the house, Ofelia enters a maze and finds a faun, who tells her that she is in fact a princess from a fantasy world who needs to return there. However, she needs to first perform three difficult tasks to prove her worth.
Another movie that doesn’t fit squarely into the horror genre but certainly belongs on a list like this is Guillermo Del Toro’s 2006 fantasy masterpiece. Del Toro effortlessly combines fantasy and reality into a whole, switching back and forth between the vicious and violent war driven by the ruthless Vidal, and the fantasy world that might or might not be a figment of Ofelia’s imagination.
Everything about the movie is close to flawless, although the ambiguous ending is not for everybody. The cinematography is lush and the creature designs are fantastic. The “pale man” who puts his eyeballs into the palms of his hands is especially great. Doug Jones also deserves special credit for enabling Del Toro to bring his creations to life with a minimum of CGI. The other performances are also great, especially Ivana Baquero as Ofelia and Sergi López as Vidal.
Del Toro has a habit of alternating lower key Spanish movies with his Hollywood work, and while I’m definitely looking forward to his version of The Hobbit, I also can’t wait until his next smaller project like this.
8. Ginger Snaps (2000)
Ginger and Brigitte are two isolated teenage sisters with no real friends besides each other an a very morbid hobby of photographing each other acting dead. One night, which happens to be the night of her first period, Ginger gets bitten by a werewolf. Over the next month, Ginger changes both physically and mentally (she becomes slutty and popular), while Brigitte races to find a cure for her condition before the next full moon.
I almost forgot to include this fantastic revision of the werewolf myth on this list as I always think of it as a late 90s movie, but it did in fact get released in 2000. Shot in Canada for a reasonably low budget, Ginger Snaps manages to find a unique slant on the genre while making some very over comparisons between Ginger’s transformation into a creature with her sexual awakening.
The transformation itself is also unique, with Ginger not simply turning into a wolf at the rise of a full moon, but gradually changing over the month – she grows more hair and a tail and takes on bestial features. Both of the main characters are very well played and believable, and the film manages to sidestep most of the teen angst and melodrama that infects movies about high school kids in mainstream movies.
There are two sequels to this movie, both of which are actually very good. Ginger Snaps Back is a direct sequel, following Brigitte’s adventures after the end of the original (good but I’m not sure about the dark ending). Ginger Snaps Unleashed is an interesting alternative look, following the same two characters in a previous incarnation in the 1800s. Pick up the trilogy if you can, but the first movie is still be best and highly recommended.
7. Final Destination 2 (2003)
While not totally unique (the 80s movie Sole Survivor has a similar premise), the first Final Destination was a breath of fresh air when it was released near the end of the increasing tired slasher revival of the early 00s. The plot was simple – a group of people cheat death by avoiding a plane crash after one of them has a psychic vision. Death, however, find a way to get them anyway, one by one.
This setup is brilliant in two ways. First of all, because Death itself is the antagonist here, there’s no people in masks with silly motives for causing all the mayhem. Death is invisible and omnipotent, and the characters have a hard time trying to get out its way. On top of that, the concept allows for some extremely imaginitive death sequences that would seem utterly stupid is a human antagonist had been involved – for exaple, on guy gets decapitated by a piece of scrap metal dislodged by a passing train.
In a rare turn of events, I actually think the sequel is better than the original. Made with a larger budget, this basically retells the story of the first movie (this time the original deaths were meant to have been caused by the most incredible car pile-up you’ve ever seen), although it does tie into the previous movie.
The great thing about this is that it plays all of the original movie’s strength as far as they will go. The best example is one of the earlier death scenes where a guy is alone in his apartment. Having seen the previous movie, we know he’s doomed, but the film keeps blindsiding us – he burns some food, has things on the floor for him to easily slip on, and even puts his arm down a garbage disposal chute at one time. We get flase start after false start, and the movie seem to enjoy playing with us until the final shock point where he actually gets it.
In fact, the death sequences are so good that they overshadow the rest of the movie to some degree. Made with a near-flawless mix of practical effects and CGI, playing up to the strength of both, the scenes are unashamedly gory and over-the-top. I found the ending to this movie a little disappointing at first, but otherwise it’s a fun movie.
6. Dawn Of The Dead (2004)
As I mentioned in my Wicker Man review in my round-up of the 10 worst movies of the decade, I’m not totally opposed to the recent trend of remakes in principle. What I am opposed to is the way that most of these movies are being remade pointlessly, taking perfectly good movies and then missing the point of the original totally. For me, a remake doesn’t necessarily have to surpass the original, but it does have to have a reason for being beyond the fact that the marketing department wanted to leverage the name.
For my money, the best of the remakes this year was Dawn of The Dead. Like most, I rolled my eyes when I first heard that they were remaking Romero’s classic. It remains one of the most imaginative and outright enjoyable modern zombie movies, from the man who created the genre in the first place. It’s true classic and I thought that it should not be messed with. However, in honesty, the original is not a perfect film. It’s a little too long and tends to lurch from one set piece to another. The tone is uneven, the allegories about consumerism can be heavy-handed, and some of the comedy elements don’t really work (custard pies?). On top of that, it’s probably hard to get a mainstream modern audience to accept the pioneering gore effects and the blue face paint.
For his feature film début, Zack Snyder (along with screenwriter James Gunn), made the best decision they could. Rather than try to remake Romero’s original script, they would simply create a new movie. While there are nods to the original, the only real similarities are the fact that they’re both dealing with a zombie apocalypse where survivors hide out in a shopping mall. For a start, these are the infamous “running zombies” introduced to the modern era by 28 Days Later (I won’t get into the debate about “infected” vs “undead” here). This changes the dynamic of the movie completely. Whereas Romero’s protagonists could literally run rings around their shambling corpses as long as there weren’t too many of them, there’s no way to outrun Snyder’s versions.
Thankfully, the movie doesn’t fall into the trap of trying to explain too much, either. The opening few minutes are fantastic, where a nurse (played by Sarah Polley) wakes up one morning to find that the child from next door in her bedroom doorway. The girl immediately attacks and kills her husband, who quickly returns to life and tries to eat her as well. Escaping by inches, Polley sees a world descending into hell around her. Life isn’t much better when her and few other survivors she meets on the way get to the mall. From here, the film follows their routine as they try to both pass the time (including an amusing sequence where they play a game killing zombies who look like celebrities) and try to decide what they will do to get out of there.
The structure is a little flabby and messy, especially toward the middle where a new busload of survivors literally gatecrash for no other story reason than to supply some new victims. Some sequences are a little silly (such as the zombie baby sequence that takes too long coming although we all know what will happen), and the whole thing is a little over-long. However, from the breathtaking opening sequence to the amazing climax (a sequence that simply would not have been possible at Romero’s time) it’s a fantastic film with a great sense of humour and which does not hold back on the gore.
5. TIE: Inside (2007) (a.k.a. À l’intérieur) & [REC]
It’s always good to get away from Hollywood horror occasionally, as other countries have a lot to offer in the genre. Cultural and censorship differences mean that these countries often make movies that would not be possible in North America. In the 70s and 80s, this came from the Italians. At the end of the 90s and beginning of this decade, it was Asian horror that provided the unique flavour (at least until Hollywood decided to remake them all). I don’t think that anyone could have predicted that the French would be not only behind some of the most unique and affecting horror this decade, but also the most extreme.
Almost any of the new wave of French horror could tie for a place on this list, however they all have flaws. Haute Tension is a great movie that’s derailed by a ludicrous and illogical twist. Calvaire is interesting but does not totally work, while Frontiere(s) is a decent piece of work that falls victim to a few tired genre conventions. Martyrs is a gruelling and incredible film that just seem to think it’s more poetic and profound than it really is, while Ils is decent movie that’s over a little too quickly. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of these movies, but Inside just manages to beat them at almost every turn.
The story is another simple affair – Sarah (Alysson Paradis) is a pregnant woman who is involved in a car accident that kills her husband. A few months later, the day before her birth is to be induced, she decides to spend her final night alone by herself in the house they shared. However a crazy woman wants to get inside the house – can take the baby.
This is probably the goriest and strongest movie of the decade in a number of ways. The basic theme is very provocative, and raises the stakes far beyond the usual teenager in peril kind of story. By the end of the movie, the house is literally covered in blood and bodies from would-be rescuers, while the end is an utterly incredible piece of work that would never get past a Hollywood producer. This is actually ra real indication of how far we’ve come since the early 80s – there is absolutely no way that the BBFC would not have banned this movie if it were released back then. The usage of a pair of scissors alone would get this banned.
There are some flaws, though. While Sarah herself behaves rationally and logically (the first thing she does after her first encounter with the woman – who is never named – is to call the police), some of the minor characters behave a little wrongly. Most especially is the policeman who, aware that something has gone wrong with his partner inside the house, doesn’t bother calling for backup. There’s also a silly shock moments involving a character who we think is dead reappearing at an inopportune moment.
Overall, though, it’s an extremely strong film but as with most of the French new wave, definitely not for the squeamish or the expectant mother…
As a tie with Inside (OK, I cheated and couldn’t decide between them!) is the Spanish film [REC]. The Spanish have also been making some good horror movies in recent years, such as The Orphanage, but none have really created as genre-breaking a movie as [REC].
In the last few years, we’ve seen a resurgence of the “found footage” genre of movie first suggested by Cannibal Holocaust then catapulted into the mainstream by The Blair Witch Project. The biggest of these are of course Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield, but lower grade movies like Diary of The Dead and The Zombie Diaries are all over the place at the moment.
However, most of these films have two major flaws. The first is just why the person behind the camera is filming. For example, Cloverfield has the cameraman clearly insert himself into dangerous situations or even standing still when he should be running away. This can stretch your suspension of disbelief to breaking point. The other problem is that the stories lack any kind of real narrative structure unless they’re really forced. Many of these film sag in the middle as the initial danger is over, but the characters have to get to the next set piece while still having to film each other for no real character reason.
[REC] effortlessly sidesteps both of these problems. The story follows Angela, a young woman hosting a late-night show names “While You Were Sleeping” – a fluff piece to fill early morning schedules. On this particular night, Angela and her cameraman Pablo are filming segments on the night shift at a Barcelona fire station. The monotony is broken a by a call to an apartment building, where an elderly woman is trapped behind a locked door. When the firemen break down the door, they soon find that she is infected by some disease that has turned her into a flesh eating zombie. the authorities seal off the building, and the remaining survivors struggle to find a way out before it’s too late.
The first thing that’s obvious about [REC} is that it's a tightly constructed movie, very fast paced at only 75 minutes. This is actually the perfect length for this kind of movie, as there's no waiting around between set pieces once the action starts other than a short interlude where we're introduced to some secondary characters. When the action happens, the characters have an extremely good reason to keep filming - this is their big chance. Both Pablo and Angela have spent their time wishing for something more fulfilling - if they can get good footage of what's happening here, it could make their careers. This not only explains why they could keep filming even during moments of extreme peril, but also explains why they film the conversation in between.
Overall, [REC] is one of the best movies of the decade with a real rollercoaster style feel and some impressive sequences. I haven’t seen the sequel yet, but it also promises to be a unique take on what was becoming a tired genre.
4. Saw (2004)
A photographer and a doctor wake up in a dirty, darkened room, each handcuffed by their right ankle to opposite walls and a dead body between them. They don’t know each other or how they got there, but they have tape recorders containing messages from a man calling himself Jigsaw as well as various implements such as rusty hacksaws . Meanwhile, a burned-out cop is on the trail of Jigsaw – who utilises elaborate traps to test his victims as a kind of morality game. He wants his victims to appreciate life, and only the strong-willed can survive.
OK, we all know the story by now, but do we remember how it began? Before the annual sequels, the ever more elaborate traps, the increasingly labyrinthine plots and Jigsaw’s proteges, this was a simple, if flawed, puzzle movie. I often use the term “puzzle movie” to describe a film where you’re trying to solve a puzzle alongside the characters. Where these differ from a standard mystery is that the characters are usually in a single location, and the danger often comes from traps or paranoia rather than a slasher or other external human killer – think the Cube series, Unknown, etc. When i first watched Saw, I was somewhat disappointed that this aspect only takes up about half of the movie. The rest of the movie follows Danny Glover as the obsessed cop trying to find Jigsaw in revenge for killing his partner years before.
Saw’s strengths are obvious. James Wan has a kinetic directorial style that really propels the plot and intensifies some of the already intense sequences. The main cast is pretty good, and the plot twists and turn in unusual directions, leading to shocking and surprising final twist.
However, familiarity can breed contempt for some people. Saw has become an annual event, of curse, with a new movie every year since this original movie hit the box office. While some of the sequels are good, none have quite reached the same level as the movie, and Jigsaw’s continued influence despite having died in part 3 stretches credibility at times. Some of the casting gives the game away for the new viewer now as well, with Tobin Bell having becomes synonymous with Jigsaw and Micahel Emerson now known as a bad guy due to his role as Benjamin Linus on Lost. Wan’s once unique direction style has also become greatly imitated and overused.
However, forget the baggage and return to this movie. if you can accept the script’s occasional lapses of logic and the now familiar rusty aesthetic, there’s still a lot to get out of it.
3. The Descent (2005)
Neil Marshall’s second movie following Dog Soldiers is a masterpiece of claustrophobic terror. The story follows a group of six women who have been going on adventure holidays (kayaking, climbing, etc.) since they were at university together. A year following a tragic accident, which kills the family of one of the women, they regroup in the Appalachian mountains for a caving trip to help them re-bond and recover. But, of course, something goes very wrong and there’s something waiting for them in the darkness.
It’s a real testament to Marshall’s excellent script and direction that I would probably have been as happy with the movie if no creatures had turned up in the second half of this movie. The first sections of the caving sequences here are absolutely terrifying, especially if you’re claustrophobic. Not only are the women in real peril just from the creatures but from the elements themselves. Despite being shot on specially constructed sets, the caves are utterly convincing as real underground caverns.
The characters are good and distinctive, although the actresses can become a little interchangeable in the action sequences. the crawlers are very well designed, and look very much like humanoid creatures who would have evolved in deep underground caves. Once the action starts, there’s never a moment when you don’t feel that the women are in constant peril either from the creatures or the terrain (or in one shocking moment, each other).
The Descent suffered a little on its first US release, with the ending changed from the dark ending of the original British cut to something a little happier. This new ending was the one used to start this year’s sequel, but track down a copy ith the original ending if you’re not in the UK.
2. Shaun Of The Dead (2004)
Horror comedies are notoriously hard to get right. Make the comedy too broad or too silly, and it takes away any scares from the horror parts. Make the horror too extreme, and either it becomes hilarious in and of itself, or it makes the humour seem inappropriate and out of place. Of those few horror comedies that do work, they usually work by throwing as much at the screen as possible (e.g. Braindead). The benchmark for a movie that managed to walk the thin line and make the two elements work perfectly together used to be An American Werewolf In London, but now Shaun Of The Dead has become a similar classic.
Created by the team behind the excellent TV series Spaced (director Edgar Wright and stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost), Shaun Of The Dead manages to be both a loving tribute of and spoof of the zombie movies that were inspired by George Romero’s zombie trilogy. The setup is simple – Shaun is stuck in a rut, in a dead-end job, living with old school mates and his girlfriend has just dumped him. He’s feeling so sorry for himself, in fact, that he completely fails to notice the flesh-eating zombies taking over the world. When he does finally notice, he and his friend Ed have only two things they can think of doing – getting Shaun back his old girlfriend and then hiding out at the local pub, The Winchester.
What makes the movie so good is the effortless way in which humour is woven into the situations that Shaun and Ed find themselves in. It starts a character study, setting up all the relationships before the zombie action really starts. During the first act, a lot of subtle hints appear in the background so hint that something isn’t quite right, but Shaun’s too wrapped up in his own life to notice. When the zombie action finally starts, the humour continues but the horror never takes too much of a back seat, and there’s gore and suspense where it’s needed. The music’s always great, mixing a score with references to other movies and the hilarious use of Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now during a fight scene.
1. Let The Right One In (2008)
Perhaps it’s the circumstances under which I saw this movie for the first time – knowing nothing about it, sandwiched between gorefests at the 2008 Frightfest – but this is one of the few horror movies of the last few years to have left a lasting impression on me.
The setting and story are as simple as they are unusual. Set during the 1980s in snowbound northern Sweden, Oskar is a lonely, bullied child often left alone by his single parent. He forms a strange friendship with a new neighbour named Eli, a girl apparently the same age but actually a vampire.
The set up sounds a little like a pre-teen version of Twilight, but little could be farther from the truth. It’s a slow-paced but extremely effective character study with very little gore, but what little there is has definite impact. It addresses a number of different social issues including gender identity and paedophilia in a very subtle way, while never overtly attacking these themes. It also addresses a number of pieces of vampire lore (such as the need to invite a vampire inside before they can enter a house) that are rarely mentioned in the modern era. The setting is also interesting the way it’s used both for the bleak snowy landscapes – you can really feel the cold – but a unique look at the 1980s through an unfamiliar culture.
The result is an extremely fascinating film that will stay with you long after the end credits have finished.