18th January 2010

A List Of 55 Films The 21st Century Genre Cinema Couldn’t Die Live Without

New decade, new column, new title. Special prize (can’t promise what it’ll be, but it’ll be DVD shaped) for anyone who can PM me with the film behind the title of this new blog.

How were the 2000s for you? If they were anything like mine, it’s most likely the decade was interesting, frustrating, unnerving, disappointing, inspiring, draining and rewarding. Some of my highlights are below.

Why 55? Because any less and it would have seemed like I’d missed some of my key pleasures; any more, I wouldn’t have stopped and this would have been a book. And none of you would read that. I’m lucky you got this far.

So, in no particular order, first, the handing out of a few spurious awards:

The Charles Laughton Award For Best Directorial Debut

“Shaun Of the Dead” – sure, it never quite achieves, nor can it have been going for, the tragic pathos of an ‘An American Werewolf In London’ and it doesn’t even have the proud heartbreak of the scene in ‘Night Of The Creeps’ where Chris’s handicapped pal J.C. leaves a dying message to say he finally walked on his own. But while it might not reach those emotional heights, it’s still a hell of a yardstick for comedy horror. You have to look a long way back to find a picture in any genre so expertly and confidently constructed from script through performance and seeping into every nook of production. One of modern cinema’s great debuts.

The Mario Bava Award For Best Articulation Of Palpable Fear On Camera

“The Descent”: what marks Neil Marshall’s muscular sophomore film out from the pack -- aside from its remarkable production resourcefulness -- is the way it manages to encase you so forcefully in pall of some kind of phobic attack with its stark images and situations. For all the rope burns, car crashes, pick-axe abuse and perfectly timed creature reveals, was there a more jarring sense of utter dread in the 00s than watching a woman squirming desperately through an impossibly cramped tunnel, deep underground as the walls quake around her? That’s some terrific filmmaking; deceptively simple in idea, fiendishly accomplished in execution.

The John Doe Box Award For Best Serial Killer Picture

“Memories Of Murder”: legend has it that director Bong Joon-ho was inspired to make this coruscating, searing serial killer procedural after reading Alan Moore’s forensically detailed “From Hell”. The compulsive obsession to minutiae pays off in abundance as he has produced the most rewarding, sometimes bizarre, repeatedly outrageous, often hilarious, always affecting and absorbing murder mystery of the decade.

The Larry Cohen Award For Best post-“Scream” Homage

“Hatchet”: a divisive picture sure, but one that should serve as an abject lesson to all independent horror filmmakers. If the 1990s taught us anything, it was that no one likes a smart-arse, a point neatly encapsulated in every “Scream” knock-off (hell, every “Urban Legend” knock-off) that millennial angst inspired in lazy producers and studios. Cut to the 21st century and something seems to have stirred the consciousness: Adam Green’s picture is one which never forgets that *character* (and not necessarily the kind of character which need to stack up against Dostoyevsky) is the route of a successful horror picture, no matter how exquisite the gore. On its own terms, ‘Hatchet’ is hugely entertaining and a “new benchmark in zero pretence post-modern horror”™. Next to “Laid To Rest”, it’s a masterpiece of epic proportions.

The Tom Savini Trophy For Best Death

“Wrong Turn 2”’s opening attack: Joe Lynch’s bold filmmaking moxy-matched-to-prowess is evident literally from frame one of a sequel that should have been a routine money spinner but ended up being not just one of Fox’s highest grossing non-theatrical films ever, but probably its best as well. Lynch lays out his bravura-laden stall from the off with a glorious, brow-furrowingly deft series of camera moves across, over and alongside a speeding vehicle. About 180 seconds later, as the occupant of that vehicle is slung back into it in two messy parts, we’ve been laid siege to by the insane, immoral and incorrigible sensibilities of a natural born filmmaker and a die hard horror nerd. Its company like that which makes it a joy to be a horror fan. Welcome to how all sequels should be attempted.

The “Katie Holmes In ‘The Gift’” Award Most Welcome Surprise

“Lake Placid”: after the bucolic horror of “Wolf Creek”, the (mostly successful) artistic pretensions of “Rogue” marked Greg McLean out as more Terrence Malick than Joe Dante. It’s worth remembering then that the decade’s premier US creature feature was actually this boisterous and wildly irreverent sleeper from cut-above journeyman and genre veteran Steve Miner. Anchored by a terrifically acerbic script from, of all people, “Ally McBeal”’s David E. Kelley, and the majestically corpulent double act of Brendan Gleeson and Oliver Platt, it was the most pitch perfect send up of monster mayhem since “Gremlins”.

The ‘Lifeforce’ Award For The Most Misunderstood

“Mission To Mars” – a wonderful cosmic satire, the close up on the glam-rock black eyeliner on Gary Sinise’s moistening eyes at the climax is the dead-pan give-away to De Palma’s delicious lampooning of every cinematic instance of spectacularly earnest, chest-thumpingly patriotic exploratory space travel that reaches beyond man’s most stoic, square-jawed and noblest ambitions. Did everyone all of a sudden forget that De Palma is the most loveable, rapturous cynic since Preston Sturges?

The Jeff Lieberman Award For Most Undervalued

“Stir Of Echoes”: unfairly marginalized in the wake of the “Sixth Sense” juggernaut, David Koepp’s sublime chiller (from a story by Richard Matheson) is perhaps less formally elegant and less pointedly emotional than M. Night Shyamalan’s excellent ghost story. It’s also a more rewarding and intelligently constructed piece of old fashioned story-telling, more than simply a tarted-up “twist”; it’s a quietly brilliant character study with a James Newton Howard score every bit as haunting as his work for Shyamalan.

The Dardano Sacchetti Cup For Best Giallo

“The Crimson Rivers” – a breathless, stylistically baroque whodunnit as dark and cacophonous as Phenomena’s bestial lair. Rewatching it in 2009, the gulf between Kassovitz’s picture released in the first of the decade and Argento’s own “Giallo” in the last becomes even more troubling and perplexing. By no, the reputation of Good Scream’s all time favourite sub-genre is frustratingly clear.

The Val Lewton Award For Services To Unnerving Atmospheres

“Jeepers Creepers” the exquisite first 25 minutes of Victor Salva’s tour de force, back to basics horror picture operate on little more than suggestion and dread. No matter what happens in the pictures oft (and curiously) lamented second half (which is still a marvellously maniacal piece of monster mayhem) the anticipation of all that comes before the creeper’s reveal is the best first act of a horror film since RKO-contracted svengali Lewton was making modest masterpieces.

The Kinji Fukasaku Award For Services To Asian Horror

“Kairo” ‘Ringu’ (ineligible here because it’s a 1998 picture, despite being released in 2000) spectacularly reintroduced the spectre of the long-haired ghost to popular cinema after a 30 year sabbatical in the wake of “Onibaba” and “Kwaidan” before ‘Ju On: The Grudge’ cemented the notion for modern audiences. By whittling its aesthetics and devices down to their very essence, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Kairo” is the apotheosis of the modern Asian horror movie. A series of surreal set pieces and vignettes tightly wound around the rather banal discovery by a group of Japanese students of ghost *coming from inside the internet* (read that again), there’s no earthly why this should have worked. But it does work, spectacularly. Foreboding, apocalyptic and utterly unforgettable with the best horrific sight gag of the decade.

The F. W. Murnau Smuggler’s Award For Services To The Genre Within Mainstream Film

“Hulk”/”Spider Man 2”/”Watchmen”: this is a brazen cheat and reverential tip of the hat to an off-shoot too sparkly and overwrought to be called “genre”, but exhibits too many genuinely visceral thrills and dark meanderings to ignore. 21st century superhero films have generally been more fast paced, more expensive and more expansive (in terms of running time) incarnations of the breed of classy classic comic book movies (“Superman”) that set the bench mark missed by the flaccid mid-90s pretenders (“The Phantom”). The best, though, have also been as nothing if not ambitious. Nowhere is the reach of the mainstream superhero movie more evident than in three wildly different but equally rewarding transpositions:

Ang Lee’s “Hulk” is massively flawed, wildly indulgent and practically blind to anything but the basic tenets of panel layout and visual transitions intrinsic to comic book artwork. Yet the phantasmagorical images he creates within his startling and often beguiling mishmash of horrific psycho-drama and arch super-heroics are some of the most wondrous mainstream cinema has ever bestowed upon us: of particular note are the desert flashback to the internal/external flux which mutates both Banners ids into raging monsters; and Hulk’s momentary flight into the outer stratosphere on the wing of a jet fighter. Both sequences are utterly transcendent, vibrant fantasy creations, showing visionary filmmaker Lee at his most brilliant.

Not only that, but Josh Lucas’ freeze-frame comeuppance is probably the best comic book panel never drawn.

Sam Raimi’s “Spider Man 2”: before “Drag Me To Hell”, all we had to remind us that behind the towering technical prowess of a 21st century blockbuster maverick lay the still-beating heart of a mischievous mayhem maker was the outrageously left-field operating theatre scene in Spider Man’s better middle brother. With all of the Ram-O-Cam action that two minutes of celluloid could possibly accommodate, it was a spook-a-blast from the past and one which must have unfurled that sadistic streak in the old dog with some kind of giddy abandon. It was only a matter of time before he went back to his roots.

Zak Snyder’s “Watchmen” is the zenith of literal adaptation, the flawless rendering of a staggeringly complete and complex alternate reality. Challenging, violent, ethereal, vibrant, horrific, garish and ethically involving, “Watchmen” is the chillingly articulate defence of the humble ‘comic book’ as literary art. If it doesn’t quite retain the power of Alan Moore towering graphic creation, it’s no fault of Snyder’s, merely a indication that sometimes the medium of the thing, how it entered our world from its creator’s consciousness, is how it was truly meant to be seen.

The Vincent Price Award For Most Rewarding Use Of A Waning Horror Legend

“The Woods”: After the strong and lauded ‘May’, Lucky McKee hit a stumbling block with this equally robust follow-up, which had initially been in a legal tussle to protect its title against the challenge from a film that became known to the world as M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Village’, a picture vastly inferior to McKee’s lyrical gem.

Clutching the dark, delinquent and very disparate spells of ‘Suspiria’, ‘Black Narcissus’ and, yes, ‘Reform School Girls’ to its quite remarkable heart, this beautiful widescreen chiller follows the travails of the misfit Heather as she begins a new life at an unconventional public girls’ school deep in the titular woods. These woods, it transpires, have played host for over a hundred years to a coven of witches. Which never bodes well.

Boasting vivacious performances, not least from Patricia Clarkson as the sensual and foreboding headmistress, and sharing, with Mike Mendez’s terrific ‘The Convent’, a canny and iconic appreciation of the delicately charged girl group ditties of Lesley Gore, it’s a picture of huge atmosphere, genuine unease and sensitive, stylish cinema craft.

It also features the best use of Bruce Campbell since Sam Raimi took his friends to, as fate would have it, the woods. Not for McKee the galling hyuck-hyuck persona in which this irony-clad folk hero of modern horror has clothed himself. As Heather’s down-trodden but sincere and dignified father, McKee allows Campbell to demonstrate a wonderful capability for pure, rather charming, character acting. Would that many more directors do the same as this performer seasons very nicely indeed in his advancing years. Anything to avoid ‘My Name Is *Still* Bruce’.

The Fly II Award For Best Rebirth

“Land Of The Dead”: Great? No. Good? Mostly. A legitimate rejuvenation and revitalisation of one of the true masters of horror? Indubitably and unequivocally. World Cinema has Jacques Rivette and, until recently, Eric Rohmer; we have George A. Romero, still perpetuating his unique brand of bloody social devolution long after his younger contemporaries have segued to frustratingly tired retreads of their former glories. Instead of attempting to recapture or trump the ferocity of his legendary Dead trilogy, Romero’s logical 21st century extension of his own mythology is by turns wry, solemn, inquisitive, mischievous and sincere as any horror film of the decade can be to a legion of fans anxious in their anticipation as to where their heroes, no matter how advancing in years, might go in the genre’s brave new world. There’s life and bite in this old dog yet, so watch your ankles.

The remainder, in their own way, are all quietly (and not so) indispensible for 21st century horror:

“Dawn Of The Dead”: where the remake came of age for the first time since “The Blob”.

“Ginger Snaps”: John Fawcett and Karen Walton’s picture had the jump on Diablo Cody and Karin Kasuma by about 8 years. It’s the perfect partner to “Heathers” in its pitch perfect skewing of high school hell in the form of a deliriously entertaining exploitation picture.

“Battle Royale”: Douglas Sirk meets Paul Verhoeven, exploitation at its most profound, hilarious, terrifying and, strangely, uplifting. Unequivocally my favourite picture of the decade.

“Sunshine”: alleged 3rd act “issues” continue to dog reappraisals of this quiet miracle of a picture. Boyle conjures a breathless, evocative yarn that’s coolly persuasive in its slightly shonky hard science and ultimately an immensely satisfying subjective immersion into a quite fantastical and unknowable future. All in a studio in the East End. Like the best science fiction, its questions don’t necessarily lead to hard answers, but do lead to the confrontation of hard truths about ourselves. A UK production to be proud of.

“Brotherhood Of The Wolf”: the thrilling confluence of one cinephile’s pulp obsessions as lush and luxuriant as it is wildly, irrepressibly disparate in its influences.

“The Devil’s Backbone”: a special kind of ghost story from the decade’s greatest imaginer. Del Toro’s picture is part “Spirit Of The Beehive”, part “The Innocents”, all sensitivity, flare and passion.

“Frailty”: Second only to “Lake Placid” as the most wonderful surprise of the decade, Private Hudson’s compelling, spectacularly assured and very adult thriller is laced with dark allure and one of the most chillingly lucid portraits of the awesome power of belief since “Rosemary’s Baby”.

“The Devil’s Rejects”: a blistering, sledge-hammer powerful grindhouse experience and more dangerous than any warmly nostalgic recollection of the wild world of skid row film could ever prepare you for. A snarl of rage and creative masochism that, on reflection, may have been Zombie’s ultimate contribution to the genre. If it transpires this was his single howl of intent, it’s one hell of a gift for all of us, full length guitar solos and all.

“Hostel”: a vital turning point in 21st century horror cinema taking the marginal firmly into the mainstream. Its sequel was far superior, but this legitimised the most hated nomenclature the genre was ever given: torture porn. In as much as the term is glibly misapplied, the simple mechanics of the sex film -- the tactics of delay, of teasing and of forcing the audience to anticipate -- are ram home with vigour in this vital modern horror film, and it is in *this* way that the sub-genre’s naming is completely appropriate.

“Saw”: what “Hostel” legitimised, this fiendishly clever indie film began (well, perhaps it began with “Audition”, but let’s not split hairs/ankle bones…) The series may have become a mindless behemoth of gruelling, lazily contrived set pieces but it was once the thoroughly resourceful mind-set of two young filmmakers simply taking very limited resources and wanting to make a mark. And, my, how they did just that.

“Kill Bill”: as complete and wonderfully indulgent an exploitation fever dream as we’re ever likely to get from any filmmaker, even if that filmmaker goes on to produce more intelligent, more formally extraordinary cinema. This is some acme of obsession, never likely to be topped.

“The Lost”: remorseless puck rock picture-making in the key of Altman and Scorsese and one of the most unsettling depictions of youthful ennui to grace the screen since ‘Badlands’.

“Oldboy”: an apex where high art and vibrant pulp meet, it marked the beatification of Park Chan-wook by cinephiles ensuring his legacy in the pantheon of cult icons. It’s also a simply a terrific piece of cinema; troubling, thrilling and stimulating.

“28 Days Later”: a sly twist on a then moribund genre that plays not so much “what if…?” more a rhetorical “what happens when…” It’s “The Stand” for the less New Agey amongst us and literally dripping with Pittsburgh-specific detail, no matter how adamantly Boyle decries its classification as a “zombie” film.

“Cherry Falls”: less a deconstruction of the genre than a brutal Larry Cohen-esque satire of an entire era, complete with the most wonderfully insane resolution to a murder-mystery plot since ‘Sleepaway Camp’. It was a defiant full stop for post-“Scream” post-modernism until Adam Green came along.

“Dead Man’s Shoes”: our very own “The Exterminator”, not the indie-cred “Death Wish” it was often touted as being. Paddy Considine portrays, with terrifying assurance, a man at the mercy of his enraged soul, his moral compass skewed by years at war so that his primary mode of behaviour is a shockingly measured, primal. Most chilling of all, though, is the sheer lucidity of the violent defence of his own brother showing no mercy to the ruthless, avaricious and plain wicked men in whose “care” he was left. A bucolic nightmare.

“Hannibal”: the ne plus ultra of franchise development, this was Thomas Harris’ finger to the accursed fame his creation had garnered. In the same way Tobe Hooper used “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2” to floor the anti-horror lobby that had cruelly hyperbolised his 1974 original out of all proportion, “Hannibal” was meant to stop the clamouring madness for the super-hero Dr Lekter/Lecter. That anyone got the grotesque excesses of Harris’s absurdly baroque contrivance to the screen is amazing. That it was packaged so elegantly by a Ridley Scott, even allegedly on auto-pilot, is something to treasure.

“Final Destination 2”: *this* is the definition of ‘gorno’. Absolute excess designed for nothing but the basest of human gratification. That it works so successfully as an enormously entertaining rollercoaster is an oasis of joy in the usually arid desert of the modern sequel.

“Freddy Vs Jason”: less important for its artistic success (which is minimal but any Ronny Yu is interesting Ronny Yu) than for its part in making the currency of these two franchises relevant in the 21st century for kids who had probably not even been born when the last of each franchise proper was released. (The endlessly jokey and mostly disposable “Jason X”, which doesn’t feel anything like part of the series, wouldn’t have done it on its own and Craven had killed his own creation in 1996.) The Platinum Dunes pictures that were a direct result of its success may be a curse, but they’re a profitable one, ensuring the genre survives. This franchise mash-up and its $82m box office were vital to that ongoing survival.

“Inside”: can a picture be both nauseatingly off-putting and upsetting yet devilishly smart and impeccably put together? It seems it can. Manipulative in the extreme, but so very good at what awfulness it perpetuates.

“Paranormal Activity”: the overhype is inevitable; the talent displayed by neophyte Oren Peli is undeniable, no matter how blatant and outrageous the con. An incredibly clever piece of cinema.

“The Orphanage”: kitchen sink melodrama fused perfectly with old fashioned gothic hysteria, they don’t make many like this any more.

“Pan’s Labyrinth”: Del Toro’s reputation as the seminal fantasist of his generation is only bolstered further by this, an evocative, beguiling masterpiece that’s part Svankmajer, part Michael Powell and all dark, delirious, deeply passionate genius.

“A History Of Violence”: one of the strangest graphic novel adaptations of the decade was also one of the more morally perplexing and intellectually stimulating. Shot like an elegiac Anthony Mann western fused with typically Cronenbergian obsessions of the inner self and bodily ruination, it’s as mainstream as he’ll ever get. And no less troubling because of it.

“Slither”: the most sincere love letter to “Night Of The Creeps”, “Society” and 80s body horror you’ll ever see. If only “Body Melt” had been this fun.

“The Host”: no picture better represents this delirious collision of genre constituents that so often makes up Korean cinema than Bong Joon-ho’s brilliant ‘The Host’. With elaborate computer and practical effects sensationally woven into his disarmingly paced, often breathless, drama, Bong generates a curious breed of cinematic spectacle unlike anything you’ve ever seen or quite possibly contemplated. If it sags in its middle section, never seeming to probe quite deeply enough into the nefarious governmental spectre locking down the panicked city, it culminates in an audacious and stunningly photographed, chaos-laden finale. The tragedy-tinged valour and innate humanity of the picture’s flawed heroes, neatly summed up in the bittersweet coda, also makes a welcome change from the brash heroism often supplanting shade and depth in Western blockbusters.

“Let The Right One In”: is there anyone who wasn’t at least partially won over by the sensitive, heartbreaking plight of young Oskar in Tomas Alfredson’s exquisite supernatural drama? As perceptive and insightful about what it means to be a dark outsider as anything from the great masters of horror -- Murnau, Whale, Romero or Hitchcock. Truly haunting.

“Frontiere(s)”: a contentious choice this, but objectively, I see Gens as a raucous, unbridled filmmaker who knows full well he can shoot and is simply trying out a whole barrage of ideas within a realm he obviously adores. Perhaps that makes me fickle, lazy or easily pleased, but in the breathless momentum of “Frontiere(s)” frenzy, I became more enthusiastic about him than any other new wave of French filmmaker. This is simply because a tyro whose excesses can potentially be tamed and finessed is more interesting to me than, let’s say, a director with a film so over-hyped he can't fail to believe his own press and how he's pulled the wool over people's eyes with non-existent profundity and shoddy spiritualism. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

“Haute Tension”: another French director exhibiting a flare for the profane as well as an even surer technical hand, is Alexandre Aja. This slight, but riotous and wickedly manipulative calling card may dilute on repeated viewings, but for the unprepared in 2004, still thinking of France a the home of Jean Rollin’s rickety perversion, Luc Besson’s gleaming finesse and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s whimsical grotesquery it was a blast to the chest and a chest-of-drawers to the head.

“Grindhouse”: Remember when I wrote that “Kill Bill” was some acme of obsession, never likely to be topped? This comes close. I like to think the reason it’s slightly less than the sum of all its wild and dazzling parts is simply because the very arena in which Tarantino and Rodriguez were working in (down and dirty exploitation) is one that values hustle and haste over depth and grace, whereas “Kill Bill”’s frames of reference (Hong Kong action, samurai and spaghetti western) were mostly about frantic, passionate heights of creativity and opulence. That and the twin maniacs -- and their lusty partners in trailer-making crime -- were attempting something completely outrageous that was always going to polarize more than anything else they had ever attempted. It was a gift I’m glad we were able to sample, if reluctantly, outside the US. For any of its faults, it’s a project so supremely confident (or hubristic, depending on your position), so affectionate (or decadent) and so in love with those moments of utter outrage between the authentic lulls any exploitation picture would be riddled with, it’s impossible not to adore. Love is blind, after all.

“Kontrol”: for all the Asian ghosts, Swedish vampires, Latin gothic and Gallic outrage, it’s to be treasured when something springs from somewhere unexpected in the world -- as unassuming a haven of horror as Hungary, for instance -- to take hold of your imagination. When you look forward to “Predators” later this year, bear this small gem in mind: Nimrod Antal’s loving tribute to underground horrors like “Deathline” is an example of the kind of original horror we see too little of these days: unique and refreshing.

“Trick R Treat”: Nothing is more depressing than an unsubstantiated backlash. This year we got to see the phenomenon in full effect, TWICE, when two pictures finally emerged from studio imposed embargoes to prove their champions right after literally years of praise. “Paranormal Activity” was one, Mike Dougherty’s sublime Halloween love letter the other.

And the apathy from some quarters was as disheartening as it was astonishing.

After years of bitching and moaning about how little inventive, nihilism-free golden/silver/whatever-era horror is out there in our era of slasher remakes and “Saw” sequels, a picture of genuine worth (irrespective of its eventual place in the pantheon of horror masterpieces) comes along and the effort by some horror fans to palpably demolish the intense wave of goodwill toward something so unassumingly accomplished was…quite depressing. And never really explained. “After all your excitement, it wasn’t the second coming” seemed to be the general party line for the naysayers. The glass is progressively half empty on the internet: in fact it may not even be *half* empty, the part-measuring bastards. Good to see optimism in genre fandom is alive and well.

(ASIDE: I imagine that any one of the outspoken internet “critics” of the film would be completely overjoyed if they’d created something even half as good as this. The first time they ever made a film (sure, a writer with a track record and influential friends and associates, but still…). And I think that’s the crux; it’s also the crux of much of the vitriol leveled at Eli Roth. Dougherty, and Roth, was one of us, now he’s one of them; he’s made a name for himself. And that’s chafes the gusset of a lot of similarly ambitious geeks who just haven’t gotten a shot yet. The subsequent decision to pull down rather than support and champion has always had me baffled -- it baffles me across fandom. But that’s perhaps for another blog. It’s not just “Trick R Treat” that has engendered this, of course, and it’s hardly the most excessive example. It is however, an example that particularly grates, as it’s a picture with little in the way of ostentatious swagger, beyond, you know, being very, very good. END OF ASIDE)

Trick ‘R Treat is a breath of fetid air. Dougherty’s handling of the simple geography of everything is what impresses most, if you know anything about filmmaking. Perhaps the tales themselves were no more than smart ‘Tales From the Crypt’ episodes: the all important execution was dazzling. Not the greatest horror film of all time, no, but one of the best of the decade, without doubt.
“Shutter”: a surprisingly affecting extrapolation of the classic Asian ghost story to the more rarefied Thai horror industry. It manages to wring more than enough suspense from what should be a tired, bone-dry conceit and the result is a rather atmospheric and often thoroughly unnerving treat.

“The Mist”: a mallet to the senses, an almost unimaginably bold piece of pulp filmmaking and a reminder of how good a filmmaker Frank Darabont is and how good a yarn spinner Stephen King is.

“Timecrimes”: chip away at the logic and it might well fall apart, but it does such an impeccable job of maintaining the sense of unease, dread and pure discombobulation that results from the hilariously blunt time-travel shenanigans of our befuddled hero that is *almost* doesn’t matter. Smart enough to know its limits, the bitter-sweet ending is a fine indicator of things to come from Nacho Vigalondo.

“Knowing”: Balls. That’s what this picture possesses in abundance. It’s absurd, delirious, bloated, ridiculous and convoluted. But it remains incredibly commanding and grandiose b-movie cinema, overloading the senses with Sturm und Drang. Alex Proyas takes the picture’s apocalyptic ideals to their (semi)logical conclusion with more bravado than even Roland Emmerich could muster. (Whether or not he buys into the zealous Christian subtext, I don’t know -- I’d like to think he’s having fun with it)

“Drag Me To Hell”: “Evil Dead 4” by any other name and a declaration of intent that Raimi’s wicked profane years haven’t been subsumed by the profligate ones spent crafting lovingly epic super-heroes, misanthropic gothic thrillers and baseball schmaltz. If it feels more like an exercise in muscle reactivation than a fully fledged masterpiece, it says more about the current climate that this soars above most other mainstream horror releases. He was never going to be allowed to unleash anything as insane as “Evil Dead 2” by a studio; yet had anyone else made “Drag Me To Hell”, it would have been a career pinnacle. Such is the power Raimi wields as a genre filmmaker.

"District 9”: the last masterpiece of the noughties

“The Loved Ones”: the first masterpiece of the twenteens.

He’s to you 2010. you have your work cut out. Don’t disappoint.

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