Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Some Personal Favorites

Horror is an interesting genre. It has more peaks and valleys than the others and it's currently in transition. Around Halloween is the perfect time for horror movie marathons. You can always watch the classics or you can try some new fare. Here are a few films from the past few years that I have found to be worthy of your time.

1408 - An adaptation from Stephen King is generally a must watch for me. I didn't catch 1408 in theaters, but I did buy it as soon as it came out on Blu-ray. I rather enjoy kind of claustrophobic movies like this one and John Cusack being the lead actor just made this a great film for me.

The Mist - This poster paints the film rather differently than others, but I think it's pretty cool looking, so I will use it. Another claustrophobic film from the mind of Stephen King, it's a rather spooky movie. I think the best part is that it's a man vs. man film as well as man vs. monster.

Dance of the Dead - I stumbled upon this movie as a result of someone gifting me a Blockbuster gift card for my birthday. As I don't really rent movies and didn't find much used I wanted, I picked up Dance of the Dead. I think zombie films are rather overplayed, so for me to like this as much as I do means something.

Trick 'r Treat - Warner really didn't know what they had with this film and still don't. In the same vein as Creepshow before it, Trick 'r Treat is an anthology film that takes place on Halloween. That's two great things right there! Then when you look at the casting and how good the script is, it's just a winner all around.

The Cabin in the Woods - A recent addition to the list as this is still fairly fresh into its theatrical run. Suffering from a similar issue to Trick 'r Treat, the movie was actually filmed in 2010 and has been languishing since as MGM went bankrupt. Thanks to Lionsgate, we have finally seen the film. We tend to owe them a lot recently.

Drag Me To Hell - From Sam Raimi, the creator of The Evil Dead franchise, comes Drag Me To Hell. It was a rather interesting film and one that really excited me. It had been around 20 years since Raimi made a legitimate horror movie. If you love Evil Dead, this is certainly one for you.

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil - Another film that took a lot of time to get to us. About two years to be exact. A really funny movie that surpassed my expectations and it truly one of the best horror movies to come out recently. It's a shame it didn't reach the masses in theaters.

Zombieland - Like I said earlier, I really don't love zombie movies. Zombieland was funny, scary and well acted. It's interesting to kind of see that it had such a strong following for awhile, then it just vanished and we haven't heard much about it since. It's rather weird as it was all people could talk about for months in 2009.

Paranormal Activity - I liked this movie. It was creepy and effective. You can bash on it all you want, but the people who seem to bash on it most are the ones who complain that horror has no original ideas. I mean, it's not an original idea now as there are soon to be five sequels (Including a Japanese film called Tokyo Night), but when it came out, it was worthy of every piece of praise it got.

There aren't many things in this world as good as a lot of people huddled together in front of a TV being scared out of their wits by a good horror movie. Just don't forget the popcorn.


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