Thrill Fiction

The Top 10 Coming Soon Horror Films of 2013

2013-01-16T04:34:00.001Z

Each New Year brings hope. This year ought to bring more.

Every year in every century ends with the numbers 0-99. The most important year to the world ends with ‘00’. The most important to the horror film fan ends with ‘13’. A 100 years ago cinema was nascent. Today the internet is mainstream. It is the fanbase and support structure for the genre. Today is 2013. It is the year of horror. We won’t live to see the next.

Welcome.

This is what the industry has in cinema for us.

[Only films with confirmed release dates are included. All dates are UK and North America only and are subject to change (see Carrie). Releases are wide unless otherwise stated. The criterion is big budget, buzz and expectation. My expectation.]

Texas Chainsaw 3D (January 4^th US & UK)

Before everyone goes back to work and the kids go back to school Hollywood decided to capitalise on the January Open. This week last year Paramount released The Devil Inside. By the end of the month it had grossed $53million¹. . That film was risible.

Fool me once.

Mama (Jan 18^th US/Feb 22^nd UK)

Foreign horror films are the flesh and bone to Hollywood’s new clothes. The best movies come from Spain. They are the most literate and they are the most lyrical – when filmed in Spanish.

Mama is an English language film. When the Spanish script English it can result in The Others 2001 or Darkness 2002. This film, however, has promising pedigree. It is based on a short and produced by the only Master of Horror at work today; Guillermo del Toro.

Sold.

The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia (Feb 1^st US VOD and Limited)

Virginia Madsen squeezed blood drops from the driest period in horror (since the modern era began) in Candyman 1992. Her last visit to the genre was The Haunting in Connecticut 2009. That film was mediocre. Perhaps lessons have been learnt for this subtitled sequel.

As noted by Grace in the video review below the American holocaust of African slaves features in the storyline of this film. What she didn’t mention is that it featured in Candyman too.

Stoker (Mar 1^st US & UK)

The Others 2001 is a great horror film. Nicole Kidman is in almost every scene thus a horror film starring Kidman cannot be ignored.

The director of Stoker is Park Chan-wook. He directed Oldboy 2003. It won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.in 2004. As his name suggests Park is Korean. Directing actors in English may turn out to be a faux pas for him. Especially since one of those actors is Dermott Mulroney..

The jury is out.

The Last Exorcism Part 2 (Mar 1^st US & Mar 15^th UK)

The original is one of the better found footage films (for those who can’t stand the genre that’s an accusation of being the smartest idiot). This sequel retains the lead actress from the former but not the writer-director team. The good news is the three year gap between films. The gestation suggests adequate time was spent on the script and the edit.

The Evil Dead (Apr 12^th US & Mar 15^th UK)

After a year’s reprieve the remake is back.

The tagline is a whore’s pillow talk. It’s superfluous as the title alone will attract the middle aged Gen-Xers looking for their lost teenage years. Perhaps they (but not me) will Facebook the chicks they were seeing in high school when the original came out. Those hot chick are now grandmothers fighting hot flush menopause with medication.

Sam Raimi has moved on. He left the fanboys behind in their mother’s basements.

Carrie (Apr 5^th UK & Oct 18^th US)

Ask anyone in Britain who Sir Bob Geldof is and they’ll tell you he’s the man behind Live Aid (We Are the World to you Americans). Ask again and they’ll say he’s the lead singer of the defunct Boomtown Rats.

Q: What is The ‘Rats biggest single?

A: I Don’t Like Mondays.

The title is a direct quote from then 16 year old Brenda Ann Spencer. She was answering a reporter’s question as to why she had perpetrated in the Cleveland Elementary School massacre. The day was 29 January 1979.

The original Carrie was released in 1976 – when the schoolyard massacre was an anomaly. Don’t expect Carrie 2013 to be released theatrically in America. Today the schoolyard massacre is a regularity. There will be a lot of school shootings before the projected release date.

World War Z (June 21^st US & UK)

I listened to the audio book – or rather I listened to as much as I could before I washed my ears out in repugnance. The story is nothing more than white supremacist wishful delusions; in the middle of the zombie apocalypse even Nelson Mandela wants to worship whitey.

This racist masturbation was written by Max Brooks – as in son of Mel. It proves that no matter how much money you throw at the problem, how much education you bestow upon a racist there is no cure for evil.

Of course Hollywood is going to screw it up by taking out all the trash and leaving the action set pieces.

Thank you Hollywood.

The Conjuring (July 19^th US & UK)

Vera Farmiga has proved she can play support in action films (Source Code 2011 and Safe House 2012). In The Conjuring she plays the lead role in a horror film.

Vera Farmiga: Old Spice

Liv Tyler attempted the same and failed in The Strangers 2008. Jennifer Connolly tried this and stumbled in Dark Water 2005.It’s a tailor made role for a middle aged woman (see Virginia Madsen in The Haunting in Connecticut). Vera gets to play mother hen to a family haunted by ghosts.

Horror doesn’t have to be original – it just has to be good.

You’re Next (Aug 23^rd US & UK)

The fans of Ti West continue to congregate around their computers and wait for news of his next venture. You’re Next is a home invasion flick a la Secuestrados 2010. This is the first Ti West film to have a wide/international release – but it’s not a Ti West film. He neither wrote nor directed this picture. He’s the second billed actor.

written and directed by Ti West

That makes it a Ti West film.

There are better films on the horizon but Maniac and [●REC]⁴ Apocalypse haven’t received release dates yet. The genre waits for a game changer à la Scream 1996, Halloween 1978 and Night of the Living Dead 1968. In the meantime remakes are fine in theory but horror is best practiced with originality.

Antiviral directed by Brandon Cronenberg: coming soon.

I’d like to wish a belated happy new year to all those who visited the blog in 2012. We read. We write. The culture is safe in our hands. Filip I want to hear your Exorcist 3 review; Steupz you still the man; Nisar keep watching those stats; Ricky Sprague – you are a writer. To all those who regularly read my blog and I didn’t mention you by name – let’s get acquainted this year.

Faith in Fiction.

Read more Thrill Fiction: Re/Made in the USA: Silent House

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Another Hiatus

2012-11-07T19:58:00.000Z

Apologies to all for the lack of editorials since September. I’ve been trying to finish the opus that is A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. It’s all fingers on keys as I intend to finish the (spec) script by year end. Normal services will resume on Boxing Day when I’ll begin to publish the year ends list. This interruption in blog posts has been made easier by the absolute dearth in quality horror.

I look forward to 2013

Faith in fiction.

Remade in the USA: Silent House

2012-09-15T22:38:00.000+01:00

The lazy journalist will cite Psycho 1960 as a horror film. His inept colleague will describe it as ‘the first slasher’¹. Psycho is not a horror film. It can be touted as a psychological thriller à la The Silence of the Lambs 1991 but it is best described as a psychological drama à la Blue Velvet 1985. The best definition for the movie is ‘an Alfred Hitchcock film’² however the best subtitle for the movie is ‘the harbinger of modern horror’.

2 Hitchcock directed 54 features³. That qualifies as a subgenre. So too do the respective films of Spike Lee, Martin Scorcese and Oliver Stone, amongst others. This can be called the ‘auteur clause’.

Modern horror began with George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead 1968. It was the first film to place horror in a contemporary setting and have an impact at the box office^[4][5]. It put an end to the prevalence of gothic and inspired the horror bastards⁶ of the 70s. Those horror bastards were soon to become horror meisters.

Meisters at work: John Carpenter and Wes Craven

5 There were contemporary-set horror films before Night of the Living Dead – such as Village of the Damned 1960. None of them had the immediate cultural significance the former had. Ironically Village of the Damned was remade by John Carpenter in 1995.

6 Thrill Fiction uses the term ‘bastards’ as an affectionate counter to the celebrated movie brats⁷ who were nascent at the same time. Whereas a brat is tolerable and ultimately controllable a bastard is shameful and lives in the ghetto with his whore mother. Horror remains the bastard child of Hollywood. It lives in the ghettos of DVD and VOD.

Psycho inspired the horror meisters with its plot, suspense, thrills and reveal (as well as themes and imagery). Its influence can be seen in Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974; the deserted, gothic, haunted house inhabited by a lunatic family. Wes Craven used this motif in The Hills Have Eyes 1977. He would later revive the Janet Leigh prototype in Scream 1996. John Carpenter stripped Psycho of its story and exacerbated its plot; he took the Psycho paradigm and created the Halloween 1978 template. To cement the connection between the two films he cast Janet Leigh’s daughter. Psycho had a knife wielding killer, it enhanced the woman-in-peril, it hinted at the ‘final girl’. Halloween perfected these tropes. It is the first slasher film. Psycho is its progenitor.

This is where the misconception arose. The horror meisters worship Psycho in interviews¹. They talk of its significance and cite it as a horror film. As well they should as this is how they see it but it is the lazy and inept journalist who then takes that citation and repeats it as fact. Prior to the 1970s no one described Psycho as a horror film^[8][9].

The Psycho inspired Halloween template remains the horror standard 35 years later. That standard was challenged by La Casa Muda 2011. If Psycho was flesh and Halloween bone then La Casa Muda is bone with its marrow eviscerated. What remains is an empty shell; a concept – and 86 minutes of filler.

In order to market this naked emperor the filmmakers employed gimmick. The Blair Witch Project 1999 gimmicked the audience. La Casa Muda gimmicked the festivals and it worked. The American remake Silent House 2012 wrapped before the original Uruguayan film was released Stateside.

The American production hired a husband and wife already versed in torpor. Writer Laura Lau and director Chris Kentis made Open Water 2003, a film with a concept with no story to tell. So it is with Silent House. Nothing was lost in translation because nothing was said in Spanish. The attempt to pad this non-event with narrative is akin to a toddler with a colouring book.

The American filmmakers didn’t have the gimmicks of the original. What they had was the rising starlet Elizabeth Olsen. This is an interesting personality to become a movie star. In America she has famous twin sisters. The press have long boasted about the twins being billionaires¹⁰ which inadvertently questions the credibility of younger sibling Elizabeth.

The average income of an actor in the UK is £6k-£60k¹¹. Needless to say it is bottom heavy. Most actors struggle to earn a living. It is the same in America. In Los Angeles they famously wait on tables. Elizabeth Olsen comes from money. She is taking the spot of a working class kid who needs the gig. She is taking the spot of a Fairuza Balk, Demi Moore or a Sarah Michelle Gellar and she’s doing it in the indies; the job centre of the starving actor. Olsen is being primed for stardom because lazy journalists are bewitched by her last name and physical resemblance to her sitcom star sisters. If Olsen wants to be an actor she should fund her own movies. Her typical insipid performance in this one is reminiscent of Bridget – not Jane – Fonda.

Hollywood royalty: Elizabeth Olsen

Silent House was not made to entertain. It was made to exploit on the back of La Casa Muda. The former has a reputed production budget¹² of $1million and it took $13m¹³ in its theatrical run. Internet scams target the proletariat. Bernie Madoff targeted the rich. Silent House targeted the art house and Elizabeth Olsen was the Trojan horse. This is what Psycho looks like in the hands of the inept. The lazy journalist will cite Silent House as a horror film. It is so far removed from horror that the best definition for the movie is ‘a film starring Elizabeth Olsen’■

Thrill Fiction	32%
IMDb	51%
Rotten Tomatoes	41%
Metacritic	49%
MRQE	55%
Movie Review Intelligence	59.3%