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The Ringer - The Horror Oscars


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The Ringer - The Horror Oscars: The Best Scary Movies of Every Year Since Halloween

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And so as we approach another awards season with virtually no chance of a horror winner, I thought it’d be fun to chart a little revisionist history: Let’s determine the winner of the Horror Oscars every year since Halloween. I’ll pick a winner and four other nominees. Some years are loaded (see: the past 24 months), while some are not (see: the early ’90s). The genre ebbs and flows. What are our criteria? As with the actual Oscars, it’s whatever we say it is, some alchemical combination of influence, importance, achievement, gerrymandering, and sheer delight.Like many Oscar winners, some of our horror movies are period pieces; some are freewheeling romps; some are technical masterpieces; some are harrowing examinations of evil. All are eligible in this exercise. Though the scarier the better.

 

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1979: Alien
1980: The Shining
1981: An American Werewolf in London
1982: Poltergeist
1983: Videodrome
1984: A Nightmare on Elm Street
1985: Re-Animator
1986: The Fly
1987: Evil Dead II
1988: They Live
1989: Pet Sematary
1990: Misery
1991: The Silence of the Lambs
1992: Candyman
1993: Cronos
1994: In the Mouth of Madness
1995: Se7en
1996: Scream
1997: Funny Games
1998: Ringu
1999: The Blair Witch Project
2000: American Psycho
2001: Trouble Every Day
2002: 28 Days Later
2003: High Tension
2004: Saw
2005: The Descent
2006: The Host
2007: Paranormal Activity
2008: The Strangers
2009: Drag Me to Hell
2010: Black Swan
2011: You're Next
2012: The Cabin in the Woods
2013: The Conjuring 
2014: It Follows
2015: The Witch
2016: Don't Breathe
2017: Get Out
2018: Hereditary

 

'82 should've gone to john carpenters the thing, but it's not a bad list otherwise!

 

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...so going over this list, there's a number of them i've not seen (a few i've never even heard of):

 

An American Werewolf in London
Videodrome
Candyman
Cronos
Funny Games
Trouble Every Day
High Tension
Drag Me To Hell
You're Next
Don't Breathe
Hereditary
 

 

hereditary is already on the list for this month, was debating don't breathe and i think i have drag me to hell in queue.  anyone wanna vouch for/against some others? 

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How have you never seen An American Werewolf in London!? Its essential viewing!

 

Videodrome weird, fun Cronenberg goodness.

 

Cronos is Guillermo Del Toros first{?} movie and definitely worth watching.

 

Youll either love or hate Funny Games. But I cant actually recommend it. That said I was in the love it camp. 

 

You're Next is Halloween meets Home Alone. Super fun movie.

 

I loved Don't Breathe, but it has its detractors.

 

Drag Me To Hell has a big fan base, butit never clicked with me. Great ending though.

 

Everything else is a toss up\best left for someone else to vouch for. Drag Me To Hell has a big fan base, butit never clicked with me. Great ending though.

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do i gotta send up a batsignal for @Iambaytor or what 

 

On 10/4/2018 at 2:11 AM, Axels said:

How have you never seen An American Werewolf in London!? Its essential viewing!

 

Videodrome weird, fun Cronenberg goodness.

 

Cronos is Guillermo Del Toros first{?} movie and definitely worth watching.

 

Youll either love or hate Funny Games. But I cant actually recommend it. That said I was in the love it camp. 

 

You're Next is Halloween meets Home Alone. Super fun movie.

 

I loved Don't Breathe, but it has its detractors.

 

Drag Me To Hell has a big fan base, butit never clicked with me. Great ending though.

 

yeah i feel like i saw a later werefolf movie though?  but meant to see that one 

the rest of them sound solid, looking at the queue for this month we've got a quiet place, candyman, house of the devil (i love that one) and shallow grave so i'm not sure i'll get to these just yet, but they'll go in the pile! 

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At some point I, or more likely a boffin with the time on their hands is gonna look at the title and subject of horror through the last few decades to try to track some kind of trend or reflection of current affairs at the time.

 

Drag me to Hell is cheesy Raimi goodness! Sad to see no Zob Rombie on the list either, especially since he did Hereditary first!

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I think the only Rob Zombie movies I would give the nod to would be Lords of Salem and (bizarrely enough) Halloween 2, (I have never understood the appeal of The Devil's Rejects and the further we get from 2004 the more confusing it becomes) but they probably weren't the best horror films of their respective years.

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1 hour ago, Iambaytor said:

I think the only Rob Zombie movies I would give the nod to would be Lords of Salem and (bizarrely enough) Halloween 2, (I have never understood the appeal of The Devil's Rejects and the further we get from 2004 the more confusing it becomes) but they probably weren't the best horror films of their respective years.

 

Lords of Salem is Hereditary .5

 

And as long as the Slasher genre lives, Devil's Reject will be relevant as an insight behind the masks.

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Of this list, I haven't seen:

 

1981: An American Werewolf in London
1983: Videodrome
1992: Candyman
1993: Cronos
1994: In the Mouth of Madness
1997: Funny Games
2003: High Tension
2011: You're Next
2016: Don't Breathe

 

I'm happy @The NZA is as dedicated to general spookiness as I am! I feel like we'll burn through this list pretty quickly! Candyman is up first. I can't believe I missed that one in the 90s.

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I think the only Rob Zombie movies I would give the nod to would be Lords of Salem and (bizarrely enough) Halloween 2, (I have never understood the appeal of The Devil's Rejects and the further we get from 2004 the more confusing it becomes) but they probably weren't the best horror films of their respective years.

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17 hours ago, Jables said:

And as long as the Slasher genre lives, Devil's Reject will be relevant as an insight behind the masks.

 

This specifically I've never gotten.  The movie's a mash-up of Natural Born Killers and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 and the dialogue is baaaaaad.  I've never gotten the hype or the appeal.

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It goes in spoiler tags because there's spoilers, but moreso because I got way too wordy with this and nobody has time for that.



Well I'm probably reading more into the thing based on Zombie's evolving pitch for the film(I'd been frothing for the project since the way early noughties when it was supposed to be a silent horror), but what I took from 1000 Corpses was the set up of your classic slasher villain tropes with the occasional glimpse of what goes into setting up ritualistic teen murder- at least it gave more insight on the aggressor than is typical, but without even trying to get deep or find meaning in their actions.

 

Devil’s Rejects then expands on that insight by dragging these mythical figures into the real world and showing us how Jason would be skull dragged out of Crystal Lake and fried or incarcerated, but not before visiting more of their other-worldly horror on hapless passers-by. It’s one of about 3-4 movies that have made me super uncomfortable ever, and the only one* I’ll ever willingly rewatch(not for content but for said story).

 

As someone who’s grown up with horror movies but never appreciated the slasher genre,  the ending to that movie is powerful catharsis. I’ve only ever seen the villains of these things get their comeuppance in the frontier justice way. These monsters were hunted like literal animals and by the end, as they drive down that highway and Freebord comes on, you can see that fatigue, that sense of beleagued resignation ala Toy Story 3. Not until Devil’s Rejects have we ever seen one of these sons of Bitches get what they deserve.

 

TL;DR Devil's Reject is pretty unique IMO.

 

*Actually, Romper Stomper is also an incredible film that's hard to watch.

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Ah, well I see the shape of why it's appealing then.  I just can't stand the execution: Sheri Moon is a bad actor, the dialogue is nails on a chalkboard (Rob Zombie found out how many times you can say fuck before it becomes unbearable), and the characters are not appealing in the least (that we're apparently meant to sympathize with them later in the film makes no sense).  The things you stated are good but that's really just the skeleton of the movie, all the meat on those bones.  It's as pretentious as Natural Born Killers but not nearly as well made.

 

That said, with what you enjoyed about this movie I woukd reccomend The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (a good chunk of Devil's Rejects is ripped off from this whole cloth and it's arguably what got Bill Moseley the role of Otis Driftwood.), the original When a Stranger Calls, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, and Psycho 2.

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:fhd: for the recommendations! Behind the mask has been on my list for a minute. 

 

I watched NBK when I was 14 I think and am willing to admit at this point I probably didn't get it, not to mention Juliette Lewis is distractingly irritating anytime she's on the screen. Gonna give it another try, is the point.

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4 hours ago, Jables said:

I watched NBK when I was 14 I think and am willing to admit at this point I probably didn't get it, not to mention Juliette Lewis is distractingly irritating anytime she's on the screen. Gonna give it another try, is the point.

 

Natural Born Killers is a movie I love in hate with almost equal passion.  You take a young Quentin Tarantino's script, give it to Oliver Stone at the height of his ego trip, throw Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson at the peak of the 90s and you've got a movie that's both clever and obnoxious as fuck.  Still, Stone is a better film-maker than Rob Zombie is even if he clearly had a hand down his pants throughout the entire filming of Natural Born Killers, Tarantino disowned the movie (it was originally written as a bridge between True Romance and Reservoir Dogs where Alabama and Mr. White go on a killing spree, that information will only make you like the film less when you see it).  I think you'll notice obvious plot and style parallels between the movie and Devil's Rejects when you watch it, though especially between the William Forsyth and Tom Sizemore.

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