Matt Van Stone

I have continued my steady watching of horror movies over the past year and I thought I would share with you some of my favorites.

First off, in my opinion what makes a movie a good horror? Well usually it has to have blood and gore. Generally I tend to like unrealistic gore, but any will do. Shock factor is big with me. If at any point throughout the movie I say “ohhhhhh shit, did you see that” and bite my knuckle, chances are it’s a good movie. I’m not big on cheap scare tactics like things jumping out at you or loud noises that are meant to scare. However, I do believe music is paramount, and a good music or ambiance track can up the scare factor tenfold.

I tend to like horrors with whacko characters. I don’t know why, I have always just been a Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hellraiser, or Saw kinda guy. So without further rambling, here are the best movies I have seen this year.

Haute Tension (aka High Tension)
Somehow I had avoided the spoilers for this movie for years. I used to participate regularly on a Horror forum called Crazy Mazey’s House of Horror (which has since ceased to exist) and there was a lot of talk on there about it. One day I just decided to download it and man was I sorry I hadn’t done it sooner. The movie is stock full of psychos, insane gore, and knuckle biting fun.
Highlight: Man gets his head forced through the rungs on the staircase railing. A piano is pushed down the hall and decapitates him.

Dog Soldiers
This movie was a $6.95 purchase from Best Buy. I saw it, read the back, and decided to take a risk. I am glad I did. It is not your run-of-the-mill werewolf movie. I think it added a cool twist to the tired werewolf plot and there is even a surprise ending.
Highlight: Dude gets sliced open by a werewolf. As his buddies try to drag him to safety the werewolf grabs onto his intestines and pulls on them like it’s a play toy in his masters hand.

The Descent
This is another great movie from the director of Dog Soldiers. Several women go on a cave diving expedition. As they are passing through a tight crevasse the ceiling caves in and almost crushes one of the girls. At this point the leader of the group decides its time to tell them she doesn’t know another way out, because she took them down into an uncharted cave. Soon they realize they are not alone in the cave and end up battling cave creatures for their life.
Highlight: In the first 5 minutes of the movie the main character is shown being picked up by her husband and child after a rafting trip. As they are driving home they get in an accident where piping is launched off a truck through their windshield right into the faces of her husband and daughter.

Saw II
Saw was great for its disturbing plot and final twist. Saw II keeps up with Saw in both those aspects, but has a much quicker moving plot line with less dialog dominant scenes.
Highlight: Donnie Whalberg.

Wolf Creek
I was skeptical on this one. From the trailer it seemed to be another Texas Chainsaw Massacre back woods psycho rip off but placed in the Australian outback. Well it was, but it was done beautifully. The first half of the movie is filled with mostly dialog and character development, but it lends to the second half a lot. It is a lot easier to still feel bad for the characters despite their horrible decisions when you know a bit more about them. Lots of suspense, some really stupid decisions on the characters parts, but worth a watch.
Highlight: The evil evil laugh of the crazy outback dude.

The Devils Rejects
First off, I hated House of 1000 Corpses. I was really uninterested in the whole thing. This movie is much better. It achieves what a lot of the remakes of late have failed at in creating a real vintage feel to the movie.
Highlight: when the crazy chick makes the one girl wear her fiancé’s face after they skin it off of him.

The Dark Hours
This is one of those movies that I downloaded and watched because the name sounded familiar. For some reason I thought it was going to be an art house drama. Boy was I surprised. Half way through the movie it does a 180 and doesn’t look back.
Highlight: Main chick punches a nail into the crazy kids ear.

The Hills Have Eyes Remake
Besides the Amityville horror remake which was decent, every other one I have seen has been less than its hype. My main beef with remakes is when they stray too far from the original plot without adding anything meaningful to the movie. The Hills Have Eyes was very true to the original throughout the first half of the movie. It did add some political subplot and history to the story, but it worked. The story follows a family crossing the desert on a field trip that run into trouble when their truck and camper run off the road. Up to the middle point the movie is mostly the same, but then it really starts to get good. They branch out a bit and a lot of really great scenes come from it. This is my favorite remake to date.
Highlight: The turning point when everything really goes to hell. I don’t want to ruin it, but basically three of the main characters get knocked off in a pretty gruesome way in a 5 minute span.

Whelp, that raps up my favorites. Although I currently only own Dog Soldiers and High Tension, these are all movies I plan on adding to my DVD collection.