Top Ten Horror Films of the 21st Century
It’s difficult to really make a great horror film while setting it in modern times.
We now live in an age in which we all have mobile phones, devices which
can put us straight through to the police while we’re hiding from an
axe-murderer in the woods. In a world in which help can be contacted at
the simple click of a button, suspense can be tricky to create. And to
have the phone’s signal be unavailable or the battery drained of power
is now considered a cliché to roll one’s eyes at.
Horror films
date all the way back to the late 1890s, really getting its blood
pumping in the ’20s and ’30s, a time when Lon Chaney’s goofy make-up in
1925′s “The Phantom of the Opera” had audience members fainting in
cinema screenings. Nowadays, we look
back at this and laugh, as each new decade sees filmmakers upping the
ante and desensitising us to past eras of horror. Currently, it seems to
be a popular trend to just cut up your protagonists, focus on their
shrieks of anguish, spray some blood on the camera lens, reveal some surgically enhanced tits, and call what you’ve made a horror.
With all its
history of mixed attempts at shocking and horrifying, the genre is
increasingly difficult to sustain and enliven while keeping it fresh,
hence we keep getting these same tired old gore celebrations. It’s true
that originality comes only so often from this area of filmmaking, but
there are some contemporary horrors that stand above all else of the
times. And since the turn of the 21st Century, there have been some
right corkers worthy of recognition as slices of gruelling terror. Here
is my list of the top 10 horror flicks since the year 2000.
10. “The Descent” (2005)
Following the
critical success from his tongue-in-cheek werewolf horror “Dog
Soldiers,” British director Neil Marshall continued exploring the genre
with a much more serious fright fest. While the cast of his 2002 cult
hit was primarily made up of male soldiers, “The Descent” has an
all-female cast of six cave explorers who, on their latest adventure,
find themselves trapped underground. They also find out that they are
not alone down there, as vicious creatures lurk and screech in the
darkness, licking their lips at the smell of
the women’s blood. Marshall, who also wrote the picture, orchestrates
some awe-inspiring tension, the kind that will have you slipping off the
edge of your seat and landing hard on your backside. He also caters to
the gore-guzzling crowd, as literal pools of blood are swum through by
the petrified cast. As a creature feature it’s bloody terrifying, and
will require one to buy a night light to get a good night’s sleep after viewing.
9. “The Ring” (2002)
A remake of
Hideo Nakata’s Japanese “Ringu” of 1998, Gore Verbinski’s “The Ring” was
the first in a trend of American adaptations of Asian horrors, and it
remains the best of the bunch. Naomi Watts
plays an investigative journalists who learns of a video tape that is
said to kill people. Apparently, once the viewer has finished watching
the tape, their phone rings and a voice tells them they will die in
seven days. And once the week is up, they’re as dead and disfigured as a
handicapped dodo. Watts decides to play the tape and is subjected to a
slew of unnerving images before white snow crackles on the screen. And
then her phone rings… The film has a very eerie atmosphere, Verbinski’s
visuals suitably haunting from beginning to end. It’s disturbing, it’s
menacing and it is certainly a unique story. And while the premise may
be ridiculous, trust me, when the evil Samara climbs out of a TV screen
you’ll be soiling yourself.
8. “Dawn of the Dead” (2004)
Another remake,
Zack Snyder’s update of George A. Romero’s 1978 zombie masterpiece “Dawn
of the Dead” is an expertly handled reimagining that thankfully didn’t
stain the legacy of the beloved original. The basic plot is the same: a
gang of people who are lucky to still have a pulse barricade themselves
in a shopping mall to escape the
thrashing gnashers of the living dead. However, in this contemporary
remake, the reanimated corpses are no longer slow and lumbering, Snyder
going for more agile zombies who can leap and sprint. The film does lose
the social commentary of Romero’s version, but that doesn’t matter when
the film is so exhilarating, James Gunn’s script going for thrills
instead of depth. Depth in a modern-day horror film? Ha! Poppycock.
7. “28 Days Later” (2002)
There’s been
much dispute over whether or not “28 Days Later” should be considered a
zombie film; the rabid monsters that chase the protagonists are not
technically dead or resurrected, just infected with a disease that turns
them more than a little disgruntled. Zombies or not, they’re a scary
swarm of antagonists in a particularly scary film. Danny Boyle’s horror
starts with Cillian Murphy waking up from a coma and discovering that
Britain has been overtaken by a deadly virus that turns those infected
livid beyond reasonable thought. Along with three other survivors, he
tries to get to Manchester, where a rescue shelter apparently exists —
however, this shelter turns out to be a bit different than he expected.
Boyle’s one and only venture into the genre is breathtaking, the film
revelling in raw terror as well as effective human drama, given a degree
of intelligence by Alex Garland’s script and a bleak charm through its
direction. The shots of a deserted London are stunning.
6. “Let the Right One In” (2008)
Tomas
Alfredson’s “Let the Right One In” is probably the most arty film on
here, it going less for scares and more for depth, focusing on the
relationship between its two young main characters. The film is Swedish,
based on the book of same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist, and is a tale
of young love. The two leading characters are Oskar (Kåre Hedebran) and
Eli (Lina Leandersson), both pale-skinned twelve-year-olds who become
friends when Eli moves into Oskar’s apartment complex.
A bullied boy, Oskar is delighted with their friendship, but is taken
aback when he discovers Eli is a bloodsucking vampire. This is an
exceptional, one-of-a-kind horror film that’s impressive both
technically and emotionally, the cinematography astonishing and the mood
effectively chilling. It’s like a deeper, less hormonal version of
“Twilight.”
5. “Let Me In” (2010)
Yes, following “Let the Right One In” on the list
is its American remake, written and directed by Matt Reeves of
“Cloverfield” fame. Relocated to New Mexico, as opposed to the
original’s setting of Stockholm, “Let Me In” sticks very close to the
storyline of the Swedish film, some scenes practically exactly the same.
However, there’s something about the remake that has much more of an
impact than its filmic inspiration, the film somehow much more striking
than Alfredson’s version. The eerie atmosphere is built upon to
perfection and the relationship between Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Abby
(Chloë Grace Moretz) carries more weight.
The character of the murderous “father” (Richard Jenkins) is also much
more intriguing and memorable, Jenkins’ performance oddly sympathetic.
And the scene in which this character’s attempt at murdering a young
adult in a car goes horribly wrong was one of the best scenes of last
year.
4. “Drag Me to Hell” (2009)
Before “Drag Me
to Hell,” the last time director Sam Raimi properly touched upon the
realms of horror was the “Evil Dead” trilogy, which ended in 1992. And,
after concluding the “Spider-Man” franchise in 2007, Raimi decided to
take another stab at the spook-em-up genre with this tale of gypsies,
demons and murdered pussycats. Alison Lohman plays a loan officer
named Christine, who denies an extension on a gypsy’s loan, resulting
in the old woman losing her home. Unfortunately for Christine, this
gypsy has some friends of the demonic sort, and places a curse on the loan officer
after attacking her in a parking lot. Christine then learns that a
demon called the Lamia will claim her soul in three days unless she does
something about it. Meanwhile, the Lamia taunts Christine and makes her
suffer until time runs out and he gets to drag her kicking and
screaming ass into the fiery pits of Hell. The film is a comedy of
sorts, featuring some brilliantly bloody slapstick while serving up some
suspenseful scares, making for one of the most entertaining films of
the last decade. It’s not quite “Evil Dead 2,” but it definitely made up
for the disappointment that was “Army of Darkness.”
3. “The Others” (2001)
Set in an
isolated country house in the aftermath of World War II, Alejandro
Amenábar’s “The Others” is a traditional, old-fashioned ghost story. The
film only has six main characters, half of which are Nicole Kidman and
her two children, the other half being the newly appointed servants of
this family of three. The servants’ arrival is met with some odd events
occurring throughout the house, the mother becoming increasingly
suspicious that there’s something in the residence with them, something
that is not of flesh and blood. “The Others” is partly a drama and
partly a psychological horror, showing Kidman at the top of her game as
this desperate woman who goes a little off her rocker. It’s a very
atmospheric, very gently paced haunted-house ghost story that’s
remarkably creepy and sucker punches the audience with an unexpected
twist ending that only psychics will see coming.
2. “The Mist” (2007)
Frank Darabont
had already directed two adaptations of Stephen King novels before “The
Mist,” namely “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile.” However,
it wasn’t until 2007 that he adapted one of King’s famed horror stories
in the form of this glorious monster movie. The story is of a group of
people who huddle up together in a supermarket to avoid the dreaded mist
that has formed outside. Why are they avoiding this mist? Because
within the mist lurk supernatural creatures from another dimension that
will tear them limb from limb if they step outside. What makes “The
Mist” so exhilarating is its decision to make the monsters not the
creatures outside but the people inside, as religion comes into
discussion and causes the survivors to turn on each other. With an epic
bummer of an ending, the film is strikingly poignant and beautiful while
having enough true monster moments to satisfy die-hard horror fanatics.
1. “Shaun of the Dead” (2004)
Now, before you
get your pitchforks out, let me first say that I am fully aware that
“Shaun of the Dead” is not necessarily intended to be scary. The film is
a very sharp satire and a comedy horror that, while revolving around a
band of survivors of a zombie plague, was never intended to frighten
audiences. Its intention is instead to tickle their funny bones, which
it undoubtedly does on many, many occasions. It stars Simon Pegg as the
titular character, a slacker salesman who is dumped by his girlfriend
the day before a zombie virus breaks out in Britain. Co-written and
directed by British filmmaker Edgar Wright, it is his first full-length
feature and is, in my opinion, one of the most promising and confident
directorial debuts in cinema history. Crisply edited and wowing with a
side-splitting script that farts wit and personality, the relentlessly
amusing “Shaun of the Dead” is a loving homage to the George A. Romero
days of zombie horrors.
Honourable
mentions: “[Rec]” of 2007 for being a downright terrifying found-footage
zombie horror from Spain. Also, “Paranormal Activity” of 2009, another
found-footage chiller, this time about a house that’s haunted by a
demon. The film split audiences between those who found it
traumatisingly suspenseful and those who found it dull and boring. I’m
proud to say I’m in the former category.
Taken from : http://www.thisblogrules.com/2011/05/top-ten-horror-films-of-the-21st-century.html
