2000’s – Abroad with the Autumnal Aughts
This list is from the geographical perspective of the United States. Overseas, horror was- a-happening, and the screams and shrieks were cresting the waves on their way to the shores of America. I know, I know. Since the beginning of the medium, great horror films made overseas have found their way across the ocean. Did I already forget the 1920 section of this list with films from Germany, Sweden and elsewhere? Am I ignorant of the fact that motion pictures as a form of entertainment for paying customers began in France? ( See Short History of Cinema)
And for goodness sake, what was the point of listing all those films of Italian cinema?
Those are all good questions. What I’m getting at is – a renewed interest in horror films abroad helped reclaim the reputation of the horror industry
Remember how I recently stated the 1990s weren’t the best years for horror films? Originally, as I explained, I wanted to wipe away 90s’ horror films like they were shit stains inside an asshole. But I found some redeeming qualities at the end. There was some experimentation that paid off well, but look what happened – successful films like Scream spawned a slasher revival, and many of these revived plotlines should have stayed dead.
So what does one do when their home-based products come up short in the quality department? Why, they look elsewhere. They look across the seas. They import .This is what I believe was happening in the 2000s – the aughts. Much of the memorable horror films of that decade came from afar. I don’t claim to be an expert on which countries have the kind of autumn that the midwestern states of America experience. But the autumn season is about Halloween, and Halloween is about horror. So with those fine bits of logic gymnastics, we were importing the autumnal films from abroad in the aughts.
What else was going on in the aughts? We survived the Y2K scare. The horror that was not! But that horror that ‘was’ (spelled backwards) also brought us Director James Wan. Most of his films premiered in the twenty teens, but his first major horror film premiered in this decade. (Remember, horror that “was”…spelled backwards. You see? (past tense of last word)
Further notes about the aughts:
More found-footage films. After The Blair Witch Project started the trend, wouldn’t you know it, production companies suddenly found all kinds of abandoned footage of fears. Who knew they were all lying around some place waiting to be found!
Blumhouse Productions was born in the aughts. Quasi-Indie films reaching the masses. More on this in the next decade.
Oh oh oh, and this was the decade that introduced streaming service . Netflix began its streaming service in 2007. More companies would follow later. Now, there were other avenues to pursue horror films.
Let us now pursue the horror of the next millennium, shall we?
American Psycho – 2000
Why not begin the decade and the millennium with a self-obsessed yuppie who is a 1980’s Wall Street broker by day, serial killer by night. He applies all kinds of special lotions to his body in the morning to keep his skin smooth, and splatters the blood of victims after dark. He will only go to elite restaurants, he is always returning video tapes, and he gets pissed at a proprietor at the cleaners store when he questions him about the red stains that are always on his sheets. He obsesses over having the sharpest looking business card. I’m sure the apparatuses he uses for killing are sharp as well.
This movie is a satire on capitalism based on the book by Bret Easton Ellis. The book is better. Ellis is one of my favorite authors. He writes transgressive fiction based on hedonistic characters from the 1980s. Less Than Zero was another well known movie based on his book.
The Others – 2001
Directed by Alejandro Amenabar, this is sort of a hybrid Spain/United States film, with most of the scenes shot in Spain, but released in the U.S. first.
Here we have my favorite horror genre – haunted houses. Nicole Kidman stars as a mother raising her two young children in a spooky old house in Jersey, an island in North western Europe. It is 1945 and her husband is away at war, leaving her as the sole caretaker of her children. That is, until three household servants arrive to help. There is something mysterious about these three – who are they?
The poor children have a light sensitivity, so the windows are draped shut. But some mysterious presence keeps opening them.
This is an understated film with a nice twist
28 Days Later – 2002
Zombie-like things from the U.K. wreck havoc in this film by Danny Boyle. Boyle is one of my favorite filmmakers. While 28 Days Later is good, I prefer other Boyle films, such as Trainspotting 1 & 2, Slumdog Millionaire, and 127 Hours.
Technically, this is not a zombie film, despite what I wrote in the first paragraph. A contagious disease causes the living to become rabid, feral and lethal. They gather in packs and run pretty damn fast. But it revived the genre, so, uh, yeah..that.
I’ve seen this once in the theater, and another time over ten years ago. The general premise is clear but the details are fuzzy. Want more details? Watch the film.
Ju-On – The Grudge 2002
J-Horror marvels us once again with this fine piece of work. Simply stated, this is a haunted house movie, but hold your horses! The house in this film is cursed, and the curse can attach itself to anyone who enters the home. That way, the visitor who leaves the house still isn’t safe. S/he takes the curse home, or to school, or wherever they go.
This is the third installment in the Ju-On franchise. The first two films, Ju-On The Curse and Ju-On The Curse Part 2, are short films not well known in the United States. American filmmakers at least heard of this one, because they did their own version simply named The Gudge. I never saw it but I heard that was a stinker. Time was not on my side so I didn’t bother watching it
Want more details? I wrote a whole piece on it:
Saw – 2004
Please welcome warmly – James Wan! (YAY! CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP!). He’ll appear a few more times on this list. Wan is an Australian filmmaker originally from Malaysia. His first well known horror film is Saw. I saw it once, and was impressed enough to place it in my top 50 horror movie list. This list is ten years old; I don’t know if I would still rank it the same.
The plot is a bit complicated, so I will borrow a one sentence summary from Wikipedia
“The film tells a nonlinear narrative revolving around the mystery of the Jigsaw Killer, who tests his victims’ will to live by putting them through deadly “games” where they must inflict great physical pain upon themselves to survive.”
So, yeah – what Wiki said!
Shaun of the Dead – 2004
I first saw this film a couple weeks ago in preparation for this list. It’s billed as a zombie comedy. Oh no, I thought while I was twenty minutes in. What if this doesn’t meet the criteria of horror? In the beginning, the people on the streets are all acting zombie-like, but they aren’t biting, chewing, or tearing apart the living limb by limb. What if this is a metaphorical zombie film, a satire on modern, everyday society?
Though it is a satire film, the zombies do indeed get into the guts of the situation , literally. So yes, it’s a horror film. It can stay, Yay!
This film is from the United Kingdom. Thanks be to the Crown for sending us colonists the film! It’s hilarious, it’s gruesome. In short, it’s a lot of fun!
The Descent – 2005
Here we have yet another British film, although this was released in the states a few days earlier than the U.K. However, the story takes place in the United States, deep in the bowels of Appalachia. Further down than the dwelling regions or inbreds of other films that want to make you squeal like a pig. Several female friends from the UK are taking thrill-seeking adventures in the US, and they want to go caving. I don’t even like those guided tour cave experiences, and yet these ladies decide they want to go through some cave hole that’s at the bottom of some cliff they would have to go down. Crazy!
This is a very claustrophobic movie. Don’t these gals know when you wander around in an uncharted system of caves, you might never reemerge? This is especially true if there are cave-dwelling creatures at the very bottom. Hint: there are cave-dwelling creatures at the very bottom.
Pan’s Labyrinth – 2006
Wouldn’t you know it, I almost forgot to include this film. I’m glad I didn’t neglect good ol’ Guillermo Del Toro. He’s one of modern horror’s greatest geniuses; a visionary whose films are often a colorful spectacle of creative designs and backgrounds. His films feature fabulous looking creatures and specters.
I guess I wouldn’t be too remiss if this film wasn’t on the list. It’s more dark fantasy than horror. But if Beetlejuice is considered by some to be a horror film, then by golly gumdrops, certainly Pan’s Labyrinth qualifies.
The story takes place in 1944 Francoist Spain. On one level is about a resistance movement fighting against facism, with a mother and child in secret cahoots with the mother’s fascist husband. On another level, the more fanciful, the child, Ofelia, believes she is a princess of a secret, magical underworld and that her real father, the leader of this magical place, built her a labyrinth that acts as a portal to transport her back and forth to this fantastic kingdom. To avoid the harshness of her worn-torn reality here on earth, she retreats to this fantasy world. But is it really just a fantasy?
There is much more to the story than that but we must move on. This movie was filmed in both Spain and Mexico, Guillermo’s home country. Likewise it was first released in Spain, then Mexico until finally it reached the USA. It’s a Spanish language film with English subtitles.
REC – 2007
This film is on Shudder, which I subscribe to, and I watched it for the first time a week or so ago in preparation for this list. This is a Spanish film, from Spain
I heard somewhere this is considered the best of the found-footage films. I’m not sure I agree, but I can see why some may think so. It’s non-stop action and suspense from beginning to end. A film crew of two go for ride-alongs with an emergency/fire team. They stumble upon, only to get trapped in, an apartment complex soon to be populated with zombies.
If you’re a fan of modern day haunted house amusement attractions, you might like this film. People move through corridors, up and down stairs, while zombies are in the corners, ready to jump out fast. Of course the camera is shaking quite a bit, but these jerky motions fit better in this film than The Blair Witch Project. Chaos is everywhere and the shaking camera reflects this, whereas in the Blair Witch Project, the damn thing is shaking even on the most casual strolls down wooded trails.
Paranormal Activity – 2007
Now this is a found-footage film I can get behind. Why can I get behind it? Because the camera isn’t zigzagging . It stays still so I can get behind it. The most scary parts of the story are shown through the security cameras. A guy has rigged up cameras all over his girlfriend’s house in order to hopefully capture some paranormal activity. See, the girlfriend has been complaining about hauntings and stuff. The cameras capture some real interesting things.
If I had my way, this film would bear the title Best Found Footage Film. Perhaps the cameras are just too darn stable to be worthy of such an honor?
This is one of my favorite horror films. It most certainly made my top 50. It is a demon that is causing the mischief and this makes the situation a whole lot more frightening. Behind the demonology, outside the found-footage, this qualifies as a haunted house movie. I have been wanting to review this film for my Haunted House Project section of this blog. Alas, I never got around to doing so.
This film became a franchise. I saw the sequel. It’s nowhere as good as the first. I never bothered checking out the third, or fourth, or however many other films there are in the series.
This film was produced by Blumhouse Productions. We’ll see more of “Da Blum” when we cross into the next decade.
Lake Mungo – 2008
Our world tour of horror films is making a stop in Australia. More specifically, we’re going to Lake Mungo. Yes, it is a real place, although the story in this film is fictional. The way this film is presented; documentary-style, with a few seconds here and there of the found-footage variety, many people thought this was a true story.
I saw this for the first time preparing for the list. It’s a story about Alice, a girl who goes missing on a family trip to Lake Mungo. Apparently, she has drowned, but her family isn’t sure of this and they want closure. The family consists of the mother and father and a teenage son. Alice is a little bit younger than her brother.
The thing is, the family keeps seeing Alice. She pops up in photos taken long after she went missing. They hear her roaming about.
This film mimics shows like Dateline NBC. I guess that’s why they include segments that lead nowhere. Dead ends. Personally, when all was said and done, the segments annoyed me. But it was an above-average horror film. I guess.
Drag Me to Hell – 2009
Oh Sam Raimi, creator of the Evil Dead saga, have you led us horror fans astray with your Spiderman series? Have you not, Dear Creator, another horror film at your disposal?
Sammy heard this prayer and he delivered! Drag Me to Hell is a great effing movie!
Once upon a time, there was this banker lady who would not extend a loan to one of her clients, an elderly Romani woman. For revenge, this woman curses her. It’s the most unique curse I’ve ever seen in movies. Hell is literally trying to claim her. She has attached a demon to her who will torture her for three days before dragging her to Hell!
I saw this film for the first time about a year ago. I believe it was during the last Halloween season. It’s a great film for Halloween. It’s scary as, well, Hell.
The Human Centipede – 2009
I just had to list this film. It’s one of the most notorious, controversial horror films out there. This is a Dutch film released on the independent circuit. Its infamy helped with its promotion. Though officially reviewed by Roger Ebert, he confessed his piece was not so much of a review but more of a public service message. In order to convey just exactly what a human centipede is, he had a diagram, though it doesn’t appear in the link. It’s a chain of three humans surgically connected from mouth-to anus. Although he gave it 0 stars, he didn’t really say it was a bad film.
“I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don’t shine”
I guess in the universe of reviews, an “I refuse” translates to no stars.
Two girls travelling abroad in Europe stumble upon this mad scientist’s house when their car breaks down during a storm. This nice man lets them in, shows some hospitality, and just when you think this is going to be a hallmark story about people helping people, he surgically attaches them to a young man he kept captive. The young dude is the head of the centipede and what he eats travels through the first young woman, her mouth sewed to his anus, to finally pass through the second woman who is attached to butt of the first. It is this second woman last who will deposit the remains to the world at large.
Maybe I’m some sort of sicko, but I don’t think the movie is half bad. It takes itself seriously. I don’t think I elicited one chuckle. I was actually en”gross”ed in the mad doctor’s scheming. And you gotta admit, this is different, right? Creative even. Demented and depraved yes, but creative.
A Tale of Two Sisters – 2003
Earlier this list brought you a fine helping of J-Horror. Let’s proceed down the alphabet. K…STOP! Welcome to K-Horror with a film made in Korea,
Not enough people know about A Tale of Two Sisters. Too bad, it’s a great film. It’s very intense psychological horror. Throw in some ghosts, maybe. A possible haunted house (could be!) and a dysfunctional family. Keep the Internet near you when watching because when the movie is over, you’ll need to Google the film’s plot to figure out what in the hell you just watched. Yes, it’s one of those kinds of films. But it’s so good.
I already wrote about this film, so here’s the link:
The Orphanage – 2007
“J.A. Bayona (Director) and Guillermo Del Toro (Executive Producer) have joined forces and the results are phenomenal. The product of this union is The Orphanage – an exceptional haunted house film.”
I stole the above quote, you know. Bad me. Worse yet, I stole it from myself. Where oh where can I find some self-respect?
This is a film from Spain. It’s another international great! Given that I’m in lazy mode, the same mode I was in when I listed A Tale of Two Sisters, I will once again lead you to a link.. Same source – me
I meant to find the trailer, but I accidentally found the whole film. I thinks it’s in Spanish though w/out subtitles.
Let The Right One In – 2008
What do you know? I found a film I haven’t written about. This is mainly because it’s not a haunted house flick. It’s a vampire movie. And a very, very good vampire movie.
This is a Swedish film directed by Tomas Alfreson. It’s a story of a lonesome, bullied young boy who meets a little girl who just moved into the neighborhood. She is lonesome too, because she is a vampire. Think about it; it’s pretty difficult to stay in relationships when you’ve “got the bats”. This is true even for such a pretty, young girl. I keep using “young” but that word is misleading. When the boy asks her about her birthday, she doesn’t know what that is. So who knows how long she has been roaming about the earth snatching the lives of innocent people.
There are so many interesting relationship dynamics. The boy and his mother, the boy and the girl, the girl and the older gentleman she lives with. Is he her father?
This is a sweet, scary and even love story all rolled into one. It’s also a story about revenge against bullies. Filmed in scenes of moody, snowy nights, it’s also a beautiful film to look at.
The Books of Daniel 