Terrifier (2016)
Starting off with the tale of Art the Clown, Terrifier is a film that most will know by reputation long before they lay eyes on it. Art is a maladjusted clown, not entirely at one with sanity. He is easily the star of the show here, a psychotic mime and a bleakly comic figure who makes it his business to make Halloween night a hellish experience for his victims.
It's a distinctly low to mid budget affair that gets to business with little preamble. Our protagonists are out enjoying Halloween night festivities when they catch the attention of a clown. Initially he seems benign if bizarre but soon reveals his proclivity for sadistic torture and murder. Lots of graphic intense violence here and the film effectively makes the ordeal feel like an ordeal.
It was a hard watch this film. Quite unremitting and relentless at times with a bleak pessimism to it that harkens back to some of the more dire video nasties of the 1980's. There is little to no light at the end of the tunnel but it is an effective bit of horror if you have the stomach for it. Three and a half improper uses of a hammer out of five!
Signs (2002)
You will have to forgive my ignorance here. All these years I assumed Signs was a horror film but it's not. It has horror elements and moments of tension but it's more a family drama built around the arrival of unfriendly aliens to our world. That's right a drama, about a man, his farm and the crop circles that start popping up one night.
It's a decent drama to be sure and Mel Gibson acts like it's going out of style here but a drama nonetheless. So how is the horror part of it you might ask? It's middling bordering on good but generally feels like an afterthought in the face of the main story being told. The main characters are all grieving for someone in their way and the more fantastical elements of the plot feel a little superfluous as a result.
With the power of hindsight it probably doesn't belong here on this list but I watched it so it's going here by cracked. If this was drama film-a-rama list then it would score pretty highly. Alas this is horror movie mania so I'm going to have to give it two and a half tin foil hats out of five!
Underwater (2020)
Much like with Signs, references to this film pop up frequently on my various social media feeds. Usually a screen grab with a click bait headline about five films with shocking endings you simply must see! I think that's how this one got on my radar anyway. It's tha tale of a deep sea underwater drill team and the horrors they unearth in the abyssal deeps.
Kristen Stewart's performance really stood out here as a member of the crew with some serious unresolved personal drama going on. No time for that though as the film races headlong into crisis mode and everyone is scrambling for their lives as the installation starts to come apart around them. Something is down in the deep with them and it's not best pleased with their recent activity.
It's a good looking film that tries to convey the fear of the unknown but I fear the pace is a little too breakneck for its own good. An extra 10-15 mins of build-up at the start might have helped this but you're left with a bunch of set pieces and not a whole lot of attachment to the characters undergoing the ordeal. Not a bad effort at delving into this brand of subject matter but middling all the same. Three deep sea implosions out of five!
Smile (2022)
Now this was the opposite of the previous entry as far as pacing goes. A distinctly slow burn tale of a cursed supernatural entity that attaches itself to the unfortunate victims who witness it's vile acts. It gets into their head, makes them see and hear that which isn't there and just when it's given them the mother of all nervous breakdowns it goes and dives right into spoiler territory.
This I enjoyed, not perhaps the deepest tale as some aspects of the main character could have been explored more but nonetheless it felt like a creative effort with confidence in it's own story. The creeps are not rapid fire here, it's more about how the entity turns the screws on the main character up to and beyond the breaking point. No one believes her as things start getting pretty intense and the whole thing resolves itself in memorable fashion.
A solid effort and a surprisingly good time if you like your horror served incrementally. A simple idea that's executed very well. It could almost be a movie length episode of a modern Twilight Zone reboot with a strong simple hook and a calculated approach to dishing out the scares. Four cases of severe indigestion out of five!
Saw X (2023)
Once again I can now say that I've watched all the Saw movies after that brief period of time since they released yet another one. It's John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer doing his thing in Mexico in what Wikipedia tells me is an 'interquel' between the first and second films. It's ok I watch Saw movies, I'm used to the topsy turvy chronology of these films.
At this point Jigsaw has started doing his thing and has his various accomplices at the ready. He's still trying to beat the big C however and so comes into the orbit of a doctor offering a cure at their retreat outside Mexico City. John goes all-in on the treatment only to find out that the whole thing is a scam. Cue bad times ahead for the doctor and their crew of con artists as Jigsaw subjects them to a variety of cruel and unusual torture machines.
If Jigsaw is usually something of a dispassionate force of nature visiting his ruthless brand of justice on random no-good-niks in most Saw movies, then here he is more your typical anti-hero with dare I say it, a soft side? It's a more personal story and honestly it works well. I'd be lying if I said I was going into this one with high expectations but you know what, this was way better than any tenth entry in a horror film franchise has any right to be. Four would be cure-alls out of five!
Color Out of Space (2019)
Now for the more overtly Lovecraftian section of this write-up, an adaptation of 'The Color Out of Space' starring everyone favourite: Nicholas Cage. A man who has carved such a unique public persona that we perhaps can no longer see the man behind it, or maybe we are? The jury is out on that one, but how was the film?
Alright mostly, the creative direction is mostly pitch perfect for this story of a strange rock that falls to Earth and lands on a remote farm. Said rock slowly poisons the land and changed it into something alien and unknowable. All very Lovecraftian and a sincere effort to translate the story to the screen. The slow creeping horror is dished out at just the right pace and the effects work is really effective during the last third or so when things are decidedly otherworldly.
There is an issue with this film though and his name is Nicholas Cage. Now don't get me wrong his manic chewing of the scenery is very much at home in horror films. When I watched Mandy last year I felt he pretty much nailed the assignment there. Here though I felt it perhaps detracted a little from what needed to be a sober, grounded character unable to come to terms with the shifting circumstances around him. That's pretty much the only issue I have here and it's a solid four ethereal alien landscapes out of five from me.
From Beyond (1986)
Last stop on the horror express for 2024 is this little journey into cosmic indifference. Another Lovecraft adaptation from director Stuart Gordon who also brought us Re-Animator, a personal favourite and a film that sets a high bar for this particular sub-genre of film. Here we have a sadist and a scientist venturing into the unknown. The unknown does not take well to this and soon people are losing their heads quite literally.
It's the archetypical Lovecraftian fascination with peeling away the layers of reality and delving into realms which neither want nor care for our presence. Here a machine pulls away the veil and we see that other entities occupy the same space we do. Alien creatures either indifferent or hostile to us swimming in the void that's normally concealed from us. On a decidedly low to mid budget this is all pulled off rather well here
As with Re-Animator, the star of the show here is Jeffrey Combs in a role that is altogether quite different from Dr Herbert West, He's a man who wants out of the insanity even as circumstances preclude a clean exit. It's all body horror, sexual subtext and powerlessness in the face of greater unseen forces. Ultimately it's a good time for Lovecraft fans, five disfigured extra-dimensional anomalies out of five!
...and that's it for the horror movie marathon this year. Fine times were had and I may never sleep a quiet night's sleep ever again. Even death may die and never cross the path of a clown at night, until next time folks!
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