| 2003 was an interesting year for the horror genre.
SEQUELS AND REMAKES
Surprise surprise! This category, usually the dumping ground for the worst dreck of the year, contains some bona fide gems. Gore Verbinski’s The Ring (2002), a remake of a very popular (and recent) Japanese film, caught on big time, both in theatres and in its 2003 video release. The premise is simple: there’s a cursed videotape, and if you watch it, you die a week later. By focusing on the kind of irrational childlike superstitions we all had at one time or another (or perhaps still have), The Ring reminds us that horror film is about fear rather than violence. The result is a fascinating, suspenseful and entertaining film that deserves its success. Naturally, it plays particularly well on home video. Amusingly, the "cursed video" itself is a hidden Easter egg on the DVD release. Once you find it, the remote control stops working and the short reel of evil images plays on, ignoring your attempts to stop or rewind it. Once it’s over, you hear a phone ring…
Nobody expected the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to be any good. I certainly didn’t. The night before the press screening, I had a dream in which I was trying to explain to the filmmakers why their project was doomed to fail. Faced with the enormity of the explanation, I went the flippant route and said "You’ll never find a narrator as good as John Larroquette." They smiled. "But we have! John’s doing the narration again for our version!" My dream self laughed and shrugged at losing the argument. I woke up, got dressed, and went to the screening. To my amazement, the film turned out to be really good. In fact, I’d call it one of the best horror films of the year. Later I found out that Larroquette had indeed been used again as the narrator. Funny how that worked out, eh?
Final Destination 2 continued to work its intriguing serial-killer-movie-without-a-serial-killer story line. The new version of Willard impressed critics with its creepy star turn from Crispin Glover. Jeepers Creepers 2 turned out to be a better, more consistent film than the original, despite lots of hilariously out-of-place homoeroticism. Hitcher 2 was routine junk, with C. Thomas Howell returning as the unlucky schlub from the original, who winds up picking up another homicidal hitchhiker. Still, I’ll always remember the climactic moment when Kari Wuhrer prepares to punish the killer for the death of Jennifer Jason Leigh in the original film, only to have the psycho point out (not unreasonably) that "that wasn’t me". Beyond Re-Animator was another disappointing sequel to the 1985 cult classic, but at least it had a funny fight scene between a rat and a severed penis during the end credits.
Freddy vs. Jason, for all the fan anticipation, turned out to be quite forgettable. Oh well.
SURPRISE HITS
In addition to The Ring and the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 2003 had a fair number of mainstream successes for the genre. Could horror finally be coming back after the ’90s doldrums?
28 Days Later did great business and got extra publicity when it returned to theatres with two different endings. If you stuck around after the end credits, you’d see the "bleaker" (actually less plausible, in my opinion) ending. A bit of a disappointment, but still, one of the first instances I can think of where DVD protocols influence how a film is seen in a theatre.
Cabin Fever also was a hit, despite its numerous flaws. (I can imagine a Canadian version of this film – sick guy shows up, they take him to a doctor. The end.) Still, it certainly wasn’t boring.
Identity was good fun, with its twisty script and fine cast. One minute you think you’ve identified the murderer, and are congratulating yourself for your cleverness – the next minute, everything’s topsy turvy.
May showed up quietly on video and has been wowing horror fans ever since. Check it out.
The biggest surprise was Pirates of the Caribbean. Who’d have thought that Disney would make a PG-13 rated zombie pirate movie, and that it would be one of the most entertaining and successful films of the year?
WORTHLESS CRAP
House of 1,000 Corpses. It’s terrible. Don’t see it.
WORTHWHILE CRAP
House of the Dead. So bad, I couldn’t stop laughing. You’ve got to see this.
THEATRICAL RE-RELEASES
To top it all, two of my all-time favorite horror movies got re-released to theatres. One of them, Alien (1979), needs no introduction. It’s a classic, one of the most frightening films ever, and really needs to be seen on the big screen.
The other is an unseen masterpiece that sadly didn’t play in Calgary. Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face) is a magnificently elegiac French shocker from 1959. Heartbreaking, poignant, mesmerizing and way more eerie and gruesome than you’d ever expect from a black and white subtitled film, this is the template for every surgical horror film that followed. It only played in selected cities, but I hope against hope that one of our fine art houses will pick this up or at least that a DVD release is on the way. |
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