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Best & Worst of 2009: Ryan Daley Picks His Top 10!

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As I’m primarily a DVD critic for Bloody-Disgusting, my year-end Top 10 list traditionally cites only DVD horror releases for a given year, which automatically excludes some of the movies I’ve seen at festivals or through pre-release screeners. Whereas I’m generally jealous of my fellow B-D critics for their all-encompassing year-end lists, I have to admit that 2009 was a fantastic year for horror DVDs, and this list was a pure pleasure to put together. Once again, just so I don’t catch any flak down in the comments, this is a list of the BEST HORROR DVDS OF 2009. Hence, no Zombieland.

Mr. Disgusting (Best/Worst) | Tim Anderson (Best/Worst) | BC (Best/Worst)
David Harley (Best/Worst) | Ryan Daley (Best/Worst)

RYAN DALEY’S TOP 10 OF 2009

10. Fear Itself: Season 1 (Lionsgate; September 15, 2009)


Some might say this horror anthology series, buried in the compost heap of NBC’s summer schedule, has been unjustly forgotten. But you can’t forget something if you never knew it existed in the first place. Overproduced and mysteriously under-promoted, Fear Itself is actually a pretty good show. Although none of the episodes can equal the best of Masters of Horror, the first season is solid across the board, each episode a strangely comforting 40 minutes of basic, well-produced horror.

9. The Killing Room (Genius Products; October 13, 2009)


I first saw The Killing Room at the Sundance Film Festival. To my pleasant surprise, Shea Whigham, one of the stars, took the theater seat directly in front of my wife. Remember that scene were Whigham gets his arm crunched in the door slot? The audience jumped out of their seats. And so did Whigham. His friends whispered props for really selling the arm crunch, and Whigham sunk low in his seat, looking both pleased and embarrassed to have pulled of the scare. It’s one of several good moments in a tense, captivating film. With its claustrophobic setting and clever B-movie premise, The Killing Room plays even better on DVD.

8. Trick r’ Treat (Warner Premiere; October 4, 2009)


Buried for years in the rubble of horror fan apocrypha, Warner Bros. finally dumped its highly-anticipated Halloween anthology onto DVD the first week of October. Like most horror fans, I spent the next 4 weeks trying to spread the word: You feeling a Halloween movie? Well check this one out. Nimbly edited, keenly executed, and oozing loads of Halloween spirit, Trick r’ Treat is an All Hallows’ Eve tradition in the making.

7. Drag Me To Hell (Universal; October 13, 2009)


Sam Raimi’s roller-coaster ride of a horror flick serves as proof-positive the director hasn’t lost a step since wrapping Army of Darkness. Steeped in the same youthful exuberance of his pre-millennial horror films, Drag Me To Hell has energy to spare: as far as pacing is concerned, the movie cooks. One of those horror flicks that oozes fun like a summer carnival.

6. Splinter (Magnet Releasing; April 14, 2009)


Splinter features the best movie monster I’ve seen this year. It’s bone-snapping, joint-contorting, black-splinter-sprouting parasite is something out of a horrible, horrible nightmare. Stranded at a rural gas station, the characters are stuck in a rut of paranoia and confusion that’s all too palpable. It’s one of those movies that makes your palms sweat.

5. True Blood: Season 1 (Warner Bros.; May 19, 2009)


Vampires and sexual abstinence? Worst combo ever, Twi-hards. Horny adults with a jones for fast-pumpin’ vampire sex, hard-core neck suckin’, and even the occasional blood “snowball”, know where to go to get their vampire fix. True Blood, bitches! It took a few episodes for the series to find the right tone, but once it got a head of steam, it was impossible to stop watching. And Season 2 (available on DVD in 2010) is even better.

4. Deadgirl (Dark Sky Films; September 15, 2009)


One of the more controversial horror releases of 2009, Deadgirl is certainly a polarizing movie. It poses a question frequently bandied about in the B-D forums: if you discovered a chained up female zombie who happened to be pretty hot, would you have sex with it? Okay, perhaps…but what about sloppy seconds? That’s the quandary faced by a couple of high school youths in this highly accomplished indie effort, one of those films that sticks with you for days after you watch it.

3. REC (Sony; July 14, 2009)


Better than Quarantine, that’s for goddamn sure.

2. Let the Right One In (Magnolia; March 10, 2009)


Magnolia may have jacked up the subtitles on the DVD release, but don’t let that stop you from seeing one of the most emotionally resonant vampire movies of all time. Thought-provoking, mesmerizing, and overwhelmingly beautiful, this is an excellent movie based on an excellent novel by Swedish author John Lindvist. An unforgettable experience.

1. Martyrs (Dimension; April 28, 2009)


One of the smartest horror movies to come along since Silence of the Lambs. Unfortunately, Martyrs‘ overwhelming violence deterred all but the most adventurous of movie-lovers, which is too bad, since French director Pascale Laugier has crafted a philosophical, deep-thinking horror movie that’s practically begging to be discussed in intellectual circles. Yes, it can be hard to watch, but sometimes the reward of personal revelation is worth the hefty price of fleeting pain.

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Editorials

“Godzilla: The Series” Remains the Best Thing to Come Out of the 1998 Remake

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godzilla the series

While plans to further TriStar’s Godzilla franchise on the big screen fell through, the animated sequel turned out to be a great alternative. Godzilla: The Series debuted mere months after the 1998 film was released, and it went on to become a popular part of Fox Kids’ Saturday morning programming. And although this continuation had a limited lifespan of just two seasons, it still managed to do the impossible and redeem Roland Emmerich’s widely disliked adaptation.

Similar to Ultra Q, Godzilla: The Series saw Dr. Niko “Nick” Tatopoulos (out with Matthew Broderick, in with Ian Ziering) leading a specialized team — Humanitarian Environmental Analysis Team, or H.E.A.T. for short — in the struggle against the giant and disruptive creatures (often referred to as “mutants”) who have begun to appear all across the globe. Aiding them was the lone, surviving offspring of Godzilla teased at the end of the film. And to ensure the juvenile Godzilla stood with humanity rather than against it, the spawn imprinted on Nick and saw him as his parent.

Along with “worm guy” Tatopoulos, the animated Godzilla: The Series brought back supporting characters from the film and gave them lead parts. Namely H.E.A.T. members Dr. Elsie Chapman and Dr. Mendel Craven. Charity James filled in for Vicki Lewis while Malcolm Danare was one of several actors from the film to reprise their roles in the cartoon. Paleobiologist Chapman was the snarky animal-behavior expert, and engineer Craven served as the show’s comic relief (which was always done at his own expense). On top of Craven’s many ridiculous allergies and other vulnerable quirks, his talking robot-buddy N.I.G.E.L. (short for Next Millennium Intelligence Gathering Electronic Liaison) drew cheap laughs; the machine routinely met a fate in the vein of South Park’s “oh my god, they killed Kenny” running gag.

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Pictured: Godzilla defeats the Shrewster in “The Twister.”

Rounding out H.E.A.T. were two new characters: DGSE secret agent Monique Dupré (Brigitte Bako) and young computer whiz Randy Hernandez (Rino Romano). The former started out like Jean Reno’s character from the film; Dupré was sent by the French government to “clean up” its mess after incidentally creating the Godzilla species, and after Philippe Roaché’s failure to eliminate all of the hatchlings. The steely servicewoman gradually warmed up as she became more involved in H.E.A.T. and realized this new Godzilla was vastly different from his father. As for Randy, he is the team’s genius slacker-hacker who still has a lot to learn from his older colleagues.

The previously mentioned Agent Roaché popped up in the cartoon, although now he was voiced by Keith Szarabajka. Reporter Audrey Timmonds (Paget Brewster) continued to be overly ambitious, much to the detriment of her already strained relationship with Nick, and her cameraman, Victor “Animal” Palotti, was downright testy now that Joe Pantoliano took over for Hank Azaria. On top of Malcolm Danare, other returning actors included Kevin Dunn as H.E.A.T.’s military associate and one of Godzilla’s reluctant supporters, Major Anthony Hicks, and Michael Lerner as Mayor Ebert. The latter character’s naming was, by the way, Emmerich’s petty response to critic Roger Ebert’s negative reviews of his previous films.

Missteps regarding the ‘98 film’s namesake were decisively corrected in the animated sequel. For starters, Godzilla’s trademark atomic fire breath was reintroduced without questioning; the progeny now emitted a green flame, whereas later on in the story, its revived father suddenly possessed the traditional blue variant. Moreover, Godzilla Junior was not only bigger and stronger than his parent, he was far more resilient to military attacks and whatnot. The power upgrade was necessary if the new Big G was tangling with other colossal critters. Most importantly, though, was the addition of a personality. The film treated its enormous star as nothing more than a wrecking ball with legs and claws. Any attempt at creating character was saved for the human cast, however dull they turned out. Meanwhile, the series managed to imbue the King of Monsters with a sense of individuality without also veering into anthropomorphism. The prolific Frank Welker, who provided various creature sounds both here and in the ’98 film, helped vocalize Godzilla’s subtle but growing selfhood.

Pictured: Nick, Elsie and Monique look on as Cyber-Godzilla and two extraterrestrial spaceships appear in “Monster Wars.”

As beloved as Godzilla is, it failed to bring back any other Toho creations. Big hitters like Ghidorah and Mothra are nowhere to be found in the cartoon on account of the fact that licensing them would have been too pricey. To get around this obstacle, though, the staff periodically conceived parallels to Toho’s classic kaijū. There are those monsters whose references are subtle or obscure — Megapede, a prodigious breed of spider and a gigantic turtle respectively bear physical traits of Battra, Kumonga and Kamoebas — while others, such as Quetzalcoatl (Rodan), Robo-Yeti (Mechani-Kong) and Cyber-Godzilla (Mechagodzilla and Mecha-King Ghidorah), were blatant analogs. The remainder of the monster gallery had a tendency to be oversized, run-of-the-mill fauna brought on by chemical pollution, climate change and ecocide. Jumbo bugs were especially overused in the show. Nevertheless, Fil Barlow’s superb creature designs compensated for the more generic adversaries.

Godzilla: The Series was, of course, not the first animated adaptation; Hanna-Barbera’s Godzilla aired between 1978 and ‘79. In several ways, the newer cartoon is an update of the aforesaid series. Both casts traveled by boat to foreign locales and tangled with regional monstrosities, and each show had specific technology that could summon Godzilla to their rescue at a moment’s notice. The ‘70s version had a fair share of outlandish stories, yet nothing quite compared to the far-out plots of its successor. On occasion, H.E.A.T. battled aliens (in a saga akin to Destroy All Monsters) and tackled time-travel (à la Marvel’s Days of Future Past). The cartoon route made all of these more fantastical adventures easier to swallow, not to mention feasible.

Jeff Kline and Richard Raynis (Extreme Ghostbusters, Men in Black: The Series) faced an uphill battle when they developed this series. And despite the cartoon raking in consistently good ratings and positive reviews, it still had no chance of surviving without tie-in toys to turn a profit. The staggering amount of unsold film merchandise led to retailers refusing to sell the toys for the TV show, thus leading to its cancellation. Even so, this small-screen sequel was captivating while it lasted. The characters were likable, the writing was punchy, the animation was solid, and the monster-on-monster action was plentiful and exciting. It was simply hard not to enjoy Godzilla: The Series. Even the film’s biggest detractors were — and still are — charmed by the overall quality of this animated follow-up.

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Pictured: Godzilla and H.E.A.T. celebrate the defeat of Quetzalcoatl in “Bird of Paradise.”

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