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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

‘Bloodmoon’ (1990) – An Underseen Ozploitation Spin on the Classic American Slasher

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Bloodmoon 1990

As secrets come out and the body count grows, a character in Bloodmoon says to another: “This is nightmare night, the end-of-the-fuckin’-world night… all the bugs and the bats and the goblins are coming out tonight and no one can stop them.” Based on that rather dramatic statement, one delivered by actor Christine Amor without her even batting an eyelid, this underseen 1990 Australian film sounds a bit deranged. Rest assured, that assumption isn’t off the mark. Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise; audacity and nuttiness tend to go hand in hand in classic Ozploitation. Nevertheless, director Alec Mills and screenwriter Robert Brennan’s collaboration was not quite like anything to come out of Aussie Horror at the time. Even today, parts of Bloodmoon feel singular when compared to films from that first slasher cycle.

Warning: Major spoilers below.

Based on one of its several striking posters — the viewer’s eye immediately goes to the blue-toned illustration’s chiseled and butt-naked subject, who looks on at his potential female victims all while holding a circular garrote made of barbed wire — Bloodmoon looks to be a sex-themed slasher. Indeed, this film is about carnal pleasure as much as it is about carnage. Although, the proposed villain’s reason for targeting horny young folks isn’t puritanical in nature. Something else is motivating the killing spree in this psychosexual slasher.

In true fashion, a boarding school is the site of unspeakable horror for credulous young women and their equally unfortunate beaus. Bloodmoon is no retread of Picnic at Hanging Rock, though; the real danger resides on campus rather than out in nature, and there is no hint of the supernatural. All the ensuing and tangible bloodletting here is the outcome of one man’s prolonged frustration. Yet before any of that is revealed, the film begins like others before and after it: visitors to the make-out point in the nearby woods are slaughtered by an unseen assailant. The killer’s identity is, as it should be, concealed for the time being with only menacing shadows and that compulsory POV shot to establish their existence. However, the barbed garrote splashed across the film’s promotional materials is in clear view as well as in explicit use. The choice of close-range weapon gives these murders a greater sense of intimacy.

Pictured: One of the eyeless victims in Bloodmoon.

Bloodmoon sets up stray subplots that come across as superfluous, yet they eventually fall into place. For starters, an elderly nun at the all-girls’ academy Saint Elizabeth — the only nun, in fact — is spotlighted at the beginning; she remains staffed despite her advanced age and supposed uselessness. After being called a good influence on the students, Sister Mary-Ellen (Hazel Howson) takes a backseat as her co-stars launch their own underplots. Meanwhile, ostensible main character and likely final girl Mary (Helen Thomson) discerns no threat to herself or others because the police refuse to rule the missing teens so far (both Mary’s classmate and her sweetheart from the neighboring all-boys’ school) as anything but hormonal runaways. Mary is more concerned with her mother, a famous actor and inattentive parent, and the townie boy Kevin (Ian Williams) with whom she has become smitten. That innocent romance is routinely juxtaposed with the killer’s grisly crimes targeting other teenage couples. A hint of what’s in store for Mary and Kevin, really.

On top of Mary’s innocent storyline is a minor yet ultimately precarious thread featuring two other Saint Elizabeth students, Michelle and Jennifer (Suzie MacKenzie, Anya Molina). These would-be cheaters get more than they bargained for when snooping around for test answers; they uncover the killer’s presence and seal their own fates. In the same breath, the film makes the misstep of identifying the culprit much too soon. The beloved mystery ingredient of whodunit slashers sadly expires here, however, the script compensates with an unusual new direction: how will the killer get away with his many crimes? All of a sudden, this Down Under take on the popular “dead teenager” film transforms into a villain-as-the-protagonist thriller. Those potentially worried about being bait-and-switched should feel better knowing the film’s slasher aspect is not completely abandoned. And if nothing, Bloodmoon is even madder now that it has unmasked the antagonist.

There is a cruel irony here about overprotective parents sending away their children to remote places on the map, in an effort to keep them safe from the real world. As it turns out, Saint Elizabeth’s headmistress, Virginia Sheffield (Amor), and her husband Myles (Leon Lissek), also the science teacher, are not who they claim to be. Horror history would suggest Myles is the one being too hands-on with his female pupils, but it is actually his wife who can’t keep her manicured paws off the male student body. This scenario of creepy cuckolding and sexual misconduct has its inevitable consequences, though, once Myles decides he will no longer tolerate Virginia’s mockery and his own sexless existence. And all the teenagers who are now discovering love and sex are the first to feel the sting of this chronically blue-balled wimp-turned-madman.

bloodmoon 1990 horror movie

Pictured: The garrote-wielding killer spots more potential victims in Bloodmoon.

On the surface, Bloodmoon is all about sex, but in hindsight, the film also shadows characters who are figuring out their sense of worth. Be it to themselves or others. Sister Mary-Ellen is originally thought of as old and irrelevant by her coworkers and the students, only to then be the one who winds up saving the day (using a handy beaker of acid!). Mary’s neglectful mother is more bothered by an early-morning appointment than the fact that she hasn’t contacted her daughter in a month, and Kevin has predicted his unexceptional lot in life before even graduating. Most of all, Myles has been of no use to his wife for years; she obviously prefers her men underaged, fresh-faced and disposable. Add envy and resentment to Myles’ constant feeling of worthlessness, and this film has cooked up a considerable recipe for murder.

By the time Bloodmoon was first released, slashers had pretty much fallen out of favor overseas. That didn’t stop anyone from making them, although at that point, not everyone was willing to tweak the formula like Alec Mills and Robert Brennan did. Their own spin retains the essential fixings while also adding persuasive deviations to ensure a less typical product. And because Severin Films has issued a restored and high-def edition of the film — which includes that abrupt “fright break” intermission — John Stoke’s cinematography is now more appreciable.

Bloodmoon had the misfortune of following better received and, without much argument, less uneven slashers. Similar but different enough to warrant a glance, however, this Ozzie variation still offers an oddball killer, technical merit and, above all, some sleazy entertainment value.

Bloodmoon is now available on Blu-ray from Severin Films.


Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.

bloodmoon 1990 blu-ray

Pictured: Severin Films’ Bloodmoon Blu-ray release.

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