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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

‘The Company of Wolves’ at 40: One of the Most Underrated Werewolf Movies Ever Made

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There’s a compelling idea in anthropology that many ancient werewolf legends are derived from our species’ need to rationalize the more animalistic side of humanity – which is why lycanthropy has historically been used to explain everything from medieval serial killers to cannibalism. While I personally think there’s a lot more to unpack when it comes to tales of wolfmen and women, this is still a great example of why so many of our most enduring fairy tales involve big bad wolves.

And in the world of film, I think there’s only one feature that really nails the folkloric origins of werewolf stories, namely Neil Jordan’s 1984 fairy-tale horror classic, The Company of Wolves. Even four decades later, there’s no other genre flick that comes close to capturing the dreamlike ambience behind this strange anthology, and that’s why I’d like to take this opportunity to look back on one of the most underrated werewolf flicks ever made.

The Company of Wolves was originally a short story contained in the 1979 anthology The Bloody Chamber, a collection of deconstructed fairy-tales intended for mature readers penned by English author Angela Carter. With the book quickly becoming a hit as readers became fascinated with its subversion of classic folk stories and (then) controversial feminist undertones, it was soon transformed into a duology of BBC radio-dramas which adapted both The Company of Wolves and Carter’s reimagining of Puss-in-Boots.

These radio-dramas soon attracted the attention of then up-and-coming Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan, who decided to meet with Carter to discuss expanding on her stories and bringing them to life on the big screen. The duo soon realized that a single short story wasn’t enough material for a feature-length film, so they decided to adapt all of Carter’s werewolf tales into a single anthology.

With a completed script and a $2.3 million budget, Jordan decided to tackle the project like a hybrid between a theatrical period drama and a schlocky monster movie. Effects-heavy creature features were a hot commodity back in the ’80s, with films like The Howling and An American Werewolf in London proving that there was an audience for horrific lycanthrope transformations, so the director soon recruited a team that could turn this odd collection of feminist folk stories into something commercially viable.

Not exactly a great pick for family movie night.

Shooting would eventually take place almost entirely within the England-based Shepperton Studios, with notable production designer Anton Furst (who would later be known for his work on Tim Burton’s Batman films) helping to bring Jordan’s vision of a darkly romantic fairy-tale world to life. Appropriately enough, production would also involve a real pack of trained wolves (as well as a collection of dyed dogs), though extensive puppetry and animatronics were also used to flesh out the more gruesome parts of the flick.

After a grueling nine-week shoot where budgetary constraints led to corners being cut on props and costumes, The Company of Wolves was finally released in September of 1984 – just in time for spooky season. In the finished film, we follow the strange dreams of a sulky teenage girl named Rosaleen (first-time actress Sarah Patterson) as the film unravels an Arabian-Nights-inspired tapestry of both familiar and not-so-familiar stories about big bad wolves.

From sexually charged cautionary tales to parables about female empowerment, this surreal collection of deranged bedtime stories is much more than the creature feature that the marketing initially suggested. Like a more horror-oriented version of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, The Company of Wolves exudes that same kind of hormonal teenage energy that transports us back to a time when the world was both scary and exciting in equal measure.

That’s not to say that this is an entirely pleasant experience, however, and I’m not just talking about the film’s horror elements. A big portion of the flick’s overtly sexual moments involve the then 13-year-old Patterson coming to grips with her blossoming womanhood and the dangers of predatory men (usually marked with a humorous unibrow), something that naturally makes for some intentionally uncomfortable viewing – especially in the year of our lord 2024.

Obviously, I don’t think it’s my place to dissect (or even judge) the effectiveness of the film’s commentaries on being a young woman, but even as a man I can still appreciate the thought and care that went into crafting this Jungian cocktail of serious themes in a genre-movie package that almost certainly went on to inspire future werewolf movies like Ginger Snaps.

Not the worst wedding I’ve been to.

That being said, what really keeps me coming back to the film is the absurd amount of memorable imagery. From a wedding party being taken over by canines to lonely treks through snowy groves, this is exactly the gloomy world I imagined as a child when reading Grimms’ Fairy Tales – and the dreamy atmosphere is only enhanced by the movie’s overall theatricality.

This also extends to the effects, as it’s easy to forgive decapitated dummy heads and ripped rubber skin when everything is happening in a magical hyper-reality, with a great example of this is being the scene where Grandma’s head unexpectedly explodes like a porcelain doll when it’s knocked off by a wolfman. That’s not to say that the effects are bad, as several of these transformations are downright grisly and likely influenced future lycanthrope effects like those in Underworld and even Trick ‘r Treat (even if the wolf-dogs here often look more cute than scary).

Of course, these aren’t the only things that The Company of Wolves has going for it, as the main trio of Patterson, Micha Bergese and the late, great Angela Lansbury exceptionally bring these exaggerated caricatures to life and the orchestral score is an absolute delight. I also really get a kick out of that bizarre ending implying that the dangers of adult life have literally come crashing into Rosaleen’s bedroom.

The Company of Wolves may not be a perfect film, suffering from some wonky pacing and the classic anthology problem where some stories are clearly much more enjoyable than others, but I’d argue that the flick’s iconic visuals and powerful thematic throughline more than make up for any minor flaws. And while we’ve seen bigger and better werewolf films since then, when it comes to adult-oriented fairy-tales, this is one psycho-sexual journey that is still worth revisiting 40 years down the line.

The Company of Wolves

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