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“In films murders are always very clean. I show how difficult it is and what a messy thing it is to kill a man.” --- Alfred Hitchcock ::::::::::: MY CRITERIA FOR DISCUSSION ENCOMPASSES THE HORROR GENRE AND BEYOND, SO I USE THE TERM "NIGHTMARE MOVIES". SPOILERS CAN OCCUR WITH OR WITHOUT WARNING. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

HORRORPHILE'S BLOODY BEST OF 2011

December 16th 2011 04:08
Black Swan Natalie Portman
It’s been a rough ride this year. Australia banned two movies; one of these was heavily cut, then banned just prior to its straight-to-video release, while the other was passed uncut, then banned, then appealed/re-submitted in a cut version and passed (with its original R18 rating). These two movies - A Serbian Film and The Human Centipede II - are two of the most imaginative and potent nightmare movies of the past twenty years. But there is an axe to be ground by those that carry neo-conservative umbrellas to shield themselves – and if they can, the rest of society – from the moral corruption they insist is rife in such reprehensible “pornographic” cinema.

To these fundamentalist fuckwits, I say, how dare you imply that I’m a sick, twisted, depraved, sociopathic danger to society!

But this post isn’t meant to be a tirade against the Christian lobby groups. To support the intelligent artistic freedom of directors, please visit the Facebook page Cinephiles Against Censorship.

I’m here to spill my other guts, to unleash my selection of the bloody best nightmare movies of the past year. As per usual I will include those titles that had a delayed release in the waters down under, movies that were released overseas in 2010, but didn’t see distribution in Australasia until this year.

I didn’t manage to see everything I wanted to. I never do. But there was enough highly impressive material that I thought I’d have trouble keeping it contained as a top twelve. There’s always the close contenders list.

So turn the light on, ‘cos this shit is (mostly) dark. Here they are, in some semblance of order.

Black Swan movie poster
Black Swan
Natalie Portman in a career performance. Director Darren Aronofsky channels the best elements of Dario Argento, Brian De Palma, and David Lynch to exhilarating effect. Pure dream/nightmare cinema.


A Serbian Film movie poster
A Serbian Film
Undeniably shocking, unreservedly disturbing, and powerfully uncompromising. Probably the most audacious expression of realistic nightmare cinema from the past thirty years.


I saw the Devil DVD cover art
I Saw the Devil
The serial killer thriller ne plus ultra. A tour-de-force of narrative; visually and through characterisation. Contemporary Euro-Asian brutalism continues to assault the senses to stunning effect.


Kill List movie poster
Kill List
A British slap in the face, hard. The conventional psychological thriller is turned upside down and a boot is driven into the balls, then a mask is thrust on your face and hell’s bell, teeth and smells!


The Human Centipede II full sequence movie poster
The Human Centipede II (full sequence)
Eraserhead is set upon by a ferocious insect, consumed for breakfast, and shat out into the cold, wet, dark nighttime of the soul. The monster flick for dodgy intellectuals, a tenebrous barbed fantasy for deprived horrorphiles.


Kidnapped movie poster
Kidnapped
I’ve always got time for Spain. This is the house invasion to end all house invasions. You want fast-paced annihilation? You got it. In spades.


Paranormal Activity 3 movie poster
Paranormal Activity 3
I love to be pleasantly surprised. This prequel is the best of the series. It’s the best acted, best scripted, and hands down, scariest found-footage flick since The Blair Witch Project (1999).


Snowtown DVD cover art
Snowtown
Historical horror crimes as small-town drama. A study in suburban Aussie dysfunction, perversion, and atrocity shrouded with Shakespearean evil. A stunning achievement in restrained ghastliness.


The Reef movie poster
The Reef
Utterly simple, utterly effective. The extension of jeopardy has never been delivered with such vivid strokes. Great White Shark stalks swimmers out at sea. Terrifyingly nightmarish.


Hobo with a Shotgun movie poster
Hobo With a Shotgun
Expressionist exploitation par excellence. This is the deepest trash served up, smokin’ on a platter with a shit-eating grin and gobbled down with as much beer and buttery popcorn as you can handle.


Tucker and Dale vs Evil poster art
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
And for light, but oh so well done, relief, you can’t do better than this superb spoof of the slasher genre. Would make a great double feature with Hobo!


Midnight Son movie poster art
Midnight Son
This low-budget independent vampire tale was arguably the highlight of this year’s A Night Of Horror International Film Festival. Original and moody, with two charismatic central performances, and unpretentious style to burn.


Six close contenders: 127 Hours, 13 Assassins, The Woman, The Last Circus, Take Shelter, Fright Night (2011).

Special consideration: Valhalla Rising
This masterful piece of Nordic surrealism, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, was released overseas in 2009, and it’s a crime it didn’t receive a theatrical release in Australia, instead going straight-to-DVD, without even a Blu-ray version!

Most Disappointing: #12
I really, really wanted to like this movie, and the strange thing is that it still reverberates in my mind. A faux-snuff movie that promised heavily to deliver the goods, but failed at the eleventh hour. Still, a fantastic sustained performance from the female lead in such an amazing location.

Most Annoying: Drive Angry
Nicolas Cage in probably the worst performance and movie of his increasingly dodgy career. And Amber Heard’s talent wasted once again.

Simply Unnecessary: The Thing (2011)
Not a remake, but a prequel, telling the Norwegian’s story, but when push comes to shove, this was really a remake of Carpenter’s movie, and only proved just how brilliant Carpenter’s movie, and Rob Bottin’s special effects makeup work, was.


To vote for your favourite nightmare movie of 2011, click here! Voting closes midnight Friday Dec. 30th.

Black Swan Natalie Portman


NB: I am taking a much needed break from within the Darkness and won't be posting again 'til mid-January, so have a shockingly good Xmas and New Year!
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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre movie poster
My job is done. The nightmare is over. Admittedly, I killed it early.

All is explained on the Horror Horror site, so I won't go into details here. But I thought I'd extend the letter of resignation and provide my True Believers with the core information: my list of forty-two Essential Cinema Nightmares, that is.

In case you're confused, I'm not quitting Horrorphile, I'm more than just a resident, I'm a Citizen of the Darkness. I'm simply ending my holiday lease on Horror Horror.

Those who've been following Horrorphile for a long time will remember I made a similar list five years back ... It's a fetish of mine. Indulge me.

So here it is, arranged in order of year of release. Clicking on the title will take you through to my Horrorphile movie review. Yes, there are notable absences, but no use crying over spilled blood.

Nosferatu (1921)
Cat People (1942)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Eyes Without a Face (1959)
Black Sunday (1960)
The Innocents (1960)
Psycho (1960)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
The Exorcist (1973)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Deep Red (1975)
The Omen (1976)
Suspiria (1977)
Halloween (1978)
Alien (1979)
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Possession (1981)
The Evil Dead (1982)
Videodrome (1982)
The Thing (1982)
Day of the Dead (1985)
The Fly (1986)
Near Dark (1987)
Hellraiser (1987)
Innocent Blood (1992)
Ring (1998)
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Audition (1999)
The Grudge (2003)
I’ll Never Die Alone (2007)
The Broken (2007)
Inside (2007)
[REC] (2007)
Frontier(s) (2007)
Let the Right One In (2007)
The Children (2008)
Martyrs (2008)
Kidnapped (2010)
I Saw the Devil (2010)
A Serbian Film (2010)
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011)

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Leatherface
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52 ESSENTIAL NIGHTMARES FOR HALLOWEEN!

October 31st 2011 03:39
Frontier(s)
To celebrate All Hallow’s Eve I decided to push the horror newbies into my pop-up site; Horror Horror … where I’ve been making a list of essential nightmares, mostly modern horror classics and cult favourites. The criteria for this selection was to highlight what I feel have been the real shakers and movers in the genre of horror. Those movies we True Believers come back to time and time again, and especially for those fledgling horror delvers, the ones curious about what lies in the abyss, the ones keen to get blood on their hands; these are the cinema nightmares that have defined the genre, pushed the boundaries, championed the visceral shocks and the atmosphere of fear.

But from the beginning, a few months back, when I first took over the horrorhorror.com url, I knew I wasn’t going to continue posting for too long. I made the decision to stop the selection at 52, one for each week of a year, reminiscent of the Sunday Horrors I grew up watching on television.

And so as we embrace Halloween I’ve almost hit my cult classic nightmare quota. I posted a triple-whammy today; [REC], Frontier(s), and Let the Right One In, three European gems from a bumper year of imaginative and intense horror, 2007. That leaves me with four more entries to do, all from the last couple of years.

Come over and have a peek. I don’t bite. Well, only occasionally ... [click below]

Horror Horror
Essential Cinema Nightmares For Those Eager To Peer Into The Darkness!

Happy Hallowe’en True Believers and horror newbies!

Frontier(s)
True Believer taking the hand of a horror newbie

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HORRORPHILE'S BLOODY BEST OF 2010

December 16th 2010 23:54
Monsters movie poster
It’s that time of year again. Well, almost. I’m pitching my bloody best a couple of weeks early this year, as I’m slipping deep into the Darkness for a much-needed holiday from in front of the computer from Monday, December 20th (my birthday!) until Monday, January 3rd. I trust my True Believers will survive. There’s always puh-lenty to watch on the small screen (although these days much home viewing isn’t that small an experience) and a snatch of wickedness on the big cinema screen. If you’re in the mood to taste something a little different than the proverbial nightmare, visit my other movie site: Bruno Dante’s Cult Projections … where I bask in the dark sunshine of cult cinema. All the movies reviewed on that site are essential to cinema edification in one way or another.

But let’s get back to the darkened business at severed hand shall we?! Horrorphile’s Bloody Best of 2010. It’s always a difficult job sorting out where to draw the line in terms of inclusion and exclusion. I say it every year, it’s a bitch. There are always numerous movies (often foreign and limited release indie flicks) that escape my prying eyes, there are even the biggies that for some reason I didn’t make the preview or private media screening, and even missed during its theatrical run. Then there are those annoying discrepancies where a movie gets released overseas, but doesn’t end up seeing any light of release down under until the following year (if we’re lucky!) Some don’t appear until a video release two or three years down the track! Some don’t even get a look in on the Australasian domestic release schedule at all! That sucks


[ Click here to read more ]
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Planet Terror Rose McGowan
Halloween is over, the poll is closed, the numbers are in, the votes have been counted, the people have spoken. I chose six of my favourites from six categories; monsters, psychos, vampires, werewolves, zombies, and final girls. You selected your favourite from each of the categories, and here are the results:

Monsters (aliens)
[ Click here to read more ]
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MY SIX, YOUR SIX, TOP SIX (

October 18th 2010 03:50
The Wolfman Benicio Del Toro
With two weeks before Halloween weekend, I thought I’d create a bit of fun with a series of polls: the Top Six Monsters, Psychos, Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies, and Final Girls.

I’ve made the judicious selection of candidates, now it’s up to you to vote for your favourite from each category. Click on each of the six links below to take you through to the respective polling page


[ Click here to read more ]
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Day of the Dead Joe Pilato
Tom Savini, one of my nightmare heroes, was in Sydney over the weekend as a keynote speaker at the IMATS (International Make-up Artist Trade Show). Unfortunately I wasn’t aware of this until it was too late. I’m slutted I missed the opportunity to hear him talk about his craft. C’est la vie, I suppose. I wonder who they’ll bring out next year … Rob Bottin, per chance.

Tom Savini
Tom Savini
So it got me thinking about my favourite special effects make-up movie sequences. The real shit, none of this CGI crap. The real horror magic is effects work that is done in front of the camera, not in post. But there are so many to choose from; some brief, some long, some in dim light and shadows, others under bright light and in your face. There are the graphic gore sequences and there are fantastical transformation sequences. There are alien and monster designs and there’s zombie and ghoul designs. Where does one draw the line


[ Click here to read more ]
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WHAT REMAKES SHOULD BE MADE?

July 9th 2010 01:07
The Thing spider-head
I’ve done it before and I’m doing it again: playing devil’s advocate, since for the most part I don’t really believe in remakes. That said, however, there are some excellent remakes out there that I’m glad were made, such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Nosferatu (1979), The Thing (1982), Cat People (1982), Dawn of the Dead (2004). However, I must re-iterate how much I love the originals too, with the exception of The Thing from another World (1951).

If the original movie had a great premise or synopsis, but didn’t have the production values (or director and actors) behind it to make it as convincing as it should’ve been then a remake is a good call. On occasion, the direction and acting might’ve been fine, but the budgetary constraints and maybe the morality of the time made the movie more of an atmospheric gem, thus a remake allows the story’s true potent carnal viscera to be unleashed, such as the original Cat People (1942). On many occasions the movie was simply too trashy to be taken seriously, yet from a modernised perspective could be updated to spectacular effect


[ Click here to read more ]
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WHO SHOULD DIRECT THE HOBBIT?

June 18th 2010 01:18
The Hobbit
It’s a pertinent question indeed, since Guillermo Del Toro has pulled out of the equation. It’s dreadfully disappointing that Del Toro will no longer be delivering us the journey There and Back Again, but at least he’s still on board as co-screenwriter and his awesome conceptual design team are still working on it.

Who can blame Del Toro when it became clear due to intense financial wrangling beyond his control that the production of the two movies (Part 1 & 2) would consume six years of his life? He didn’t sign on for that kind of duration, he’s got too many other projects on the boil (including adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Mountains of Madness, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) , and the career clock’s a-ticking


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The Hunger Catherine Deneuve
The SFF is over for another year. Sigh. Thirteen glorious days with around 160 films in the programme. I earmarked more than fifty movies. I got to see twenty-eight features and one short. Not too shabby. It helps having your days free and a media pass. My hit/miss ratio was excellent this year; I only saw two movies I could’ve quite happily missed. I reviewed fourteen movies across three websites, with a couple more still to add. It was a close call, but overall my favourite was probably The Temptation of St. Tony and the documentary Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (which I'll review soon).

Near Dark Bill Paxton
I loved "Immortal Seduction – The Vampire Movie" retrospective of cult favourites and classics. A big severed head nod to curator Richard Kuipers for an inspired selection, right up my dark high art/deep trash alley. Although I had seen most of those movies, and have them in my own collection, I had not seen them on the big screen before (with the exception of Nosferatu and The Hunger). It was a real shame the print of one of my favourite vampire movies Daughters of Darkness was in too bad a shape to be played. Richard told me the audience would’ve surely demanded their money back, it was that risky. Apparently it’s the only 35mm print in the world left. C’est la morte


[ Click here to read more ]
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3rd Annual Horrorphile Hall Of Infamy 2010: The Contenders
Third year in and I’ve decided to change tack once again. I’ve opted for a more self-indulgent route, but one that truly expresses the True Believin’ attitude and passion of my blog. I’ve selected thirty modern horror movies from George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) to Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs (2008). This is a list of what I think are some of the very best modern nightmares ever committed to celluloid (I've reviewed them all except one). Of course it was very hard containing the selection to just thirty, but I had to draw the line somewhere.

I was intending for the poll to be embedded in my post, but frustratingly it was one of those "really long links". So instead click on the first link and from the selection choose your THREE favourite movies in no particular order
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The Beyond

In no particular order.

[ Click here to read more ]
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YOUR FAVOURITE ZOMBIE MOVIES

April 6th 2010 04:25
He’s back! Orble’s prodigal black sheep returns after a month’s hiatus, well holiday actually, but a blog hiatus by default. I hope all my True Believin’ followers missed me. Sometimes it can get lonely in the Dark, I know.

So without further adieu, let me announce the favourite zombie movies as voted by you! There was no competition for Romero’s monochromatic masterpiece, the seminal low-budget shocker that spearheaded the modern horror genre. I’m talking, of course, about Night of the Living Dead (1968), in the top position


[ Click here to read more ]
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Ex-pat South-African director Richard Stanley, an auteur of sorts, burst onto the scene back in 1990 with his rogue sf-horror Hardware, a low-budget shocker that quickly gained a cult following. He followed up with an hallucinatory desert vision of a demon in human guise, Dust Devil (1992), however the movie was plagued with executive interference and distribution hell, yet still gained a fervent cult following.

Hardware Mark and Jill
In 1996 Stanley was hired to direct the big budget remake of The Island of Dr. Moreau, a cautionary tale of human-animal hybridization. It starred Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando (and an unrecognizable Eric Roth under elaborate makeup). Legend has it that Brando, playing the extreme eccentric, clashed with the director so swiftly and profoundly that Stanley was fired from production after only a handful of days shooting. Apparently Stanley snuck back onto the set disguised in a dog-man mask


[ Click here to read more ]
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Wolf Creek Cassandra Magrath
I was given the best book for my birthday, The Book of Lists: Horror, which was published 2008. One of the three authors, Amy Wallace, co-edited the original bestselling The Book of Lists with her brother and father back in 1977. I love lists, and as an adolescent I relished reading the weird and wonderful selections published by the Wallace family; one that stands out in my memory was the macabre list of Possible Jack the Ripper Victims (in gory detail).

I was very impressed that Amy Wallace had the inclination to delve into the Darkness and compile a thoroughly delectable array of inspired tastes and insightful opinions from a small pool of horrorphilic staff writers and numerous renowned figures from the horror arts and entertainment (chiefly writers and directors). And the gallows humour is mixed beautifully with scholarly indulgence


[ Click here to read more ]
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BLOWING MY OWN TRAFFIC HORN

January 27th 2010 05:51
traffic
It’s always curious to see where your readers are clicking around your blog. So here are a few Orble stats for the record. The Hit Count is the raw page views (although I’m not entirely sure what “raw page views” actually are), the Individual Readers are the number of individual readers as measured by the number of IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, basically an indication as to how many people are actually reading my blog. The Link Readers are those that arrived at my blog after clicking on a link, or who clicked on a hyperlink within my blog.

Apparently if a reader types in a web address, uses their favourites list, or clicks on a link in an email (like most subscribers do) they won't register as a click (link) reader. Therefore the true number of real people who are reading your blog is somewhere between the number of click (link) readers and the number of individual readers and is usually closer to the latter


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Nosferatu Max Schreck
With Twilight angst still hanging in the air, and Daybreakers science fiction breathing at the door I thought I’d put a poll together to find out just what are my True Believers’ favourite vampire movies. But let’s face it, there are at least 170 movies featuring Bram Stoker’s character Count Dracula, let alone the number of movies featuring simply vampires and those that like to drink the blood of others.

I’ve put together a list of sixty-one titles, with an option of “other” for any title(s) I’ve not included that any reader wishes to vote for (there may be two or three I suppose). Vote three points for your top favourite movie, then two points for the next favourite, and one point for your third favourite. Type your selection with the points in brackets beside it ie Let the Right One In (3), 30 Days of Night (2), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1


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The Descent
Blood Disgusting, probably the most popular horror movie site in the world, has posted their top twenty movies of the past decade as compiled by their freelance writers and in-house staff. It’s not a surprising list in the slightest, in fact it’s about as safe as houses. I even predicted the top three as I moved into the top ten (which were being revealed in groups of five from bottom to top).

Audition
I’ve seen them all except for Session 9, which has yet to be released on DVD down under. Takashi Miike’s masterpiece Audition would’ve featured very highly in my own selection had it not been released in 1999. It’s included in the Bloody Disgusting list because it wasn’t released in the US until 2000. I really enjoyed May, but it didn’t quite make my selection. I also really enjoyed the Hollywood remake of Ringu, The Ring, and agree with their comments, but I still think the Japanese original commands a wholly unique nightmarish atmosphere that Hollywood cannot replicate


[ Click here to read more ]
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The Broken
Despite having worked as a film critic for more than fifteen years I’ve never compiled a decade’s best of list. I was resident film critic for Sydney street press magazine Revolver (now The Brag) for several years and bridged the new millennium, but I never got to publish my best of selection for the 90s, however I did get to make a list of important films of the century, so there you go.

My criteria for selection for Horrorphile - Pleasure of Nightmares’ best of the decade was pretty straight forward: the movies that have burnt their imagery onto my retina, atmospheres and textures which have permeated my skin, the nightmare tone and elements lingering in my mind long after the movie had finished


[ Click here to read more ]
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HORRORPHILE'S BLOODY BEST OF 2009

December 28th 2009 03:50
The Broken Richard Jenkins
With so many film festivals around the world and DVD/Blu-ray a distribution force to be reckoned with, a movie's release date becomes more and more of a grey area. Let the Right One In was my favourite movie of 2008, after seeing it at the Sydney Film Festival in June. It was released theatrically in Australia earlier this year. One of my other favourites, Los Cronoscrimines (Timecrimes) which also played the 2008 Sydney Film Festival, hit the video store shelves this week. Paranormal Activity first played Screamfest in 2007, then Slamdance the following year, and finally an on-demand US release from September this year.

So after much deliberation and indecision I finally realised the only way to come to a satisfying Best Of list this year was to include movies that had had a premiere festival screening, or been released theatrically and/or on DVD in Australia during 2009. This meant including movies that may have been released overseas in cinemas in 2008, but arrived in Australia for the first time on DVD in 2009, or played in Film Festivals in Australia in 2008 and 2009 but did not receive a theatrical release, or went straight to DVD bypassing a theatrical release altogether, or – as in the case of Wake in Fright – enjoyed a re-release after thirty years of gathering dust


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