Patrick

Normally, I hate this end of year lists, but I have too much free time on my hands and the desire to get my ass kicked by someone I accidentally left out.

Keep in mind, some of these movies may have come out before 2011, but I’m basing my choices on movies that I covered on the show this year regardless of when they were actually released.  My show, my rules…smell my power!

The movies are in no particular order.  It was difficult enough to pick the ten I did.  I think my brain would implode trying to rank them even further.

Of course, any associated with the selected films wins an Official SCREAMQUEENZ Tiara! ***

In no particular order, my TOP TEN PICKS for 2011!

ABSENTIA (2011)

Directed by Mike Flanagan

Episode 30

This somber yet deeply unsettling film managed to give me the willies even in the less-than-ideal Horrorhound Weekend screening.

Not soon after a pregnant woman (Katie Parker) declares her missing husband (Morgan Peter Brown) legally dead, she begins to having terrifying visions that hint that maybe she spoke too quickly. Writer/director Flanagan pulls off an incredible feat with this film. He manages to reinvent the ghost story,  then takes it to an unexpected, even creepier place.

Don’t be fooled by the show-burn pacing, because the almost-suffocating tension had me squirming in my seat, forgetting to breathe.   (Don’t believe me. Just ask Zombart.  He sat next to me.  He took pictures. Bitch.)

It’s been almost a year since I’ve seen ABSENTIA.   What haunts me most is not the disturbing visuals or even the deeply unsettling story line.  It’s the mood.  When I simply think about the title, I hear in my head its stark, two-note funeral organ score and my chest wells up with emotions not usually incurred by watching a horror movie: grief, loss and perhaps the most terrifying of all…the dread of inevitability.

Toss in a pitch perfect cast, including a heart-wrenching cameo from the always delicious Doug Jones, and BOOM!  You’ve got my favorite movie of 2011.

I’ve been seeing it pop up on various Pay-Per View cable channels, so hopefully a DVD-release is imminent.

UNDOCUMENTED (2010)

Directed by Chris Peckover

Episode 43

Picked randomly from the Pay-Per-View menu, UNDOCUMENTED is my surprise find of the year.  I hesitate to call it my pleasant surprise, because while the discovery of a true horror gem flying under the radar can really warm my cockles, once the action here gets rollin’, I was feeling more cold chills than warm fuzzies.

A group of young filmmakers in the process of making a documentary about illegal immigration across the Mexican border are apprehended by what we (and they) think are the police.  In the trailer, we are told by an off-screen tormentor, “Whatever you think this is…it’s far worse.”  Unfortunately, for our young heroes…he’s not lying.”

What starts off as a fairly routine shot-on-video, found footage movie quickly turns into a visceral and all-too-believable nightmare of American patriotism run amok. Our heroes and the immigrants they were following have been captured by a group of extreme nationalists who are looking to save our country by cleansing of the scourge that’s ruining it. In other words, undocumented Mexicans sneaking over the border.

What really drove this home for me was how possible every horrific image or idea you’re subjected is.  As a country, we seem to have lost our minds on this subject. The inhuman acts going on right now in Arizona are not that far off from what’s happening at the abandoned slaughterhouse in the movie.  As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if something like is actually was going on…right now.  Our villains here are not raving madmen.  On the contrary, they are well spoken….charming, even…guys you’d probably love to have a beer with sometime in other circumstances.  These men spill poison from their mouths, calmly. Rationally.   Indeed, there might be a nugget of truth to it; a truth twisted into something hideous, but truth nonetheless.  And part of me started to believe it.  Just a little….teeny….tiny…bit.

Therein lies the horror.

There are some unforgettable performances in here that deserve to be noted.  Peter Stormare as “Z”  the leader of the Patriots is an consummate boogeyman.   Despite the fact his face is covered with an eyeless black mask the whole time,  you can still feel his gaze boring deep into you when he speaks.  The effect is bone-chilling.  Also I have to mention the always creepy-to-perfection Noah Segan, as one of Z’s flunkies that you’re just itching to kick in the ‘nards.    Noah is always one of those actors who pops in movies up unexpectedly for me, and whenever he does, I know I’m in for a good time.  His track record with his movies reviewed here on ScreamQueenz is impeccable.  From scoring big points in Peaches Christ‘s criminally underseen ALL ABOUT EVIL and the deliciously kinky SOMEONE’S KNOCKING AT THE DOOR to being the only watchable thing in CHAIN LETTER, perhaps someday Noah will be the first male to win the SCREAMQUEENZ LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD!  (Still no tiara, Noah…never gonna happen.)

According to rumor, a DVD release should happen within the next couple of months!

DREAM HOME (2010) [aka "Wai dor lei ah yut ho"]

Directed by Ho-Cheung Pang 

Episode 32

This brutal Chinese import is NOT to be confused with the dreadful Daniel Craig snoozer DREAM HOUSE.  This grueling shocker about Hong Kong real estate (?!?) not only raised the stakes on over-the-top practical gore effects,  but showed how even much more affecting gore can be when coupled with an emotionally charged story line.  Josie Ho’s performance as one of the most gruesome movie monsters of recent date is magnified by how much we actually care and about this woman and kinda-sorta understand the savage lengths to which she’s driven.

WAKE WOOD  (2011)

Directed by David Keating

Episode 37

The new incarnation of the Hammer House of Horror discovers the third time’s the charm with this eerie tale of ancient Irish magics in the deep dark woods.  When a movie introduces an adorable, non-obnoxious six-year old girl and has a vicious dog tear her to pieces before the opening credits have finished rolling, you have established to me that as a storyteller…you got balls.

WAKE WOOD borrows elements from such classic tales as PET SEMETARY, THE OMEN, THE EXORCIST and even THE WICKER MAN  and manages to use those elements to tell us something brand new and as heart-wrenching as it is horrific.

INSIDIOUS (2011)

Directed by James Wan

Episode 28

A big screen Hollywood release gets it right!!  This has been talked to death on enough other shows, so I”m cutting this short.  Even though in my opinion things fell apart just a tad in the final reel, there were more than enough gut-shuddering moments throughout the rest of the movie to make up for it.  You had me at “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”…stroke of genius!…It gave me bigger goosebumps than I’d had at the movies in ages.  But then when you throw in the always delightful Lin Shaye in a gas mask…What can I say?  I was in love!

D4 (2010)

Directed by Darrin Dickerson

Episode 48

Low budget filmmakers, sit up and take notice!  THIS is how you maximize a minimal budget and put out a product that looks like a million bucks.

D4 tells the story of hired mercenaries on a simple search-and-rescue mission in the woods that goes quite askew when they are beset up on by a very big, very angry monster of a man, a product of science run amok.  On the surface, this appears to be a fairly straightforward tale.  However, the filmmakers’ choice to tell the story non-sequentially adds layers of ever-deepening mystery and nail-biting suspense to the proceedings.  Just how deep does this conspiracy go?  Well, let’s just say, just when I thought I had it all figured out, I was wrong.

Very wrong.

Dickerson manages to elevate D4 miles above its microbudget with excellent camera work, a talented ensemble cast, and pulse-pounding action helped out by tight fight choreography and stunts (believe me, I’m a stickler.)

I hope D4 gets the attention that it deserves, because the love and care and attention to detail that was put into it really shine, and it should be held up as a model for other low-budget moviemakers to aspire to.

I have spoken.

CHILLERAMA (2011)

Directed by Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Adam Rifkin and Tim Sullivan

Episode 47

I hear a lot of folks are hating this at home, but seeing it at HORRORHOUND WEEKEND with a rowdy Saturday night crowd (not to mention super-cutie Brian Kirst, the Big Gay Horror Fan!) was a perfect storm of movie-going.  What’s not to love?  Lin Shaye getting eaten by a giant sperm!  Musical gay werebears doing the Watusi!  Lin Shaye again as Maria Ouspenskaya!  Joel David Moore as Hitler! Kane Hodder‘s left nipple!   Anne Frank jokes!  Flying feces! Socket-rapin’ sex zombies!  Seriously, what’s not to love?!?

If you didn’t like it….well, it’s girls like YOU who give summer fun a bad name! Harrumph….

EASTER BUNNY, KILL! KILL! (2006)

Directed by Chad Ferrin

Episode 31

What can I say?  I loved this movie from start to finish.  Congratulations for rising above such a ridiculous title and giving me a movie that I seriously did not know what to expect from frame to frame.  Delectably sleazy, darkly hilarious and perversely unsettling, and ultimately…a shit load of fun.  Plus, it gave Mister Brad the “Hookers and Cocaine” song which has cursed our home every since.  Yeah, thanks for that.

THE REEF (2010)

Directed by Andrew Trauki

Episode 40

For making me believe that sharks could be scary again.  (And after sitting through SHARK NIGHT 3D, that’s no mean feat!)

A small cast of characters I genuinely liked and a simple story of survival add up to an incredibly suspenseful thriller that’s more than the sum of it parts.  Or should I say, more than the chum of its parts! Ha!  I’m hilarious.

PUPPET MONSTER MASSACRE (2010)

Directed by Dustin Mills

Episode 36

For making me believe that a penguin can do Tae Kwan Do.

This loving spoof/tribute to 80′s style horror (done entirely with hand puppets, obviously) is brimming with charm, creativity and bunny farts, and really who could ask for anything more!