I've been praising Mike Flanagan for years now, at least since 2016's "Ouija: Origin of Evil", and I'm not about to stop with his wonderfully scary, heart-breakingly tragic and exquisitely beautiful adaptation of Stephen King's "Doctor Sleep." Both a great adaptation of King's novel and a great sequel to Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining." I especially admire Flanagan for not using visual effects to cast the film with digital renditions of the original cast from "The Shining," but simply using new actors who are vaguely similar. That to me says something about the film maker's respect for his audience. I have not seen the theatrical version of "Doctor Sleep"; my appreciation is based upon the 28 minutes longer director's cut. This is the version I recommend, and in my opinion even a single minute less of this masterpiece would diminish it.
IT CHAPTER TWO
2019 was a good year for Stephen King fans. Not only were we treated to the two films on this list, "It Chapter Two" and "Doctor Sleep," but there was a decent adaptation of "Pet Sematary" and Netflix presented an interesting Stephen King/Joe Hill adaptation called "In the Tall Grass." The second season of Hulu's Stephen King homage "Castle Rock" that premiered in October was even better than the first. The second part of "It" does not quite reach the level of the first part from 2017, however, but even though it is a little bit inferior, the story, the characters and the style of Andy Muschietti's vision is still a gift for us horror nerds. Also, one cannot but applaud the casting of James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader and James Ransone (some of those casting choices were actually based on the wishes of the younger actors) as Bill, Beverly, Richie and Eddie respectively.
COLOR OUT OF SPACE
The degree of insanity, grotesqueness and weirdness that Richard Stanley's psychedelic body horror "Color out of Space" reaches truly does justice to H.P. Lovecraft's work. I'd like to think that if Lovecraft saw this, he would be very pleased with what Stanley has achieved, and that's largely due to the fact that the South African film maker, whose career took a nosedive after the failed attempt to make "The Island of Dr. Moreau" in 1996 (see the 2014 documentary "Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau") is a true visionary. He has not only delivered a suitably poetic and creepy interpretation of Lovecraft's story but also somehow managed to get a great performance out of Nicolas Cage, something of a rare achievement nowadays.
MIDSOMMAR
Ari Aster's new film follows quite closely on the success of "Hereditary," one of my favorite horror films ever made. "Midsommar" opens with the same kind of horror in relation to personal trauma and family tragedy as in "Hereditary," then it gradually evolves into a very different kind of film. "Midsommar" belongs to a category that is usually known as folk horror (although I would also classify it as psychedelic horror, and you could arguably call it a slasher), which includes the classic "The Wicker Man" from 1973 and "Apostle" from 2018. The common denominator is a sinister cult that practices human sacrifices, in this case in Sweden (although shot in Hungary) and with kind, smiling hippies, which makes the sociopathic violence even more freaky once it erupts. "Midsommar" is nightmarish in a quite different way from "Hereditary" and not as terrifying, yet it is no less of a gem, thanks to Aster's intuition when it comes to emotional horror, his direction, the wonderful acting and the beautiful cinematography.
WOUNDS
Babak
Anvari, who made a huge impact in 2016 with "Under the Shadow" about a
creepy haunting in war-torn Iran, returned in 2019 with a scary movie
that is almost greater than his debut. "Wounds" takes a look at insanity
and frightening events surrounding a contagious obsession with holes,
particularly open wounds. It's as weird as it sounds, blending
psychological horror with body horror, two sub-categories that are
arguably very closely related. With only two movies under his belt,
Anvari is now someone to look out for.
THE LODGE
An interesting trivia about Veronika Franz's and Severin Fiala's psychological indie horror "The Lodge" is that it's a Hammer Films production. Personally, I didn't even know Hammer Films was still in production. Another interesting thing about it is that without any monsters, demons, ghosts or supernatural killers, it manages to be really creepy. Thanks to creepy music, a creepy doll's house, creepy unexplained things happening to emotionally vulnerable people in an isolated location. Yet another interesting thing about it is that the way it intersects grief, trauma and horror reminds me of Ari Aster's "Hereditary". Don't expect the usual horror entertainment full of jump scares and stuff. This is a serious movie, folks, with serious subject matters. We need that kind of stuff too.
SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK
2019 was a very good year for horror movies, and André Øvredal's "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" has got it all! Truly a mixed bag of goodies for horror nuts - everything from scarecrows to haunted house to body horror to walking dead/vengeful spirits to spiders to a creepy insane asylum. Like all family-friendly horror movies it's also got a gang of nerdy kids fighting a supernatural entity. In today's climate, with "Stranger Things" and "It," that's a sure-fire way to success. I couldn't say how a movie with so many horror tropes works, but somehow it's wildly entertaining!
CHILD'S PLAY
Horror remakes are dodgy matters, and when it comes to such a classic character as Chucky, who was so immortalized by Brad Dourif in the whole film series from 1988 onwards, there's an even greater risk of sacrilege. Going in to this remake of "Child's Play," which also serves as a reboot of the film series, one is at first sceptic about how anyone could fill Dourif's shoes, but Mark Hamill does a pretty amazing job, which is no great surprise, he is a terrific voice actor after all. This version removes an essential part of the character, that of the doll being possessed by the evil spirit of a murderer. Here, Chucky is instead the result of a factory setting that has been tampered with, which gives the film a sci-fi edge and kind of a funny, interesting metaphor of our smartphone era. Whether we will get an entertaining and long-lasting series out of this remains to be seen, but I'm up for it.
GIRL ON THE THIRD FLOOR
A simple and effective haunted house movie - perhaps not the most original ever made, but like a lot of good indie horrors, the devil's in the details; creepy stains, rotten holes, wall sockets leaking obscenely, an oddly shaped ornament, a distorted door bell, a marble rolling down the stairs. And I wouldn't mind seeing CM Punk in a movie again, he has a certain way about him that at times reminds me of Bruce Campbell in the "Evil Dead" film series.
ANNABELLE COMES HOME
Although not as great as 2017's "Annabelle: Creation," the third part in the film series about the world's creepiest possessed doll is still a pretty entertaining horror movie, with effective jump scares and some quite creepy ghosts. Who knew that this spin-off of "The Conjuring" was going to evolve into something almost on par with said horror film series by James Wan, particularly considering its inauspicious first outing, "Annabelle" from 2014. The best part of "Annabelle Comes Home" is that it takes place during one afternoon, which gives the film an immediate feeling of suspense that is proficiently sustained throughout.
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