THC’s Mid-Year movie report card!

With the 2nd half of 2013 in full swing, let's take a few minutes to look back on the movies that the first half of the year gave us.

Some movies like American Mary, Come Out and Play, Antiviral, etc... which we've seen, but have yet to review, will not be included here. We'll cover films like those in our year end best & worst lists.

So which movies passed and which ones failed? Pay attention, class, because you're about to find out.

Are these the absolute best genre movies of 2013? Well, that can be subjective to a point, so really, no. They are the genre flicks that we've enjoyed the most, and ones that we feel have given Horror fans the most bang for the buck over the first six months of the year, so you know what, maybe they are the best.

Evil Dead and Maniac were remakes that we ended up liking more than we had anticipated, and they definitely satisfied our need for gore. We thought Mama worked fairly well... right up until, and despite, its fizzle of an ending. Blind Alley, Sushi Girl, and Would You Rather? were lower budget flicks that brought interesting flavor to their respective themes, and they all deserve a larger audience. The South Korean thriller, Children, was ultra-chilling and effective. Haunting, even. It was truly something special.

Though Room 237 is only a documentary about the making of a Horror movie, it re-invigorated our interest in The Shining, and gave us a new (although very odd) outlook on Kubrick's classic. It's one of the most captivating things we've seen this year, even if it is a bit bat shit crazy.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and The ABC's of Death were just plain old fun, and I just can't bring myself to apologize for enjoying the hell out of them.

Honorable Mentions (most of which were at least decent): World War Z, Stoker, Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, Texas Chainsaw 3D, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Warm Bodies, The Haunting in Connecticut: Ghosts of Georgia, Dark Skies.

 

Some of these movies made us sad, because we really wanted to love them. With the talent involved in Black Rock, Girls Against Boys, and The Purge, we expected the end results to be far better than they were. They were, for the most part, misfires.

V/H/S/2 had some solid and even shining moments throughout, but it was just too sloppy overall for us to like it on the whole.

The Last Exorcism II and Riddle tried really hard to be good movies, and they both looked great, but they were empty efforts.

The Lords of Salem further showed us that Rob Zombie peaked with Devil's Rejects, and that he may never again get back to that level of filmmaking. He's a visionary, but he desperately needs a solid writing partner.

The Purge sucked.

Last, and most definitely least of all, is Hidden in the Woods; pointless and mean spirited, we had zero fun watching it. then again, we're not the biggest fans of rape, and we like incoherent piles of shit even less, so...

Honorable Mentions (all of which I refuse to waste time reviewing): Oz, the Great and Powerful, A Haunted House, Scary Movie 5, The Call.

It's been a pretty decent year for Horror fans so far, but we're banking on the 2nd half of 2013 to really deliver the goods.

I guess we'll have to cover that next, eh?