So we already know from our
Middlin's and
Worst of's, that
You're Next,
Contracted,
Chucky, and
Warm Bodies will not be included in our
Best Of 2013. We haven't seen
American Mary,
Antiviral,
Byzantium,
The Battery,
Resolution,
The Seasoning House or
Simon Killer, so they won't be included here either.
So what in the hell is left?
Plenty. There are plenty of great movies left.
3 remakes, 2 Documentaries, 2 x
James Wan, 1
Hollywood Blockbuster, and 2 little flicks that most people probably don't even know exist...
Let's take a look, shall we?
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| Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th |
A
Direct-to-Video Documentary making our
Best Of 2013 list, what madness is this? Clocking in at nearly 7 Hours, this exhaustive retrospective of the
Friday the 13th Series is about as perfect as a document of its type can hope to be. If you love
Jason and his exploits, or even if you don't, watching the cast & crew from all 12 of the
F13th movies (and even the
TV Show) share their experiences with us, is nothing short of
Heavenly. This is absolutely one of the coolest
Blu-rays that we've ever bought, and one of the biggest highlights of the year for us.
Our Review of
Crystal Lake Memories.
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| Evil Dead |
If you would have told me last year that this remake of the beloved
1981 Horror classic would be one of our favorite flicks of the year, I would have slapped you in the mouth. Turns out I would have had to profusely apologize for that slap, because
Evil Dead was absolutely one of the most enjoyable
Horror flicks of the year. It's bloody, nasty, and it even manages to be creepy at times. Trust us, we're as surprised as you to find that we really liked this one, let alone that we found it to be one of the best movies of 2013.
Our Review of
Evil Dead.
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| Insidious: Chapter 2 |
Better than the first one, and effective as hell,
Insidious 2 was a big surprise for us. We liked
James Wan's first
Insidious effort (though we did have some issue with it), but with his sequel he's improved on the formula and given us a far more engrossing and satisfying film. $160 million worldwide on a $5 million budget; numbers like that speak a lot to a filmmakers talent and ability.
James Wan knows how to scare us, kids, and this year he did it better than just about anybody else.
Our Review of
Insidious: Chapter 2.
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| The Conjuring |
That doll. That fucking doll. I know the doll isn't the point of the movie at all, but still it haunts our dreams.
The Conjuring isn't the most terrifying movie ever made (as it, and many of its fans, would have you believe), but it is an extremely well made move that delivers the right amount of scares to compliment the fantastic atmosphere and mood that
James Wan has set for us. The film has raked in over $316 million at the worldwide
Box Office, so you know there's going to be a sequel... or three. Fine with us. The world of
The Conjuring is a place we'd gladly revisit.
Our Review of
The Conjuring.
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| Maniac |
Who would have though that little
Frobo Bagglins (you know, the
Hobbit) would ever grow up to be an insane creeper who stalks sluts and scalps them, all because his dead whore Mother wills it so? Was she a
Hobbit too? I don't know about all of that, but I do know that
Maniac is a disturbing, bloody, different kind of flick, that sticks to
Horror convention while managing to forge its own path at the same time. We regret that the classic "
Shotgun Scene" from the original wasn't included in this version, but minor gripes aside, this was one satisfying remake.
Elijah Wood is so good in this movie, that you'll never look at little
Frobo the same way again. *Unless you already found him creepy and odd, then, you'll look at him in pretty much the same way.
Our Review of
Maniac.
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| Blind Alley |
The reason that
Blind Alley made our
Best of 2013 list isn't necessarily because it was a better movie than many of the great flicks that didn't make the cut, but because it reminded us of a better time. Sure, it's not perfect, and you could easily dismiss some of it as being outright silly, but we're pretty sure that was the whole point; this film is, after all, one big homage to the crazy
Euro-Horror flicks of the 70's & 80's. It's crazy, bloody, and has a pretty "out there" finale that will leave you asking just where in the hell that insanity came from... just like so many of our most beloved foreign
Horror flicks of decades gone by. We just really love this little flick because it made us feel good. Also, did we mention how insanely hot
Ana de Armas is in this movie? Because she is. That helped a lot too.
Our Review of
Blind Alley.
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| Dark Touch |
Dark Touch is a powerful meditation on the evils of child abuse, and the devastating effects that such acts can have on children... all taken to a horrifying extreme. The movie unsettled us with its dark mood, quiet atmosphere, and violent goings-on, but it really hit us the hardest with its subtext.
Missy Keating (daughter of singer
Ronan Keating) was great in the role of a troubled girl who uses her dark gifts to lash out at those around her whom she perceives as threats.
Dark Touch left its dark impression on us long after the last of its credits had rolled, and it's one movie that we won't soon forget.
We have not yet reviewed
Dark Touch.
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| Prisoners |
We've said it before, and we will say it again: we're absolute suckers for movies about
Cops hunting down
Serial Killers.
Prisoners is a top-notch movie of the highest order, pitting
Jake Gyllenhaal (the
Cop) against not only a distraught and vengeful father (
Hugh Jackman) who is trying to come to grips with his young daughter being kidnapped, but the
Serial Killer who abducted her. This film is gorgeous and filled with uneasy tension, and we were surprised to see just how far it delved into the taboo world of torture. Easily one of the best movies of the year, in any
Genre.
Our Review of
Prisoners.
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| Room 237 |
Another
Documentary? What is wrong with us? What's wrong is that much like
Crystal Lake Memories before it,
Room 237 is just too good for
Horror fans to ignore.
Room 237 is a look at
Stanley Kubrick's oft maligned
Horror masterpiece,
The Shining. This
Doc peels back the layers of the 1980 movie to reveal hidden messages, subtext, plots, meanings, and conspiracy theories... it's pretty bat-shit crazy stuff. The craziest part of the whole thing is just how absolutely plausible some of it feels, because none of it should be plausible at all. Love
The Shining or hate it, you will never see it in the same light again after watching this insane
Documentary. This is truly compelling stuff.
Our Review of
Room 237.
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| We Are What We Are |
As a remake,
We Are What We Are floored us with just how solid it was, and in all honesty, we may even like this version better than the
2010 Mexican original. *We say maybe, because we haven't decided that yet.
We Are What We Are tells the story of an odd family that has some disturbing customs and practices, the likes of which made us not want to eat meat for a few days after watching this movie. It's a
Gothic Horror story that keeps itself on the slow boil, building its impending sense of doom little by little, and then unleashes an ending that left us feeling worn and in need of recovery. Well, maybe it wasn't all all that dramatic at the end, but it was impressive and effective, none the less.
We have not yet reviewed
We Are What We Are.
Some of the following
Honorable Mentions could have easily been at the top of our
Best of 2013 list, and just because they're runners-up doesn't mean that they aren't great flicks in their own right. They're at least really good. At very least, they're good. Most of them are pretty good.
Gah, you get the point!
The ABC's of Death was an entertaining, if uneven affair.
Even though
Mandy Lane was made way back in 2007, it gets a shout out here because it finally made it to an actual release. It's a solid little teen Slasher flick.
Children... is an older release from 2011 that we just discovered this year, so we felt compelled to give it a shout out here as well. It's a hauntingly eerie
Korean Thriller akin to movies like
Memories of Murder, that will play your emotions and mess with your head. You'll have to go the foreign
DVD route of you want to see this one, but it's definitely worth the effort.
The Frankenstein Theory was one of the better
Found Footage flicks that we've seen in a while.
Hatchet III was solid, and our favorite entry in the series.
THIC: Ghosts of Georgia was better than it had any right to be, and we found ourselves liking it way more than we should have.
Here Comes the Devil was an odd, cheap-looking movie that gripped us tight and held us in suspense until the credits rolled. The ending was a bit of a
WTF type of moment, but overall, it was a solid watch.
Jug Face was interesting and fresh enough to earn our love and admiration.
If the ending of
Mama hadn't turned into some butterfly-filled hug fest, it would have easily made the top of our list. It was a really great movie with a shit ending.
Stoker was really good, but it seemed to be this year's "it movie" amongst hipsters, whom enjoyed it far more than we did.
As much as we were waiting to utterly hate
World War Z, we found ourselves enjoying the hell out of it instead. Much like
Pacific Rim,
WWZ was met with much negativity, most of which we just do not get. This was a fun
Zombie Apocalypse movie. Period.
We found
Would You Rather? to be a clever movie, and we'd rather watch it than most of the other
Horror flicks that came out this year. Look at that, we're clever too!
There were some truly great Non-Genre flicks that saw release in 2013, and some of them actually surprised the hell out of us. *We're mainly talking about The Hobbit here, because the first Hobbit flick sucked, and we quite liked the new one.
For the record: None of the following movies are Horror flicks. I've seen some of these movies land on a few different Horror sites' "Best of" lists, and it perplexed me... mainly because as a site that caters to all things Horror, it's pretty fucking lazy to pawn off flicks like This is the End or Gravity as one of your 10 best of the year. Both are great flicks, but are you telling me that you can't highlight 10 actual Horror movies as your Best/Worst of the year, when the entire focus and purpose of your Website's existence is to celebrate and promote the Horror genre?
That is some truly weak shit.
Fast 6 was fun and exciting. The entire
Fast & Furious Series is not meant to be taken all that seriously, so we can forgive it for being as dumb as it is at times, because it has entertained the hell out of us over the years. Sometimes, fun is better.
Gravity was an intense thrill ride that we loved, though it's sure to get far more
Oscar love than it should come
March 5th.
We hated
The Hobbit when we saw it last year. Where we found the
LOTR flicks to be near perfect in most ways, we found
Jackson's first
Hobbit flick to be silly, over-long, and instantly forgettable... and then we saw T
he Desolation of Smaug. Aside from the ridiculously awful "barrel ride" sequence,
DOS was a vast improvement over the first movie, and we thoroughly enjoyed the shit out of it. We're actually excited to see the third one now.
Catching Fire was better than
The Hunger Games, and we absolutely loved the first one.
We really liked
Kick-Ass 2 despite it being a bit lackluster, and nowhere near as clever and fresh as the first movie.We can't rationally explain it, we just liked this one a lot.
Superheroes had a big year, with
Man of Steel,
Wolverine, and
Thor each giving us different levels of enjoyment, in very different ways.
Mud is a s far outside of the "
Genre" fold as we're going with this list, but we just had to mention it. It's a drama, but it engaged us just as much as any
Thriller did this year. He won't get it, but
Matthew McConuaghey deserves and
Oscar nom for this movie, because both he and it were simply phenomenal.
Pacific Rim pretty much bombed at the
Box Office, but that doesn't mean it wasn't one hell of a fun movie to experience. As giant robot movies go, this one is probably our fave.
Finally we have
This is the End; the
Global Apocalypse movie that was funnier and more enjoyable than most other comedies that came out in
2013. It's truly a unique movie, and definitely one of our faves of the year.
So there you have it.
2013 is all finished, and these are the best
Horror &
Genre flicks that it had to offer us ( subjectively of course.) Seek them out, watch them, and be better off for it.
Let's hope that
2014 can be an ever better year for we fans of filmed entertainment.
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