As most of my readers know, I'm not the most current horror blogger on the Interwebs. I'm lucky to get out to the movie theaters, even luckier to catch new flicks on DVD unless they're sent directly to me. Even then, it takes me a while to get to them, meaning that when you read my review, the movie has already been out for a few weeks, or in most cases, decades. I'm working on that, I promise.
Nevertheless, it's difficult for me to participate in the annual year-end list when I haven't seen most of the movies that have come out this year. So instead of trying to fudge my way through an incomplete list, I figured I would point out the best films that I saw in 2011, regardless of their release date. Some of these movies are from 2011; some are not. All are films that I saw for the first time this year. Check it out below. They are in no particular order.
Black Swan
Black Swan was a twister of a film, full of suspense and some beautiful cinematography. At its core was a rather simple archetype of the psychological drama infused with the beauty and poetics of ballet and Swan Lake. More than that, though, was the stellar performance by Natalie Portman, along with dream-like fugues that elevated the film from oppressive to downright dreary. And whether you found the ending rewarding or disappointing, the dance to get there was well worth it.
Inception
Though I'm hesitant to include this on a list that features less action movies than horror, I will say that the Nolan brothers' Inception was a warped trip that hooked me from its opening. Despite its reliance on heady exposition to reveal the plot, the ingenious ways the film ventured into dreams was a pot smoker's delight. It was a film that made you feel like you were on LSD, without the dangers of actually falling from a ten-story building. Plus, it didn't hurt that Leonardo DiCaprio gave an emotional performance, though mostly similar to his miserable character from Shutter Island.
Black Death
Black Death unfortunately had a limited release, and most people probably missed it. Thankfully, it did show up in Redboxes and on Netflix instant; for fans of plague-era period pieces, viewers could do much worse (say, like the Nick Cage flick Season of the Witch) than this film. Black Death fused horror with the real terrors of religious persecution, crafting a witch hunt that constantly toys with the viewer's sense of truth and fiction for a tense, gritty experience. Plus, there's never a clear bias behind the story, meaning that the specifics of religion aren't targeted but simply the dangers of becoming wrapped up within a belief system.
The Devil's Backbone
An early film from Guillermo del Toro, The Devil's Backbone fits right at home with fairy tale atmospher of del Toro's later Pan's Labyrinth. But whereas that film emphasizes the illusions of fairy tale worlds, actually taking the viewer to the gothic locales, The Devil's Backbone simply presents the idea of living in a fairy tale, of getting away from the darkness of war and the even darker side of human nature. The ghosts that haunt the film are at first imbued with terrifying presence, but they soon become more human than some of the characters who attempt to abuse their power. It makes The Devil's Backbone a horror film with a sense of purpose, a ghost story with a message other than revenge from the afterlife.
Blood and Black Lace
Gialli are some of my favorite films, but I have to admit that they can certainly be done wrong. Blood and Black Lace is certainly not one of the poorer films in the genre, and it is rightfully one of the most revered giallo. That's because it captures the spirit of the genre perfectly: the coldness of the dark atmospheres coupled with the beauty of bright colors; a killer that eludes classification until the very end of the film; distinctive deaths infused with a sense of artistry.
The Caller
This was a surprising film that at first came off very similar to films like When A Stranger Calls. Instead, it was quickly apparent that The Caller was interested more in toying with the idea of interdimensional relations, the psychosis of an apartment dweller who finds that she's speaking with a caller who nice lived in apartment years ago. What ensues is a delightfully scary, suspenseful film about a woman trying to uncover a past that seems to exist solely in her imagination.
Buried
I'll be the first to admit I had my reservations about a film set almost entirely within a coffin under the ground. But what could have dissolved into an hour and a half of dithering with an inexperienced actor actually became an extremely tense film thanks to Ryan Reynolds' portrayal of an innocent man captured by terrorists and left to die by a government who cares more for their image than the people that do the dirty work for them. And there's no cop-out by director Rodrigo Cortes; the inevitability of the situation indicates that Buried will end with a happy ending, but instead Cortes presents an emotional, disturbing finale, one that characterizes Reynolds and his family with barely any expositional dialogue. It's an indictment of American negligence; it's also a film that forces the viewer to think about those that are fighting for us, those that are pulled into a predicament they didn't start, those that feel that killing for our country is the right thing to do, and those that don't lift a finger to end a mistake.
Scream 4
I know that many will disagree with me here; but my review and subsequent addition to this list does not come solely from my early obsession with Scream when I was younger. Wes Craven's return to his franchise smacks of the same metafiction that made New Nightmare such a success for the Nightmare on Elm Street saga. Scream 4 manages to capture the characters of the earlier films while adding successful new ones; it also subverts the problem of the Twlight-like teen characters by giving them dark backgrounds and little else. The film keeps the viewer guessing until the very end, and it even manages to combine remake twists and equally subvert them by turning new genre cliches on their heads. Some might find Scream 4 a trite way for Craven to make a few bucks off a dead series; but the movie successfully parodies the horror genre just as it did ten years ago, except this time it's updated so well that one can't help but root for another film in the series as long as it can capture the same essence.
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