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The Wednesday 10 : The Top 10 Horror Movies of the Decade
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With the first decade of the 2000s almost over, the lists are prepped, edited and ready to go, so that we can analyze just how good these past 10 years have been to us. For movies, it has been a land dominated by superheroes and the Frat-Pack. Remakes, an old staple of Hollywood, seem to be churned out weekly and like clockwork 3D has made its way back to screens, at least for a little while. There have been great new works from old directors like Scorsese and Lynch, with younger talents like Nolan and Arronofsky stepping up their game. More than anything else, there simply have been a gargantuan amount of pictures coming out. To help look back at the 00s, and to coincide with Halloween next week, we begin with the Top 10 Horror Movies of the Decade.
10. The Devil’s Backbone (2001): Before Guillermo del Toro became a well-known name with Pan’s Labyrinth and his superhero oddities (Blade II, Hellboy), he created this despair driven ghost story. Set during the bloody civil war in 1930s Spain, a young boy named Carlos (Fernando Tievle) is brought to an orphanage, where he begins to see the spirit of Santi, a missing child who forewarns that many will soon die. Gothic in mood, del Toro’s movie is a haunting treasure, sad and desperate. The scares may seem thin, but they build from a thick atmosphere of dread.
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9. The Others (2001): A key picture in Nicole Kidman’s metamorphosis from a famous actress to an iconic one, Alejandro Amenabar’s spooky film crawls slowly under your skin, letting its superb sound and production design do half the work, with its family living in a spacious, almost barren home. It is also the rare movie that puts children in danger without seeming hokey or melodramatic. Working both as a ghost-tale and a paranoid mystery, The Others is elegantly told by Amenabar, who weaves plot pieces delicately together, aided by Kidman’s prim performance, which ranks amongst her finest.
8. The Descent (2005): Guts and gore. Pop-out scares. Tension that creeps up inch by inch. Neil Marshall’s The Descent has all of these horror tropes, blended together into a claustrophobic fright-fest. A gang of friends run into endless nightmares as they go on a cave expedition, where they learn that lacking a proper map and cave-ins are the least of their worries, as little Gollum-esque creatures come crawling their way hoping for a bite. Marshall’s movie is bloody and brutal, though it never devolves into a silly monster movie. A film that knows how to use the darkness against you.
7. The Orphanage (2007): Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, with a marvelous script by Sergio G. Sanchez, The Orphanage is one of the scariest and often saddest movies of recent years. Stunningly shot, the movie focuses on Laura (Belen Rueda), a woman who opens an orphanage up inside her childhood home. Her son Simon (Roger Princep) grows angry in his new surroundings, with an imaginary friend that pushes these outbursts along, until they grow deadly. A huge part of the movie’s success comes from the familial element, especially Rueda’s distraught, motherly performance. Her anguish pushes The Orphanage to a higher level. Which doesn’t mean that Bayona skips out on the terror, with a childish knocking game in the final act that ranks amongst the all-time chillers.
6. Audition (2000): It is odd that Takashi Miike, a man known for some of the filthiest and most disgusting images on screen these past 10 years, did his best work when reigning it in with Audition. The last few scenes of the movie are almost legendary now. Oh, to have seen Miike’s film, with its plain but interesting melodramatic first half morph into an unsettling wonder, without knowing what was to transpire. Nonetheless, the imagery is unforgettable, as is little Eihi Shiina as Asami, whose mantra “Kiri, kiri, kiri” still echoes in the minds of all Audition viewers.
5. [Rec] (2007): Not the first to use the handheld, found-footage, and assuredly not the last, [Rec] stands out from the bunch for a number of reasons. Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza’s film, with additional screenplay help by Luis Berdejo, traps you inside a quarantined apartment building, and the need for escape, plus the futility of trying to, swarms one with dread and fear. As bad (old lady zombie) grows to worse (entire floors of people turned into zombies), [Rec] never lets it character rest, chasing its players through staircases and around viscous neighbors turned bloodthirsty beasts. Where so often the first-person vibe in horror is used to stoke your imagination, wondering what is outside of the frame, Balaguero and Plaza show you, and what is there is lunging for a piece of your flesh.
4. Let the Right One In (2008): Tomas Alfredson, working from John Ajvide Lindqvist’s story (he wrote the novel and screenplay), reinvented the idea of a vampire. To be one of the living dead isn’t chic or sexy, it is quite a miserable experience. Little Eli (the astonishingly talented Lina Leandersson), has been a vampire for centuries, leeching off passersby, with the occasional help by an elderly old man who brings her fresh gallons of blood. She is alone, unable to truly grow up, physically or mentally. Her eventual bonding with Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), a young boy with no friends of his own, becomes symbiotic. They love and protect each other, though Alfredson and Lindqvist never let on any idea of a happy outcome. Their bond is both eerie and moving, propelled by two of the finest child-acting performances of the decade.
3. Shaun of the Dead (2004): Who says horror movies can’t be funny? Edgar Wright, working with usual cohorts Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, merges all sorts of elements that aren’t supposed to work together, creating the world’s first rom-zom-com, nailing each element. Full of laughs and featuring a strong supporting cast (Bill Nighy, Lucy Davis, Kate Ashfield), what makes Shaun of the Dead so amazing is the way it steps away from the gags towards the end, becoming a genuine zombie-fest, with stomaches being ripped open for dinner. Frost is humorous but it is really Pegg’s agony in the finale, crying out over the possible loss of both his mum and best mate, that sells the weight of the matter.
2. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006): Guillermo del Toro’s ominous fairy-tale, with a lost, other-worldly princess and a collection of monstrosities and tests she must confront, is mesmerizing in all areas. The acting (Maribel Verdu, Ivano Baquero), the evil (Sergi Lopez’s malevolent Captain Vidal), the music (Javier Navarrete’s enchanting score) and the look (del Toro and production designer Eugenio Cabarello), each compliment and enhance Pan’s Labyrinth with an awareness of how to construct meticulous suspense. The movie glows with imagination but its is rooted in real emotions. Ofelia’s concern over her mother. Vidal’s anger over insolence. Mercedes’ desire to overthrow a fascist Spain. These elements, and del Toro’s ability to infuse them with the fantastical, are the movie’s backbone. Thus, Ofelia’s incredible endeavors (the famous trip past the Pale-Man) are more than fantastical trysts, they are life and death.
1. 28 Days Later (2002): Before zombie movies returned to cool-kid fashion and Danny Boyle became beloved by the masses for Slumdog Millionaire, there was 28 Days Later. An amalgam of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and The Crazies, with a dash of The Day of the Triffids, Boyle’s movie ranks near the top of history’s most intense film experiences. With screenplay help by Alex Garland, Boyle morphs London from one of the world’s busiest cities to a barren wasteland, where only the vitriolic, diseased ridden Infected roam, plus a staggering, confused Cillian Murphy. With its quick cuts and cheap look, 28 Days Later creates an authentic society, where utter insanity is only a drop of blood away. A land where the monsters may not even be the scariest thing out there. This is ferocious filmmaking, disorienting to the senses in a way only the best horror films can be.
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