So, it's the end of the year here and we're going to provide a general round-up and overview of the previous year just as a general touching-base article on the year in general. Expect one of these every year here as we tackle a look at the trends and major themes of the previous year in the genre.
So, where do we start here? Well, obviously there's the good that must be acknowledged, where the genre featured numerous positives and incredibly well-deserved mentions in the mainstream media. With sterling entries A Quiet Place, Hereditary, The Meg and The Nun all receiving theatrical releases with generally positive mainstream attention. The gluttony of efforts offered up on streaming services Netflix and Shudder provided the year with some fantastic choices, including some that actually ended up being apart of the year-end list I made.
Now, with that said, let's take a quick look at several other items I noticed throughout the year. We all know the debate that raged on between 'Arthouse/Literary/Evolved' or whatever term was brought out to lump together all the mainstream titles that sought to move the genre beyond the grindhouse and into a more accepted place in cinema. Honestly, I couldn't care less about the debates, they're not important and the fact that at the end of the day they're still Creature Features, Supernatural, Slasher or whatever genre they've been all along at the end of the day is of more importance here so that was never an argument I felt the need to get involved in.
However, several other topics here warrant a minor mention:
Each of these sections warrants a little exploration. Firstly, foreign horror of any kind this year proved incredibly successful and offered up numerous titles to choose from should you be looking for a particular style. As is to be expected, Asia produced a wide variety of titles, with the standout South Korean found-footage effort Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (coincidentally #2 on my 2018 list), the bizarre Japanese animated effort Violence Voyager and the uproarious comedy One Cut of the Dead (taking places #3 and #5 on my list, respectively) but also finding a strong showing from Indonesia in May the Devil Take You, Sabrina, Kuntilanak and The 3rd Eye all bearing strong mention for the year.
Mainland Europe had a decent showing overall, providing enjoyable if not really dominating like most years. The most impactful effort was the Spanish/French co-production Cold Skin, a really enjoyable and entertaining monster movie that has a lot to recommend. The Irish haunted house-throwback The Lodgers and the stellar British anthology Ghost Stories makes for a fine showing in the UK as well as the celebrated creature feature The Ritual, while entries of note also emerged from Norway (the Christmas-set slasher Christmas Blood), Austria (a fantastic ghost drama in The Dark) and France (The Night Eats the World, which I'll talk about in a bit).
However, it was mostly the Latin countries that really stood out this year. Spain offered the first real blow with the tremendously enjoyable Veronica, one of the years' best films of the year. I wasn't as fond of their other big release, House of Sand and Tears, but it has it's moments and definitely worthwhile if you can find it. It was just a prelude, though, to the cavalcade of releases that emerged from South American. Never before has a gluttony of releases made it to US shores in one year from a multitude of countries, and then to add onto that the fact that they're all as good as they are is a fine capper to the proceedings. Chile offered up the gritty, bloodsoaked exploitation-esque Trauma, while a double-bill of Argentinian efforts provided plenty to like here with both the supernatural jump-fest Terrified (or Aterrados, just to separate this one from the other similarly-named Terrifier) and the religion-based horror Luciferina also scoring exceptionally well. Brazil even offered up the stellar and morbidly-chilling The Nightshifter, giving a truly well-rounded and thrilling example of films that came out from these unsuspecting genres.
So, with that, the other big feature from the year prior was the dearth of quality in zombie films. This is especially shocking considering how good it was the previous few years, but this year we had a noticeable dropoff in the genre. There were a few entries, granted, but let's run through them to see what they turned out to be like:
Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies-Despite the fact that it's certainly energetic and gory enough with plenty of action throughout, the low-budget and somewhat jerky pacing really provide some scattershot viewing.
Cargo-While it's heartwarming and tender, there's no focus on the zombies due to the interactions with a random assortment of different people and a glacial tempo that invites boredom more than anything.
The Cured-A decent idea and one of the most creative concepts introduced in the genre (I know of the BBC TV show, but it's new to feature-length movies) but it's not interesting and the action at the end is wasted.
The Night Eats the World-An idea more suited to a short film or an anthology entry as the short-form nature of the storyline makes this repetitive and boring, while there is enough to like in the final half to make it worthwhile.
Patient Zero-Some good ideas about the evolution of the creatures and some fantastic action in the second half, but it's way too cheap-looking and hokey to be taken as anything more than a low-budget curiosity.
The Ravenous-Easily the best of the bunch, but it's just too existential with all the rather lame dialog and no real sense of urgency or energy to anything that happens that lower the sterling technical qualities.
It's quite disheartening to see this happen knowing that the genre was so underwhelming, not just on a personal sense (I personally love the genre the most) so personally I'm hoping for this to be a minor blip in the field rather than the starting point of a general downward spiral.
So, where do we start here? Well, obviously there's the good that must be acknowledged, where the genre featured numerous positives and incredibly well-deserved mentions in the mainstream media. With sterling entries A Quiet Place, Hereditary, The Meg and The Nun all receiving theatrical releases with generally positive mainstream attention. The gluttony of efforts offered up on streaming services Netflix and Shudder provided the year with some fantastic choices, including some that actually ended up being apart of the year-end list I made.
Now, with that said, let's take a quick look at several other items I noticed throughout the year. We all know the debate that raged on between 'Arthouse/Literary/Evolved' or whatever term was brought out to lump together all the mainstream titles that sought to move the genre beyond the grindhouse and into a more accepted place in cinema. Honestly, I couldn't care less about the debates, they're not important and the fact that at the end of the day they're still Creature Features, Supernatural, Slasher or whatever genre they've been all along at the end of the day is of more importance here so that was never an argument I felt the need to get involved in.
However, several other topics here warrant a minor mention:
- The influx of foreign (especially Latin American) horror onto North American shores
- The overall dearth of quality in zombie films.
Each of these sections warrants a little exploration. Firstly, foreign horror of any kind this year proved incredibly successful and offered up numerous titles to choose from should you be looking for a particular style. As is to be expected, Asia produced a wide variety of titles, with the standout South Korean found-footage effort Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (coincidentally #2 on my 2018 list), the bizarre Japanese animated effort Violence Voyager and the uproarious comedy One Cut of the Dead (taking places #3 and #5 on my list, respectively) but also finding a strong showing from Indonesia in May the Devil Take You, Sabrina, Kuntilanak and The 3rd Eye all bearing strong mention for the year.
Mainland Europe had a decent showing overall, providing enjoyable if not really dominating like most years. The most impactful effort was the Spanish/French co-production Cold Skin, a really enjoyable and entertaining monster movie that has a lot to recommend. The Irish haunted house-throwback The Lodgers and the stellar British anthology Ghost Stories makes for a fine showing in the UK as well as the celebrated creature feature The Ritual, while entries of note also emerged from Norway (the Christmas-set slasher Christmas Blood), Austria (a fantastic ghost drama in The Dark) and France (The Night Eats the World, which I'll talk about in a bit).
However, it was mostly the Latin countries that really stood out this year. Spain offered the first real blow with the tremendously enjoyable Veronica, one of the years' best films of the year. I wasn't as fond of their other big release, House of Sand and Tears, but it has it's moments and definitely worthwhile if you can find it. It was just a prelude, though, to the cavalcade of releases that emerged from South American. Never before has a gluttony of releases made it to US shores in one year from a multitude of countries, and then to add onto that the fact that they're all as good as they are is a fine capper to the proceedings. Chile offered up the gritty, bloodsoaked exploitation-esque Trauma, while a double-bill of Argentinian efforts provided plenty to like here with both the supernatural jump-fest Terrified (or Aterrados, just to separate this one from the other similarly-named Terrifier) and the religion-based horror Luciferina also scoring exceptionally well. Brazil even offered up the stellar and morbidly-chilling The Nightshifter, giving a truly well-rounded and thrilling example of films that came out from these unsuspecting genres.
So, with that, the other big feature from the year prior was the dearth of quality in zombie films. This is especially shocking considering how good it was the previous few years, but this year we had a noticeable dropoff in the genre. There were a few entries, granted, but let's run through them to see what they turned out to be like:
Attack of the Southern Fried Zombies-Despite the fact that it's certainly energetic and gory enough with plenty of action throughout, the low-budget and somewhat jerky pacing really provide some scattershot viewing.
Cargo-While it's heartwarming and tender, there's no focus on the zombies due to the interactions with a random assortment of different people and a glacial tempo that invites boredom more than anything.
The Cured-A decent idea and one of the most creative concepts introduced in the genre (I know of the BBC TV show, but it's new to feature-length movies) but it's not interesting and the action at the end is wasted.
The Night Eats the World-An idea more suited to a short film or an anthology entry as the short-form nature of the storyline makes this repetitive and boring, while there is enough to like in the final half to make it worthwhile.
Patient Zero-Some good ideas about the evolution of the creatures and some fantastic action in the second half, but it's way too cheap-looking and hokey to be taken as anything more than a low-budget curiosity.
The Ravenous-Easily the best of the bunch, but it's just too existential with all the rather lame dialog and no real sense of urgency or energy to anything that happens that lower the sterling technical qualities.
It's quite disheartening to see this happen knowing that the genre was so underwhelming, not just on a personal sense (I personally love the genre the most) so personally I'm hoping for this to be a minor blip in the field rather than the starting point of a general downward spiral.
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