The Johnny Sweatpants 2009 Horrorthon Scorecard

Firstly congratulations to Catfreeek. In addition to soundly thrashing the competition this year, she brought our attention to some impressive horror movies (as well as several I hope to never hear of again).



Meow

Best/Most Disturbing/Goriest – Martyrs. Martyrs makes the Saw movies look about as scary as that Brady Bunch episode when Bobby exclaimed “Mom always said, ‘don’t play ball in the house.’” The climax is so brutally shocking that my brain didn’t register what my eyes were bearing witness to until someone in the room described it. Director Pascal Laugier actually apologizes for his film in advance but insists that it was a movie he absolutely had to make. Wrapped in a cleverly constructed mystery, Martyrs is vicious yet impressively artistic; the violence is depicted in realtime and there's no dramatic music or thumping noises to tell you when to be scared. What begins as a seemingly incoherent gratuitous shock-fest ends with a very satisfying explanation. I felt an unexpected catharsis when it concluded. Then I was depressed for a week.

Scariest – Inside. There have been multiple effective home invasion movies in recent years but none gave me the willies quite like Inside did.

Best Looking Monster - Mull from Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster for obvious reasons.

Scream Queen: Leslie Bibb from The Midnight Meat Train and Trick ‘r Treat.


Worst: This is where I normally enjoy a good rant but sadly I didn’t watch any terrible movies this year. Pervert was pretty rough but it was still bearable for sexy reasons.

Most Memorable Death: The pool drowning victim in The Legacy. How awful would it be to try and come up for air only to discover a glass barrier and a blurry old man watching you from above? As Octopunk put it “one good death and you’re immortal”.

So Bad It’s Good: Deathbed ran the table in this category. A sad artist trapped in a painting attempts to dignify a concept so unbelievably insipid - and fails spectacularly.
The bed ate the skin off his hands.

Hidden Gem: Deathdream. I was expecting a 70’s crapfest but was instead treated to a wholly entertaining ghost/zombie thingamadoodle.

While I'm yapping, I'd like to take this opportunity to resume the weekly Haiku Hump Day competition. Congratulations to Handsome Stan for preferring to die in this dramatically extreme fashion:

Heroin, nitrous,
Skydive with no parachute
While getting blow job