50PageMcGee's Best of Horrorthon 2010

Maybe I'm not using the right search query, but I couldn't find any "Best of..." posted by anyone this season. This is one part of the tradition I hope doesn't fall by the wayside, although I'd be making a better case for the "Best of..." part being part of Thon tradition if I weren't writing mine in January.

1. Favorite: Black Sheep. Filled with over the top gore, great sight and dialogue gags, and some pretty strong performances, considering the light tone.

2. Hidden gem award: House of the Devil? Nothing I watched that was that great was really hidden. Unlike the venturesome Octopunk and Catfreek, I'm not trolling my local videotape rental place for lost classics -- I don't even own a VCR anymore. I'm surfing Netflix and mostly following their recommendations. That said, House of the Devil is quiet and slow-moving, but nonetheless creepy and effective. It deserves to win something from me, so why not this?

3. Most Disturbing: Cannibal Holocaust, by a country mile.

4. Scream Queen: Danielle Harris or Scout Taylor Compton in Halloween II. I was touting Hannah Tointon early on, but the Halloween II girls have the advantage of maturity and battle experience. Since the subheading for this category is, "actress with whom you'd most like to have dinner," the nod goes to Danielle Harris, who's prettier, and I'm less into blondes.

Scream King (stud): Dirch Passer in Reptilicus, obviously.


5. Worst: Zombie Strippers. I almost went with Blair Witch 2, solely on the strength of each character's Bohemian self-indulgence, but Zombie Strippers was far too amateurish and silly to be ignored. Talk about self-indulgent: Jenna Jameson wasn't even that great as a pornstar.

6. So Bad, It's Good Award: Night of the Creeps. Seems like the surefire formula for "So Bad, It's Good" is a mix of cheesy acting and strong story execution. Night of the Creeps features mostly just under par acting, but everyone involved in the project clearly had a Buckaroo Banzai-esque devotion to the project.

7. Goriest: Dead Snow. See picture at the top. Blood and viscer get all over everybody in this. Yay.

8. Most memorable death: Dead Snow: Erlend getting his head ripped in half.

9. Best-looking monster: The Human Centipede. I know, but I don't really have anything better to suggest, and the two girls in the back of the centipede are kind of hot and and are stitched ass-to-mouth. Let's remember that the actors themselves weren't actually stitched ass to mouth for the film, so it's two women with...y'know, I'm just going to stop talking because there's nothing I can say from here on out that's going to make me not look like a perverted weirdo.

10. Scariest: The Children. I pick this with some reservations because there was a little too much cutting away from the money shot going on in this. But given the obvious budget constraints, it's better that things are successfully suggested rather than unsuccessfully shown. I didn't see much that really scared me, and I'm hoping that that's less a sign that I'm getting jaded and more a sign that I didn't see enough movies this year.

On a final note, I have to give shoutouts to both the the Werner Herzog Nosferatu and Severance, both of which I saw, neither of which I could muster the enthusiasm to review. Herzog fans had been recommending Nosferatu to me for ages. It's amazing looking. It's a vast improvement over the original -- the storytelling is much less choppy, which makes it easier to get into the scariness of it. The cinematography and lighting are first-rate. Meanwhile, Severance succeeds in many of the ways that Dead Snow did and it's got one of the best sight-gags I've ever seen. I'm considering rewatching both films for next year's contest.

Okay, now that I no longer have that hanging over my head, I'm going to get back to fashioning tomorrow's mid-week contest thread. Hope you all like my idea.