Movies
Year in Review: Ryan Daley’s Best & Worst Movies of 2008!
Leading up until the New Year we’ll be unloading the best and worst lists of 2008 from all of Bloody-Disgusting’s official reviewers. Beyond the break you can check out Ryan Daley’s Best & Worst Horror Films of 2008, with lists from David Harley and myself still coming soon. Click here to keep up with the full year in review and also feel free to post your thoughts below, or at our forum’s Top 10 of 2008 forum thread.
Mr. Disgusting’s Best & Worst / Ryan Daley / BC’s Best & Worst / David Harley’s Best & Worst / Tim Anderson
Also check out this year’s Best & Worst Posters
Ryan Daley’s Best DVDs of 2008
I’m not a huge fan of horror-comedies but this goofy, direct-to-DVD effort somehow won me over. A trio of roommates moves into an apartment that squats over the mouth of hell. A whole bunch of low-budget wackiness ensues. A guilty pleasure, to say the least.
We may be through with torture-porn, but torture-porn sure ain’t through with us. This bleak but compelling French film reminds us why backwoods neo-Nazis are worth avoiding. Energetic and raw.
Starring the uber-foxy Teresa Palmer. That’s really all you need to know.
An homage to Italian exploitation films of the 1970s, this grainy, overwrought crowd-pleaser wins the award for Best Special Effect Involving a Neck Goiter.
Gary Oldman saves a little girl with deformed flipper hands from a bunch of raving hillbillies. Kind of like STRAW DOGS but with deformed flipper hands standing in for retardation.
Neil Marshall’s follow up to THE DESCENT is just craaaaazy. A smashed-together amalgam of MAD MAX, RESIDENT EVIL, and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK that manages to be constantly entertaining even when it’s making absolutely no sense.
This polarizing horror-comedy isn’t for everyone. A mismatched group of friends retreat to a forest cabin to get drunk, flirt with each other, and write a horror screenplay, even as a creepy Baghead killer watches them from the woods. The (mostly) improvised conversations are hilarious, and a few eerie scenes help bolster the horror aspects of the production. A low-budget experiment that actually works.
Available on Lionsgate’s 6 FILMS TO KEEP YOU AWAKE 3-disc set, this Spanish flick begins as a kid-friendly romp before making a staggeringly dark right turn into horror terrain. A genre gem waiting to be discovered.
The best show on television (now that THE SHIELD, THE WIRE, and DEADWOOD are finished) truly hits its stride in its sophomore season. Charismatic serial killer Dexter comes perilously close to getting nabbed by the po-po, while immature sister Deb continues to annoy the shit out of everyone with a complete lack of professionalism that makes Ally McBeal look like a progressive feminist in comparison. Yeah, Deb bugs. Still a great show, though.
A French film that shatters one of the oldest horror movie taboos into a million pieces. Not for the squeamish, INSIDE is a slick, mean-spirited shocker that goes where you don’t think it dares. Easily the best horror film I have seen this year.
Ryan Daley’s Worst DVDs of 2008
Shannyn Sossamon spends what seems like years running around wet Parisian tunnels in an attempt to escape a developmentally disabled goat-head killer. Like watching a cruddy Travel channel documentary about dark, wet tunnels.
Nobody really expected thrash metal band Lordi’s first movie to be any GOOD, but this…well, this is abysmal. A man and his daughter get trapped in a hospital elevator by a fully-costumed Lordi, who try to act scary through about 25 pounds of bulky foam and fail miserably. Ugh.
Sure there were some eerie moments but come on, that had to have been the worst ending this side of HIGH TENSION. I, for one, thought THE STRANGERS was much better. Scott Speedman notwithstanding.
Lame Pakistani horror film crippled by stilted dialogue and the worst movie soundtrack EVER. I’d rather suicide bomb an Arby’s than have to sit through this one again.
A supremely boring crime drama posing as a horror film. This DIY effort centers around a few friends who stage a laboriously paced stake-out in a parked van. If you’re into bad direction and plodding dialogue, pop a bowl of popcorn, grab some smelling salts, and check this one out. It’s best watched in five or six sittings spread out over the course of several weeks.
Toho has just dropped another teaser for their highly anticipated sequel to 2023’s monstrous hit, Godzilla Minus One. While the confirmation that Takashi Yamazaki is returning for another round of emotionally resonant kaiju action is exciting enough, fans have also noticed a not-so-subtle detail hidden away in the trailer’s accompanying poster/promotional imagery.
The upper right corner of the newly released image initially appears to show golden rays of sunlight peeking in through the clouds behind Godzilla, but the unnatural bursts of lightning and hurricane-like winds surrounding the monster (not to mention the light’s vaguely draconic shape) may actually be teasing something far more dangerous.
Die-hard kaiju fans are more than aware that Godzilla’s arch-enemy King Ghidorah is a flying golden monster often associated with storms, with this three-headed dragon also being capable of breathing out lightning-like “Gravity Beams” to counter his mortal enemy’s atomic blasts. That’s why it seems like the imagery is hinting at a second kaiju threat this time around.
Combine this information with what we see in the teaser itself, and it appears that Godzilla Minus Zero may very well involve former weapons engineer Kenji Noda using nuclear weapons to awaken another giant monster capable of defeating Godzilla for good – a decision that could have disastrous consequences for our protagonists and the rest of Japan.
This is all just speculation at this point, but Minus Zero’s tagline, “There is no third time. Everything ends here,” and official synopsis make it clear that humanity will stop at nothing to end the kaiju threat once and for all. Yamazaki has also gone on record saying that he’s a huge fan of GMK: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, the only Godzilla movie where Ghidorah is portrayed as a hero – though I doubt that will be the case this time around.
Either way, we’ll have to wait a little longer before we know for sure. However, in the meantime, don’t forget to comment below with your own theories about where Yamazaki intends to take the story next, as we’d love to hear what our fellow Monster Movie fans have to say!
The first Japanese film to be filmed for IMAX, Godzilla Minus Zero releases November 6 in theaters around the globe.
Godzilla chomps down on King Ghidorah in ‘GMK: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack’
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