Editorials
Best & Worst ’10: HORROR GUY KEENAN’S BOTTOM 5 OF 2010
It is SO much easier to write bad things for films than good things, that’s for damn sure. These films below have stuck out in my head all year as the horror films I wish I had an rusty, jagged, needled filled scrub brush covered in acid to wash the horrid viewings away with. Check ’em out!
BC (Best/Worst) | Micah (Best/Worst) | Keenan (Best/Worst) | Theo (Best/Worst)
Best One Sheets | Worst One Sheets
Most Memorable Moments | Top Trailers | Memorable Quotes
HORROR GUY KEENAN’S BOTTOM 5 OF 2010
Unlike the other films in this category, Serbian is shot beautifully and tells a powerful story. But when does storytelling go too far? I would have to say when it reaches the limits that this film did. Ever since I started writing reviews for horror films I have never encountered such a more brutal and painful film as this. I never thought I had a limit until I watched Serbian Film. I hope this is the last time I ever have to write about it because even the thought in my head of this film makes me sick. I’m sure by me saying this most of you now want to see it more than ever. But just remember, I warned you.
This film is a perfect example of how to ruin something fun and exciting. A lot of shaky cam films have come out in the past few years. Some good, some not so good. It’s an easy thing to screw up and look very armature. The Possession does just that. People in a room running around screaming with bad lighting so you never really see any creatures in this small apartment of death and despair. Possession had so many problems throughout itself, along with the fact that it wasn’t even a camera you were looking through. It was through the eyes of each person in the house. But it still felt like a camera. Nothing memorable about this film AT all.
We have all heard the term ‘rape my childhood’ with many reboots of TV series and movies. But Clash really took the cake and ruined what was something amazing and memorable to me as a child. Mixing 300 like actions scenes with Clash was already a mistake, not to mention a story that falls all over itself. Even the 3D was not even enjoyable in theaters. There was no reason for this film to even be 3D without one agenda in mind, to make a buck. This has already become a forgotten remake while everyone still holds high Ray Harryhausen’s original classic masterpiece.
I really loved Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever and when I heard it was getting a sequel I got excited until I heard Eli was not coming back on board. Then it sat in limbo for what seemed like ages! When a film takes this long to get off the ground, there is a reason for it and it should just not be made. While filming, director Ti West’s (The House of the Devil) had so many problems on set that he wanted his name removed from the film and did not even want to finish the film. Hence why the film takes a random turn midway through. Why I still own a copy of this POS I have no idea? Don’t let the cool box art fool ya.
Talk about a piece of crap! This is possibly the worst thing I had ever had to sit through. From what it looks like The Suicide Girls camp wanted to make a reality series for MTV and filmed there “models” staying at a camp while someone starts picking them off one by one. The girls think this is just a photoshoot gig but it’s something more. Well it’s just really dumb. Girls just walk away and disappear and you sit around and watch these girls just bitch to each other about one another and ask “Whatever happened to so and so?” Some girls are acting (or trying to for that matter) because they are let in on this cheap trick of reality tv. The girls are not even attractive AT ALL so why should you really watch this in the first place? Well it looks like nobody picked this series up so they just mashed all the episodes into one film and you can blatantly tell. There is no reason for anyone to want to watch this thing. If you want to see pretty photoshopped Suicide Girls just check out their web site. They look allot better when they are not talking anyways.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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