Movies
[BEST & WORST ’11] Lauren Taylor’s List of the Best Horror Films of 2011!
I really like to make lists. I do top 5’s and top 10’s regularly on my tumblr. If I were to say what would top the Best New Things of 2011 list, it would be becoming a contributor on this site. So, when I was invited to take part in our Best/Worst of 2011, I got very excited. While I didn’t see as many films as I would’ve liked this year, 5 were definitely worthy of being labeled “the best”.
Best Horror of 2011: Lauren Taylor
Micah (Best/Worst) | Lonmonster (Best/Worst) | Evan Dickson (Best/Worst) | Lauren Taylor (Best/Worst)
Posters (Best/Worst) | Trailers (Best/Worst) | Performances (Best)
Having been given a Troma film as my first Bloody Disgusting review, I knew it would either be a hit or complete sh*t. I got a gem. Blood Junkie is a throwback that never realizes it is so, and has plenty of humor, gore and awesomeness. My review truly summed up why I put this on my Best of 2011: “All in all, the beauty of Blood Junkie definitely lies in the respect that it never takes itself seriously – which is unbelievably refreshing in an age where mainstream horror, that lacks any sort of charm, does.”
It could be true that I am putting this on my Best list just in case Adrien Brody would read it and be impressed and then call me up (please do). However, the idea of waking up, stuck in a car, dead bodies around you, not knowing what the hell is going on…it’s a bit nerve-wracking. Throw in a delectable performance by Adrien Brody and it’s an amazing experience. He rouses every emotion he portrays to perfection. And even swollen and bloody, I’m still unbelievably attracted to him. Psychological in the horror realm, and damn good at it, Wrecked is worth a re-watch.
Since April, I’ve watched a good handful of horror films – half of which dragged on, half pointless, and ended up crap. Rammbock is far from this. Running at 59 minutes, the movie throws you a ‘zombie’ story, plays it out and wraps it up neatly. There is still the classic moments of panic, overload, and loss – but without all of the filler.
Rarely does a ‘commercial’ film strike me in the way Insidious did. I watched it alone, on my couch, on a rainy day and there were many moments where I went “Eeeeeeeee!!!” loudly. Evoking the beauty of the classic Poltergeist, Insidious takes the haunted house story, adds a twist, and gives it a well done studio ending.
TrollHunter. Ahhh! This movie is just so beautiful. There are so many insane moments within i from the effects to the acting and setting. Everything makes it a lot of fun and my number 1 of 2011.
Unlike everyone else on the planet, I liked Burke & Hare. It could be that I want to have Simon Pegg’s babies, but I honestly felt the story was well told and well acted. The sets were superb, the cast was impeccable (I love Jessica Hynes) and it was a clever film. I can only think that perhaps Americans don’t like dark British humor. And accents.
There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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