Movies
Best & Worst of 2009: Ryan Daley Picks His Bottom 5!
As I’m primarily a DVD critic for Bloody-Disgusting, my year-end Top 10 list traditionally cites only DVD horror releases for a given year, which automatically excludes some of the movies I’ve seen at festivals or through pre-release screeners. Whereas I’m generally jealous of my fellow B-D critics for their all-encompassing year-end lists, I have to admit that 2009 was a fantastic year for horror DVDs, and this list was a pure pleasure to put together. Once again, just so I don’t catch any flak down in the comments, this is a list of the WORST HORROR DVDS OF 2009.
David Harley (Best/Worst) | Ryan Daley (Best/Worst)
RYAN DALEY’S BOTTOM 5 OF 2009
This is the first year I’ve had the same director appear on both my “best” and “worst” lists, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. I loved director Toby Wilkins’ Splinter as much as I hated The Grudge 3, a sequel that stomped the previously respectable franchise into the Japanese dirt. Sloppy and awkward, it’s a pasty-faced effort that should be forgotten as quickly as it was conceived.
Train tried its best to swing a big gory dick in the face of horror fans, but the flat characters couldn’t carry the show. Brutal and highly effective makeup effects can’t save a movie with a plot that’s this damn derivative. Hostel on a Train (as it’s been occasionally dubbed) is too kind. Retard Hostel on Car Number Six would be more accurate. Bad plotting, bad characters, bad movie.
Remember in The Fly, after Jeff Goldblum put that steak through his transport pods and then fried it up, how it didn’t quite taste right? If you put a quality torture-porn movie through Brundle’s pods, it would emerge tasting a lot like Gnaw.
Horror fans have been jizzing all over this movie since September, but here’s my take. Out of all of the people who wanted to see Paranormal Activity, I’d guess about 25% got a chance to catch it in a movie theater. The remaining 75% will have to wait for the DVD release. And I’m predicting the worst DVD backlash this side of The Blair Witch Project. Paranormal Activity has been insanely over-hyped, and soon everyone will see that there’s nothing behind the curtain but a little, musty old man. This movie has been loitering around the festival circuit for the past few years, and it suddenly finds success after Spielberg helps tack on a new ending? Whatever. After mentally preparing themselves for the most frightening movie of the past 10 years, DVD audiences will be faced with a poorly-acted, piece-of-shit home movie with exactly three scares. It’s not going to be pretty. Hope you saw it in the theater when you had the chance.
Survivalist drama disguised as suspense film, The Canyon is easily the worst film I’ve seen this year. With picturesque Grand Canyon cinematography and an interesting character performance by Will Patton, it’s a movie that starts with a fair amount of potential before regressing into a slow-witted impression of a Reader’s Digest reenactment. Avoid with extreme prejudice.
Movies
Matilda Firth Joins the Cast of Director Leigh Whannell’s ‘Wolf Man’ Movie
Filming is underway on The Invisible Man director Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man for Universal and Blumhouse, which will be howling its way into theaters on January 17, 2025.
Deadline reports that Matilda Firth (Disenchanted) is the latest actor to sign on, joining Christopher Abbott (Poor Things), Julia Garner (The Royal Hotel), and Sam Jaeger.
The project will mark Whannell’s second monster movie and fourth directing collaboration with Blumhouse Productions (The Invisible Man, Upgrade, Insidious: Chapter 3).
Wolf Man stars Christopher Abbott as a man whose family is being terrorized by a lethal predator.
Writers include Whannell & Corbett Tuck as well as Lauren Schuker Blum & Rebecca Angelo.
Jason Blum is producing the film. Ryan Gosling, Ken Kao, Bea Sequeira, Mel Turner and Whannell are executive producers. Wolf Man is a Blumhouse and Motel Movies production.
In the wake of the failed Dark Universe, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man has been the only real success story for the Universal Monsters brand, which has been struggling with recent box office flops including the comedic Renfield and period horror movie The Last Voyage of the Demeter. Giving him the keys to the castle once more seems like a wise idea, to say the least.
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