Editorials
00’s Retrospect: Ryan Daley Reflects Back on the Year 2000
Y2K, 9/11, war and a a horrid recession, a major escape we had this decade was in the form of film, notorious for thriving during National crisis. Leading up to New Year’s Eve where we’ll ring in 2010, Bloody Disgusting will be looking back at the entire decade year by year through the eyes of various staff writers. Check back each day for a profound reflection from Ryan Daley, David Harley, Tex, BC and yours truly. Inside you’ll find Ryan Daley’s look back at the year 2000. Please share your memories for each year below, there are so many stories to be told!
’00 | ’01 | ’02 | ’03 | ’04 | ’05 | ’06 | ’07 | ’08 | ’09
More Retrospects:
-Top 20 Films of the Decade: 21-16 | 15-11 | 10-6 | 5-1
-Dead on Arrival: Ten Horror Duds of the Last Decade
2000
Which makes it even harder to explain the gran guignol excesses of Final Destination, what I consider to be one of the more influential horror movies of the past 10 years. I was simultaneously shocked and amused by the vast amount of carnage, much of it mean-spirited and primarily directed at innocent characters. Although horror movies that glorify the villain aren’t uncommon, Final Destination pared that concept down to its very core. In FD there was no villain, no hooded man with a scythe, no crazy ex-wrestler out to waste some teens. There is only death. Sudden, gruesome, unavoidable death. With its brutally elaborate kill scenes and gleeful sense of exploitation, Final Destination represented the first stirrings of the grue wave movement that would spawn later movies like Saw and Hostel. American horror cinema hasn’t looked back since.
Back in 2000 I was living in a dinky studio apartment near the university, taking film classes at night. One lonely Friday evening, I called a weed dealer for a house call, only to have him camp at my apartment for two hours because I happened to be watching Pitch Black right when he showed up. He walked in as the space transport Hunter-Gratzner, carrying murderous convict Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel), was burning through the atmosphere of an unidentified desert planet. And the weed guy couldn’t tear himself away. His phone rang every 5 minutes for about an hour, but after I cracked open a package of Chewy Chips Ahoy, he finally just switched it off. It pains me to imagine how many people had to go without doobage that night, all due to the captivating, mind-numbing power of Pitch Black.
In the case of Takashi Miike’s Audition, it was the burlap sack that got me. I think that 30-second hallway scene sums up everything that is awesome about horror. I rented a copy soon after its DVD release, and I watched it alone. Considering its infamous reputation, I was completely surprised to find myself watching a relationship drama, at least for the 45 minutes. Middle-aged widower meets cute model-type at fake audition, love ensues. But soon after the halfway mark, Miike’s movie blew my mind as it suddenly transformed into a gut-wrenching, eye-stabbing torture flick. The previously mentioned “burlap sack” scene merely serves as the tipping point to a grisly finale that haunted me for months.
When I read Bret Easton Ellis` novel American Psycho, it was like a kick in the nuts. It took my breath away. It made me want to barf on the sidewalk. Some chapters left me with brief bouts of diarrhea. To this day American Psycho remains the most offensive book I’ve ever read. Everybody has their line, and I suppose mine was crossed when a starving rat was jammed into a helpless vagina. Cruelly sadistic to the point of unforgivable, unforgettable perversion, Ellis’ exercise in calculated deviance follows self-absorbed yuppie Patrick Bateman through his daily routine of facial moisturizers and bloody murder. The final third of Ellis’ sick novel invites the reader to share Bateman’s lust for pain through several abhorrently-detailed torture scenes that stretch on for page after page after page. I sensed there was a satire buried somewhere under all the ugliness, but frankly, I just didn’t get it.
I watched Mary Harron`s film adaptation very reluctantly, but thankfully, she turned me around. With the help of a sardonic script and a charismatic central performance by Christian Bale, I was finally able to get a sense of what Ellis was going for in his novel. As a yuppie businessman living in the 1980s, Patrick Bateman knows his status will be determined by how well he blends in with his peers and co-workers. But by constantly focusing on being the same as everyone else, he denies a deep inner self that can only be expressed through ravenous acts of violence. Or maybe it’s all in his head. Either way, the movie was about a billion times better than the book would ever hope to be.
Back in the late 90s, I thought Robert Zemeckis was a hell of a director. But that was before he sold his soul to cartoons. As a rock-hard fan of Contact and Forrest Gump, I was curious about the what he would bring to the table as the man behind What Lies Beneath, an old-fashioned Hollywood horror flick. In terms of tone and structure, I thought that Zemeckis’ film bore a striking similarity to 1988’s Lady in White, another rare success in the world of PG-13 horror. With its increasingly tense set-pieces, What Lies Beneath served as a textbook example of how to successfully sustain suspense through an entire feature-length film. With every passing scene, it became more and more obvious that Zemeckis knew exactly what he was doing. I’ll probably catch hell for saying this, but I’ve always wanted to see what he would do with the Suspiria remake.
And who can forget the one-two punch of Winona Ryder and Kim Basinger attempting to choke out their respective careers with Lost Souls and Bless the Child? Both films were studio releases with respectable budgets, and both films currently rank on Rotten Tomatoes’ Worst of the Worst List. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that these movies are greenlit by people who are sober.
Also Worth Remembering: Ginger Snaps, Anatomy, The Cell, The Gift, Versus
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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