Editorials
00’s Retrospect: A Wave Goodbye, A Look at 2009
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.. Inside you’ll find David Harley’s personal look back at the year 2009, the last of tis epic retrospect. 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
2009
Speaking of Platinum Dunes, early in January, we posted a casting call for their remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, with Jackie Earle Hayley as Freddy Kruger. Not even a month later, casting rumors began gestating online with Hayley in the lead role. Two months later and we had our new Kruger cast. Coincidence? Yes. But very cool none the less. Then, in February, Jason hit the big screen and did incredible opening weekend business, proving that some franchises have staying power. Although it had a big drop-off in attendance after its opening, it did enough business to prompt talks of a sequel almost immediately and a date has even been set for it. Whether or not they actual make a Friday the 13th in winter is still up in the air.
In March, we got our first good remake in quite some time with The Last House On The Left. While it could have easily treaded torture-porn territory with its premise, which Craven revisited in the 70s (Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring is still my favorite take on the story), director Dennis Illiadis made a taut and tense filled horror flick. Also in March, we got A Haunting in Connecticut and Knowing, both of which had an interesting premise but failed to deliver. And, if anything, Knowing could’ve been a much better film had Nicolas Cage not been in it and director Alex Proyas not had regurgitated his previous films so much. I took my second annual trek out to Austin, TX for SXSW, where I caught an early screening of Drag Me To Hell and the Australian thriller The Horseman, both of which made my Top 10 list for 2009.
April was a month of big DVD premieres, as Rob Hall’s much anticipated Laid To Rest and Martyrs were released in the last half of the month. Both films feature gore o’ plenty and seem to have divided audiences down the middle. In fact, until Drag Me To Hell was released in late May, all was practically quiet on the horror front. With Drag, critics and fans seem to go apeshit over it, as I predicted they would when I saw it at SXSW, but its summer release seemed to only further confirm everyone’s suspicion that horror just doesn’t bode well in blockbuster season, especially when opening against a Pixar film. The rest of the summer was comprised of forgettable DTV releases – save for [REC], which was finally released stateside – until Orphan was released in July to moderate box office success. The most welcome surprises of the summer were Duncan Jones’ Moon, which isn’t a horror film but was covered on the site because we loved it and it’s destined for Oscar gold, and District 9, which told a really compelling story with a gory sci-fi setting. Here’s hoping Neill Blomkamp and his team eventually get to visit the Halo universe – I can dream, can’t I? Oh, how I can forget Platinum Dunes’ second original horror film The Horsemen, which was snuck out quietly into a handful of theatres in the beginning of the year and was released on DVD during the summer. Although not a God awful film, it certainly doesn’t fit into their filmography and did very little to rise above mediocrity.
Once late August rolled around, we had the double-feature weekend of The Final Destination and Halloween II. The former featured 3-D effects and a formula that started to get stale the last time around, while the latter was so batshit insane and boring at the same time that nobody really knew what to make of it. It ended up being rereleased for Halloween but seemed to disappear for the second time almost as quickly as it did the first time around.
Jennifer’s Body, written by Oscar winner Diablo Cody, debuted in mid-September and started the Juno backlash all over again. While some seemed to enjoy its sense of humor and attractive starlets, in the end it just seemed to further divide everyone on whether or not Cody is a good writer or not. And, on the TV front, Dexter and True Blood continue to rake in big ratings and captivate their audiences.
In late September, Tex and I made our way to Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando and were treated to some great movie themed houses (even one for The Wolfman, which hasn’t even come out yet). I give Universal big props for their unofficial C.H.U.D. house, even though it wasn’t great; I just like the idea of them using non-mainstream films as inspiration. If only Universal would make the houses a tad brighter, the experience would’ve been a lot better but, in the end, it stayed on par with the previous year in terms of scares and ingenuity. We also got to go back later in the month for “Boo Camp”, which meant me and Tex were given the chance to dress up as characters from Planet Terror and roam the streets scaring the bejeezus out of people.
Richard Kelly released his third feature, The Box, which left many people scratching their heads. Based on a Richard Matheson short story, the film delves into familiar Kelly territory in regards to both themes and off-the-wall science fiction. The Fourth Kind is released the same day and tries to trick audiences with “real documentary footage”, which is actually fake. Audiences see through it almost instantly and it disappears soon after. New Moon debuts at the end of November to record breaking numbers and usurps The Dark Knight as having the biggest opening day ever.
Much like 2008, the big winners of the year were those films who were hidden by studios and indie films. Carriers was snuck out in early September and while it didn’t do big business, its greatest fault was that its concept wasn’t very marketable, not that it was a terrible movie. Paranormal Activity, which was sitting on a shelf because it was supposed to be remade, was released with a “Demand It” campaign, which had fans demanding to see the film in their area. Eventually, it went wide and kept Saw VI out of the number one spot on its opening weekend, marking a first for the series. Trick `r Treat finally hit DVD after a lengthy road show that started in the summer. The result: many stores couldn’t keep it in stock, and those who could get a copy on release day couldn’t stop gushing about it. And finally, The Road, a slow-burn Cormac McCarthy adaptation (No Country For Old Men) about a father and son living in a post-apocalyptic world, hit theatres in late November to much acclaim. On the indie front, House of the Devil and Antichrist have extremely limited theatrical releases, backed by a VOD campaign, and get people talking – more so with the latter, which had a very strange reception at Cannes earlier in the year and inspired a lot of really bizarre takes on the film and its meaning.
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
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