Editorials
[BEST & WORST ’11] Evan Dickson’s 5 Worst Moments In Horror 2011!
Oh hey, I didn’t see you there!
I came to the conclusion that writing a list of the worst films of the year would not be an appropriate way to quantify the amount of pain some of the weaker entries in the genre have caused me this year.
So if we’re talking damages and therapy bills, I figure life comes down to handful of formative moments. Some of these moments are beautiful and grand, others are painful and wretched. For example, there are numerous films this year that would have made my “Top Worst” list – except that many of them in their entirety aren’t as painful as one single second of ‘Creature’. I also don’t want to kick a bunch of poor indie movies while they’re down – no one’s gonna see them anyway. Better to stick to the wide releases.
As a proud “bottom-feeder”, hit the jump to check out my list of the 5 Worst Moments in Horror 2011! 
Micah (Best/Worst) | Lonmonster (Best/Worst) | Evan Dickson (Best/Worst) | Lauren Taylor (Best/Worst)
Posters (Best/Worst) | Trailers (Best/Worst) | Performances (Best)
When Mehcad Brooks’ Niles valiantly dives headfirst into a Louisiana sinkhole to save his heroine from the Creature I was excited. Not, perhaps, in the way that Fred Andrews intended. But the onset of some kind of final confrontation could only mean that my time with Creature was coming to an end. One dissolve cut later, Niles emerges from the mud victorious – holding the villain’s jaw aloft triumphantly. I was mixed. On one hand, the fact that this movie skipped over the final battle meant less minutes I’d have to spend in its horrid company.
But then it hit me. The movie skipped over the final battle. IT SKIPPED THE CLIMAX IT HAD OSTENSIBLY BEEN BUILDING TO. It was the ultimate proclamation of cynicism. Creature was a movie in name only, what it really was was an opportunity to attempt the shadiest opening weekend switch and bait that I’ve ever seen. The fact that this film intentionally and lazily skipped one of the only beats it was required to hit demonstrates that it was never intended to be enjoyed. It was never intended to be anyone’s favorite movie. It was never intended to give the moviegoer a return on their investment. It was only intended to make some quick cash before disappearing from theaters. Thankfully, only the latter came to fruition.
Oh boy. Marti Noxon is a good writer. Really. Many of her scripts for “Buffy” and “Mad Men” truly shine. So I’m not writing her off after this. I have to assume that the studio issued mandates on this project placed her firmly in “remake valley” (tranlsates as “write a brand new story but please arbitrarily include a large amount of elements from the original even if they destroy the overall narrative”).
Of course, the lumpy tributes to the 1985 original are only part of the problem. There’s a whole host of other logic and structural issues. It’s kind of hard to feel for the loss of Evil Ed when he disappears 10 minutes into the film. It’s kind of hard to accept that an 18 year old kid who has never displayed an interest in the supernatural would seek out a magician for advice (why do people in these movies even ask for vampire advice? Never once do they get any kind of information they didn’t already know). It’s kind of hard to like Charley when his only defining characteristic is being a shallow turncoat. Why is it that one particular stake that will bring the victims of a vampire back to their normal selves? Why do we even need to hear about the different types of vampires if you’re never going to show any of them?
The movie even makes the mistake of letting Dave Franco – the only character I wanted to die – live. Fright Night had a great cast and the premise of the original was fantastic – this script negates all of those positives with extreme prejudice.
Yes. There is a scene in Creature where a girl gives her brother a handjob while they spy on another couple having sex. It’s kind of played for laughs but it’s also kind of played for titillation as well – which makes it really creepy and uncomfortable to watch. Sex and slasher movies go together like crab legs and garlic butter, but not like this, man.
Have you ever been mid-conversation at a party, laughing about something with your friends, only to have some sweaty mouth-breathing alcoholic weirdo take the thread of your conversation into some truly sick territory while expecting laughter in return? That’s this scene. That’s this movie.
You know what’s scary? Not showing the monster. Not showing every inch of a monster’s transformation. Not showing too much in general. And if you want to show stuff? Well there’s precedent for doing it well. An American Werewolf In London. The Thing.
What’s not scary is the weightlessness often on display in mode CGI, most chiefly in films like Fright Night and The Thing. Seeing cartoons run around, smashing into things, move in a jerkily unnatural manner and explode in sunshine confetti all the while defying the aesthetic of their surroundings.
I’m not sure when and where the studios lost confidence in the audience’s ability to enjoy something without half-baked pre-viz romping all over the place – but I assure you, they can. In fact the audience doesn’t even seem to really like overuse of CGI. Check your box office receipts brother – and treat the audience with respect. They’ll be higher next time.
I didn’t hate Scream 4 as much as Lauren Taylor. I actually didn’t even think it was a particularly weak entry in the franchise considering that none of the sequels are all that great.
But nothing’s worse than when a movie makes its point (more or less in Scream 4‘s case) and then continues on… and on… and then just rolls over and dies. Everything should have ended back in Kirby’s house. We don’t need Emma Roberts running around a hospital beating Dewey half to death with a bedpan. Or that final one-liner from Neve Campbell. Dollars to donuts Ehren Kruger added that bit.
It’s worth noting that I likely put more effort into the dishonorable mentions than Fred Andrews put into the third act of Creature.
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.
You must be logged in to post a comment.