Movies
Year in Review: Ryan Daley’s Best & Worst Movies of 2008!
Leading up until the New Year we’ll be unloading the best and worst lists of 2008 from all of Bloody-Disgusting’s official reviewers. Beyond the break you can check out Ryan Daley’s Best & Worst Horror Films of 2008, with lists from David Harley and myself still coming soon. Click here to keep up with the full year in review and also feel free to post your thoughts below, or at our forum’s Top 10 of 2008 forum thread.
Mr. Disgusting’s Best & Worst / Ryan Daley / BC’s Best & Worst / David Harley’s Best & Worst / Tim Anderson
Also check out this year’s Best & Worst Posters
Ryan Daley’s Best DVDs of 2008
I’m not a huge fan of horror-comedies but this goofy, direct-to-DVD effort somehow won me over. A trio of roommates moves into an apartment that squats over the mouth of hell. A whole bunch of low-budget wackiness ensues. A guilty pleasure, to say the least.
We may be through with torture-porn, but torture-porn sure ain’t through with us. This bleak but compelling French film reminds us why backwoods neo-Nazis are worth avoiding. Energetic and raw.
Starring the uber-foxy Teresa Palmer. That’s really all you need to know.
An homage to Italian exploitation films of the 1970s, this grainy, overwrought crowd-pleaser wins the award for Best Special Effect Involving a Neck Goiter.
Gary Oldman saves a little girl with deformed flipper hands from a bunch of raving hillbillies. Kind of like STRAW DOGS but with deformed flipper hands standing in for retardation.
Neil Marshall’s follow up to THE DESCENT is just craaaaazy. A smashed-together amalgam of MAD MAX, RESIDENT EVIL, and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK that manages to be constantly entertaining even when it’s making absolutely no sense.
This polarizing horror-comedy isn’t for everyone. A mismatched group of friends retreat to a forest cabin to get drunk, flirt with each other, and write a horror screenplay, even as a creepy Baghead killer watches them from the woods. The (mostly) improvised conversations are hilarious, and a few eerie scenes help bolster the horror aspects of the production. A low-budget experiment that actually works.
Available on Lionsgate’s 6 FILMS TO KEEP YOU AWAKE 3-disc set, this Spanish flick begins as a kid-friendly romp before making a staggeringly dark right turn into horror terrain. A genre gem waiting to be discovered.
The best show on television (now that THE SHIELD, THE WIRE, and DEADWOOD are finished) truly hits its stride in its sophomore season. Charismatic serial killer Dexter comes perilously close to getting nabbed by the po-po, while immature sister Deb continues to annoy the shit out of everyone with a complete lack of professionalism that makes Ally McBeal look like a progressive feminist in comparison. Yeah, Deb bugs. Still a great show, though.
A French film that shatters one of the oldest horror movie taboos into a million pieces. Not for the squeamish, INSIDE is a slick, mean-spirited shocker that goes where you don’t think it dares. Easily the best horror film I have seen this year.
Ryan Daley’s Worst DVDs of 2008
Shannyn Sossamon spends what seems like years running around wet Parisian tunnels in an attempt to escape a developmentally disabled goat-head killer. Like watching a cruddy Travel channel documentary about dark, wet tunnels.
Nobody really expected thrash metal band Lordi’s first movie to be any GOOD, but this…well, this is abysmal. A man and his daughter get trapped in a hospital elevator by a fully-costumed Lordi, who try to act scary through about 25 pounds of bulky foam and fail miserably. Ugh.
Sure there were some eerie moments but come on, that had to have been the worst ending this side of HIGH TENSION. I, for one, thought THE STRANGERS was much better. Scott Speedman notwithstanding.
Lame Pakistani horror film crippled by stilted dialogue and the worst movie soundtrack EVER. I’d rather suicide bomb an Arby’s than have to sit through this one again.
A supremely boring crime drama posing as a horror film. This DIY effort centers around a few friends who stage a laboriously paced stake-out in a parked van. If you’re into bad direction and plodding dialogue, pop a bowl of popcorn, grab some smelling salts, and check this one out. It’s best watched in five or six sittings spread out over the course of several weeks.
This week’s new releases offer everything from giant monsters to Spielberg aliens to ass-kicking martial artists and even an ash-eating medical student. Do we have your interest?
Here’s all the new genre movies that released on Friday, June 12, 2026!
These aren’t all HORROR movies, but we want you to be aware of them all the same…
Norwegian creature feature Kraken is now available on Digital.
The film was also unleashed in select theaters. Check your local listings.
In the monster movie Kraken, “unnatural behavior in wild salmon, followed by inexplicable deaths in Norway’s deepest fjord, points to the mythical Kraken. The ancient, multi-armed monster has awakened, ready to crush everything that moves or makes a sound.”
Pål Øie (The Tunnel) directs Samuel Goldwyn Films’ Kraken from a script by Vilde Eide, Kjersti Jelen Rasmussen, and Natasha Arthur. Sara Khorami, Mikkel Bratt Silset, Øyvind Brandtzæg, Jenny Evensen, Ingvild Holthe Bygdnes, Jon Erik Myre, Hans Morten Hansen, Steinar Klouman Hallert, and Filip Bargee Ramberg star.
An all girls trip into the desert for escapism fun instead implodes in violence in the revenge thriller Find Your Friends, now streaming only on Shudder.
In the film, “Amber and her four best friends flee Los Angeles for a girls’ trip in Joshua Tree, only to find themselves unwelcome in a desert town simmering with quiet hostility. As isolation sets in and encounters with aggressive locals grow more threatening, festering resentments within the group begin to surface.
“What begins as fun and reckless escape spirals into a violent struggle for control and survival, as past wounds and present dangers collide in a night that turns their trip into a nightmare.”
Bella Thorne (The Babysitter), Chloe Cherry (“Euphoria”), Helena Howard (I Saw the TV Glow), Sophia Ali (Uncharted), Zion Moreno (“Gossip Girl”), and Chris Bauer (“True Blood”) star in the feature debut by writer/director Izabel Pakzad.
Steven Spielberg is more sure today than he was when he made Close Encounters and ET that aliens are very real, and with Disclosure Day, he aims to make you a believer too.
Okay so it’s not a horror movie, but the sci-fi blockbuster is now playing in theaters.
The vague synopsis for Disclosure Day reads: “If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? This summer, the truth belongs to seven billion people. We are coming close to Disclosure Day.”
The film stars SAG winner and Oscar® nominee Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer, A Quiet Place), Emmy and Golden Globe winner Josh O’Connor (Challengers, The Crown), Oscar® winner Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, Kingsman franchise), Eve Hewson (Bad Sisters, The Perfect Couple) and two-time Oscar® nominee Colman Domingo (Sing Sing, Rustin).
Based on a story by Spielberg, the screenplay is by David Koepp, whose previous work with Spielberg includes the scripts for Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Combined, those films earned more than $3 billion worldwide. Koepp also wrote the script for Jurassic World Rebirth.
Steven Spielberg is of course no stranger to extraterrestrial encounters, directing two of the greatest alien movies of all time: Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977 and E.T. in 1982. It’s an arena he returned to in 2005, directing an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.
Here in 2026, Steven Spielberg sees hope in the existence of aliens. He notes in the final trailer for Disclosure Day, “How will disclosure change us? I believe for the better.”
Another movie that’s not a horror movie but worth mentioning here is the violent martial arts revenge thriller The Furious, which is now playing in theaters from Lionsgate.
Xie Miao (The New Legend of Shaolin) and Joe Taslim (Mortal Kombat) star.
After his daughter is kidnapped by a criminal network and he receives no help from the corrupt police, Wang Wei sets out on a rampage to find her himself.
His only ally is Navin, a relentless journalist whose wife has mysteriously disappeared. Fueled by a furious vengeance, the unlikely duo ruthlessly fights against the kidnappers.
Kenji Tanigaki (Enter the Fat Dragon) directs from a script by Mak Tin Shu (Kung Fu Jungle), Lei Zhilong, Shum Kwan Sin (Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In), and Frank Hui.
A disturbing weight loss craze involving human ashes opens up a haunting world of hurt for a young woman in Saccharine, which is now available on Digital outlets at home.
From writer/director Natalie Erika James (Relic, Apartment 7A), the Australian supernatural body horror film follows lovelorn medical student Hana, who becomes terrorized by a sinister force after taking part in an obscure weight loss craze: eating human ashes.
Midori Francis (“Grey’s Anatomy”), Danielle Macdonald (Patti Cake$), and Madeleine Madden (“The Wheel of Time”) star in Natalie Erika James’ latest nightmare.
From directors Arturo Ambriz and Roy Ambriz, I Am Frankelda is billed as the first ever full length stop motion movie from Mexico, and it’s now streaming on Netflix.
The history-making stop-motion film is a dark fantasy set in a world of monsters.
Here’s the synopsis: “In 19th-century Mexico, Frankelda is a gifted writer whose dark tales are ignored and dismissed. Forced to suppress her voice, she refuses to give up, even as many try to silence her. But when she is thrust into her subconscious, the very monsters she created come to life.
“Guided by Herneval, a tormented prince trapped between dreams and nightmares, she must restore balance between fiction and reality before both realms collapse. Meanwhile, the sinister writer Procustes and his conspirators plot to seize control. As Frankelda and Herneval grow closer, their bond becomes both a strength and a curse.
“To rewrite their fate, she must confront a love that defies existence and reclaim her power as a storyteller—before dark forces consume her imagination and reveal horrors beyond her creation.”
The directors said in a joint statement, “As brothers, we grew up inventing worlds together, drawing, playing, imagining. Over time we understood that fictional characters were not only companions but guides. Sometimes they felt closer than the people around us. They provided us courage, wisdom, and solace. We believe fiction is not an escape from reality but a way of understanding it. A way of converting truth into palatable chunks. I Am Frankelda comes from a lifelong love of storytelling.”
Mireya Mendoza, Arturo Mercado Jr., and Luis Leonardo Suarez lead the voice cast.
Meagan Navarro writes in her review for Bloody Disgusting, “Mexico’s first stop-motion animated feature is a macabre beauty.” Meagan also notes in her review, “I Am Frankelda is a gothic fantasy feature whose boundless creativity is matched by its ambition.”
The lines of reality and delusion blur in Time of Death, now available on Digital.
Michael Kelly (“The Penguin,” Dawn of the Dead 2004) stars with Kevin Pollak (End of Days), Mena Suvari (Vampires of the Velvet Lounge), and Dennis Haysbert (Send Help).
In the horror-thriller, “When a prisoner vanishes without a trace, Detective Frank Morley (Michael Kelly) is sent to a decaying prison on the verge of shutdown. What begins as a routine investigation quickly spirals into a dangerous search for answers.”
Will Wernick (Escape Room 2017, Follow Me) directs from a script by Jason Rosen. They also produce alongside Kelly Delson, Jeff Delson, and Kyle David Crosby.
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