Movies
00’s Retrospect: 2001 the Year of the Bloody Disgusting
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 my own personal look back at the year 2001, the year of the Bloody Disgusting. 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
2001
“You know a lot about horror movies and stuff,” he says. “If I build a horror website, will you run it?”
At the time I had been reading Fangoria and visiting websites like Dark Horizons, Coming Attractions, Creature-Corner and Diabolical-Dominion. Fango was monthly, while the websites updated once a week if we were lucky. I knew right off the bat I could do a better job and bring it all to one place.
“Heck yes, this’ll be fun!”
So Tom quickly built a poster database and made a place to upload news. Off we went.
Pure luck struck when Diabolical-Dominion was shut down for maintenance — for over a month. We started compiling all the big news and unloading it on Bloody Disgusting. I pushed the site on AOL and in the only big forums I knew. The next thing I knew the site was growing exponentially. Before long, it was costing us nearly $100 a month just to pay the server fees.
This is one misconception a lot of BD readers have — that we make tons and tons of money. The fact of the matter is, for nearly three years we paid out of our pocket to keep it going. In fact, there was one conversation that nearly led to us closing up shop and saying “f*ck it.” Fortunately, the fruits of our labor finally paid off and the site finally made enough money on crappy fart button ads to pay the server fees. Bloody Disgusting is passion, plain and simple. We had conversations where Tom would explain that he didn’t want to take it seriously because he was just having so much fun. I wanted to grow and do more stuff. He just wanted the website to serve as his plaything.
Looking back at my old news and old stories, I blush. The mistakes I made, the horrid grammatical errors (yeah, I’m better, but I still suck) and even the unconfirmed rumors that covered our faces with egg goo. It’s been a nine-year learning curve that has literally taken me through a decade of web growth. We were there when it just started to pick up (sure, Dark Horizons, JoBlo and Aint it Cool News beat us by a few years) and have gone through all of the social changes. We experienced the first rash of videos and clips, went through the hell of bloggers, built up a MySpace page, experienced the wrath of Digg and StumbleUpon (bloggers stealing everyone’s news) and now find ourselves consumed with Twittering and Facebooking. In fact, throughout 2008 I spent most of my time wondering how much more I could take. Tom and I owned the largest horror website and community, yet I was miserable. But come 2009 I began to realize that we’d survived every attack known to man. We had taken down Fangoria, survived the much better-funded Fearnet (they spend millions per year on staff and advertising) and even withstood the hilarity that was the Horror Channel (do I hear an echo?). The fact of the matter is that I love horror. I love talking about it on a daily basis and I love bringing all the news and hype to millions of other genre fans.
In growing up, there were only a handful of people who cared about horror as much as I did. What I would have done for a place like Bloody Disgusting when I was younger! It feels great knowing that Tom and I have created a place that would make a “young Mr. Disgusting” cream his pants. Now, we move into a new decade with the hopes that horror will continue to flourish. Sure, we can dream of a future without remakes, but right now I’m just happy that there are so many horror movies even being released. Looking through the ‘90s I nearly cry; even the early 00’s make me sick to my stomach.
Despite the fact that the director is a child molesting mother f*cker, the horror genre owes a great deal to Victor Salva, who delivered the first mainstream HORROR movie in nearly a decade. Just as the SCREAM-inspired teen horror films began to die, on August 31, 2001 MGM changed the perspective of executives across Hollywood by releasing JEEPERS CREEPERS. I remember reading an interview with Salva in Fangoria where he explained that JC was a serious monster film. In it, he revealed that the only one-liner was the one used for the trailer; beyond that, the film was nothing but pure horror. Like the movie or not, it made $37m domestically and proved to Tinseltown that horror fans still existed and that they wanted something different.
Before JEEPERS CREEPERS hit theaters, Warner Bros. Pictures’ VALENTINE (February 2, 2001) had a weak run, pulling in only $20m in total. On September 7 20th Century Fox released SOUL SURVIVORS, which would try and mix the power of THE SIXTH SENSE with SCREAM; what resulted was a measly $3.1m at the box office (ouch). Studios had begun to openly talk about the death of horror – only they were referring to the self-aware, teen-centric films that followed in the wake of SCREAM. While JEEPERS CREEPERS didn’t explode at the box office, it was a sign that genre fans were interested in more than just tongue-in-cheek horror films starring the cast of PARTY OF FIVE. Thusly, development began on numerous projects that would eventually change the pace of the genre (unfortunately our news doesn’t go far enough back to support this).
While M. Night Shyamalan’s THE SIXTH SENSE was a box office blockbuster at the tail end of the ‘90s, no other film was able to mimic its success. Getting close was Dimension Films’ THE OTHERS (August 10, 2001), which grossed a huge $96m at the domestic box office. Funny thing about that movie — I remember being super-super excited for it, if only due to the rumor that the trailer for Dimension Films’ HALLOWEEN 8: RESURRECTION was attached to it. Remember when you used to have to go to the theater to watch trailers? Yeah, I miss that excitement too. The trailer had apparently been attached to random prints, and unfortunately the print I was watching wasn’t one of them; I was pissed to say the least.
But these were signs that we were finally headed for a change. JEEPERS CREEPERS was a hit, and sequels like HALLOWEEN 8, JASON X and even FREDDY VS JASON (rumored) were in the pipeline.
2001 was littered with a rash of horror films, some smash hits and others disheartening failures. Taking advantage of a lackluster late winter/early spring, MGM released HANNIBAL, the SILENCE OF THE LAMBS sequel, on February 9 in theaters across the country. It proved to be a major hit and grossed $165m domestically. Universal then kicked off the summer with their May 4th release of THE MUMMY RETURNS, which took in a disgusting $202m domestically. On the other hand, we watched John Carpenter’s career nearly come to an agonizing end as his horrid GHOST OF MARS (August 24) made only $8m.
Later in the year we had THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE, Guillermo del Toro’s passion project. While the film made only $755k in extremely limited release, it was well received by critics and fans alike.
Like most Octobers in years past, three horror films hit theaters that month in 2001, and all three did moderately well. 20th Century Fox released JOY RIDE (written by J.J. Abrams) on October 5; it made $22m. Fox also put the Johnny Depp starrer FROM HELL in theaters on October 19; it made $31.6m. Lastly, Warner Bros. released one of the first of the rash of remakes with THIR13EEN GHOSTS on October 26; it pulled in a strong $41.9m. The remake was the second Dark Castle pic and gave the Joel Silver-owned production company the legs to continue for the next decade. Unfortunately, most of their subsequent films ended up sucking.
Before THE RING changed the genre as we know it, Japanese horror was already making a huge dent in my life. In fact, the first ever article written on Bloody Disgusting was a feature on Asian horror movies. Click here to read it, but please remember that this was the first year I’d ever done this (it’s embarrassing, I’m sure). Some films that really caught my attention that year were PULSE (also know as KAIRO), a terrifyingly bleak Japanese look at a ghostly post-apocalyptic world. I was also extremely impressed with VERSUS, a multi-genre zombie film that is still one of my all-time faves. While I was begging readers to check out these movies at the time, it wasn’t until THE RING broke onto the scene in 2002 that you actually listened (that’ll teach you!).
There were several other random highlights from 2001. One of these was WENDIGO, one of Larry Fessenden’s first projects (he would eventually become a well-known indie producer out of New York who went on to help various individuals start their filmmaking careers). Another was the third TALES FROM THE CRYPT movie, which was unceremoniously sent straight to DVD by Dimension. Entitled REVELATION (internationally RITUAL), the film took on many cues from Wes Craven’s THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW. Another prominent film to come out that year was USA Films’ SESSION 9 (a film that made our Top 20 of the decade), which made Brad Anderson a household name. Stuart Gordon’s Lovecraft-ian DAGON was a pleasant direct-to-video release. I also remember being extremely excited for ROUTE 666 with Lou Diamond Phillips and Lori Petty. Fangoria had pushed the film to no end, singing its praises as an effective horror film shot entirely in the daylight. It sucked and I hated it.
Editorials
Five Serial Killer Horror Movies to Watch Before ‘Longlegs’
Here’s what we know about Longlegs so far. It’s coming in July of 2024, it’s directed by Osgood Perkins (The Blackcoat’s Daughter), and it features Maika Monroe (It Follows) as an FBI agent who discovers a personal connection between her and a serial killer who has ties to the occult. We know that the serial killer is going to be played by none other than Nicolas Cage and that the marketing has been nothing short of cryptic excellence up to this point.
At the very least, we can assume NEON’s upcoming film is going to be a dark, horror-fueled hunt for a serial killer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five disturbing serial killers-versus-law-enforcement stories to get us even more jacked up for Longlegs.
MEMORIES OF MURDER (2003)
This South Korean film directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is a wild ride. The film features a handful of cops who seem like total goofs investigating a serial killer who brutally murders women who are out and wearing red on rainy evenings. The cops are tired, unorganized, and border on stoner comedy levels of idiocy. The movie at first seems to have a strange level of forgiveness for these characters as they try to pin the murders on a mentally handicapped person at one point, beating him and trying to coerce him into a confession for crimes he didn’t commit. A serious cop from the big city comes down to help with the case and is able to instill order.
But still, the killer evades and provokes not only the police but an entire country as everyone becomes more unstable and paranoid with each grizzly murder and sex crime.
I’ve never seen a film with a stranger tone than Memories of Murder. A movie that deals with such serious issues but has such fallible, seemingly nonserious people at its core. As the film rolls on and more women are murdered, you realize that a lot of these faults come from men who are hopeless and desperate to catch a killer in a country that – much like in another great serial killer story, Citizen X – is doing more harm to their plight than good.
Major spoiler warning: What makes Memories of Murder somehow more haunting is that it’s loosely based on a true story. It is a story where the real-life killer hadn’t been caught at the time of the film’s release. It ends with our main character Detective Park (Song Kang-ho), now a salesman, looking hopelessly at the audience (or judgingly) as the credits roll. Over sixteen years later the killer, Lee Choon Jae, was found using DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence for another murder. Choon Jae even admitted to watching the film during his court case saying, “I just watched it as a movie, I had no feeling or emotion towards the movie.”
In the end, Memories of Murder is a must-see for fans of the subgenre. The film juggles an almost slapstick tone with that of a dark murder mystery and yet, in the end, works like a charm.
CURE (1997)
If you watched 2023’s Hypnotic and thought to yourself, “A killer who hypnotizes his victims to get them to do his bidding is a pretty cool idea. I only wish it were a better movie!” Boy, do I have great news for you.
In Cure (spoilers ahead), a detective (Koji Yakusho) and forensic psychologist (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) team up to find a serial killer who’s brutally marking their victims by cutting a large “X” into their throats and chests. Not just a little “X” mind you but a big, gross, flappy one.
At each crime scene, the murderer is there and is coherent and willing to cooperate. They can remember committing the crimes but can’t remember why. Each of these murders is creepy on a cellular level because we watch the killers act out these crimes with zero emotion. They feel different than your average movie murder. Colder….meaner.
What’s going on here is that a man named Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is walking around and somehow manipulating people’s minds using the flame of a lighter and a strange conversational cadence to hypnotize them and convince them to murder. The detectives eventually catch him but are unable to understand the scope of what’s happening before it’s too late.
If you thought dealing with a psychopathic murderer was hard, imagine dealing with one who could convince you to go home and murder your wife. Not only is Cure amazingly filmed and edited but it has more horror elements than your average serial killer film.
MANHUNTER (1986)
In the first-ever Hannibal Lecter story brought in front of the cameras, Detective Will Graham (William Petersen) finds his serial killers by stepping into their headspace. This is how he caught Hannibal Lecter (played here by Brian Cox), but not without paying a price. Graham became so obsessed with his cases that he ended up having a mental breakdown.
In Manhunter, Graham not only has to deal with Lecter playing psychological games with him from behind bars but a new serial killer in Francis Dolarhyde (in a legendary performance by Tom Noonan). One who likes to wear pantyhose on his head and murder entire families so that he can feel “seen” and “accepted” in their dead eyes. At one point Lecter even finds a way to gift Graham’s home address to the new killer via personal ads in a newspaper.
Michael Mann (Heat, Thief) directed a film that was far too stylish for its time but that fans and critics both would have loved today in the same way we appreciate movies like Nightcrawler or Drive. From the soundtrack to the visuals to the in-depth psychoanalysis of an insanely disturbed protagonist and the man trying to catch him. We watch Graham completely lose his shit and unravel as he takes us through the psyche of our killer. Which is as fascinating as it is fucked.
Manhunter is a classic case of a serial killer-versus-detective story where each side of the coin is tarnished in their own way when it’s all said and done. As Detective Park put it in Memories of Murder, “What kind of detective sleeps at night?”
INSOMNIA (2002)
Maybe it’s because of the foggy atmosphere. Maybe it’s because it’s the only film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography he didn’t write as well as direct. But for some reason, Insomnia always feels forgotten about whenever we give Nolan his flowers for whatever his latest cinematic achievement is.
Whatever the case, I know it’s no fault of the quality of the film, because Insomnia is a certified serial killer classic that adds several unique layers to the detective/killer dynamic. One way to create an extreme sense of unease with a movie villain is to cast someone you’d never expect in the role, which is exactly what Nolan did by casting the hilarious and sweet Robin Williams as a manipulative child murderer. He capped that off by casting Al Pacino as the embattled detective hunting him down.
This dynamic was fascinating as Williams was creepy and clever in the role. He was subdued in a way that was never boring but believable. On the other side of it, Al Pacino felt as if he’d walked straight off the set of 1995’s Heat and onto this one. A broken and imperfect man trying to stop a far worse one.
Aside from the stellar acting, Insomnia stands out because of its unique setting and plot. Both working against the detective. The investigation is taking place in a part of Alaska where the sun never goes down. This creates a beautiful, nightmare atmosphere where by the end of it, Pacino’s character is like a Freddy Krueger victim in the leadup to their eventual, exhausted death as he runs around town trying to catch a serial killer while dealing with the debilitating effects of insomnia. Meanwhile, he’s under an internal affairs investigation for planting evidence to catch another child killer and accidentally shoots his partner who he just found out is about to testify against him. The kicker here is that the killer knows what happened that fateful day and is using it to blackmail Pacino’s character into letting him get away with his own crimes.
If this is the kind of “what would you do?” intrigue we get with the story from Longlegs? We’ll be in for a treat. Hoo-ah.
FALLEN (1998)
Fallen may not be nearly as obscure as Memories of Murder or Cure. Hell, it boasts an all-star cast of Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland, James Gandolfini, and Elias Koteas. But when you bring it up around anyone who has seen it, their ears perk up, and the word “underrated” usually follows. And when it comes to the occult tie-ins that Longlegs will allegedly have? Fallen may be the most appropriate film on this entire list.
In the movie, Detective Hobbs (Washington) catches vicious serial killer Edgar Reese (Koteas) who seems to place some sort of curse on him during Hobbs’ victory lap. After Reese is put to death via electric chair, dead bodies start popping up all over town with his M.O., eventually pointing towards Hobbs as the culprit. After all, Reese is dead. As Hobbs investigates he realizes that a fallen angel named Azazel is possessing human body after human body and using them to commit occult murders. It has its eyes fixated on him, his co-workers, and family members; wrecking their lives or flat-out murdering them one by one until the whole world is damned.
Mixing a demonic entity into a detective/serial killer story is fascinating because it puts our detective in the unsettling position of being the one who is hunted. How the hell do you stop a demon who can inhabit anyone they want with a mere touch?!
Fallen is a great mix of detective story and supernatural horror tale. Not only are we treated to Denzel Washington as the lead in a grim noir (complete with narration) as he uncovers this occult storyline, but we’re left with a pretty great “what would you do?” situation in a movie that isn’t afraid to take the story to some dark places. Especially when it comes to the way the film ends. It’s a great horror thriller in the same vein as Frailty but with a little more detective work mixed in.
Look for Longlegs in theaters on July 12, 2024.
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