Bud’s Top 10 Horror Movies of 2021: Part 2
Last time on Bud’s Top 10 Horror Movies of 2021...
#10 BLOOD RED SKY - Vampire momma, get the kleenex
#9 WILLY’S WONDERLAND - Mute Nic Cage with animatronics
#8 THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT - EW + LW 4EVA
#7 HUNTED - Hey there little red riding hood…
#6 PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: NEXT OF KIN - The best of the franchise, plus, Amish.
Welcome back, this is part 2, you know what to do…
# 5 THE MEDIUM
This Shudder exclusive Thai horror film is so goddamn subtle, until it’s not. This faux documentary follows Nim, a local medium possessed by the spirit of Bayan. She soon reveals that their family seems to be cursed as all the men end up broke, disgraced, dead or some combination of all three, including her nephew who hung himself after an accidental incestious relationship with her niece Mink. Now, Mink is possessed as fuck and it’s up to Nim and her homies to exorcise the demon or demons.
Non-Christian possession and exorcism in films is something I absolutely love. We all know standard exorcism stuff, you know, the old “the power of christ compels you”, sometimes that stuff gets played out and it makes different styles of possession/exorcism more delightful. Nim doesn’t read from the bible, she prays at a tree for a week. They don’t cast holy water on the body, they sacrifice an ox. They don’t hold up the sign of the holy cross, they tie a bunch of strings together and bang on the drums in the middle of the night. Most importantly, is the different powers the demon has. In The Exorcist, when Regan said “We are legion” it was mostly a bluff, in The Medium, when Mink says “We are legion” she means it and proceeds to bring forth an army of zombie demons to murder everyone.
Trigger warning on this one, dogs die and get eaten on camera and its a nauseating detail. You have been warned.
#4 A QUIET PLACE 2
Goddamn Jim Halpert knows how to make a horror movie. All these years running pranks on Dwight Schrute and we just thought he was a goofy goober, a fun loving weirdo when in reality he is a nightmare person. This movie is #4 on my list but if we ranked them on tension only, this is #1 and not just in this Top Ten/Eleven but somewhere near all-time if I should be so bold. The scenes that put you on edge in horror movies are those quiet parts right before the big jump. This is 2 hours of that.
The original was a pretty straight forward tale. Family in a house, sound monsters from outer space, you know, that whole thing. This film however handles multiple story arcs, settings and characters at the same time which is normal, but what is abnormal is how the director Jim Halpert, former Assistant to the Regional Manager, is able to build tension in multiple settings at the same time. Usually you panic in a horror movie hoping the main character escapes peril but in this film, they bounce between multiple perilous events, completely synchronized and reaching their crescendo in unison. It’s a lot and I am sure Pam and the kids are proud.
#3 V/H/S 94
This film instantly landed itself on my 2022 Horror Marathon. Yes, I plan a year in advance, let’s look at this anthology:
Storm Drain - A local news crew goes into the sewers reporting on the legend of Rat Man. First they meet some homeless folks, then they get attacked and dragged deeper in the sewer where Raatma appears puking black liquid all over everything. It’s insane.
The Empty Wake - A woman has to host a wake at a funeral home on a dark and stormy night. Weird shit starts happening, the power flickers and the next thing you know, the body is up and moving. A fantastically complete little short.
The Subject - Director Timo Tjahjanto is out of his fucking mind. A crazed scientist does human experiments to fuse technology with his unwilling victims, he ends up making bonkers machine-human monsters that go on a rampage. I was fucking cheering at this point. Tjahjanto is special, find and watch all of his stuff.
Terror - A militia group in Michigan is hell bent on going to war with the government and destroying a federal building. How you may ask, perhaps plastic explosives? Nah, they have a vampire and it’s blood explodes when exposed to sunlight.
Do yourself a favor and watch this one ASAP.
#2 THE POWER
This one was my number one for most of the year. Another Shudder exclusive proving that they are the best place for horror hands down. The premise of this one is pretty simple: government enforced power conservation in London during the 1970’s leaves a creepy old hospital completely blacked out overnight. A young nurse in one of those old school nurse outfits is wandering around with a lantern while spooky shit happens all around her. That’s the premise and it's pretty simple, however the story is much more profound.
You see the young nurse was molested as a child and when she outed her attacker she was not believed, leading her to recant. When she starts telling people about the supernatural force in the hospital no one believes her due to her history of lying. The viewer is left wondering if she is insane or if something supernatural really is going on.
I’m usually not a fan of artsy films heavy with symbolism and meaning because they often have their message louder than the narrative of the film, but The Power does cross its feet and stumble like so many films do. It handles the spooky and the symbolic at the same time without either missing a beat. Sure, the power is out in the hospital but the movie is also about how these perverts are typically in a position of power where they can silence their victims.
Honorable Mention - MIDNIGHT MASS
It’s like Mike Flanagan wanted to remake Salem’s Lot and the major studios told him no so just like Bender in Futurama he went and made his own Salem’s Lot but instead of ‘black jack and hookers’, he used a deep understanding of the Catholic religion and some unique additions to the ever evolving vampire lore.
I hate shows, especially Netflix ones. They all have a predictable formula to them and often waste a bunch of time getting to the fucking point, like is 8 hours necessary to tell your story? In the case of Midnight Mass, yes, 8 hours is super necessary. I also hate Mike Flanagan. His emotional drama style of story telling often doesn’t do it for me as it tends to be light on the horror. This series however is high on intrigue and just when you think it’s going to drag on and never get to the spooky stuff, the final scene of episode 5 hits you like a ton of bricks and it’s a wild ride from there on out.
#1 MALIGNANT
Goddamn James Wan is good at this shit. The trailers made this seem like a standard kind of ghostly haunting, maybe a possession type of film and then the first five minutes were some kind of weird science experiment gone wrong. I was confused, I thought I had accidentally hit play on the wrong movie, turns out this is the right movie. The rightest movie ever.
Spoiler Alert, I’ve waited a long time to talk about this movie.
The main character, Madison, is possessed by a malignant, deformed twin growing off her back that doctors couldn’t kill so they cut open her skull and stuffed the little goblin inside her head who is then awoken when the girl’s boyfriend bangs her head on the wall? Fucking what? And when the little goblin fucker takes over it makes her walk backwards, you know, because his eyes are in the back of her head. Also, gives her super strength and telekinetic power over electricity which they never fully fucking explain and you know what? I fucking love when they don’t fucking explain. James Wan just over here like “Yeah the goober monster in this woman’s head can control electricity” and I’m sure studio execs asked why and I think James Wan just showed them a fucking knife.
The penultimate scene of this batshit crazy Italian Giallo film, so batshit crazy that Dario Argento and Umberto Lenzi look sane, is the scene where Madison is sitting in the holding cell at the police department. Now it’s not just any holding cell, it’s a holding cell straight out of sleazy 1970’s women in prison exploitation films, like these are not real people in this cell, they are caricatures and what happens to cartoonish caricatures in horror movies? They get murdered in cartoonish ways like getting a hole punched through your fucking head or your spine ripped out.
This shit is bananas, absolutely fucking bananas and it’s the best horror movie of 2021. God bless you James Wan and seriously bro, get psychiatric help.
