This week sees the arrival of head-twisting home-invasion horror YOU’RE NEXT. Don’t be fooled in believing Adam Wingard’s brilliant and brutal suspense-driven slasher is only full of the familiar run-of-the-mill stuff. The film is wholly original, fun and certainly boasts a number of surprises – a stand-out out turn from the stunning Sharni Vinson; gut-busting pitch-black humour and one hell of a twist in its tale. It’s given THN some inspiration in putting together our own list of genre favourites that featured another monumental plot curve ball and making them long remembered.
SCREAM (1996)
Few do horror better then Wes Craven. The man who gave us the razor-fingered dream demon Freddy Kruger, ultimately eclipsed his signature slasher by going on to give us one of the most iconic movies of the 1990s. Self-referential and satirical teen slasher SCREAM refused to play by the familiar genre rules, thanks in part to a biting and surprisingly funny screenplay by a then-unknown Kevin Williamson. Cutesy TV actress Neve Campbell was made a movie star as the unlucky victim Sidney Prescott, slowly being stalked by a devious (and mysterious) Ghostface killer. Of course, obvious perpetrators (or red-herrings) like the dopey Deputy, classmates and even her father, were all crossed off the list until it was discovered it was indeed her boyfriend, with his demented pal, doing the stabbing. Two killers tag-teaming!
SAW (2004)
Strong word of mouth from festival screenings saw unknown Australian director James Wan and acting/writing collaborator Leigh Whannell create a horror phenomenon (and a continuing lucrative career in ‘creep’). Billboards emblazoned with the stark, short title followed by the fantastic, yet simple tag-line “Dare You See Saw” also worked a treat. SAW came out of nowhere and the ambiguity of what the hell it was only aided its success. Two strangers awake handcuffed on opposite ends of a mysterious location, separated only by the grisly corpse in the middle of the floor. Flashbacks show us just how the duo came to this gory predicament but who could be responsible? How about that dead fella on the filthy floor for the whole movie, who ingeniously awakens to show he’s been setting the rules and running the show… and there’s no escape!
THE SIXTH SENSE (1999)
His career may now be in the shitter after a string of severe and laughable flops but lets not forget writer/director M. Night Shyamalan scored a critical and commercial hit with sleeper smash THE SIXTH SENSE. The film looked a relatively low-key supernatural thriller with Bruce Willis as a child psychologist attempting get over the attack from a former patient and their subsequent suicide. However, after looking to help troubled youngster Haley Joel Osment, who is claiming, “I see dead people“, the atmospheric chiller pulled a rabbit out of the hat by giving us arguably the greatest cinematic surprise of all-time. Brucey’s actually dead too! Looking back, there are countless clues – the colour pallet at certain points and the fact his wife (Olivia Williams) never speaks a work to Willis after the opening tragic sequence – to hint at these events but if anyone tells you they saw it coming a million miles away, they’re lying bastards! Nicole Kidman’s THE OTHERS also stole the same conclusion a few years later.
SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE (HAUTE/HIGH TENSION) (2005)
Arguably the most controversial twist on the list. Alexandre Aja’s fantastically gory French horror sees two female friends Marie (Cecile De France) and Alexia (Maiwenn) travelling to the remote home of one their parents for a spot of idyllic sunshine and study. However, a late night knock at the door from a hulking madman unleashes an escalating series of violent events as he kidnaps one, throwing her in the back of his truck, while the other secretly attempts to help her escape by following. The blood-drenched conclusion will not work for all, and is often described as nonsensical or in the extreme “cheating the audience”. However, I lapped up the ferocious finale as Marie is living the events in her own demented mind, obsessed and in love with her friend so much, she’s the one that’s murdered her friend’s family all along.
THE ORPHANAGE (2007)
Directed by J.A. Bayona and executively produced by Guillermo del Toro, THE ORPHANAGE sees Laura and her family return to her childhood home to try help other children like her, only to awaken and find her son Simon befriend the long-forgotten spirit of Tomás, an disfigured orphan boy who once lived at the institution. Soon, with the disappearance of her own son, Laura is forced to confront long forgotten memories of her time there. There is so much more richness in the spooky emotional storytelling and performances but the crux comes when we learn after punishing Simon, during her initial search for him, she inadvertently knocks over a post accessing the secret room in his closet, preventing her son from ever being found, during his attempts in signalling for help and to find another way out he’s killed. Realising her fault, Laura commits suicide for be with her son and the ghostly children forever.
DON’T LOOK NOW (1973)
After becoming a father for the first time a few years ago, the stark opening to Nicholas Roeg’s haunting classic, based on Daphne Du Maurier’s novel DON’T LOOK NOW, packs an even more emotional punch for myself. While looking at a mysterious slide image and seeing it ruined, it triggers an eerie warning for Donald Sutherland as he rushes to fish his lifeless daughter’s young body from the pond near their home. The harrowing scene is only the beginning of his and wife Julie Christie’s wretched journey and going to Venice to try and come to terms with their grief may not the best solution when they meet an elderly psychic. Could his daughter have come back when Sutherland sees visions of a red-coated child-like image weaving through the confined streets? Sadly not and when eventually catching up with the hooded figure, he becomes the latest victim of this dwarf-like psychopath holding the city in the grip of fear.
rest @ source. CREEPY POST TIME!