Best Horror Film of 1999 (part 31 of a series)

audition probably takes this but i voted blair witch, such a fun, weird phenom. kinda weird no sixth sense up there.

Ah crap... sorry about the missing Sixth Sense. IMDb classifies it as drama/mystery/thriller, so it didn't come up on my search.

Feel like I should vote for Audition, but I have a soft spot for Ravenous.

The Ninth Gate and Stir of Echoes are awesome, slept-on flicks.

One critic I respect pumps The Rage: Carrie 2 but I didn't get it.

But this has to go to The Blair Witch Project which still functions as a searing anti-Western, perhaps in spite of itself but so what?

Crappy: End of Days, House on Haunted Hill (and I can't recall if I've seen The Haunting but I have faith that it pales before the great lesbian original)

Fun: Ravenous

The Ninth Gate is totally underrated.

Ravenous was such a weird little movie.

Blair Witch is such fucking fucking shit

Shit that fucks - now there would be a horror film.

I was going to treat this as a battle between The Ninth Gate and Blair Witch Project, with the latter probably winning, but then I saw that Audition was on the list. That is one of the scariest things I have ever seen, so it is a no contest winner.

The Ninth Gate isn't bad, but it's fairly inconsequential and disappointing. Audition, while I like it, never impressed or shocked me as much as it did others. Seen a few more of these but they range from bad to terrible.

Blair Witch wins this fairly easily for me, and I wish I'd voted for it in the documentaries poll just to piss Morbs off. ^__^

I love how silly and slight "The Ninth Gate" is. "Blair Witch" deserves its praise, even if I never want to see it again. "Ravenous" I thought ridiculous at the time, but it's stuck with me. "Audition" is great. "In Dreams" ... is that the Robert Downey. Jr/ Annette Benning movie by Neil Jordan? It has some pretty incredible imagery, iirc - an entire underwater town, for example. Don't remember much about it though. Downey is a serial killer that haunts/stalks Benning in ... her dreams?

Recognize a lot of crap upthread that, were it 10 years earlier, likely would have gone straight to video. "Stigmata," "End of Days," "Bats..."

"Stir of Echoes" was pretty creepy, I thought.

At the risk of playing Trollhunter: Morbs, what do you think of "The Sixth Sense?"

Like it, one of the best US films of '99 (the last good year for major/major-indie releases).

Good year for this stuff. Audition will make a deserving winner, but I'm going with Ravenous.

In Dreams supposed to be insanely underrated. Idle Hands good unclean fun.

I love how silly and slight "The Ninth Gate" is.

two things are great about it.

1. It is basically a Hammer-style horror film - like they never make any more.

2. They dropped all the pretentious Dumas stuff that was in the book, causing endless annoyance to people who had read the book first.

words create lies. pain can be trusted.

'99 was just a great year all around, man. From "Being John Malkovich" to "The Insider."

Miss you, '99.

the sex scene @ the end of 9th gate is hilarious imo

1. It is basically a Hammer-style horror film - like they never make any more.

Hmm. I never really got this impression of it, but I can sort of see where it comes from. I don't know, maybe I was just expecting a more serious film and thus saw 'not actually worth taking seriously' rather than 'lighthearted'. I dunno, man, it's about books! Films about books should be serious!

I was going to say that the Sixth Sense was one of the worst films I've seen, but I've seen other Shyamalan, so... And to be honest, it's not that awful, it's just boring and obvious - I think the anger I feel about it is mostly because a) at the time it was really hyped and it turned out to be shitty (big surprise with Hollywood, I know), and b) it allowed M Night to continue making films.

Audition is fine but terribly overrated.

there are moments in Blair Witch that the found footage genre still hasnt caught up with. that movie is legit

End of Days has some amazing moments (arnold crying lol) but doesn't really commit. one of the most underlit movies i've ever seen.

i saw The Haunting in the theater and can honestly not remember a single scene from it. i can remember what I was thinking during it though, which is how bizarre it was that Lili Taylor was the star of this megabudget horror extravaganza

In Dreams is one of the worst movies i've ever seen

Lake Placid was really ahead of the curve when it came to foul-mouthed Betty White vehicles

The Ninth Gate is pretty funny iirc. i'd probably watch it again if i had the chance

Ravenous is loads of fun. love Jeffrey Jones in this, crushing walnuts with his bare hands and complaining about how lonely it is being a cannibal zombie. got my vote

Sleepy Hollow's the last burton movie i care for at all. chivo lubizki is the movie's secret weapon. amazing production design, cool atmosphere, pointy teeth walken. casper van dien's actually a descendant of the dutch settlers from the original story, or something like that.

Stigmata - can barely remember this. gabriel byrne was pretty busy with the religious horror movies that year

Virus - one of cliff curtis' first hollywood roles, launching his career as the 21st century anthony quinn. appalling movie

Oh, Stigmata was appalling, don't worry about not remembering it.

i believe it!

more Sleepy Hollow trivia - it was the last movie ever released on laserdisc, anywhere in the world

i feel like this is the final word on End of Days:

And when it comes down to it Arnold being possessed and trying to rape a girl isn’t that fun of an action climax. Hindsight is 20/20, but in my opinion T2: JUDGMENT DAY wouldn’t be quite as popular if at the end the Terminator went on the fritz and tried to rape Linda Hamilton. It was just more enjoyable to watch him battle the T-1000 as he falls apart and then lower himself into the molten metal to save the future from his own existence. I know rules are made to be broken but I gotta stand by the rule “don’t have the hero of your dumb action movie turn into a rapist at the end.” Even if he switches back.

Didn't like Blair Witch or The Sixth Sense (although because of the former, I do still get spooked when I go into my basement late at night, making sure not to look over towards the far corner of the room). I liked Sleepy Hollow, although not really because it was a good horror movie.

Gamera 3: Iris kakusei

j/k it's audition

i have seen so many of these

well like 12 of them

the majority i have no real memory of. 'blair witch' i remember really well so ill vote for that

"Stigmata" was such an astoundingly stupid movie

"Sleepy Hollow" was an astoundingly stupid movie that had Johnny Depp doing a hilarious Doctor Who imitation in it and a bunch of awesome decapitations

as these polls roll on, I realize my objection isn't so much to horror films as it is to slasher films

gamera 3's actually one of the best kaiju movies of the last 20 years, and i'd take it any day over one-trick-pony Audition

But it's a good trick!

maybe my mistake with audition was seeing it more than once. i knew better with blair witch, havent seen it since opening weekend, but that second trip around the block with Audition killed it for me. probably didn't help that my gf was so unimpressed with it too (i sprung it on her blind but she said she knew asami was the villain as soon as she appeared wearing all-white)

well i am a miike stan, but also i DID watch blair witch again, recently, maybe for the first time since i saw it in theaters. it...did not hold up for me. also the first time i saw it the philly audience was laughing through the whole thing, so any suspense kinda went right out the window.

i am always so confused when Audition is treated like some holy grail of horror films, its uh ok? actually kinda mediocre really.

not talking about u dudes, but 90% of the time when i talk to somebody about horror stuff and they start waxing about audition they end up being pretty uninformed about stuff past ringu and the grudge - like they have found their SHOCKING movie and use it as conversation fuel.

its not even my fave miike but its definitely the film i enjoy most from this list of the ones ive seen.

oh trust me man i am prob going to vote for blair witch so i am def not on my high horse here

Yeah, "Audition" is one of those films that toes the line between horror and just horrific, a la the usual people-strapped-to-a-chair suspects.

What year did "Anaconda" come out? That movie was funny.

audition is awesome, have seen it tons of times, I think of it more as a psychological thriller than a horror film tbh. it says a lot about loneliness and fear of intimacy, script is smart, blackly funny, a mobius strip of social anxieties. there are a number of different ways to interpret the events in the film, which makes it a fun puzzle to play with. love the cinematography + color scheme too.

ps I've got a long in-defense-of-audition screed I'm a piano wire's breadth away from posting itt

please do!

a few of these are being overlooked, though none can challenge Audition, BWP, or Ravenous for BHF99. BWP didn't wow me; the others did. i see this one being an 11th hour vote.

Blood Dolls - moronic Charles Band brilliance that encompasses all his video fetishes. killer puppets? little people? head deformities? all-girl metal bands? mild S&M? check, check, check, check, and check.
In Dreams - it's not *that* bad. some arresting imagery - the flooded town, all the apples. sticks in your head.
I, Zombie: The Chronicles of Pain - i hate this movie so, so, so, much. broody, grody, pseudo-smart existential YA zombie angst. insufferable. the dir.'s latest, part of the Little Murders anthology, isn't much better.
Ice from the Sun - wherein Eric Stanze throws his arms around an awesome concept that VASTLY exceeds his budget and grasp. points for trying, man. wouldn't make a bad video backdrop for a Ministry cover-band show.
The Item - weird one, this. obnoxious Tarantinoisms and a goony-looking empathic Muppet. indigestible caper/sci-fi/horror indie misfire, but certainly different. i've been known to dust it off from time to time.
Kolobos - reality TV with a High Tension twist. oops, sorry.
Lighthouse - one of the great modern slasher films, for my money. efficient, nail-biting thrills, no PoMo dodginess, and only a little preposterous.
The Nameless - a rough draft of Martyrs, in a way, from Ramsay Campbell's novel. Balaguero was still learning the ropes here, and it shows, but he's already one to watch.
Resurrection - one of the better Se7en clones. Mulcahy and Lambert should make another movie together. but not a sequel, plz.
Saimin - Cure for dummies, or something. fun movie. some showstopping suicides.
Tell Me Something - wet, wicked neo-giallo that heralded the nonstop awesomeness soon to come from S. Korea's film industry.

hall of shame
The Killer Eye - truly rancid would-be cult abortion from David "strip those young boys down to their undies" DeCoteau. or was this one of the films he directed in drag?

I'd pull the lever for tell me something if audition weren't in the room

hall of shame
The Killer Eye - truly rancid would-be cult abortion from David "strip those young boys down to their undies" DeCoteau. or was this one of the films he directed in drag?
--silent ouzo eclipse (Mr. Hal Jam)

Don't have much problem with David DeC's eye, myself. Or maybe I just don't mind seeing an A&F casting call tortured and killed.

nor do i have a problem with D.DeC, who seems to have done well for himself by turning his queer eye towards making silly horror films for straight girls. but this one's inexcusable. it's just crap.

Blair Witch is such fucking fucking shit

Morbz otm wtf are you people on, repping for this crap

Ravenous is quite good.

In Dreams has such a terrible ending IIRC.

gamera 3's actually one of the best kaiju movies of the last 20 years

yeah, the 90s gamera movies are all pretty great (if memory serves, anyway). not really sure why imdb classifies them as "horror" tho.

ok, what is tomie? diggin these stills:

http://www.snowbloodapple.com/images/tomie/stumpie.jpghttp://www.snowbloodapple.com/images/tomie/thankgoditsnotraining.jpghttp://www.snowbloodapple.com/images/tomie/eyes.jpg

huh. looks like they got scrubbed. grabbed em from here:

http://www.snowbloodapple.com/tomie.htm

yeah, the 90s gamera movies are all pretty great (if memory serves, anyway). not really sure why imdb classifies them as "horror" tho.

yes!! these were great. so glad I actually got to see one in a theater

and i will tell you why...in...seven days.

shakey because BWP2 was directed by joe berlinger who did paradise lost the documentary

my big thing with blair witch is is saved us from a decade of us filmmakers trying to figure out how to americanize long black haired ghost girls.

instead they joined Paramore.

nah strongo i know it still happened but imagine how much worse it would have been

well yeah but i am also one of those weirdos who prefers ring to ringu

Capturing the Friedmans and Blair Witch had similar budgets and relied on found-ish footage, and makes their meals on the major horror being unrecorded,
which I feel puts them closer together than say Blair Witch and Devil's Experiment series.

not talking about u dudes, but 90% of the time when i talk to somebody about horror stuff and they start waxing about audition they end up being pretty uninformed about stuff past ringu and the grudge - like they have found their SHOCKING movie and use it as conversation fuel.

well, it prob is one of the most extreme movies to routinely top horror lists and these lists ARE aimed at dabblers. not too surprising, really. not everyone has the will to sit through hours of japanese and french gore fests, you know?

also its pretty unique within the miike filmography given its uh restraint and controlled pacing

yeah, good point. it's prob. the miike film from that era with the most crossover appeal. plays it fairly straight (for miike) and it's easily his most hyped film until maybe 13 assassins.

He spoke at the screening I saw of this film. I seem to recall him saying something to the effect of "it's a story about why you shouldn't fall in love with the wrong people".

i am also one of the weirdos that prefers the ring to ringu btw

Not too many movies I don't prefer to the American Ring.

srsly considering a joe berlinger director poll but i cant decide if it should be for best or worst

*stands*

My name is Darin and I too am a weirdo that prefers The Ring to Ringu.

cmon the ring has naomi watts in it i mean lets just be real here

You guys are insane.

The Killer Eye - truly rancid would-be cult abortion from David "strip those young boys down to their undies" DeCoteau.

I loooove DeCoteau, the Carl Dreyer of bargain basement, homoerotic, not-really-horror films. I love everything I've seen by him cept for Final Stab and Beastly Boyzzzz. Never seen this one, though. I'm sure it's great in that inimitable "strip those young boys down to their undies" way.

Mr. Hal Jam, please write a horror film book. I will buy, read, and review it. xoxo

Ravenous surprisingly good, Alex in SF OTM

I haven't seen Ringu but The Ring is like my platonic ideal of The Type Of Horror Movie DJP Can Totally Get Behind

Honestly, The Ring and The Grudge are two movies I always have time for.

The Type Of Horror Movie DJP Can Totally Get Behind

As in, not scary at all?

As in, more psychological and not outlandishly, gratuitously gross.

Seems to me there are about three-thousand horror movies that are more concerned with psychology than The Ring.

Don't mind me, though. I just think The Ring is like the ultimate Playskool horror movie.

I find the portent of all the relentless soggy little ghost girl movies pretty tedious. It's a haunted VHS cassette! It's a haunted cell phone! It's a haunted merry go round!
They're all just variations on the say bloody mary three times in the mirror trope, which of course was done best in "Candyman."

I've been meaning to see "Tale of Two Sisters," though, which I always assumed to be a variant of this trend.

Yeah, I skipped that one too, but I've been told that move was in error.

yeah, a tale of two sisters uses some of the same soggy dead girl tropes, but it's more of a twisted fairy tale, plus it has sumptuous cinematography and set design and some great acting in its favor. I thought it was one of the greatest horror movies I'd seen up until the last quarter... the conclusion kind of lost me, but any horror film fan should def check it out

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/photo450.jpg

ok princesstamtam, here's my tl;dr on audition, wrote this sometime around 2003 after the US DVD was released...

The first time I watched Audition I was frustrated by the final section's seemingly random switching between dream and reality, saw it as mere gamesmanship, a low cost way to screw with the viewer's head and avoid the burden of being a responsible storyteller. But on repeat viewings the structure of the film became clearer. Audition is very cagey about what it reveals and when it reveals it. There's an open-endedness that allows for multiple interpretations, and reducing the film to its hairpin twist and grueling finale ignores the layers available if you want to sift through the grotesquerie. Can I walk you through an alternate reading, where the evil Asami is completely a figment of the main character's imagination? Great, thanks.

Shigeharu is a lonely man. He's embarrassed about his shyness and inability to meet women. He falls deeply in love with someone he barely knows, and the dangers of doing so are pointed out to him by his son and his best friend. His conscience nags at him for beginning their romance via a grand deception. When they finally consummate their relationship, he becomes fearful of the sudden intimacy and neediness of his new partner.

Now imagine Asami is nothing more than what she presents herself to be – a sweet, shy, emotionally fragile young woman - and the creepy scenes in her apartment are Shigeharu's imagination running wild (note that these visions occur only when he is alone and thinking of her).

When he falls asleep beside her in the blue room a walloping dream engulfs him, equal parts abandonment fantasy, paranoia-induced terror, and guilt trip. Notice how the evenly paced tone of the film shifts suddenly when Shigeharu is awakened by a mysterious call from the bellhop (a freak straight from David Lynch central casting) and he discovers his lover gone. Why would a person as needy and clinging as Asami abandon Shigeharu in the middle of the night? It is because Shigeharu is in the depths of a protracted nightmare.

His dream fills in the backstory of Asami, explaining the gaps in his knowledge in the most disturbed ways possible. The scars on her legs are from a relative's abusive torture. Her ballet career has seedy overtones. No one can contact her former employer because she cut him to pieces and keeps him in a sack in her dank apartment. Her emotional damage causes her to commit the cruelest acts of violence.

During the surreal sequence after he drinks the drugged whiskey, we are provided with information about Shigeharu we didn't get before, and a different picture of the lonely widower emerges. We see additional exchanges during his date with Asami, moments purposely elided in the earlier scene by a jarringly visible edit. He is revealed to be so smitten that he can't listen to her, can't hear her. She reveals uncomfortable details about her past – he becomes restless and doesn't know how to react. He will never know her, because he is hung up on an idea of her, her youth, beauty, servility. He praises her, but doesn't want to hear anything about the unseemly details of her life. We see that he wants her, but there is no basis for a real relationship between them. Later, we learn that the sad woman in his office who stares longingly at him is not a potential romantic interest he has overlooked – she is an employee he took sexual advantage of, and then rudely shunned.

From this angle, Audition depicts men's distrust of intimacy, how we can entertain the darkest suspicions of others rather than reflect on our own behavior. When Shigeharu awakens from the torture dream to discover himself again in the blue room with Asami, both he and the viewer are relieved and terrified. It was just a dream - but he can't look at Asami the same way again. So who's the monster in the bed? The deceived, needy woman, or the man who pursues needy women and then recasts them in his dreams as sadistic, murderous psychopaths?

If we accept the evil Asami as a reality within the narrative framework, the film loses tension - its message devolves into "Women are psycho bitches, don't be intimate, don't trust them, look what happens" (perhaps an overstatement, since Asami remains a sympathetic figure even after she commits the most horrible acts, but in a film that bases its premise on gender relationships it's something to take into account). If the evil Asami is real, the immoral actions of Shigeharu pale in comparison to her revenge. We view his torture as extreme punishment for a minor transgression. However, if the evil Asami is a harpy wholly sprung from his imagination, Shigeharu's punishment becomes self-punishment, a more psychological, Poe-like angle. Other readings become available, other questions arise – will the intimacy of Asami, or of any woman, always terrify him? Does Asami symbolize his wife returning from the grave to dredge up the suffering he repressed after her death? Is the torture scene a symbolic ritual that will finally purge him of his grief?

This is not the only interpretation of Audition, or perhaps even the most relevant. Miike states explicitly in the film commentary that he intended the torture scene to be reality, and not a dream. But the fact that this alternate reading can hide comfortably within the film and coexist with other interpretations says a lot about the richness of Audition, and belies its reputation as a one-trick sledgehammer shocker.

I'm trying to think of a better movie than Blair Witch in the genre and the closest I could come up with was Capturing the Friedmans

― Philip Nunez, Thursday, September 1, 2011 6:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah, like i was saying, the found footage genre is still living in its shadow. i cant think of any FF movie with a moment as good as the "here's your motivation" scene

also its pretty unique within the miike filmography given its uh restraint and controlled pacing

― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Thursday, September 1, 2011 6:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

dude, controlled pacing is a miike hallmark!

He spoke at the screening I saw of this film. I seem to recall him saying something to the effect of "it's a story about why you shouldn't fall in love with the wrong people".

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, September 1, 2011 7:06 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i watched it with my mom years ago and she deadpanned afterwards that she thought it was about how japanese men are afraid of women. which is obviously true, but the way she said it so plainly was funny

your mom otm

cool post ed

thx

for me to poop on

lol

voted Blair Witch, but what's up with all the japanese Food titled flicks:

sausage
saimin (hawaiian version of okinawan pork noodle soup?)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

the night blair witch opened it was sold out so my friend and i joined my family to watch deep blue sea. what a gloriously stupid movie. one of the best times i've ever had at the movies.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Deep Blue Sea is awesome. Was that not a voting option? Regardless, over a decade after its release ... the promotional website lives!

http://deepbluesea.warnerbros.com/

thank you warner bros:

http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm

and yeah, deep blue sea rules. fond memories of watching it en espanol at a mexican restaurant while eating a delicious burrito.

missed this one, but would have only added to the Audition jampile anyway.

I think the whole Blair Witch thing was a whole cool standalone 'event'/time-capsule, but the film itself, removed from that, is only pretty decent & not really something that rewards repeat viewing.

Stir of Echoes was swept aside as a quickie Sixth Sense knockoff at the time, which was unfair not just b/c the movies were in production at exactly the same time, but b/c it is the superior (& scarier) ghost story.

tarnation was a little more frightening than blair witch now that i think about it, but they are both better than cloverfield.

tarnation is better than exactly nothing

I think maybe that within the ILX grudge match between Audition and Blair Witch lies one of the keys to the universe

I still haven't seen BWP since first viewing whereas have seen Audition several times over many years.

Kinda curious to what I'd think of BWP now. That last scene gave me nightmares

yeah i loved bwp but it feels so of the moment i can't imagine it would be the same now, kinda suspect paranormal activity may have been a more effective version anyway. glad to see sleepy hollow got a vote up there, it looks fantastic obv and really is the last tim burton movie where i'm able to understand what i enjoyed about him.

is idle hands any good or was that just 'jessica alba is in her underwear' votes?

I can't recall: did we come to the conclusion that '99 was the worst year for horror movies since the inception of the horror movie? Because it sure looks that way.

Idle Hands was such fucking trash omfg

there's a reason why it was bargain bin fodder! then again so was Ravenous for whatever reason