Some people say that 2016 is not a movie "big year", but a movie "amazing year", because this year's horror/thriller new films have popped up a lot, and even a little bit can't see it. Just brush the circle of friends, there are these works: "Busan Trip", "Crying", "Conjuring 2", "Shark Beach", "10 Clover Road", "After Turning Off the Lights", "Middle Evil", "Hold Your Breath", "Please Call Me a Hero".
But in fact, in terms of my personal perception, this year is more like a "horror movie reputation" big year.
As one who when asked about his ideals in life, he will reply that he wants to make a horror movie (don't laugh!). Impossible. A die-hard fan of horror/thriller, by the end of the year, he still listed his top ten (in fact, there were 12) new horror thriller films of the year, as well as two special mentioned works.
In addition, this list lacks an expectation but has not yet had time to watch "Raw Eating".
*Special choice
Top 10 New Horror Thrillers of 2016
1. "Creepy"
Japan/Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Famous works: "Circuit", "Extraordinary Divine Tree", "X Sacred Rule"
Ten years after "The Cry", Kiyoshi Kurosawa once again carried the banner of horror films.
Brilliant scheduling and light and shadow control, repeated viewing to understand its essence. This alone makes it difficult to put a lot of energy into caring about the plot and lines, so the first time I watched it was enough to watch it for one night. The atmosphere is chilly and subtle, more than 19 years ago in "X Holy Rule", "The Way of the Snake", "Spider's Pupil", more than a little more than (but maybe not better).
It is clearly visible that Kurosawa Kiyoshi's magic hand in the type mashup reaches out to a more layered realm, while the theme is still in a state of retrospection ("Shout", "Circuit", "Extraordinary Sacred Tree", "X Sacred Rule", "Shore Journey", "The Way of the Snake", "Tokyo Sonata").
The interrogation passage in Creepy is the best long shot of the year
And just when we think that Kurosawa Kiyoshi's work this time is almost reduced to a play with no novelty to speak of (seeing 3/4 of the place almost issued "What ghost, even Kurosawa Kiyoshi has to pay attention to narrative logic?"). Sigh) when the commercial work, he finally returned at the end of the fable that was once "broken".
Everything ends in a logical black hole
In this unconventional and seemingly profound allegorical ending, the wife hugs her husband and screams, which can be understood as the wife character in the "Tokyo Sonata" who makes the "Shout" in the absurd environment of the "Extraordinary Sacred Tree", the tearing and disintegration within the family and the doomsday complex outside the family, the double collapse, which can only be expressed in the most primitive way.
Yeah, "I've long since given up on a lot of things".
2. The Witch
USA/Robert Eggers
Debut
The low-cost debut has produced an elegant horror film, and it is also the most unexpected dark horse in this year's new horror films. Works that absorb religious elements into horror elements can always evoke the most primitive nightmares in the human heart.
3. Neon Demon
France, Denmark/Nicholas Wintering Reyfern
Famous works: "Only God can forgive", "Outlaw Driving"
A delicate nausea and morbidity, a childish moan of powerlessness as the story itself. That's what the new Parma successor, NWR's latest work, is trying to say.
Ben is still worried, but after reading a long sigh of relief, most of the criticism is another point of view is praise. However, the premise is not to treat it simply as a movie, to properly ignore its cinematography, and then to do something else, such as a cross-media show that connects the plot, and gives the NWR room for tolerance, then you will find that this childish and exploitative film is actually disgusting and interesting. It's just a pity that there are no more crazy times, after all, it can only stay here, and the pattern is positioned in a more single theme of exploitation films, which will make most viewers criticize its small family temperament that cannot be expanded.
NWR still has more room for advancement.
4. "Crying"
Korea/Luo Hongyi
Famous works: "The Chaser", "Yellow Sea"
The beginning is the ending, "The soul has no bones and no flesh, you see I have." ”
People's doubts confuse fear, lack of faith, illusion the puzzle of history, Japan and South Korea, and finally see Satan. After an hour of excitement, the evil witch Oriental magic intensified, like the dark vortex in people's hearts.
Of course, in order to hide the inexplicable part of the great ambition under the framework of various genre films, the excessive integration between the horror genre elements and other genre elements directly leads to the character defects under the symbolization, and Luo Hongyun is still ambitious > ability.
In addition, instead of saying that Korean films have surpassed us by twenty years, we should see the huge differences in the creative environment between China and Korea, and the fact that Kurosawa Kiyoshi has surpassed "Cry" for twenty years in "X Sacred Rule".
5. "Busan Trip"
Korea/Yeon Sang-ho
Famous works: "The King of pigs"
The big-budget zombie film (Zombie Korea Wars), which belongs exclusively to South Korea, is also the director's first live-action film, but it is already confident enough. The absorption of Korean commercial films to learn from Hollywood's super high ability will still be discounted by Korean diseases (routine, stupidity, stylization). However, despite such and such regrets, through the control of the thrilling atmosphere, the sophisticated production, and the good script with a full character and a tight plot, it still succeeded in becoming the world's most popular and highly acclaimed horror film TOP3 in 2016.
6. Nocturnal Animals
USA/Tom Ford
Famous works: "Single Man"
To be honest, I had the biggest expectations for TF's new work before watching it, because many people said that Amway was stronger than the previous work "Single Man", but in terms of personal perception, it disappointed me.
Although it is a very interesting and worthy of repeated appreciation of the script framework organization, a variety of dark line details to write the characters abundantly, unfortunately the core is somewhat empty, the heroine through the play in the play to get the outside torture, containing the revenge theme from love to hate (another set of solution ideas is from the male protagonist's writer psychology, even if there is a guilty self", but still can only get the revenge theme), and finally tells us that "life is pulled to another direction by different trajectories".
This way of dealing with the theme shows that it is a conservative treatment when shaking the burden, first pulling and then seeking the circle, and it seems that Ou Rong has no bottom. This also directly leads to the design of the student cavity, the ending that seems to be thunderous and rainy. However, because of the pull of ambition, this work is more mature in style than "Single Man", and TF's crossover is born for the screen.
The object of reference is the above-mentioned "Neon Demon", two thriller works set in the American fashion circle (one bottom and one high order), both of which reveal the atmosphere of linking Palma's suspense works in the last century, and have a lot of ink and color in the formal packaging, but they are also strong in the specific narrative level. In contrast, NWR's taste in Neon Devil is more obviously "straight" and cheaper, and his style is more pediatric and willful (the narrative of the last half hour is completely broken), which makes me inexplicably more favorable. After all, the "Nocturnal Animal" I was looking forward to should be fierce, broken, sick, willful, and fly a little more, not a hold.
7. The Conjuring 2
USA/Wen Ziren
Famous works: "Chainsaw Horror", "Conjuring"
"Dead Silence", "Latent"
The latest work of contemporary commercial horror film magnate Wen Ziren, who has always created a high-box office myth, "The Conjuring 2", is the most skilled commercial horror work of the year. The advantages of the hollow mind design of the audio-visual and plot are highlighted and the degree of viewing is high.
Although it is still a routine of psychic, murderous house, exorcism, etc., it is similar to the first one, and many creative points are also good. Maybe it would be better to cut the second half of the rambling part for twenty minutes, and also freeze this work on the middle line of the Wen Ge sequence, and this paving seems to indicate that Wen Ziren wants to create a new horror film universe?
8. "Hold Your Breath"
USA/Feder Alvarez
Many people's best horror film of the year, the scheduling is amazing, the editing is sharp, and the capture, amplification and substitution of fear are precisely done at this point. On the scary, after entering the confined small space for the first twenty minutes, there is no urine spot.
Unfortunately, the story is too stupid (the stupidest on the list), and if you only pursue horror effects, this game can be included in the annual TOP3. But as for the rest, forget it.
9. "The Nameless Female Corpse"
United Kingdom/Andrea Ivdorf
This is indeed a horror film that has suddenly emerged recently, and after watching it, I realized that it had a good performance at the Toronto Film Festival.
Taking the morgue as a secret room space, a nameless mysterious and beautiful female corpse Wraith resembles Kiyoshi Kurosawa [Hidden Corpse Building], and the religious theme is the same as this year's other [Witch], which is one of the best horror movie settings of this year.
The first half relies on dissecting the body and the occasional devious detail to bring a lot of fresh strokes of physical nausea and psychological stimulation; unfortunately, the second half uses some less advanced scare methods such as singing, power outage, photography, cutting the wrong person, frightening the fall of the building and the ending of reincarnation, and the sudden throwing of large puzzles and instantaneous spikes are also unstable. Due to the frustration at the end, the final presentation of this work is still not ideal.
10.#Juxtaposition#Shark Beach
USA/Zomi Shira
Famous works: "Orphans"
The only one of the ten works that can be seen in mainland theaters (big screen), so there are also many bonuses. After all, cinema is the best way to maximize the advantages and minimize the disadvantages of horror/thrillers and bring about a truly cardiac arrest moment. The beauty of the beauty is short and fast, the branches and leaves are cut just right, the goal is clear, effective and not wasteful, and the small cost thriller is made into such a basic nowhere to nitpick.
It is said that this is already the best shark film since Jaws, and it seems that the attempt to make a thriller with shark creativity has not grown much in thirty years...
10.#Juxtaposition#New Godzilla
Japan/Hideaki Anno
Famous work: Evangelion
Purely from a horror point of view, this "New Age Evangelion" director Hideaki Anno's "Godzilla" is not as good as the Previous Two Years' American version, but unexpectedly, it shifts the focus from audiovisual to the script that fights for the faces of all beings. I didn't expect that this "Godzilla" that has never been seen in history can be filmed in such depth, and there are many issues such as political metaphors, fatalism, social crisis, 311 and its nuclear panic. Many times it can shock people, and the last scene is even more shocking.
But unfortunately, after looking at the whole thing, the intuitive perception is still more tired, as netizens said, "I want to watch and fight monsters, but you give me a political lesson." A monster movie that talks about politics 90% of the time will eventually make you feel bored for a moment.
10.#Juxtaposition#10 Clover Road
USA/Dan Trachtenberg
Famous works: (Episode) "Black Mirror"
When struggling with who would be the last in "Shark Beach", "New Godzilla" and "10 Clover Road", they were all selected. The former are rare works that enter domestic theaters with big screen bonuses; the latter two are because they do mix too much fresh stone in the thriller.
Remember that "10 Clover Road" seems to be the first fire of fear to burst the circle of friends this year, if it were not for the fact that every marketing number was recommending this work that was full of praise, I would not have noticed it, and the first thing that came to mind after watching it was "Predator" starring Schwarzenegger in the eighties of the last century, many of which seemed to be novel things were played thirty years ago.
Among them, the genre swing makes it inherently hybrid "Panic Square", "Chainsaw Horror", "Mist" and other different styles of horror/thriller works (but unfortunately does not have the advantage of a large number of pseudo-documentary styles in the previous "Clover Files"), the small pattern under the big world view - the plot swing between the secret room suspense / doomsday science fiction, including the use of the audience's perspective to generate doubts about the world view in the first half of this pattern - and further strengthens the advantage of genre hybridization, so that the whole work has been pulled by tensions from different directions.
Although it is not very good to say how outstanding the effect is, it is indeed a work with surprises this year.
~~Special mention~~
13. Under the Shadows, Qatar /Jordan
14. "Seoul Station" Korea
Under the Shadows
Even if the top ten is actually extended to the top twelve, there are still two works placed here as relics.
"Under the Shadows" is relatively unpopular, depicting the psychological panic and religious persecution after the Iran-Iraq War with the horrific encounter of a mother and daughter.
"Seoul Station" is a linkage work done by "Busan Trip" director Yeon Sang-ho, who has made many achievements in animation, and has taken a completely different path from the thrills under the sun, and the background color is more dark and depressing.
"The Middle Evil"
In addition, some new horror thriller films that have been hyped up by domestic and foreign media, such as "Please Call Me a Hero", "After Turning Off the Lights", "Green Room" and "Middle Evil", etc., have a very general personal perception.
Especially "Middle Evil", although there are only tens of thousands of dollars to do the cost, there should be no requirements, and the clever use of pseudo-documentary forms to create an atmosphere is enough. But this is worse than the variety show sitcom, the clumsy performance and the directional plot, for me the fright index is close to zero, the only thing that can be encouraged is its attitude and temperament as a rare domestic independent horror film.
Without further ado, hopefully I'll continue to be intimidated next year.
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