Five Favorite Horror Movies Part I

It’s no secret that I’m not the biggest fan of horror movies. Whether it’s ghosts and goblins, devils and demons, or slashers and…I don’t know, crashers?, the genre isn’t my jam. But it IS the jam of many a’Mad About Movies listener and since it’s October, and Happy Scare Time is upon us, I thought it prudent to lean into that Halloween feeling. Over the course of this month, we’ll be publishing several entries from both MAM hosts and MAM contributors discussing their personal five favorite horror movies. At the end of the month, we’ll also have a bonus episode available on our VIP feed talking to each blog contributor about a few of the films on their respective lists. Thanks for reading. -Brian

Halloween is just around the corner and with the incoming of brisk autumn air and stomachaches from overdosing on bite-sized Snickers also comes the thrills and chills of a well-crafted horror film. Horror has evolved from the Universal monsters of the 1930s to the Hitchcockian thrillers of ‘50s up to slashers in the ‘80’s and found-footage in the late ‘90s and into the 2000s. It’s hard to come up with a list of only five, but here are a few that I consider to be my personal favorites.  

5.) Halloween (1978)
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre may have been the godfather of low-budget slashers in 1974, but the release of Halloween in 1978 evolved the genre with its haunting score by director John Carpenter and menacing villain in Michael Myers. Halloween would be the motion picture debut of the incomparable Jamie Lee Curtis as final-girl Laurie Strode, who would later reprise her role forty years later in the rebooted franchise.

4.) Scream (1996)
From one film that defined a genre to one that gladly poked fun at it, the tongue-in-cheek horror/comedy from director Wes Craven gladly shined a light on what made the slasher genre so great, as well as what made it so ridiculous. You probably owned one of the ghost-face masks and have been asked, in a crackly voice, what your favorite scary movie is, and you have this film to thank. Just make sure not to say you’ll be right back when you leave a room.

3.) Hereditary (2018)
Yeah, this is a recent one, but it’s just too good to pass up. Putting writer/director Ari Astor on the map as a director who’s not afraid to put his vision on the big screen, this is one of the most well-shot horror films from a set design and cinematography aspect of the last twenty years. It’s too bad that the Oscars rarely, if ever, give genre films their due because Toni Collette should have been nominated, at least, for Best Actress.  

2.) The Descent (2005)
You know you have a great horror film on your hands when you can get thrills from the audience without having to show off your main monster until the film is two-thirds over. Creating a claustrophobic environment in a cave setting with six women trying to survive their predicament is nerve-racking enough, but once blood-thirsty albino monsters are added to the mix, The Descent in non-stop carnage.

1.) Suspiria (1977)
Dario Argento’s supernatural horror film about a young American dancer who embarks on a journey to a German dance academy run by witches is pure insanity from beginning to end. More unsettling than anything else, this is a different breed of horror film that many may find too out there but is well worth the investment.

Toronto International Film Festival Roundup

With over 300 films premiering over 11 days at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, it’s nearly impossible to see every single film that sounds interesting. I was fortunate enough to get to twenty films over nine days while at the festival. Here are my thoughts on the hits, the misses, and films that are carrying the most buzz heading into Oscar season.

First, a few films and performances generating strong buzz that I just missed out on.

Renee Zellweger in Judy
Portraying Judy Garland in the last year of her career as a performer in London, Zellweger is garnering massive acclaim in this better-than-average film.

Marriage Story
Directed by Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha, The Squid and the Whale), Marriage Story stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver as a divorced couple trying to navigate their new lives. Look for this film to be a major player for acting, directing, screenplay, and potentially Best Picture.

Pain and Glory
Heralded as the crowning achievement of Spanish writer/director Pedro Almodovar’s career, Pain and Glory stars Antonio Banderas as a film director who reflects on his life choices.

Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems
Another performance garnering plenty of hype is Adam Sandler’s turn as a New York jeweler in the latest film directed by the Safdie brothers (Good Time).

Next up, my top five films of the festival.

Honorable Mentions: All of these films I rated a 4/5 or higher but did not crack my top five: Abominable, Proxima, Waves, The Lighthouse, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and Ford v Ferrari.

5. Joker: Coming out of Venice with a massive hype machine and a golden lion statue under its belt, Joker was elevated by an interesting take on the source material and an amazing performance by Joaquin Phoenix (4.5/5).

4. Weathering with You: Director Makoto Shinkai’s follow-up feature to Your Name., Weathering with You may not be as great as his last film, but it is a visually stunning effort (4.6/5).

3. Knives Out: Rian Johnson has scrubbed off all the troll venom from The Last Jedi and created a funny, well-acted, and smartly written whodunit crime film that avoids many of the tropes that typically sink a film in this subgenre (4.75/5).

2. Jojo Rabbit: The People’s Choice Award winner is a hilarious farce that also packs a strong emotional wallop. Roman Griffin Thomas’ performance as young Jojo is one of the best I’ve seen out of any child actor in years. Taiki Waititi, if he wasn’t already, has cemented his spot as one of the best filmmakers of this generation (4.9/5).

1. Parasite: The Palme D’Or winner at this Cannes film festival is as close to cinematic perfection as you probably can get. The strength of the direction, cinematography, screenplay, and performances from all involved will make this a frontrunner for many major awards (5/5).

Finally, a few films that just missed the mark.

The Goldfinch: The critics skewered it, and audiences didn’t care to see it. This adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was two and a half hours of time wasted that eventually went nowhere.

Lucy in the Sky: After seeing the first trailer for this film I was all in. Natalie Portman as an astronaut who returns to space and is slowly losing her grip on reality sounds great, and Portman saved this from being a complete failure, but the film took risks when it shouldn’t have and didn’t take risks when it could have.

Color Out of Space: I know there is an audience out there who are die-hards for both Crazy Nicolas Cage and H.P. Lovecraft. The marriage should have been there, but the story was aimless, and the Nic Cage shtick wore brutally thin well before the third act began.

Sean is a member of the MAMFam and a contributor. He can be found on Instagram @moviebirb and his reviews can be found at moviebirb.com.

The Worst of Gerard Butler

Gerard Butler.

The name strikes fear into the heart of film critics worldwide. Since Gerard Butler made his starring debut in Dracula 2000, his reign of tyranny has spawned 19 years and 28 theatrically released films, most of which are very bad. Very, very bad. Of those 28 films, 22 are classified as “rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes. Of the six remaining, three are the How to Train Your Dragon movies for which, I think it is fair to say, Butler deserves almost no credit, two (Rocknrolla and 300) are on the VERY brink of tipping from “fresh” to “rotten”, and one, Coriolanus, is quite good but was released in only 21 theaters nationwide. The average Gerard Butler movie brings in a 37 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating. That’s a STAGGERINGLY low number.

Of course, critical reception is only part of the equation. Butler Truthers could write all of this off as stuffy critics overthinking blockbuster movies if the man consistently accounted for huge hits. Unfortunately, that has not been part of the Gerard Butler experience, either. Domestically, he’s been substantially more “miss” than “hit” (excepting the Dragon movies and 300) with his movies bringing in, on average, around $57 million per outing. Even accounting for the worldwide gross, which is much higher on Geostorm, London Has Fallen, and a few others, doesn’t really do the trick of cementing Mr. Butler’s status as a hitmaker.

And yet, he persists. We cannot in good conscience hold Mr. Butler’s early films, such as Timeline, the Tomb Raider sequel, and the aforementioned Dracula 2000, against him and surely, almost every actor goes through a rough stretch from time to time wherein some stinkers are to be expected. But when you tally up the number of massive misfires in a shockingly long career, you have to ask yourself just how in the world this dude keeps getting opportunities to lead movies. I don’t even dislike him on screen all that much and perhaps that’s the key; maybe he’s affable and charismatic enough to keep getting work despite lackluster returns. Whatever the reasoning, we should probably be applauding his ability to keep gettin’ them checks.

With Angel Has Fallen opening this weekend, I thought about using this space to rank Butler’s films but quickly realized there would be no way for me to sift between the bottom, say, 25 movies on his resume and find different ways to say “terrible.” So instead, each of our contributors has chosen and written about their own personal least favorite Butler movie among the myriad choices. Enjoy.

Shane Bierly – Gods of Egypt
Gerald Butler has certainly performed worse in other movies, but to date, Gods of Egypt is the worst film he has starred in. Aside from the obnoxiously white cast (playing…you know…ancient Egyptians…), this movie’s bad performances are topped only by worse dialogue and CGI that looks like it was done by a film student over a drunken Saturday afternoon. Coming in at 127 minutes, the film’s run time feels punishing. How this was ever green-lit, I will never know. But fans and haters alike of Mr. Butler would do well to skip this one.

Ariel Rada – 300
In 2006 Gerard Butler starred as King Leonidas in Zack Snyder’s sepia toned, uber-jacked 300. The movie itself is fine; a fun action flick that was expertly translated from page to screen. Snyder leveraged the goodwill from 300 to earn directing jobs for high profile projects: Watchmen, Man of Steel, and eventually Batman V. Superman. Butler’s Spartan Charisma helped usher in the age of Snyder-Verse DC movies, and we’ve suffered for it ever since. 

Tobin Hodges – The Phantom of the Opera
You may think this is a hard choice since there’s so many movies to choose from. But let me ask you a question: Is there a movie where Gerard Butler attempts to sing “Music of the Night?” Yes? THEN THAT’S THE WORST ONE. Never let that man sing again! I would rather watch the Cats movie every day for the rest of my life than hear him sing Andrew Lloyd Webber again.

Megan Spell – P.S. I Love You
Considering I am relatively blessed to not be too educated in Butler’s filmography, I will say his worst movie in my opinion is PS I Love You. I wouldn’t put the full blame on Gerard, but he definitely didn’t do anything to elevate it. I was once shunned from a sleepover party for not swooning over this movie. I have not forgiven or forgotten. 

Brian Gill – Geostorm
The best thing I can say for Geostorm is it gave me a new appreciation for Roland Emmerich. While a LOT of Emmerich’s filmography falls somewhere between “fun garbage” and “completely worthless garbage”, this movie is an incredible example of HOW MUCH WORSE a Roland Emmerich movie can be without Roland Emmerich behind the camera. Geostorm is the movie embodiment of the “At no point in your rambling…” speech from Billy Madison. Butler sits at the heart of this rampant incompetence, running from scene to scene doing and saying Gerard Butler Things without the gravitas of, say, Nicholas Cage to actually pull off and sell the inane, remarkably stupid things he says and does over and over again. It’s one of the most wheels-off movies ever made and a perfect microcosm of Butler’s film legacy.