1990's and Beyond

So, where does it all go from there? Good question. Around the mid- 1980's mainstream horror cinema took a nose dive, especially here in this country. If you wanted to see anything in the way of horror, you had to look elsewhere, namely the independent market or abroad. Blockbuster films continued to dominate mainstream cinema and continue to do so today. But for those that are hardcore like me have chosen to steer as far away from the horror mainstream as we could get. The mainstream horror market became saturated with remakes, remodels, rehashes or retreads of horror classics that were great in their day and should have been left alone; not to mention the onslaught of so-called torture-porn exemplified by such film excrement as the Saw series and the Hostel films. The fear arose that horror as a legitimate genre was truly dying a slow death.

However, around the late 1980s and to the mid 1990s, horror or in a more general term, independent film, was making a comeback, due largely to the Sundance Film Festival and other film festivals across the country and around the world. The Fantasia Film Festival would be a haven for new horror filmmakers to make a name for themselves, and bring new films into the horror arena. In the 1990's independent cinema was alive and well, thank you very much.

Here begins the showcase of films that have become my favorites within the last 20 years.

Let's pray this never, EVER happens! This one will receive a more detailed write-up when I can include clips of the interview with the author, Margaret Atwood.

Before he would grace us with Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo Del Toro gave us this bit of horror awesomeness

As film adaptations of books goes, this one is on the mark, maybe too well on the mark for comfort. It was an sad, tragic film and it kept very true to the soul of Jack Ketchum's amazing book, The Girl Next Door. To read my review of the book, go here.

Sadly, this film should have made more of an impact than it did (or what I mean to say, it should have seen a more wider release than it did). This film won numerous awards at every film festival where it entered. Then it kind of fell off the map. It played for a very brief time here in Philadelphia upon it's release, but then disappeared; to appear again on my Netflix list where I was able to finally view it. I feel that these events would never have seen the light of day if it hadn't been for this young Marine's courage. It's not an easy film to watch, yet, is truth, sometimes, ever easy?

This film was too outrageous for words. But in all honesty, have we seen anything this bizarre in a while? Oh, and don't bother with the edited version of this one...you need to see it full strength. There's a threesome scene that is off the hook funny as ass...until he kills them. Those who have a warped sense of humor like I do will really dig this film since I really couldn't take it seriously for a second. It's dark, nihilistic, and it totally pokes fun at the narcissism that was brought out in the Eighties when the story takes place. Naturally this film/book takes it all to extremes, but if you take it as the joke it's intended, it's a work of genius.