Best of the Wretched: A list of not only the good, but also the grand

Zombies
Let’s start things off with a BANG! * splat * (You’ll laugh later…).
Okay, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell you that zombies make an awesome movie. Some things are just common sense. Just ask George A. Romero, he based his whole career on zombie flicks (And he made a killing…you’ll laugh later…).
The most widely used type of zombie is the slow-moving, rotten type. And whenever they’re brought up as being terrifying, some jackass always challenges that fact with something along the lines of ‘But they’re so slow’ or ‘I could out run them’. Well, I’ve got news for you, buddy: you can run all you want, but you’re eventually gonna get tired. And when the whole world is zombified, as it usually is in these movies, that means that you’re bound to run into a few while you’re staggering around panting, probably looking for some Gatorade. And…come on…they’re the un-friggin’-dead! Who cares how slow they are?
Be they the lumbery silent type (Night, Dawn, Shaun?, Day, Land, Zombi 1 and 2, etc.), or the speedy humany type (28 Days and Weeks Later), zombies creep the pants off me. And hopefully ya’ll too.

Eli Roth
Say what you want about him and his movies, but I think that Eli Roth is one of the most gritty, knowledgeable directors out there. Yeah, you heard me. A lot of people out there hate on him, saying that his movies are crap and are just there to showcase blood n’ guts and that he’s probably a disturbed individual.
All right, first thing: He directs horror movies, what do you expect, a remake of Citizen Kane (Oh, god forbid…)? If you want to see a nice, calm, pleasant movie about daffodils and whole wheat, then you got lost in the video store.
Second thing: He’s probably a whole lot more sane than some of the people out there who aren’t in the horror movie business. He gets all his shit out there, instead of keeping it bottled up and then driving a tractor through his neighbour’s front wall (It was a funny image, just sayin’). I think it’s the people who take what’s in his movies to heart that are messed up. Like, if Hostel made someone think ‘Hmm…yeah, torture sounds good’, then they’ve got issues up the wah-zoo (sounds like ‘kazoo’…sound it out, it’s a real term).
In the end, Eli’s just a guy who loves horror movies, and is doing what he loves. Those who like him are gonna like him, and those who don’t aren’t. Personally, I think he’s doing something great for the genre, but maybe that’s just me.

That one part in Scanners
If anyone’s ever seen David Cronenberg’s Scanners, then I’m sure you know the scene I’m talking about. A certain characters’ head goes through a certain trauma, and ends up all over a certain wall.
Okay, so a newscaster who’s name I don’t care to remember has his head blown-up (psychically) by Michael Ironside’s Darryl Revok, a renegade scanner (someone with telepathic and telekinetic abilities). The rest of the movie doesn’t matter. The head explosion makes it. I even made it into an emoticon so I should show everyone on MSN. I lost a lot of friends…
What makes the effect even more badass is how they pulled it off: they stuffed a latex head full of dog food and rabbit livers (see your local grocer), and then blasted it with a 12 gauge shotgun. Fun stuff, for all ages.

Session 9
A little known fact: this movie is scary as shit. It’s one of the only recent movies that I can recall that creeped the hell out of me. It’s about 4 guys in an asbestos cleaning crew sent in to work on an abandoned mental institution. And weird-ass shit starts going down.
Now, you’re probably thinking ‘Been there, done that’. But this movie is different than all those Houses on Haunted Hills. It has a genuinely disturbing, bleak feel to it. And having really only 4 characters, it gets you close to these guys. You’re bothered when unfortunate things happen to them (as they usually do in these movies).
It gets under your skin; it confuses you, and makes you pee a little. And it has David Caruso before he went on CSI: Miami and started putting his sunglasses on in slow motion. What more could you want?

Scream
Let’s face it; Wes Craven hasn’t done anything good in years. I’m sorry for the guy, he used to be one of the masters. Kinda. Anyway, not only was Scream his last great movie, but it was also his most clever. It’s a spoof of slasher movies, without really poking fun at them; it has an actual DECENT PLOT, OH MY GOD, and WHAT THE HELL; and it has not one, but TWO killers! It’s obviously not the only movie to do this, but when you’re dealing with average humans (crazy averages humans, mind you) as opposed to hulking man-beasts with machetes, there’s safety in numbers. Plus you get two overly extravagant finishing deaths for the price of one.
Anyway, it’s a fun ride, the kills are pleasant, the plot is decent, but isn’t worth posting here, and you’ll hopefully enjoy yourself as much as I did when I tried on a BAPE in the mall (they’re the hoodies that zip up ALL the way. Why do they exist? I dunno, but they’re hilarious). Props, Wes. Props.

The bag in Audition
As much as all of Session 9 got to me, this one scene got to me even more. Audition is a film directed by Takashi Miike. That alone makes it F’d up. The plot centers on a widower looking for a way to meet a new wife, so he holds auditions via his friend, a casting director (or whatever that’s called) to find one. He meets one he likes, but there’s more to her than meets the eye.
Hint: she’s nucking futs.
The widower calls her home, looking for a date, and the scene in her apartment is a tad…off. Can you spot what’s wrong?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuVXe6gRICE

If you said ‘The fucking bag moved!!’ then you’re correct.

The bit in The Exorcist where she crab walks down the stairs

People shouldn’t be able to DO that!!

Ash from Evil Dead
We just cut up our girlfriend with a chainsaw. Does that sound "fine"?. No, not at all, but we love you anyway Ash.
Ashley ‘Ash’ J. Williams is the main character of the Evil Dead movies, directed by Sam Raimi before he went all Spider-Man. The movies center around a demonic book called the Necronomicon, and Bruce Campbell kicking ass as Ash. But mainly the latter.
Ash quickly became a cultural icon, spouting quips as he offed baddies and blasting shit away with his ‘boomstick’. He even got a chainsaw to replace his severed possessed hand. It makes sense when you watch it…okay, no it doesn’t, but it’s still great. He’s spanned 3 movies, different time periods, and has even made the leap into the video game world. All the games sucked, but he gets cred for trying, right? Yes, he does.

Retards who wield sharp things
Leatherface, Jason Voorhees, and Michael Myers. All killers; all armed with different pointy instruments of death; all mildly to severely retarded, all terrifying to be chased by. It sounds mean, but horror movies have brought us all up to fear and respect these people.
Michael Myers is probably the least handicapped of the three. He’s pretty much just a big, quiet, crazy dude, but I put him in this section after my co-writer urged me to using the example ‘But I’m sure you’d consider him a ‘tard if he was sitting next to you on a bus’. I had to agree. He’s like a wall wearing a jumpsuit and a William Shatner mask that just never stops coming, even after you’ve shot him, stabbed him, blinded him, and shoved him through, over, and off of all manner of things. But he’s also a family man, just out to reunite with his sister…and murder her. Why was this cute again?
Jason would be right in the middle when it comes to smarts. He was a deformed, mildly special child who was raised by his mother near Camp Crystal Lake. That turned out to be a problem, because out-of-control campers with no parents around and counselors who were too busy banging each to pay attention to them pushed Jason into the lake where he presumably drowned. To make a long story short, he survived and grew up to kill people, first while wearing a pillowcase mask, and later turned to his trademark hockey mask. He chops people up for the usual reasons: sex, drugs, rock n’ roll (not really), saying ‘I’ll be right back’. Side note: If you say ‘BRB’ instead, will you still die? Hmmm.

And then there’s Leatherface. Ah, Leatherface…you’d be hard-pressed to actually find someone this mentally messed up outside of cinema. All he does is skin people, make masks, swing around a chainsaw, and grunt. Mr. Face was raised by a family of cannibals, which didn’t help him any. You’d think someone might be pretty harmless when they’re brain activity is about equal to that of a rock, but you’d be wrong. It’s amazing how much damage a chainsaw can do when wielded one-handed. It’s a balance thing, I think.

Part II, Coming Soon
- Alex