MMM Awards 2013 - Best Director/Best Picture Nominees

You know how the winner of the Best Director Oscar almost always goes to the director of the movie that ends up winning Best Picture? This is unsurprising, given that the director is the person most directly responsible for the (artistic) success of a film. While I tried to be all contrarian and nominate Rob Zombie for best director, but not Lords of Salem for Best Picture, ultimately I decided to make the nominations the same. The awards, however, will remain separate categories. So without further ado... Noms, Beeotches!

 

Don Coscarelli / John Dies at the End

Among the horror luminaries of the late seventies, who is currently making the best films of their career? If you answered Dario Argento, that’s funny, smartass. If you answered, “None of them,” then you obviously haven’t been keeping up with Don Coscarelli. While Coscarelli is more known for delivering truly strange cinematic experiences than gonad-shrinking horror films, I think we can all agree he plays to his strengths and that it serves him well. More comedy than horror, John Dies at the End is probably the single-most rewatchable film of the year. Coscarelli keeps the pace fast and the one-liners in steady supply. Tonally, the film has more in common with the comedy classics of the eighties (I’m thinking Ghostbusters, Better Off Dead, Weird Science, etc.) than the current Apatovian generation of comedy. It’s not afraid to dip into the absurd, veering into the unexpected at every turn. I also love how Coscarelli has concentrated on creating unique visuals, making this movie his most iconic since the original Phantasm. Hopefully “This Movie is Full of Spiders” is in the works.

 

Neil Jordan / Byzantium

I didn’t see this one in time to nominate either of the two leads in the best actress category, however, please consider both Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan retroactively nominated (swelling the nominees to a heaping 12). Every frame of Byzantium is visually stunning, the performances are impeccable, and the storytelling the work of a veteran filmmaker still in his prime. Like most modern vampire films, Byzantium isn't out to scare anyone. It's a character study that examines human mortality through the lens of mythical immortal beings. As for its vampire lore, it bucks convention in several ways, most noticeably the absence of fangs. These vamps have a retractable thumb claw they use to pierce jugulars. While it seems like a small detail, the effect it has is to make the killings look like murders rather than sexual encounters. And these vampires, while impervious to sunlight, aren't super-powered creatures. They are as vulnerable as the humans they hunt and must rely on wits and surprise to earn their meals. Not only is Byzantium one of the best horror films of the year, it's one of the best vampire films period.

Vampire Gemma turns some dude into a drinking fountain.

Franck Khalfoun / Maniac

Maniac is easily the most horrifying film of 2013. From the shocking opening murder and scalping to the quickly-deteriorating would-be romance that goes terribly awry, this movie feels real, and reality feels gross. What this remake gets right is that Frank Zito can’t go straight from the most out-of-control homicidal freak in the western hemisphere to a super-suave ladies man from one scene to the next, which was the downfall of the original (also, imagining a beautiful, successful photographer would have any interest in a dude looking like Joe Spinell is too much disbelief to suspend). This version of Frank makes much more sense because he’s attractive in Elijah Wood’s non-threatening, boyish way, he’s mostly capable of blending into society, and he shares a very specific niche passion with his love interest, lending the attraction some credibility. Khalfoun’s decision to shoot the movie almost entirely from Frank’s point of view was a risk that ultimately paid off in spades. There’s a side of Frank that clearly doesn’t want to be doing what he does, but he’s powerless to stop. Shooting POV-style with the audience as the killer puts us in exactly this position. We don’t want him to kill all those women, but we’re forced to bear witness. Oh hell, who am I kidding, we’re horror fans, obviously we want him to kill those women, and we even manage to enjoy it, excruciating a viewing experience as it is.

 

James Wan / The Conjuring

Sorry James, my parents told me how babies are made when I was eight.

The Conjuring is the only film on this list that I actually reviewed, so I don’t feel the need to write about it at length (Here’s the review, if you’re interested). I’d just like to note that, for me, half the fun of the movie was seeing how themes and elements from James Wan’s previous films came together so effectively. Prior to The Conjuring, I knew James Wan as a director who made good-but-not-great horror films. I always find plenty to like in his movies, but I’ve never felt like he was getting everything right. However, The Conjuring is the work of a man who has finally mastered his craft. And while we’re losing the man to big-budget action films, I get the sense that he’s not leaving horror with contempt for the genre, but rather a fond, "My work here is complete."

 

Adam Wingard / You’re Next!

 

Did you know that up until You’re Next!, every wide-release horror film to come out in 2013 was the number one release for its respective weekend (with the exception of World War Z, which was #2, but it made more money than most of the #1’s). It seemed like Adam Wingard’s year to hit the big time, and the box office forecasts agreed, predicting it too would open at number one. It was one of my most anticipated movies for two years running; I was desperate to see it and I figured everyone else would be too. And then it debuted at number a miserable #6. This was all the more surprising because it was so freaking good! I figured word of mouth would get out and make it a sleeper hit, but ticket sales dried up quickly and it soon disappeared from theaters. Despite this disappointment, the movie is still a hit, considering it grossed, like, 18 times its budget. But still, I thought it would be this generation’s Scream.

Box office aside, the movie is fast, fun, and rewatchable as hell. It’s not so much a game-changer as it is a sign that the filmmakers doing horror today take their craft seriously and are elevating the genre by injecting it with actual characterization and attention to storytelling. I love Jason Voorhees as much as the next guy, but honestly, even at the time those slashers were seen as throwaway cinematic junk food. And while You’re Next! is a piece of entertainment that doesn’t pretend to have loftier goals, it is a cleverly-conceived, expertly-executed gem of the genre, and a horror fan’s wet, bloody dream.

MMM Awards 2013 - Best Screenplay Nominations

Simon Barrett - You're Next!

Here's a trick for you. How do you write a slasher/home invasion flick that's both effectively horrifying and truly funny without descending into self-parody? And how do you write a movie that's funny, yet contains no real jokes? Also, how do you write this movie in such a way that if the horror elements were removed, it would still be an engaging family drama? Ask Simon Barrett.  Not only are the characters and dialogue genuine, but the tightly crafted plot unwinds expertly, with each reveal perfectly timed. While I was watching it, the first big reveal seemed to come too soon in the movie. I felt like, I'm not supposed to know that yet, but Barrett knows what he's doing. This information sets up some truly Hitchcockian tension later on. This guy knows his horror, and plays with audience expectations like a true veteran. Here's to a long, productive career, Mr. Barrett.

Best line: "I stuck a blender in his head and killed him."

Moira Buffini - Byzantium

 

Adapting her own stage play: A Vampire Story, Moira Buffini penned some of the most eloquent dialogue even spoken in a genre film. The story itself is relatively simple, yet the way Buffini structures it endows the film with enough mystery to keep it compelling while keeping the central focus on her characters. The device of having Eleanor tell bits of her story to various people keeps the narrative non-linear and allows Buffini to time her reveals with surgical precision. Eleanor and Clara are two very different women with wildly different experiences in their formative years, yet who have been together for two centuries. The fun of Byzatium is that we see these women at a specific point in their lives, get to know their wildly different personalities, and bit by bit, get pieces of insight about what made them the people (okay, vampires) they’ve become. A compelling story, beautifully told.

Don Coscarelli - John Dies at the End

I'm not sure how much of it is Don Coscarelli and how much is David Wong, but I will be quoting dialogue from John Dies at the End on my deathbed. From what I understand, adapting a book as insane and expansive as this took some doing. People who've read it complain that Coscarelli used only about a third of the book, picking and choosing scenes he wanted to include and leaving out major events. To me, this only proves his skill as a screenwriter. Instead of trying to jam everything in, he created something distinctly different, yet in the same spirit as the novel. It's also encouraging to see that someone who's been in the horror game as long as Coscarelli is only getting better while his contemporaries fade from the spotlight.
Best dialogue (aside from "That door cannot be opened."):
David: "Are you familiar with the old human saying, 'I want to shoot you so bad my dick's hard'?"
Roger North: "I don't believe I do."
David: "Well maybe you'll hear it again in the next 24 hours if you don't fuck with me."

 

Chad and Carey Hayes - The Conjuring

The Conjuring is one slick, tightly-crafted thrill ride of a movie. Make no mistake, this is mainstream Hollywood stuff, but it's not the cynical, just-out-to-make-a-buck piece of Michael Bay-produced shit. This is quality horror, lovingly created by people who actually give a shit about making an awesome movie. And while director James Wan gets the lion's share of the credit for the film's mood and pacing, he was building on a rock solid foundation laid down by the Brothers Hayes. They deserve major props just for the decision to not only open with a pee-your-pants-scary possessed doll sequence, but to spring that little bitch on us again in the third act.

 

Alice Lowe, Steve Oram, and Amy Jump - Sightseers

 

Written and conceived by the films two stars, Sightseers is the anti-Natural Born Killers. It portrays perhaps the most low-key killing spree ever committed to film. Tina is a reserved, homebody barely able to stand up to her overbearing mother, while her new boyfried Chris is an avid sightseer with interests as fascinating as tram museums and injection-molded plastics. He also happens to be completely unhinged when it comes to things like littering. Lowe and Oram perfectly capture the mundane details of life as an ordinary, boring couple on holiday, yet infuse the film with violence and gore that leaves you mildly shocked despite your laughter. While it is a comedy with a fairly absurb premise, the characters are fully realized, and half the fun is watching Tina bloom from a mousy little victim into someone in charge of her own destiny. Not to spoil anything, but the last moments of the film are completely unexpected, yet make perfect sense in terms of the characters and their motivations. Sightseers barely qualifies as horror, because it doesn’t even try to scare you, but it should satisfy horror fans who prefer to take their comedy black.