Horror

Just how influential is cult movie icon Dario Argento, Italy's reigning master of horror?

Well, let's see. Argento has been blamed for spawning "torture porn," Diablo Cody name-checked him in the indie sensation Juno, and John Landis cast him as a paramedic in Innocent Blood. Rumors that David Gordon Green, of 2008's Pineapple Express, is remaking Argento's Suspiria, with Natalie Portman, just won't die, and the latest news from Cannes has George Romero -- whose relationship with Argento goes back to Dawn of the Dead -- negotiating to direct a 3-D remake of Deep Red.

Need more proof? French filmmaker Pascal Laugier dedicated the excruciating Martyrs to Argento, and Gaspar Noé offers "special thanks" in the credits of his brutal I Stand Alone. The Italian version of the popular video game Dead Space features Argento as the voice of Terrence Kyne. Metroid creator Yoshio Sakamoto cites Deep Red as one of the game's creative influences. And U.K. artist Alida Sayer built a work around Suspiria's credit sequence. So, yeah, the man has his fans. And we haven't even gotten to his most famous ones yet.

No horror movie is all about the score, but any fan will tell you that great music can bump a competent movie up a few rungs and transform a pretty good picture into a bona-fide winner. Now, it's easy to make folks jump by having a hulking monster in a human-skin mask burst out of nowhere, chainsaw all abuzz... but that's the equivalent of the score that suddenly bursts into an atonal scrum of crashing cymbals and off-key guitar chords. Eeeek!

To scare the bejabbers out of them with a deceptively lilting melody, well... that's like making a theater full of horror freaks tremble at the sight of a half-glimpsed shadow that's probably nothing more than a coat hung on a hallway rack. These ten scores epitomize the fright stuff.

10. 28 Days Later (2002)
Liverpool-born John Murphy took a cue from John Carpenter (more on him later) when he composed the score for Danny Boyle's genre-altering zombie pic 28 Days Later -- and its sequel, 28 Weeks Later. Damned if the contrast between spare, keyboard-based melody and murderous onscreen chaos doesn't work like a charm both times.

The Descent: Part 2 comes out this week on -- yes, you guessed it -- DVD. Now, some movies cry out for sequels. Most don't. But every producer loves a franchise, and that's how some of the most godforsaken horror movies of all time came to be. And we're not talking the umpteenth Friday the 13th or Saw movie, either. We're talking some of the worst movies ever to make it from bad idea to "You're kidding, right?" Read 'em and weep, horror fans.

10. Lost Boys: The Tribe
Is The Lost Boys a horror classic? No. But it's a glossy snapshot of an era and a showcase for the young Kiefer Sutherland and Coreys Haim and Feldman. The best that director P.J. Pesce -- whose credits include From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter, and Sniper 3 -- has to offer is Kiefer's half-brother, Angus Sutherland.

9. Basic Instinct 2
Basic Instinct was the essence of shallow nineties cool: Michael Douglas as a hard-assed cop and Sharon Stone as the stone-cold killer with no panties but more cojones than Douglas. Fifteen years later, that was old news, which is why Basic Instinct 2 came and went without so much as a ripple in the cultural water.

Let's face it: it's usually pretty easy to spot the chosen survivor(s) early on. We all know how to play the horror-movie odds. The annoying funny guy, the stuck-up slut, and the first person to go looking for a phone or better cell reception are going to get it. The brainy girl who thinks this whole trip is a bad idea stands a much better chance of making it to the end than the tramp who gets hammered, dances around in her underpants, and passes out in the barn.

But sometimes they throw you a curve ball, and the most unlikely characters are left standing. Like these ten.

10. Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan), Gremlins
The kid's a moron -- if he'd had the common sense God gave geese, there wouldn't even have been any gremlins and none of his small-town neighbors would be dead. Billy (Zack Galligan) is the doofus who has to die so some good-looking latent-hero teen can step in and save Phoebe Cates. But he doesn't.

9. Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Zombieland
Yes, we're clearly supposed to identify with Columbus, the endearingly maladroit kid whose computer-heavy skill set is exactly what isn't needed after the zombie apocalypse. But his transformation into a scrappy zombie killer is profoundly unconvincing, even for a horror comedy.

AMC announced yesterday it has greenlit The Walking Dead as a six-episode series based on the comic book series written by Robert Kirkman and published by Image Comics. Kirkman serves as an executive producer on the project and three-time Academy Award-nominee Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) serves as writer, director and executive producer. Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator, Aliens, Armageddon, The Incredible Hulk), chairman of Valhalla Motion Pictures, serves as Executive Producer. David Alpert from Circle of Confusion serves as Executive Producer. Today's announcement also includes the addition of Charles "Chic" Eglee (Dexter, The Shield, Dark Angel) as Executive Producer, and actor Jon Bernthal (The Pacific, The Ghost Writer) who will portray the character Shane.

The Walking Dead begins production in June in Atlanta with six, one-hour episodes for season one. The series is set to premiere in October 2010 during AMC's Fearfest, the network's annual blockbuster marathon of thriller and horror films. AMC Fearfest (formerly known as MonsterFest) is celebrating its 14th year by airing 14 consecutive days of themed programming with more than 50 films. AMC announced development of The Walking Dead in August 2009 and announced the pilot in January of this year.

The dusty, shuffling dead don't have the sex appeal of vampires or the tragic dimension of werewolves. And yet the poor mummies are always with us -- if by "always" we mean since 1922, when British Egyptologist Howard Carter first peered into the long-lost tomb of fourteenth-century-BC pharaoh Tutankhamen and set the world's morbidly romantic imagination on fire. So brew up a pot of tanis tea, wrap yourself in a cozy blanket, and, whatever you do, don't read the ancient scroll of Thoth aloud, because the time has come to rank the ten greatest mummy movies in history.

10. The Cat Creature (1973)
Directed by Curtis Harrington, this unjustly forgotten TV movie pays homage to low-budget horror movies of the forties without being camp. Granted, once the Bast-worshipping Egyptian priestess is reincarnated in modern-day Los Angeles, the mummy looks just like Meredith Baxter in ugly seventies fashions, but, hey, she turns into a killer cat. And the supporting cast includes B-movie greats such as John Carradine, Gale Sondergaard, Kent Smith (Cat People), and David Hedison (The Fly).

9. Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy (1964)
Okay, not a good movie, but it's one hell of an entertaining Mexican-wrestler-monster mash. You get lushly built luchadoras, a crumbly mummy that turns into a bat, and an evil Fu Manchu type looking to steal some ancient treasure. What you don't get is a whole lot of mummy-on-mujeres action. Have a few more cervezas and you won't care.

You think you know what a MILF is? Lay off the Internet porn, my friend. This is a horror column and we're talking about monsters I'd like to...well, you know. No offense to mothers everywhere -- they truly are the glue that holds society together -- but there are some grade-A pieces of monster tail out there that simply must be celebrated.

A few notes: first of all, zombies are basically out. You might want to jump the bones of a megasmokin' vamp, but I doubt many of us are ready to throw down someone who is a walking boil. Second, don't bother complaining about how vampire heavy this list is. The whole genre is about suppressed sexuality (something that Stephanie Myers reconnected with in a big way, all you Twilight haters). Without further ado, here's five girlie MILFs and five guy MILFs (here's to equal representation!) that make horror hard-core. This list is far from exhaustive, and you can bet there will be a sequel to this column, now that I've got the topic on the brain.

Blade (Wesley Snipes), Blade
Who's half-vampire and all badass? Blade, baby, that's who. With the tricked-out trench coat, the shades, the sword, and the superslick moves, Snipes pulls off a sexiness usually reserved only for the full vamps. He'll put a piece of steel through your nasty, undead heart, then, while you disintegrate, he'll turn his head and look the other way, just to show how cold he can be. Hot!

Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Note to self: if you want to become a werewolf, spend time in the gym. A lot of time. This kid got so ripped for the part that even air was afraid of him and he walked around in a little vacuum. Before this sequel came out, odds were against any would-be successors to the Robert Pattinson throne. Afterward? Let's just say a lot of Team Edward baby-doll tees found their way into the trash.

There was a time, not so long ago, when winsome Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Sarah Michelle Gellar was hotter than a rampaging fire demon, carving for herself a cozy little horror niche with remakes The Grudge, The Grudge 2, and The Return. There were even rumors of a Buffy feature (which never happened). Of the upcoming Gellar- and Joss Whedon-less reboot, the less said, the better. As for Possession, AWOL since 2008, it's slinking onto DVD with less fanfare than the average Asylum mock-buster.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Academy, thank you for having me back to host the most important event in the history of mankind: the Horror Oscars. That's right, for the third straight year it's time for the Oscars to go to hell.

As we did in 2007 and 2008, we've assembled a meticulous collection of flicks, tossed them into some fairly random categories, consulted an esteemed and highly educated expert (me), and come up with winners. Let's get down to business.

Best Lack-of-Original-Ideas Picture
The Nominees
• Friday the 13th
• Halloween II (remake and sequel)
• Last House on the Left
• My Bloody Valentine
• Piranha
• Sorority Row
• The Children

Analysis: I was shocked this year to see seven major horror movies that were remakes or reboots of classic and not-so-classic franchises. Come on, Hollywood. I'm sure you could find an original idea lying around somewhere in the back of your junk drawer.

The Winner: The Children. An upset! Horrible then, horrible now, and yet so bad it's good. Friday the 13th was a classic, but remaking The Children?

Remember that vaguely creepy kiddie song in which "the cat came back the very next day"? The Stephen King movie about that cat is back: the long-rumored Pet Sematary remake is happening. Need a summary of how we got here? Here goes: back in 2003 -- almost fifteen years after the original Pet Sematary and more than ten years after Pet Sematary II -- BloodyDisgusting leaked word that Paramount was developing Pet Sematary III, from a script written in 1993, and that they were talking to Mary Lambert, who helmed both of the earlier movies. BloodyDisgusting reader RabidFulci's response sums up the general reaction: "I mean enough is enough, two Cemetery films by far were a waste of money....I hope these rumors ARE 'only' rumor...nothing more, nothing else."

On the surface, the idea of time travel seems great, but scratch below and you run into all sorts of problems. Chief among them is the fact that, if you so much as step on a butterfly in the past, you'll return to a drastically different present. Here's a list of movies that provide cautionary tales of traveling back and forth in time.

10. Time After Time
The only reason writer-director Nicholas Meyer's brilliant movie is last is that it's a sweet-natured romance. It depicts H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) romancing his soul mate, while pursuing Jack the Ripper (David Warner). Why is a gentle Victorian trying to hunt down a serial killer in '70s San Francisco? Because Wells has made a time machine and the Ripper has used it to jet to the twentieth century.

9. Army of Darkness
The third Evil Dead ignores the fact that messing around in the past can radically alter the future. Who cares? Forcing beleaguered Ash (Bruce Campbell) to battle hordes of dead people in the Middle Ages, with nothing but a shotgun and soon-to-be useless junker (the era being without gas stations), makes for more gruesome gags than you'd think would fit into an 81-minute flick.

In the world of horror, respect equals fear, and, as much as anyone else, our height-challenged friends deserve respect and fear. Here's my ten favorite movies starring undersize terrors.

10. Chucky (Brad Dourif), Child's Play
He's technically an oversize doll, so he gets knocked down a few spots. But if this were the Top 10 Bipedal Primate-Shaped Things That Might Be Alive, Chucky would be first.

9. Midget, Trapped in the Closet
This urban opera, by singer R. Kelly, makes clear that you need to watch out for the li'l dude hiding under your sink: he's got a gat and you could be in for a serious beat down. If you haven't seen this, trust me when I say you need to -- from start to finish.

Web Stalker remembers a time, not so very long ago, when a decent, law-abiding horror fan could go months without being pawed by a rotting cannibal zombie. These days, they're everywhere, shambling or sprinting, moaning or chowing down on the vastly outnumbered living. It's only fair that George Romero, whose Night of the Living Dead single-handedly transformed the zombie from folk figure to go-to metaphor, should keep his hand in the game. If Romero's polarizing Day of the Dead was a radical attempt to reimagine Night of the Living Dead for a 24/7, plugged-in generation, its sequel, Survival of the Dead, has the zombie-lovin' world in a lather: is it a step forward or sad evidence that the 70-year-old filmmaker should leave the creatures to younger filmmakers, like Danny Boyle (28 Days Later) and Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland)?