A tense, action-packed thriller about a possibly haunted submarine in WWII. Director David Twohy (Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick), working from a project initially developed by Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream), finds an interesting balance between the underwater WWII action of U-571 and the weird happenings of a classic haunted house movie. Olivia Williams (Rushmore, The Sixth Sense) stars as a British nurse whose hospital ship has been sunk by a torpedo strike. She is rescued by an America submarine captained by Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek, I, Robot), and quickly befriends crewman Matthew Davies (Blue Crush). When strange events start to occur onboard, Williams and Davies begin to suspect that Greenwood, his imposing first mate Holt McCallany (Fight Club), and mousey boat chief Scott Foley (TV's Felicity and The Unit) are keeping a secret from the rest of the crew. The story's biggest strength is that there are practical explanations for everything strange that occurs (the ship is damaged, the air is becoming dangerously contaminated by hydrogen, and they can't surface because they're being stalked by a German cruiser). But when the number of events start to add up, it becomes harder and harder to see it as a coincidence, even if there are practical explanations. There's also a funny supporting turn by Zach Galifianakis as another crewmember who loves telling ghost stories and refuses to elaborate when he uses big words. The movie makes its point too obvious during a small speech at the end, but otherwise it works well as both a war movie and a haunted house mystery.
B-movie master Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, Robot Jox, Space Truckers) directs this disturbing psychological thriller about a young man (relative unknown Chris McKenna) who is hired to kill accountant Ron Livingston (Office Space) by Daniel Baldwin (Vampire$) and a shockingly intimidating George Wendt (Norm!). When he goes to collect his payment he is instead locked in a toolshed and tortured for weeks, going somewhat crazy in the process and retreating into fantasies/hallucinations of Livingston's widow (former MTV VJ and b-movie queen Kari Wuhrer). When he finally gets free, he seeks out the mission where Wuhrer works. Not knowing that he killed her husband, Wuhrer nurses McKenna back to health, and he slowly starts to begin a new life with her. But he also still dreams of revenge against Baldwin and Wendt. And it's becoming harder and harder to hide the truth from Wuhrer about who he really is.
Gordon and screenwriter Charlie Higson (who adapted from his own novel) maintain a very delicate balance with their lead character, making him seem sympathetic despite the fact that he murders a man and then moves in with the victim's wife. McKenna's performance is uncomfortably good, playing the character as someone who is trying really hard to fight off his own madness without letting those around him know that he is doing so.
Oh, and the trailer is terrible. It tries to make the film look like standard revenge-thriller stuff. The actual movie is more quiet and subtly disturbing, with only sudden bursts of horrific violence.
Greg McLean (Wolf Creek) wrote and directed this incredibly gorgeous giant crocodile movie that's not nearly as stupid as the term "giant crocodile movie" would imply. A sightseeing cruise through the Australian outback is interrupted when a big-ass crocodile gets territorial and sinks the boat, stranding the tourists (including Alias' Michael Vartan and a pre-Alice in Wonderland Mia Wasikowska) on a small island in the middle of a tidal river. The boat's captain (one of my all-time cinematic crushes, Radha Mitchell, in a rare role where she can actually use her real Australian accent) tries to hold the group together. A pre-fame Sam Worthington (you know who he is, he starred in the most successful movie of all time which you, statistically speaking, saw 4 times) is also there as Mitchell's ex-boyfriend who may be the person most capable of getting everyone off the island alive. The real strength of the movie is in how everything is dealt with rationally. The crocodile is not a bloodthirsty monster, just a big wild animal that doesn't want things encroaching on its turf. The humans' plans are well thought out, and the hysterics are kept to a minimum. And I really can't say enough about how good the movie looks. Of all the movies that are on this list, only #1 looks better. Rogue's first act could easily serve double-duty as a commercial for Australia's Department of Tourism.
I will take any excuse at all to post a picture of this woman.
7. The Films of Christopher Smith
OK, I'm cheating here and shoving 3 movies into one ranking. Christopher Smith is a British writer/director that has been putting out good horror/thrillers for a several years and has yet to achieve breakout success.
In his first film, Creep (2004), a psychotic figure stalks terrified commuter Franka Potente (Run Lola Run, The Bourne Identity) through the underground labyrinth of London's subway system. The film is dark, tense, and relentless. It may not have much depth, but it doesn't let up long enough for you to really notice.
His second film is the slasher comedy Severance (2006), which concerns a group of white-collar corporate employees getting picked off one by one while on a team-building retreat in the woods. There's not much suspense to this one, but it is very funny and features an appropriately gratuitous amount of gore. The film has a decent cult following in the UK, but the US horror fanboys haven't really embraced it yet. They should.
Weirdly, Smith's third movie, Triangle (2009), has lately started to get some attention on sci-fi and horror blogs (and showing up on a few lists of underseen horror movies that the respectable movie blogs always publish around Halloween) despite no one noticing its initial release two years ago. Melissa George (30 Days of Night, The Amityville Horror) stars as a woman out with her friends on a yachting trip in the Bermuda Triangle. When a storm overturns their boat, they drift in the open ocean until they encounter a cruise ship that appears to be abandoned. But the truth is far crazier, and the movie is less of the "haunted ship" variety and closer to an episode of The Twilight Zone, though still with plenty of creeping dread and brutal violence. The movie's central conceit is one that I won't give away, but does lead to the most amazing shot (both in content and in concept) of a pile of corpses that I've ever seen. I felt compelled to include Creep and Severence in this entry, because both are quite good. But if you have to pick just one of Smith's films to watch, pick Triangle.
A quick Honorable Mention goes to Smith's fourth, and most recent, film Black Death (2010). It's not a horror film, but still has some effectively creepy sequences. A monk in the Middle Ages joins a group of knights who are sent by the Catholic church to investigate why a remote village has not suffered even a single death from the bubonic plague. Plus there are rumors that the dead have been returning from the grave. Despite that last line, the movie is actually just a medieval thriller. Sean Bean stars and basically just plays his Games of Thrones character (it's kinda how he plays every role, really).
The third, and last, movie produced by Project Greenlight, Feast is simultaneously the project's most commercial and daring film. The setup is a classic cliche: group of strangers trapped in a small remote building (a roadside bar, in this instance) and being terrorized by the monsters outside. But Feast is self-aware, and uses any opportunity it can to flip genre conventions on their head. Being a child or the film's Hero in no way guarantee survival. Each character is introduced with a title card that summarizes their character type and gives predictions on their survival, with mostly inaccurate results. The title cards also score the film's biggest laugh with the title card for Jason Mewes (the "Jay" of "Jay and Silent Bob" infamy), in a cameo as himself. The movie goes enjoyably overboard with its special effects and gore (all classic practical effects, too, with only a single CGI effect in the whole film that wouldn't even be noticeable unless you listened to the director's commentary and knew where to look). The film's pace is fast, the viscera is extreme, and the cast of mostly character- and TV- actors is uniformly solid. Judah Friedlander (30 Rock) and Jenny Wade (Fox's underrated and prematurely cancelled cop comedy The Good Guys) give the movie's best comedic performances, while the usually-terrible Krista Allen (8 Emmanuelle movies) makes a surprisingly good badass in the film's latter half.
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