We’ve made it through another year, friends!
You know, when I sat down to write, I was going to get on my soapbox about what a slow year it was for horror in 2017. But going through my list, there was actually a decent amount that came out of the year! Of course we also got some garbage but that’s par for the course in the horror genre.
So I am going to go through my top 5 favorites and the movies that made my eyes water because of how bad they were.
Let’s start off with the good!
Toxic whiteness: the most terrifying villain of 2017 for the 500th year in a row.
1. Get Out
This is not a hard one to rank. Get Out was not only my favorite movie of the year, but it’s easily my favorite movie of all time, within the genre and out of it. You can read more of my thoughts about this film here . This was a showstopper, completely original and desperately needed. I look forward to throwing my cash at any and all projects Jordan Peele creates; yes I will pay $6 a month just to watch to Twilight Show reboot and only the reboot, I do not give a FUCK.
2. Gerald’s Game
Now that we’ve got the clear winner out of the way, things get a little harder; there were a total of THREE Stephan King adaptation, which happen to be my favorite type of adaptation and to top it off these were three very good adaptations. Since I liked them all so much, I am ranking them by how well they avoided bullshit tropes. Gerald’s Game narrowly wins out for the following reasons: it had a strong female protagonist, an abusive man dies in the first few minutes of the film (even thought I would have liked the film adaptation to include the heart-bursting kick Jesse delivers to Gerald’s balls but no film can be perfect) and it has just the right amount of gore.
3. 1922
1922 wins the second spot for Stephan King adaptations. This was my favorite story in King’s anthology Full Dark No Stars about a farmer who, like many entitled domestic abusers, decides his needs are the only ones that matter and so important they’re worth murdering for, my favorite part being the slow and agonizing justice he’s dealt. This adaptation brought this short story to life beautifully. It didn’t win out over Gerald’s Game only because it removed my absolutely favorite part of the book in which the murdered victim comes down to stairs being controlled by hundreds of rats like a marionette puppet; this scene is 100% less cool in the film and I resent it deeply for that.
4. IT
I wrote about how much I liked It in my Fall review in October despite my eyes almost rolling out of my head from the beyond unnecessary damsel in distress sub-plot that was not in the book; I guess they thought it was better than a child orgy but I would have preferred if they left both out, tbvfh.
5. Raw
It’s not exactly revolutionary for a horror film to use gore/murder as stand-in for sexual awakening and this film was not subtle about the protagonist’s desire for human meat and sex being parallel. I think the fact that this over-used trope didn’t feel tired in the slightest shows the skill of the filmmakers and esspecially the actors.
There were a few films that were just plain fun; Annabelle: Creation, XX, Devil’s Candy, and Happy Death Day were all a blast to watch and all get honorable mentions.
The Bad: Various Levels of Pure Shit
I am not going to rank the trash movies because they honestly don’t deserve more of my time (you can see my Instagram for gripes I had with some films I watched during my 31 days of horror that I didn’t write about here on the blog). Split is the only film that comes out distinctly ahead of the steaming garbage pile; I wrote about why it’s not a good idea to equate those with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) to child abductors and murders simply by virtue of having a mental illness. The fact that this piece of shit was released the same year as Get Out is personally insulting to me. The rest, aside from maybe mother!, we just confusing, boring, or literally not horror.
I have hope for 2018 but if you hate sequels or reboots, you might want to skip it and go straight to 2019 as 2018 is chalk full of them. My partner and I have some big plans for 2018 (including getting married, yay us) and hopefully I get get my shit together and update this thing more than quarterly. Hope everyone has had a great year and I’ll see you in 2018!
Two Named Women 