2018: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
As we wind down 2018, I’m approaching a major turning point in my life.
I’m not the man I was in 2017. I
started the year in a deep depression with suicidal iterations. I took
time off work and attended a day program for mental health and worked
through several problems over the course of several weeks, balanced my
medication, and ultimately saw where a lot of my issues were coming
from. The fact of the matter is that I was 42 and my body was going
through major changes with the onset of diabetes, the continuing
struggle with my weight, rising blood pressure, and my mind forcing me
to relive the traumas of my youth. The social landscape was tense, with
people placing their politics before their families and their
relationships.
Things have to change.
I focused my energy into a few
creative endeavors and am still exploring those. But I guess I should
just rip the bandage off this bad boy and settle something for casual
readers.
In the interest of FULL
DISCLOSURE- My local theatre reviews will actually be fewer and further
between. There is very little to interest, challenge, or amaze me. Two
years ago, the local theaters experimented with more cutting edge shows
and didn’t find the financial success that they hoped for. As a result,
all of the theaters are going back to the much more traditional
favorites to please their wallets and bore me to tears. So that doesn’t
leave me with too many options and a quick glance at the upcoming
schedules are disappointing.
And with a slight bow, I will be
surprised if I even attend a quarter of the shows I attended last year. I
genuinely enjoy live performances, but I’m struggling to find a reason
to see a show these days. I’ve seen Rocky Horror so many times
that I’m honestly just tired of the show in general. I attended twice
this year, once because there was a secret event taking place and the
second time in order to see the final performances of my two friends.
Even now, I get choked up knowing that I’ll never see them perform those
roles on stage again.
The best show of the year that I had seen was Evil Dead: The Musical,
in San Jose. Gory, fun, and hilarious! It’s productions like that which
still drive me to have some interest in live theater despite recent
feelings. Triassic Park: A Dinosaur Musical, was a fun and wild
ride with some catchy tunes and terrific performances. It was one of the
few experiments in cutting edge attempts to bring something new to the
coast, and it flatly topped the list for the shear balls it showed. (get
it? Well, not if you didn’t see the show… nevermind.) “Terms of Use”
touched the cutting edge of science fiction on the live stage,
interweaving use of digital effects to tell it’s story of a virtual
reality experiment gone wrong. And, finally, the surprise encounter for
me was “Boxcar”. Written as a political thriller with a focus on
humanizing the victims of an illegal border crossing gone awry, the play
felt much more in tune with a few Horror tropes along the lines of SAW
and Cube.
I didn’t get to near as many books
as I wanted to. The second book in Brian Keene’s barbarian king story,
Throne of the Bastards, was a fun throwback to the style and tone of
Robert E Howard’s “Conan” series. Mary SanGiovanni scored a win with a
smaller novel “Savage Woods”. It was definitely a year of Cosmic Horror
as she also started a podcast and continues to explore the theories on
fear which drive that sub-genre.
Speaking of “Cosmic Horror”- Here is a brief glimpse to my year’s top films.
10. Annihilation
Starring Natalie Portman and based
on a series of novels, this film is a surreal and trippy experience. A
bit of a cross between “The Thing” and “Altered States”; It also has a
definitive Lovecraftian element as the characters are shown the full
scope of what it is they just don’t know or understand. There is a great
emptiness in that knowledge.
9: Aquaman
Eking in just under the wire,
Aquaman was the perfect film for the DCEU. And, in keeping with the
year’s bizarre exploration of Lovecraftian Myth; the film actually
explores an alternative take on the macabre author’s fears. The
offspring of a human and a deep dwelling denizen of the sea, Arthur
Curry is every bit the antithesis to the fear and xenophobia of
Lovcraft.
8. Avengers: Infinity War
No Lovecraft here, just balls to the wall superheroes doing superhero things.
7. Upgrade
Whether you see it as sci-fi,
vigilante action, or deep diving body horror, “Upgrade” hit the right
notes and left me gobsmacked at the end of the year.
6. Halloween (2018)
Not so much for exposing the
emotional scars of PTSD, living with trauma, and trying to overcome a
brutal past- this movie just brought back Michael Meyers and had him
hack and slash his way through the Halloween season.
5. Mandy
And we’re back to tripping balls
with this one. A deliberately paced film that shows us everything our
main protagonist has to lose before he loses it. That makes his bid for
vengeance so much more fulfilling and extremely twisted. Nicholas Cage
at his best.
4: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
The Coen Brothers latest venture
was rumored to be an anthology series, but was released as a stand alone
film through Netflix. Poignant, amusing, at times depressing as all
heck; I honestly feel cheated to not have seen some of these vignettes
on the big screen. They were filmed for the big screen and had such wide
and crisp shots that it staggers the mind to limit them to a home
screen.
3. A Quiet Place
A parents worst fears… I can’t even begin to describe this film. See it.
2. Isle of Dogs
Directed by Wes Anderson, an
obvious love letter to the love of pets, and filled with the
idiosyncratic characters of most Anderson films; Isle of Dogs is pure
loving schmaltz… which would normally not wind up nearly this high on my
list. But what the film isn’t being recognized for is the loving
tribute to Akira Kurosawa. The film was paced more evenly with the style
of the Master, rather than Anderson’s awkward moments and performance
filled emptiness. Each shot is beautifully crafted artwork, each scene
demands movement. I’m not the dog lover my wife is, but the emotional
connections and driving character arcs kept me more than engaged and I
wept at the end.
1. The Endless
No film has ever truly managed to
capture the fear, absurdity, and utter helplessness one should feel when
faced with the Cosmic Terror that they are insignificant and foolish at
best. The Endless captures those feelings beautifully with a twisted
tale about two brothers returning to visit the UFO death cult they
abandoned nearly ten years previously. This one is a must-see.
- - -
There are some glaring absences in
my top ten- but for a full listing of films I rated 4 and above, you
should probably check out my letterboxd.com account. I also maintained a
list of all the 2018 distributed horror films I had a chance to see,
topping the list at a whopping 52. Well, maybe not that impressive when
compared with some but I have limited means and limited time. All of
this is under the username redcapjack, of course- give it a follow and
I’ll likely follow you back when I check my connections once in a blue
moon. I do read other peoples reviews and follow others- Ian West is one
of my favorites, so check him out if you get a chance.
I do find it necessary to speak
about one film, however- Hereditary. One of the most gruesome and
emotionally crippling films it’s been my “pleasure” to view in a long
time, if I were creating a top ten list of the year based solely on
craft and mission this movie would definitely be near the top. But the
truth is that I had a rough time coping with this film during the
experience and then the feeling afterward made me feel as though I had
seen something I shouldn’t have. My top ten list encompasses the craft,
the enjoyment, and the experience on the whole. Unfortunately,
“Hereditary” probably worked far TOO well and deserves an extremely
honorable mention without actually making the grade. It landed at 26
overall and #12 on my Horror List.
My least favorite film sported an
interesting and captivating role from Cory Feldman, but offered little
else to justify such a performance. “Corbin Nash” was a lackluster
wannabe to the Vampire Hunting Vampires sub-sub-SUB Genre of horror
films. Theatrically, the Dark Web was an experience made a little better
by the company I kept but was ultimately one of the more ridiculous
concepts. It found some promise with a scene that utilized the phenomena
of “SWATing” to some effect. But the film ultimately failed to do much
beyond that one scene.
So with a fairly brutal year out of the way, let’s look toward 2019 as a year for new experiences.
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