Shadow of the Vampire: Despite failing to get any support first time I supported this movie, I'm going to reiterate my support for this movie. Just such a great concept and truly original it would be sad to see this miss out. Dafoe's performance alone should see this movie make its mark on our list, but throw in the fact that this might well be the most unique and original vampire tale ever told makes it really hard to ignore.

Little Otik: I really feel that we need to represent Jan Svankmajer in our list, whether it be in the cut, honourable mentions or the additional recommended movies, really doesn't matter to me, I just think his work should be acknowledged in our list. He made two quality movies in this era, Little Otik and Lunacy. Both are amazing movies that really need to be seen by a wider audience. Lunacy is the less accessible movie, but my personal favourite. If I thought I could get both movies in the cut, I would, they are amazing and deserve recognition. If you have the opportunity to watch them, then do.

I'll back Hard Candy, The Orphanage, and House of 1000 Corpses. I have pretty much backed everything I think is worthy for the top 24.

Dude, you are so right! This is an excellent film.

Check out a little of part 3 of 14, here on youtube:

These are the films I'm backing, or otherwise asking you'll to consider backing for 21 & 22:

Top 2 Choices:
Black Swan (2010) - in the "Repulsion" film vein. Here's interesting take on the film, "Though it touches on a number of genres and encapsulates several themes, Black Swan is best viewed as a horror movie - a slow creep into insanity that's touching and terrifying in equal measure." Plus the greatest work of music is featured: Swan Lake.
Academy Awards: Winner Best Actress: Natalie Portman. Nominated: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing

Little Otik (2000) - Expertly and beautifully executed. "There is an inherent humor to the premise, though there is a concrete desperation at the heart of Little Otik." "When a childless couple learn that they cannot have children, it causes great distress. To ease his wife's pain, the man finds a stump in the backyard and chops it and varnishes it into the shape of a child. However the woman takes the root as her baby and starts to pretend that it is real. When the root takes life they seem to have gained a child; but its appetite is much greater than that of a normal child."


Other Considerations:
John Dies at the End (2012) - smart & original, sort of "Evil Dead2" meets "Bill & Ted Bogus Journey" meets "Pulp Fiction" meets "Next (Nicolas Cage)"
Constantine (2005) - cool concept & story execution; Constantine sees into spiritual world & must fight demonic world.
Daybreakers (2009) - Well made new take on vampire story - "As the population of mortals fast begins to dwindle, a vampiric corporation sets out to capture and farm every remaining human while simultaneously researching a consumable blood substitute, headed by undead hematologist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke). His work is interrupted after stumbling onto a pocket of human survivors lead by Elvis (Willem Dafoe), a former vampire, whose past reveals a cure that could reverse the tide and save the human race."
Godzilla: Final Wars (2004) - Combining all the most interesting elements of all the Toho films into one. Monsters are attacking Earth. Aliens seem like saviors, but they have a secret agenda. Earth Defense Force and Godzilla stand in-between. Fast paced, tough, fun and a lot of heart.
Ginger Snaps (2000) - a horror film that also happens to be good.

I loved Little Otik. I'll definitely back that.

I also want to reinforce some movies I've already backed.

Battle Royale:An amazing movie that I feel everyone needs to see.

Julia's Eyes: This is one of the most beautiful, terrifying, sad, and uplifting movies I've seen in awhile. It manages to be creepy and touching and is wonderfully acted and directed.

It sounds like I need to see Little Otik!

Great to see some support for Svankmajer!!

Also check out Lunacy(2005);



Also for anyone not familiar with his work, definitely check out his early short films, its not strictly horror but some of the best surrealist animation you will find. Truly bizarre and not for everyone, but worth a look.

I'm not backing or voting for anything till I find out if we're currently backing or voting.

I'll be backing a few more movies when we move to the honourable mentions, its really nice to look at the list of movies still fighting for a place and realise just how strong the 2000's have been for horror. There are a few movies I don't think should've made the cut, if I'm honest, but even with that in mind, there are still a good 10 or so movies outside the cut that are real quality.

Were backing movies to enter into the final two spots for the 2000's.

I'm not sure what the difference is between voting and backing. Isn't that the same thing? Aren't we just throwing support towards the final two movies we want on the list?

In every round we tend to present films for consideration, and it sort of doubles as our selections. We just naturally do this regardless of the round type.

Hopefully folks read all the posts before they really select their 2 choices for 21-22. Straker presented a great film out of nowhere. I'd actually make the suggestion we embrace what we do naturally -- by announcing a presentation of suggestions period, and after that, then follow up with asking folks two pick their 21 & 22.

I reckon I can vote or back films when and how I want to, and the fact I haven't said anything yet, doesn't mean I haven't read what other people have posted.


Good grief.

Hammerfan's question has made you confused. Why would the process be changed at the final steps of our project?

We are backing films right now. Voting period has finished a long time back, when you sent in 22 choices to me through PM from the Master List.

The order of events :-

1 - Master List of a decade posted.
2 - Top 20/22 films selected and sent via PM. (voting process)
3 - Second Master List of compiled choices posted.
4 - First debate for backings in order to finalise the 20/22.
5 - Second debate through re-posting of second Master List to find 2 more films.
6 - Debate for Honorable Mentions.
7 - End of all debates.
8 - Sticky to be posted.


I was clarifying to her that she can back a film she voted for (in her top 22 PM to me) ONCE, in any of the subsequent debates/discussions above.

All added.

Looks like we have quite a few contenders (as underlined) for those final 2 spots in the top 24.

http://www.horror.com/forum/showthre...57593&page=120

Ginger Snaps is the frontrunner here, with the maximum number of backings, followed by Little Otik, Hard Candy and The Orphanage.

Keep the thoughts coming, folks.


You vote for those films which are your choices (like the 20 you sent me via PM).
You back those films which you feel are the best, regardless of them being your choices or somebody else's.

I'll back Battle Royale. I believe it to be an important and influential film. Also a really great film.

Done.

Quite a number of films have received 2 backings, so I am not underlining them all. Only those with 3 or more backings have been underlined - Ginger Snaps has 4, while the other 3 films have 3 each.

http://www.horror.com/forum/showthre...57593&page=120

Keep the flow going.

Ah. Gotcha.

I'll back:

Final Destination (2000)
Ginger Snaps (2000)

Now that Little Otik appears to have wrapped up at least an honourable mentions spot, I'll add my backing to;

The Devils Backbone
Battle Royale

Also gonna have one last throw of the dice on Shadow of the Vampire..... This is John Malkovich playing FW Murnau and Willem Dafoe play Max Schreck only Schreck turns out to be a real life vampire, specifically employed by the maniacal and obsessive Murnau, in order to bring his picture 'Nosferatu' to life. If that doesn't peek your interest right there I don't know what will! Its tongue in cheek dark humour, but it also has some weight behind it asking how far our creative minds will push boundaries to create art. Willem Dafoe puts in a career best performance and Malkovich is typically menacing as the obsessive Murnau. Fans of Nosferatu should love this movie, but there is enough depth for anyone to get something out of it.

Here's a short scene, give it a watch, this is real quality writing and acting on display;



Promise that's the last time I mention it!!

Looks like Ginger Snaps will be our 21st chosen film.

Two other contenders have sprung up - Battle Royale and Final Destination.

http://www.horror.com/forum/showthre...57593&page=120

Keep the thoughts coming.

I'm neg voting Final Destination. Its a fun movie with a cool concept but nothing special

I will back Final Destination. There are other movies that I felt were MORE deserving, but they're out of the game now anyway, and out of the ones that are left, Final Destination is the one I would rather see on the list.

Done.

We are still at 21 films.

I'll back Final Destination

I'll back Shadow of The Vampire

Hey V - since I know that you always wait for a certain amount of the participants to agree on the final choices, I thought I'd let you know that I will be offline for most of the weekend.

So it's easier to see, please if you would, will you put the underlined films altogether at the top? Thank you, V. (even seeing ones with 2 backings helps)

For discussions sake, I think the strongest films are:
Little Otik (2000)
The Orphanage (2007)

I think these films have garnered notability/fame, but it doesn't make them good:
The Devil's Backbone (2001) - saw recently, beautifully shot, but very slow, and story very unoriginal, with characters and story a bit shallow.
Final Destination (2000) - cool camera shots, creative story, but weak acting and dialogue, the people getting killed in accidents is sort of old hat.
Battle Royale (2000) - Just saw a month ago - the story idea is great, as is Takeski Kitano; the problem is the rest of the film, which is 85% of it, which is teens killing each other, hardly ever with any creativity. The two teen protagonist convey some tenderness to each other, but I found everything else subpar. I found it rather tedious & often times ridiculous, even for teen dialogue.
Shadow of the Vampire (2000) - Loved, loved, loved the concept! & I'm a Malcovich fan. However, for me, I just didn't think it worked. I found it tedious. As one critic wrote "almost unspeakable dialogue. ohn Malkovich recites his lines as if monomania were synonymous with monotonic." The concept was there, but the story, and/or execution failed for to me.
I don't think any of them are worthy of the HR. I'm floating a neg for one of them.

Couldn't disagree with you more on this one, sorry....What elevates BR is the depth of characters and tragic reality of each individual story. Its actually incredible story telling that so much story/ back story is given in such a short space of time and how it manages to emotionally attach the audience to each character, especially given the backdrop of absolute carnage. I'm not gonna try to name each character as my recall for Japanese names isn't all that good, but I can honestly say I don't think I have ever watched a movie and cared for so many characters as much as I did with BR. The deaths themselves are actually superficial to the story, which is an incredibly impressive achievement considering how violent the movie is.

I still think your pick of Little Otik (2000) is much richer.

I agree with Straker. Excellently put. It would be a shame if BR didn't make the list or honorable mentions.

Wish we could get more support for that one

I'm still hoping Little Otik makes the cut, but equally I wanted to be fair to BR and give my honest opinion about it, because I really do rate it highly.

Also on a side vote to your original post..... You already neg voted Shadow of the Vampire, in the first round cut, so you can forget about negging that again!

I'd like to neg vote Prometheus, first off.

And I'll throw my support out for The Devil's Backbone and Little Otik. Very glad to see the latter getting so much advocacy on here, by the way.

I think Prometheus is a really good movie, but it does not belong on this list, even as an honorable mention, in my opinion. I had never heard of Battle Royale before, but it reminds me of The Hunger Games.

Thank you, KD, although I have a feeling we will still be debating when you return back. Enjoy your weekend trip.

The ones with the most backings for that 22nd spot have been elevated up.

Sorry, too many films have 2 backings. Not possible to move them all out and/or underline them, unless they score at least 1 more backing.

A must-watch for every modern horror fan.

-----------------------------------------------

All added.

Looks like we have 3 films vying for that last spot - Final Destination, Little Otik and The Orphanage.

The Devil's Backbone, Battle Royale and Hard Candy are contenders as well.

http://www.horror.com/forum/showthre...57593&page=120

Keep chippin' on, folks.

I will definitely add it to my list. It sounds interesting.

And the film came out eight years before The Hunger Games book. If anybody's doing any influencing, it's Battle Royale.

I did not say The Hunger Games influenced it, it was just an observation. In fact, I was actually wondering if this film had any inspiration on The Hunger Games or were the similarities merely a coincidence. I think it probably had a great deal inspiration on The Hunger Games, but that's just my opinion.

My thoughts on Battle Royale are that it's really not that original of a concept. The Immoral Game Show trope has been done plenty of times, and survivalism isn't uncommon. It's a bit like The Running Man meets Lord of the Flies, however Lord of the Flies at least has one scene that was truly horror (the pig head on the stake scene). It's definitely a fun, notable child violence exploitation flick, but I never thought it was particularly horror. Certainly violent, but to me, more in the Riki-Oh sense, not the evil-force-has-just-violently-killed-you sense. I don't think any scene was really intended to be scary for the viewer, but definitely shocking, which I suppose is close enough. I can't think of anything significant it added to the horror genre, it didn't start a trend or expand on existing horror themes, and if we're saying it contributed to the copycat success of The Hunger Games, from a horror perspective, that's a step in the wrong direction. It's weird how certain films become unquestioned horror darlings, while other genuinely creepy films like Donnie Darko and Black Swan are almost universally dismissed as non-horror.

I also, personally had a very different experience than Straker did with the character development. I thought there were way too many characters, such that I ended up caring about none of them. I actually got a bit impatient and frustrated, and began enjoying the film a lot more once most of the characters were killed off, and more attention could be given to the few remaining. I also thought some of the dialog was atrocious, but that could just be less-than-ideal translation. Maybe I just watched it on a bad day and need to see it again.

This is certainly not a negative vote. I'll be the last person to neg vote a movie for being "not horror enough," and my comments on its quality are pretty subjective. I just think there are other films that are actually leaving a mark on the genre.

........................

Okay, you're Wikipedia cut & paste has sold me. ;)

Seriously, though, I'm not trying to dog the movie, and if others feel that it belongs on a horror list, I'm all for it. I'm just conveying my personal experience when I saw the movie, and even though Entertainment Weekly and the New York Times thinks it's groundbreaking, I feel like that ground had already been broken.