21st Century Terrors, Part 1: 2000

Welcome to The Vault of Horror's year-by-year breakdown of the decade that was--a look back at horror in the aughts, if you will.

The first decade of the new century is basically over, and so it's time to assess what that ten-year stretch meant for the genre we adore. Time to begin at the beginning, the year that brought us into a new millennium, the year that had so many idiots thinking the world was going to end (until they bumped that back another 12 years). We start with the year 2000.

Interestingly, a study of 2000 in horror reveals that much of the horror drought of the 1990s, as well as other trends of that decade, were still continuing. It is not a particularly impressive year for horror, certainly not for those fans who are spoiled by everything that's been out there for the past few years.

In addition to the relative dearth of quality horror films that some would call a residual effect of the preceding decade, we also find that some of the franchises that defined the 1990s were still gasping their last. For example, Scream had its final sequel to date, Scream 3, which miraculously featured Neve Campbell, Courtney Cox and David Arquette all somehow surviving again. There would also be the second Urban Legends film (Final Cut), as well as the disastrous Blair Witch sequel, Book of Shadows, which effectively buried the legacy of what may have been the 1990s most important horror flick.

And yet a brand new horror franchise would be kicked off right here at the start of the decade. One which still continues today, and may be second only to Saw as the decade's most popular. Final Destination hinges on a rather simple premise: A group of characters cheat death thanks to a premonition glimpsed by one of them. And one by one, death comes calling for them all in gruesome ways. While no classic by any stretch of the imagination, it's guilty pleasure viewing at its finest, and hasn't seem to have lost any steam, as the fourth film in the series opened at number one at the box office just last month.

Classic monsters from horror's past proved that they could still survive even the change of a century--despite the fact that for the most part, we may have wished they hadn't. Of course, I'm thinking mainly here about the forgettable Dracula 2000, whose only merit was seeing Star Trek: Voyager's Seven of Nine fall victim to a vampire; as well as the banal Kevin Bacon clunker Hollow Man, yet another riff on the old Invisible Man concept.

Yet the classic horror theme struck paydirt at last with Shadow of the Vampire, a witty and clever film all about the 1922 making of F.W. Murnau's German masterpiece, Nosferatu. The film posits the question: What if Max Schreck really were a vampire? Willem Dafoe's performance in the role earned him an Oscar nomination, and John Malkovich is suitably masterful as Murnau.

Although it may have been a somewhat weak year, 2000 gave us a handful of unforgettable gems in addition to Shadow of the Vampire. For instance, the character of Patrick Bateman became a titanic figure on the horror landscape thanks to the instant cult classic that was Mary Harron's adaptation of Brett Easton Ellis' sinister indictment of yuppy culture, American Psycho.

Quite possibly the finest horror film of the year, American Psycho proved that the novel, once thought unfilmable thanks to its heinous imagery, could actually be transferred to the screen without losing its power. And along the way, former child star Christian Bale became legitimately established as an actor to contend with, playing the lead role with inspired lunacy.

We also got Robert Zemeckis' only straight-up horror film to date, the underrated ghost flick What Lies Beneath--starring Michelle Pfeifer and Harrison Ford in a rare turn as the heavy. And the Canadians gave us Ginger Snaps, the ingeniously fresh take on the werewolf mythos that approaches the material from a post-modern, feminist point of view, tieing lycanthrope in with puberty.

And finally, 2000 was the year that George Romero attempted to break back on to the horror scene with Bruiser, one of the most unfortunate misfires of recent years. The horror/thriller failed to connect with audiences, and Romero would have to wait a few more years before his old undead pals would return him once again to the spotlight.

Although a somewhat inauspicious start to the decade, 2000 would give us a few glimmers of the good stuff that was to come. The genre was shaking off the doldrums of the 1990s, and it wouldn't be long before things would be getting much, much better.

Also from 2000:

• Pitch Black
• The Cell
• The Gift
• Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV
• Ju-on 2
• The Little Vampire

Scream 4 Announced - Neve Campbell Rejoices; Rest of World Mourns

Just when you thought it was safe to go to the movies and not see David Arquette, Dread Central is reporting today that the Weinsteins have officially announced Scream 4.

The announcement was made in a pretty much off-hand way, as part of a press-release detailing the Weinsteins' deal to distribute their 2009 theatrical slate to Showtime's pay-TV service. It just so happens that one of the films the release mentions as part of that slate is the long-rumored fourth installment of horror's most unnecessary series.

No further details are known yet, including whether or not Wes Craven will direct (unlikely) or whether or not the trinity of Neve Campbell, Arquette and Courtney Cox--who miraculously survived the original trilogy--will be returning (likely).

Starting off as a clever idea and a fresh new take on the slasher genre (not to mention a shot in the arm for Craven's faltering career), the series went rapidly downhill as soon as it became a series. The drop-off in quality was immediate, and what was at first a great concept just became pointless and repetitive. Nevertheless, they did make a hell of a lot of money, so it looks like Ghostface is off to the races again, kids!

From Post-Mortem to Postmodern: A History of Horror Movies, Part 6

It seemed like the horror genre had nowhere else to go after the blood-drenched, boundary-pushing 1970s and '80s. And in a way, that was true.The 1990s is remembered by many as a lowpoint in the history of scary movies. And while that's a slightly inaccurate generalization, the decade did suffer in some respects as a result of the excesses of the years that preceded it.

On the one hand, you had many of the deathless franchises of the 1980s lurching forward, series like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween churning out sequel after sequel, burning out the moviegoing public in the process. New slasher series like Child's Play, Leprechaun and Candyman, while offering some new ideas, also added more fuel to the fire.

In addition to that, a backlash occured. Beyond the genre, American moviemaking in general became more conservative, reacting to the unbridled violence and sex of the previous generation with more restraint and less gratuitousness. Criticisms of the business had begun to have an effect, and filmmakers had finally gotten over the fact they could do certain things they couldn't before. Now they were being more prudent about when and how often to do them.

Within horror, the gore factor was greatly reduced. Of course there were some exceptions--the most notable of which was a certain 1992 horror comedy by New Zealand director Peter Jackson called Brain Dead (or Dead Alive in America). That offbeat zombie flick ratcheted up the onscreen violence to ridiculously unheard of levels, but played it for laughs all the way. Perhaps that was the only way Jackson got away with it.

Ironically, once the splatter scene became old hat, Hollywood made something of a return to the grand guignol of a bygone era. Gothic horror made a brief comeback, and even the old monsters got taken out of mothballs for movies like Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Wolf (1994) and The Mummy (1999) (though the latter was reimagined as more of an action film.) Vampires in particular benefited from a "goth" movement that buoyed Anne Rice's series of novels to worlwide acclaim and led to a motion picture version of Interview with the Vampire starring mega-stars Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.

The genre was lost in a way, heading in several different directions at once, unable to find its bearings. It was playing, after all, to an audience that felt as if it had seen it all. In hindsight, it seems only natural that the only thing to do under the circumstances was to deconstruct. For the first time, horror films became self-aware and self-reflective.

Just as he had been among the pioneers of the previous era, director Wes Craven led the pack again. Toying with the concept with 1994's New Nightmare, something of a coda to his Elm Street saga in which dream killer Freddy Krueger crosses over into the real world, Craven committed fully to self-aware horror with Scream (1996). A slasher flick in which all the characters seem to know about slasher flicks and all their cliches, the movie plays upon our expectations, injecting new life into a tired subject with a healthy dose of postmodern irony. Scream and its sequels, along with pics like I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), led to an unlikely rebirth of the hack-and-slash subgenre.

After years of searching for a new identity, the horror genre benefited from the shot in the arm, and by the end of the decade seemed to be on the road to recovery. Yet it also seemed as if horror filmmakers everywhere had learned over the course of the 1990s that they didn't necessarily need buckets of guts to effectively generate terror.

Witness the types of films that led the renaissance in the late 1990s. In America, it was newcomer M. Night Shyamalan and his atmospheric, Oscar-nominated ghost story The Sixth Sense (1999). There was also the ground-breaking Blair Witch Project of the same year. Although the overdose of internet hype that accompanied the film may have sabotaged it to a certain degree, it was the ingenious decision to inspire fear through the hyper-realism of a so-called "mock-umentary" approach that makes the movie a landmark--and one of the biggest influences on the genre to this day.

Meanwhile, from overseas in Japan, a movement was spreading abroad that would have an even greater impact in America in the years to come. With Hideo Nakata's Ringu (1998) being the most well-known, Japanese horror would further reinvigorate the genre and open up new avenues to explore.

Horror had proven that it had a lot more life left in it. In fact, with the dawn of a new decade, it would soon become unimaginable that it had ever been in trouble in the first place. If the 1990s saw horror go into hiding, then the start of the 21st century saw it make up for lost time, exploding into the mainstream consciousness like never before.

Other major releases:

• Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993)
• In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
• Cube (1997)
• The Haunted Lantern (1997)
• Urban Legend (1998)

Part 1: The Silent Dead

Part 2: Gods & Monsters

Part 3: It Came from Hollywood

Part 4: The Times They Are a-Changin'

Part 5: Blood & Guts

Soon to come: Part 7 - Gore Goes Mainstream (a.k.a. The Final Chapter)

Ms. Alba, Haven't You Done Enough Harm Already?

As if her lame retread of the Chinese cult favorite The Eye hasn't built enough ill will toward Jessica Alba amongst genre fans, the vacuous actress has now seen fit to desecrate some of the finest horror films ever made.

In a new cover story for Latina magazine, Alba ineptly attempts to recreate famous scenes from her five supposedly favorite horror movies. Check out this cringe-worthy Psycho shot:


If only young Jessica possessed a tenth of the poise, class and chops of a Janet Leigh, this might not be nearly as sad. Want more? Here's her take on Rosemary's Baby:


Check her out displaying the acting skills she honed on the Disney Channel. And speaking of sacrilege, here's Jessie's impersonation of Tippi Hedren in The Birds:


Alba has some better luck with Scream, in which she steps into the shoes of an actress nearly as inane and irritating as herself:


Notice how they made sure that Ghostface can actually be seen creeping up on her, just so readers would be able to tell what movie it's supposed to be? Nice touch. If you have the constitution for one more, here's a rather artful--if only loosely adapted--tribute to The Exorcist:


Now if only that ceiling wasn't there, then maybe she might have simply floated away into the stratosphere, so that we would no longer have to be subjected to drek like Good Luck Chuck and FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer.