Fender Bender - Crossing the Borders of Slasher Cinema's Subdivisions

In my Eek! Speak blog posts, I always discuss my love of the horror genre in its many forms. More often than not I tend to write about my favorite movie subgenre, the slasher film. This may seem to be a limited slice of horror, but for me it’s the most flavorful slice of that bloody pie. If I dissect that category even further, we have a multitude of sub-subgenres, each one worthy of sampling and study. There are the theme day slashers (My Bloody Valentine, Prom Night, Happy Birthday To Me), woodsy slashers (Friday the 13^th, Sleepaway Camp, The Final Terror), rural slashers (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Two Thousand Maniacs), college slashers (The Dorm That Dripped Blood, Final Exam, Scream 2), police procedural slashers (10 to Midnight, Too Scared To Scream, In the Cut), shopping slashers (The Initiation, Hide and Go Shriek, Intruder), phone slashers (When A Stranger Calls, Don’t Answer The Phone, Scream), sorority slashers (The House on Sorority Row, Girl’s Nite Out, Sorority House Massacre), asylum slashers (Slaughter High, Alone in the Dark, Happy Hell Night), queer slashers (Cruising, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Evil Laugh), final boy slashers (The Burning, Night Warning, My Soul To Take) and more. Some of these titles, like The Initiation, can fall into multiple sub categories (theme day, shopping, and sorority). Like the repetitive body counts in these kill films, the categories and crossings go on and on and on.

Theme day, shopping, and sorority.

     Rather than limited, these slasher films alone provide a cinematic diet full of variety. Sometimes, nothing satisfies the appetite better than, say, a blind final girl slasher film (See No Evil, The Hills Have Eyes Part II, Mute Witness).

     In particular, I want to single out two subgenres of the slasher subgenre, the suburban slasher movie and the road psycho movie. One of horror’s greatest achievements, Halloween, may be the most iconic suburban slasher film, while also defining the theme day slashers and flirting with asylum slashers in the opening act. Other notable suburban slashers include Slumber Party Massacre and its topless sequels, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the first and final Scream films. Wes Craven returned to this category repeatedly throughout his career, with Shocker, The People Under the Stairs, My Soul To Take, New Nightmare, and more. Even Red Eye, Craven’s terrorist thriller on a plane, ends in slasher territory with a suburban house chase that would belong in any of his terror films.

Wes Craven's favorite killing ground.

     The strength and scares of these suburban slasher films comes from taking the expected remote terrible place, whether a summer camp, desert, or coal mine, and transplanting that deadly place into your formerly welcome home. You don’t wander onto the psycho’s home turf; they wander into yours. Terror can come knocking or trick-or-treating, pulling up your driveway and crawling through your bedroom window while you take a shower, or better yet, a bubble bath.

In front of the most iconic suburban slasher house, the Doyle house from Halloween.

     Now let’s hit the highway and look at road psycho cinema. The Model T of this high-octane category is Duel, followed by later models like Roadgames, Death Valley, The Hitcher, Welcome to Spring Break, Crash, Highwaymen, and Death Proof. Whether on two wheels or four, these madmen can speed after or right into you anywhere at any time. Your airbags won’t save you against a sharp knife. I would even venture to add Halloween to this list, considering Michael Myers steals a car after his asylum escape and spends the first half of the film stalking from behind the wheel.

Big knife or big tires, the result is the same. From Highwaymen.

     The reason I’m so focused on home invaders and maniacs on wheels is due to Fender Bender, which had its world premiere on May 23^rd in Los Angeles, and is currently enjoying a limited local run before its premiere on Chiller on June 3^rd. Fender Bender is a perfect mating of the suburban slasher and road psycho subgenres, creating a body count that is totally original, timelessly familiar, and revving with ambitious scares.

At Fender Bender's world premiere at the Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles, May 23, 2016.

     Fender Bender has a wickedly effective and simple premise that anyone with a driver’s license can relate to. A teenage girl is the victim of a minor fender bender in her suburban neighborhood. She trades her contact information with the other driver, who we know from first bump is a knife-wielding maniac with a habit for hunting humans (this is not a spoiler; it’s the basic set-up). Guess who will be paying the girl and her friends a visit on this stormy night?

Relentless and random.

     I have been a fan of writer/director Mark Pavia since the release of his first feature, the atmospheric and under seen Stephen King shocker The Night Flier. With that adaptation, Pavia became one of a handful of directors able to create that palpable King flavor on film. With his original killer thriller, Pavia proves just as adept with the slasher film, capable of creating not only shocking kills and dense suspense, but all of the quiet, important details that aficionados like me can really savor.

You're in his headlights.

     Fender Bender’s closest cousin in the suburban slasher category is undoubtedly Halloween. Remove Halloween’s theme day and asylum escape, and you have an adult male car stalker who follows a teenage girl home to hunt her over the course of one night, wearing a mask and armed with a knife, taking out any friends that get in the way and decorating the property with their remains. Fender Bender satisfyingly fits this formula while carving its own place in the suburban slasher cannon. As for the location, New Mexico is definitely not Haddonfield, Illinois, and the wide, dry vistas of Fender Bender’s suburbs add further isolation. There’s less of a chance your neighbors would hear you screaming bloody murder late at night.

Key ingredients in just the right portions.

     Also reminiscent of Halloween is Fender Bender’s visual style, and it’s more than just the Carpenter influenced widescreen cinematography. Meticulous attention is paid to set design, lighting, and framing for maximum suspense, the dark corners of the frame and long corridors of the house providing a constant threat. Pavia and company are obviously having a ball manipulating the architecture of terror in this suburban killing field.

     In the road psycho arena, Fender Bender gives us the Driver, a memorable new madman shrouded in mystery while engaging in intricate homicidal ritual. The stoic, shades wearing Driver requires the guise of an ordinary motorist to acquire his victims’ addresses and phone numbers. Only once does the Driver’s shades come off, and we are not allowed to see his eyes or the soul they might reflect. Once this traveling stalker follows his victim home, his human side is shed. The Driver becomes a murderous extension of his automobile, clad in full body black leather and a cylindrical mask that resembles the grille of his car. Only through the headlights of this mask do we see the Driver’s eyes, and indeed they are soulless. This killer seems to be fueled by hate, his victims, like those of the D.C. sniper, spread across the nation and chillingly random.

This is the Driver's mask.

     The Driver does engage in some messy hit and run mayhem, but unlike Vaughan from Crash and Stuntman Mike from Death Proof, his car is not his only murder weapon. The Driver, in his completely original garb, carries a completely original weapon, a massive, spring-loaded blade that could pop a tire with ease. Before dawn, bloody tire tracks will circle the house and blood will paint the interior. The Driver is proud of his human road kill, and leaves the arid landscape as wet as possible.

     As for one crucial early step in the Driver's ritual, using the phone numbers that his victims willingly pass on to him in his escalating stalking campaign, this puts Fender Bender firmly into the phone slashers sub-subgenre. A few scenes manage an eerie Don't Answer the Phone vibe, which is definitely a plus.

Don't answer the text!

     There is one other subdivision of slasher film that Fender Bender strongly resembles, and that is the retro slasher film, those killer films from the golden age between 1978 and 1984. While Fender Bender cannot technically qualify as retro due to its release date, it is impressive how effortlessly this film resembles those of that era. Fender Bender is steeped in all of the classic techniques that work: practical effects, catchy synth score, vulnerable characters we like, iconic masked maniac, elaborate murder set pieces. Best of all, there is no modern shaky handheld camerawork to ugly it up and date it. Fender Bender does slasher right.

Director Mark Pavia and his beautiful slasher baby.

     Now I’m hoping we can get Mark Pavia behind the wheel for a sequel. There are a lot more fenders to be bent across the country.

Armando D. Muñoz

Friday the 13th Revisited - My Return to Cinema Slaughter Camp

On March 13, 2015, I posted a lengthy blog titled “Child of Friday the 13^th”, about my lifetime love affair with the film Friday the 13^th and the series it spawned. In brief summation, Friday the 13^th was my first theatrical horror film and R-rated movie, which I saw on opening night when I was eight years old. It was not love at first sight, because I was way too young to understand what I was watching and the effect was traumatizing. When Jason popped out of the lake during the final scene, I threw my Red Vines and soda into the air and ran screaming out of the theater. The film gave me nightmares and sleepless nights for years. When my interest in horror developed in my early teens, I was able to re-evaluate Friday the 13^th, and the film turned from a hated nightmare generator into a work of art that embraced all of my favorite film aesthetics. I faced my fear, and transformed it to love.

Face of fear.

     Now I treat the date Friday the 13^th as another Halloween, a day when most of my friends and I celebrate our love of cinematic scares. I always run my own Friday the 13^th marathon and try to partake in whatever horror-centric happening is going on. This last Friday the 13^th, May 2016, which marked the 36^th anniversary of the original film’s release, proved to be more special than most, and luckily I had my camera constantly going to capture all of the excitement and carnage.

     Los Angeles is a playground for film fanatics, often with multiple events going on at once jockeying for fans’ attention. Never though have I seen so many stellar events at once as on Friday May 13, 2016. First there was the New Beverly Cinema’s An All Nighter on Elm Street, a marathon of the first 7 Nightmare on Elm Street films that reportedly sold out in 3 minutes. At the Hollywood Forever Cemetery was a screening of The Conjuring, including a look at advance clips from The Conjuring 2. For Friday the 13^th fans, first there was a 35^th anniversary screening of Friday the 13^th Part 2 at the Chinese Theatres in Hollywood. Next, the Great Horror Campout sponsored a screening of the original Friday the 13^th within the woods of the abandoned Griffith Park Zoo. Friday the 13^th also screened at nearly the same time in West Los Angeles with director Sean S. Cunningham in attendance. Finally, for those who prefer brand new to retro scares, The Darkness just opened in theaters everywhere, starring Friday the 13^th’s Kevin Bacon.

     Despite all of these choices, my event of choice was immediate, and surprisingly, not the screening of Friday the 13^th at the Crest Westwood, which was nearest me. That screening sounded appealing, with the film’s director discussing the mechanics of this cinematic favorite. However, for many years I’ve wished for a screening of Friday the 13^th in a woodsy setting. Griffith Park, planted right in the center of Los Angeles with Dodgers Stadium next door, is not exactly a remote summer camp. However, the park is a large outdoor oasis that you really don’t want to be lost in without a flashlight at night.

Something is lurking behind me in the abandoned zoo!

     Because I was so scarred by seeing Friday the 13^th so young, I never went to summer camp. It was never even a consideration. Ironically, the Great Horror Campout, an annual slasher themed camping experience that happens in June, sponsored this outdoor Friday the 13th screening, with prior outdoor screenings of Poltergeist and The Shining that I missed. This group’s Great Horror Movie Night would be like a short trip to camp in the woods, to see the ultimate summer camp slasher film. This screening, more than any other revival screening, seemed like it would provide a direct connection, a vein or a Red Vine, to that terrified kid I was watching Friday the 13^th on opening weekend. I couldn’t wait!

     Before that twilight screening, I had many hours to kill, so I decided to get fully into the skin of Friday the 13^th’s main characters, the happy and doomed young camp counselors. I put on my Camp Crystal Lake Camp Counselor shirt and button, rolled some joints, and with Red Vines for wounds, went to camp. Perhaps I should classify this behavior not as cosplay, but as kilplay. Here are some memorable kill shots.

First victims on Friday the 13th.

Ol’ Grimace Face on Friday the 13^th. “It’s got a death curse!”

Carefree youth on Friday the 13^th. We’re gonna live forever!

Final girls on Friday the 13^th. Not so virginal.

Someone’s shooting arrows at us on Friday the 13^th. It’s not even dark yet.

Poor Annies on Friday the 13^th. We were supposed to be good cooks.

They always kill the funny guys on Friday the 13^th.

Smoking some of Marci’s grass on my bunk bed on Friday the 13^th.

In the stall next to Marci’s on Friday the 13^th. 40 yards to the outhouse by Willie Makeit.

I always end up with an axe in the face on Friday the 13^th.

     Finally it was time to leave camp at home for camp on a hillside. I was not venturing to camp alone, both my partner and a friend since my high school years went, all of us adolescent during Friday the 13^th’s original release. Considering the numerous horror events scattered throughout Los Angeles on this night, I really did not expect much of a turnout for this 36 year old slasher film.

     Arriving at the screening location, the abandoned Griffith Park Zoo, it looked more like a concert at the Hollywood Bowl with the number of people streaming in. Hundreds of Friday the 13^th fans, likely over one thousand. Glued to a post near the front of the massive line leading into the woods was a homemade sign warning to be on the lookout for a man lurking in the trees with a flashlight. There were numerous screening staff dressed as killers and monsters wandering around the abandoned zoo, but this sign was warning about the real thing. The final line reads “He may be dangerous or sick or worse.” What a perfect mood setting sign. Even more ominous is the drawing of the man, which also looks like a husky woman, which actually looks like Friday the 13^th’s killer Mrs. Voorhees!

Be on the lookout for Mrs. Voorhees in the bushes.

     But first, a trip to the bathroom, which in this park consisted of creepy orange brick cubicles that once again put me in mind of Friday the 13^th’s ominous bathroom stalls of murder. I fully expected an axe in my face when I exited the stall, but there were still a few minutes of daylight left. I survived this trip to the potty.

Terror toilet in the woods.

     Once we made it through the nature trail with a massive line of guests and maniacs, we were finally rewarded with the tree-lined hillside surrounded by open, abandoned zoo enclosures. Beyond the giant inflatable screen, the hill was packed with laid-back Friday the 13^th fans, probably half of who had not been born when the film was originally released. We staked our spot in the middle, and armed with buttered popcorn and Red Vines, both taste and scented triggers from my original viewing, we were ready for the show.

     The film was presented this night “In Bleed-O Vision”, whatever that is. Friday the 13^th is a notoriously dark movie, but the projector had a bright bulb that made the darkest scenes easy to see. The sound was impressively loud for this massive space, so no lines were lost beneath the frequent roar of the crowd. The temperature was in the mid sixties, but watching the storm besieged characters on screen gave the evening an additional chill.

There were so many people in attendance it was hard to feel the sense of isolation that makes Friday the 13^th so scary, but the responsive screams from the crowd were electric. These were the same screams from opening night 36 years ago. I know because I was there. Back then my screams were of genuine terror. Now my screams were of laughter and joy.

She screams, we all scream.

     The audience screams were loudest during Marci’s kill in the bathroom, which was the scene that disturbed me most on my first viewing. After that incredible reaction, I decided to get video of the audience response for the final two big scares in the film, Mrs. Voorhees’ decapitation and Jason’s arrival. I have to challenge the slogan for the film in the theatrical trailer, “You may only see it once, but that will be enough.” I would say it should be “You can never see it enough.” The size of this appreciative audience was proof of that.

     I only have one complaint about the entire event, and that was the online advertising for the screening, which featured a big picture of Jason in a hockey mask. Wrong movie! I extend this criticism to Midnight Movie Massacre’s Friday the 13^th screening at the Crest Westwood, which also featured a poster of a hockey mask. That must have looked poorly chosen to the director in attendance; couldn’t they get his movie right? I have to wonder whether many of the night's younger viewers were disappointed they didn't get an action Jason movie instead of the mood drenched, quiet mystery murder movie that Friday the 13th actually is.

     Unlike most, I do not identify the Friday the 13^th series as just Jason movies. It’s the unfair, brutal deaths that give these films their power to scare. With my latest Friday the 13^th inspired adventure, with all of the pictures and video I took, there is not one hockey mask to be seen.

     So far as complaints go, this one is minor. Watching Friday the 13^th with tall trees above the screen, the moon hovering overhead, and "Ki-Ki-Ki Ma-Ma-Ma" echoing through the night gave me further ways to re-experience and appreciate this classic, and with a community of like minded fans. The lurker in the woods with a flashlight did not find us, this time.

     There is unfortunately only one Friday the 13^th on the calendar for 2016, so I have plenty of time to plan for my next Friday the 13^th adventure. Where will this Child of Friday the 13th go next? A trip to some of the film's locations in Blairstown, New Jersey on the titular date would be another dream experience. Until then, there are other dates of terror to look forward to, namely Halloween and the soon to be most terrifying day of the year, Turkey Day!

Fear This Fever - Cabin Fever 2016 Review

     In 2003, I was one of the first to catch the Fever.

     Thanks to Fangoria and savvy Internet marketing, I was well aware of Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever long before its theatrical release. I didn’t have to see a frame of footage to fully get behind this film. It sounded like The Evil Dead for the infection age. Five college age adults party at a remote cabin, but instead of falling victim to demonic possession, they become hosts to a highly infectious flesh-eating virus. The basic concept sounded genuinely scary and highly disturbing, with a sickness instead of a slasher loose in the isolated woods, making extra-wet work of the ridiculously attractive cast. I simply could not wait to get a dose of this movie.

     I scored my chance months before the film’s release, when I attended a packed screening at the Seattle International Film Festival. Everyone was in the mood for a party movie, but the film about to unspool had me effectively frightened. Maybe it’s due to my long time juvenile diabetes, with its potential side effects of body deterioration and limb amputation, because disease movies seriously freak me out.

The original outbreak.

     Cabin Fever proved to be a quintessential midnight movie event. The raucous crowd responded with equal parts gagging and guffaws. Cabin Fever ended up being more Evil Dead 2 than The Evil Dead, a horror comedy. I squirmed and laughed with everyone else, but I had no worry of nightmares afterward, no lingering scars in my psyche.

     Having seen how well the film played to an audience, I was not surprised when Cabin Fever opened number three at the box office and became an independent horror hit. The sequels, however, suffered from diminishing screams and screens. Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever went the hipster gore comedy route, while Cabin Fever: Patient Zero inexplicably went the zombie island route. And yet the Cabin Fever concept remained strong enough to draw talent like Ti West, Larry Fessenden and Sean Austin into its infectious universe.

The cinematic fever continued to linger in the woods, awaiting another resurgence.

Time for another outbreak.

     In late 2014, instead of another sequel, a remake of the original Cabin Fever went into production, with Travis Z. directing from Roth’s script for the original. The film seemed to be shot in a hermetically sealed bubble of secrecy. With its questionable conception and thoughts of the frustratingly faithful Psycho remake in mind, its understandable that this revisiting of a recent hit might be greeted with doubt rather than the enthusiasm that greeted the original.

     With the new Cabin Fever, I am eager to report that there is a major difference that makes it an altogether different outbreak than the others. Most of the jokes have been dropped. This Cabin Fever is not a gore comedy; it is served without a side of Pancakes. This film delivers the disturbing and terrifying experience I had anticipated from the first entry. This sick flick is shriek out loud scary, while maintaining the audience participatory, midnight movie vibe of the original. It’s a harder party horror movie.

     My diagnosis, Travis Z.’s Cabin Fever is a five sore horror film. Five seeping sores.

Delivers pain, not Pancakes.

     Reminiscent of the Night of the Living Dead remake, Cabin Fever 2016 contains the same basic structure of the original, while it constantly works to subvert expectations for maximum scare value. Scenes that originally ended with a punch line now end with mounting dread. You may know who is going to die, but not how, and everything’s going to get a whole lot worse for this poor group about to lose their good looks in the ickiest and stickiest ways possible. And even though we know these are not the nicest kids, they come across less douche and more likable than before, especially Bert, which helps to increase investment in them.

Less douchey.

     This is a more violent and cringe-inducing Fever. The new infection has its own disgusting dynamics, a rot that strives for realism. There are a few scenes here that go way beyond anything in the original Cabin Fever. Most of the make-up effects work is practical, which adds to its impact. One spectacularly cruel sequence is bound to go down in the annals of graphic cinematic shocks and become horror legend.

You're going to need a bigger barf bag.

     As with the original Friday the 13^th and the best of the cabin-in-the-woods subgenre, great attention is paid to the atmosphere and location. This darker, less colorful film is assembled with the aim of maximum suspense. This is classic genre filmmaking that does not try to reference a specific decade, but instead utilizes all of the timeless mechanics that work. This reboot does allow one clever addition for the social media age, which leads to its own audacious shock.

     There are echoes of horror classics within this Cabin Fever, but not on the level of the knowing winks that Roth employed in the original film, such as playing the theme song from The Last House on the Left or recreating an iconic shot from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This film is more concerned with establishing its own identity, with less reference and stronger reality.

You'll be the doggie bag.

     Since this is Cabin Fever, we are back in quirky redneck territory. In another effective twist, many of the characters that provided comic relief in the original deliver menace now, including Grim and the boy at the gas station, Dennis. Deputy Winston may be the film’s most unnerving character. I still get chills and feel assaulted thinking about her.

     Director Travis Z. knows that you can’t replay a joke to the same effect, but you can amp the shock value of a familiar fright. This isn’t the work of somebody eager to show that he is a super fan, and Travis Z. does not attempt to do Roth’s style. This is the work of a talented new voice, and his faith in the material and understanding of the genre is evident in every frame. I predict T.Z. will quickly get launched into the biggest of the genre’s franchises; I’d love to see what he could do with a Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and he will wow us with his originals. I am eager to see his micro budget debut Intruder, shot prior to Cabin Fever, which appears to be a psycho-in-the-house chiller dense in classic suspense techniques.

Travis Z. is taking this seriously.

     I am not one to dismiss or discourage sequels or remakes, a very unpopular opinion, I know. They have long been a reality of the film business, and are among many of my favorite films. In regards to this remake and this series, this is the Cabin Fever that I've always been waiting for. I'm glad I caught it.

Armando D. Muñoz

Eek! Speak's Top Ten Horrors of 2015

The author watches the following titles.

Before I share my favorite ten horrors of 2015, I have to say this was a difficult list to compile. There were simply so many effective, suspenseful, and varied nightmares to choose from, I could have easily made this a list of twenty. These horrors are not limited to cinema, so books and television are included. Befitting someone who goes by the alter ego Pervula, my tastes often lean toward the more transgressive and divisive titles out there, so strap in as we dissect some stellar sickies.

In descending order...

10. It Follows

This is not a safe sexual position.

I fell for the familiar charms of this breakout crowd pleaser like many horror fans. Nowhere near as scary as A Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween, the films It Follows follows, it's still an engrossing teen kill film that plays like a paranormal abstinence video. I welcome the inevitable sequel and a Follows franchise, but I hope the next film answers my burning questions. Does this ghost STD spread through unprotected sex, or protected sex as well? Would a condom catch these creepers? Is birth control a crucifix? Would an antibiotic or ointment knock out this occult chlamydia? Let's have an honest, open discussion about supernatural sex.

9. Krampus

Christmas Cookie Kill Kill!

I love a good holiday horror film, and this evil X-mas offering did a great job of painting a claustrophobic and dark holiday tableau bolstered by striking creature designs. What stood out the most, and warrants this title landing on my best of the year list, is the film's unexpected subversive political slant. Most of the characters are portrayed as such unsympathetic ugly Americans, namely selfish, gluttonous, rude, judgmental, bullying, right wing gun nuts, that I ended up cheering on Krampus and his merry minions as they decimate this family, young and old alike. That's a message movie I can get behind. Bigots taste better than Christmas cookies.

8. White God

Puppies want people chow.

This Hungarian film tackles another favorite subgenre of mine, animals attack films. A more fitting title might have been White Dog, but that one was already taken by the racist maniac mutt movie by Sam Fuller. This is an activist film, an indictment of Hungary's mistreatment of its dogs and citizens alike. If you can make it through the grueling, simulated animal violence and dog fight scenes, the final act canine revolt in the streets of Budapest is a stunner, filmed with hundreds of real stray dogs rescued by the filmmakers. As the population is reduced to puppy chow, horror becomes beauty, art, and a salve for the soul.

7. Goodnight Mommy

Goodnight Daddy?

This German art house horror hit was one of the most extreme theatrical experiences I had this year (I missed Human Centipede 3 on the big screen), and it was fun watching a packed audience squirm as this film tightened the screws and delivered the pain. There were no walkouts, since everyone was there for a communal experience in extreme cinema, and we were rewarded. This minimalist terror tale about two young brothers who suspect their mother is a dangerous stranger when she returns home from plastic surgery with bandages over her face has been accused by some as being misogynistic. Many critics claim the horror genre is misogynistic, and I strongly disagree, but on occasion I do find a film that warrants that criticism (such as another 2015 film, Old 37). I simply didn't see it here. Now when will we get a Goodnight Daddy?

6. The Walking Dead - Thank You

This scares me.

I've had a love/like relationship with this series since the beginning, but season 6 has been my favorite so far. The crowning segment was this episode, which immediately became a lightening rod of debate and controversy when one of the main characters was killed. It wasn't the character they chose to kill that got to me; it was the insanely graphic and grim double murder scene itself, which disturbed me deeply for days. This was the series' defining moment of horror, even if many episodes later one of those characters was revealed to have survived. I kept this episode on the DVR to watch again and see if it still packed a gut punch a second time (it did), but it took me many weeks to summon the courage for that second viewing. Thank You for reminding me that zombies can be scary.

5. The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker

Gag reflex.

Clive Barker's latest was my favorite book of the year, the one I most wanted to reread right away. Appropriate that it was also the most graphically violent and perverse book I read all year (and I read some gloriously X-treme titles, including The Day Harken Darringer Died by DoctorBuckles and Carsick by John Waters). I explored this novel at length in my last blog post, Get The Hots For Dark Plots - Barker, King, and the New Blood. Here's an excerpt: "a nonstop barrage of ejaculating evils, diabolical genitals, and unholy fornications. When a grinning face pushed out of a demon's butthole..." Barker's final Pinhead story is thankfully not a copy of Hellraiser or The Hellbound Heart. It is an entirely different, explicit beast best explored with an open mind, and a clenched sphincter!

4. American Horror Story: Hotel - Devil's Night

Yep, they went there.

I avoided season one when it first aired, due to my extreme dislike of Glee. Okay, dislike is too kind. I HATED Glee. But once I started watching American Horror Story with season two, I got hooked and have seen every episode since. I thought season 4, Freak Show, was a high point of horror and would be tough to top. American Horror Story: Hotel reached those heights, for entirely different reasons. AHS: Hunger, I mean Hotel, was a nasty, neon drenched cocktail as intoxicating as the blood drunk vampires cavorting on those fluid stained, ghoul stuffed mattresses. In all this gory glory, Devil's Night was the sickening standout. This episode, about a yearly dinner where the ghosts of dead serial killers, including Gacy, Dahmer, Ramirez, and Wuornos, torture and feast on a new victim, felt irresponsible, dangerous, and practically made my skin crawl off and hide under the sofa. I love that feeling! Another thank you to this season for featuring the true trans role model of the year, Liz Taylor (certainly not that other American Horror Story, Caitlyn).

3. Roar

Yep, they went there.

This little known film was originally released in 1981, but saw an unexpected rerelease in 2015. In today's post Midnight Rider filmmaking world, Roar could never be made. Apparently, you can't just throw your cast and crew into the jaws of hungry lions, at least not anymore. This may be the most pure animals attack film ever made, because its nothing but. The description on IMDB actually does it justice - "Ravening jungle beasts assemble in flocks to invade an otherwise quiet home where they chase humans up and down stairways and from one room to another." That's all it is, and it couldn't be more distressing. This makes Savage Harvest look like a Meow Mix commercial in comparison.

2. The Green Inferno

Satisfied my appetite.

Oh look, another totally disreputable horror subgenre that I love, the Italian cannibal film. That persecuted and prosecuted group of films is what Eli Roth's latest shocker The Green Inferno lovingly cannibalizes, chewing every tasty trope down to the bone. Bravo to Roth for sticking so close to the original recipe, while adding plenty of his own seasoning to spice up every death scene and make them taste fresh. This may sound repetitive, but I spent long portions of this movie squirming in unease, holding my breath, awash in dread, shocked at the extreme and boldly offensive levels of horror on display. What a great age of horror we are experiencing, really to my tastes, which brings me to my number one pick.

1. Sinister 2

Murder Movie Art.

Many Part 2s are among my most loved films of all time, including my favorite film, Halloween II. I felt lukewarm toward the original Sinister, even dozing in the theater, so I didn't have high expectations here. I'm glad I still ventured to the cinema for this, because Sinister 2 was the most atmospheric and engrossing horror film I saw all year. This felt like a classic Stephen King story, the hard kind like Pet Sematary or The Dark Half, densely layered with great characters and supernatural conflict. Basically a haunted house story about young ghost bullies, this follow-up thankfully does not follow in the overly nihilistic footsteps of the original. I was seriously engaged and rooting for this family besieged by spirits, a demon, and most frightening of all, an abusive dickhead father. Like the first film, Sinister 2 gets pitch black when it comes to those home movie massacre scenes. The church film reel, which had to be the black heart of this movie, sent a number of audience members fleeing up the aisles so fast you'd think their asses were on fire. They didn't return. I'd say that is a testament to the power of Sinister 2, my favorite work of horror art of 2015.

Most Anticipated Horrors of 2016

The Witch

This scares me.

I absolutely love goat horror (I'm bleating at the opening title of my number one film from 2013, The Lords of Salem). The aggressive goat in The Witch's trailer alone puts this film a cloven hoof ahead of most others.

Grimewave: Cockface Killer 3

This is entertainment.

This film made my most anticipated of 2014 list, but will finally see release in April 2016. Director Jason Matherne is my favorite new director of X-treme, transgressive horror smut, thanks to his criminally underseen trash-terpiece Goregasm. This one is Pervula's most antici-panty-pated.

Fender Bender

Evidence of a body count.

The latest from director Mark Pavia, of the atmospheric Stephen King adaptation The Night Flier, could be the year's scariest surprise. With this new teen slasher film, Pavia is setting out to scare us hard, basically giving us horror fans a bender! Fender Bender looks to be a serious scream generator. I intend to be first in line for this one, but I'll play it safe and take a bus or walk to the theater.

Back to 2015. In hindsight, I've decided to add one more title to my top horrors of 2015 list. I won't assign it a number, but I feel its worthy of discussion, because this film deserves way more attention than it has received.

The Curse of Downers Grove

The curse is real.

There's a curse in Downers Grove, where every year, right before graduation, one senior will die a horrible, untimely death. And graduation is one week away. I don't want to say any more about the plot, because there is a large element of surprise involved, and incredible suspense is wrung out of the discovery. The horror of The Curse of Downers Grove is frighteningly real, and important to discuss. Like many other titles on my list, this horror film has a political agenda that I wholeheartedly endorse. We are in a great new age of activist horror.

Armando D. Muñoz