JANUARY 4 — If you’re looking for a more “general” list of films, do check out the one I wrote last week on my favourite films of 2024.
There are arthouse films, comedies and even an animated film in that list, alongside some horror and action titles as well.
However, if you’ve been a regular reader of this column, you’ve probably noticed that out of all the types of movies out there, I probably watch and write about genre movies the most, which is defined by genre film festivals like Fantastic Fest, Fantasia, Sitges and their kin as horror, science fiction, fantasy, action and cult movies, to name some of the examples that fall under that banner.
2024 was quite a year for genre films, with plenty of critical and audience favourites like Late Night With The Devil, I Saw The TV Glow, Heretic, Strange Darling, The Shadow Strays, Love Lies Bleeding and Siksa Kubur not making the cut into my list this year, not because I didn’t like them, but because I loved the following 10 films more.
Dead Talents Society
I’ve always been a sucker for emotional horror films, so when a film manages to also brilliantly weave in elements of comedy while also staying very true to local context (in this case, a very Taiwanese/Chinese one), there’s always a good chance that I would fall in love hard with it, which is exactly what happened with Dead Talents Society, the latest film from Taiwanese director John Hsu.
Playing like a cross between Beetlejuice, Monsters Inc and A Ghost Waits while incorporating well-known Chinese customs and traditions when it comes to the dead and the afterlife (like the Hungry Ghost and Qingming festivals), this is a genre gem just waiting to be discovered.
The First Omen
One of the biggest surprises of the year for me, as I’ve always thought that The Omen franchise is one of the more underwhelming ones in the history of horror franchises.
So, to get such a refreshing new entry, in the form of a prequel, in what is an almost blindingly great feature film debut from director Arkasha Stevenson, is something that should be celebrated.
It’s more or less The Omen by way of Rosemary’s Baby, with even a show-stopping tribute to that Isabelle Adjani subway scene in Possession thrown in for good measure, don’t let the fact that this is a franchise horror flick dissuade you from missing out on this invigorating exercise in mainstream horror.
Longlegs
One of the most talked about horror films of the year and a bona fide smash hit of the summer movie season, banking US$127 million (RM571 million) worldwide from a budget of under US$10 million, Longlegs is most definitely an Oz Perkins horror flick, filled with his trademark understated visual style and unsettling atmosphere.
Starring Maika Monroe as a “half-psychic” FBI agent roped in to help with investigations on a series of murders spanning decades involving a serial killer who calls himself Longlegs (Nicolas Cage in superb wacko mode), this one’s like a freaky little version of The Silence Of The Lambs.
Exhuma
This Korean box-office hit is not quite as wild as The Wailing, but some of its very Korean occult rituals will stay in your head for quite a while after you’ve finished it.
A very dense narrative involving four “ghostbusters” or “ghost hunters” tasked by an ultra-rich client to get rid of a supernatural curse that’s been plaguing his infant son, this quest takes them to an unmarked grave in an isolated mountaintop, and the unraveling of plenty of horrifying mysteries and consequences.
Hugely entertaining and chock full of potent and innovative imagery, with even room for a very cool monster towards the end of the film, this one’s a lot of fun, even for seasoned horror fans.
Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In
When it comes to Hong Kong action/fight flicks, it’s actually the web movies from China (on platforms like iQIYI) that have been showing us how it’s supposed to be done in the last few years.
Finally, we have a superb contender from Hong Kong as well in 2024, courtesy of this graphic novel adaptation from director Soi Cheang (of SPL 2, Motorway and Limbo fame), which is jam-packed with some of the most inventive and hard-hitting HK-style action you’ll see in 2024, or any other year for that matter.
An “honour among thieves” type story set in a fictionalised version of the Kowloon Walled City, this one’s a pure HK-style crowd pleaser.
Oddity
Director Damian McCarthy follows up his striking debut Caveat with the even better Oddity, a minimalist exercise in terror and revenge that’s basically set in only three locations, two of them very minor ones involving very few scenes/shots, with the majority of the film set around and within a big old house somewhere in Ireland.
There are only seven major characters involved in the film (eight if you count a life-size wooden man given as a present in the film), and only six actors, with one of them playing a dual role as identical twins.
From this very minimalist setup, McCarthy has crafted a truly creepy and terrifying experience, with more than enough jolts to scare you out of your seat.
Terrifier 3
While Terrifier 2 remains the best yet in this unexpected micro-budget horror franchise, Terrifier 3 deserves all the love it got in 2024, with almost US$90 million collected worldwide from a budget of just US$2 million.
Cleverly setting this film around Christmas, director Damien Leone has a ball playing around with the iconography of that celebration, putting in Art The Clown in a Santa suit to wreak havoc during the Christmas holidays.
To witness what started as a micro-budget slasher progress into a trilogy, which has now been perfectly set up to become a franchise (without selling out to a Hollywood studio!) is truly something most horror fans thought they’d never see. Bravo!
Life After Fighting
Outside of the John Wick films (and the many Hollywood imitators that came afterwards), most fight films out there had to make do with hovering somewhere along the B-grade movie line, or below.
This is one of those as well, but what makes this one a wee bit special is that it’s also one of those passion projects that a former stuntman or supporting actor often needs to make first, in order to get themselves noticed as the next action star.
In this case, that guy is Australian actor Bren Foster, and the result is this, 125 minutes of action movie magic, with plenty of memorable action scenes slipped in during the film’s first 70 or so minutes, but topped with an almost 40-minute non-stop action extravaganza to end the film.
Red Rooms
From Quebec, Canada, comes this pretty horrific film focused on some pretty horrific crimes committed by a serial killer (kidnapping, torturing and murdering three young girls and broadcasting them on the dark web for a paying audience), in which almost everything that’s horrific about these crimes are shown off-screen.
And yet I dare anyone watching this film, about the trial of said serial killer and two women who are disturbingly too interested in the trial, to not be horrified and disturbed by what they’ve witnessed once the film ends.
A quiet, patient and unsettling experience, this is one of the standout thrillers of 2024.
Things Will Be Different
A striking debut film from director Michael Felker, who’s probably best known before this as an editor on the films of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, Felker has also opted to go on their route of crafting lo-fi sci-fi mindbenders.
This one started out as a heist film, in which a brother and sister pair head out to a remote farmhouse to hide from the police.
How they hide there is where things get interesting, as the brother has in his possession a series of instructions on how to use that house to time travel and hide there for two weeks, before returning to their time period when the coast is clear.
What happens afterwards is a puzzle that will make even connoisseurs of time travel films scratch their heads trying to figure things out.
I’m still not sure if I’ve actually figured things out, but I enjoyed the film nonetheless.
