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 5.
Halloween II
“I shot him 6 times!
I shot him in the heart, but... HE'S NOT HUMAN!”
Nearly everyone has seen Halloween.
It’s a bona fide classic, and around the holiday it
seems to be playing on every station on television. If you
haven’t seen it, you should. And if you have, you must
see the sequel.
Halloween II starts off immediately following
the events of the first film. Immediate as in not even five
minutes have passed. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is already
teetering on the brink of insanity and en route to the hospital
as a result of barely surviving Michael Myers’ (the
serial killer, not Shrek) attacks. Sam Loomis
actually has gone batshit insane and is rambling
on and on (and on and on) about how he shot Mikey six times.
Hear that? Six times! He’s not bragging as much as he
is stupefied that that didn’t stop him, and he vanished
into a poof of movie logic.
Amidst the chaos of the opening scenes are some incredible
tracking shots, some well over a minute long. These great
shots give you a first-person perspective as Myers makes his
escape from the house. While it takes a good 50 minutes before
Myers really starts delivering the goods at the hospital,
continuing his massacre and closing in on Laurie, the pacing
and look of the film is so masterful it's almost a surprise
that it wasn’t Carpenter in the director’s chair.
If ever there was a film that didn’t piss on the legacy
of the original, Halloween II is it.
4. A Nightmare on Elm
Street Part 3: Dream Warriors
“Welcome to prime time,
bitch.”
 Another
classic from Indirect Sequel Land. Dream Warriors actually follows in direct continuity with the first film,
but completely ignores the events of Part 2. But really, that
doesn’t matter. Heather Langenkamp is back as Nancy,
the heroine of the first film. Freddy is back as well, terrorizing
the young residents of a mental hospital. Heather acts as
a “dream therapist” for the children. This is
a cool plot device, as it allows them to confront Freddy on
his own turf. It also allows for better development of the
supporting characters, something the genre has been criticized
for failing to do. In doing this, Freddy can retain his menacing
demeanor while still cracking one-liners. But most importantly,
it allows you to care about the characters before they are
systematically slaughtered (something that doesn’t happen
again in the series). In fact, some of the supporting cast
of this chapter went on to become big stars. Laurence Fishburne
was among the cast, as was a very young Patricia Arquette
(who I would totally bone, despite her having fucked-up teeth
and man shoulders), but the coolest death sequence belongs
to some nobody named Penelope Sudrow, who gets her dream of
“breaking into TV” the hard way.
Death by pun is never pretty.
When picking through the A Nightmare On Elm Street sequels, I noticed there are other interesting entries as
well, like New Nightmare and Freddy
vs. Jason. Ultimately though, I consider them more
stunt films than direct sequels, and of the direct sequels, Dream Warriors owns ALL!
Besides, after this, Freddy becomes a stand-up comedian and
fails to ever again be scary.
3. Evil Dead
2: Dead by Dawn
“You’re goin’
down!”
Sure, it’s a popular pick. The
Evil Dead was one of the best low-budget horror films
of all time, and its sequel equaled it in many ways. It’s
a hot topic of discussion, since all three films in the series
have their fans, but I feel that this is the full blown five-star
entry in an otherwise four-star series.
 Continuing
the story set forth in the previous film (with a few minor
alterations), Ash (Bruce Campbell) is alone in the cabin -
and his day is going from bad to worse. The cabin is mocking
him, he has killed his girlfriend, and worst of all, he has
been forced to sever his own evil hand. You probably would
too if it kept breaking plates over your head. Added to the
mix is a new cast of supporting characters that at first assume
Ash is guilty of murdering Professor Knowby (the owner of
the cabin) and his wife. But when the shit really hits the
fan - and the blood hits the walls - it’s up to our
reluctant hero to (quite literally) single-handedly take down
the forces of evil.
With an awesome, completely left-field set-up for the third
chapter, the Evil Dead series demanded attention
in an already gore-filled decade. With what is probably the
best ever blend of horror and comedy, Evil Dead 2 is one of the easiest films on this list to recommend. Hell,
you don’t even have to have seen the first film. If
you haven’t seen ED2 yet, now is always the best time.
 2.
Dawn of the Dead
“How about a little ‘hit
and run?’
It’s 2005 and zombies have had something
of a renaissance. In only three years we have seen Resident
Evil, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, 28 Days Later, Doom, Day of the Dead 2, Land of the Dead, Zombiez, Shaun of the Dead, Undead, Feeding
the Masses, Return of the Living Dead 4 and 5, and even a remake of this,
the #2 best horror sequel of all time – Dawn
of the Dead. So with all of these zombie films flooding
the cinemas (and I think I may have even missed a few), it
is only right to pay homage to what spawned several of them
and influenced all of them.
The sequel to Night of the Living Dead transcended
its genre, appealing to many with its unique political commentary.
Holing up in a shopping mall with zombies that are simply
‘going through the motions’ was really a metaphor
for what we all are: sheep being slaughtered by corporate
America, slaves to advertising and consumerism with no direction
of our own. In case the message of this film wasn’t
obvious enough, there were also a lot of heads being blown
up and people being eaten to offer a nice sugar coating for
that medicinal lesson.
Considering the amazing special effects techniques that Tom
Savini let loose on the world in this film, it is difficult
to think what would have become of not just zombie films,
but the entire 80s horror genre without him. One thing is
for certain: a film has to be pretty damned awesome to have
people talking about it 27 years later. Dawn of the
Dead is that awesome.
1. Resident Evil: Apocalypse
“There's too many of
them. Let's get out of here...”
HAHAHA! I can see you all moaning now,
thinking Noto has gone clinically insane. Well bite me. I’m
the author.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse is one
of the best damned films, and certainly the best sequel, that
I have ever seen. The first Resident Evil was okay, but it wasn’t impressive. The film
didn’t really have the heart of the video game series
it was based upon and definitely didn’t have the characters.
So this sequel was especially rewarding when it turned out
to be so awesome.
 Picking
up not long after the events of the first film, the virus
that killed nearly everyone in nefarious corporate conglomerate
Umbrella’s vast underground research laboratory has
been released. Now it has soaked into Raccoon City, the all-American
white bread town that had the gross misfortune of being directly
above the facility. The entire populace is turning into zombies,
and there is no escape because Raccoon City has been placed
under quarantine. Thus the ‘survival horror’ begins.
Who will help the weak survive? Two women and a mummy hunter.
Videogame character Jill Valentine makes her film debut,
played by Sienna Guillory. Jill’s a tough-as-nails cop
who is all 'feisty bitch'. Milla
Jovovich (:love:) returns as Alice. This time, however,
thanks to Umbrella’s experimentation, she has super-powers
and is ready to really beat the shit out of anyone (or anything)
that tries to front on her. Oded Fehr (of The Mummy series) shows up as Carlos, a security officer of Umbrella.
Together, the three take on Umbrella and all its creations.
Resident Evil: Apocalypseis a film for those
who like a lot of action in their horror films – a lot of action. Not ten minutes pass without someone dying or something
exploding, and not five minutes pass without gunfire. Some
people will be turned off by that, but that's exactly what
this movie is supposed to be: mindless horror fun. And when
graded on being unrestrained mindless horror fun, Resident
Evil: Apocalypse passes with the highest of marks.
To potential filmmakers in the audience, here is the formula:
Zombies + Heavy Music + Hand-to-hand combat + Milla Jovovich
= five stars.
There. Now go make me a movie.
Be Kind, Please Rewind
Since all lists are rather silly and never
represent true accuracy of, well, anything, I should
probably state that this whole article is the opinion of one
man, and that man is me. So don’t go napalming Eric
San Juan's house because Ghoulies Go to College isn’t on the list.
(Shit! I can’t believe I didn’t
include Ghoulies Go to College…)
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