Thursday, December 20, 2012

Cancelling The Apocalypse: Looking Ahead To 2013

2012 was touted in advance by the geek community as being The Greatest Geek Year Ever and with movies like The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, and Prometheus due to be released, how could it not have been? On paper, 2012 looked absolutely massive. In reality, it turned out to be just another year, filled with the usual ups and downs. All of which only makes it easy for 2013's more outwardly modest line-up to not look like a disappointment in comparison. Who knows - maybe it'll actually top 2012 when all is said and done.

Coming up with a list of which movies I'm most excited to see in 2013 was easy but as opposed to years past, I reduced my number of picks from my usual twenty to thirteen. Looking back at past lists, I always tended to get over enthusiastic and overstuff them with titles that never ended up coming out that year. Just from my 2012 picks alone, we're still waiting to see Lords of Salem, Texas Chainsaw 3D, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, Dracula 3D, World War Z, Maniac, John Dies At The End and You're Next (almost none of which I still give a rat's ass about seeing) so I figure that this year I'll stick to stuff that has a firm guarantee of actually coming out in 2013.

Here's my picks:

1. The Evil Dead
The announcement that Sam Raimi and co. would be remaking their own seminal splatter film was greeted with the expected howls of outrage by the fan community. But now that some footage has been seen via trailers, the mood has shifted dramatically. And rightly so as it looks freaking good. Consider me excited.

2. Pacific Rim
As much as I like Guillermo del Toro, I always find that I enjoy interviews with him and hearing his thoughts as a fan more than I like his actual movies, which always fall just a notch or so short for me. I'm hoping that Pacific Rim will be one I really love, though. Giant Monsters vs. Giant Robots seems like a can't miss proposition.

3. Curse of Chucky
Jason and Friday the 13th will always have the top spot in my heart as far as horror franchises go. Nothing can trump my sentiment for that series but Chucky is right in there at #2. I'm a freak for all things Chucky so I'm overjoyed at the prospect of his return - especially with the promise that Curse of Chucky will bring the series back to its scarier roots.

4. The Conjuring
Some people loved Insidious, some people hated it. I really dug it myself so I'm very game to see James Wan tackle another supernatural shocker. Early word is that this is his best film to date so we'll see.

5. You’re Next
This home invasion tale is a hold over from last year's list but it looks like Lionsgate will be putting it out in August so fans can finally check this one out.

6. Stoker
I don't know how much of a full-on horror movie this will be but the trailers look creepy as hell and it's directed by Oldboy director Park Chan-wook so my interest is definitely piqued.

7. Mama
I tend to like the films that Guillermo del Toro produces a bit more than the ones he directs so that gives me plenty to hope for with this eerie-looking offering.

8. John Dies At The End
Another hold-over from last year's list, I'm super excited by all the advance praise that this funky-looking Don Coscarelli film has gotten from its festival screenings. This is actually coming to On Demand or whatever before the end of the year, I think, but what the hell - let's just call it a 2013 release anyhow.

9. The Quiet Ones
I greatly enjoyed The Woman In Black. It didn't set a new bar for horror or anything but it was a solidly made ghost yarn that reestablished the Hammer brand more effectively than the newly refounded studio's other recent efforts. I'm hoping that they'll have a strong follow-up to TWIB with this supernatural tale set in the '70s.

10. Warm Bodies
The trailer sold me on this one as I had no prior interest in this zombie love story. But it looks genuinely quirky and interesting so I've got my fingers crossed that it'll actually be good.

11. Ouija
Not much is known about this yet but I'm interested because this went from a big budget project that, I believe, was meant to be a more family-friendly action adventure to a very low budget project under the banner of Blumhouse Productions and I'd like to think that means that this film is going to be what it should've been from the start - a scary movie. With its October release date, this should be angling to be the next big Halloween franchise - especially with Blumhouse's Paranormal Activity films starting to flag a bit at the box office.

12. Bates Motel
I'm putting a TV show (due to air on A&E) on here just because I'm a major Psycho-phile and I'm curious to see how this "prequel" shapes up. I'm not sure that we needed any more of a backstory to Norman and his mother than we already saw in Psycho IV: The Beginning (and even that was not-so-necessary) but I'll definitely give this show a shot.

13. Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th
Landing at an appropriate #13 is this eagerly anticipated look at the Friday the 13th series, inspired by the indispensible book by Peter M. Brake. An earlier F13 doc, My Name is Jason, just didn't satisfy so hopefully this new one will be more along the lines of the amazing Nightmare on Elm Street documentary Never Sleep Again. Elsewhere on the documentary front, I'm also hoping that Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films will make its bow in 2013.

Finally, it's landing off the list because I don't know if it's a 2013 release or not but I'd like to state my anticipation for Mockingbird, the long overdue follow-up from The Strangers director Bryan Bertino. I think it's crazy that it's taken five years for us to see another movie from this guy. Hopefully it'll still only be five - and not six or more.

2 comments:

deadlydolls said...

Yay for things to look forward to! I'm really curious about the new Chucky film (obviously) and it's great that a lot of indies I've heard about now from festivals for years (like You're Next) will finally come stateside.

Jeff Allard said...

Yeah, there's a lot of (potentially) cool movies coming down the pike. Here's hoping they live up to expectations!