Five Horror Movies I'd Like to See

First things first - for everyone out there hoping to see the remainder of the Tomie marathon, I hate to disappoint you, but that abomination is over.  Not to say that the series itself sucks.  Far from it.  But I would be lying if I told you that I felt any degree of satisfaction with that series of reviews.  Curtain pulling time for the Lick Ness Monster:  I have the goal of writing the best, most informative and entertaining review that I'm capable of, and I feel like I've accomplished this twice - Basket Case and Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.  Neither one of them, mind you, were done under the current review format, a.k.a. the laziest damn thing that I've ever done.  Thus, the next step for this here blog is a return to simplicity.  Classical meat and potatoes reviews are coming back, and they're coming back soon.

In the meantime, however, I'd like to do something else.  Shockingly, I have a daily life.  Oftentimes in this daily life, I get questions.  And just as frequently, there are answers.  A lot of people across this great fruited plain have an issue with my perceived negativity when it comes to modern movies in general, and occasionally even modern horror movies.  Unless you've been living under a rock, it seems like every big-time horror movie to hit the multiplex these days has some kind of connection to James Wan and falls under the "ghost movie" banner.

Now, I like ghost movies.  I really, truly do.  I enjoy the current trend that has reinvigorated the horror genre and brought it back from the brink of the remake-a-mania and forced-attrition-through-torture subgenres that dominated throughout much of the latter half of the oughts-leading into the tens.  Lately, though, it just seems that we're incapable of getting anything other than the damn things, aside from the still extremely redundant zombie flicks that bore me to tears no matter how they're portrayed, including straight-up comedically.  Warm Bodies, I'm looking at you.

What we're going to do here now is look at five different types of horror film that I would like to see grace theater screens in the not-too-distant future.  The only parameter I set for myself is that I can't list another iteration of Jason, Freddy or Michael, no matter how damn much I felt like it.

1.  SPEAKING OF ZOMBIE MOVIES...
I'm going to start with something that I believe would be refreshing not only for this guy, but for theater audiences at large who WILL get sick of the "urgh! brains!" brand of zombies no matter how much Hollywood seems to feel otherwise.  Some of the creepiest, most skin-crawling films I've ever seen involve zombies, and I'm not talking about the flesh-eating kind.  I'm talking the REAL kind - the human corpses that can be reanimated with potions and often associated with the voodoo religion.  This is a concept that can be mined for endless scares, as it was masterfully in Wes Craven's 1987 film adaptation of Wade Davis' book The Serpent and the Rainbow.  What I'm picturing here is a sort of modern version of that film, with a series of bizarre murders in a major city and a couple likable young detectives tracking down the perpetrators of the crime only to discover a vicious crime lord utilizing voodoo for both profit and pleasure.

For some added evidence as to just how effective this type of zombie can be in horror, just watch this and brace yourself for the willies.

2.  AQUATIC HORROR
I don't know what it is, but some of my favorite horror movies involve aquatic animals wreaking havoc on groups of unsuspecting human beings.  Psychological horror and deep-thinking are perfectly fine, but some of the things that scare me the most (OK, I'm a wuss) are the things that are the most basic.  Venturing into uncharted territory (water) and dealing with the locals falls under this banner.  Yeah, there are the Piranha films, but they're really much more in the comedy department, to say nothing of the similar like-styled SyFy original flicks that are entertaining only for shared voyeuristic masochism.  My suggestion?  A big-budget movie dealing with the "alligators in New York City sewers" urban legend, complete with a third act where a  swarm of giant albino alligatos escape the darkness of the sewer and are let free in, say, the East River.

3.  A REALISTIC SERIAL KILLER FILM
As good as Dexter can be as a television show, I find it to be bad to the point of unwatchable almost as often, because I don't know if I've ever seen a more unrealistic show that passes itself off as serious drama.  Seriously, how many close calls can one guy have?  No, folks, what I'm looking for here is a dirty, serious portrayal of perhaps the most real kind of monster that any of us could even conceivably run across on the bus or be living next to.  I picture a film following this guy from fantasy stage all the way up to the first kill to the escalation phase to the arrest, the gruesome crimes and occasional close calls with police building the tension until the audience is genuinely invested in his capture.  No sympathy, no weird moral code, just a real sick bastard portrayed on film for all the world to see.  Count me in.

4.  ANTHOLOGIES RULE!
I'm a sucker for a good anthology movie.  From Creepshow to Tales From the Dark Side to older Amicus flicks like The House that Dripped Blood, nothing can top the true variety and levels of bang for the buck that this kind of horror movie delivers.  That, and it just feels like you're watching a flick that belongs in the horror glory days of the '70s ad '80s when you sit through one.  We've gotten a mini-revival of anthology films over the last few years, but it seems like they have been subjected entirely to DVD and Blu-Ray formats.  I'm picturing a movie given a wide release on Halloween weekend portraying horrific incidents on that awesome day through the ages, from the original Samhain to a serial murder spree in the '70s to a modern witches' meeting.  And those ideas were culled from approximately .67 seconds of thought.  Surely a well-compensated screenwriter with weeks to think about it could come up with something that would rock our collective faces.

and finally...wait for it...
5.  GRUDGE 3D

I'm not giving up hope, dammit.

No pithy closing paragraph necessary.  Get to it, Hollywood!