House of Mortal Cinema's Films of the Year 2018

Oh yes, welcome to HMC's 7th Annual Gala Films of the Year Awards. Starting to put numbers on a thing is often the kiss of death for it unless you're a Friday the 13th sequel, but I figured HMC has been around long enough that the title deserved a slight revamp. 

Nothing else has changed, however, including the rules which are that the film must have been shown in the UK for the first time either in the cinema, on disc or at a festival. Also, films that have had a high profile over the year, have done well, or have had blisteringly good reviews are not included because chances are you'll already know about them. This means movies like AVENGERS:INFINITY WAR, A QUIET PLACE, HALLOWEEN and BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY aren't here. 

OK so let's begin, which for anyone acquainted with this annual round up means that before we get to the best we have to deal with the worst. Here are my bottom five films of the year.

The House of Mortal Cinema Bottom Five Films of 2018

5 Frightfest

In which the mayor of a small American town proposes a novel way of generating income by turning the town's long-closed asylum into a horror amusement attraction 'directed'  by coke-addled horror has-been director Spencer Crowe (Dylan Walsh). On opening night what nobody (least of all the actors employed in the scary 'roles' as part of the attraction) realises is that earlier in the day Spencer caused an accident that resulted in the release of a couple of dangerous psychopathic criminals who are determined to become part of Fright Fest. A truly abominable, dull, couldn't-care-less movie that premiered at this year's London Frightfest (presumably because of the name) but which didn't need to be seen by anyone. 

4 He's Out There

Look at that poster carefully, especially the four star rating that's attributable to 'Quote Author'. As well as having a questionable name, he / she also has appalling taste in slasher movies. Psycho loony threatens hopeless mother and her hopeless, awful, whiny children in their isolated forest retreat while hopeless husband turns up late and does something hopeless. Awful, badly thought through generic rubbish. My only walk out from this year's Frightfest (I didn't even walk in to FRIGHTFEST as I had been sent a screener for me to fast forward through once it had revealed it true faeculence to me).

3 The Snarling

Now here's one I was sent for review and I had to refuse as  the mere thought of having to spend time writing about this horrorless, humourless "horror comedy" was just too much to bear. A zombie film is being made in a sleepy English village and soon (it felt like ages) people are being torn to shreds. Lifeless, boring, and with scenes in a pub that seemed to go on so long it was as if it was some kind of Pinteresque subplot about the banality of Hell. 

2 Truth or Dare

Now we're getting to the big stuff, the films that got a general cinema release. This got terrible reviews but I watched it anyway, because some foolish charitable part of me believes in giving these things a chance. TRUTH OR DARE you are the reason I think twice about going to see something new and low budget that nobody likes but which could be an undiscovered gem. One day I will miss such a film and for that I already hate you more. 

1 The Nun

Could it really have been anything else? For the director of the quite good THE HALLOW comes this not at all good horror that belongs firmly in the subgenre we can call 'Shitty Gothic'. An hour in and I had no idea what was going on. Eighty minutes in and I glanced with relief at my watch knowing it would soon all be over. I still don't know exactly what the title character was supposed to be up to or doing, or why it was conveniently kept in that one cupboard in the convent. And that lead priest role is awful and thankless. If THE NUN had been made in 1975 Paul Naschy would have played the lead, kicked the crew up the backside, slept with all the sexy nun actresses onscreen, sorted out the monster and probably turned into a werewolf while he was doing it. And now I want to see that picture instead of THE NUN. To be honest I want to see anything other than THE NUN. For God's sake let's move onto some good films.

The House of Mortal Cinema Top Ten Films of 2018

10 Crowhurst

The true story of Donald Crowhurst, a man who, with his business failing and in desperate need of the prize money, entered a round the world yacht race having little sailing experience. The opening is pretty straightforward, but it's when we get on the high seas and Donald starts to go mad that director Simon Rumley's terrific visual style really comes into its own, very much depicting the 'devastating portrait of a fractured mind in fugue' with all the style and panache of movies like (executive producer) Nicolas Roeg & Donald Cammell's PERFORMANCE. It's easily Rumley's best film so far & I can't wait to see what he does next. 

9 Secret Santa

A complete change of pace and in here because you just don't see the kind of biting, acerbic, witty dialogue John Waters always excelled at in horror movies anymore. Full marks, then to director Adam Marcus and his co-writer Debra Sullivan for giving us a Christmas get together where the family are just as awful before someone spikes their punch with military grade sodium penthothal as after. Well, almost. Blackly depraved, blood soaked and very funny, I do hope Marcus & Sullivan come up with another project like this, because the genre is all the better for it. 

8 Ghost Stories

Mis-sold as an anthology film, which left quite a few disappointed fans of the old-school Amicus style scratching their heads at why the stories didn't really go anywhere, Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson's movie used its flashback segments to tell a story that works well as a cohesive whole, although it requires a couple of viewings to pick up just how clever it is. Add in sequences evocative of the style of great British authors Robert Aickman and Ramsey Campbell and you have something very special, very British, and most importantly very evocative of a certain kind of British horror indeed.

7 Cam

Or The Porn Star Who Haunted Herself. CAM was a wholly successful updating of the doppelganger tale for the generation the concept will resonate with perhaps better than any other. Madeline Brewer is entirely believable and disturbing by turns as live action 'Cam Girl' Lola who one day discovers her feed running with an exact duplicate of herself performing on it. Mixing identity theft, social media satire and a goodly dollop of suspenseful paranoia, CAM is well worth tracking down.

6 The Laplace's Demon

Who would have thought a game of chess could be so terrifying? A group of scientists is invited to a remote island retreat. Once there they find themselves part of a bizarre experiment. Shot in grainy black and white THE LAPLACE'S DEMON feels like a very strange TWILIGHT ZONE episode, one that messes with your brain so much that by the time it's over your entire view of the world and your place in it has altered slightly. Great stuff.

5 Upgrade

This year's VENOM was fun but Leigh Whannell's much lower budget, far more entertaining UPGRADE showed how it should be done. A quadriplegic man (THE INVITATION's Logan Marshall Green) gets the chance to walk again thanks to a spinal cord implant. But then it starts talking to him and helps him plan how to find his wife's killers. Is it a good idea for him to take brutal revenge aided by technology he doesn't understand? Superb, fast-paced low budget brilliance inspired by ROBOCOP, THE TERMINATOR, DEATH WISH & any number of (good) Empire Pictures.

4 The Secret of Marrowbone

A title that wasn't very good and a trailer that seemed almost designed to put off the very people who would appreciate it most, this Spanish picture deserved to do better and hopefully its reputation will increase as the years go by. From quite a few of the team behind the similarly excellent THE ORPHANAGE (2007) this took elements of children's literary drama and sent them off in the direction of good old-fashioned British horror. Oh, and it has an ending that rounds everything off very nicely indeed.

3 Await Further Instructions

The best serious seasonal film to come along in an age, this was one of the real surprises of this year's Frightfest. A family gets together for Christmas, only to wake up the next day and find their house has been mysteriously sealed off. The only clue they have as to what has happened is their television screen displaying the film's title. AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS is low budget British horror with a smart script that takes the Nigel Kneale route of doing satire through science fiction and does it well. Thought provoking and disturbing, the less you know about this one before going in the more you'll likely love it (and hopefully be blown away by what happens).

2 One Cut of the Dead

What a charming film! And another one to watch cold. Stick with the opening, unbroken 37 minute take (!) and pay close attention, because your efforts will be more than rewarded by the third act, which is just some kind of wonderful. That's all I'm saying. It's getting a deserved UK cinema release in January 2019 and then comes out on disc. Don't miss it.

1 Suspiria

Probably the most ambitious, deliciously disturbing, utterly mad film on here, Luca Guadagino's movie is as much a remake of Dario Argento's 1977 original as Franck Khalfoun's 2012 MANIAC was a copy of the 1980 William Lustig picture. Very much its own weird beast, and with a running time of just over 150 minutes I expected to hate every second before  falling asleep halfway through. In fact the very opposite happened and I found myself glued to the screen. Out of all the films I have seen this year this is the one I'm most looking forward to revisiting when it comes out on Blu-ray. 

And there we go! There were so many good films this year that for a while I was pondering doing a top 20 instead of a top 10. In the end, sense (and time) prevailed, which means I didn't have space for great movies like POSSUM, THE DOMESTICS, SEARCHING, UNSANE, WIND RIVER, KILLS ON WHEELS or PIMPED but I loved them all. As always thanks to everyone who visits the site and gets a kick out of what I've written here. Thanks also to all the PR companies who send me films and the festival organisers who work so hard to bring us all the best of what the genre has to offer. House of Mortal Cinema will be back in 2019. There's just no stopping it. 

The world will hear from House of Mortal Cinema again.