Best of 2015 - Colin's Take

The Best

1. It Follows – It Follows won’t have you hiding behind your hands or closing your eyes while you watch it. It’s not in-your-face-scary. Instead, it’s the type of thing –like, say, a sexually-transmitted curse – that will stick with you for a long time. It’ll have you thinking twice before getting out of bed to go to the bathroom late at night weeks after you watch it. It Follows is brilliantly understated, beautifully shot and also sports the year’s best soundtrack.     

2. Ex Machina – Ex Machina is sci-fi at its finest. It’s the kind of movie that, if you see it alone, will have you badgering your friends to see it just so you have someone to talk about it with. The movie is a wonderfully deep reflection on what it means to be human, the ethics of technology and more. It’s also an engaging mystery that lures viewers along until it reaches its gut-punch of a conclusion.  

3. What We Do in the Shadows – What This is Spinal Tap did for heavy metal, What We Do in the Shadows does for vampires. The film skillfully, but loving, wields the mockumentary style to satirize the subgenre from the days of Nosferatu and Dracula all the way through Twilight. The abundant humor in What We Do in the Shadows comes from exploring the mundanities of life as an immortal as well as from watching these characters, each of whom is such a product of his time, attempt to coexist.

4. The Visit – The Visit is the feel-good movie of the year. Not necessarily because of anything that happens during its runtime, but because it marks the return to form of M. Night Shyamalan. For the first time in years, M. Night seems to be having fun making movies and audiences are having fun right along with him. The Visit is goofy, it’s tense and it has a third act that will have you shouting “What?!?” with complete joy. Here’s hoping he carries this momentum on to 2016 and beyond.

5. Krampus – The Mount Rushmore of Christmas-themed horror flicks got a new member this year in Krampus. The movie pulls inspirations from all sorts of holiday classics, including Gremlins, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and even Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It takes these diverse works and distills them into an amusement park horror ride of a movie where a family must do battle with the horned and hooved consequences of losing its Christmas spirit.  

6. The Voices – “Ryan Reynolds talks to his pets” sounds like the set-up for a marginally-funny late summer comedy that gets a few laughs for 90 minutes and is promptly forgotten. However, while, The Voices is indeed occasionally funny, it’s mostly just a heart-wrenching tale of a guy being consumed by mental illness. Reynolds is so, so good at making you root for him even as he does horrible things. You desperately want to see him pull out of his nosedive and get help before it’s too late.         

7. Crimson Peak – It’s no surprise that a movie bearing Guillermo del Toro's name would be among the year’s most striking works from a visual perspective. What is surprising, at least considering the marketing, is that his complex gothic tale turned out to be much more of a love story than a ghost story. Despite the swerve, Crimson Peak doesn’t disappoint. Few can match del Toro’s vision and the film’s leads each turn in a terrific performance.  

8. Unfriended – Teenagers typically have two great passions: technology and being unpleasant. Both of those loves are on full display in Unfriended. The film pushes past the limitations of its premise – a horror film set entirely on Skype – to create an engaging and entertaining new spin on found footage. Sure the characters are insufferable, but they’re supposed to be. It allows the audience to relish in watching them self-destruct guilt-free.      

9. Maggie – Maggie is a somber, low budget, indie drama about a father having to slowly watch his daughter succumb to a zombie virus in which Arnold Schwarzenegger of all people plays the father. Even if it didn’t hit all of the right emotional notes (which it does) and look great (also true), Maggie would still be mandatory viewing if only to see latter day Arnold stretching the absolute hell out of his acting chops to portray Average Joe Farmer.           

10. Bloodsucking Bastards – Office Space with vampires, sprinkled with some Shaun of the Dead style humor is a sturdy foundation upon which to build a movie. Add in the always delightful Fran Kranz and Joey Kern and you’ve really got something. Bloodsucking Bastards starts slow, but it builds to a truly wild third act where our beloved desk jocky heroes battle the undead for control of their office.  

The Worst

1. Human Centipede 3 (Final Sequence) - It's not as gross as the second one and it's occasionally funny. Those are the two best things about Human Centipede 3. Despite those raves, Tom Six's trilogy capper isn't something that needs to be experienced more than once. Or once, if you've avoided it thus far.  

2. Insidious 3 - The wheels are off this once-proud franchise. One of the film's biggest crimes is wasting its very cool villain. If you ever wanted to know why two side characters from the first two movies wear suits, then this is the movie for you.  

3. The Green Inferno - The best part about Eli Roth's long-hyped cannibal movie is its ridiculous bad guy. He's hilarious. Everything else? Not worth the hype or the ticket price.