2019 Year End Review: Part 4 – Best of the Decade, 2010-2019

Best of the Decade

Since we have completed yet another decade (which I must admit I am surprised we have survived with the current state of affairs) and I have been recently pondering this whole concept of Top Ten lists (thanks Gregg!), I thought it might be interesting challenge to look back over these last ten years and pick my favorite ten horror films… IF… I could narrow it down to just ten film. My initial picks were just under thirty titles. So after some seriously contemplations, I have it narrowed down to a final ten. The funny thing is that the final “ten” has changed twice since I started this process! If this exercise has done anything for me, it has made be bust out a few of these and re-watch them. Not really to remind myself of how much I liked them, but because it had been a while. And going down that journey again gave me almost the same thrills and feelings I had the first time. Continue reading

2018 Year End Review – Part 2: Best Viewings

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2018 was not a good year for movie watching for me. I think I spent more time on my book project, which took time away from me in the Kryptic Theater. We only got through 178 titles, I believe a record low since I’ve been keeping track. 66 of them were new films, so at least that percentage is up higher than normal, so that’s a positive, right? Hopefully 2019 will give me more time to get that number back up to at least 250 for the year. But we’ll see how that plays out!

Once again, here is my usual disclaimer. These are my “Best Viewings” of 2018. This means these titles were my favorites that I watched for the first time during this last year. So they may not necessarily be a new movie, I just got around to them. Strangely enough though, all of these titles came out within the last 3 years. That gives me great hope for the genre.

These are listed in alphabetical order, and not in any order of how much I liked them. These 5 titles impressed the hell out of me, for a variety of reasons. I don’t plan on going into any details about the films, as far as plot or storyline because if you haven’t seen them, I would suggest you seek them out. If you have, shoot me a note or stop me at a convention and we can discuss in greater detail if you wish.

So let’s get to them.

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Soundtrack Review: The Ritual

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The Ritual
Released by Lakeshore Records, 2018

18 Tracks with a Total Running Time of 40 min.
Music Composed by Ben Lovett

When you come down to the basics, there are two kinds of original score soundtracks. One with a collection of musical pieces, orchestrated in a way to create feelings. And then the ones that don’t have melody, or even music really, but just sounds. Not as simple as that, but sounds that also create feelings, usually ones that work their way under your skin, building tension and even terror. That is exactly what Lovett has done with this score.

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