“The 20^th Century’s closing; it’s closing in on me.” – John Hiatt

Awash in Roman numerals and indifferent sequels, horror films are looking creaky as an old house in 1990. The new masters of horror are growing tired and their films are becoming indistinguishable from the lesser flames that burn in their wake.

Coppola makes a very sexy Dracula and Kenneth Branagh directs Frankenstein, starring DeNiro, but neither film really achieves much innovation with the material and their relative flatness attests to the need for new blood in the genre. Wes Craven proves the point with his derivative, self-referential Scream.

Steven King is still providing grist for the blood mills and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser and Nightbreed introduce his brand of stylish grue to the screen.

In New Zealand, a young director named Peter Jackson begins a remarkable career, taking zombies in a wickedly funny new direction with Braindead (Dead Alive in the US) and then creating serious works of dark imagination with Heavenly Creatures and The Frighteners. Spanish director Guillermo del Toro makes his impressive debut with Cronos, an intelligent and different vampire tale.

But the freshest source of the rich red sustenance that horror needs flow from Japan.

Beginning quietly with the work of a few visionary directors, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure, Takashi Miike’s increasingly bold video movies, and especially Hideo Nakata’s Ringu, J-horror rules the end of the decade, with themes of alienation on the eve of the future, haunted by the faceless ghosts of our past.

The rising sun of the new millennium is dark, terrifying, and wonderful.

“Horror” films take many forms – from classic monsters like The Wolfman and The Mummy, to psychological thrillers like Silence of the Lambs.  Then there are films that are like the embarrassing cousins of true horror films, given the wrong address to the family reunions -- horror/comedies.  Abbott and Costello rode this horse to a sad end, but it has endured throughout film history.  There’s just no denying it – when we are watching something that scares or revolts us, we really don’t mind laughing about it.

And so it is that my pick for the 90s falls into this category: Army of Darkness.

If anyone watched the cult classic Evil Dead and the equally disturbing sequel Evil Dead 2 (one of the few horror sequels that actually works!) then you’re one step ahead of the game.  ED and ED2 are actually the predecessors of Army, telling the full story of what befell our cocky, egomaniacal hero, Ash when he and his 1970’s era car are catapulted through a vortex into a medieval Europe that strongly resembles southern California. ED2 has its fair share of humor too, but Army of Darkness moves into hilarious new territory.

This movie is a boatload of fun.  Bruce Campbell (any “Burn Notice” fans out there?  Yep, that’s Sam!) plays Ash, a womanizing working man with a chainsaw for a hand and an attitude just as sharp, who learns that sometimes it really does help to pay attention to what the sage old wizard has to say about the cursed book that will send him back to his time and place.

Great, sharp dialog, a fun-filled performance by Campbell, great direction by Sam Raimi, and special effects that give clever homage to stop motion mastermind Ray Harryhausen, this horror film became an instant classic.

But remember, it is a horror film.  The monsters in it are very disturbing and as fun as it is, I’d be a little wary showing it to young children.  This is NOT Abbott and Costello, and the R rating is very much deserved.

Another note: You do not need to view Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2 to enjoy this movie.  Trust me, I know.  I saw it years before I finally found ED and ED2.  Of course, if you want to have a graphic, yet almost “B” movie quality Halloween movie marathon, these three movies would fill the night with spooks, and quite a bit of laughter.

Drake's Pick - Audition (1999)

First, in the interest of full disclosure, I have no objectivity when it comes to the films of Japanese madman Takashi Miike. I love all of them, for their sheer willingness to take any chance, for their astonishing attention to visual nuance, for their consistent power to surprise and shock.

Audition was my introduction to this unique director, and that’s at least part of the reason it’s my pick for the 90s.

It’s also a stunning piece of filmmaking, an expression of the eternal struggle between the sexes in the most visceral of terms. While some of the film’s preoccupations are uniquely Japanese – the clash of modernity and traditional roles within the culture – much of it is universal and asks questions for which there are, perhaps, no answers. Is love possible in the modern world? And must it always be agonizing?

Beautifully filmed by master cinematographer Hideo Yamamoto (a man as responsible as any of the directors for the consistently stunning vision of the best J-horror), Audition is the story of Shigeharu Aoyama, a widower, who is convinced by a friend in the movie business to find a pretty new wife by pretending to hold auditions for a fictitious film. The play between film and fantasy and the clear contrast with real emotion are subtly and strikingly portrayed. Despite his desperate manipulation, Aoyama is a sympathetic character, blinded by his own loneliness to the wrong he is doing.

The aspiring actress he falls in love with is beautiful and apparently submissive but the viewer soon learns otherwise, in a scene that makes shocking use of a burlap sack  … one of the great, awful moments in modern horror.

Relatively restrained for a Miike film, Audition will still test the fortitude of most viewers with stomach-wrenching scenes that are indescribably effective, both as expressions of pain and special effects.

Audition, and Miike’s other works, probably bear some responsibility for heralding the era of torture porn that will dominate the nightmares of the new millennium, but it is a much better film than its American descendants, elegant and precise as piano wire….