Forgive the salty language in my title tonight, Vault Dwellers, but your host for all things horror is biting mad. Why, you ask? Well, it might have something to do with the newly announced winners of the 2009 Saturn Awards, handed out mere hours ago. And the fact that the winner for Best Horror Film was.... Hellboy II: The Golden Army.Hellboy II: The Golden Army. It's official, people. The Saturns no longer have any credibility when it comes to horror! I'm calling it--June 25, 2009, 3:01 A.M.
Don't get me wrong, I loves me some Hellboy. Guillermo del Toro is a mad genius, and his latest Hellboy sequel brilliantly transitioned the series from Lovecraft to Tolkien. Enjoyed every second of it, as did my pint-sized protege/son. An underrated movie that deserved more box office love than it got.
But Hellboy II is barely horror-related, being more of a fantasy action flick than anything else. Sure there are monsters and whatnot, but horror? I'm all for stretching the definition of horror. But not this year. Not when there were so many unbelievable true horror films put out there.
Have we forgotten so soon? The year 2008 gave us The Midnight Meat Train. Eden Lake. Martyrs. The Strangers. Repo! The Genetic Opera. The Ruins. And what was for my money the finest film of the entire year hands down, horror or otherwise, Let the Right One In. And you're going to tell me that the movie that wins out is a fantasy/action/comedy with some vague horror-ish elements thrown in? This is buffoonery of the highest order.The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films has really dropped the ball here. I mean, there have been Saturns bestowed that have made me scratch my head, and wonder if it was even necessary to give them out to anyone at all, but this one is beyond head-scratching. This one is just negligent.
The film that should've won, Let the Right One In, was instead given the patronizing Best International Film award. But I say, why couldn't it have won both? Hell, I would've been satisfied had ANY of the flicks mentioned two paragraphs up walked away with the prize. But it's almost as if the Academy went out of its way to reward a movie that was furthest from horror out of anything nominated.
Past winners have hinted to me that this organization is out of touch, but this is the clincher. These people wouldn't know good horror if it jumped up from behind and ate their brains out.
And that means only one thing, as far as I'm concerned. That's right, it means that the Cyber-Horror Awards now have more credibility than the Saturns when it comes to our genre of choice! And to that I say, huzzah! I had a blast doing them the first time, and I'm already looking forward to next year's awards. And now that I know that the Saturns are worthless, the pressure is really on...
Here, here sir! LTROI was a more deserving and appropriate film to win both awards... Bullocks, I say, bullocks!
ReplyDeletewww.musingcontinuum.com
Just got the newest issue of Fango in the mail and guess what? Hellboy 2 also won the Chainsaw Award for best wide release horror film of the year. Is there no justice in the horror world!?
ReplyDeleteDefinitions and categories... Define "horror". Now get everyone to agree with your definition. See?
ReplyDeleteI can understand how people would call HELLBOY horror. BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is always listed as horror, but I would call it fantasy.
As to categories, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN gets shuffled off as "foreign" because it ain't in English, which makes it radioactive in the US. Get this: At the Oscars, an English-language Canadian film is eligible in all the award categories including Best Film. A French-language Canadian film can only compete as Best Foreign Film.
Perhaps definitions should be categorized as arbitrary.
By the way, here's a quote by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, posted moments ago on Facebook:
ReplyDelete"Didn't seem anything like a horror film to me, but what do I know?"
Great and I just got over Jethro Tull beating out Metallica for best heavy metal album.
ReplyDeleteI am sending the bills for my blood pressure meds to YOU B-Sol!
First of all, sorry beacuse my english is not as good as I'd like. I'm a spanish cinema fan who is new in this world of blogs (mine have three weeks of life and you ar invite to it)and see yours days ago and I decide to follow it and show in my list of blogs. For me the best film is LET THE RIGHT ONE IN... only amazing.
ReplyDeleteBye
Al Bruno III beat me to the punch. This is EXACTLY like the Grammy's when Jethro Tull beat out Metallica for best metal artist. Jethro Tull is about as metal as my grandmother (who prefers Julio Iglesias to my Slayer).
ReplyDeleteRidiculous.
Yeah, what a bunch of utter nonsense.
ReplyDeleteThere should not be any distinction between English language and foreign language. It's all "horror".
Horror is definitely difficult to define. HELLBOY 2 had plenty of horror elements, but I would characterize it is as fantasy, but that's debatable, too.
If HELLBOY 2 is horror, then so is THE CHASER, one of my faves from last year. Why wasn't that in the running? LET THE RIGHT ONE IN got the usual shaft from the US because it just wasn't American.
Almost every non-US horror film that gets a US release tanks, spends time on a shelf, goes direct to DVD, or gets its ad budget slashed. Examples: WOLF CREEK, THE DESCENT, HIGH TENSION, EDEN LAKE, INSIDE, MARTYRS, CALVAIR. This is because the mall audience wants American or nothing at all.
Sorry, I got distracted.
Most awards suck because they embrace such a narrow segment of the genre.
This is the country that thinks Twilight is horror. What do you expect?
ReplyDeleteReally, you'd put the The Ruins and Repo over Hellboy 2?
ReplyDeleteOr are you just mentioning those as other possible winners since they are strictly horror and Hellboy is not?
I'm not trying to confine Hellboy to a genre so much as to say, why would you give Best Horror Film to it when there are so many truly terrifying horror films out there that got ignored? And no, I wouldnt necessarily say that all the horror movies I mentioned were better films than Hellboy, I guess my point is that they much better fit the category. Hellboy II should've easily won Best FANTASY Film, that's a no-brainer.
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't believe that even Fangoria awarded Hellboy over all those other movies. Now that's just inexcusable. FANGORIA??
I've been saying this for years. They use to know a little about Sci-Fi or Fantasy but the Saturns have always been clueless about Horror. And, in the early nineties, they created a category for "Thriller/Action" films for some bizarre reason, given the people who run the show to throw out nominations and wins for films that are in no way genre. Stuff like "There Will Be Blood" and "Valkerye" has been nominated in recent years despite not being genre at all. And they also prevent foreign, direct to video, and animated films from competed in the main categories for some abitrary reason, instead ghettoizing them into their own kiss-off groups. So, yeah, I concure fully. The Saturns are total bullshit and have been for many years now.
ReplyDeleteJohn Favreau for best director? I liked Iron Man, but come on, Fincher & Nolan but did better jobs than he did. And yes LTROI should have won best horror film, as a matter of fact i'd say it was the second best film of 2008(behind Milk). As far as Fangoria goes, i love the magazine but it has indeed slipped in recent years.
ReplyDeleteB-Sol,
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have to wave the Bullshit Flag at that one,too.