The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror

by Stephen Jones

  Doug (“Pinhead”) Bradley had a cameo role in Clive Barker’s Book of Blood, a impressive direct-to-DVD release, shot in Scotland by John Harrison and based on the author’s haunted house story “On Jerusalem Street” and the wraparound tale “The Book of Blood”.

  Based on a story within the graphic novel, Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter was an animated adventure about a shipwrecked sailor (voiced by Gerard Butler) haunted by phantom buccaneers. Extras on the DVD release included Under the Hood, a faux documentary about 1940s masked crime-fighters.

  Eric Red’s haunted house chiller 100 Feet, starring Famke Janssen as a woman who murdered her husband (Michael Paré), premiered on DVD in the UK and on the Sci Fi Channel in the US.

  The once-mighty Steven Seagal used his martial arts skills to lead a band of survivors against a world overrun with vampire zombies in Against the Dark.

  A group of medical students on a skiing holiday encountered cannibal Nazi zombies in Norwegian writer/director Tommy Wirkola’s entertaining Dead Snow (“Ein! Zwei! Die!”).

  A young couple and a car-jacker found themselves trapped in a rural gas station by thorny parasites in Toby Wilkins’ fun Splinter.

  The studios’ tradition of issuing redundant direct-to-DVD sequels to much better films continued with Chris Fisher’s disappointing time-travel fantasy S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale (aka S. Darko: Donnie Darko 2).

  Who even knew there was a sequel, let alone The Butterfly

  Effect 3: Revelations, in which Chris Carmack’s character jumped back through time to try to identify the serial killer who murdered his girlfriend and ended up changing his own reality.

  Marina Sirtis was the best-known name in Toby Wilkins’ The Grudge 3: The Curse Continues, which moved the evil spirits to a run-down building in Chicago.

  Featuring nobody you’d ever heard of and filmed in Bulgaria, Ghost House Pictures’ Messengers 2: The Scarecrow was a prequel to the 2007 film which starred Twilight’s Kristen Stewart.

  Now a personified monster in the Freddy Krueger mould, Gary Jones’ Boogeyman 3 was a Bulgarian-shot, no-star entry in the direct-to-DVD franchise in which the titular menace stalked a psychology student (Erin Cahill) who witnessed him killing her best friend.

  Lance Henriksen, Bill Moseley, Danny Trejo, Jason Connery, Michael Paré and P.J. Soles all added their names to the sequel Alone in the Dark II, once again based on the video game. The director of the original, Uwe Boll, was back with another video game adaptation, Far Cry, in which Emanuelle Vaugier, Udo Kier, Craig Fairbrass, Michael Paré (yet again!) and the late Don S. Davis were involved with the creation of an army of super-soldiers.

  Directed by George Romero’s less-talented son Cameron, Staunton Hill was set in the late 1960s and featured a group of hitchhikers menaced by backwoods crazies.

  Left sitting on a shelf at Warner Bros. for nearly two years, Bryan Singer “presented” Michael Dougherty’s Trick ’r Treat, an anthology of five Halloween tales featuring Brian Cox and Anna Paquin.

  Glenn McQuaid’s blackly humorous I Sell the Dead, an expanded version of his own 2005 short film, was about a pair of luckless grave-robbers played by Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden. Genre veterans Ron Perlman and Angus Scrimm added welcome support.

  Comedy troupe Flight of the Conchords had cameo roles in the New Zealand horror-comedy Diagnosis: Death, about a haunted hospital, and an unlikely Faye Dunaway played a one-armed American cop in the Welsh rockabilly zombie comedy Flick.

  Hollywood “B” movie actor Bruce Campbell found himself kidnapped by the residents of a small backwoods community in Oregon to help them rid the local graveyard of a nineteenth-century Chinese demon in the low-budget comedy My Name is Bruce, directed by Campbell himself.

  Jeremy London starred as a human resistance fighter battling cyborgs in The Asylum’s The Terminators which, as with most titles released by that company, had absolutely nothing in common with any other successful film with a similar concept.

  Brian Krause’s scientist had to save the Earth from cosmic disaster in 2012: Supernova, and former 1980s singer Deborah (Debbie) Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas were as unconvincing as their two rubber co-stars in The Asylum’s humourless Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus. Incredibly, the film received a brief theatrical release in the UK.

  At least their two Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations, The Land That Time Forgot with C. Thomas Howell and Timothy Bottoms, and Princess of Mars with Antonio Sabato, Jr and Traci Lords(!), were something of a step-up for the company, which isn’t saying much.

  From veteran director Harry Bromley Davenport (Xtro), the low-budget ghost story Haunted Echoes featured an impressive cast that included Sean Young, M. Emmett Walsh, Barbara Bain and her real-life daughter Juliet Landau.

  After forty years, Brazil’s own horror star José Mojica Marins returned as his most famous character, Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe), in Embodiment of Evil. Co-written and directed by Marins (now in his seventies), the crazed gravedigger continued his search to find the perfect woman to give him a son.

  Adapted from H.P. Lovecraft’s “Haunter of the Dark”, Robert Carrelletto’s contemporary low-budget film Pickman’s Muse starred Barret Walz and Maurice McNicholas.

  Eric McCormack and Robert Patrick starred in the “lost” 1950s sci-fi spoof Alien Trespass, in which a crashed extraterrestrial hunted for an escaped cyclopian monster amongst a small desert community.

  The William Castle Film Collection was a boxed set of eight fun chillers, including The Tingler, Mr Sardonicus, Strait-Jacket, Homicidal and the obscure 13 Frightened Girls, plus a feature-length documentary about the legendary director/ showman.

  Synergy Entertainment’s three-disc Sherlock Holmes: The Archive Collection contained a fascinating selection of material dating from 1912-55, including the TV play “Sting of Death” starring Boris Karloff as a mysterious beekeeper named Mycroft.

  The two-disc An American Werewolf in London: Full Moon Edition included a feature-length documentary about John Landis’ cult favourite.

  Boasting a Sid and Marty Krofft commentary, Land of the Lost: The Complete Series was available in both a boxed set and a cool retro-style lunch box.

  Keri Russell, Rosario Dawson, Alfred Molina, Virginia Madsen and Nathan Fillion all supplied voices for the impressive animated Wonder Woman movie, which told the origin of the Amazon heroine and included her battling reanimated zombie warriors.

  John E. Hudgens’ American Scary was billed as “a nostalgic homage to the glory days of the late night horror shows”. The DVD documentary included interviews and archive footage of such horror hosts as Zacherley (John Zacherle), Ghoulardi (Ernie Anderson) and Vampira (Maila Nurmi), along with celebrity fans Forrest J Ackerman, Bob Burns, Tim Conway, Neil Gaiman, John Kassir, Leonard Maltin, Tom Savini and John Stanley.

  On July 7 the American Sci Fi channel rebranded itself Syfy in a ludicrous attempt to “grow into a global lifestyle brand”, while in September Canada’s Scream TV changed its name to Dusk for pretty much the same reason.

  Despite trying to reach a wider audience, that did not stop Syfy from pumping out the same old type of TV movies and mini-series: Kandyse McClure and David Anders starred in a remake of Stephen King’s Children of the Corn, co-scripted by the author and director Donald P. Borchers.

  A slacker (Christopher Marquette) discovered that the world had been taken over by giant alien insects in the Bulgarian-filmed horror comedy Infestation, which also featured Ray Wise. ZRazortooth involved a giant genetically-modified swamp eel terrorizing the Florida Everglades, while Crystal Allen and John Rhys-Davies battled big snakes in Anacondas: Trail of Blood.

  Thor: Hammer of the Gods was the best Vikings vs. werewolves movie ever shown on the Syfy channel, which isn’t saying much. It was filmed in Bulgaria and starred Home Improvement’s Zachery Ty Bryan as a miscast warrior with a destiny.

  An earthquake released prehistoric sharks to menace a group of Californian lifeguards in Malibu Shark Attack, and Mark
Moses’ scientist-turned-SF author had to save the world from a weather experiment gone wrong in Ice Twisters.

  Meanwhile, Robin Dunne’s Robin Hood and Erica Durance’s Maid Marian were confronted by the Sheriff of Nottingham’s supernatural monster in Peter DeLuise’s Beyond Sherwood Forest.

  Following the network’s “re-imagining” of The Wizard of Oz, Syfy’s four-hour mini-series Alice was an updating of the Lewis Carroll classic, with Caterina Scorsone as a heroine with some very modern problems. The supporting cast included Kathy Bates’ Queen of Hearts and Harry Dean Stanton’s Caterpillar.

  Natasha Henstridge, James Cromwell and Steven Culp starred in ABC-TV’s two-part mini-series Impact, about the Moon being on a collision course with Earth. Meanwhile, NBC’s two-part Meteor featured Bill Campbell, Christopher Lloyd, Michael Rooker, Stacy Keach and Jason Alexander amongst those trying to survive another direct hit from space.

  The BBC’s new two-part adaptation of John Wyndham’s classic dystopian novel The Day of the Triffids may have featured the best-looking (CGI) man-eating plants ever seen on the small screen, but Patrick Harbinson’s risible script did no favours for a cast that included Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, her mum Vanessa (as a crazed nun), Brian Cox, a surprisingly good Jason Priestley, and Eddie Izzard as a hammy villain.

  Even worse was the BBC’s feature-length version of Henry James’ much-filmed The Turn of the Screw. Although Sandy Welch’s script interestingly updated the story to the 1920s, it borrowed heavily from previous versions (notably the best, The Innocents) and totally misunderstood the nature of the ghosts apparently glimpsed by Michelle Dockery’s unstable and naive governess.

  Based on David Almond’s Whitbread Children’s Award-winning novel, Sky’s feature-length production of Skellig was about a young boy (Bill Milner) who discovered the eponymous winged being (Tim Roth) living in a dilapidated shed at the bottom of the garden.

  The live-action prequel Scooby Doo! The Mystery Begins revealed the origins of the four teenage investigators and their always-hungry dog on the Cartoon Network.

  On June 12, America switched over to digital television from the old analogue system. Surprisingly, the world did not come to an end.

  Taking a “break” from the regular series format, the BBC’s Doctor Who instead presented four one-hour specials as David Tennant’s role as the Doctor headed towards its much-hyped conclusion.

  In the silly Easter special, “Planet of the Dead”, Michelle Ryan guest-starred as a sexy jewel thief who, along with the other passengers on a London double-decker bus, found themselves transported to a desert-like planet inhabited by a deadly flying Swarm.

  Later in the year, Lindsay Duncan brought some much-needed class to the equally derivative “The Waters of Mars”, which was set in a biosphere on the Red Planet, where an alien entity was using the water supply to turn crew members into liquefied zombies.

  David Tennant also voiced the Doctor in a computer-animated special, Dreamland, which was not only screened on TV but was also converted into a comic book format for smartphones.

  Before Tennant’s final fling as the Doctor, he also made a maniacal guest appearance in the two-part “The Wedding of Sarah Jane” during the third season of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

  The busy actor even starred in the BBC’s on-screen Christmas idents leading up to the two-part “The End of Time”, which saw the Doctor teaming up with Bernard Cribbins’ Wilfred before finally meeting his fate at the hands of John Simms’ crazed Master and regenerating into the body of twenty-seven-year-old actor Matt Smith. Despite a totally self-indulgent wrap-up that included guest appearances from many old companions, 10.4 million viewers tuned into the BBC to watch the Doctor’s demise, which accounted for an impressive 35.5 per cent share of the total UK audience.

  In another two-part episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, “The Eternity Trap”, the Doctor’s former assistant (Elisabeth Sladen) and her young friends Clyde (Daniel Anthony) and Rani (Anjli Mohindra) investigated an apparently haunted mansion. To celebrate Comic Relief Red Nose Day, the BBC broadcast a special episode of the juvenile show with appearances by robot dog K-9 and veteran comedian Ronnie Corbett as an alien ambassador who turned out to be one of the Slitheen.

  Another Doctor Who spin-off experienced a change to the regular series format when Torchwood: Children of Earth was shown in five one-hour episodes over consecutive nights in early July. The gripping story involved a monstrous alien race designated “the 456” arriving on Earth and demanding 10 per cent of the planet’s children.

  Scripted by Russell T. Davies, John Fay and James Moran, the mini-series was a terrific example of British dystopian SF in the grand tradition of the Quatermass serials and the works of John Wyndham. Stylishly directed by Euros Lyn, the entire cast stepped up to the adult material, especially Peter Capaldi as a career politician betrayed by a duplicitous British government, and Lucy Cohu as the estranged daughter of a guilt-ridden Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman).

  Following the deaths of two major cast members at the end of the previous series, another popular member of the dwindling Torchwood team was surprisingly killed off as the third season moved towards its grim conclusion. Fans of the show expressed their anger and outrage at this development by contacting James Moran through his blog and Twitter account. Unfortunately, he did not write that particular episode.

  Viewing figures for the Torchwood mini-series held up well over the five nights, with almost six million people tuning in to the first and final episodes.

  HBO premiered the second season of its sex ’n’ vampire show True Blood in June. Inspired by Charlaine Harris’ best-selling books, psychic waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and her undead boyfriend Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) travelled to Dallas to investigate the disappearance of a powerful vampire. Meanwhile, Sookie’s wayward brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten) joined the vampire-hating church group, the Fellowship of the Sun, and Bill’s teenage protégé Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) flexed her newfound powers as shape-changing bar owner Sam (Sam Trammell) tried to protect the inhabitants of Bon Temps from the lascivious pleasures of the mysterious Maryann (Michelle Forbes).

  The premiere attracted 3.7 million viewers in the US, a rise of 51 per cent from the previous Season One episode, making it the most-watched cable programme since the season finale of The Sopranos in 2007.

  The CW television network jumped on the vampire bandwagon with Kevin Smith’s tediously predictable The Vampire Diaries, which was basically an undead reworking of Smith’s Dawson’s Creek. Based on the young adult books by L.J. Smith, good vampire Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley) and his bad-boy brother Damon (a scenery-chewing Ian Somerhalder) returned to the aptly named town of Mystic Falls to fall out over angst-ridden high school heroine Elena (Nina Dobrev), who resembled their lost love from the nineteenth century. The opening episode achieved the biggest audience ever for a CW premiere, with 4.8 million tuning in.

  Although having started out as a BBC3 pilot for a supernatural sitcom, the six-part spin-off series of Toby Whithouse’s Being Human took a much darker turn as ghost Annie (Lenora Crichlow) had to literally escape death’s door, werewolf George (Russell Tovey) finally found himself a girlfriend, and reformed vampire Mitchell (Aidan Turner) was forced to take a stand against his undead brethren. The first episode attracted the channel’s second-highest audience for an original drama.

  The third series of ITV’s enjoyable dino-drama Primeval featured a creepy “haunted house” episode that introduced Jason Flemyng’s policeman Danny Quinn, who went on to replace series hero Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshaw) when the latter was apparently “killed” by his time-travelling wife Helen (the wonderful Juliet Aubrey). After confronting a giganotosaurus, a flesh-eating fungus, a medieval knight and giant ants, the cliffhanger ending ranged from the birth of mankind to an apocalyptic future.

  Despite a healthy average audience of five million in the UK (down from six million for the first two series), the show was cancell
ed in June because the excellent CGI effects were deemed too expensive. However, four months later it was announced that BBC Worldwide (who successfully distribute the programme overseas) had come to the rescue and would become the largest investor in a fourth series, scheduled to air in 2011.

  A candidate for worst genre show of the year was ITV’s Demons, which starred Philip Glenister (with a dodgy American accent) as the unreliable mentor of teenage monster-slayer Luke Van Helsing (a charmless Christian Cooke). A blatant inversion of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the British series also featured Zoë Tapper as a blind, psychic Mina Harker contaminated by vampire blood, and Holliday Grainger as Luke’s annoying girlfriend. Thankfully it only lasted for six episodes.

  A sequence of grainy pictures transmitted from an unknown point in space revealed near-future catastrophes to maverick astrophysicist Dr Christian King (Emun Elliott) and DI Rebecca Flint (a miscast Tamzin Outhwaite) in the five-part Paradox. The BBC’s most bonkers show of 2009 shared its “multiple worlds” concept with FlashForward, Fringe, Primeval, Merlin and even Family Guy.

  At the end of the disappointing second season of the BBC’s Life on Mars sequel, Ashes to Ashes, Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) apparently returned to 2008 after being accidently shot by DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) in 1982.

  ABC-TV’s inferior American remake of Life on Mars lasted just seventeen episodes. When the network informed the producers early that the show would not be renewed, they came up with a ludicrously literal interpretation of the title, as out-of-time cop Sam Tyler (Jason O’Mara) discovered that he wasn’t in 1973 but, um . . . actually on Mars!

  Inspired by a 1999 novel by Robert J. Sawyer, FlashForward began impressively with everyone on Earth blacking out for exactly two minutes and seventeen seconds. When it was realized that all the survivors had a vision of what they would be doing on April 29, 2010 – some six months into the future – glum FBI agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) headed up a task force to discover who was responsible.