Every year at Modern Horrors, the staff comes together (not literally, ’cause no one wants to clean that up) to vote on our Year End Awards. But everyone grants awards in categories such as Best Male and Female Performances, Movie of the Year, Director of the Year, and so on. However, missing from your typical year-end awards are a variety of bizarre, eccentric categories such as Grossest Cock, Anger-Inducingest Film Title, and Character Least In Need of a Babysitter. To remedy this, I would like to present you with the 2017 Golden Eggplants Awards. Why eggplants, you ask? Well, then … you probably need to listen to our podcasts more often. Enjoy!
While 2017 was filled with amazing female performances, what female protagonist rose to the level of badass in the vein of Ripley in Aliens or Erin from You’re Next? There are a number of worthy contenders, including Jessie from Gerald’s Game (Carla Gugino), and Ashley from Better Watch Out (Olivia DeJonge). However, the character that tops this list for me is Sara from Creep 2. Brilliantly portrayed by Desiree Akhavan, Sara is forced to take on the titular creep in all his glory. For the sake of her art, she sticks through what she knows to be a dangerous situation, and even manages to flip the ‘cat-and-mouse’ tables, making the creep fear her as much as she fears him. After one movie, I can guarantee she’ll be taken in the first round of the next inaugural Modern Horrors Final Girl Fantasy League draft.
“Hottest dude” doesn’t really go far enough to describe our winner, but I’m comfortable enough in my sexuality (or at least, I was) to talk about some of the 2017 eye candy of the tripod variety. The titular characters in both Gerald’s Game (Bruce Greenwood) and Creep 2 (Mark Duplass) both showed off a little skin … ok, maybe a lot of skin. I could also see someone falling for the soft gaze and authentic vulnerability of Chris from Get Out (Daniel Kaluuya). However, if there’s one horror movie character to put in charge of convincing guys to switch teams, it’s gotta be none other than Jesse from The Devil’s Candy, portrayed by Ethan Embry. If you haven’t seen it yet, you might be thinking, “Can’t Hardly Wait Ethan Embry? Sweet Home Alabama Ethan Embry? Have you lost it, man?” Hardly! Little Rusty Griswold (Vegas Vacation) is all grown up and got himself super ripped, with a new steely gaze!
This year’s most confusing movie might also be it’s most controversial. However, 2017 had more than it’s share of WTF moments, including “Does a mute Sally Hawkins want to bone a fishman?”, “Did someone seriously cover Casey Affleck with a sheet for most of a movie?”, and “Why do we keep going to see Gore Verbinski movies?” However, none of those films even come close to the confusion generated by our winner. Even the extremely surreal anthology film Kuso still had a clear and discernible theme, by comparison. Far and away, this year’s most confusing movie experience can be none other than Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” For a film that constantly amped up the bat-shit-o-meter, audiences both loved and hated mother! for largely the exact same reasons. After the two hour experience, the only concrete takeaway I had, besides mental fatigue, was the importance of sink bracing.
Ok, so they can’t all have a long list of possible candidates. Granted, some of our readers were not going to be happy unless this film was literally about Pennywise’s masturbation habits. The film title that pissed off the most 2017 viewers has to be It Comes At Night. I’d be spoiling the movie to say exactly why, and the end product is a beautiful, well-constructed film. For best results, just as when dealing with a fapping clown, it’s best to go in blind.
In another unusual turn, 2017 was also the year that taught parents that hiring a young, attractive babysitter for their adolescent son means returning home to an absolute shit show. Our first nominee is Cole (Judah Lewis) and his absolutely adorkable relationship with Bee (Samara Weaving) in The Babysitter. But also vying for the title is Luke (Levi Miller) and the takes-no-crap Ashely (Olivia DeJonge) in Better Watch Out. While both kids overcome obstacles in a survival effort, Cole demonstrates superior maturity both in ability and decision-making. Luke, meanwhile, doesn’t just need supervision … his parents should probably consider a priest!
