The year 2012 was a damn fine year for movies, where both genre flicks and big budget extravaganza ended up being more awesome than usual. It was a good year to be a movie fan, which obviously puts a lot of pressure on 2013 to deliver the same caliber of movies. Will it? Can it? And are there enough potentially awesome flicks on the slate to give us the quality goods that we want? From the return of Leatherface and Rob Zombie to a few high-profile sequels of some solid horror flicks, I ‘d say there’s more than enough potential there right now to make 2013 another epic year in movies. Here’s a few of my most anticipated movies of 2013… and even a few I could give two f*cks about.
First up, it wouldn’t be a year in horror without a fare share of sequels, and the year kick-starts with TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D (1/4). I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I can’t wait to check this sucker out. One, its Leatherface f*cking shit up, and two, it’s a schlocky horror movie in 3D (the only way 3D should ever be seen or used in my worthless opinion). Add those together with the fact that this is a true sequel to the original TCM, and I’m sold. We also get a sequel to one of the scariest movies in the last 10 years with INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2 (8/30), which better live up to its predecessor and scare the living piss out of me. Other sequels to watch out for include THE LAST EXORCISM 2 (3/1; the first one was pretty good), and RIDDICK (9/6), which should be fun to see Vin Diesel return to one of his cooler characters.
Then there’s Rob Zombie, who has his crazy-looking LORDS OF SALEM coming out this year. You either love or hate the guy, and I for one am hanging out in pro-Zombie court. He did awesome stuff with the HALLOWEEN franchise (especially part 2), so I can’t wait to see what the guy can do when he takes on something new and original. Plus, who doesn’t like checking out his super-hot wife Sheri Moon on the big screen? I’ll jump at any opportunity for that! And speaking of great directors returning to form, there’s also STOKER from director Chan-wook Park, the same dude who brought us OLDBOY and the LADY VENGEANCE series. He’s busting out with a straight US-release with this one (starring Mia Wasikowska and Nicole Kidman, no less), so color me stoked (pun intended) for this one.
Big budget sci-fi extravaganzas seem to be rocking the year hard in the wake of PROMETHEUS’ success, so we get to indulge ourselves in some pretty awesome stuff, like Tom Cruise’s OBLIVION (4/19), Brad Pitt’s WORLD WAR Z (6/21; I know, there are zombies, but it looks like a sci-fi blockbuster more than anything else), R.I.P.D., and of course the big one… Guillermo del Toro’s PACIFIC RIM (7/12). And this one, my friends, is the big one. Giant fighting robots versus giant fighting monsters, and the playing field appears to be the city of San Francisco. The teasers for this already look amazeballs and I can only imagine the kind of epicness that will undoubtedly take place. Del Toro knows his shit, yo!
The year will have its share of horror remakes (wouldn’t feel right without any, right?), but this year the remakes are looking pretty f*cking solid so far. First, THE EVIL DEAD (4/12) looks phenomenal, and maybe it’s all trailer trickery, but holy f*ck this may be a new horror classic. Then there’s CARRIE (3/15), another remake that appears to be just as good as the original and may even possibly stick to Stephen King’s source material even better than Brian DePalma’s version.
But it’s not a year chockfull of awesome goodness. Oh no, there are a few movies that are about as low on the list of garbage that I just have to list here as my least anticipated of the year. Found footage appears to be going strong, so I point a hefty middle finger at GRAVE ENCOUNTERS 2, A HAUNTED HOUSE, SCARY MOVIE 5, and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 5. F*ck all those movies. Then there’s some Sci-Fi that looks absolutely terrible, like M. Night Shyamalan’s AFTER EARTH with that punk kid Jaden Smith (oh, and Will Smith is in there too). The trailer had a twist of its own which wasn’t much of a twist at all, and honestly… the world is a devastated wasteland? Been there, done that. And finally, A HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT 2: GHOSTS OF GEORGIA, a film that wins for the worst title of the year as well as looks absolutely ridiculous. Chad Michael Murray? Really? Ugh. Maybe it’ll be so bad it’s good, but it really just looks so bad it’s bad… really bad.
Maybe it’s the booze talkin’, but there are a shitload of new movies coming out in 2013 that I absolutely can’t wait to sink my teeth into. PACIFIC RIM, LORDS OF SALEM, INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2, and THE EVIL DEAD are at the top of the list, but really there’s so much good stuff going on that having a top list seems to do the rest of the line-up an injustice… and there is so much cool looking stuff coming this year that it’s gonna be goddamn epic. I didn’t even bring up S/V/H/S/, HANSEL AND GRETAL, WARM BODIES, I,FRANKENSEIN, YOU’RE NEXT, THE CONJURING, SATANIC, THE TOMB, or Joe Hill’s HORNS, all of which look (or at least sound) f*cking cool. 2012 set the bar pretty high for movies, let’s see if 2013 can live up to expectations, or better yet… surpass them.