Welcome to part 1 of the third annual Scare Value Horror Movie Awards! Essentially…our version of a 2024 Horror Movie Awards. Today we will award some non-traditional categories for the year that was. These are the more…fun awards. Today we crown Best Kill, Best Final Girl, Best Killer, Best Twist. and Best Gore Effects. Needless to say, there will be spoilers.
We will also be inducting this year’s first inductee into the Scare Value Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame is reserved for the greatest, most important or most influential horror movies in history.
Tomorrow we will be back with part 2 of the awards where we will give out some more traditional recognition. Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Director, and, of course, Best Picture will be awarded. We will also induct this year’s second chosen film into the Hall of Fame.
Let’s get down to business.
2024 Scare Value Awards
Best Final Girl
Who will join Noa from Fresh and Brynn from No One Will Save You as a Scare Value Best Final Girl award winner? Five new leading ladies hope to survive the award process. This year’s nominees are…
Gretchen – Cuckoo
Sister Paxton – Heretic
Sister Cecelia – Immaculate
Wakaba – Love Will Tear Us Apart
Sienna Shaw – Terrifier 3
Gretchen uncovers a conspiracy that forces her to fight for her life…and eventually turn into the protector of her young sister. Sister Paxton’s faith is tested by a soft-spoken lunatic…confronted with challenges to all she believes while looking for a means of escape. Sister Cecelia is betrayed by the order she believes in…and must fight for control of her situation, and her body. Wakaba is destined to be a constant final girl…death follows her in with an extreme prejudice. Sienna Shaw returns to battle her arch-nemesis Art the Clown…while contending with the scars of their previous encounter.
Sienna Shaw finished as the runner-up in the inaugural Scare Value Awards. She’s terrific, once again…but her battle ends in more of a draw this time around. I suspect her best chance at this award is coming in Terrifier 4. Sister Paxton outwits her brilliant captor while holding onto what matters most to her. She isn’t the clear lead of her story until late in the going, however. Wakaba finds herself in one of the more interesting final girl stories. She ends up in that situation multiple times…and finds an interesting way to break the cycle. Sister Cecelia has a more traditional final girl arc…but one that ends in earth-shattering fashion with, perhaps, the horror scene of the year. Gretchen takes a beating in pursuit of answers…eventually answering the call for survival and, more importantly, protecting her loved one.
The Scary Goes To…
Sister Cecilia in Immaculate
Best Killer
Art the Clown is a returning champion to this category…having won the inaugural award in the 2022 Awards. He is joined by Evil Dead Rise‘s Ellie as the two previous winners. Who will join the two iconic horror antagonists and take home this year’s award? The nominees for Best Killer are…
Johnny – In A Violent Nature
Dale “Longlegs” Kobble – Longlegs
Agyar – Little Bites
Emmanuel Crocket – Mr. Crocket
Art the Clown – Terrifier 3
Longlegs manages to spread death without getting his own hands dirty…and that bonkers Nic Cage performance certainly doesn’t hurt. The soft-spoken Agyar may have “creepiest antagonist” in the bag…his psychological damage is even stronger than his physical harm. Johnny has an entire film built around his day-to-day exploits…and he may have the kill of the year in his back pocket. Art the Clown continues his reign of terror…memorable kills and expanded lore help him keep his candidacy strong. Mr. Crocket’s strength lies in the scenery chewing performance…and a fun concept involving demonic puppet sidekicks.
Like his greatest for Sienna Shaw, Art the Clown’s campaign gets dinged for Terrifier 3‘s uncommitted ending. Emmanual Crocket is a fun antagonist who uses the power of children’s television to prey upon his victims. It’s a fun one…even if Angel did it twenty years ago. Agyar makes a meal out of his screentime. He emotionally destroys his host…while devouring his victims. Johnny’s Violent Nature is a franchise launching affair. A (mostly) successful attempt to have us see things through the eyes of the antagonist. Dale Kobble doesn’t need to be the star of his story to steal the show. His Satan worshipping dollmaker destroys families and leaves decades of bodies in his wake.
The Scary Goes To…
Dale “Longlegs” Kobble in Longlegs
Best Gore Effects
The Sadness and Project Wolf Hunting took home the first two iterations of this award. They did so by splattering blood and violence across the screen in every frame. Who will join them in 2024? The nominees for Best Gore Effects are…
2024 was a strong year in stomach turning gore effects. Art the Clown brought a new bag of tricks to slaughter a new batch of innocents in Terrifier 3. Smile 2 ups every part of its game from the original…not the least of which is the amount of blood and gore it brings to the table. In A Violent Nature changes our perspective on violence…but it doesn’t let any of its victims off easy. Stopmotion features a more personal, hypnotic use of gore. Its little meat puppet alone is enough to earn it consideration. The Substance was billed as a body horror movie…but no one was prepared for how gory it gets by the time that incredible climax hits.
History suggests that the more gore a movie displays the better chance that movie has of winning this award. Well…history is right again because this comes down to the two movies that push the boundaries the furthest. The Substance and Terrifier 3 don’t seem like they have much in common at first glance. Far more mainstream audiences subjected themselves to The Substance‘s unexpected gore-filled finale. Terrifier 3 drew in the sickos from every corner to deliver exactly what they expect. Practical gore effects that are second to none in 2024.
The Scary Goes To…
Terrifier 3
Best Twist
The first Scare Value Award for Best Twist went to Orphan: First Kill‘s jaw dropper. Last year’s The Sacrifice Game got the nod for a fun, if slight, game-changer. How will this year’s crop measure up? The nominees for Best Twist are…
Frida has been here before – Blink Twice
A not-so-good Samaritan – Cold Meat
Victim no more – Faceless After Dark
Diverting from the source material – Speak No Evil
Who is the serial killer? – Strange Darling
As usual…we’re looking at a few different types of twists this year. Cold Meat delivers its turn in its second scene. It reveals the true face of evil in its story and forces us to sit with it for the rest of the movie. Strange Darling buries its twist in its out of sequence narrative…recontextualizing everything we’ve seen to that point. Blink Twice reveals its surprise late in the story. It isn’t the biggest game changer…but it is a great payoff to the story’s central concept. Faceless After Dark uses its first act twist to turn itself into a completely different, and better, movie. Speak No Evil has the least conventional twist it can. It isn’t a twist inside of its own narrative…but a complete reversal of the original material that it is remaking.
The question with this year’s category was always going to be what to do with Speak No Evil. It tells its own story in a straightforward manner. To those familiar with the original, however…it has the biggest, most impactful, twist of the year. A choose your own adventure moment that heals old scars and offers a new path forward. Some of this comes down to the competition. Blink Twice‘s twist isn’t meaningful enough to take the top prize. Strange Darling‘s twist is telegraphed a bit by the way it tells its story. Faceless After Dark and Cold Meat both turn preconceived notions on their head to offer something new. But isn’t that exactly what Speak No Evil does? Only better?
The Scary Goes To…
Speak No Evil
Best Kill
Best Kill is always a fun category. Previous winners in this category were Halloween Ends‘s babysitting mishap and the dog attack in When Evil Lurks. Which fresh kill will join the pantheon of Scare Value Award winners? The nominees for Best Kill are…
The baby – Immaculate
Yoga kill – In A Violent Nature
The fence – Indigo
Hole in the floor – Oddity
Chainsaw in the bathroom – Terrifier 3
The Yoga kill from In A Violent Nature is the crowd favorite heading into award season. Johnny pulls a head through someone’s body in a move that would have been a highly ranked Friday the 13th kill during Jason’s heyday. Oddity sets a subtler trap…sending its blind protagonist to her death by way of open trap door and ringing telephone. Art the Clown uses a chainsaw to tear a man a new…well, you know…in Terrifier 3‘s bloodiest scene. Immaculate positions its best kill offscreen…but offers, perhaps, the most impactful death of the year. The inciting incident of The Coffee Table happens offscreen too…also to a baby…it sets in motion the most uncomfortable movie of the year.
This has been In A Violent Nature‘s category to lose since Johnny sunk his hooks into that victim. An immediately iconic slasher kill. Art the Clown continues to live under the shadow of the series’ most memorable kill all the way back in the first installment. I’d make an impassioned argument for Immaculate‘s final scene…and Sister Cecelia’s reckoning…but that kill already sealed her a Best Final Girl victory. Besides…who can argue with masses?
The Scare Goes To…
Yoga Kill – In A Violent Nature
2024 Scare Value Hall of Fame Inductee
Each year two films will be selected to join the Scare Value Hall of Fame. These movies are the best of the best in horror history. They can be important of influential…or just a hell of a lot of fun. This year’s second inductee will be unveiled in Part 2 of the 2024 Sare Value Awards tomorrow. This year’s inductees will be enshrined alongside John Carpenter’s Halloween, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. For our first inductee…we head to Japan for the introduction of the King of the Monsters.
Godzilla
Godzilla has reigned as the King of the Monsters for seven decades now. Last year…the series took home its first Oscar (and the Scare Value Award for Best Picture) with Godzilla Minus One. But it all started with Ishiro Honda’s 1954 masterpiece, Godzilla. Featuring the best character in series history (Dr. Daisuke Serizawa) and an emotional lesson on the danger of knowledge…Godzilla‘s atomic analogy is no less vibrant and relevant today than it was 70 years ago. The best monster movie ever made.
Read our full review
Thank you for checking out part 1 of our version of our 2024 Horror movie awards. The 2024 Scare Value awards will return tomorrow to award Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Screenplay…and to induct another film into the Scare Value Hall of Fame.
