Who won? Who didn’t? Who showed up?
Freddy Krueger’s legacy, Jason Voorhees and the vamps of True Blood topped the 2010 Reaper Awards, edging out then-anticipated phenomenal DVD presentations like Night of the Creeps.
Last night, Home Media Magazine, in collaboration with the cats at DreadCentral.com, flung open the doors of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood and welcomed various horror industry players for the awards celebrations. Shock Till You Drop was in attendance, as this writer served on the judging committee. But that position, I’ll tell you, only allowed me to select the nominees for this year’s event and gave me a chance to judge on the Best in Show. The winners were selected by you, the horror fans, who visited the Reaper Awards site and voted for your favorites.
Who walked away the winner? The Nightmare on Elm Street documentary, Never Sleep Again – directed by Daniel Farrands, Andrew Kasch and was co-produced by Dread Central’s Steve “Uncle Creepy” Barton (also the evening’s dapper host) – took both the Best in Show and Best Direct-to-Video categories.
Michael Doughertyâs Trick âr Treat won Best Theatrical Disc, even though the film had more film festival play than a proper/official theatrical run. It beat out titles like The Wolfman, The Crazies and Paranormal Activity Under the Best Re-Release/Catalog category, Paramount’s Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood earned kudos for it’s special features.
True Blood‘s second season was hailed as the Best Boxed Set/TV Collection and Best Blu-Ray of the year. After getting shut out for Best Re-Issue and Best Blu-Ray, I’m a bit taken aback that Sony’s Night of the Creeps didn’t earn its just kudos. For years fans have been waiting for a proper DVD release brimming with special features. They got it. But apparently didn’t vote for it? Strange.
Best Indie or Foreign Disc went to Paul Solet’s Grace and both Friday the 13th: The New Blood/Jason Takes Manhattan scored points for Best Packaging, beating out Lionsgate’s creative Fear Itself gravestone presentation.
The Reapers again got caught up in the superfluous Most Anticipated categories. Fox’s Alien Anthology Blu-Ray set won as the Most Anticipated Catalog Title, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days won for Most Anticipated Non-Theatrical Film coming to DVD and the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (?!) scared up enough votes to warrant it the Most Anticipated Theatrical Title coming to DVD. So peculiar.
The evening, as a whole, was a success. Shock rubbed elbows with Neil Marshall and Axelle Carolyn, visiting from the London, producer Peter Block, Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli and spied various other horror vets lurking about. Adam Green and Joe Lynch took to the stage to present an award. During their intros – as Green waxed on about the state of horror and the MPAA – Lynch slapped a piece of duct tape over Green’s mouth before he got himself in trouble (a cutesy nod to Hatchet II recently getting the boot from AMC Theaters).
Tom Holland, meanwhile, was all smiles when he received a standing ovation and a Lifetime Achievement Award for his career which includes Child’s Play and Fright Night. With Sony’s key DVD people in the house last night, perhaps they took note of the reception Holland got and considered producing that Fright Night special edition so many of us have been waiting for…
Congrats to all of those folks out there who won!
Source: Ryan Turek, Managing Editor
