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Here are Retro Slashers's personal picks on some of the best (and a little worst!) of 2006.
BEST DVD COMPANY AWARD: CODE RED
While the runner-up below excelled in releasing a larger (though still largely thin) quantity of old school slashers to DVD in 2006, it was Code Red who late on the scene in November & December trumped all in quality through their releases of Don't Go In The Woods, Devil Times Five & The Forest. While euro slashers and giallos continue to be unearthed seemingly faster then fans can afford to keep up with, Code Red have pledged to handle the malnourished USA slasher scene, and their schedule spaces them out as such that they have time to jam-pack them with extras from the heart, and giving us ample time to save and anticipate (sometimes a little extra time, as release date problems with distributor Media Blasters have shown).
RUNNER-UP: ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT
In 2006 the company dispensed several at least bare bones DVDs of titles like Visiting Hours, Bad Dreams, & Superstition. They also released uber fan doco Halloween: 25 Years Of Terror and have kept the flag flying for Argento completists by distributing his TV work, Do You Like Hitchcock and Jenifer. I'd like to see them continue with business as usual in 2007 but put a little more thought into special features and presentation.
MOST EYE-CATCHING COVER ARTWORK AWARD: FUTURE-KILL
Subversive Cinema took a highly underrated chase/slasher flick and gave it a Limited Release DVD, but while it's a movie deeply plagued by unfair comparisons to the HR Giger poster art, Subversive went one step further and actualized the shining awe everyone already has for the artwork by producing the cover in a metallic sparkling glitter-like format.
RUNNER-UP: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 GRUESOME EDITION
 Eye-catching for all the wrong reasons, MGM initially showed pre-art for this special edition that honored the film but what they released was a dull, uninspired Saw-knockoff cover, surely to try and lure those moviegoers who er, saw Saw 3. But with Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning arriving in theatres around the same time, did they really need to draw comparisons to another film? A film that if anything, exists because of the TCM franchise's unique brand of gritty hardware-based horrors? I'm easy and have no problem when a film coasts off coatails of others in advertising, but a TCM flick is one that doesn't need to, therefore is underminded by this.
RETRO SLASHER ARCHIVAL AWARD: YOUTUBE
If there's one thing that helped unearth and keep retro slasher flicks alive in 2006 it was YouTube. Not content to depend on flagging DVD schedules for their fix, fans have uploaded all manner of rare slasher trailers, tv spots, deleted scenes, and even entire movies - onto a comparitively low-quality format that minimizes piracy cries and emphasizes content.
 RUNNER-UP: MUSIC BLOGS
Places like The Manchester Morgue, 7 Black Notes & several others in 2006 blasted out a veritable lifetime of out of print retro slasher soundtracks like April Fools Day, Prom Night, The Burning, The Boogeyman, Scream For Help, Children Of The Corn, Crawlspace, Shocker, Anthropophagus, and more. Although the movement has somewhat cooled recently, the burst that appeared last year has given slasher fans a digital collection that would cost and arm and a leg on Ebay to aquire physicially and therefore should be applauded.
MISSING IN ACTION AWARD: THE BURNING
 If these awards had existed in years prior for the website, never-on-DVD fan fave The Burning would be annual champion of this category. Originally announced... geez, too many years back to remember, our contacts in MGM have verified over the years that it remained in their plans. Yet here we are now in 2007 and still, no release even announced. What makes the fans squirm is that MGM took the time to remaster a widescreen uncut print, slap their logo on the opening and allow Monsters HD to broadcast the holy grail in glorious high-definition, but never followed up with an actual DVD release. Lucky ducks like me have a recording of that, but for the most part fans are out in the cold and wish to be warmed up by the heat only The Burning can ignite!
RUNNER-UP: SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE 3
 Back in 2003, Jim Wynorski of Chopping Mall, Sorority House Massacre 2 and its secret part 3, Hard To Die, shot a "proper" Sorority House Massacre 3 under the title Final Exam, with the intentions that it'd be released as SHM3. But not only was it stripped of its' sequel status when it was decided to change the it to The Legacy (similar to how Slumber Party Massacre 4 was retitled Cheerleader Massacre), it didn't even get a chance to wonder the DTV world under any title, because it fell into distribution limbo when Roger Corman sold Concorde Pictures! Jim recently told us: "Heavily edited for content, the film is finally being released to Internet PayPerView under the title Sorority Girl Massacre. I'm not exactly sure when this will happen, but I assume within the next six months. Although I've been informed of all the cuts, I'm still not exactly sure how severely the picture was truncated." Phew, got that? Just release it already, someone.
FENCESITTER AWARD: GOING TO PIECES DOCUMENTARY
 The Starz channel doco Going To Pieces: The Rise & Fall Of The Slasher Film was At the same time one of the best and worst champions for the slasher genre ever. More or less using the book by Adam Rockoff as a template, it lavished attention on forerunners Halloween & Friday The 13th as to be expected, and mentioned or showed clips from a large assortment of our favorite flicks in the ensuring production years - Curtains, Sleepaway Camp, etc. But my big beef is that, as with the book, all these titles are treated as the inevitable scum buildup on the bootheels of these two classic yet overpraised slashers. While just a few similar flicks can these days coin an apparent subgenre (TCM '03/Wrong Turn=Survival Horror, Saw/Hostel=Torture Porn), it's saddening that 25 years after the slasher heyday, 50+ movies are still being treated as midly amusing copycats when each is its own unique individual regardless of what box office successes they followed from and never equaled. That's why this site exists. So kudos to Going To Pieces for both opening up audiences to our obscure loves and at the same time solidifying that they will never be accepted as anything more then 2nd class horrors. Way to go.
RUNNER-UP: ROB ZOMBIE'S HALLOWEEN DEVELOPMENTS
 I'm not even going to debate the existence of the Halloween remake, because I agree to one in principle and I'm at least indifferent enough to Rob Zombie's previous work to not have any preconcieved extremity about how the film will turn out. But between his moronic comments in interviews about the original Halloween proving he doesn't really understand enough about the original film to be worthy enough to change the amount he reportedly has, placing his name above the title masthead as if to elevate himself as being more important then the actual film, and recent castings that make this more and more a Devil Rejects reunion film, count me out of regularly covering this circus. On the other side of the fence, he went and scored points by casting part 4 & 5's Danielle Harris, whom Myers fanboys like me have wanted to see in another Halloween film again for over a decade. And the mask is supposedly dead-on Shatner (though doesn't every sequel's makers claim this? I need photographic evidence... PIMP!), so the dude's at least trying to appease the Carpenter fans that just may physically beat him to a pulp in 2007.
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