Escape to the Movies: Evil Dead

[DJ_DEnM]

Nana, nanaNOPE *mute*

Great review, Bob. Good to somewhat confirm that the "extreme" scene is still in the movie.

 

[Resonantscythe]

Question for the people who have seen evil dead: I was only able to catch broadcast bits of army of darkness, But enjoyed what I saw. However I a real distaste for horror movies; they just don't appeal to me. Do I have a good chance of liking the first two evil dead(s)?


As for Rocket Raccoon:

1- While when i first heard of R.R. he seemed like a totally silly concept to me. I've thought on it since and realized that there are actually very many anthropomorphized characters people love.

2- The talking tree character seems more far-fetched to me.

3-Considering that here, in the real-world, scientist feel that it will "soon" (whatever they consider soon to be) it will be possible to revive extinct species through genetic-shenanigans, I find it more acceptable to believe that we can genetically alter a raccoon to speak and walk on two legs and curse while shooting gun-phalli, than a man building a perpetual energy source in a cave, WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!!!

also sorry if that last bit was a run-on sentence, been out of the English-class game for a bit.

I know I'm being picky here, but it isn't a perpetual energy source. In fact, the movie goes out of its way to show us that the arc reactor in his chest is running out of energy and has to be replaced. There's an entire scene devoted to that.

But really, it all comes down to suspension of disbelief. I believe Tony Stark can build it out of scraps, just like I can believe a talking raccoon, a giant green rage monster, or an inter-dimensional god, because this is a universe where the laws are different and these things can happen.

hmmm, I thought the problem was that the energy output was too low for the new suit, not that it would run out. I (mis?)understood in the final fight that the old arc-reactor he plugged into himself was burning out due to the strain of running the suit. Or am I totally off-base here?

Oh, I love suspension of disbelief, just saying that if I've enjoyed iron man(which I have) then R.R. isn't a far stretch.

 

[Resonantscythe]

Question for the people who have seen evil dead: I was only able to catch broadcast bits of army of darkness, But enjoyed what I saw. However I a real distaste for horror movies; they just don't appeal to me. Do I have a good chance of liking the first two evil dead(s)?

You will not care for ED1. You will like ED2. The absurdity of many of the ED2 scenes is similar to Army of Darkness. ('blood flood", "flyball", "laughing deer head", "workshed!", "Rotten Applehead", "now scream like you are to scared to scream") There is a lot more gore and blood than AOD. But the way that Sam, Bruce, Rob, Ted put ED2 together, you are cringing one second and laughing or cheering the next.

I watched ED1 last. And I was impressed by what it was (a movie that three college-aged guys made with investment capital of about $60,000). But it was not in the same campy vein as the other two. Drag Me to Hell also falls in the same vein as ED2 and AOD--a campy horror flick with an emergent and reluctant anti-hero.

I have started watching "Within the Woods" a couple times. This was the predecessor to ED1. But the quality of the suriving film footage is choppy and dark and very difficult to watch. So, I 've never made it all the way through.

As far as Evil Dead Goes [Spoilers Below]:

Chances are you might like the first two Evil Dead movies as I've noticed they appeal to sci-fi/fantasy nerds in general, even people who don't generally like horror. The first one manages to be pretty scary through it's first and second acts, despite being grounded firmly in unreality. The basic premise being that some young people visiting a cabin in the woods play a casette recording of some Lovecraftian occultist/scholor who was working on translating The Necronomicon, he managed to unleash evil in the area but seal it away (more or less) before departing, unfortunatly simply the recording of him reading the words for the ritual is sufficient to start all the fun again and unleash evil possessing entities with a thirst for blood. The major weakness of which seems to be their desire to torment and terrorize their victims rather than going for clean kills.

The clever thing about Evil Dead is that other than a unique twist on the monsters and some decent FX for it's day (and kills that made it live up to it's billing as "the ultimate experience in grueling horror"), is sets up all the stereotypical tropes and then subverts them in the third act. For most of "Evil Dead" the very popular Ash character is simply put a cowardly moron who does nothing right and is totally ineffective/sniveling as other characters who represent well known horror movie stereotypes themselves try and survive and come to bad ends. The role Bruce Campbell is playing would normally have "Ash" killed sometime during the second act (usually to a cheering audience due to him being such a useless turd), existing largely for another kill scene. Except that isn't what happens. To put it bluntly they win up driving Ash beyond fear to the point where he just kind of snaps and goes more than a bit crazy himself, figuring "okay then, I'm going to die horribly anyway, it's a no-win scenario, but damn if I'm not going to make them work for it and take as many with me as I can... if I can" he then pretty much starts making some rather stupid one liners as he begins brutally decimating the bodies of his now-possessed friends (who can only be stopped by total dismemberment, as opposed to a zombie-like headshot or whatever). This was actually done really well, which is why the movie has remained such a cult classic, you pretty much have the least worthy dude in the world becoming kind of badass and pulling off an eleventh hour save of himself.

Now, the thing about Evil Dead sequels is that you have to understand that you can only really do this storyline once and have it work. Attempts to have a character regress and then have to get the hero thing back when thematically appropriate in sequels don't generally work. By definition Ash, who is the only surviving character to build a franchise off of, has sort of become an action-adventure hero, not a horror victim. "Evil Dead" could be seen as a sort of origin story. In general someone like this fighting possessing entities intentionally is going to get campy to put it mildly, and "Evil Dead 2" pretty much went all out with that understanding. Ash by definition was not going to be a victim, and being borderline insane, and making dumb/ironic comments as he fights monsters you kind of see the problem. "Evil Dead 2" was kind of a movie where Ash is effectively the punchline to a joke built up by the bad guys/scenario which are more or less playing it straight. Evil Dead 2 also deserves some points because it decided to think things through a bit more. The whole over the top "tree rape" scene from the first movie makes it clear that these entities can possess plants (or at least control them) in addition to people. To their credit the bad guys DO figure out that what they are doing isn't working, and start possessing trees to come and crush this guy (since he's in the middle of the woods) since really he's not going to quickly dismember trees with a shotgun and chainsaw. A bit which is kind of clever when you think about it since they established these bad guys could do this in the first movie.

Since your aware of "Army Of Darkness" let's just say that the beginning of that movie is set up at the end of Evil Dead 2 where Ash gets sent back in time as the result of a banishing spell taking out all the bad guys. When they decided to do a third movie, it was pretty obvious that there was going to be no way they could play "Chainsaw and Shotgun wielding former horror movie victim turned insane monster stomper fights demons after time travelling to the middle ages" straight, so they turned it into more of a comedy with some serious moments.

The thing about the trilogy is that you can actually sort of see the evolution of the Ash character and increasingly insane situation, and sort of follow it. I heard they wanted to do a 4th movie with Ash in the far future, but thankfully they kind of killed that idea because I think they took the series far enough, and ending it on the joke of "how does a K-mart (excuse me S-Mart) clerk turned time travelling monster stomper go back to being a normal person when everything is concluded?... He doesn't".

Okay, that sounds good to me, Thanks!

 

[Resonantscythe]

sorry, double post.

 

[idodo35]

an evil dead remake? when did this happen? talk about flying under my radar...

 

[dmase]

It's crazy Ebert died just a few days ago they where saying his cancer had sprung up again and a couple days later dead, very sad. It's going to be weird not seeing his opinion at the bottom of many film articles on wiki.

I was hoping evil dead was going to be good; I knew they where going the horror approach of the first film and was excited. I was literally horrified by the first film even though I saw it over 20 years after it came out and noticed just how cheesy it was. I mean those trees everyone can see how badly that was made and yet it was still scary as fuck. A remake of the funny one couldn't be made without an ash character though, it would be interesting to see how they decided to reboot that part.

I think I'm gonna watch the first two evil deads in the next couple days just for the hell of it.

 

[dmase]

an evil dead remake? when did this happen? talk about flying under my radar...

I don't know how you missed the commercials(tv and internet). It's weird it's an evil dead that is completely known commercially. Even on the escapist it's got a lot of news.

 

[Phuctifyno]

Just got back from seeing it. It was a blast. While I'm sure not everybody can be satisfied, I recommend anybody who's even remotely interested to make an effort to see it.

Having previously heard about the drug-kicking spin on the characters, I was worried that the movie would attempt an emotional take that might ruin the fun. No fun was ruined; it added a useful layer to the plot and I found the characters surprisingly involving because of it. It actually reaches for emotions other than "AAAAAAAHFUCK" in a few parts, and succeeds where a lot of these kinds of movies would fail. I agree with Bob that they could even have used a little more time to develop, whereas I normally would not care about that at all in this type of film.

Also, the fanservice nods were cute and appropriately subtle. Blink and you'll miss a pendant lying on the ground in a particular way, if you know what I mean.

So I take it this iteration of evil dead lacks verbose, testosterone-injected chainsaw arms and shotguns.

Not quite.

Chainsaw: check.
Shotgun: check.
Injections: check.
Arms: check. (or should I say uncheck?)
Testosterone: ?????
Verbose: you only need one word, and check.

 

[Grabehn]

I have an issue with big yellow eyes, they always freak me out. Then you got and put the fucking scene right after the damn black screen, I'm glad it wasn't on full screen, I hate you Bob, you basterd!

 

[Fasckira]

the only film of significance was the Evil Dead franchise.

He pops up in quite a few things as side characters too, like the Hercules and Xena series, but if you want a real Campbell/Raimi treat then you should check out "My Name is Bruce" [http://youtu.be/QZLv3Z7L5lY] where he plays himself.

 

[pearcinator]

I'm normally ok with gore in movies (and in some cases I yell 'YES!' at certain gore scenes) but this movie looks too extreme. I have a feeling that I would watch this and not enjoy it because of how much gore there is...I would look passed the movie and think 'the people who thought this shit up are fucked in the head'

I watched 'Braindead' and thought the same thing.

A little gore is good....too much and I get serious concerns over the people who make the movie (and why I am watching it).

 

[Yeager942]

the only film of significance was the Evil Dead franchise.

He pops up in quite a few things as side characters too, like the Hercules and Xena series, but if you want a real Campbell/Raimi treat then you should check out "My Name is Bruce" [http://youtu.be/QZLv3Z7L5lY] where he plays himself.

Having seen My Name is Bruce, my statement still stands.

 

[tehroc]

This movie sucked as anything but a gorefest. Even then it was only average, Final Destination movies put the gore in this one to shame. What really bugged me the most about this remake was it was lacking any suspense except in one scene.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Pass, I will wait for the comedy.

 

[John P. Hackworth]

I don't mind a little accent occasionally. But in this one I think he started speaking a little TOO Boston. It's more fun as an Easter Egg.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

Saw it last night... and I hated it. Just too damn formulaic. Though if you are into gore in movies I recommend it. If you were expecting a new take on the genre or a tongue in cheek ride like the original Evil Dead movies or even Cabin in the Woods, you will be disappointed.