Evil Dead Fails to Steal Your Soul

I, like a plethora of other devoted fans, cringed at the prospect of there being an “Evil Dead” remake/reboot. Because we have been down this proverbial road to disaster time and time again. And when Hollywood went and attached Diablo Cody (today’s version of Poppy Z. Bright. And if you don’t know who that is it’s quite alright) to write a revision of the screenplay I was ready to head to the place “where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss but fifty cents for your soul” (Marilyn Monroe) and beat someone with a hockey stick. While I have no real untrammeled animosity towards the person in question (I thought Juno was great), however, she -being Cody- who sold us on her being a HUGE horror fan, then turned around and gave us the shitfest that was “Jennifer’s Body”. I mean, what the fuck was that other than a slap to the balls. So, my prospects for anything GOOD fell off that habitual cliff of shit.

Then when a good friend and die hard horror fan told me that I had see the Red Band Trailer, that it would make everything all that much better, I took his advice, and, quite frankly, he wasn’t wrong on any account. High hopes had replaced the shear sorrow for the remake/reboot.

“Evil Dead” the remake is hard hitting, no holds barred reinterpretation that took out the campiness that 

made the original so much fun (Rami had actually had planned the first to be a real horror film. But do to bad acting his horror flick become the dark comedy that we have). Replaced that campiness with blood and gore and scares galore. The remake updates the story a bit as we find the latest crop of twenty-somethings out in the woods, staying in a run down, dilapidated cabin. What was before a weekend getaway has now become a weekend intervention to get Mia (Jane Levy) off drugs. Again. Her friends enlist her brother, David (Shiloh Ferandez), who has taken to escapism, running off to Chicago for “work” right about the time his sister needed him most when their mother became sick and fell prey to dementia. Leaving it all hanging on dear sis. Who then, in turn, turned to escapism herself in the form of drugs. The idea for this time’s intervention is to head up to David and Mia’s old family getaway cabin, 

where the family saw happier times. To keep Mia there against her will if need be.

The cabin has had seen better times as it lays in the middle-of-nowhere-Michigan (look for Ash’s car sitting and rusting away out front). The group finds that the place had been broken into at some point and has been pretty much ransacked. During clean up they discover that someone had been in the cellar. And when they go to investigate find that some sort of weird ritual had taken place there. David quickly writes it off as teenagers screwing around while his friend, Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) has more ominous feelings that relate to some kind of witchcraft. Of course during their look-see of what the basement holds they come across a book on a table wrapped in a plastic black bag, and round with barbed wire. Setting the basis for bad ideas. Not just bad ideas, but all time bad ideas.

While Eric is perusing the book the line: “You mustn't read from the book!” from the 1999 version of the

“Mummy” kept flashing in my mind. But, as you would guess it, Eric reads from the book. Not only does he have bad ideas but apparently he is an idiot as well. Now I have to say that when the dark force in the woods to steal its first soul, director Fede Alvarez stayed with original look and sound. And as you can imagine things go from bad to worse. As Mia feels that she is losing her mind, her friends and brother think that it’s just drug withdrawal, Mia attempts to flee. Only to find herself crashing. Here we get another nod to the originals with what happens to Mia in the woods. Her brother thinking that she is desperate need of a hospital finds that they are trapped by an overflowing river. Again updating from the first go around when the bridge over the cliff has for some reason fell apart. David, figuring things will be better in the morning, feels that waiting it out is the best option. However, he only ends up playing into the hands of evil.

As I watched the film play out before me, I kept thinking that this is almost like a "Cabin in the Woods" rip off which is, ironically, an "Evil Dead" rip off. Which at times felt a tad bit distracting. The first hour of this go around of "Evil Dead" was strong. When the shit went down, it went down. Alvarez leaves nothing out when it comes to uncomfortable scenes and gore.

But then it happened. Like it always does.

If "Evil Dead" would've ended 12 minute earlier it would have been top notch. But, unfortunately, either 

Alvarez or the Producers or the studios felt the need to put as much as possible into this film. The last 12 minutes could've been the outline and treatment to the (no doubt coming) sequel. Which is sad.

Stay until the credits roll through. It’s worth it to die hard fans of the original films.

I give it 3 and half out of 5 on the severed head scale.

Until next...     

"World War Z" Trailer and Thoughts

Holy shit, time to break out your Zombie Survival Handbooks because here it is, the trailer for the big screen adaptation of Max Brooks’ “World War Z”

Don’t worry if haven’t read the novel because from the first looks of it, “World War Z” is going to be nothing (even more than the “Walking Dead”) like the book. Which really is not a bad thng. In case you don’t know the novel, that version of the story is set 10 years after the great war with the undead as Agent Brooks of the United Nations Post War Commission travels around the world gathering information and facts from the years of battle to reclaim the Earth. Whereas the big screen version from Brad Pitt’s production company (Plan B Entertainment) takes us what is sure to be wild ride as UN agent Gerry Lane (Pitt) searches the globe of what the origin is that has brought of this onslaught of the dead and for a way stop it from destroying the world.

Originally set for release at the end of 2012 (because, hell, who doesn’t like death, destruction and the end of the world during the holiday season) “World War Z” seemed to be plagued (pun untended) with problems from almost the start. Everything from production shutdowns to being WAY over budget. Then there were the rumors that the ending was a complete disaster in its own right. Causing the Studio to have Pitt hire a new screen writer to re-write the end and re-film. When I heard that and how the movie was pushed from the Christmas release list I had figured this movie to be a dead issue, maybe finding the light of day either in movie Purgatory of January (that seems to be the time when studios that have little faith in their projects and since most people are recovering from the holiday season they are not typically heading to the movies, so usually there is little or no quality films be put so a movie like this would find no competition and perhaps might make some of it’s budget back) or just dumped on DVD. But with a movie this size and amount to produce the latter would be unlikely with out a big screen release. Then there comes the fact that the “Hobbit” looked slated to be released, if not on the same weekend, then, relatively close to “World War Z” which did not bode well either. So either from genus marketing or perhaps they have actually fixed whatever problems they have, “World War Z” is finally going to find it’s way to the theaters. And right in time for the summer blockbuster season, and reportedly going up against the revamped Superman franchise: “Man of Steel.”

Should be interesting, because the trailer makes it look pretty fucking awesome. However, I do have to note the zombie purists will not be happy as we have returned to the fast moving, rabid eater type zombies.



So check it out and let me know what YOU think.

"Salem's Lot" My Twelfth Pick for the Halloween Season

Vampires Stephen King style, in other words: “Salem’s Lot”. The made for television movie is my twelfth pick for Halloween, made during a time long before bad reality TV shows and -what we are starting to see more of- cutting edge shows of horror variety. Think “American Horror Story”, “Walking Dead”, or even that of “True Blood”.

“Salem’s Lot” sees king use his favorite type protagonist: writer (Ben Mears), as played by David Soul (Starsky & Hutch) as he returns back to his hometown of Salem’s Lot, Maine (another mainstay of the King universe) with the intention to write his newest novel about the ominous old house that sits and over looks the town. The house itself presents a traumatic past as it was home too Hubie Marsten, a bootlegger and suspected child murder. As a young boy, Ben went inside the old, deserted mansion on a dare from friends and the images that his mind had conjured (he believed that not only that he saw the corpse of Hubie Marsten, but good-old-Hubie opened his eyes and looked at him) have haunted him ever since.

So what better way to confront ones fears than trying to rent the house that scares the shit out of you. Unfortunately for Ben someone has beet him to the punch and the house is already rented to a man named Barlow, and who has moved in his man servant, Straker, to get the house ready for his arrival. This fact forces Ben to take up residence in the local boarding house.

Not long after the arrival of Straker, strange occurrences began to hold upon the town of Salem’s Lot. First the disappearance of Ralphie Glick one night as he and his brother Danny cut through the Marsten property. Then the body of another well known towns person is found behind the wheel of his car. After that things rapidly start to come apart in Salem’s Lot. Danny awakens the night of the search for his brother to find Ralphie outside his window. Problem with that is Danny’s room is on the second floor, So Danny being a dumb kid opens the window for his brother and gets a surprise from his younger brother that he was not expecting. Danny is found face first on the floor by his parents. At the hospital things do not bode well for poor Danny-boy as he receives another visit from his dear ol’ brother this time when is found in the morning Danny is dead. But this just the beginning of the bad things that are coming to Salem’s Lot. As more and more townsfolk either are taking “ill” or just disappearing altogether.

At thins point Ben Mears is starting to put the pieces together and begins to think that all of this has something to do with the impending arrival of the mysterious Barlow. But what Ben thinks is by far of the real evil that is taking place in “Salem’s Lot”.

FYI: The TNT remake of “Salem’s Lot” (2004) starring Rob Lowe is actually a very good as well. And stayed a little truer the actual King novel. So think if this post as a two for one deal…

Until next time…

The Silent Scream (1980) My Ninth Must See Pick for the Halloween Season

Word to the reader: The video above ^^^^^ is the actual movie and not a trailer. Below vvvv are my thoughts of the film…

You know nothing ever good can come about with screaming police sirens or when detectives enter the house find bodies, so goes the opening scenes of ‘Silent Scream”, an 80’s scare fest along the lines of “Psycho”.

College student, Scotty Parker (Rebecca Balding) finds that she waited so long to register for her college semester that there is not any dorm room or any campus housing and most of the off campus palces have been filled as well. But she lucks out and gets a list of places renting rooms but with the awesome administrative words of wisdom “They haven’t been check yet. So who knows what they look like…” Ah, nothing like sending your daughter to a quality school.

While house hunting Scotty comes across a creepy looking mansion (and this being a horror film you know what that means: creepy places like that hold dark secrets and it is no different with “Silent Scream”) renting rooms. But before she can seal the deal, rich kid, Peter Ransom (John Widelock) tries to steal the room from out from under Scotty. Although all is well because as it turns out creepy teenager, Mason (Brad Rearden) that not only lives there but is the landlord (in-between his viewing pleasures of war flicks and smack-them-around porn) in stead of his mother played by none other than “Lily Munster” herself, Yvonne De Carlo (because for some reason lives in a room in the attic), has two rooms for rent.

Good natured Peter offers to take all his new roommates (there are four including him) out for dinner to celebrate the last night of freedom before the start of school. Unfortunately, for Peter, he gets turned into a drunken pincushion on his way home from the restaurant -the rest of his roommates were kind enough to leave him passed out on the beach.

After the discovery of poor “Pincushion” Peter, things begin to settle down long enough for the other roommate, Jack (Steve Doubet), to score with Scotty. However, while Scotty is turned in a pincushion of the fleshy kind with Jack, things do not bode well for other roommate, Doris, because she gets to meet the other person they share -unbeknownst to them- the place with. And when you meet someone you do not know about in the basement of the creepy mansion you are living in you know nothing good can come about it.

From there it just gets crazier.

Look for “Dark Shadows” (TV series) alum, Barbara Steele.

Until next time…