Evil Dead (2013)

Title: Evil Dead

Director: Fede Alvarez

Released: 2013

Starring: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Jessica Lucas, Lou Taylor Pucci, Elizabeth Blackmore

Plot: David (Fernandez) and his friends arrange to meet at his family’s cabin with the plan to help David’s sister Mia (Levy) kick her heroin addiction by going cold turkey. However when one of the group discovers the Naturom Demonto (aka the book of the dead) they unwittingly unleash the evil in the woods.

 

Review: When this film was first announced it was unsurprisingly greeted with groans of disapproval from the fans of Sam Raimi’s original trilogy who for years had held out for a forth film, something that was seemingly being squashed with this film. Equally with the current track record for remakes for horror remakes not being exactly spectacular you can understand why most people were sceptical and really the main reason it’s taken me until now to actually watch it. However what we have here is not so much a remake or rebook, but rather an indirect sequel of sorts which carries over the ideas of the trilogy while at the same time introducing a new group of characters instead of trying to work in any members of the established cast, an idea which would also convince Bruce Campbell to sign on as a producer having long resisted the idea of remaking the films which helped him rise to cult stardom as he didn’t want to see anyone else play Ash.

Clearly a fan of the original films director Alvarez here making his feature debut while also co-writing the script with Rodo Sayagues (with further script doctoring from Diablo Cody) clearly isn’t trying and reinvent the wheel here, as builds he film following the same rules of the previous films, while at the same time peppering the film with numerous nods to those film, as he even manages to find a way to work in Raimi’s trademark Oldsmobile.

Despite the cast being made up of Unknowns with perhaps the exception of Jane Levy (sadly not a red head here) they are still make for an interesting group with each character different enough or having their own role, to stop them from being yet another disposable group of teens. Sadly this doesn’t seem to stretch to general intelligence as seen by the fact that we have one of them messing around with the book, which this time comes wrapped in plastic and barbwire, let alone numerous notes scrawled in its pages not to read it, which for some unknown reason still doesn’t deter Eric (Pucci) who you’d wrongly believe to be the smart one from reading it and of course unleashing all kinds of gooey terror on the group.

One of the main concerns going into this film was that the gore which made the first two films stand out, let alone land the first film on the Video nasties list would be absent especially in these times were studios are actively seeking lower ratings in order to guarantee larger box office returns. Thankfully this wasn’t the case here as it more than delivers in the gore stakes, perhaps even surpassing that of the original as over 70,000 gallons of fake blood were used with 50,000 alone being used for the finale were it literally rains blood. To further put this into context the original only used 200-300 gallons and here it really is put to effective use, more so with Alvarez insisting on using old school effects and only using CGI to touch up which is always welcome.

While the film follows several similar beats to the original film such as locking a possessed member in the cellar, here Alvarez aims to bring his own shocks even reworking the notorious tree rape scene from the original film which honestly comes off a lot more shocking than the original. Elsewhere we get plenty of bodily mutation with such highlights as arms being torn off and one character attempting to cut their own jaw off. A lot of the gore is also surprisingly refreshing in its originality even if perhaps some of it does come off a little cornball such as one character taking a bread knife to her possessed arm.

While the setting for the film is certainly haunting enough as it combines scenes of heavy rain and creepy mist which made me wonder if they were taking art direction from “Silent Hill” as especially seen with the opening featuring a girl staggering through the woods only to be ambushed and bagged by a bunch of deformed yokels, only for Alvarez to pull the rug from under us as he reveals that these are actually good guys and trying to help her father soon leading to one of the early shocks. While this general tone is maintained throughout it does however suffer thanks to a plodding plot which certainly causes the film to sag in the middle as Alvarez doesn’t seemingly know the direction in which to take the film. This becomes especially present when things start getting distracted with trying to reverse the possession instead of sticking with the original concept of making it to dawn. We also get some confused plot about a demon being summoned by the souls of the group being possessed something which lost me largely down to it seemingly being written into the plot in the final quarter.

While certainly better than the most of the horror remakes currently being churned out and an enjoyable enough experience, it suffers largely due to the pedigree of the films it’s trying to remake so the fact that Alvarez clearly was trying to do something different than just remaking the original certainly was a welcome surprise, it’s just a shame that its questionable plotting stops it from being better than it is.

Inseminoid

Title: Inseminoid
Director: Norman J. Warren
Released: 1981
Staring: Robin Clarke, Judy Geeson, Jennifer Ashley, Stephanie Beacham, Steven Grives, Barrie Houghton, Rosalind Lloyd, Victoria Tennant, Trevor Thomas, Heather Wright

Plot: A group of interplanetary archaeologists investigating a series of seemingly abandoned ruins are thrown into chaos when one of them, Sandy (Geeson), is attacked and impregnated by a monstrous creature, which also turns her into a crazed killer intent on hunting down her fellow crewmates.




Review: It was somewhere around the halfway mark of this film, that I actually realised, that I was not watching the film the film I thought I had originally set down to watch, having somewhere along the line confused this film with “Creepozoids” (1987) which had been the film I had originally wanted to review, yet thanks to my confusions with titles I now found myself watching this “Alien” (1979) cash in instead.

One of several “Alien” cash in’s which came in the wake of it's release, all with vastly varying quality, with this film certainly not half as much fun as one of the better ones “Xtro 2: The Second Encounter” (1991) which memorably picked it’s favourite parts from “Alien” and “Aliens” to create a sequel which had absolutely nothing to do with the original “Xtro” (1983). However upon its release it was a radical departure from what had been established as British horror, by choosing a futuristic setting rather than the more favoured gothic setting of the Hammer Films, but all too soon you find yourself drawing similarities between “Alien” and this film, which is ultimatly a lot less gratuitous than this film, especially as it didn’t feature it’s lead actress being impregnated by an alien with a Perspex penis. Still looking at the frenzied and homicidal Sandy running around attacking her crew mates I couldn’t help but draw similarities between these scenes and the screenshots seen in the “Prometheus” trailer which also seem to show something strangely similar happening, though here's hoping that Ridley Scott hasn't decided to return the favour and rip this film off.

Funded in part by legendary Kung Fu producers “The Shaw Brothers” and made on a minimal budget of £1 million, the film would be shot in the UK, despite being given a distinctively American look, with the production shot almost entirely at Chislehurst Caves in Kent, while the island of Gozo near Malta substitutes for the desolate landscape of the alien planet and Warren certainly makes the most of such a limited budget and racks up a surprisingly decent body count, though it’s clear from the handful of alien shots we get, that this is were he cut the most corners as rather than anything resembling HR Giger’s now legendry creations we get what looks like a dime store puppet and no doubt explains why despite it’s setup, we spend most of the film watching Sandy running around like a frenzied lunatic and baring her teeth and generally killing any member of the crew who gets near here.

Due to working with such a low budget another noticeable sacrifice is with the soundtrack which is largely comprised of experimental synthesiser tracks which have such a hit and miss rate, it frequently kills any tension with Warren does manage to create, which made me wish that he had could have argued for a little more budget to get an orchestral score instead.

The plot is largely a nonsensical mess with Warren leaving it to the audience to piece it all together while leaving huge plot holes at nearly every turn with one crew member randomly becoming possessed after coming into contact with a bunch of crystals randomly left lying around for no real reason, while another crew member randomly commits suicide by cutting through her leg with a chainsaw as part of a half assed attempt to free her trapped leg (possibly a more enjoyable experience than watching this film) though this could also be more to do with the sudden realisation of the sort of movie she was in. This randomness continues until Warren clearly just figured that a frenzied Sandy was enough of a threat without really bothering to focus to much on the promised aliens and instead tries to further cover for it, by turning the film into a weird futuristic slasher. Meanwhile the character development is so non existent outside of this is Bob/Fred/Ethel etc and they do something or some importance to the mission and that is about the best you get, making these characters actually lower in the chain than your usual disposable slasher fodder, who normally have something to distinguish between them other than the fact that they are wearing different outfits, not that your really give much of a rats ass about these characters as none are particularly memorable bar Sandy and that’s only because she’s the only member of the crew frequently trying to kill of the others, aswell as some serious over acting on the part of Geeson who really seems determined to make the most of the role.

Warren here is clearly aiming for the sleaze factor; just incase the idea of a cheap looking alien impregnating a woman didn’t already give it away and the impregnation scene is suitably bizarre as a naked Sandy is forced to lye on a table, while the film cuts between gratuitous nudity shots and that now infamous Perspex penis, all while the soundtrack gets weird and for some unknown reason it also starts raining space pixie dust and god knows why the Doctor is in this scene, but alas these are just more questions you will no doubt be left asking if you manage to make it through to the end credits which could essentially just be watched instead as each of the cast are shown first playing their character before then cutting to their characters death scene, which leads me to the sole good thing this film has to offer and that is that you do not only get a very generous body count, but also a bunch of truly inventive kills with spear gun and what looks like a cattle prod all coming into play, while we are also treated to a random cannibalistic impulse by Sandy and it’s these moments were the film almost redeems itself, it’s just a shame that Warren fails to invoke even the most basic of feeling for these characters, which ultimately takes a lot away from these numerous kills.

Despite threatening a sequel with it’s ending, this would thankfully fail to come to anything bare the occasional rumour, leaving this film as the curiosity it is and with absolutely zero interest from myself to see more, after all if I wanted to see an alien wanting to reproduce with humans, I’d honestly rather just dig out “Species” instead.

Final Girl Film Club - Amityville 2: The Possession

Ok so it's Final Girl Film Club time again, were the blogging world comes together, to bitch about one chosen movie, which this week is the turn of "Amityville 2: The Possession", the prequel to the 1979 original, which I only have vague recollections of watching, but I was curious to see if this film would prove to be more memorable than the first. So join me now as I now present you with my two cents on this months film choice.

Title: Amityville II: The Possession

Director: Damiano Damiani

Released: 1982

Staring: James Olson, Burt Young, Rutanya Alda, Jack Magner, Andrew Prine, Patrica Montelli Rating: 3/ 5

Plot: Years before George and Kathy Lutz moved in and were terrorized by the spirits in the Amityville House, a family, The Montellis, lived there before and were terrorized by demoniac spirits and their own son who is ready to kill them

Review: Sequels as I looked at with my last review can often be tricky things to pull off, let alone do well, with the main problems for sequels coming from trying to follow, directly on from were the first film ended. Still despite being one of the less well known of the horror franchises, especially amongst the fair-weather horror fans, who’d probably name “Nightmare on Elm St” & “Friday the 13th” when asked to name a long running horror series, the Amityville films have since the release of the 1979 original “The Amityville horror” spawned an impressive eight sequels, which includes this prequel and the 2005 remake of the same name with this film currently rumoured to be receiving the remake treatment in 2010.
Still with Sequels being such tricky things, it is perhaps because of this reason it was better that director Damiani, choose to make a prequel to the 1979 original, rather than a direct sequel, a choice that was also probably heavily influenced by the real life case of Ronald DeFeo, Jr who in 1974 shot his family, claiming that voices in his head told him to carry out the murders. Still seemingly this wasn’t interesting enough for Hollywood meaning that this film shares many connections to that case, changing the name of the family from DeFeo to Montelli, while at the same time, adding numerous details of its own to the case, using Hans Holzer’s book “Murder in Amityville” for the majority of the films extra plotting, with the most obvious addition of course being the idea of possession.

Opening with the Montelli family, moving into the now infamous house, they seem like a perfectly normal kind of family.....well actually they are pretty messed up to begin with as Anthony Montelli (Young) clearly prefers to rule the family with a domineering attitude, as he spends most of his time shouting at his children, even on several occasions appearing willing to use, physical force to control his children, but then when his kids seem as dysfunctional as they are, it makes you wonder how he hasn’t been driven (more) insane, especially seeing how his wife Delores (Alda) sees to be off in her own perfect little world, which gives the viewer that she is kind of oblivious to what is going on around her, even though she later confesses to her eldest daughter about how her marriage is secretly falling apart. Meanwhile the two youngest children are creepy as hell, with one such memorable scene involving Jan and Mark (played here by real life brother and Sister Erica and Brent Katz) play fighting in the kitchen, only for Jan to pull a plastic bag, over her brothers head while laughing “Ha Ha, Your dead” which to them seems incredibly funny, but to the audience comes across more than slightly creepy, much like the incestuous antics of the older brother and sister Sonny (Magner) and Patricia (Franklin), who even before the haunting’s have started and long before Sonny become possessed, are seen flirting with each other and even after Sonny has become possessed by a demon, (which is pure assumption on my part, seeing how it’s never properly explained) she doesn’t seem to find it weird that her brother is asking to see her naked, let alone the incest scene, which closely follows, with her only real remorse coming during an extremely brief confession to the priest, which here seems to only have been added, for the point of driving home the point that incest is bad (aswell as creepy), as no doubt Damiani didn’t want to obviously be seen, as promoting incest as a good thing.

Possession might be the main theme for this prequel, but we still manage to get a decent amount of ghostly activity despite this, including an extremely haunting sequences, as a paintbrush glides through the air, before drawing a picture, as a warning to the family, which Anthony refuses to believe is anything to do with ghost, much like when the kitchen is pretty much trashed by the spirits, which like the bedroom scene he’d rather blame on his children. Still these early haunting scenes, which begin almost from the start, as we are less than ten minutes into the film, when blood starts pouring from the tap’s, which would be enough of a warning for most people, that something strange is afoot, but seeing how it happens in front of Delores, she quickly writes it off in her own mind, rather than mention it to anyone.
It’s around the same moment that the ghostly haunting start to run out of steam that the film moves onto the main focus of the story, as Sonny becomes possessed, turning the film in more than one way into kind of a cash in on “The Exorcist” (1973) as we witness the battle between good and evil unfolding, as Father Adamsky (Olson) suffers visions of his own, such as holy water being turned into blood, as he attempts to bless the house and as he later attempts to save Sonny’s soul from the demon, which has taken control of him and which lead him to kill his family, during one particularly chilling scene, as a blank faced Sonny moves around the house, rifle in hand killing the members of his family one by one, while not even showing the slightest hint of emotion, in this recreation of the real life murders which the story is built around.
For fans of “The Exorcist” you might be able to detract from this film, for it’s exorcism like scenes, but personally I felt that it manages to bring it’s own spin to the idea, with a notably distinct lack of pea soup and more especially by bringing in the idea of a processed person, being driven to murder their family and how such a case would be seen in court, aswell as some still impressive transformation sequences, during the final confrontation between Sonny and Father Adamsky

The trouble with this film however is that, it never seems to know what sort of film it want to be, starting off as a family drama, as we see the dysfunctional family, trying to portray this image of family wholesomeness, only to then turn into a ghost story once the spooky thrills start, before then turning into a crime drama of sorts as we see Anthony threatening his wife with a rifle and even more so when Sonny kills his family, which in the lead up to those murders, the film is trying to busily turn itself into it’s forth incarnation as a possession movie, it almost had be shouting at the screen “Pick a genre already!”. Still somehow out of this jumbled wreckage of genre swapping, it still manages to be an entertaining film, even if this is your first introduction to the series, it stands well on it’s own or as part of the larger franchise.