The Evil Dead (2013)

The Evil Dead (2013)

First off, let me start by saying that this movie is not a remake. Aside from the cabin and the book of the dead it shares almost no similarities with the first one. Upon its release this movie was literally crucified by critics and common viewers alike. It seemed as though every hipster with a basic understanding of the English language and a MacBook had posted a whiny review about how it ‘didn’t stay true’ to the original. Well fuck, maybe that’s because it isn’t the original. Times have changed, cameras have improved along with special effects, and the need for an actual compelling storyline and characters has become a necessity. If you watch this movie, think of it as independent from the original; consider it a distant cousin or something. I understand that in its time the original Evil Dead was ground-breaking and it totally changed the horror genre, creating an entire generation of loyal fans, but times have changed. The steam engine was pretty fucking ground-breaking as well but we don’t use it anymore because compared to modern technology it fucking sucks. If the original Evil Dead had been released in 2013 everybody would shit on it as it subtly made its way to the bottom of the $5 movie bin at Wal-Mart.

Summary

The beginning of this movie is one of my all-time favorites. The opening sequence follows a young girl being chased through the woods by a pair of backwoods freaks. The ensuing chaos is one for the horror movie record books, I will leave it at that.

The film focusses primarily on the relationship of David (Shiloh Fernandez) and Mia (Jane Levy) a brother and sister with a less than perfect family history. Haunted by the death of her mentally insecure mother, Mia turns to drugs to relieve the pain. After she overdoses on what I can only assume to be heroine, her childhood best-friends Olivia (Jessica Lucas) and Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) stage their own little intervention and take her to the old family cabin located in the middle of fucking nowhere. Olivia, who is a registered nurse, is strapped with the tiresome duty of easing Mia through the process of kicking her addiction. Eric is a school teacher who is basically just there for emotional support, and David, who has been absent for the majority of Mia’s adult life, takes a literal guilt trip to the cabin with his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) and his old faithful dog Grandpa. Upon their arrival they are greeted with a little bit of attitude from Eric, which tells us that maybe David hasn’t been the world’s greatest friend lately. After only a few short hours in the cabin Mia’s behaviour pattern turns into that of a fiending drug addict.  She looks like shit (but still kind of hot)

Sexy can I?

and continuously complains about a rotten smell in the cabin. Un-surprisingly her friends refute her complaints, explaining that she is just extremely sensitive. Grandpa however is not so easily fooled.  He does some sniffing around and leads David to a trap door in the floor of the cabin. In classic horror movie style Scooby and the gang  David and his friends venture into the depths of the shitty cabin and discover an even shittier surprise in the basement. Hanging from the roof are dozens of rotting, animal corpses (mostly cats), and an extremely suspicious looking book wrapped in barbed wire and garbage bags. This strange discovery peaks the interest of Eric and he makes the brilliant decision to open and read the book, which clearly says “LEAVE THIS BOOK ALONE”. Eric’s curiosity results in a dark evil to be awakened, and after a strange rape scene involving Mia and some vegetation, people start dying.

Mia is a screamer

My Take

I really fucking loved this movie honestly, the special effects are beyond impressive and the sheer brutality of the film really drew me in. I was extremely excited by the fact that the subplot of the movie focussed on the relationship between David and Mia rather than David and Natalie.  I felt that the chemistry they share as siblings was very convincing and relatable. With two older brothers of my own I definitely empathized with David’s situation, and understood his reluctance to let go of his sister. David’s determination to save Mia’s life really brought his character to life. In addition to that, the movie broke new ground by pitting a group of best friends against each other, rather than allowing them to work together  to defeat impending evil. The demon who manifests himself in the form of David’s friends does an impressive job of playing on his weaknesses, transitioning from an insane, bloodthirsty monster to an innocent and confused victim in the matter of a few seconds. The story did have a few plot holes, and I will be the first to admit that. The slutty demon dialogue can be a little much to handle at times (although it does offer a modicum of comic relief), and I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t that much effort put into building the character relationships (aside from David and Mia). This movie is also no stranger to gore, but then again neither was the original. I didn’t feel as though the violence was over-done at all, but I did hear plenty of complaints about it as I left the theater. In my opinion the violence and gore were perfectly tuned to the movie. The action scenes are more than cringe worthy, and the special effects never even faltered in my eyes, which is pretty impressive considering the movie used almost no CG animation at all. The Evil Dead has definitely earned a spot in my horror collection, I would suggest that you give the movie a watch and do the same.

8/10

The Conjuring (2013)

The Conjuring (2013)

I was finally able to get my hands on a copy of this year’s highly touted horror film The Conjuring.  I’ve heard nothing but great things about this movie and admittedly, I was scared before I even started to watch it.  I wasn’t disappointed, but at the same time this wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.  I didn’t know anything about the plot going in, I just knew that it was a James Wan film meaning it was likely going to be terrifying. The most unsettling part of the film is the “based on a true story” tag that it proudly displays.

The Plot

Ed and Lorraine Warren aren’t your normal everyday couple.  They are a happily married team of Paranormal Investigators who pursue cases of haunting all across the country.  Ed (Patrick Wilson) is a renowned demonologist, while his wife Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) is a talented Clairvoyant.  The two form a very effective team having resolved hundreds of cases together, but their biggest challenge lies ahead in the form of the Perron family.  The Perron’s are a large family of seven, with two loving parents and five young daughters.  Terrible right, and I haven’t even gotten to the scary part yet.

It's called a condom Jackass!

One evening, while playing a game of hide and clap, one of the girls stumbles into a closet and discovers a hidden stairway to a dark and terrifying basement.  “Why was it boarded up?  Is it dangerous down there?” a normal person might ask.  Fuck it, its storage space now.  After that night, the haunting begins, subtle at first.  The youngest daughter claims to have a new imaginary friend, which leads me to wonder, “Why the fuck do little kids always befriend the terrifying demon?” 

Hello Friend!

 Two of the other daughters are experiencing difficulty in the new house as well.  One of the girls has taken to strolling the house in the dead of night, pausing only to bang her head rhythmically on a massive wardrobe.  The other see's a demon standing in her doorway.  Soon it is evident that something malevolent is going on.  Mrs. Perron however seems to be getting the worst of it.  She wakes up every morning with fresh bruises.  I know I wasn’t the only one giving Mr. Perron a long judging look, but apparently the demon is in fact responsible for the marks.

Yeah it was the uh, demon.  It donkey punched her I saw it.

  Later, while exploring the crazy terrifying new basement alone one evening, Mrs. Warren gets locked in.  The lights go out and she is trapped down there with the demon.  She is never the same afterwards, but she does have the foresight to seek the help of our beloved ghost hunting tandem.

And there ain't no Scooby Snacks!

My Take

This movie is scary as fuck.  It’s not quite as good as Sinister, which I could watch everyday, but it is definitely in the same league.  It has a similar feel to the Amityville Horror, which is cool because Ed and Lorrain investigated that case as well. 

The special effects were good.  The use of CG was limited in this film, giving it a more authentic feel, though the scene where one of the daughters gets dragged along the floor by her hair is a bit cheesy.  I loved the make up for the demons and ghosts.  Wan’s signature pale faced ghosts are always terrifying.  I liked that this film didn’t rely on “found footage,” but it could have used it a bit more in a few scenes to add jump scares.  This film has the makings to become a respectable cult classic, and it makes for one hell of a horror thriller. 

It still disturbs me that this film is based on a true story.  In one scene, the Warrens doing a presentation to an auditorium full of people, including Mrs. Perron.  The camera pans across the audience and right front and center is an elderly woman.  I was like who is this old bitch and what is she doing at a presentation about exorcism, shouldn’t she be put playing bridge somewhere?  It turns out this scene is a cameo, and the old woman is the real life Lorraine Warren.  Foot in mouth, respect to Lorraine Warren.   

Overall The Conjuring is an excellent film, worthy of the hype it received.  The progressive storytelling and chilling scares are very well done.  I really wish I would have seen this one in theaters to get the full effect of the scares, but even at home, this movie still holds up and manages to scare you.

Also this

8.5/10

The Lords of Salem (2012)

The Lords of Salem (2012)

It’s October, so I thought I would watch a newish horror movie to kick off my favorite month.  The Lords of Salem is the most recent, and unfortunately the final film to be released by Rob Zombie.  The musician has written and directed several movies in his brief cinematic career, each receiving different levels of praise.  Of his original pieces, both House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects were relatively well received.  He’s also directed both of the most recent Halloween movies.  I thought Halloween was very well done, but Halloween 2 was trash.  The kind of trash that doesn’t even make it to the garbage, it just sits beside the can for a couple days until a racoon or something drags it off into the woods.  For Rob Zombie fans, there are tons of recognisable faces in this film as Rob taps into his group of friends to fill out the cast for The Lords of Salem.

The Plot

We are greeted by a disturbing opening scene portraying a very cultish looking ceremony involving a bunch of dirty, naked broads (not in a good way) and a goat.  Smells like witchcraft, we are in Salem after all. 

Flash forward several hundred years and we are in modernish times.  Heidi, (Sherri Moon Zombie, Duh) is a radio DJ, working in Salem.  She and her fellow DJ’s run an alternative radio station that is open to anything.  On the way to work one morning, Heidi notices an odd tenant has moved into the creepy room down the hall, number 5.  Later that evening, after work, a strange wooden box is left for Heidi labeled “a gift from The Lords.”  Within the box is a vinyl record.  Heidi assumes The Lords are a local band trying to get some air time so she takes the record home and listens to it with her fellow DJ Whitey (Jeff Daniel Phillips).  The music is very strange and disturbing, sounding like it is being played with broken string instruments, though it has a profound effect on Heidi.  She slips into a kind of trance and begins to see some terrifying visions of witchcraft.  Once the music is stopped she snaps out of it.

The next evening the radio show has a special guest, a novelist named Francis Matthias, who wrote one of the many books about the Salem witch trials.  After a brief and awkward conversation with Matthias, the DJ’s decide to play the strange record for their audience.  They believe The Lords to be a local band, hence they refer to them as The Lords of Salem.  The music strikes a chord with the females who are tuned into the radio station, causing them all to freak out, similar to the way Heidi reacted earlier.  At home, Heidi continues to notice strange things around room 5.

We don't talk about what happens in room 5

Francis senses something strange is happening after he recognises the tune from a journal he’d seen before while researching his book.  He seeks out a specialist on the Salem Witch Trials for some answers.  The specialist reveals that the most prominent witch cult in Salem was referred to as The Lords.  They were sentenced to be burned alive by Rev. John Hawthorne.  As the head witch burned to a crisp she cursed Hawthorne, claiming his bloodline would be responsible for the birth of the Devil’s child. 

Meanwhile Heidi, whose real name is just so happens to be Adelheid Hawthorne, continues to see visions of the witches in her dreams, leading us to conclude that she is indeed of Hawthorne’s bloodline.

In case her dream about giving birth to a satanic worm didn't spell it out for you

Only Francis seems to realize what is going on, and worse still, the three older women who live below Heidi have taken a particular interest in her of late.  Only one thing is for certain, The Lords of Salem are back.

My Take

The Lords of Salem isn’t so much scary as it is unsettling and creepy.  The film is generally devoid of colour, helping to convey the dark and haunting tone.  I thought the first two thirds of the film were rather good, and I found myself really getting into the story. 

Unfortunately I generally disliked Heidi’s two co-hosts on the radio show.  I found them annoying and a bit too cheesy on air, but off the air I guess they were alright.  Honestly though, what were they thinking playing “The Lords” live on their show?  And after it creeps everybody out the first time, they play it again a couple days later.  The music was literally played on threads and sticks, hundreds of years ago by talentless witches.  I have trouble believing they would be able to play that horrible sounding garbage on the air multiple times.

Well maybe it's not that unbelievable

And it’s about time somebody explained why goats are so prominent in Satanism.  I’m not sure how credible the explanation is, but at least they tried.  I also got a kick out of the scene in the church, but for all of the religious people out there I’ll leave that to the imagination.

As much as I enjoyed the first two thirds of the film, I was a little confused by the last bit. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was seeing half the time, but I liked it.

Needs an explanation, won't get one

At first I was a bit disappointed in The Lords of Salem, but when I was explaining the movie to my girlfriend a couple hours later, I found myself getting very excited just talking about it.  I realize I really liked this movie, but I am nothing if not an honest reviewer, and so I have to try not to let my personal opinions get in the way, especially when this film is far from perfect.

The Verdict

It’s not one of Rob Zombie’s best movies, but it is far better than that atrocity Halloween 2.  This is a great film to watch on a dreary October day.  Make no mistake, it will not be winning any awards, but it is worth watching, and will likely be enjoyable for people who loved Rob Zombie’s other films (excluding that disgusting turd Halloween 2)

6.66/10