Evil Dead Rise

 Year:  2023

Director:  Lee Cronin

Screenplay:  Lee Cronin, based on characters created by Sam Raimi

Starring:  Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols, Nell Fisher

Running Time:  97 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Guitar technician Beth (Sullivan) goes to visit her sister Ellie (Sutherland), who is a single mother to teenagers Bridget (Echols) and Danny (Davies), and pre-teen Kassie (Fisher).  Following a minor earthquake, a hole opens up in the ground of the underground parking garage of Ellie's condemned apartment building.  Curious, Danny investigates and discovers an abandoned subterranean bank vault in which he finds three phonograph records from 1923 and a strange old book.  When Danny plays the phonograph records he discovers that they have been made by a strange priest, who has discovered one of  three surviving volumes of the Naturom Demonto, a book bound in human flesh and inked in blood, which has the power to resurrect evil demonic forces.  The priest thoughtfully recites these spells on the records, and the family soon find themselves assaulted by terrifying supernatural forces.

This is the fifth film in the Evil Dead franchise.  While Sam Raimi's original The Evil Dead (1981) was a fully fledged horror film, the sequel Evil Dead II (1987) was more of a comedy film influenced by Raimi's enthusiasm for the Three Stooges, and the third film in the series, Army of Darkness (1992), was pretty much a full on fantasy comedy with lead character Ash (Bruce Campbell) transported to the Middle Ages. In 2013 director Fede Álvarez released Evil Dead, a reboot of the series which returned it to its gruesome, horror original.  Evil Dead Rise continues this approach by being a full on horror film.  The blood doesn't so much flow here, as gush, pour, rain and flood.  It opens with a prologue, set in the familiar Evil Dead territory of a bucolic woodland, however the bulk of the film is set a day earlier in an unnamed rain soaked city.  The grim setting of a condemned, decaying, sparsely occupied apartment building works for the material.  It also takes it's time to set up the characters, particularly the tension between Ellie, a financially struggling tattoo artist, due to be evicted in a month, raising three children on her own, and her sister Beth, a freewheeling guitar technician, who is seen as the "cool aunt" by her nieces and nephews, but is frequently dismissed as a "groupie", a description which she angrily rejects.  It is Ellie who becomes possessed by the demonic forces, forcing Beth, who has just discovered that she is pregnant, to step into the maternal role and protect the children.  While there are some nods to the earlier Evil Dead films, this is a stand alone film, and can be watched even if you've ever seen any of the other films.  The performances are good, and the horror, when it comes in, is unrelenting.  It is graphically violent, in the best Grand Guignol tradition of splatter films, and will surely be a late night favourite for horror fans.

     Mother isn't quite herself today:  Alyssa Sutherland in Evil Dead Rise

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

 Year:  2022

Director:  Sam Raimi

Screenplay:  Michael Waldron, based on characters appearing in Marvel Comics

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg, Rachel McAdams

Running Time:  126 minutes

Genre: Fantasy

New York City:  Doctor Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch), the former "Sorcerer Supreme", is attending the wedding of his ex-girlfriend, Christine (McAdams), when a giant one-eyed, octopus-like monster starts rampaging through the city.  The creature turns out to be hunting teenager America Chavez (Gomez), who has the power to travel between the various dimensions of the "multiverse".  With the help of the current Sorcerer Supreme, Wong (Wong), Strange tries to save America from the unstable, and extremely powerful, Wanda Maximoff (Olsen), the "Scarlet Witch", who wants to steal America's power, which would mean killing America, and endangering the entire multiverse.

This is the 28th film in the ever expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) built around characters and situations from Marvel comics.  A sequel to Doctor Strange (2016), this also follows on from the film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and the TV series WandaVision (2021) both of which are heavily referenced.  The film was originally to be directed by Scott Derrickson, who made the first Doctor Strange film, but he left the project due to "creative differences", to be replaced by Sam Raimi, who had directed the pre-MCU Spider-Man (2002) and it's two sequels.  Following the negative response to Spider-Man 3 (2007), Raimi had vowed never to make another superhero film, but being a fan of the Doctor Strange comic, and enjoying the first film, he decided to take up the reins.  While this film, in common with the Spider-Man trilogy, has a dangerous, but almost sympathetic antagonist, the film really harkens back to Raimi's debut feature The Evil Dead (1982), and it's sequels Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992).  There is a scene with a flying eyeball, a cursed book with devastating powers, Ray Harryhausen-esque stop-motion style monsters and Evil Dead star and Raimi regular Bruce Campbell battling his own possessed limbs.  If you are already a fan of the MCU films already, then this has more than enough action, quips, special effects and references to satisfy any cravings, if you are not a fan, however, then this is unlikely to convert you.  If you have never seen any of the MCU films, then this is not a good place to start, it's very much tied in to what has gone before and lays the ground work for what is to come.    When the film breaks free of it's franchising building duties and is able to tell it's own story, it is a lively, enjoyable film, which gets better as it goes along.  The cast do the best they can with clunky, exposition heavy dialogue, and Benedict Cumberbatch plays it all with his tongue firmly in his cheek, Rachel McAdams, as in the first Doctor Strange, is wasted in a role that requires her to do little except run or stand around.  Elizabeth Olsen is very good as the traumatised, corrupted Wanda.  The film also has a number of fan-pleasing cameos, which point the way towards more crossovers, sequels and spin-offs.  The idea of the multiverse, which are basically different parallel universes, has long been popular in both Marvel and DC comics as a way for writers to manage the continuity of decades with of characters and stories, as well as providing a convenient deus ex machina for example, if you want to bring back a dead character, you can just have their counterpart from another universe pop up.  As I said, this is an enjoyable film, which at time suffers from overly complicated plotting and the need to tie in to so many threads from the larger franchise, as well as an over reliance on humour.  It's also surprisingly gruesome for a Marvel film.  It's probably one of their most violent films.  At it's best, it is imaginative, smart and exciting, and often feels like a comic come to life. As always with an MCU movie, stay for the end credits, because there are two additional scenes, one midway through the credits and one at the very end.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Benedict Wong in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

Horror Movie Marathon

Last night I was at an All-Night Horror Movie Marathon in a local movie theatre. With these events the experience itself is nearly as important as the movies themselves and so I decided to do a post encompassing all four of the films on offer. It kicked off at about 11:30PM with


BLUE SUNSHINE



Year: 1978

Director: Jeff Lieberman

Screenplay: Jeff Lieberman

Starring: Zalman King, Deborah Winters


This movie blends horror and action thriller elements. "Blue Sunshine" is a lethal strain of homemade LSD which was popular among Stranford college students in the late 1960s. However, it has an unexpected side-effect in that ten years later, users lose all their hair and go on a murderous rampage killing anyone in sight.

The film is pretty badly made and loaded with unintentional humour (for example one bald maniac is subdued by 1970s disco music which does briefly cause him to try to bust a move Travolta-style and a key clue is provided by a pet parrot). Zalman King (who bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Sean Penn) gives an earnest performance in the lead role. There is an interesting subtext here about respectable yuppies finding their youthful indiscretions catching up with them, but it's not really developed. The production values are fairly strong and some of the action scenes are well-handled.



At 1:30AM it was time for:



HALLOWEEN



Year: 1978

Director: John Carpenter

Screenplay: John Carpenter and Debra Hill

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance, P.J. Soles, Nancy Loomis



This film is one of the most influential horror movies ever made as well as being one of the most profitable independent films of all time. In 1963, in the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois, six year old Michael Myers (Will Sandin) brutally stabs his teenage sister to death on Halloween night. Fifteen years later, Myers (now played by Nick Castle), escapes from the asylum and returns home to Haddonfield for some more Halloween fun. Myers' doctor, Loomis (Pleasance), who has come to believe that Myers is pure evil incarnate follows him to Haddonfield determined to stop him by any means necessary. Meanwhile Myers takes to stalking a group of teenage babysitters, including Laurie Strode (Curtis).

Even if you would sooner have your eyes gouged out (by a maniac in a mask, natch) than sit down and watch a "stalk and slash" movie, Halloween is still worth checking out. Here, gore and violence are kept to the bare minimum while suspense is tuned up to the max. Billed as "The Shape" in the credits, Michael Myers with his blank white mask (in reality a painted Star Trek Captain Kirk mask) became a horror icon. Pleasance adds class and dignity to proceedings as the terrified but determined doctor, and Curtis makes a strong and affecting heroine. Interestingly, the film works much better at the cinema than it does on TV, due to Carpenter electing to shoot in widescreen, creating plenty of empty spaces around his characters for evil to lurk. In the early part of the film, before things really kick off, Myers appears as a half glimpsed figure standing watching in the distance or driving cars and trucks, making it feel like he could literally be anywhere.

Another important element to the film's success is it's creepy, memorable score which was composed by Carpenter.



At 3:30AM everything went to



PIECES



Year: 1981

Director: Juan Piquer Simon

Screenplay: Joe D'Amato and Dick Randall

Starring: Christopher George, Edmund Purdom, Lynda Day George, Frank Brana, Paul L. Smith

In Boston, 1942, a young boy messily dismembers his domineering mother when she tries to throw out his pornographic jigsaw puzzle. Forty years later, a Boston college campus is plagued by a spate of gruesome murders in which female students are found cut to pieces with portions of the body missing. The police officer in charge of the investigation, Lieutenant Bracken (George), decides to send in a female police officer, Mary Riggs (Lynda Day George), undercover in the college to catch the killer.
This film, which has become something of a cult classic now, is basically "Z" Grade trash which if it was better made, would be shockingly offensive on just about every level in the end it is impossible to take seriously. The movie is extremely gruesome with limbs being lopped off left, right and centre and it is loaded with unintentional laughs. Watched on it's own, and judged soberly on it's own merits this is pretty much unwatchable, but seen in the early hours of morning in a cinema packed with braying horror fans it becomes unmissable.

To be honest I probably laughed more at Pieces than I have at any other movie I have seen in theatres this year, with the possible exception of The Inbetweeners Movie.



Finally, at 5:30AM we came to



THE EVIL DEAD



Year: 1983

Director: Sam Raimi

Screenplay: Sam Raimi

Starring: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, Hal Delrich, Sarah York

This is one of the all-time classic cult movies. When Ash (Campbell) and his four friends decide to take a vacation in an isolated cabin in the middle of the woods, they discover a copy of the legendary Sumerian Book of the Dead along with tapes of various incantations from the book. When the kids play the tapes they inadvertently summon demonic forces lurking in the woods, which proceed to violently attack and possess the visitors, changing them into giggling, gruesome, murderous ghouls.

On it’s original release, the film was heavily criticised for it’s violence and gore. In Britain it fell afoul of the “Video Nasties” witch-hunt of the early 1980s. Seen today, the violence and gore are still extreme but also played for laughs. This has it’s severed tongue lodged firmly in it’s rotting cheek, although the film’s two sequels played the material more directly for laughs. Here, the square-jawed Bruce Campbell plays the role that would make him a cult movie icon and director Raimi works wonders with a low-budget. The film is loaded with energy and Raimi displays the talent that would go into his more mainstream work such as Spider-Man (2002) and it’s sequels.

It is a must-see for all horror fans.

Darkman

Year: 1990
Director: Sam Raimi
Screenplay: Sam Raimi, Chuck Pfarrer, Ivan Raimi, Daniel Goldin and Joshua Goldin, from a story by Sam Raimi
Starring: Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Larry Drake, Colin Friels
Running Time: 96 minutes
Genre: Superhero, action, horror, science-fiction, crime, thriller

Summary: Dr. Peyton Westlake (Neeson) is a scientist working on synthetic 'liquid skin'. However, one night Peyton is attacked in his laboratory by a mob led by vicious gangster Robert Durant (Drake) who enjoys cutting the fingers off his victims. Peyton's assistant is killed and the laboratory is blown up with Peyton inside. However, he survives, although he is horribly burned. After radical surgery in hospital, Peyton is left without the ability to feel pain, bursts of superhuman strength and also sudden violent rages. Escaping the hospital Peyton returns to his laboratory and resumes his work on liquid skin which allows him to impersonate anyone he chooses, as well as allowing him to appear 'normal' to his attorney girlfriend Julie (McDormand), who is also being romanced by billionaire tycoon Louis Stack Jr. (Friels). However, there is a severe drawback in that the liquid skin can only exist for a total of 99 minutes before becoming unstable and melting. However, Peyton now has the ability to take violent revenge against those who attacked him.

Opinions: This is a hugely entertaining superhero action movie with elements of horror, romance and humour. Director Sam Raimi brings the same energy and verve to this film that he brought to The Evil Dead (1983). The film was inspired by, and pays homage to, the Universal Studios horror films of the 1930s and also the pulp fiction heroes of the same period. The cast all perform very well, with Neeson in particular obviously having a great time in the central role. Horror fans will also want to look out for cameos from genre directors John Landis and William Lustig, as well as an appearance from Raimi regular and star of the Evil Dead movies, Bruce Campbell. Jenny Agutter also has a brief, uncredited role as a doctor in the hospital scene. The special effects are beginning to show their age now, but the action scenes are well staged and are genuinely exciting to watch. It's frequently very funny, but there are also some moments of real heart. Despite not actually being based on a comic-book the film does, at it's best, capture the feel and fun of them better than many other films. Admittedly there are very few surprises in the film, and you'll probably be able to work out what is going to happen well in advance. However, it is a well-paced, consistently entertaining action-thriller.
It's now become something of a cult film, and has been followed by, to date, two sequels.



Liam Neeson in Darkman