Evil Dead Burn (2026)

JULY 10, 2026

GENRE: POSSESSION, SPLATTER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

As this review of Evil Dead Burn is one of the increasingly rare updates here, here's a fun little bit of HMAD lore: the 2013 remake was the first movie I reviewed after "retiring" five days before its theatrical release. The 13 years and change in between is more than double the amount of time the original "daily" run of the site lasted, and any review I post now could very easily be the last one I ever write here. Do I PLAN for that to happen? Of course not, I'll never give it up for good by design - it's just that life gets in the way, and it certainly doesn't generate income anymore, so I pretty much only post when I really want to get my thoughts out about a movie that got me thinking (like Obsession, or last year's Companion) or it's a franchise entry, because I'm a completist. If someone decides to kill a lunch break seeing what I thought about a certain franchise, I won't disappoint them by skipping one!

But even if this was an original, I feel I'd probably be inclined to write something, because I thought it was a damn good time at the movies despite two bad decisions (one franchise related, the other not) that threatened to leave me cold and indifferent. The "bad for Evil Dead" one was at the very end and I'll get into that later, but the other I feel I need to get out of the way early to save you time reading the review and also seeing the movie if it's a dealbreaker. So, SPOILER FOR FIRST 30 MINUTE STUFF: a possessed person kills the family dog. And while it's nowhere near as gratuitous as all the human violence we see throughout (which no one ever minds), there are a few quick shots of the poor pooch being stabbed, along with its whimpers as he takes the hits. If it makes you feel better he gets to come back as a Deadite, but it's still a pretty tough moment. However, I was warned about it beforehand, so it didn't play as much as a (negative) shock as it might to someone going in cold, especially someone who may have lost their own furry friend recently. So I feel it's one of those necessary spoilers, because it could seriously affect your ability to enjoy the rest of the movie and maybe if you're warned about it, as I was, it'll go down easier.

Because otherwise this is a solid addition to this series, and renewed my interest after the last two. While not without their high points, I felt both the 2013 remake and 2023's Evil Dead Rise suffered from a curious lack of escalation, instead offering a series of gnarly moments that were largely interchangeable and (especially in Rise's case) weirdly ignored after they happened. The heroes in that film would see something creepy, get hurt and/or run away, and then somehow sort of calm down and approach the NEXT creepy moment as if it was the first weird thing they saw. It kept the movies from ever really taking off for me; I found myself bored because there was no buildup or increasing intensity, instead offering the "and then this happens" kind of plotting that wore me out. That doesn't happen here; director Sébastien Vanicek (who cowrote with Florent Bernard) rarely lets the pace drag at all, and is constantly building up the threat and (naturally, since this is an Evil Dead movie) the amount of bodily harm our heroes endure as they try to stay alive.

It helps that, for a change, the Deadites actually have a clearly defined goal. The protagonists are the surviving family members of a guy named Ben Price who researched the Book of the Dead and Kandarian Demons and all that other lore stuff I barely pay attention to (which is to say I don't know if this guy was mentioned before. but the name didn't ring a bell), and apparently he found a dagger that could actually kill them. The Deadites, naturally, don't want such a thing to exist in the world, so they're basically trying to drive his grandson Joseph (Hunter Doohan from Wednesday) insane by killing off his family until he gives up the location of the dagger, which they all assume to be in their big isolated house somewhere. Is it the most complicated story? Hell no, but it's *something*, and gives the movie an energy the last two lacked, as the makers of those entries were seemingly more concerned with finding as many different ways to make trailer-worthy injuries as they could, without caring much about momentum.

Not that it lacks injuries. There's a moment involving an ear that I actually had to look away from for a second, due to my own ear issues (they get clogged super easy and I had numerous ear infections as a kid; to this day I almost never go underwater), and Vanicek has a particular love of having sharp things go through jaws, cheeks, etc. No one is completely covered in blood this time, but they all get tossed around, through walls, smashed on mirrors, etc throughout the film's slightly overlong 110 minutes. I also thoroughly enjoyed when he demonstrated what passes for restraint in a film like this; there's a terrific one take sequence where our protagonist makes their way around the house looking for a hiding spot as we see (sometimes not even in complete focus) three of the family members beating the hell out of each other in the background. And when a character is making their way down a chimney only to be caught, instead of watching yet another dismemberment (as we've seen plenty), the director cuts to the fireplace, letting us use our imagination a little as blood and viscera pour down over the logs below.

He tosses in a lot of great details like that throughout, more than making up for the occasional Raimi wannabe stuff (closeup shots of a dinner being prepared in the same quick-cut style of Ash preparing himself for battle, for example). I particularly liked when a Deadite stepped a bit on a corpse who had just been boiled alive, with their foot dragging away some of the skin and exposing the bone underneath (it's basically like when you step in dog poo and it smears a bit). And there's a mirror gag that is more of an homage to Contact than anything in Evil Dead 2. In fact fan service is incredibly/thankfully brief - there's a "Dead by dawn!" shoutout of course, but the only other big one is a picture of Bruce Campbell on the wall of family photos, which you could even say is more of a possible storytelling hint (is Ash part of this family?) than something that's there for no other reason than to make us nerds happy. Hell, they even successfully fake us out at one point, showing a chainsaw and then using a different construction item instead.

On that note, Vanicek is a big fan of payoffs! There's a Chekov's gun, a Chekov's pocket knife, a Chekov's prosthetic foot... it felt like a well constructed movie as opposed to a series of highlights, as everything is set up beforehand and put to use later. But my favorite had to be a gold pen, given as a gift to Joseph in the film's early moments when we're meeting everyone. The payoff is good, but it also made me chuckle, because anytime someone gives a character a fancy pen in a movie, my mind instantly drifts to Jason Takes Manhattan, when heroine Rennie is given what is apparently Stephen King's old pen. But that usual thought took on extra weight here, because this is an Evil Dead, and many a fan in the early '80s was inspired to check out this little independent feature because of King's infamous blurb in the marketing: "The most ferociously original horror film of the year!" And if Vanicek is a Friday fan, he is also probably aware that according to Jason Goes to Hell, the big lug is actually powered by the same Necronomicon that gave us the Deadites, so it all kinda ties together. Or it's just a pen that'll be used to harm someone. One of those.

Joseph is one of the movie's two main protagonists, with the other being Souheila Yacoub as Alice, Joseph's sister-in-law. His brother/her husband Will dies early on, which is why the family is together (another nice bit of Vacinek's: blood splattering the TV showing their wedding video as she fights his possessed parents for her life in the background), and it's clear early on that Will wasn't exactly the most loving and caring husband, nor did his mother approve of her. Being that this is an Evil Dead movie, it's not a spoiler to say she lives out the dreams of every woman who ever got put down by her mother-in-law by using more than words to fight back. But unlike the previous movie's rather dull "I don't want to be a mom but now I have to be" character arc, here we have an abused woman who is somehow seen as the real problem by his family, who believe him to be perfect. A dinner scene prior to everything going to hell via Deadites is just as tense as the horror stuff, honestly, as Alice butts heads with Will's parents and Joseph tries to keep the peace - it's like the dinner scene in Hereditary, which isn't the vibe these movies tend to offer and the film is the better for it. Over time we get the extent of what he put her through, and possessed family members even taunt her for being too weak to leave him, which gives extra weight to her standing up for herself in the here and now. And I like how the French filmmaker (he made the enjoyable killer spider movie Infested) paid tribute to his origins; Alice is French and in moments of extreme stress she (realistically) speaks in her native tongue, which again is just a nice touch that proves they were putting together a real movie here, not stringing together a bunch of "moments" that make it much less interesting to revisit.

Bonus: there's also a senile grandmother in the mix, who gives the movie most of its rare but mostly on point touches of humor. Yes it can feel a little Ready or Not-y at times (there's even a runner about Alice wanting a smoke, and a comment about her footwear that almost seems like an INTENTIONAL nod to RoN), but the movie I kept thinking of was Final Destination Bloodlines, which also offered a woman who was outcast from her dysfunctional family and a curse that has followed them for generations. I used to hold the impression that watching a family all get killed was too much of a bummer (as opposed to a group of friends, which is what the first film offered), but here it worked (except for the dog) just fine. And by giving equal weight to Joseph and Alice, there's a bit of "OK but who is our "Ash"? suspense that was also lacking from previous revivals.

But as mentioned, there is one blunder that I found just as hard to forgive as the dog, and the one that I felt was conduct unbecoming an Evil Dead movie. While digital effects are hardly a stranger to the series by this point, the entire climax revolves around a guy that is clearly aided more by computers than practical makeup, which bummed me out. It also committed the sin of leaving the house for a new location in the final fifteen minutes, something that always irks me as it deflates a lot of the buildup and makes the movie seem longer (which, again, at 110 minutes, it already WAS a bit too long). Maybe if this sequence took place at the house without a little break in between as they made their way from one location to the next, or if they left to give us a practical showcase that could have been cool even if they suddenly went to the moon, I could have been more forgiving. But having both seemed like a bad call to my eyes, and there's just no way I can accept such a CGI-heavy "final boss" in an Evil Dead. Indeed, I am convinced most of Rise's inflated good rep is because of its glorious chainsaw vs latex monster finale, so I can't help but think if they confined this junk to the first half I might have forgotten it entirely by the end if they putting their best foot forward right before the credits rolled.

Speaking of the credits, there are two extra scenes; one a little gag for this story, the other tying it into Rise (which is also how the movie starts, with that blonde girl at the lake). Since the 2013 one never got a followup, even though I didn't care much for Rise I'm glad they're finally trying to give this series some kind of continuity as opposed to just slapping the brand name on random stand-alone stories. Since this is literally the first time in the franchise's history I've liked one more than the installment before (honestly, since I never took much of a shine to Army of Darkness, it's my favorite since ED2), I'm kind of interested to see where it goes from here, as opposed to seeing it just because of the same obligation that has me still seeing Jurassic Park or Crow sequels. Well done, new team! Just leave animals out of it next time, please.

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Terrifier 2 (2022)

JUNE 13, 2023

GENRE: SLASHER, SPLATTER
SOURCE: STREAMING (PEACOCK)

As a slasher champion, and someone who prides themselves on seeing most genre movies in theaters, it may come as a surprise to you to learn that I didn’t even get to take part in Terrifier 2’s out of nowhere box office success last year. Once intended for a few weekend shows only, the strong showing encouraged the distributor to bring it back the following weekend, where it made even more money, prompting something closer to a traditional release. When all was said and done it grossed over $10 million, more than buzzy/studio backed genre films like Pearl and Men, and even some more mainstream fare – who would have guessed the return of Art the Clown would sell more tickets than a new film from George “Fury Road” Miller? It’s a remarkable success story, and everyone involved should be proud of that.

So why didn’t I join folks in buying a ticket? Well, a couple of reasons, the first and foremost being that I didn’t really like the original all that much. And while I’ve certainly gone to see sequels to movies I didn’t like (I just saw Transformers 7 in theaters, for example - but my kid wanted to see it, so at least I had a decent excuse for once), the other big hurdle for this particular film was its length: 140 minutes. Even the first one, at 80something minutes, felt padded and overlong, so that runtime just seemed like torture to me considering I wasn’t exactly counting the days for more of its world in the first place. Still, I was mildly curious to see what all the fuss was about, and wanted to support the cause and all, so I kept an eye on the local showtimes just in case one ever matched up with a period of time where I had over three hours (travel + trailers included) to devote to ANY film, let alone one I was on the fence about seeing anyway. The October release didn’t do it any favors; Terrifier 2 isn’t the first nor will it be the last horror movie I miss in theaters simply because the month keeps me too busy to find the time to venture out for it. It took me a month to get around to seeing Smile (which opened the week before) too, and that had the benefit of more theaters and genuine interest on my part.

But now it’s on Peacock, so that made it easier! It’s right there and all I had to do was remember that I have Peacock along with the 47 other streaming services that fight for my attention. So I finally watched it today and… well, I agree with most that it improves on the original in terms of character development. Lauren LaVera’s Sienna is a great “Final Girl” and it’s a blast to watch her go toe to toe with Art during the film’s climax – at one point he’s attacking her with a cat o' nine tails kind of thing only for her to grab it and start using it on him – that’s great! One of my (many) issues with the original was that it felt too episodic, as the would-be main character is killed halfway through and then it just keeps going with other people we didn’t get to spend much time with, making it feel unfocused and, kind of ironically, like it was over two hours long, as this film actually is. So to have an actual lead character this time around, and seeing her transform into a literal goddess badass, was a relief.

However, the sequel has the same main problem, which is that it’s simply far too dragged out. Every single scene feels twice as long as it needs to be, with extra bits that don’t add anything to the proceedings. When Sienna’s brother’s pals find a dead animal in the schoolyard, why do we need the extra time devoted to one of them scaring another classmate with it? When Sienna dreams she’s on a Bozo type show with Art as the host, why does it last longer than some actual short films when we know it’s a dream anyway? Even the action bits feel like writer/director Damien Leone wanted to double up on everything; Sienna tears part of Art’s face off at one point of their final act battle, which should be a sort of climactic move, but there’s still another twenty minutes to go. This extends all the way into the damn post credit sequence, which only needs to show the one thing that matters (that Art will be back for Terrifier 3) but has an extended conversation between two hospital employees about what kind of Halloween snacks they have. I don’t know if it’s an attempt at Tarantino-esque “let’s skip past the generic story stuff and just have these people talk about cool things” filmmaking, but in a movie where the kills are the calling card, it baffles me that Leone continually and needlessly leaves them spread apart by far too much downtime.

Not that wall to wall kills would be the way to go either – there needs to be a break so that such spectacle doesn’t wear thin. It just doesn’t need THIS MUCH of it. There’s probably a decent 85-90 minute movie in there, but it’s lost with the extra 45 minutes of needless blather. I actually laughed when Sienna’s mom freaks out about the aforementioned dead animal (which she believes is her son’s doing, thanks to Art), because she is stunned that he could do such a thing, despite Sienna specifically telling her earlier that the kid (who keeps looking at serial killer websites and such) will end up doing such a thing someday – I had to wonder if the thirty minutes in between the conversations had the characters/editor simply forget that it was already discussed.

That said, even if the character/story scenes were perfectly paced, I feel the movie would still be an entry in the “root for the slasher” sub-genre, to which I’ve never taken much of a liking. Not that the characters are horrible and people you want to die (indeed, the worst of the lot is Sienna’s mom, who is constantly aggro – the teens are all fine!), but there’s rarely any real attempt at suspense or scares. There are a few decent creepy bits, like when Art trick or treats at one girl’s house, but for the most part the MO is “how graphically can we kill this person?”, where you can practically hear the rowdy audience cheering Art on as he dismembers, slices, and occasionally even eats his victims. I’ve seen a million slashers with a crowd, and while there are certainly crowd-pleasing kills in some, the ones I prefer don’t have people hooting and hollering for *every* kill, as is clearly the intent here. Yes, Sienna is a good character, but she’s the only one that you wince for when they’re attacked by Art. And when that approach is spread across over two hours it’s just exhausting, at least to me.

So I dunno. Again, I’m happy for the film’s success, both for the team and for what it meant for other movies – there’s little chance I was later able to see Skinamarink or Malum in theaters if not for this film’s box office performance, as it proved audiences will show up without stars or big budgets (or even MPAA ratings, in this case). And it’s hardly a disaster or anything; there’s actually quite a bit to like as the kills are A+ on a technical level, the music is good, and the guy playing Art is an engaging presence. But after two entries, I think it’s safe to see that Leone and I are not on the same wavelength when it comes to pacing and (relatively speaking here) narrative for a slasher movie, and Terrifier 3 will have to be well south of two hours for me to even consider checking it out, theaters or not.

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Evil Dead Rise (2023)

APRIL 24, 2023

GENRE: POSSESSION, SPLATTER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I think I was about an hour into Evil Dead Rise when I realized why the film wasn’t working for me: like the 2013 remake (which I was also mixed on at best) it was aimed at the people who find Sam Raimi's first two films “cheesy” or “cheap looking” or whatever. On a technical level these two films – which admirably largely eschew digital effects in favor of practical ones – are flawless, no argument there. There's more money to play with, and it's all on screen, with professional actors to boot. But there’s simply no soul to these modern entries, and their relatively large budgets betray the whole appeal of the first film and its 1987 sequel: seeing what a creative and determined guy can accomplish with nothing (on the first one) and then seeing him truly cut loose when he had more money to play with the second time around. That is why the films make for such a great double feature (weird retconning aside due to ED2 not having access to ED1 footage): you’re seeing the progression of a filmmaker (and an actor in Bruce Campbell) on a technical level, while marveling that Raimi had lost none of his gonzo sense of humor in the intervening years.

But let’s face it: the story of the series is not particularly interesting. People read from a creepy book and supernatural forces come forward, killing all but one person, who usually grabs a chainsaw and takes out the immediate threat, but doesn’t stop it entirely. It's just an excuse to cut loose with whatever Raimi (or now, his successors) can dream up, and it's seeing that kitchen sink approach in action that makes them fun - when they're at their best, you truly have no idea what will happen next. Raimi seemed to understand the limitations of this concept, setting the third film in medieval times and turning it into more of a fantasy/adventure film than a traditional horror one, using our affinity with Campbell’s hero Ash Williams to smooth the wildly different tone and approach. For some it worked great – it’s their favorite one! I myself just find it OK, but there are others who wanted things to go back to the scarier roots of the first film. And to their credit, that’s what this film and the 2013 remake did – but they also seem content to recycle Raimi's ideas at the expense of coming up with too many of their own.

The biggest issue with this film (and the remake suffered from this too, now that I think of it) is that there’s no real sense of escalation or pacing. The first film certainly has its slower moments, but there’s a real buildup overall; every time another friend gets possessed things get more and more hectic until the final reel becomes just a nonstop frightfest, with Raimi’s camera constantly swishing around and Campbell being tortured with every turn. Here, writer/director Lee Cronin stages things more like a slasher movie for whatever reason; every time someone dies, there’s ten minutes of not all that much happening until the next possession occurs. And that might be fine if the other characters weren’t aware of the threat, but that’s not the case – the first possessed person makes their grand entrance to all four of the other characters right off the bat, which results in the film being repetitive on top of being poorly paced. A possessed person does something creepy (usually some sort of self harm and/or puking liquid everywhere) as the others watch in terror, then they run into another room of the apartment, regroup, make some kind of escape attempt that puts them in contact with the possessed person, who then does something creepy as the others watch in terror, then they run... you get the idea.

I mentioned the apartment, and that’s the other thing that kept the movie from ever really working for me: they totally waste the potential of the location. For the first time, one of these movies takes place in a big city (LA to be specific, though the New Zealand production obviously limits how much they can really sell us on that idea), with our heroes residing in a big apartment complex that is said to be falling apart and set to be torn down the following month. So one might be hoping for a real expansive romp around the building, like a modern update on Demons 2, right? Nope – we barely ever leave the protagonists’ apartment (and yet the layout for it remains hazy even by the end of the film, despite spending so much time there) and the only other people we see live directly next door. Don’t the other residents hear all of the commotion? Wouldn’t the Deadites roam around the joint looking for fresh victims to help when our heroes have themselves barricaded? I guess we can assume that the impending demolition has already scared off most of the residents, but since our heroes have two neighbors and we see several cars (not the Classic, however!) in the building’s shared garage before anything even happens, there should be at least a few others that could have gotten roped into the proceedings.

The lone exception is a millennial on the 4th floor (our heroes are on the 14th) who we meet as a possessed person in a flash forward prologue set in the woods, but she doesn’t show up again until the very end, showing how she got that way. This little bookend almost makes the movie seem like a prequel to the usual idea, showing how the Deadite force got from Los Angeles to the woods, and it’s rather pointless in the grand scheme of things, but I’ll allow it since a. otherwise we wouldn’t see anything exciting happen for a half hour and b. it has the only good joke in the entire movie, where a Raimi-esque “shaki cam” shot is revealed to be the POV of a drone one of the girl’s friends is using. But on the other hand, this opening suggests the movie will have a sense of humor, which it most certainly does not outside of a few darkly mean-spirited lines. The only other time I laughed was at an out of nowhere slam on the Freddy sequels.

Cronin also makes a miscalculation with his group of victims: a woman named Ellie and her three children, plus her sister Beth. Beth is a typical slacker type who fails to keep up with her sister’s phone calls, managing to miss that Ellie’s husband (and the childrens’ father) has left them, and she has just discovered she got pregnant during one of her (suggested frequent) casual hookups, so we have our character arc: she’s not exactly planning to be a mother, but thanks to the film's events she's going to get a rather intense crash course on being one! That’s fine, but not since Hereditary have I seen a casting director seemingly go out of their way to find people who couldn’t look less alike to play a family. There’s enough of a resemblance to pass the son and the younger of the two sisters as siblings since they at least have the same color hair, but otherwise it was honestly distracting – I kept waiting for some sort of explanation that they were all adopted or something. And Ellie and Beth don’t look anything alike either, so when the inevitable “I have to kill my sister” kind of stuff comes into play, it doesn’t land as well as it should – they might as well be strangers, since they barely interact prior to Ellie's possession. We also know that this big screen Warner Bros movie won’t be killing the little girl (or her protector), so that also betrays the “anything goes” spirit of the first film, where Ash wasn’t any more prominent than the other characters and thus had just as much chance of survival as they did. All of the neighbors are wiped out too early too, another thing that could have helped add some suspense to the proceedings. Sure, we know they're all goners, but the WHEN of it all can generate some tension. Alas, they all die within seconds of their first encounter with Ellie.

Weirder still, there’s not really anything all that inventive with the gore and violence. There’s a big scene set to someone chewing glass, but it’s not even as unsettling as the one in Oculus, a movie that wasn’t being sold on its gnarliness. Most of the effects involve the possessed person puking blood or bile or some kind of goo on another character, which is effective enough the first time but by the 3rd or 4th one might wonder why it is no one tapes the possessed folks’ mouths shut whenever they’re temporarily subdued. The only time it ever starts to feel like there’s a genuine IDEA behind a sequence is when Beth watches some slaughter occurring through the front door’s peephole, which leaves some of the carnage off screen and allowing a quick scare when a body is tossed back into the fishbowl style POV. I also liked the final form of the Deadite menace (I won’t spoil the particulars), the appearance of which is boosted by Beth and the little girl finally leaving their apartment for a change of scenery, but couldn’t help but wish it had appeared sooner. Plus, said scene is in the garage, which just reminded me that there were a bunch of residents who weren’t being utilized, an hour or so after the idea of “the Deadites infect an entire apartment building!” was suggested and never delivered upon. But for each of those scattered good ideas, we're given eye-rolling references to the others (including a "Dead by dawn!" chant), which I'm sure made someone with a Bruce Campbell tattoo cheer on opening night, but left me just wondering why in 35 years the best idea they could come up with is "what if someone else ALSO did this?"

So I dunno. It’s got good reviews and audience scores, and several friends have loved it, but it just didn’t work for me. I kept waiting for things to kick up a notch, but the final scenes (save for the aforementioned "final form" and accompanying obligatory chainsaw bit) aren’t any more intense or imaginative than the ones we saw a few minutes into the runtime during the prologue, and far too much of the movie is devoted to people simply giving “oh my GOD what IS HAPPENING?” kind of looks at the possessed characters (after a while I started wondering if Beth had some kind of Memento like amnesia, since she repeatedly seems shocked to see things she’d already witnessed in the previous scenes). And when it ended, I was aghast to realize that both Renfield and Pope’s Exorcist have more inventive examples of both splatter and dismemberment than this Evil Dead movie, which to me would be like if Ed Sheeran or someone like that was opening for Metallica and somehow managed to put on a more exciting show. Due to the lack of rules for Deadites (which is otherwise fine), it's hard to say what exactly makes this an "Evil Dead movie" as the evil force lacks a repeated presence (meaning a calling card "boogeyman" figure one could slap on mugs and T-shirts), and our new hero doesn't stand out. Even the remake knew enough to play with the idea of who the new hero might be, but here it's clearly Beth from the start and she is never given all that much to do until the final moments. So there’s no Ash (or "Ash"), there’s no cabin, there’s no Classic... the only thing left to live up to the title that they were coasting on would be the “splattery Three Stooges” type of physical action, but they kept dropping the ball and settling for restaging Raimi's moments far too often, content to coast on his ideas while bringing precious few of their own to the table. Just a huge letdown.

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Evil Ed (1995)

JUNE 7, 2017

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, SPLATTER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (REVIEW SCREENER)

I remember reading about Evil Ed in Fangoria back in the 90s at some point, making a note to see it as soon as possible because it sounded so much in my wheelhouse. Alas, the VHS version that was released in the US was cut, and I was too snobby to settle for such a thing, so I opted to wait until I found an uncut one. And then I just forgot about it, apparently, because I'm sure I could have found one by now thanks to having money and the know-how to import discs and such. Well, 22 years later, I've finally seen the movie thanks to Arrow's new Blu-ray, which is more uncut than ever, featuring a few extra minutes of (non-gory) footage and, of course, given a high-def/widescreen transfer to boot - it's as if I was meant to wait more than half my life to get around to seeing the damn thing.

Ironically, if I had to distill my thoughts on the film down to one word, it would be "dated", and so even with all the gore chopped out I probably would have enjoyed the movie more had I seen it in the 90s. The plot, for those uninitiated, concerns a mild-mannered editor who is used to working on art-house dramas tasked with censoring a series of slasher movies titled Loose Limbs, bringing them up to the standards required by the local ratings board. At first he wearily works on the films as "just another job", but then overexposure to all of the violent imagery starts warping his mind, resulting in a series of hallucinations and then murders as he goes more and more insane. Lots of old-school Peter Jackson-y splatter ensues. The filmmakers were taking shots at Sweden's censorship board, which was at the time one of the most strict in the world; interestingly enough the practice of cutting films was relaxed the following year, though I doubt Evil Ed was a factor in the decision.

But that just adds to the feeling that it's a bit past its time - censorship now isn't as big of a problem for horror and its fans. With more and more films going out unrated entirely (and the MPAA being more lenient in general), it feels like the time to take a stand against slicing the gory bits out of a slasher movie has long since expired (correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time they made a big stink about a horror movie was Hatchet II, seven years ago). This isn't a critique on the film's existence; just more of an observation, that I almost wish I was seeing the film now in "revisit" mode, as opposed to seeing it for the first time. There are some great gags that haven't dated at all - such as when Ed smiles proudly at a cut he made that renders a gore scene completely incoherent - but overall it felt like kicking a dead horse as opposed to standing up against some ongoing injustice.

(Note - if you are a filmmaker who has recently battled with the MPAA or any other ratings board, feel free to counterpoint, but please note I'm speaking in general terms. I do not doubt that there is still a problem with filmmakers being forced to hack up their films to appease a bunch of people who wouldn't see it anyway - it's just not something that makes the news as often as it did in the 80s and 90s when they were targeting Wes Craven and the Friday the 13th sequels seemingly out of spite. And, again, going out without a rating isn't as crippling as it used to be since newspaper ads aren't how these films get promoted.)

So without that niche appeal, it's just another "guy goes crazy and starts killing people around him" movie, albeit one with a more humorous and whacked-out slant than the average Shining wannabe. Ed's hallucinations aren't just of his friends/loved ones saying things that are only in his head - no, he sees possessed nurses, devils, and even a thing that I could best describe as a goblin version of one of the characters from ABC's 90's show Dinosaurs. His hallucinations START normally - he sees an old lady neighbor as a hot lady coming on to him early on - but they go full blown gonzo by the midpoint, which was a fine surprise. Not only is it obviously more interesting to look at, but it also showcases more of this next-to-no-budget film's surprisingly strong FX and makeup work, which more than makes up for the time capsule-y feeling. Let's not forget that by this point in the 90s, CGI was already starting to take over even in lower-budgeted horror films (1995 was the year of Hideaway and Lord of Illusions, among others), so it was already time to start appreciating the films that were still doing it the right way.

But it also feels like they didn't have quite enough for a feature with their initial concept, so the film takes an odd detour for its climax, as Ed rampages around a hospital while a bunch of SWAT type guys try to take him out. This allows for a lot of bonus gore, but also feels like you're suddenly watching a sequel to the movie you watched for the first hour or so. And not just any sequel, but one made by a new creative team, as the whole "horror movies drove him crazy" focus feels like it's no longer even relevant. It's entertaining in its own right, no doubt about it, but as a whole the movie feels a bit cobbled together from a bunch of ideas as opposed to something more cohesive. As a result I felt kind of exhausted and ready to move on, which is a bummer when being presented with top notch prosthetic work (and a very game performance from Johan Rudebeck as the title character, who reminded me of an older Toby from The Office).

Arrow's blu-ray is, naturally, aimed more at folks who already loved the movie (and were likely aware of its narrative shortcomings), and I can't imagine a scenario where they will be disappointed. In addition to two cuts of the film, there are two extensive documentaries (one running over three hours) and lots of new interviews with director Anders Jacobsson and the simply named Doc, who edited the film. Apparently they've been working on putting together this special edition for over six years now, so it's clearly a labor of love and it shows - I particularly liked the footage of them hunting around for deleted scenes (and a quick bit where Doc almost accidentally cuts up the film's negative!). I actually learned how to use a flatbed editor back in college and it gave me a world of appreciation for those who cut full films on it since doing a 5 minute short was hard enough, so seeing it in action (both here in the bonus features and in the film) gave me pleasant memories of the simpler days of being in college. Some additional deleted scenes and other outtake type material is also present, though as it was all in Swedish (with subtitles) and extensive I didn't get through it all, since I would have to keep my eyes glued to the screen instead of just listening to the interviews while I worked as I normally would. Multitasking is the only way I survive, really.

I'm happy I finally saw the film, and would happily keep it in my collection if I had a regular copy of it (I only got a screener disc in a blank plastic sleeve, i.e. nothing I would put on my shelf), as it'd be a fun one to throw on at parties given the extensive makeup and gore highlights. Arrow's set does it a justice it's never been afforded for over 20 years, and I'm happy for Jacobsson (who has only directed one film since, sadly) and his crew as they clearly worked hard to get it out there both in the '90s when it was made, and now where it can be properly seen for the first time. I wish I liked it a bit more, but not as much as I wish I was finally owning a proper copy of an old favorite that would have blown my mind when I was 15. Oh well.

What say you?

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Cabin Fever: Patient Zero (2014)

AUGUST 4, 2014

GENRE: SPLATTER, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I don't know why Image/RLJ is putting Cabin Fever: Patient Zero into theaters (or at least, A theater) beyond, I guess, the ability to say it was a theatrical release when selling it elsewhere or marketing to someone. Maybe it was a contractual thing? It's certainly not because of the quality - it's technically proficient and boasts some pretty terrific FX courtesy of Vincent Guastini, but the script is laughably bad and the concept flimsy; at times it manages to make the average DTV movie look good. So if you absolutely must see this thing, watch it on VOD or Blu-ray where it belongs - don't shell out $12.50 like I did, with the minor optimism that it was getting this shot because it deserved it.

I mean, it certainly couldn't be the name brand alone that got it there, right? Eli Roth's original was over a decade ago, and it wasn't exactly a trend-setter - his next film, Hostel, was the one that helped launch a wave of similar films; I don't recall being inundated with "Cabin Fever ripoffs". And the first sequel was fun but released without much fanfare due to the well publicized production issues (with director Ti West wanting his name off the film, for starters), making it hard for me to believe that the words "Cabin Fever" have the same drawing power as, say, "Hellraiser" (another series that curiously got back its (barely) theatrical mojo with its last installment). And it doesn't seem like a very lucrative gamble - there were 4 others in the screening with me (the one show this theater - the only one in Los Angeles showing it - offers per day), and even less over the weekend when my friend Joe went - he said besides him and his friend, the only other person in the theater was incredulous that they watched it, only to reveal he was the father of one the actors which is why he "had" to sit through it! Hah!

Furthermore, if it's the name brand they're banking on, why the hell did they make a movie that barely feels like a Cabin Fever movie? It's definitely the same flesh-eating virus, so this doesn't appear to be a case of someone slapping a franchise name on an unrelated movie like the Italians used to do. The first two may have had different sensibilities and influences, but they were both Troma-ish with their gleeful application of the humor and gore blend, keeping actual scares to a minimum in favor of gooey fun. Not the case here; beyond a somewhat amusing catfight between virus-stricken ladies that are literally tearing each other apart (sadly shot in the dark so you can barely appreciate the carnage), there's nothing really fun about the movie at all. Considering that the plot is about a bachelor party gone horribly wrong*, it's insane to think that the movie never really has any of the debauchery that the other films reveled in - even the pisspoor (and way too obvious) attempt to match the "fingerbang misfire" scene from the original lacks any perverse joy. You're just wondering when they'll get to the obvious reveal (one of our heroes goes down on his girlfriend, who already shows signs of infection. Guess what happens when she climaxes?), and probably even let down that they only offer a shot of his face instead of the, er, infected area (come on, you know Eli woulda had 3 cameras on that thing!).

And those are the only highlights! The rest is pretty tame and not particularly interesting or exciting. The subtitle refers to Sean Astin's character, whose family has been ravaged by the disease (off-screen, before the movie began) and seems to be immune, which prompts a couple of scientists (including one that has her cleavage exposed at all times, another thing that SHOULD be exploitative fun but just seems like a jackass producer making a suggestion no one questioned) to quarantine him and run tests to see if his blood can provide a cure. Meanwhile, our hero is being taken to his bachelor party by his brother, his best friend, and a female childhood pal who is with his brother but clearly has her sights set on him. The party is nothing more than sitting on a virgin beach and drinking beers/smoking weed, which is not only kind of lame in conception but also lame for a horror movie about a flesh eating virus - there are actually fewer people here than in the first film (to say nothing of the well-populated sequel). There is a brief hope that they will just bring the virus to the wedding and let havoc be wreaked, but nope - the bride and everyone else at the wedding is written out almost as soon as they are introduced. I guess at one point this was pitched as "Hangover meets Cabin Fever!" but somewhere along the line any notion of fun or even all out chaos was dropped. I'm sure they didn't have a blank check, but even if they were forced to limit how many infected victims we see, they didn't have to keep what was left from being fun.

Here's what they DID keep (assuming there ever WAS any idea of doing more, of course): our heroes (brothers) fighting over a girl, generic drama about the hero abandoning his best friend/business partner to work for his father-in-law (the specifics of either job are never made clear), a convoluted "twist" about how the virus has been spread, an endless sequence where two of our heroes walk through dimly lit tunnels and encounter what appear to be zombies, and even an honest-to-God "old gypsy woman forewarns of danger" scene. The latter is a particular eye-roller, it's the equivalent of smashing a fruit cart in an action movie car chase, or running to the airport in a rom-com - at this point it's practically passe to even make fun of such things, let alone try to do it straight. Jake Wade Wall has never written a good movie (his best is the 2007 Hitcher, which was so close to the original they had to list Eric Red - who had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT - as a co-writer instead of the usual "based on" credit you'd see in a remake), but a lot of this is terrible even by his standards.

Another issue is that there's no real reason for keeping the two storylines separate, as there's no twist to the moment where they finally converge. I spent a good chunk of the movie assuming there was some Saw II style scenario where we were seeing one present timeline and another that occurred days or even weeks before, but no - when the bachelor party guys stumble across Astin and the scientists it's clear that their respective events have been occurring more or less simultaneously. So why are they kept apart for as long as they are? When the guys are heading to the island they spot the building on the opposite side from their destination beach, and it's quite clear that it's the medical facility, but yet the movie doesn't actually "reveal" that for another 45 minutes. Part of the problem with both storylines is that they're way too underpopulated, with four characters each; at least if they were combined earlier (there's only like 20-25 minutes left when they meet up) there could be some additional tension as alliances are created or shattered. It might have also allowed them to reveal their stupid twist in a less clunky way (without spoiling it, as the credits roll we get a bunch of flashbacks poorly explaining how ____ was able to manipulate the others, though WHY this person is doing it is still unclear).

All of the above is more disappointing when you consider that everything that isn't the script actually ain't all that bad. The acting is fine, director Kaare Andrews stages some solid sequences (particularly the opening, slo-mo bit with Astin reacting to his dead family), the score has a touch of Ravenous to it (awesome!), and again, Guastini's FX are terrific. The underlit photography aside, there's nothing technically wrong with the movie (great titles, too), but it's all in service of a script that is convoluted for no reason and focuses on horribly vague characters, not to mention not very likable ones. Most of the characters in the original were assholes too, but the sense of humor made it work - we liked seeing them get what was coming to them, when applicable. These guys are just jerks, but the serious tone makes me think I'm supposed to be a bit concerned for their well-being. Even when it DOES get a bit exploitative, like the catfight, it doesn't feel like anyone's heart is really in it.

So we have a wholly unrelated sequel (CF2 had a few returning characters, if you recall - this doesn't even take place in the same country) with a tone that is a complete 180 from the others, making me wonder who exactly this movie is for. Won't CF fans be annoyed at the lack of humor, not to mention weirdness? Where's this movie's "Pancakes!"? Is it a prequel to the others, since the virus appears to be new? If so, why set it so far away? I know there's a fourth film (seemingly with a different creative team; Wall is not writing, thankfully), so maybe that will bridge them together more successfully, but will anyone show up to find out? I can't imagine, 12 years after the first film and 4-5 after the not-loved 2nd one, that anyone will be salivating over another entry after this one. Not every horror fan shares my OCD obsession with sticking with franchises until they are completely done (if I can stick around through all 11 Puppet Masters when I've only liked 2 of them, I can certainly get to a 4th Cabin Fever). Horror fans may be more forgiving than with other genres, but even we have our limits.

What say you?

*Also the plot of Hostel III. I guess this is just what you do when making threequels to Eli Roth movies. Least we know if Thanksgiving ever gets made they have a story to end the trilogy!

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Return To Nuke 'Em High Volume 1 (2013)

MARCH 23, 2014

GENRE: MUTANT, SPLATTER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Overall, my biggest complaint about Return To Nuke 'Em High Volume 1 is hinted at in the title - this is very much a volume 1 in that it just sort of stops at one point, without any real climax to tide us over until volume 2 comes along. Kill Bill definitely works better as one unit (and no, simply watching volume 1 and 2 back to back isn't the same - there's a small but key difference in "The Whole Bloody Affair" that makes the whole thing work so much better), but it had that big showdown at the restaurant, and the inciting action for volume 2. This has a weird sequence with some action, but hardly counts as a showdown, and then the movie just sort of hangs out with itself for another 15 minutes before the titles roll. Maybe if we had a firm release date for Vol. 2 (which is in post) it'd be less of a bummer, but leaving us in limbo is mean-spirited!

Because otherwise, this is actually a pretty delightful romp that lives up to other modern Troma productions and, in my opinion, easily tops the original Nuke 'Em High, which is one of my least favorites. I'm no expert on their stuff, mind you - I've only seen about half of their films (I don't count the ones they picked up; only the ones Lloyd directed himself or at least had a heavy hand in production), but of those this seems to be the most consistently entertaining and on point in quite a while. The benefit of splitting it up is that it would have been 2.5 hours or so, which sounds ridiculous but in reality isn't too farfetched an idea: Terror Firmer is 2 hours, and I feel I walk away from nearly all of their films saying that they were too long. This clocks in at a perfect 85 minutes, enough time to let the story (such as it is) breathe a bit, but without lagging all that much or going off on pointless tangents.

I truly enjoyed how it updated the scenario and more or less stayed in continuity with the original film (which we are given a brief recap of early on, earning a huge laugh by skipping over the sequels), even if it's sort of a remake. The school has been rebuilt and the power plant is gone, with a food conglomerate (Tromorganic) taking its place and offering healthy alternative food that is seemingly just made out of the leftover toxic waste. It doesn't take long for the student body to start turning into mutants; after a few isolated incidents (including a terrific sex scene gone awry, with melting bodies and such) the Glee Club is turned in its entirety into Cretins, and the usual sort of awkwardly paced but gloriously insane Tromatic carnage begins. It's been a long time since Kaufman helmed a feature himself (I believe Poultrygeist was the last one), and as I've said before - the movies he makes for the company are almost always infinitely better than the ones they pick up or that he merely produces (Cannibal: The Musical being a rare exception), so you know you're in good hands.

The humor is also on point; there are some truly tasteless jokes about Sandusky and the Colorado movie shooting, but as with South Park, pulling punches in some areas just make the other jokes more offensive in a way. I was laughing pretty often, particularly at the "so idiotic it's brilliant" bit where a bit of foreshadowing is followed by the shadow of a number 4 on a wall. I also particularly enjoyed the pair of teachers who are inexplicably arguing about Justin Beiber, pause to look at a burning student running down the hall, and then continue their argument. As always, you have to be in the right mood for it, but some of their films don't even work when you ARE in such a state, so when they nail it, it's worth noting.

It's also, I think, Lloyd's first digital film, and I'm happy to say it actually looks better than a few big budget digital films I've seen (Kaufman > Mann), not to mention offers more vivid colors than usual - all the better for any scene involving dismemberment or puke. The plot may be gibberish (and incomplete), but any scene taken on its own has every dollar of its meager budget on screen, qualifying it as a success. The only drawback: I was kind of sad to see that the shitty Troma logo has been retired in favor of a new high def one - why did they splurge when it was part of the charm? But fear not - even if it matches worse than usual, we still get to see the Kabukiman car flip, and everything else about the film lives up to Troma tradition (Lemmy pops up, male nudity is as common as female, Toxie makes an appearance...). It's a fine mix of old and new, and since digital is cheaper/faster (not better!), it proves to be a good fit for the brand.

I say that because as always, the extra features aren't exactly congratulatory - most of them focus on things that went wrong, Lloyd getting annoyed at one crew person or another, etc. There are three such pieces, and while they skip over the film's actual production (presumably being saved for Volume 2), it's almost amazing they got that far considering how many issues arose with figuring out effects, casting (poor Asta Paredes, the star of the film, is seen having to test chemistry with about a dozen actors. Translation: making out with a lot of random dudes), and having to use an old morgue as the film's production office. The two commentaries (one with the cast, the other with Lloyd and select crew) back up these issues with even more stories, thought it's not in an angry or bitter way - everyone seemingly knows what they signed up for and are proud of the finished result. In short, the tracks are fun and useful; there's no better way to learn about filmmaking than being a PA, and these tracks can give a glimpse of what you can expect if you wish to join the Troma team on their next production (if they ever came to Los Angeles, I'd probably do it). A quick teaser for Volume 2, a music video and a highlight reel of Lloyd's other films round things out - it's not as jam-packed as other Troma releases, but again I assume they're saving some of the meatier behind the scenes stuff for Volume 2.

Hopefully the 2nd installment comes sooner than later; not only am I legit excited about seeing it, but I suspect it'd be easier to sell audiences on this one if they knew when they'd get the rest of the story (The Hobbit made more money than it deserved, but I wonder if it'd have done as well if audiences weren't told in advance when parts 2 and 3 would be arriving). It's the first time they've attempted something akin to a serialized narrative (previous Troma sequels, such as Toxic Avenger 2, can't even decide if they're direct followups or parodies), and I'd love to see it pay off - maybe it can get Anchor Bay or someone to back an Avengers-style teamup with all the Troma heroes in one film (instead of quick cameos), offering a true celebration of the past 30+ years of their specific brand of demented horror comedy. With Lloyd pushing 70, I fear he'll retire without ever getting to make a true Troma epic, with a crew of passionate fans that have also had the benefit of 10-15 years' worth of DVD/Blu-ray special editions to prepare them for the less than stellar working conditions that have led to underwhelming productions in the past. I think it'd be glorious.

What say you?

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Ogroff: The Mad Mutilator (1983)

MARCH 7, 2013

GENRE: SLASHER, WEIRD, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (FRIEND'S COLLECTION)

Part of the HMAD "process" is to look around online (usually just the Wiki and IMDb pages for the film) and watch the bonus features for every film I can, because I like to know where they were coming from, if the movie was compromised, etc. Surely you can watch The Crow 2 and just hate it, but maybe if you know that Dimension had about 30 minutes cut out of it you can cut it some slack. However, some movies maybe shouldn't be researched, and should just be experienced without any knowledge about their creation. Ogroff The Mad Mutilator (aka just plain Mad Mutilator) is one such film - I suspect that if someone were to come forward with a tell-all book about its production, I'd tell them to keep it. I don't want to know*.

For example, early on a woman is tied up for a while by Ogroff, seemingly not wanting to kill her for whatever reason. He then goes off and kills some chess players that are just chilling in the woods, and then comes back and casually kill the girl as well. Why would I ever want to know the logic behind any of this, and ruin what, when in the right mood, is pure bliss? Even knowing the age or biographical information about the director would ruin things. Is he a 14 year old? An elderly man who had been raised by wolves? An actual psychotic? I don't want to know! Nor should you - you should let the magic that is Ogroff just pour over you.

At this point I should mention that I watched the film with my good friends Phil Blankenship and Jackie Greed, who have been invaluable and supportive of HMAD pretty much from the start. Phil of course has been the programmer for about 75% of the "Revival Screening" entries, and we can thank Jackie for just about all of the "Screener" copies since most of the studios tend to ignore me (can't blame em, really), and they only watched a few minutes of this a while ago before deciding they couldn't continue without me. It didn't take long for me to see their point - the movie seemingly begins somewhere in the middle, with a family on the side of the road in some isolated locale. The dad is seemingly just taking a piss, but the kid has wandered off and the mom is standing around near the car, so either the dude has a huge bladder or the car is actually broken down. And that would be fitting, actually - you notice the three genres at the top (four if you count French), but there's also a vampire in there somewhere, and it fits splatter and exploitation as well (not to mention is almost assuredly an independent production). Why not add "breakdown" to the mix?

But really, it shouldn't be considered any genre, as it creates its own. Ostensibly an attempt to cash in on the early 80s slasher craze, the movie is loaded with so many other things (including a bit where a girl seemingly falls in love with Ogroff) that by the time it's over the slasher element is a distant memory, since it ends with Ogroff on a motorcycle, swinging an axe and trying to rescue his lady from a priest that turns out to be a vampire as zombies wander around in hastily edited cutaways. Any continuity that exists between shots is seemingly accidental; things like closeups of someone inspecting a car's engine are inserted between wide shots of a different area entirely, and at one point a corpse seemingly regains the head that was chopped off earlier. There's a ton of gore, but apart from one pretty cool axe in the face, it's beyond cheap - usually you just get Ogroff swinging his axe (which he masturbates at one point) around at random, clearly not hitting anything, followed by an insert of said axe hitting what appears to be a pillow that has a blood pack inside of it.

Only the legendary Disconnected even comes close to hitting this movie's levels of WTF and endearing batshittery, but if I were to watch back to back I'd come away thinking Disconnected was technically flawless in comparison (Things would be another one to add to this mix). Ogroff wisely keeps dialogue to a minimum (6 or 7 total lines, and I'm not excluding incidental "No!" type stuff, because there isn't any) as the movie was quite obviously shot without any sound, and whoever was responsible for creating its soundtrack wasn't... how you say... good. Music just stops and starts at random, foley FX are way out of sync (and sometimes mismatched; a sledgehammer hitting a car door has broken glass sounds, later the sound of him hitting the actual glass is accompanied with a THUNK), and at one point we hear wild jungle sounds for a while despite the fact that the scene takes place in a French forest. The music is particularly special; imagine Carpenter's infant nephew fucking around with his Halloween II era keyboards and you'll have the right idea for most of it, but some 60s jazz drums get tossed in on occasion for good/confusing measure.

And an idea is all you CAN have unless you have an all region player, as the movie has seemingly never been released on US shelves, which is unfortunate (hey Intervision - get on this!). If you're all-region equipped, I highly recommend it if you have an affinity for this sort of thing. Now, I know what some might be thinking - yesterday I watched a movie that was just as inept (actually, not even AS inept), so it makes no sense that I'm championing this while damning that one. But here's the key difference - Bloody Jack lacked that je ne sais quois (hey, I get to use that term about an actual French movie for once!) that makes things like this, Things, and Disconnected so special. It's not just a bad movie - it transcends that term and becomes its own unique, wonderful thing that I'll never forget, whereas the Bloody Jacks of the world begin to fade before I've even finished watching them. I can forgive bad a lot easier than I can forgive being boring, I guess is the point to take away here, and after 6 years it's probably a good idea to start making a few of those instead of just aimlessly rambling all the time.

What say you?

*The DVD did have a bonus feature that appeared to be a retrospective by some of its makers, but they were in French with no subtitles, so that was of no use. We did, however, watch the "Diaporama", which was a collection of behind the scenes stills that proved they did have a camera and a crew of at least two.

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Creep Van (2012)

DECEMBER 17, 2012

GENRE: COMEDIC, SPLATTER
SOURCE: DVD (SCREENER)

A lot of independent splatter horror films pay homage to the Troma films that inspired them by having a shoutout to Lloyd Kaufman, either in the form of naming someone Kaufman or having Lloyd himself pop up in a cameo. Well, Creep Van offers both, as the lead character's boss is named "Mr. Kaufman" and Lloyd plays an angry customer at the car wash that he runs, which should be enough to convince you that if you're not usually the target audience for Troma fare, you should probably avoid this one as well.

At times it seems that director Scott W. Mckinlay (working with screenwriter Jim Bartoo) is more interested in the more comedic elements of his story than the titular van, as for every (rather brief) kill scene we get about 10 minutes of the hero dealing with his loser life: he lives with his ex girlfriend, who flaunts her new lovers and berates him at every turn, he has no car and thus has to take the bus everywhere, which costs him a few of his dead-end jobs, and he seemingly has no friends (there's a hilarious bit where he tries to bond with his coworkers that I found particularly awkward/wonderful). This stuff is fine, but the ratio between it and scenes of the murderous white van killing random folks is heavily skewed to the former; I'm not sure if it was a budgetary thing or their attempt to give the film a little more merit than a string of interchangeable kill scenes, but either way I found myself getting impatient at times, watching him argue with his ex or track down a missing duffel bag filled with marijuana.

Luckily, the kills themselves are a delight, with plenty of variety to keep what's essentially a slasher movie with a van from getting too repetitive. I love The Car (the best scene in which is more or less recreated here), but all it did was run folks over, if memory serves. This has a lot of that, plus seatbelt crushings, windows going up fast enough to slice a face off, etc. The kills are occasionally (poorly) enhanced by CGI, but there is enough practical work here to give it a thumbs up in that department, and the Syfy monster movie approach to victims (i.e. they are introduced just to be killed) eventually paves the way for something a little closer to a regular slasher, with the car going after folks we know. Plus, the car isn't haunted - there's an actual killer driving it, so there's even a little more variety near the end when he gets out of the driver seat more often.

On that note, he's represented through closeups of his hands and such for the bulk of the movie, making it seem like a whodunit slasher or something - hope no one else is as disappointed as I was to discover that it was just some guy. Since the van does most of the killing, I can't help but wonder why they didn't just make it a supernatural entity that didn't even need a driver (let alone one that would exit the car and behave like a standard menace), but I guess it would then be too close to The Car or Super Hybrid (not to mention Blood Car, which similarly focused on a love story and a hero who was a bit of a loser). But that seems like the extent of their thinking: "Let's give the car a driver so it's not too close to those other movies!" Well OK, but give the guy some dimension!

Another thing I admired was the downer ending, which escalates nicely from a surprise kill with about 10 minutes to go and doesn't get any easier for our heroes, all the way up to the end titles. With the goofy tone and sweet natured hero, it could have seemed unearned or unnecessary, but in this case it worked (partly because the hero's puppy dog nature was annoying me by this point so it was kind of funny; like the vegan character being eaten by dogs in See No Evil). Sure, maybe something goofy/funny would have made more sense, but why bring logic into a movie about a killer van?

The regular DVD apparently has some commentary and other bonus features; I wouldn't mind listening to the track if it was loaded with insight (as opposed to a "that's my friend, that's my cousin, that's my old high school" type track that might as well include laser pointer graphics). I'd particularly like to know why one scene was shot in California when the rest of the movie is shot in Detroit, as it was early on (before I had identified the Motor City) and was thus kind of excited about a killer car film in my neck of the woods (and would DEFINITELY be interested in production stories, since shooting as much as a single shot for a short film can be a lengthy endeavor given our awful traffic). Since I was mixed (but closer to positive) on the movie itself, a peek inside their creative process and what they were going for might have helped elevate it to total win.

What say you?

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Dead Sushi (2012)

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

GENRE: COMEDIC, WEIRD
SOURCE: STREAMING (ONLINE SCREENER)

Roughly an hour into Dead Sushi (Japan: Deddo sushi), the enemy gains a new power, to which a character yells "Things have reached the point where they no longer make any sense!" The joke is, next to nothing about the movie has made any sense so far, making this line the final bit of evidence that we aren't supposed to take any of it seriously, and instead should just enjoy the total insanity and laugh at/cheer for whatever comes next.

Of course, if you're just not into these things, I highly doubt that or any other line would have much of an effect on you. Even I have rolled my eyes at some of them, but I'm happy to say that this one hit the spot, providing 90 minutes of nutty entertainment without ever really boring or annoying me. And it was perfect timing for it; I'm stressed out trying to get ready for Fantastic Fest (I leave Friday morning), behind on the site thanks to an influx of late arriving Blu-rays I needed to review (none of which could count for my daily new movie), and it's the busiest time of the year at work as the new fall season is launching. A challenging, cerebral horror movie would likely make my head explode - this one has a disembodied head fly across the room and "land" on the owner's girlfriend's own head for an impromptu/disgusting "make out session". But I wouldn't expect any less from Noboru Iguchi, who gave us a few other entries in this "Robo Fart Ninja Zombie" genre, after a (seemingly abandoned) career in adult films where he gave us classic titles like Beautiful Girl on The Toilet 2 - Secret Excrement.

The movie throws a new curveball at us every few minutes, keeping it engaging and never too repetitive, at least with regards to the antagonists. The movie takes place in and around a spa/restaurant, which obviously isn't too big of a locale, so you see a lot of the same rooms and hallways over and over, and the structure never strays too far beyond having two or three people realizing they're in danger, running from the threat, getting stuck, and then one or two of them will get killed in gory (but silly) ways. Then we cut to another trio and the same thing happens. Eventually there's one hero and one villain left standing, and they have a hand to hand fight that wouldn't seem too out of place in any comedically charged martial arts film, except I bet this is the only one that ends with one of them being kicked out of a window, flying several hundred feet above ground, and then exploding.

But the titular sushi keep changing. They fly, they form weaponry, they possess corpses, they even sing at one point ("Any sushi that sings can't be all that bad.") - it seems any nutty idea anyone had would find its way into the movie, somehow. There's even a humanoid sushi - the film's human villain injects a serum and becomes a fish-man, who uses found weapons (great use of an ax) to add to all the carnage. And I particularly liked when two of the sushi began having sex against a tree, resulting in a spawn of baby flying sushi that swarm around like insects.

Plus it's entertaining even during the non-sushi scenes, a big help as some of these other movies are overloaded with rubbish subplots (Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl comes to mind). This one stays focused on the main story of a wronged man seeking revenge against his former employers (via... sushi), with the few diversions being character based, such as the "tragic" (read: hilarious) back-story for one of the male heroes, where we learn he accidentally stabbed his wife to death during a cooking mishap and is thus now afraid of knives. Of course, when his flashback ends the person he's talking to points out that there's a knife rack nearby, and thus the movie resumes being frantic and silly as he begins freaking out until the knives are taken away. Definitely not a "for your consideration" moment, at any rate.

My only real complaint about the flick (raising concerns about its lack of a coherent plot would be besides the point) would be the obnoxious sound FX, where characters can't even reach for a pair of chopsticks without an accompanying WHOOOSH sound. Some of them aren't even in sync properly, making it sound cheesier and sloppier than it already did. They dial it back a bit as the film goes on, but in those early scenes, where I was still unsure if this was going to be worthy of my limited time, it was a near fatal flaw. But it recovered, and before long I was giggling frequently, eyes widening as things got more outlandish and the blood splatter (a mix of practical and CGI - fine) kept coming.

Needless to say, if you're not a fan of this particular brand of "horror movie" from Japan, this certainly won't be the one to change your mind. Then again, I think they are an acquired taste of sorts; I find myself enjoying each one I see a bit more than the last (though I admit I might enjoy this one more than Vampire Island simply because it's 30 minutes shorter). It's just a shame that I had to watch it on a screener because it didn't appear likely that I'd make any of its FF screenings due to conflicts (or simply not being there), as that would be the ideal setting for such a thing. Then again, maybe that's a compliment - I was able to enjoy the film by myself on a tiny monitor, which means it'd probably be even better in the appropriate setting. So if you've only seen one or two of these things, unless you've downright hated every second of them, give this a chance when it comes your way.

What say you?

P.S. I wrote this review a few days late as is, and planned to format/post when I next had some time, but when that time came, the review was gone. So now even more time has passed, and my brain is fried from seeing 20 movies in between. Thus, forgive the fact that this writeup is a bit vague. Blame Blogger.

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The Toxic Avenger: Part 2 (1989)

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

GENRE: COMEDIC, MUTANT, SPLATTER
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

I'm sure there's an audience for The Toxic Avenger: Part 2, but I can't say I'm part of it, finding only the barest of bare minimums' worth of entertainment in its bloated 103 minutes to keep it out of the crap bin. Not that I loved the original by any stretch of the imagination, but it had an odd charm and a fun spin on the revenge plot, a far cry from this rubbish, which is little more than a series of barely connected sequences in which Toxie takes on a bunch of random villains over and over.

And no, that's not a typo - this fucking thing is 103 minutes long (Casablanca is 102 minutes, just to make one unfair comparison), despite a plot that boils down to "Some guys want Toxie to leave Tromaville, so they send him to Japan for a while until he comes back." Apparently there's a 96 minute cut out there, but it's missing all the gore, which is one of its few saving graces. I wish I could tell you to seek out the shorter one if you absolutely must watch it, but alas it would actually be a bigger waste of your time, as some of the FX are kind of impressive.

I can also give it this much: there's a fun variety to the bad guys he fights ad nauseum throughout the film. In the film's endless opening sequence he battles an American Indian (as well as the other Village People personas), some 1930s gangster-looking dudes, a giant that is dressed like Super Mario, a midget Mr. T type guy... the costumer on this movie must have had the most work to do. And this motif continues once he goes to Japan, with Kabukiman, samurai dudes, etc all taking their turns being brutally murdered by our hero.

But the fights are dull - they all amount to someone trying to kill Toxie by running at him, maybe swinging a weapon as they do, before he grabs them and rips their head off or impales them with a nearby object. Worse, director Lloyd Kaufman is more interested in humor than actual horror violence, which means if you don't find cartoon sound FX and over the top mugging from hero and villain alike to be particularly amusing, you're going to be shit out of luck with this one, as every single fight is peppered with shit that would probably embarrass Friedberg & Seltzer. Especially when everything in between is even worse - scenes of Toxie wandering around Tokyo (lot of fish out of water "humor") or talking to either of his two love interests (one of them another blond woman who is blind, but not the same one as the original) are about as dire as they come. Worse still are any scenes where the villains are discussing their evil plans, which make little sense even for a Troma movie and are played by the film's worst actors. At one point the villainess even explains what happened "in the first movie", despite the fact that this is supposed to be a direct continuation (meaning, it's not like Halloween III where they watch Halloween, as it's established as a separate movie-verse).

To be fair, there are a couple of funny lines here and there, usually in the otherwise grating voiceover from one of the two actors who play the character this time (neither of them are the guy from the original). I liked his observation that he knew he had to be half-Japanese because he always had non-American urges to work hard and not live off of credit cards, and there's an inspired bit (probably stolen from something) where someone quotes Shakespeare and the person they're addressing offers "Fuck you!" and attributes it to David Mamet. With roughly 1000 more lines like this, the movie could have been tolerable.

But alas, it's just an endless series of not particularly exciting or funny sequences, culminating in a car chase between Toxie (in the back of a taxi) and the villain (named "The Black Rider" - second one this week!) that's about as low-key as you can imagine for the climax of a movie. That the Black Rider is an out of nowhere villain that we have zero association with is the least of its problems (though it gave me unfortunate flashbacks to last month's pathetic Bourne Legacy), but at least there's a couple of car explosions along the way to break up the tedium.

I later learned that the film's first cut was nearly four hours long, which would explain the half-assed "ending" of this one - it's basically the halfway point of a movie. The 2nd half was turned into Toxic Avenger III, which I guess I'll suffer through soon enough just so I can see how his uninteresting fight against the evil corporation all plays out. At least that one's a minute shorter, so I'm already more likely to prefer it.

What say you?

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