The Evil Dead (1981)

Watching The Evil Dead is like a sketchy one night stand. You leave from it feeling cold, pretty disturbed, mildly confused and subconsciously afraid that you caught something, but when it’s all said and done you had a good time. There were times when things were scary, times when they were funny and times when a whole bunch of bodily fluids were thrown about.

Going into this movie I really had no idea what to expect. I can’t remember why I originally wanted to watch it, but this flick has been sitting quietly on my Netflix instant cue for months. I knew it was one of those campy cult movies that launched the career of Bruce Campbell and that was about it.

I probably should have been more prepared.

What ensued was a myriad of extremely well shot scenes and set designs punctuated by an abundance of movie magic gore that tiptoed the boarder of terror and hilarity that I never even knew existed. Here’s the jist of things: five college age buddies plan on spending a weekend in a secluded cabin in the woods, they find an eerie book and some creepier tapes which they decide to play, demons are awakened and some pretty hairy situations ensues. It’s a pretty standard formula, but that’s only because I left out the parts about excessive Claymation gore, campy acting, lighting and set design that any indie move would be proud of and one more thing. . . oh yeah, rape by forest.

Seriously, I don’t mean to give out any spoilers but I feel somewhat obligated to mention this. Just saying, this probably isn’t a movie you want to watch on a first date or with friends you don’t know.

That being said, I really enjoyed this movie. I’m not a huge horror film fanatic, usually they are predictable and poorly executed (plus my roommates don’t like me asking them to share a bed cause I’m scared). But The Evil Dead isn’t a typical horror flick, granted there are moments that make you jump and get goosebumps, there are also time that you can’t help but let out an uncomfortable laugh. This is a cult film for a reason.

As far as cinematic elements go, this was one of the best things I’ve come across in a long time. The dynamics and movement of the camera, especially when taking the point of view of the demons, is awesome. The shots were just fantastic in how they chose to frame the scene.

The sets themselves were clearly that of a lower budget film but it did little to affect the overall experience negatively, in reality I think it may have been one of the most important parts of why this movie was good. The sets and lighting were very simplistic, which did a good job of prioritizing images on screen.

But possibly the most important part of The Evil Dead is its special effects, bring on the blood. This is a VERY violent film and its purpose is to gross you out a little. But not in the same way that computer generated images make the absurd possible in 1080p, this is a movie from the good ol’ days, when effects were hand made.

All in all, this is one of those movies that you are happy to have seen because of the obvious impact its had on the scary movie genre, but seeing it once is probably enough. I am going to give this an 8 out of 10, but please if you’re going to rent this make sure you watch it with an audience ready for some wackiness.

 

Changin the way things work…

I’ve noticed something, everyone and their mom has an opinion about movies. And the worst part about this is that everyone wants to tell you how good the movies they just saw are. In fact i just googled movie blog and got 60,900,000 results. I have to face the fact that very few people (if any) really give a whoot about my opinion on movies that they can just see for themselves.

So instead of just adding another voice to the cacophony of internet noise, I am going to change things up a bit.

Instead of seeing new movies in theaters every week, I’m going to start giving my take on movies that are older than I am, movies before 1988. I’m hoping that I can provide a new look into films that have been somewhat forgotten. This is going to be a twenty-something’s take one twenty-something year old movies.

Now I know that many people really have no desire to go back and watch old movies. But let me argue that you are able to appreciate  new movies so much more when you know where they came from. Now granted I will try not to pick movies so obscure that no one has ever heard of them, but I also don’t want to spend all my time reviewing known classics. Everyone knows The Godfather is one of the best films ever made, you don’t need me to tell you that, but what about the other films Francis Ford Coppola directed before that? I’m hoping that I can suggest great movies to you that may have been over-looked by time.

Megamind

The topic of choice for this week’s review is the animated movie Megamind from Dreamworks Studios. To preface this review I must say that I went into this movie with no knowledge of what it was about. All I knew was that the main character was a supervillian voiced by Will Ferrell and his nemesis, Metroman, was the ever hunky (even in cartoon form) Brad Pitt, getting me all flustered.

Critical Critique

The looks and production of this movie were what one could expect coming from Dreamworks. As far as animation goes, you can’t beat the master. Whenever Dreamworks does anything with animation you know it’s going to be the very best, and that’s saying something considering the level of perfection that animation currently sits at. Even in a film like Megamind, which is intended to air more on the side of the cartoon, you can feel a realistic quality from the animations.

However, while I was watching this movie I was constantly aware of the cast it had. I mean whenever a character spoke I heard the actor behind the voice. I was watching the interactions between Metro Man and Roxanne Ritchie but all I could hear was Brad Pitt and Tina Fey. Now I’m pretty sure this is just a result of me having seen countless things with these actors in them, but I’ve probably seen more of Will Ferrell’s work than anyone else in the cast and I would have never guessed that he was in this movie. Will Ferrell’s knack for voices allowed Megamind to have unique sound and that kept me more engrossed in the movie. This made me realize how important good voiceover work is for an animated feature. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that this was a poorly chosen cast, I don’t believe that this movie was trying to be an award-winner. This flick was intended to be a fun family comedy to generate some box-office cheddar, and being able to attach some A-list names to it can only help.

Entertainment Value

Going into this movie I really had low expectations. I was thinking it was going to be one of the tried and true boring recreations of other stories where the villain is just a misunderstood and misguided good guy who’s true character comes out at the movie’s climax and the day would be saved, romance won, heroism recognized, everyone happy. And I was right… kinda.

I’m usually pretty good at calling the plays when it comes to these types of movies. More often than not the sequence of events is just as easy to predict as the ending. But not this one. The plot took a ton of twists and turns to where I finally had to submit and quit trying to figure out what was going to happen next. It was really nice.

In the end, Megamind was a unique take on the classic hero/villain prototype, and while it was entertaining enough for an animated feature it wasn’t something to rush out and wait in line to see. Rent the DVD to “watch” on one of those stay in movie-date nights, it won’t matter if somehow miss a little. I would have to give it an 6/10.

Thought this was funny.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The movie I went to see this week was the latest Chronicles of Narnia installment, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, directed by Micheal Apted (who directed The World is Not Enough). This was also the first movie in this series to not be directed by Andrew Adamson (who directed the first two Narnian movies and the first two Shreks) which I think was a great move seeing as I thought the first two movies were an all-around let down.

Dawn Treader follows pretty much the same story line as the others, children are swept out of the mundane drag of everyday english life into a magical world under attack by an evil force with no origin. Many of the characters from the first three stories reappear on the Dawn Treader; including Lucy, Edmund and Caspian; but this time a new person is introduced to Narnia, Lucy and Edmund’s ever complaining cousin Eustace.  Together they set out to discover the source of a mysterious green fog that has been stealing people. Now even with this generic story line, I thought the movie was pretty good, you just have to keep reminding yourself it was meant for families and children.

As a “movie”

The production of the movie was particularly good. It was really well shot (not like a major motion picture would be recorded on a tripod and vhs camera). When a large amount of the story on the confined quarters of a boat, it takes a clever eye to set up angles and shots that will keep the visuals from being repetitive, and this movie did just that. The camera movement was pretty dynamic and there weren’t many times when the shots got boring (I mean it kept the attention of the dozen 6 year olds who sat in front of us better than a clown catching fire). One interesting thing I noticed was the use of steady cam throughout the film. The majority of shots were smooth and had nice tracking but every once and a while shots had a great deal of camera shake. This mostly happened when the evil green mist appeared and caused the characters to give into temptation, which I thought was cool. I thought the best shot scene was the transition into Narnia. The Children went from sitting in a room in England to swimming in the open Narnian ocean in such a fluid way that you couldn’t tell when the room actually disappeared.

Another neat part of this flick was the special effects, the bread and butter of these studio productions nowadays. Whenever I go into these fantasy movies I am usually skeptical that the director is going to portray the magnificence the way I’ve envisioned it in my head. Its hit or miss if the monster looks like a towering incarnation of fear, or Gary Busey in green make up. But Dawn Treader was really visually pleasing, even more so than the first and second movies. All I can say is; sea serpents are gnarly.

But what I was most impressed with was the casting. Now the casting of Georgie Henley as Lucy and Anna Popplewell as Susan doesn’t really pertain to this movie, but in this movie you are really convinced that they could be sisters. There are times when one of their face’s morphs into the other and you literally cannot tell what’s happening until you’re looking at an entirely different girl. But perhaps my favorite part about the cast was the role of Eustace Clarence Scrubb played by Will Poulter. This cat did a real good job in this role. At first he starts off as the annoying and whimpy kid who get pulled along on these adventures and he nails that part so well that one can’t help but hate him for being a nuisance. At the beginning of I LITERALY hated his face. I mean everything down to his tone of voice, posture and eye movement was right on mark. But even more impressive than that is the change he undergoes by the end of the film. His entire façade changes and you find yourself actually believing in that change.

Entertainment

Okay I remember that at some point when I was a kid I read these books, all of them, multiple times, and I remember thinking they were all around awesome. However, there is no way I could even tell you the names of the characters it’s been so long, so I’m sorry to those diehard fans of Narnia if I overlook the fact that the film version left out the “best” parts of the book. But that’s what movies do, they take the jist of books and spoon feed them to mindless masses that are too lazy to read for themselves, it’s the way of Hollywood, I’m just here to tell you if the gruel in the spoon tastes good enough to swallow.

And in this case I thought it was pretty tasty, all things considered. And by saying all things considered I mean keep in mind that this movie was made for families, and families with small children at that. So seeing as I’m a 22 year old male with some serious longing for sex and explosions in my movies, if you fall into the demographic of family you may want to disregard this rant. The movie was good for adults but it was made for kids, why else would you have a story with obvious monsters, fights and murders and not show a single drop of blood. Seriously no blood at all! There is a moment where a minotaur is swinging an ax at a man and the man simply bounces off. A FREAKING AX! That should have for sure cleaved a man in half in the goriest of fashions. This was one of the things I couldn’t stand about the first two. If I’m watching a full scale war between my favorite mythical creatures I want it to be raw as hell. At the very least everyone should bleed rainbows. Now I understand that for a little girl, seeing a unicorn being brutally clubbed to death may be a little too much, so that’s why I think some studio should remake the Narnia movies with an R rating. It’s not like Hollywood has something against reproducing the same story over and over and over and over again, and let’s face it Narnia could use some sexing up.

But if all you want is a nice retreat from reality and you can handle all the life lessons about being able to live comfortably in your own skin, this is a good way to spend a little under 2 hours. I would have to give it a 7 of 10

Hello world!

Hey guys look at me. I’m a blog. I’m just doing my part to add to the indistinguishable noise of internet commentary.

Please, enjoy.

!