Evil Dead (2013) - Fede Alverez

Okay, so this movie is really hard for me to put into words. When I first heard about the possibility of there being another addition to the Evil Dead franchise. I couldn't wait. I wanted to see it ASAP. When I found out that it was going to be a remake I was pretty disturbed. How could someone come in and trample all over what Sam Raimi had done? Then after seeing it and hearing all of the background. I realized that Evil Dead was amazing. It was really good. Not a remake in itself but a more of a re-quel. A remake and a sequel. This movie acts as a reboot for the series but it is also officially Evil Dead 4.

David, Eric, Mia, Olivia, and Natalie all travel to a cabin out in the woods to help Mia kick her habits. While at this mysterious cabin they run into the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis aka. The Book of the Dead. While Mia goes through withdrawals the young adults unknowingly unleash demons. Blood thirsty demons that like to play deadly games. The plot points remain the same as the original but the characters are different. Everything else has been updated including the gore, which is pretty gruesome.

This movie makes great use of duct tape. It's in nearly every scene. These little details are littered throughout the movie. It's chalk full of Easter eggs that pay homage to the classic. The acting isn't horrible and the changes that are made are just fine. The filmmaker knows just what the audience is thinking and leaves you wondering how this actually fits into the Deadite spectrum. Is Ash Williams still out there? Somewhere? In a cave? Maybe.

I can stomach most of the new characters. Except for Jessica Lucas her character was a B. The new main character, Mia, is pretty interesting. She is a drug addict who becomes possessed by the Deadites after she falls victim to the woods. You know what I mean. Eric, the dorky blonde guy that acts as a human pincushion and punching bag. I felt bad for him. A good deal of the movie felt like the Passion of Eric. The other characters play out roles like the ones in the prior films.

I loved this movie. I went into it totally against it. However, early in I thawed. I watched it for the first time at a drive-in. They don't have many of those anymore. Even there, the movie was terrifying. Great update and really intriguing. I highly recommend.

Director: Fede Alverez

Starring: Jane Levy, Lou Taylor Pucci, Shiloh Fernandez, Bruce Campbell
Country: USA

Style: Demonic Possession Survival Horror

Did ya know...

If you take the first letters of the main characters David, Eric, Mia, Olivia and Natalie, the letters spell out DEMON.
In the scene where the broken necklace is found outside of the cabin, it can be seen resting in the shape of a skull, just like in the original.
Mia is seen sitting on THE 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 in the beginning of the movie.

Ju-On (2000) - Takashi Shimizu

Watching Japanese horror is similar to watching British comedy. If you enjoy dry whit then you probably enjoy the boys of Monty Python in drag. That's the joke, they're dressed like women. Get it? Well, that's British humor. But if you're like most Americans you probably prefer Adam Sandler farting his way across a football field and hooking up with chicks that are way out of his league. Americans usually prefer this more in your face, crass brand of humor. My point is funny in England is different from funny in the US. The same goes for J-Horror. What the Japanese consider scary is very different from what Americans consider scary and it shows in this horror film. Japanese horror is generally slow (a little too slow sometimes), suspenseful and creepy. Ju-On is a creepy effing film. The movie has almost no soundtrack. It is incredibly suspenseful and the pay-offs are pretty awesome, but I think that it was done better in the American version (cultural t...

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Le Diable au Convent (1899) - George Melies

Le Diable au Convent is longer than the two previous Georges Méliès ventures into short form horror. This particular French short shows the Devil himself running a convent and terrorizing the poor old nuns that live there. However he is finally vanquished by the good of Faith. This is yet another Méliès classic, showcasing the art work that really goes into his short film-making. This is one of the earliest examples of a horror movie that could rely on its elaborate set design and artistic design. Everything in this film, although horribly aged, has been packaged extremely well. If you are a fan of production and set design then I would highly recommend just about anything that Melies has his name on. Though nothing that is considered too extreme actually happens, Satan does have his way with a convent. The satanic imagery itself must have kept this film on the traveling carnival circuit. It certainly wouldn’t fit into the good moral bag that society shoved i...

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Spookies (1986) - Genie Joseph, Thomas Doran, and Brendan Faulkner

It's impossible to get a decent movie when you take two films and just squash them together. That is essentially the story of how this movie came together. The film started as Twisted Souls. However, according to the financial backer they didn't have enough horror. So they ended up hiring another guy to come in and add a monster in virtually every scene. This movie started out being directed by Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran. It basically is the tale of two sets of teenagers that arrive to a strange building surrounded by a strange cemetery. It was your usual tale of teenagers in a big hows with a few monsters. Then they brought in Genie Joseph and added even more. Like a haunted birthday party, a murderous cat-man, zombies, and an old wizard. It really became a smorgasbord of horror with a very thin plot-line leading it around. This movie is hard to summarize in a conventional way. It just packs so much. The most interesting part of this movie are ...

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