Ash (Bruce Campbell) gets whisked away to medieval times where he is immediately enslaved and sentenced to die in a pit fight with some Deadites. He easily kicks loads of ass and pretty soon everyone is calling him “The Promised One”. In order to stop the Evil Dead from haunting the King’s castle, Ash has to go on a quest to retrieve the Necronomicon. Whilst removing the book from it’s unholy cradle, Ash fucks up the magic words (“Klaatu… Barata… Cough… Cough… Cough!) and it doesn’t take long before the dreaded Deadites are trying to break down the castle walls. Luckily, with a little 20th century know-how Ash is able to fend off the Army of Darkness and return to his own time. (If he can ever get those words right.)
Army of Darkness is the best film in The Evil Dead trilogy. This is not a popular opinion. I know I am in the minority on this one, but for me this is the most balls out fun movie in the series. Not only is it the best of the Evil Deads; it’s also one of the greatest movies ever made. (It’s Number 4 on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of All Time List in between Fight Club and Halloween.) This movie rocks and it rocks HARD. It’s ten times funnier than most comedies and features enough movie in-jokes to make your head spin. (Everything from The Three Stooges to Jason and the Argonauts to Gulliver’s Travels to The Manster to The Day the Earth Stood Still is referenced.)
In addition to the wide range of film references, director Sam Raimi mashes up a whole bunch of genres and hits the PUREE button. There’s horror, sword and sorcery, comedy, and even a little romance too. Army also features more action than you can shake a stick at. Throughout the movie Ash battles monsters in the pit (the part where he leaps in the air and his chainsaw lands on his stump is priceless), gets attacked by miniature versions of himself, fights his evil double, gets sucked into a vortex, gets assaulted by an evil book, and goes to war against an army of skeletons. Raimi films all of this with his usual manic energy and the results are one Hell of a breathtaking, non-stop, hilarious, good time.
Most reviews I’ve read of this film always whine that there isn’t as much blood as the previous films. Umm… HELLO didn’t you see that great big geyser of blood when that one guy got pushed into the pit? That scene alone featured three times the amount of blood than the first two movies combined. This scene also gives us a pretty good severed head and a disembodied hand, so I don’t want to even hear these petty gripes about the lack of gore.
What makes Army of Darkness standout from the other films in the series (besides the bigger budget that is) is that Ash actually has a character arc in this one. He just isn’t being repeatedly assaulted by the undead (well he is, but still). He goes from being a loudmouth, to being a coward, to finally, a hero. Bruce plays all of these facets of his character extremely well; particularly in the scenes where he acts like a complete jackass to people.
This movie also has the most quotable dialogue than any film ever conceived by the human mind. If you don’t quote the following lines aloud in casual everyday conversations, then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with you:
“Well HELLO Mr. Fancy Pants! I got news for you pal; you ain’t leading but two things right now, Jack and Shit. And Jack left town!”
“All right, you primitive screwheads listen up! You see this? This is my BOOMSTICK!”
“Now I swear… the next one of you primates, even touches me…”
“First you wanna kill me… now you want to kiss me… BLOW!” (This is particularly effective on first dates.)
“Yo She-Bitch! Let’s go!” (Again, great to use on a first date.)
“Gimme some sugar baby!” (Likewise, a golden statement for a first date.)
“Good… bad… I’m the guy with the gun.” (Good for a night in
“That’s just what we call pillow talk, baby!” (In fact, nearly everything Ash says in this movie could be said on a first date.)
“Say hello to the 21st century!” (Which is fitting since we’re actually in the 21st century now.)
And of course the immortal, “Hail to the king baby!”
You can tell that Raimi was particularly proud of his dialogue because during the closing credits, his (along with his brother Ivan) screenwriting credit appears before his directing credit. I’d be proud of that shit too. Raimi went on to direct the Spider-Man trilogy. They were great and all, but none of those movies captured the sheer awesomeness of this flick. It’s truly one of the greatest movies in the history of the human race.
Army of Darkness is Numero Uno on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of the Year 1993.
<Tomorrow’s Horror Franchise Movie: Psycho (1960)>
Yesterday I was kinda complaining that Evil Dead 1 was hard to review. Well, Evil Dead 2 is twice as difficult. I mean I have seen this thing (literally) about 100 times. You’d think I’d be able to properly analyze it by now, but no. This is one of those movies that doesn’t need to analyzed. It just needs to be seen. Yesterday I described the first film as a rollercoaster. If that’s so, then Evil Dead 2 is a G-Force simulator.
Let me clue you into how great this movie is. This month when I’ve reviewed these horror franchise films, I’ve done so with my laptop on my lap, typing notes here and there before finally polishing up a full review. I did absolutely nothing while watching Evil Dead 2 except just sat there and enjoyed it. Even though I’ve seen the film a hundred times, director Sam Raimi still kicked my ass.
There are so many great scenes in this movie. How about when Ash’s zombie girlfriend’s head falls off during a ballet number? Then the head comes back and attacks him. While trying to deal with that unfortunate situation (in the “work shed”), her headless corpse comes after him wielding a chainsaw.
Then there’s the classic scene where Ash’s hand gets possessed and starts hitting him with plates so he cuts it off. Then it gets loose scampering around giving him the finger and causing him more grief. Or how about when Ash gets trapped inside the fruit cellar with a grotesque demon named Henrietta? (“I’ll swallow your soul!”) Or when he slams the door on her head and sends her eyeball flying? Or when he hacks up a possessed guy that spews green gunk everywhere? Not to mention the scene where everything in the cabin starts laughing at him. Or the part where the woods comes to life and attacks a chick (although not on par with the spectacular forest raping from the original).
Then of course there's the scene where Ash attaches his trusty chainsaw to his arm stump and utters the immortal line, “Groovy!” before doing battle the witch Henrietta. And the scene where he chops off her head before blowing her away. (“Swallow this!”) And that’s not even counting the awesome set-up for the sequel either.
Again, Bruce Campbell plays Ash but this time out he’s given some macho dialogue that perfectly compliments his ever-growing acts of heroism. (“You’re going down!”) As with the previous film, he gets every sort of blood, bile, vomit, and gunk shot into his face about every fifteen minutes and he does so like a goddamn pro. That’s what makes
Then there’s Sam Raimi, The Michigan Madman who films the movie like a jackrabbit hopped up on No-Doz. There is every kind of crazed camera shot in the book in this movie, along with a couple Raimi had to personally invent to fit his extreme vision. The man is a fucking genius pure and simple.
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn is an assault on the senses. It’s not scary exactly, but it’s disgusting, hilarious, and strangely enough; quite beautiful. Not only is it one of the greatest horror movies ever made, it also happens to be one of the greatest FILMS of all time.
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn is Numero Uno on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of 1987.
<Tomorrow’s Horror Franchise Movie: Army of Darkness>
Here’s another horror classic that somewhat hard for me to review since I’ve only seen it about a bazillion times. I mean how can you put your finger on what makes The Evil Dead so great? It just is. You don’t watch The Evil Dead as much as you experience it. They don’t call it “The Ultimate Experience in Grueling Horror” for nothing folks.
Everybody knows the plot: Five people go to a remote cabin in the woods where they find the Necronomicon, The Book of the Dead. They play passages from the book on an old tape recorder and awaken evil spirits in the woods that possess everyone except for Ash (Bruce Campbell). Armed with a shotgun and a chainsaw, Ash fends off attacks from his ghoulish, white-eyed, zombified friends and tries to stay alive through the night.
Director Sam Raimi made this sucker on the cheap and gave us one of the greatest horror films of all time. His crazy camerawork would go on to be copied in numerous films, but nobody can handle that Steadycam like The Master. The Evil Dead also introduced the key ingredients of the franchise namely: Scenes of possessed women floating around and telling everyone that they’ll die, the chainsaw, decapitations, and Bruce Campbell getting hit in the face with every form of bodily fluid known to man.
The Evil Dead also gave us one of the most unsettling scenes in the history of mankind. That’s the scene when Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) gets raped by the woods. And I don’t mean near the woods, I mean BY the woods. On top of that we have the gnarly No. 2 pencil into the ankle scene, the part where the possessed chick bites off her own hand, eyes getting gouged out, bodies being totally dismembered, and Play-Doh faced zombies rapidly decaying until coleslaw comes out of their sleeves and demon hands emerge from their back.
And how fucking great is Bruce Campbell in this movie? While I prefer his interpretations of the character more in the later films of the series (you know, when he became the wisecracking know-it-all), he’s still awesome here playing the more kindler, gentler Ash. Plus, nobody and I mean nobody can take gallons of bile to the face like
Mostly though, the first Evil Dead belongs to Raimi. Once he begins cranking out the scares, the movie never lets up. It’s easy to forget just how creepy this movie is (my favorite creepy moment is when Linda starts chanting, “We’re gonna get you” over and over again), especially next to the two increasingly cartoonish sequels. With The Evil Dead, Raimi devised one gore-soaked rollercoaster ride that deserves it’s place on the short list for the greatest horror films on the planet. Incredibly, Raimi actually managed to top it four years later with Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn.
The Evil Dead is Number 2 on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of 1983 list, just below Return of the Jedi and right above Scarface.
AKA: Book of the Dead.
<Tomorrow’s Horror Franchise Movie: Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn>
Bruce Campbell produced, directed, and stars as himself in this lame attempt to trade in on his B-Movie popularity and swindle his fanbase out of some more $$$. The set-up sounds promising. A dumb Emo kid stupidly awakens the ghost of a Chinese warlord who goes around a jerkwater town decapitating people. Since the kid happens to be a big Bruce Campbell fan, he kidnaps Bruce (who is in the midst of making Cave Alien 2) and coerces him into fighting the monster.
This sounds like it would be a million laughs (think Galaxy Quest Meets Evil Dead) but the flick ultimately ends up being desperate and weak.
Another debit is Campbell, the director. He handles the material in a flat, matter-of-fact style that runs against the grain of the jokey script. The flick really needed someone with a bit of the old Sam Raimi pizzazz to kick things into gear, especially during the iffy “horror” scenes.
There is some stuff that works though. Being a die hard Bruce fanatic, I could at least walk away with a couple chuckles. Most of the fun came from spotting frequent
Bruce gets the best line (naturally) when he says, “Can’t a guy get bombed, call his ex at three in the morning and have it not mean anything?”
In the post-apocalyptic future, everyone lives underground and jacks themselves into a Virtual Reality world to escape. Judy (Marta Alicia) is tired of all that VR crap and yearns to escape to “the real world”, which is basically just a desert wasteland. The computer grants Judy her wish and she’s taken topside where hungry mutant cannibals roam. There she runs into a nomad named Stover (Bruce Campbell) who reluctantly agrees to escort her back home. Naturally, they get abducted by the mutants and are held prisoner by the “Seer” (The Tall Man himself, Angus Scrimm) who rules over the mutants with an iron fist. (Make that an iron CLAW as that’s what he uses to scratch people’s eyes out.) It’s not exactly a warm family reunion for Judy as her pops wants to breed with her in his “hatchery” so he can repopulate the Earth.
Mindwarp was the first film from Fangoria Pictures and while it does feature horror icons Campbell and Scrimm as well as excellent effects by the boys at KNB, it’s definitely not a horror film. It actually has more in common with your typical run-of-the-mill Sci-Fi Channel Original than anything else. That said, there is some quality shit to be found in Mindwarp. Those leeches that crawl through people’s skin and work their way into their victim’s brains were pretty tight and the gore quotient was fairly high. But for every cool thing the film had going for it, there was a long, dull stretch where not much happened. Nevertheless, Mindwarp is still the best Total Recall/Mad Max/Hills Have Eyes rip-off of 1992.
Cornelia (Elizabeth Kent), The Tall Man’s second-in-command gets the best line of the movie when she calls Judy a “brainscrew bitch!"
“War is a pain in the ass!” says Sergeant Jack Stryker (Brian Schulz), recently home from fighting in the shit and looking forward to settling down with his best gal and getting plastered while shooting the Hell out of outhouses with his Nam vet buddies. All of that comes to a screeching halt when Stryker and his amigos learn that there is a crazed Manson-like cult leader (Spider-Man director Sam Raimi) out in those woods turning campers into shish-kabobs. Since he’s also kidnapped Stryker’s girlfriend that means that the soldiers have to dust off their service rifles and start blowing away a lot of satanic hippie scum.
I appreciated the amount of moxie that director Josh (Running Time) Becker put into this movie on an obviously low budget. At all times this movie has a shot-in-the-backyard charm to it that is quite admirable given the sheer amount of action and carnage that gets thrown down in this flick. We get hippies tossing lawn darts into the sheriff, garden shears being plunged into eye sockets and some pretty inventive finger-painting with blood. The extended
Josh Becker, if you haven’t already guessed by now, was a childhood friend of Evil Dead creator Sam Raimi, who along with that film’s star, Bruce Campbell (who also has a cameo as a news reporter) helped Becker get this film off the ground. Becker shows a flair for action and the film really holds your attention during the scenes where people are shooting the shit out of each other. The “dramatic” scenes of the film are less involving and the middle section of the film drags like my cock in the sand, but you really have to hand it to Becker for making a fun flick with such limited resources.
The acting is mostly of the amateurish variety, but Raimi steals the show as the gnarly hippie killer with a grungy wig. He also gets all the best lines of the movie; my favorite being: “Don’t you ever touch the sacrificial fluids, okey dokey?”
AKA: Stryker’s War.
Liam Neeson (long before anyone knew who he was) stars as Peyton Westlake, an obsessive scientist who has created a revolutionary synthetic skin. The problem is that it can only last in sunlight for 99 minutes before melting away. When some gangsters led by Robert Durant (the deliciously menacing Larry Drake) muscle into his lab and blow him up, Westlake is left with 99% of his body burnt to a crisp. Westlake covers himself in bandages and gets his lab up and running again, using the new skin to disguise himself as Durant’s underlings. He gets his revenge by playing the thugs against each other, picking them off one by one. In the end he must save his girlfriend (Frances McDormand) from the sleazy bad guy atop a massive construction site.
Darkman’s look is quite memorable (he looks like a cross between the Mummy and the Shadow) and Neeson delivers a stellar performance behind the massive make-up. Drake also makes for a suitably slimy villain, especially when he’s cutting off fingers for his collection. Raimi imbues the movie with his trademark flair (the transition from McDormand’s business suit to her funeral dress is worthy of Hitchcock himself) and serves up some impressive action set pieces (the helicopter scene is incredible).
Cameos by An American Werewolf in London’s Jenny Agutter and John Landis and Raimi’s Evil Dead cohort Bruce Campbell add to the fun. Two low budget, but fun straight to video sequels followed.
Agnes (Blood and Chocolate) Bruckner stars as Heather, a wayward redhead girl whose parents send her away to an all girl school. She’s teased and tormented and called “Fire Crotch” by most of the girls and gets signed up for a mysterious “scholarship” by the sinister headmistress (Patricia Clarkson). She also learns that the school was once cursed by witches who possessed the students. Sooner than later she starts having weird dreams and hearing voices in the nearby foreboding woods. Pretty soon the woods start coming alive and attacks Heather and murders her mother. The movie starts to show signs of life during finale when Heather must “balance the stones”, but opts to bury the hatchet (into the faculty’s faces) instead.
The leisurely paced set-up, which worked so well in May, backfires here as the voices, dreams, and suspicious looks amongst the creepy teachers get awfully repetitive. Bruckner, who looks like a hotter version of Clea Duvall, is good in the lead, but the film’s overly estrogen bent makes the film more like a Lifetime movie and less like a horror movie from one of the best horror directors working today. It doesn’t help that witches just ain’t scary. This probably wouldn’t have even cut it for a half hour episode of Tales from the Darkside let along a 90 minute movie.
It’s filled with sticks and stones, though they won’t break your bones, they’ll just bore you to tears. If they had given Bruce (who knows a thing or two about killer branches) a chainsaw, he could have handled this in 10 minutes. May herself Angela Bettis provided the “voice” of the woods.
The story this time out finds Spider-Man riding high on the wave of public adulation while his long suffering girlfriend Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) watches her Broadway aspirations whither away. Their relationship becomes further estranged when Peter’s best friend Harry Osborn (James Franco), still seeking revenge for the death of his father the Green Goblin in Spider-Man 1, picks up his dad’s gear and tries to kill him. During the fracas, Harry conks his noggin and has a temporary memory lapse which makes him forget his blood feud with the web slinger.
Meanwhile Spidey learns that small time hood Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) is actually the man who murdered his beloved Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) in the first movie and he too sets out for revenge. But when Marko accidentally stumbles into a top secret molecular site and has his atoms swapped out with a bunch of sand, he turns into the villainous Sandman who has the power to make his fist as big and strong as cinderblocks and can turn himself into a gigantic sandstorm at will. Spidey tries to lay the smackdown on him but Sandman is too strong for him.
But it just so happens that an alien symbiote attaches itself to Spider-Man’s suit which turns it black and white and gives him amplified power which is enough to temporarily defeat the Sandman. The suit also amplifies his aggression and cockiness and turns Peter into an asshole with an Emo haircut, which pushes MJ further away from him. Finally after the suit makes him hit MJ in anger, he realizes the suit is evil and rips it off, but unfortunately for him, the scuzzbucket reporter Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) just so happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and the suit attaches itself to him, turning Eddie into the slithering, long tongued Venom. Eddie had also been wronged by Parker when Peter got him fired over taking some bogus shots of Spider-Man, so now both the suit and Eddie want Spider-Man dead. It all ends in a spectacular finale when Sandman and Venom suspend Mary Jane over New York in a giant web while beating the snot out of Spider-Man. Luckily, Harry comes to Spidey’s aid for a knock down, drag out four way superhero free for all.
As you can tell by that plot description, there’s a lot going on in this movie. Some would say too much, as it’s crammed full with lots of musical numbers, goofy montages, and melodramatic moments, but it also happens to be enormously entertaining and it’s certainly never boring. Part 2 is generally over praised as one of the greatest superhero movies of all time, and while I do love 2 a lot, there were a few dull stretches and suffered from some lackadaisical plotting. Part 3 is the antithesis of Part 2 and is ADD’ed out with non-stop superhero action sequences. Some of the effects tend to look a little cartoony, but there are almost a thousand effects scenes in the movie and the cheesy looking ones are pretty much few and far between. The first run in with Gobby and Peter is some of the best action you’ll find in a superhero flick and the four way brawl finale is quite a feast for the eyes. Venom is well animated during the fight scenes as well, but Sandman is the real effects triumph here. The “birth” of the Sandman scene is pretty astonishing and Church’s acting combined with the stellar effects work make a potentially ridiculous scene about a man made of friggin’ sand not only seem believable, but moving as well.
Acting wise, Maguire is good at doing what he does best, making Peter a lovable nerd, and Spidey, the hero we all know and love. He is clearly having fun in the scenes where he is taken over by the symbiote when he acts like a complete Emo ass and is at least as memorable as Christopher Reeve as the “bad” Superman in Superman 3. (And for the record I LOVE me some Superman 3 bitches!) Dunst is OK as MJ, and isn’t given a whole lot to do, but the biggest problem is that she’s on screen A LOT (What did she have it in her contract that she was obligated to appear in 9 scenes where she bitches about her career?) and when you’re required to do the same thing in every scene you’re in (i.e. pout and get jealous) it gets old real fast. Thankfully Grace as Eddie Brock is the most welcome addition to the series. He perks up every scene he’s in and wears Brock’s smarmy wise ass attitude like a tailor made glove. He isn’t given a whole lot of screen time as Venom, but he makes every scene count and brings to life one of the most memorable villains in the Spider-Man rogue’s gallery with panache. Let’s hope his popularity opens the way for a juicy role in Part 4 (his impromptu vaporization aside). Church is excellent in his scenes and while the Sandman effects ultimately overshadow the character of Flint Marko himself, whenever Church gets a chance to emote, he totally nails it.
Raimi delivers the goods action wise as Spider-Man 3 has more action than the first two films combined. Though some of the “dramatic” stuff seems kind of rushed through just to get to the next fight scene, those fights are pretty damn spectacular. Some people have criticized Raimi playing Parker’s dark side for laughs, but let’s face it, the general public probably wouldn’t accept a “mean” Spider-Man. I mean he actually hits Mary Jane and that alone should be enough to tell you that he’s turned “bad” (no matter how many cookies he eats). I also liked how Raimi made the alien suit an actual suit that gives him new powers (unlike the comics were it was a living part of him), because ultimately the movie’s theme is about the choices Peter makes and the consequences that follow. When he learns that Sandman is the man responsible for the murder of his Uncle, he opens up his closet and is torn between his regular blue and red costume and his black alien suit. He chooses the black suit and almost kills Sandman in the process. When he learns MJ has kissed Harry, he chooses to wear the black suit and ends up making a total ass of himself. And just by deciding to wear the suit in the first place inadvertently leads to the creation of another nemesis, Venom. Speaking of which, the scene where the symbiote attaches itself to Eddie is one of the best in the entire series and made the hairs on the back of my geek neck stand at attention.
While not the perfect Spider-Man movie (that would be the original), I liked it just as much as Part 2 and whatever quibbles I had are easily forgiven because the movie is just so damn entertaining.
The best part is the opening scene, which resembles an old concession stand short with singing hotdogs and popcorn, that turns violent when a thrash metal band of junk food takes center stage and advises the audience not to talk, use their cell phone or let their babies cry (“Take the seed outside!”) during the movie. That sidesplitting scene alone is worth the price of admission. Fans of Aqua Teen Hunger Force will eat this up, but non-fans will want to probably catch this on DVD, where it will probably play much better.
The cast is great and the effects are too, but it’s not as good as the first one. The main problems are that Spidey’s one-liners are kept to a bare minimum (during Octopus’ bank heist, Spidey hits him with a bag of coins and says “Here’s your change!”, but that’s about it) and Doc Ock is way too sympathetic to be a menacing villain. Still, it’s one of the best superhero movies ever made. Director Sam Raimi shows his old school horror movie roots in the awesome hospital massacre scene.
With Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane and James Franco as Harry Osborn, and featuring cameos by Willem Dafoe, Stan Lee, and Bruce Campbell. Based largely on Amazing Spider-Man issue # 50, “Spider-Man No More!”
A group of astronauts led by Bruce Campbell return to Earth forty years after being cryogenically frozen to discover that the human race has become enslaved by large CGI termites. The silly looking “Mites” as they’re called eat human heads, “a delicacy second only to wood!” Campbell escapes their prison camp and rallies together a rebel freedom force to stop the bugs. It’s kinda like a cross between Planet of the Apes (except with bugs) and Army of Darkness (except with bugs), except that it’s not very good. Campbell’s presence alone makes it worth a look though. He also starred in Josh Becker’s much better Running Time. Campbell made this for the Sci-Fi Channel about the same time he directed Man with the Screaming Brain. Peter (They Live) Jason co-stars as the President.
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