A movie I really wanted to like, Sam Raimi's Oz The Great and Powerful was rather disappointing and now I (as you will, soon) partially know why.
The original Evil Dead trilogy ended with 1992's Army of Darkness; which took the camp level up another 10 notches by making Ash (Bruce Campbell) a genius among idiots while forever cementing his status as a cult icon. And while I am a devout Raimi fan (hell, I love The Quick and the Dead), I must admit that Army of Darkness is my least favorite of the three. Unlike Evil Dead II's perfect blend of horror and slapstick, the third movie just tries a little bit too hard, if you know what I mean. Oh, don't get me wrong; it's hilarious and bizarre and horrific and evokes so many other genre films of the past, but of all of Raimi's earlier films, it is the most self-aware and consequently the least effective.
Regular readers know how much I adored Raimi's 2009 return to Horror, Drag Me to Hell. And while I was truly looking forward to seeing Raimi's visual stamp on the Oz franchise, I was truly disappointed to see the horribly over-produced mess that was Oz: The Great and... No, Not Really So 'Great,' More Like... 'Okay,' I Suppose.
Thankfully, the video embedded below helps explain at least part of what was wrong with the director's latest effort.
I somehow lost the link to the site where I found this. If you saw it somewhere else first, please let me know where. And please join me in hoping Raimi sticks to Horror from now on.
In 1981, director Sam Raimi and his brother Ted put together a very low budget horror movie called The Evil Dead. The movie caused a bit of a sensation, despite its terrible acting and laughable effects (it also scared the crap out of Uncle P's sister). 1987's Evil Dead II wasn't so much a sequel as a deliberately funny re-make (think The Three Stooges meet The Exorcist). Raimi's last movie in the trilogy, 1992's Army of Darkness, was a full-out horror comedy, combined with a medieval fantasy. The movies made Bruce Campbell a cult star, legitimized Raimi as a director and even spawned an hilarious stage musical. All this from the simple story of five college friends who unwittingly unleash an evil force by reading from a human skin-bound book of spells. Rumors of a fourth movie have taunted fans for decades, but Raimi was busy making the original Spider-Man trilogy, the very under-appreciated Drag Me to Hell and this year's disappointing Oz the Great and Powerful. When it was announced that he would be producing (along with Campbell) a reboot, written and directed by Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez, fans were up arms. Today, Dear D and I saw the new version, and I'm happy to report that Alvarez and company (with a few exceptions) got most of it right.
Mia ("Suburgatory" star Jane Levy) is a drug addict trying to go cold turkey with the help of her brother David and their friends, who have chosen Mia and David's family cabin in the woods to seclude themselves while she goes through withdrawal. What they don't know is that the cabin was recently the site of a ritual to... well, the less said about that, the better. The performers of said ritual have left behind a dozen or so dead cats and a book wrapped in plastic and barbed wire. Unable to contain his curiosity, Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), the scholar among the group, unwraps the book and reads aloud from it, opening the door for a terrible demonic entity which invades Mia and basically dooms them all.
Approaching the story as a full-out Horror movie mostly pays off for Alvarez, working from a script he wrote along with Rodo Sayagues and an uncredited Diablo Cody (Jennifer's Body). The four friends have vowed to keep Mia at the cabin, no matter how much she begs to go home. When she starts behaving strangely, they attribute it to withdrawal and ignore her pleas to leave. Of course, things quickly escalate and it is soon apparent that something is very wrong. The violence and gore escalate, with plenty of stabbing; gouging; shredding; dismemberment and enough blood to fill an Olympic pool (this isn't a movie for the faint of heart, kids). There are demonic voices, slamming doors and exploding mirrors; raping trees, scalding showers and more than a few homages to the original (Mia is first discovered sitting atop Ash's dilapidated car, for one). I was fine with all of it, until the movie went and used two truly ridiculous cliches that drive me crazy - SPOILERS AHEAD: Skip to the next paragraph to avoid them. Cliche #1: Nail guns cannot fire nails like a firearm! There is a safety catch on every nail gun ever made which makes this impossible. Cliche #2: Shooting a plastic gas can will never cause an explosion! Gasoline itself is flammable, but not explosive. Gasoline fumes are explosive, but require a flame or a spark to ignite them and neither can be achieved by shooting through a plastic container. I don't know why Hollywood continues to perpetrate these fallacies. They are insults to the audience's intelligence and they should go away forever (though I'm sure they won't).
The actors in the new version are certainly better than in Raimi's original, with Levy going all-out to make Mia as different as possible from the character she plays on "Suburgatory." Shiloh Fernandez (Deadgirl: Red Riding Hood) is fine as David, Mia's conflicted brother. Pucci (Carriers); Jessica Lucas (Coverfield) and newcomer Elizabeth Blackmore are all more than competent in what must have been physically demanding roles. Alvarez's direction takes several cues from Raimi's original, including running shots through the woods and close-ups of painful-looking slicing and dicing. D and I both winced more than a few times at the imagined pain the characters were put through (not that she would, but my dear Q should avoid this one at all costs). Alvarez thankfully eschews CG imagery and opts for physical FX which far outshine Raimi's original efforts. All in all, I had a great time, though D was disappointed at the lack of camp. *** (Three Out of Four Stars). And fans of the original should stay for a special Easter Egg after the credits.
On a personal note, I was horrified to see a family bring a young boy who couldn't have been more than 8 or 9 to see this movie. Inappropriate on so many levels for such a young kid, I hope they are kept awake all night by the boy's nightmares. Evil Dead is rated a hard "R" for language and extreme gore, violence and horror. Anyone who brings a child to see it should be reported for abuse.
Oh - One more thing... why do filmmakers allow trailers to contain material which doesn't actually appear in the final cut?
This delightful little chap in the poster is Sam, aka Peeping Tommy. Sam is the most important of the many threads running through Michael Dougherty's long-delayed and much anticipated Trick 'r Treat. I say most important because ultimately Sam is both figuratively and literally the Spirit of Halloween, teaching horrible lessons to the non-believers, as much as any spirit that tormented Scrooge. Happily, none of the four interwoven stories in Trick 'r Treat end on a happy note (this is a horror movie, after all).
Never released theatrically in the U.S., the 2007 festival fave was finally released on DVD two weeks ago, and I am ashamed to be just now getting to review it. And I am also happy to admit that it was worth the wait. Dougherty's script is clever; ironic; surprising; hilarious and original, all while being quite gory; gruesome; creepy. and completly fun. The cast of familiar faces - Dylan Baker (Spider-Man; Fido); Anna Paquin ("True Blood"); Tamoh Penniket ("Dollhouse"); Bryan Cox (the original Hannibal Lecter) - are uniformly excellent (even the youngest of cast members). Baker is particularly good as a particularly bad elementary school principal; as are Paquin as a sweet young thing on the prowl and Cox as a nasty old man who painfully learns why it's best to be generous with the sugar on Halloween. All four tales take place on the same Halloween night in a small Ohio town obsessed with the traditions of the holiday.
The creepiest of the four stories involves a group of kids collecting jack-o-lanterns (purportedly as part of a "UNICEF scavenger hunt") and an urban legend about a school bus full of "special children" which led to an unfortunate incident. The young actors in this segment are just terrific and creepiness of the "special kids" in their exceptionally weird Halloween costumes is off the charts. And of course, there's 10 year-old Quinn Lord as Sam/Tommy. An essentially silent role, Sam is Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Jack Skellington, and the 'Zuni fetish Warrior' from "Trilogy of Terror" all rolled into one creepy little hydrocephalic creature. And while much of the work is done by stunt people and CGI, Lord's physicality in what couldn't have been a very comfortable or easy-to-wear costume is surprisingly effective and spooky. The SFX are kept to a minimum, but the ones employed are quite good (and include a particularly interesting version of the werewolf transformation). The jokes are truly funny and the surprises are mostly really surprising. The movie looks gorgeous, thanks to Cinematographer Glen MacPherson, Production Designer Mark Freeborn and Costume Designer Trish Keating. Every penny of the film's budget is one the screen and Dougherty's love of 70's Horror Comics is evident. Trick 'r Treat deserved a wide-release, big-screen run and it's a damned shame it didn't get one.
Fun, smart, original and great-looking, Trick 'r Treat is truly a Horror fan's treat. Let's hope Dougherty gets to make a sequel, because i can't wait to see what he has in store for us, next. **** (Four out of Four Stars).
And of course, the evening was topped off by seeing Sam Raimi's brilliant Drag Me to Hell for the first time since I saw it on teh big screen and I enjoyed every single moment of it again, and this time really got to take note of Raimi's use of seamless transition from scene-to-scene. The movie never drags, never bores. The shocks are still shocking, the gross-outs are still disgusting and the shocks are still shocking (which may be thanks to the passing of five months since my first viewing) and the movie is every bit as fun and effective as it was the first time I saw it. If you haven't seen it (and once I again I shame for not having done so), do yourself a favor and see both of these movies before (or better yet, on) next Saturday!
And on a completely bizarre and unrelated note, a childhood hero of mine has passed and I'd just like to say "Thanks for the laughs, Soupy. There's more laughter in Heaven, tonight."
I hate to say this about any movie, especially so about one I really wanted to like, but I honestly don't remember the last time I was so disappointed by a movie as I was by Paranormal Activity.
Honestly, I tried not to buy into the hype that has been steadily building on the net, and certainly didn't expect it to be The Scariest Movie Ever Made. But I did hope it would be at least a little scary. Sadly, it's not.
Katie (Katie Featherston) and Micah (Micah Sloat) are young co-habitants ("...engaged to be engaged") who have been experiencing some unusual phenomena in their home; weird noises, faucets turning on by themselves, etc. Micah buys a camera to try and catch whatever is happening while they sleep (it is through that mostly hand-held camera that we see what's happening). Katie calls in a psychic, who advises her to consult a demonologist. Turns out, Katie was "haunted" as a child (apparently by the same entity) which ended with her house burning down. Micah decides he will take matters into his own hands and get rid of it himself, taunting the entity and inviting it to communicate (and by the way, the marker on a Ouija board is called a planchette, not a 'cursor'), things the psychic expressly warned them not to do. As Micah becomes more and more of a macho asshat, the creepy goings-on get more intense.
Paranormal Activity was a great idea, and while it isn't badly executed from a technical point of view, it's pacing is deadly. The first hour meanders about as Micah continuously tries to convince Katie to have sex on camera while ignoring her increasing discomfort. A door moves. Something screeches and thumps. Katie sleepwalks. Sort of creepy, but too little for too long. By the time the movie actually starts to look like it's going to get scary, it's over (with one of the single most ridiculous and superfluous final shots, ever).
First time writer/director Oren Peli gets pretty good performances from his small cast of unknowns. And he knows how to frame a shot and give us things to try and see around corners, but he lets the movie take far too long to get where it's going and then doesn't quite go far enough before so abruptly going too far. The packed house (mostly teenagers and what I can only assume were country rubes who were seeing a movie for the first time, ever) screamed and carried on while my three companions and I were bored by both the pacing and the "been-there-done-that" ghost movie bag o' tricks. The original ending was re-shot for the current version, which makes me think it might have been more interesting, subtle and creepy than the cheap Hollywood cheese it became.
I wish someone would give me $111,000 dollars to make a movie. I'd make a movie that would make you crap your pants, run home crying to Mommy and keep you awake for three weeks. Do yourself a favor, take the money you would have spent on a ticket for Paranormal Activity and put towards your own copy of Drag Me to Hell on Blu-Ray. You'll be much happier with your investment.
Paranormal Activity is rated 'R' for Language. * (One Star)
I have three words for you: "Ho Lee Crap!" Sam Raimi (and co-writer, brother Ivan) is at the pinnacle of his game with his triumphant return to horror, Drag Me to Hell. I kid you not when I say Drag Me to Hell is certainly the best horror movie of the last 20 years, and quite possibly the best since The Exorcist. And all of it without a single profanity or exposed nipple.
In case you haven't already read anything about it, Alison Lohman(Big Fish) plays Christine Brown, a sweet, farm-raised gal working as a loan officer in a big city bank. Looking to win a promotion - against an egotistic tool named Stu (Star Trek's Reggie Lee) - Christine decides that playing hardball is the way to go and denies a mortgage extension to a creepy old gypsy woman (wide-ranged character actress Lorna Raver). The inevitable curse ensues and Christine has three days before she is dragged away to eternal damnation by a goatish demon named Lamia. Apple commercials' cutie Justin Long (Jeepers Creepers; Live Free, Die Hard) is Clay, Christine's skeptical, albeit adoring and supportive boyfriend, who thinks she's suffering from post-traumatic stress. Newcomer DileepRao plays the seer Christine consults for help and Spanish Language TV veteranAdrianna Barrazaplays the medium who has faced the demon before, and lost.
Within the first five minutes of the film, Raimi grabs you by the balls and never lets go. Loaded with Raimi's eye-popping visuals, extreme gross-outs and cartoonish violence, Drag Me to Hell is what Evil Dead IIwould have been with a Hollywood budget. Raimi's infamous and fantastically weird tracking shots and trademark outlandish physical effects (Christine takes as bad a beating as Ash ever got) all help make Drag Me... quite possibly a perfect horror movie. Hilariously funny, exceptionally gross and over-loaded with shocks which, even though you know they are coming, are still really shocking; Drag Me to Hell isthe work of a master artist, rediscovering what made him love what he does in the first place. Raimi's eye for detail and ability to build tension have never been on better display, and his cast of mostly unknowns are more than willing to go along for an amazing rollercoaster dark-ride. The score by Christopher Young (Hellraiser) is brilliantly deceptive and adds tension in unexpected places. The effects are top notch and I was pleased to see a small homage to Poltergeist, near the end (hint: "The swimming pool! The swimming pool!!!!").
I saw it with my my cast, all of whom loved it as much as I did. We screamed, cringed, laughed and carried on the way every good horror movie should make it's audience do. I think it is important to note that like every terrific movie, no matter what the genre, Drag Me to Hell is meant to be seen on a big screen with a great sound system and an audience filled with screamers, cringers and laughers. Do NOT wait for Blu-ray. Get your butt (and a load of your friends' butts) down to the local Cineplex and see this movie! See it now! See it, see it, see it! And take someone you want to jump into your arms. They will! The most fun I've had at the movies in a ages. This is the movie Horror fans have been waiting for, for a very long time. Thank you, Mr. Raimi, for finally giving it to us. The only thing I missed? The obligatory cameo from the legendary Bruce Campbell (unless some slyer fox than I caught a glimpse of him, somewhere).
***** (Five Stars). Rated PG-13 for 'Intense Horror.'
