(Bruce Campbell vs.) Army of Darkness - review

1992 (USA)

2008 Optimum Home Releasing Blu-ray R(B/2)

Contains spoilers.

I hate reviewing old cult films. It's not that I don't have an opinion or said opinion is divisive or controversial and will unleash the proverbial internet army of darkness on me. It's just hard to really offer anything vaguely original or garner much interest in a review of a film everyone and their dog made their mind up about a long time ago. It's also hard because I too have old opinions and fond memories though it must have been twenty years since I watched it and there's always the inherent dangers of returning to something after so long.

Talking of a long time ago, (apologies for the awful segue), Army of Darkness marks quite the change in direction from the quite similar in style and story prequels. Right from the start, as wise cracking Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) crash lands along with his 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 (thanks wiki) in 1300AD medieval Europe and is seized by Lord Arthur (Marcus Gilbert) and his band of sword wielding superstitious knights it's clear that Evil Dead part three is to be more fantasy and high jinx than the claustrophobia and brooding of its namesake.

The Evil Dead 1 and 2 are farces of a sort but they're still, in my mind anyway, unquestionable horror flicks full of provocative vision, disturbing ideas and gratuitous bad taste. They're comedies but dark, quite nasty and definitely for adults. Army of Darkness for all the imagination and dark undertones never quite achieves the same level of nastiness or malice and I'd almost use the word tempered. Yes there's still possession, bloodshed, dismemberments and yes Ash still wields his chainsaw hand with manic desperation but it's all rather fantasy horror comedy and The Goonies, than unrepentant and unapologetically dark and The Exorcist. This isn't to say this is a bad thing and does allow Raimi off the leash and able to explore is undoubted talent in a more expansive and extravagant sandbox; it's just the shift in tone half way realised in Evil Dead II is more acute.

Bruce Campbell stole the show in The Evil Dead and quite rightly was thrust front and centre for Evil Dead II. For Army of Darkness he's again, given full permission to leap and bound about with all the goofiness and slapstick that makes his performance so endearing. Yet, such is the overt grandeur and now seeming invulnerability of his character it maybe loses some of the impact it had in his previous outings when the lines and behaviour was more in reaction to the events that were unfolding. This is Bruce Campbell vs. Army of Darkness, not Bruce Campbell getting beat up and driven insane by the Army of Darkness. Ash's confidence was born from being placed in the centre of the an inescapable maelstrom of horror and death, and somehow finding the strength and inner-madness to fight back. Suddenly thrown into the eternal conflict that is the living and the dead some 700 years in the past, he doesn't show any of his previous insecurity coming across perfectly at ease as the one man slaughterhouse and complete hero / anti-hero. Arrogant, uber-confident with the perfect one liner for every occasion he slaughters all who oppose him with ease and precision. It's not all bad, far from it and Bruce Campbell is a delight to watch it's just I think I prefer it when Ash is on the back foot instead of coming across invulnerable and over-cocky.

Zombies. There's much debate whether the Evil Dead films could ever be considered zombie ones and I'm still kind of on the fence. Evil Dead 1 and 2 contain possessed living and dead; taken over by evil spirits unleashed by someone reading from the necronomicon. Army of Darkness has possession, reanimated corpses and skeletons that seem to have a will, consciousness and dare I say personality each of their own. They're a bit of a mixed bag of well made and choreographed live actors, and jerky stop motion Jason and the Argonauts animated figures. Such is the playfulness of proceedings it's never overly distracting, even when jarring and obvious, and it's not something we'd want to start worrying about anyway or we'd soon be over run with questions, like exactly how does a bag of bones talk and laugh without lungs. 

So, it's full of the reanimated bones of the dead, the possessed dead (and alive), and ever some rather ghoulish looking recently exhumed live actors that do indeed look rather zombie but there's no head shots, no viral blood transference or ever any desire to try and take a bite out of someone. It's an army of the dead trying to kill living; why? Because. Also, Raimi et al called them deadites pushing distance between them and Romero and all things Z and I'm not going to argue semantics.

Army of Darkness is brilliant Sam Raimi yet again and a joy to watch. Full of imagination, skilful, playful directing and cinematography it flows from scene to scene with grace and confidence. Taken for what it is though, a goofy action adventure with a slightly darker undertone than Spielberg would try, it's an incredibly fun and rewarding ride and always entertaining. Bruce Campbell also quite rightly has his name emblazoned proudly on the cover as this is his show and it is him, not Ash from the prequels, that's up against the undead horde. Brilliant, wacky, proudly b-movie-esque and cheesy, and replete with some of the best (and worst) of one line quipping, I still love it, 8/10.

Steven@WTD.

The Dead Next Door - review

1989 (USA)

2006 Anchor Bay DVD R(2)

Contains spoilers.

Now I know what you're all thinking. This low, LOW budget shoddy piece of amateur film making will undoubtedly receive a full zombie beat down where I'll bemoan it for ambition over ability to deliver, for having a quite awful artistic and physical presentation and for having woeful b-movie actors forced to work with a contrived hammy narrative. Well you're right, but you're also kind of wrong. For all its faults which there are many, the thing I will take away from director / writer / make-up / producer / line-manager / editor / special effects / camera operator J.R. Bookwalter's cinematic début is a feeling that here was a genuinely earnest and honest attempt at a grand zombie opus, and it nearly got it right. Sure, it should possibly have been a bit more realistic with it's aims; going small and discrete rather than expansive and ambitious, especially with someone at the helm who by his own admission had not really even known how to operate a camera. But really who could really argue against an enthusiastic young eighteen old, who'd just been given $75,000 by Sam Raimi, who also came on board as executive producer, just going for it.

A possibly misguided attempt at to pay homage to Romero, The Dead Next Door is the tale of a team of pseudo military cops called The Zombie Squad and their stand as part of the last line of defence against a world two years consumed by grotesque flesh eating undead. Pete Ferry is Raimi their leader and he's assigned the mission by Doctor Moulssson (Bogdan Pecic) to head to ground zero, a research lab run by the late Doctor Bow (Lester Clark), find his research notes and return so they can put a stop to the flesh eating viral parasite. To say the acting is the worst I've probably seen would be exaggerating, but not by much. Whether it's screaming glib and cliché one word action-film lines or working their way through tedious contrived exposition designed to tell us the audience who these people are, what they're doing, what's happened to the word and the compete zombie survival guide a to z, it's amateurish, obvious and badly dubbed in a Mattei way, yet it's all somehow incredibly earnest and watch-able. And that's the rub. As the group reach Bow's Lab and come face to face with a strange pseudo Christian, pro undead, sacrificial death cult lead by the ever weird sunglasses wearing Rev. Jones (Robert Kokai) and his band of equally weird disciples, the characterisation, the dialogue and their interaction never gets any better; and yet it somehow manages to never offend as you feel it should. 

The cultists don't like the soldiers and the soldiers don't like what the cultists are doing so they inevitably clash with guns, grenades and rhetoric. The action moves along at fairly nice pace and along the way there's a good amount of blood, guts and imaginative and original zombie  set pieces, especially at the cultists lair and the manner in which they're a) being protected and b) being used as a weapon in a manner not all too dissimilar to that employed by the Governor some twenty years later. It does suffer from all too contrived and needlessly uber-stupid behaviour for many of the totally avoidable zombie bites and whether it's accidental fingers put zombies mouths, or mucking about with electric windows each kill is lazy and distracts from the generally good amateur effects that ensue.

There's a mad scientist, isn't there always, and he's inadvertently unleashed an infectious virus on the world that kills its host then continues to hunger for nutrition to sustain its life. It's actually probably most similar to World War Z; the idea that the hosts become vessels to propagate the spread of the virus and require flesh to keep going. Without sustenance, the undead drop after about three months, but with so many tasty morsels as so if often the case when something does global, the virus was able to stay alive and spread. Interestingly Bookwalter also used The Return of the Living Dead total reanimation idea, though who was first will have to left open (ROTLD came out in '85 / TDND started shooting in '85). The virus keeps whatever part of its host going, albeit until it runs out of juice, so head shots, decapitation all help slow the zombies down but they're not a permanent solution. Bookwalter also brings to the table a solution of sorts. Moulsson, with the help of Bow's research concocts a formula that can speed up the viral process so that the corpses burn out in hours not months and that leads to some nice melting zombie scenes and the concept of zombie/human hybrid fusions, that are neither alive or undead, but pretty grotesque, violent and quite coherent all the same.

Don't get me wrong, The Dead Next Door is out and out poor b-movie film making, but I'm starting to think I secretly hold quite the candle for earnest amateur horror, especially zombie rubbish as my recent euro-trash reviews would attest.  As contrived as the story is, the tussle over Dr. Bow's research and the pro-zombie stand off was at least original and mostly held together as long as one is willing to look past all the inconsistencies. whilst not a comedy, there were a few deliberate and non-deliberate laughs and even the attempts at the odd bit of satire, though this could never be called a deep film (watching petty bureaucracy survive as Moulsson is forced to sign for zombie specimens, and the attack on the pro-zombie protesters were personal highlights.)

Alas a good film this is not, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it for any kind of casual viewing, but if you like good b-movies and appreciate sincere, industrious, if incredibly flawed attempts at zombie horror you might find, like I did, that you enjoy this far more than you feel you probably should, 6/10.

Steven@WTD.

Evil Dead II - review

1987 (USA)

2008 Optimum Home Releasing Blu-ray R(B/2)

Contains mild spoilers.

I'm going to start by extolling the virtues of this film. It's manic, hilarious and gratuitously over the top; a none-stop entertainment thrill-ride with a virtuoso slap-stick acting performance from Bruce Campbell, and it oozes style and vision at every turn. Honestly it's probably the best horror/comedy ever made and if you don't like it there's something wrong with you. Yes, I quite like this film.

Ok it's basically a rehash of the first, with a weak attempt at a recap, Ok Ash is more the crazed manic hero than the cowardly oddball reluctant survivor, and Ok the effects are still hilariously bad compared to the hyper-realistic stuff we're now used to, but honestly none of this matters a jot. Also is it really a zombie film? Probably not but I'll go into this in a bit and I still think has a place on a blog such as this.

Sam Raimi is still a genius. I loved The Evil Dead declaring it probably as good as it gets horror. Stylish, ambitious, an eye for action and suspense, and perfectly paced. Always on the edge of turning into a full on over the top farce, it trod quite the precarious line. Gratuitous gore, shocking sequences and hammy dialogue were all present but I always felt it understood restraint; knew when to pull back, and more or less, it stuck to a horror narrative. With Evil Dead II Raimi and Campbell haven't showed such restraint, fully embracing the slapstick humour and ridulous nature that was present in the first, but never fully allowed to flourish or take centre stage. Bruce Campbell was always a bit of a clown exaggerating his actions and behaviour but here not only is he allowed to throw himself about with as much gusto and abandon as he can, he has a script and director that go out of their way to positively encourage his antics at every opportunity and it all comes together flawlessly.

From probably the best chase sequence ever put on film to the ludicrous 14th Century climax the pacing is relentless and like its predecessor the cinematic aesthetic ambitious and audacious. This is a film with a true identity, understanding what it is, what it's trying to do and executing it all with breathtaking ease and simplicity. Nothing ever feels forced, action and dialogue flow and each increasingly over-the-top sequence merges into the next with ease and comfort. There's also no trying to push an ensemble cast, who do a sterling job of not being totally eclipsed by Campbell, as anything other than shallow parodies there to meet unfortunate ends. It's brilliant, cohesive and authentic.

Evil Dead II like its predecessor is a possession film which turns people into zombie like monstrosities. It's not a clear cut die, reanimate sort of story and I don't think you could ever call them zombies per se. The Evil Darkness unleashed by reading from the Book of the Dead takes peoples souls and possession of their bodies, and whether they're dead or not is irrelevant. They're puppets to be controlled and thrown about; they can not only shrug off being shot, stabbed smashed, but severed heads can still taunt and mock and like in The Return of the Living Dead severed limbs scuttle about with a life of their own. There's no undead rabid drive for flesh or vacant soulless instinctual reanimation, these are bodies fully alive with the sentience and will of their possessor and bestowed the ability to levitate, reanimate and metamorphose into fantastical monsters. Zombies? Only really in that they're still active and possessed even after death, and the way to shut them up is the traditional, tried and tested brain mash.

Evil Dead II, is bloody good ride; a relentless farcical rush into the bizarre and twisted. A showcase for the brilliance of Bruce Campbell, Raimi and Co. took the over-top of the first, and put it front and centre creating a seminal horror/comedy that I can't praise enough. Brilliant, entertaining and stupid, 10/10.

WTD.