The Podcast from the After Movie Diner TURNS 1 on July 23rd

Yes, The After Movie Diner Podcast turns 1 years old on July 23rd and to celebrate we are doing a

BIG SPECIAL EVIL DEAD SHOW!
We have fans of the series, friends of the show AND

SPECIAL GUESTS FROM THE FILM ITSELF!

Including 

The Ladies of the Evil Dead 

& Hal Delrich the STARS of the film!!

and the surprise interview with a pivotal and invaluable someone from behind the scenes on the film can now be revealed!!

I am so VERY HAPPY to announce we have special effects and make up wizard extraordinaire 

Tom Sullivan!

on the After Movie Diner! 

MONDAY JULY 23rd!


So JOIN US won't you for the
BEST EVIL DEAD PODCAST ever produced.
It's BY the Fans, FOR the Fans!
E-MAIL YOUR EVIL DEAD AND BIRTHDAY MESSAGES TO
aftermoviediner@g-mail.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/aftermoviediner
Website: www.aftermoviediner.com
Podcast Blog: amdpodcast.blogspot.com
Twitter: @aftermoviediner     

Horror Remakes. The Case Against. Featuring the Evil Dead remake....

I am going to do something a little different today and break with my regular format. I am taking time out of catching up with my movie reviews from the last month to tackle a topic that, especially for horror fans, has been a contentious, divisive and annoying one. I am talking, of course, about remakes.
This comes on the heels of the recent statement release from Ghost House Pictures and Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell that there is, finally and unfortunately going to be an Evil Dead remake. Read the press release here.

Now for regular readers of my blog you should know that I am a huge Evil Dead fan and a rabid Bruce Campbell fan. I may also have mentioned in the past that I hate 99.9% of most modern, recent, horror remakes and let me make this clear, before you all bring up The Thing or Scarface or something, that's what we are talking about here.
I will start with my feelings on the Evil Dead remake as it's the freshest in my mind and then I am going to re-post an updated remakes blog I wrote back in 2007 on MySpace (yes that relic of a bygone era! ha!)

If you didn't read the Press Release link yet, this is the message Sam, Rob and Bruce put out yesterday:
"We are committed to making this movie and are inspired by the enduring popularity and enthusiasm for the ‘Evil Dead’ series. We can't wait to scare a new generation of moviegoers using filmmaking techniques that were not available to us thirty years ago as well as Fede (the new director) bringing a fresh eye to the film’s original elements."
Almost everything about this statement annoys me! So much so that I have to break it down and analyse it line by line:

Scare a new generation of moviegoers?
Ok, now even if Sam and Rob are too busy descending into the sad corporate abyss, Bruce should know, as he has been to conventions and also frequently connects with the fans, that there are hardly any Evil Dead fans now who were even alive when the original came out, let alone old enough to see it! Could this possibly mean that the film is ALREADY "scaring new generations of moviegoers" ??!  and I like to believe that those who were around and old enough to have seen the original when it came out are, like Star Wars fans, dedicated and definitely don't want a remake.

Using filmmaking techniques that were not available to us thirty years ago? - What does this even mean? REALLY think about it. CGI? 3D? Digital Cameras? what?? sure there are new gadgets, bells and whistles but basic film making technique hasn't changed in 50 years or more! How does The Evil Dead, a story about 5 kids who go to a cabin and get possessed by demons because they stupidly can't stop playing the same tape recording of readings from something called 'The Book of The Dead', benefit from the application of anything from the above list?
Also, the thing that MAKES the entire first film, the reason any of them have a career, is Raimi's technique. That's really all it is. Bruce is good in bits yes of course and there are extreme scenes, you don't believe you are watching, that can now whip an audience up into a delighted frenzy but it all hangs on Raimi's technique. 
Creativity, inventiveness, imagination and intelligence don't need to be updated they continue to shine, they are the reason for its success.
If you disagree, name a modern horror film (or any genre for that matter) that is as good as or better than its 70s/80s counterpart or predecessor. Name a good modern film that rests entirely on its 'New Film-making Techniques'. This is not like The Thing where between the Howard Hawks original and John Carpenter's 80s version there was an enormously massive leap in what they were able to show, this is like picturing The Thing but instead of the incredibly innovative and creative practical special effects it's CGI and in 3D. Is that honestly any better? well they are, predictably and annoyingly, about to remake it so we shall see! (CHRIST can't they leave shit alone?!!!)

Fede bringing a fresh eye to the film’s original elements  - Evil Dead doesn't need a fresh eye. It had Sam Raimi's eye. A fantastically inventive, guerrilla film maker at the time who achieved camera angles, special effects and all manner visual wizardry using sheer brains, determination and will power that no other first time, 20 something director has ever achieved before or since. Yes they have tried, imitated and failed but really, without Raimi directing and without Bruce starring, there is no FRESH eye to put on proceedings. Like I said, without them it's just a story about 5 kids who go to a cabin and get possessed, it's not like the story screams to be reinterpreted. Plus I think Eli Roth and about 100 other directors have already tried. 
Raimi and co, drawing on influences wide and various from the past, practically invented a whole new form of shooting, editing and sound design that you could argue gave rise to the hyper kinetic, over the top style that studios apply heavy hand-idly and irritatingly to almost every flaccid turd of a movie they produce while also inspiring legions of film students everywhere to attempt the same thing (I know, I was one!)
The reason it is as popular today as it is and, in fact, grows in popularity every year is down to all of that. I firmly believe there is nothing a film maker could do to make it better, make it their own or even just compliment it. It survives and is cherished, like most of these original films, because of the time, the place but mostly because of the people involved. I don't want to see new people involved and I don't understand people who do.

This whole thing STINKS. They can't even come up with a decent excuse for a remake in their own press release!! Like all modern horror remakes, this is for the cash and cash alone as, creatively, the idea is bankrupt and that would be fine if the three of them were still struggle to forge out a career but Bruce is on a hit show going into it's 5th season, Tapert has produced a multitude of TV and Film including the highly lucrative Hercules, Xena and Sparticus: Blood and Sand and Sam made 3 Spiderman movies for fucks sake! Three of the biggest hits ever produced! 
None of them need the money and as for this first time director if he really wants his first feature to be a remake of a film that was made by a handful of dedicated guys from Michigan slogging it out through endless muddy night shoots in the woods of Tennessee to eventually emerge months and months later with an original classic of horror, instead of something that he too can lovingly pour blood, sweat, tears and his life into then he isn't worth a damn in my book.

Also it has been revealed that Diablo Cody is doing a re-write. 
Why the hell is this good news?!
Diablo Cody? Didn't she write a horror movie already that bombed harder than Halle Berry following up her Oscar with Catwoman? instead of the news being "Don't worry, it's going to be good, we have an Oscar Winning writer working on ED Remake" shouldn't it be - "I can't believe former Oscar Winner Cody is scraping the bottom of the writing barrel by helping to fix an already bad idea?"
If they already need a script re-write then that is a terrible sign. While I know this is a standard practice it could possibly mean the director is not the auteur of the piece, is not passionate about it or does not have faith in his ideas. I am not sure why a first time director wants to do a remake anyway, doesn't make much sense, doesn't he have his own stories to tell?

I am SO dissappointed. I thought the fans had squashed this idea when they first brought it up almost 10 years ago! I guess they just had to wait for the populus to become so appathetic and jaded they didn't care anymore. 

The other reason I am so very disappointed, as a fan, is that they have dangled Evil Dead 4 in front of us like a carrot for years and years and years. Now I personally don't want an ED4, I want Raimi to take his Spiderman money and make an all new film with Bruce as the lead and with Rob producing, just like Rob Tapert SAID they were doing almost 10 years ago but I will take ED4 over a remake any day of the week. On the subject of ED4 Bruce said, as recently as the Philly Comic-Con (18th June 2011), that one of the reasons they have backed off the idea of doing it is that they would spend a year of their life making the thing, Bruce would go through the horrible and uncomfortable procedure of actually playing Ash post 50 and when it came out the fans would criticise it and compare it negatively with Army of Darkness etc. 
Well I absolutely hate to say it because he's still my favourite actor but that's utter bullshit. If that's how you feel about the 4th one then why the hell do and endorse so positively, a remake? doesn't the same reaction, only potentially worse, still apply?

God the whole news is just too depressing, I had to get it all out of my system with a blog. Which I know makes me some whiny, loser fan boy frantically typing away under fake internet stars to an audience of none but it's cheaper than therapy and more fun than vomitting.

I honestly feel that they forget that while show business is, indeed and understandably, a business the SHOW part comes first. Remakes don't anger me so much for the present because I know the originals exist, I watch and own them and I boycott most of the remakes. However it's future generations who will either be confused, not know about the originals or not care... how will these classics survive? Well I for one will keep the original home (or in this case cabin) fires burning.  

The End of Evil Dead Remake related rant.
______________________________________________________________
OLD REMAKE BLOG FROM 2007 -
This is a blog I did a while ago and as it's relevant, it may explain a few opinions and is still basically what I think I thought I would include it here.

Movie Remakes.

Everyone who cares about movies and probably even casual viewers have an opinion.

In fact, I would go as far as to say that everyone probably owns at least one movie that is counted as a remake.

probably Scarface or ..maybe Cape Fear and everyone has seen Dirty Rotten Scoundrels... right....

That's not a remake I hear you cry!

well it is... and it isn't....

It's actually a re-telling of the story of the film 'Bedtime Story' from 1964.

An Online encyclopedia defines a remake as -

"a remake is a newer version of a previously released film or a newer version of the source (play, novel, story, etc.) of a previously made film."

well with that definition we can throw Dirty Rotten Scoundrels into the mix but with my definition, you can't, my definition is this -

A Modern film remake is a film that bares the same name as its still very popular or cult predecessor, that takes a few iconic plot points, maybe a character or two on which to hang a weaker story and simply for the purpose of making some money.

Now with my definition, which I appreciate is specific and designed to attack a certain group of films, you could throw out Scarface, Cape Fear and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Why?

Scarface – despite being made by the late, great Howard Hawks in 1932, was the original so popular by 1983 that it didn't need a second telling? In fact the stories are fairly different (one being about bootleg alcohol in the prohibition era and the other being about cocaine) and if anything the 1983 version is still, today the one we remember and is a classic in its own right. Also, was it trading off the name to make money? Nope, not really, not much argument to back that up.

Cape Fear – this one is the closest to being shitcanned by my definition, there's only one thing that stops it and that is it is a true remake. It takes the exact character names, plot points, settings and almost script on occasions and just updates it – more gore, more sex, more suspense and that's it… at no point does it needlessly sully the original or try and 'better' it. It takes the story and just runs with it.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels – is the least like a remake, they changed almost everything, including, crucially, the title and no one remembers the original except maybe the film-makers widow….

So lets talk about what we REALLY are here to talk about –

MODERN FILM REMAKES

I am, of course referring to –

Dawn of the Dead

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Omen

Alfie

The Italian Job

The Amityville Horror

Assault on Precinct 13

The Fog

Black Christmas

The Pink panther

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory

Cheaper by the Dozen

Fun with Dick and Jane

The Hills have eyes

And so on and so on and so on – too much SHITE to list

And they show NO sign of stopping-

the soon to be made –

Escape from new york

Halloween (2011 update: 2 have now been made)

Evil Dead (see above)

The Birds

Day of the dead (2011 update: this one too)

AGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I HATE absolutely HATE these remakes. (I was angry 4 years ago too apparently!)

I don't care if you liked some of these films, I don't care one bit. I will tell you right now not one of those films should be called what they are called and not one of those films is a patch on the original!

If the remake had never been made – would you EVER watch any of the originals and have the arrogance to say that it should be remade? No… would you watch the original and be able to come up with other stories in the same setting, or stories involving the same characters – of course! And that would be cool if those movies got made but CALLED something different.

It actually all comes down to perception and marketing – not film making or creativity.

What they do is they think - oh yeah Zombies - Shopping Mall - cool idea... but wait IF we do that AGAIN people will JUST say we are imitating Dawn of the Dead and they'll just get angry. So, how do we make a film that fans won't kill us for AND new audiences will go and see? Hmmmm I know we'll SAY it's a remake and somehow people will tolerate this. As long as we include the idea (zombies, shopping mall) we have a VERY thin and wonky frame on which to hang a whole new movie and it doesn't even have to stand up to the original because it's a remake, so people's defenses are lower they are not even necessarily expecting a good movie because it's a REMAKE.

So if a film doesn't ENTIRELY suck and throws some gore or tits or both into the mix – it gets called a 'good' remake…. Hence the unusual popularity of the Dawn of The Dead remake…. Which, had it had normal speed Zombies (uber-fast Zombies are FUCKING AWFUL), had one more pass at the script in a rewrite and been set in another building other than a shopping mall, I might have even liked it – as it is, AFTER Johnny Cash stops singing over the opening credits, the movie is a big pile of gash…. Real gash…

it is

–        stop it

–        stop saying you like it

–        it is a big pile of gash

–        get over it, watch it again

–        Oh Look running zombies! they're shit.

–        Oh look obtuse arrogant and badly written security guards!

–        Oh look a zombie baby!

Oh yeah it's utter shite…. What was I thinking… oh look it's a lovely day outside… la la la la

This next bit sort of repeats what I said up top, sorry...

As for the proposed remakes of bonafide classics such as Halloween, Evil Dead and Escape movies the big problem is this - Those movies are made good and amazing because of THE PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THEM. Take Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert & Bruce Campbell away from Evil Dead and it's 5 teenagers go to a wood and get picked off by spirits - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz snoresville...

and if you take John carpenter and ESPECIALLY Kurt Russell away from Escape from New York and you still have a fairly groovy plot but you loose the charisma and the character.

Both John C and Kurt R have spoken MANY times about how Snake Plisken is their statement about a certain time and place and a certain type of masculinity and politics. They have also said how it is kinda based on the two of them.

How, then, can you replace the people who gave life to the character? because anyone else, absolutely ANYONE! would either do their own thing and therefore not be Snake OR merely be imitating what Russell expertly did before because they wouldn't understand the character and play it with the depths that Kurt does.

Wouldn't you just watch the movie thinking "oh my god I miss Kurt Russell, even Captain Ron was better than this!"

And don't even get me started about the Halloween remake which is apparently a prequel of sorts…..

Ya

Right

I shall say this only once -  IN THE FIRST MOVIE DONALD PLEASANCE EXPLAINS THAT BETWEEN BEING A BOY AND KILLING HIS FIRST SISTER AND BEING AN ADULT AND COMING AFTER JAMIE LEE CURTIS, THAT MICHAEL MYERS SPENT 15 YEARS COMATOSED IN A MENTAL INSTITUTION…..

Makes no sense does it!

Certain films belong to certain filmmakers, these remakes are fruitless, pointless HACK films.... made by weak pathetic scum and I hate them.

I am at war with remakes....

The battle will be fought on the streets, in the cinemas and up in the trees (mainly by ape creatures)

I urge EVERYONE to boycott these types of remakes NOW

I am serious

I am fucking furious

Enough is enough

 

As an update to this blog in 2011: The Halloween remake has been made, I didn't see it and have no idea if it was a prequel or whatever. This was based on internet chatter back in 2007. What I can tell you is they are doing a REMAKE of the THE THING but calling it a prequel by focusing on the Norwegian team who first discover the alien site. Neat way to get around the 'remake' tag right while still doing essentially a remake, right?

WRONG

If you have seen John Carpenter's THE THING we KNOW everything that happens to The Norwegian group. We know they ALL die and the alien is in the dog. We even know how they discover the spaceship because there is VIDEO footage of them doing it in John Carpenter's The Thing!!! It will be the most pointless film since Titanic!

So that's it then, my full rants on remakes. Basically almost everything I have ever had to say on the matter. Normal service will resume with the next blog but boy did that feel good to get out there. I welcome ALL comments and discussions on this topic. Thanks again for reading.

Spiderman 3 - 24th April 2011 - Part two of Superhero doublebill

I don't need to go on at length about why this film is a mistake, it has already been written about almost everywhere.
There are too many villains, too much poor use of CGI, the script is all over the place, the philosophy is muddled, the acting weak, there is too much of the bits you don't like and too little of the bits you do from the other movies and alright already! I get it! you comic book fans hated the bit where Spiderman went 'dark' slicked his hair down and went maliciously ballroom dancing in front of his ex. Sheeesh!

As I explained in the previous blog I am not a comic book fan and therefor do not have a passionate attachment to the source material, I look at this as a movie, as a comic book movie and as a Sam Raimi movie. I watched it again because it was my first time watching it in a long time and I wanted to see if it really was as bad as everyone made out and I came to the conclusion that no it isn't.
Is it the worst film out of the Spiderman trilogy? possibly but I have a problems with each and everyone of them, is it the worst comic book movie ever made? not by a long shot! and then we come to something I do care passionately about, is it the worst Sam Raimi movie ever made? Well... I couldn't make it all the way through 'For The Love of the Game', I made it all the way through this and I like baseball, so it can't be but it's probably a close joint second along with Crimewave.

My main problem that I have with Spiderman 3 is that after Spiderman 1 proved to the studios that Sam was ready for the big time and 2, the most obvious Raimi movie out of the three, made all that money and was critically acclaimed by professionals and fans alike why on earth didn't the studio just leave him alone to do his own thing in the 3rd film?
Maybe they gave him just enough rope to hang himself though because they did let him and his brother write the script but considering they also penned Army of Darkness one of the greatest films of all time, I am going to continue to blame the studios.
Now I think if Raimi knew he was wrapping up his trilogy for good he would've done things differently but maybe he went along with all this crap because he thought he'd get his chance in part 4. I have no idea, this is all pure speculation by a Sam Raimi fan who pines for him to go back to his original sort of film making and who also hoped beyond hope that he would one day give Bruce Campbell more to do in a big Hollywood film.

The best thing about all three films are the Raimi touches, the humour, the camerawork, the casting of Bruce Campbell, Ted Raimi and J.K Simmons and that scene when Doc Ock wakes up in the hospital where Raimi finally gets to do his thing.
Now to that contentious montage in the 3rd film where Maguire Saturday-Night-Fever's it down to a stereotypical jazz bar and then tears the place up with some ludicrous hip swinging. This is clearly, for those who know the man's work, Raimi's invention, it is just his motives are unclear. Did he do it because he genuinely thought it was funny? or did he do it to stick it to the studio for forcing him to put the fucking awful venom plot line in there? we will never know but while it does jar with the rest of the film (which considering what the rest of the film is like isn't necessarily a bad thing) and while it is cringe-worthy hilarity that Maguire doesn't pull off completely as he is no Bruce Campbell when it comes to this stuff and while you could've made the point that scene makes in any number of far more suitable ways, I don't have as huge a problem with it as everyone else does because I don't hold Spiderman aloft as some sacred icon. I just can't take comic book movies seriously.

I think comic books are great art forms and great story telling devices, I entirely see why people get involved in the characters and the mythology and maybe one day they will leave a film maker alone long enough to tell a decent story with all of that but based on all the superhero movies I have seen and you can assume I have seen most of the main ones and their sequels, their plots and characters don't rise above the level of Australian soap operas at their worst and 80s saturday evening TV (The A Team, The Hulk, Knight rider) at their best. They are simple good vs. evil morality plays dressed up in funny costumes, surrounded by bright lights and explosions. To criticise Spiderman 3 because it doesn't manage to cover up the plot holes and messy structures of these things as skillfully as other ones seems a little redundant.

All of which makes me a complete and admitted hypocrite because if this was what Raimi gave us as Evil Dead 4 I would probably be depressed for months, so I do understand how fans of something could've been mad at this film but blame the studios for being wrong and blame Raimi for not having the balls to walk out once they tried to force things on him.

As Bruce Campbell once said all Hollywood films these days are B Movies. If someone gets bitten by a radioactive spider then it's a B picture!
Well I agree and people should watch it as such with all the cheesy dialogue, hokey plots, and 2 dimensional characters to be expected and indeed cherishing. So while I am in no way celebrating Spiderman 3, I can't condemn it totally either.
It wasn't painful to sit through, well maybe bits of James Franco's over acting and that bizarre British news woman at the end but basically it left me feeling numb to it all. What I take away from it is a big CGI induced headache and a shrug of the shoulders.

5.5 out of 10 blancmanges in the shape of a giant spider
Point from The Wife 8 out of 10
  

Army of Darkness - 8th April 2011

Army of Darkness is responsible for this blog because Army of Darkness is responsible for me, in some way.

Yes, before it in my life there was Monty Python, the Muppet movies, Gene Wilder's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Indiana Jones, to name a few and yes, in their own way, they all had their affect but Army of Darkness, when I was but 13, started a genuine love affair with movies that has lasted 18 years and counting.

More importantly, that feeling you get after a certain type of film when you know, you've just seen something different. Something special.

I first came across the film at school where, when I think back, we used to rent all sorts of crazy films. Films like 'The Gods Must Be Crazy', 'Beastmaster' and 'Army of Darkness'.

What got me first, I remember, was the dialogue and the second thing was the animated skeleton effects. I was a fan from the very beginning. The thing was back then it was all VHS and not everything was immediately available in the UK, also, being a young teenager I was hardly flush with the old cashola and so, although memory is, obviously, a little vague, I went back to my original mission which was to collect every VHS that any member of Monty Python had ever appeared in ever. You know, as you do.

Then, in 1997, 98 maybe I wandered into my local movie/music shop and they were having a 3 for 12 offer on VHS, this was back when you could buy three of anything for 12 pounds, and they had Evil Dead 1, Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness (or The Medieval Dead as it is also titled in the UK) in the offer. Now, by then, I had certainly seen ED2 or parts of it on TV, I was at 6th form college studying film and so, through chats with people there, I was becoming more and more aware of the horror and b-movie genres (I remember one hilarious conversation round a pub table with my technician friends where they told me all about a film where someone was raped by a tree!) and I am almost certain that, weirdly, I had seen Maniac Cop by this stage too. So the pieces were slotting into place.
I purchased the three VHS, went home, watched all three and a new version of me was born. Everything about them I wanted more of, the camera angles, the cheesy yet inventive b-movie dialogue and, of course, Bruce Campbell.
So that, in a vague, mis-remembered ramble, is my story and how I came to be writing this blog years later.
Years later at a point in history, thanks mainly to my generation I would imagine, that horror, B-Movies, the Evil Dead trilogy, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are firm fan favourites, with a following, almost common place and at a time when, as Bruce is known to say, Evil Dead is now available in Walmart.
The downside of all this is all the horrible remakes, bad hollywood horror and the fact that the joy of finding a rare Bruce VHS tucked away in the corner of some tiny video shop crammed to the gills with amazingly weird and dusty VHS has been replaced with easy to do 1-click shopping on Amazon.com or EBay but these, I feel, on my good days, are small prices to pay for being able to finally watch and get hold of all of Bruce's back catalogue, more or less, and for being able to make friends based on the one guy out of a hundred you might meet who knows who BC is.

Right, back to Army of Darkness:
Now, it might be worth mentioning at this point that there are five main versions of the film.
There is the American theatrical version which is the version I saw on the 8th of April at a midnight screening (completing my dream of seeing all three films of the trilogy on the big screen at a midnight screening) and that one is the shortest, has the most amount of studio interference and only features the 'Captain Supermarket' ending. There is also an American TV version of Army of Darkness which I haven't seen.

Then there is the Directors Cut 'Official Bootleg' edition which has now been released on DVD both sides of the pond and that features, basically, everything that was shot with varying degrees of quality. This has the full battle, the full windmill scene and the "I slept too long!" ending. The only trouble with this version is they changed where Henry the Red rides into battle at a point where, because there is a burning fuse, it is A) even more ridiculous than it was before and B) stops the flow of the whole ending battle. It seems like one big editing mistake that could've been easily fixed.

Then there is the International cut of the film which seems to blend the two. This is the one I own on VHS and has never been released on DVD, to my knowledge. The only DVD versions I can find currently available is the Directors Cut and the American Theatrical release.

Then, finally, there is the MGM Region 3 Hong Kong version of the film and this is  an amalgam of all other versions, with the best sound and video quality, running at 96 minutes, same length as the director's cut. The VHS I have had the same cover, this was also the art work used to advertise it in UK cinemas, it was obviously designed to stand alone and appeal to fans of Conan and Beastmaster etc.

Why the recently financially screwed MGM decided to release the best version in this territory and not world wide is a mystery for the ages. Still at least now I have a new holy grail.

Right, so with all that established, I will attempt to give a fair review of the whole film. Firstly, it's faults, if it has any, are obviously due to editing and studio interference. If you couple that with the fact that they were obviously trying to achieve an absolute ton on the budget, which stretched its effects house to bursting point, exhausted its star and frustrated it's director, it may go a little way to explaining why the pacing can be a little off in places and none of it really makes any sense.
Once you accept these things, however, then the film is one of the most endlessly inventive, humourous, bizarre and re-watchable films the studio system has ever produced.

If its success, or rather lack of it on initial release, was based on the American Theatrical version then I am not entirely surprised because, being the shortest of all the versions, it makes the least amount of sense and races at an utterly breathless pace from the start to the finish. What the studio did by trimming it down and trying desperately to make it a straight stand alone action/adventure film was utterly miss the point. It lacks the beauty and clarity of Sam's direction and vision in some places, it wastes a lot of the fantastic sequences towards the end that they probably spent a lot of the budget on and it reduces some of the finer points of Bruce's character and acting so he is just, predominantly a buffoon.
The longer versions, however, give the images and more importantly the amazing Joe LoDuca score room to breathe.

AOD, whilst following on from Evil Dead 2 in plot, it doesn't follow on in tone at all. It is a play on the plot of a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by way of a Warner Brother's cartoon performed by the Three Stooges and with the dialogue lampooning the quips of everyone from Errol Flynn to James Bond. It probably confused or even angered horror fans at the time because of it's departure from the gross out antics of the first two but this trilogy of films, if they're about anything then they are about Sam as a director and Bruce as an actor. The pair of them infuse every frame of each film with their considerable talents and while Evil Dead 2 might be the best film out of the trilogy, Army of Darkness is the best all out Bruce Campbell movie, maybe ever made.
It's where the longer versions again succeed as they seem to manage to contain Campbell's incredibly funny, frantic and dextrous performance better, although, to be fair, it's him and the character of Ash that win out in every single one of the edits.
Its continued success now, I would say, is based almost entirely on him, his ability to turn the mock-heroic dialogue into a sort of amazing poetry and the way that he makes us like and sympathise with this cowardly, idiotic braggart.
Everyone made a big hoot about Jim Carrey in The Mask two years later but I honestly feel that Campbell is a more capable, more complex and more adventurous actor and he did it all without the use of CGI.

Hollywood would most likely have softened and marginalised Campbell, much as it has Raimi, had he got the recognition for Army of Darkness and indeed, the Evil Deads, that he deserved. What it has given him, eventually, is a loyal fan base that has allowed him longevity and the chance, occasionally to do an interesting or quirky script the likes of which other actors may only dream of.

Another reason to watch Army of Darkness is that it sort of represents the last of Raimi as a truly innovative and creatively original director. Yes, The Quick and The Dead was covered in his trademark camera work but the performances in it are far too earnest and serious, Spiderman 2 had glimmers of his deft use of sound and video editing but the rest of the trilogy had so much money behind it that the sense of effort and innovation wasn't there and it's true to say that Drag Me To Hell returned Raimi to his gross out and mischievous roots but without a strong script or a Campbell, a lot of it looked like he was treading water.
In AOD though, he took studio money and a serious supporting cast and peppered it with absolutely everything he had ever learnt from the super 8 days onwards, filled it full of friends and family cameos, wrote in Stooges gag after Stooges gag, strapped cameras to everything he could think of, put Bruce's name above the title of the movie and utilised, not just every old technique he could find and muster from stop motion animation, prosthetics and puppetry but tried to incorporate the latest techniques that were being attempted at the time too, like the Introvision front-projection system.

AOD stands as one of the last movies to use all these fantastic, mostly entirely practical effects all in one spot. A year later Jurassic Park would come out, showing the world this new thing called CGI and sadly movies have been using it ever since. Occasionally it is used in an inventive and exciting way but mostly it is half-arsed, boring, repetitive, unimaginative and unrealistic. Give me talking skeletons animated through stop-motion techniques any day of the week.

It's true to say that while every version of the film is a bit of a shambolic mess for one reason or another and that may, indeed, be some of it's charm, it is obvious that everyone's time, energy, blood, sweat, tears and passion went into every single frame. There isn't a wasted moment, they thought big and then on a small budget, made big, as big as they could go.

The reason there aren't hundreds of films out there like this, the reason that this film leaves you with such a feeling of 'man I wish every movie was as good and as entertaining as that', the reason it has stood the test of time, grown into a cult, spawned comic books, toys, t-shirts and all manner of merchandise and the reason why the rumour of a fourth one will never die is because:
A) studios rarely give a chance like this to film-makers and they take it with such boundless creativity and enthusiasm and
B) I can't think of a film since, in this genre and with this style, that has even come close to rivaling the weirdness, the wildness, the laughter, the action, the adventure and the energy of Army of Darkness and if some have tried they have done it with that horrible 'we know we are being wacky, look at us being wacky' post-modern, winking at the camera crap that boils my blood and drains my soul.

Into the pit with them!

10 out of 10 a big fist full of hearty medieval, tasty, sweet and never sour grapes.
"First you want to kill me, now you want to kiss me... blow!"
Points from the Wife - 8 out of 10.
     

Drag Me To Hell - 20th September 2010

Sam Raimi has the ability to be and was on his way to becoming the most visually agile and interesting director of his generation, sadly, for me, he has become one of the most frustrating film-makers on the planet. 

Despite starting off with films in the horror/fantasy genre, like The Evil Dead trilogy and Darkman, and showing a flare for original, exciting storytelling through the use of genuinely unique visuals, somewhere along the way, for reasons known only to himself, he's tried to be both dark and edgy like the Coen brothers and populist and sappy like Steven Spielberg.

Then, inexplicably and for most of the audience, seemingly coming out of nowhere, he directed 3 of the most expensive and popular films the world has seen, the Spiderman trilogy.

His original style, camera work, sound mixing and editing from his earlier and, in my opinion, much better and more interesting work seemed to be a perfect fit for a comic book movie, especially one about a man who swings about in exciting ways, high above one of the most filmed cities in the world. 

Spiderman 1 and 2 would, mainly, be studio movies through and through with surprisingly weak scripts and bland acting. If it wasn't for the odd montage sequence, an inventive set piece here and there, a bit of silly humour and the reassuring Bruce Campbell cameos, you wouldn't know they were Sam Raimi films at all. Spiderman 3 is barely recognisable as a movie, let alone a Sam Raimi movie.

Which brings us to Drag Me To Hell.

When Drag Me To Hell was first announced, as the film that was originally going to bridge the gap between Spidey 3 and 4 & 5, people seemed to be excited by Sam Raimi's return to horror and I was just happy this was going to be a horror movie that wasn't a sequel, a remake or a rip off of previous, better movies. I was, also, interested to see if Raimi still had it in him to do this kind of work.

Before I go on, I want to explain something. More than almost any other film-maker, apart from maybe Terry Gilliam, I really really care what Sam Raimi makes. The Evil Dead trilogy are amongst my very favourite films and the directing style he continued to exhibit in films like Darkman and the Quick and the Dead I found to be incredible in their ingenuity and unlike anything I had ever seen before. 

I am hard on Sam Raimi for several reasons: A - I know what he's really capable of, B - he seemed to, at one point in his career, actively turn away from what was so interesting and unique about his work and turn towards just wanting to be a success at any cost and C - despite having no actual intention of ever doing it (not that I want him to) he won't shut up about Evil Dead 4. 

Now I can't begrudge someone for wanting to be successful and I don't care about good people doing things just for the money if they then can use that power to do something more true to themselves and I think a lot of fans thought that Drag Me To Hell was going to be just that.

What I want, as a big selfish fan, is for Sam to direct, Sam and Ivan Raimi to write, Rob Tapert to produce, Jo LoDuca to do the score and Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi to star in a whole bunch of exciting, interesting and original films year after year, a bit like a Scorcese/DeNiro thing from the late 70s, but as a reasonable fan if there was one of those films a decade, it would be ok. I am really attracted to the idea of friends all working together, I love directors who keep a returning stable of actors in their films and the hope is still, especially as with every passing year the Evil Dead and Bruce seem to get more and more fans, that this will happen again with this group. This is because, as a rabid fan, it does feel like all these other things they are doing are all fine and good but ultimately treading water until the chance will come again when it'll be more than just a cameo as a snooty usher or the mention of Evil Dead 4 at Comic-Con.

All that said, hopefully you can see my dilemma with Drag Me To Hell as it came so close to being that film, what with the directing, writing and producing credits but, for me at least, failed ultimately because the cast, except the excellent Dileep Rao, was pretty rubbish and the direction lacked the full Raimi spark, coming across as a bit lazy and predictable. 

What wasn't predictable, however, was the plot. Like the Evil Dead there is a short and simple set-up: a young lady works in a bank, refuses mad old gypsy a loan, gets cursed and then all hell breaks loose and like the Evil Dead, it's the simplicity that allows Raimi the chance to step in and fill the rest of the film with what he does best, wild, unpredictable and highly enjoyable set pieces. These can get a little repetitive, though and there are certainly things here that we've seen before but there are also fantastically funny and original bits, like the scene in the garden shed that involves a roadrunner cartoon inspired anvil, that for no reason is strung up to a pulley system and hanging from the ceiling, that, if they hadn't used some unfortunate CGI, would've been near to perfection.

Watching it this time round (maybe my 4th time with this film) Allison Lohman isn't quite as annoying as I had originally found her, although she still looks 12 and I don't buy her as being experienced enough in the job to be up for a big promotion. Dileep Rao is endlessly watchable as the fortune teller come soul saviour, Lorna Raver is deliciously disgusting and loopy as the old gypsy woman and the rest of the cast, such as it is, do an ok job but it is staggering just how truly awful and awkward Justin Long is in this. Now, ok, he doesn't have much of a part at all but every time he is on screen it takes me completely out of the movie.

If I was to step out of my fan shoes for a moment and view this film purely as a one off horror movie then, at least, it has more originality, visual flare and a better sense of humour than 90% of other horror related films that have come out in the last decade. In the style of cinematography, score, costuming and the theme of gypsy curses, it seems to hark back to a time, even before the 70s and 80s rash of horror films, like the 40s and 50s maybe, it has that vibe, or even earlier where it could have easily been a silent picture, especially if you removed all the gross out effects.

As a fan, though, it fell short of what it could've been and what I hoped it was going to be. If Sam had used his money and power, post those web-slinger movies, to get the people involved that I listed above it could have, with very little tweaking, been a masterpiece. Instead of the bland, what looks like, teenage couple of Lohman and Long, you cast Bruce Campbell as a middle aged, grumpy, feeble, push-over bank teller who, because he keeps getting passed over for promotion by young upstarts, one day refuses a loan to an old gypsy woman. The rest of the film could then play out more or less the same but with the added bonus of Bruce Campbell in the lead role of a Sam Raimi movie and more than that even I think you'd be adding a much more interesting character, someone who really deserves their redemption, which would make the ending actually surprising and tragic. Before you denounce this as just being a dopey fan suggestion, I honestly, even if they cast a different middle aged actor and you take BC out of the equation, think it would be a more interesting, dynamic film that would work on so many different levels.

As it is, Drag Me To Hell missed a trick in my opinion but despite that still turned out to be an exciting, scary, unexpected, haunted roller coaster of a picture. 

As for the announced future projects of Sam Raimi, I am a little depressed that nothing really enticing has materialised yet and with Bruce Campbell tied up for at least the next 3 years with Burn Notice, The Sam Axe Movie and Bruce Vs Frankenstein, we fans have to go back to waiting and waiting for any film that features the pairs talents again in the future.

7.5 out of 10 green salads with worms in them

Points from The Misses 9 out of 10 green salads without worms in them