Bart: Mom, guess what?

Lisa: We’re going to Itchy and Scratchy Land!

Marge: No.  I’ve already planned our vacation.  We’re going to the Highway Nine Bird Sanctuary.  I understand they’ve installed a new birdfeeder this year.

[Bart and Lisa look aghast]

Marge: It’s shaped like a diner.  And it’s on this really tall pole.

[Bart and Lisa look aghast]

Night #31: The Final Night

One of the most notorious so-called ‘video nasties’ of the early eighties, ‘The Evil Dead’ really has earned it’s place in the horror movie hall of fame. Probably the first significant horror movie of the eighties, it set a new definition in gore, shocks and filmmaking that, in many ways, has yet to be rivalled, even though director Sam Raimi has gone on to bigger, though not necessarily better, things with the Spiderman series.

Unlike previous movies that have displayed such qualities, like Tobe Hooper’s ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, ‘The Evil Dead’ has a hearty injection of black humour running throughout, making the over-the-top gore on offer easier to stomach. The special effects are pretty nasty and very unsophisticated, as you would expect for such a low budget feature, but they never seem out of place, fitting the context of the movie perfectly…Bruce Campbell has become a massive cult favourite since starring in this movie and its sequels, mainly due to him adding some over-the-top quirkiness to the [Ash] character, but in this first movie his performance is fairly low-key, even though you do start to will him on towards the end of the movie – to end his torment and your own.

The main star of this movie, though, is the unseen force that lives in the woods. Raimi and his crew built several different camera rigs to enable different views and angles throughout the movie. Usually simple devices made out of timber with a camera mounted on the front, it is this kind of maverick approach to filmmaking that comes across…and makes a simple movie a much more satisfying movie…There are subtle nods to previous horror staples – the tool shed, with its rustic handtools and hanging relics, is evocative of the house in ‘…Chainsaw Massacre’, the shots of the moon and setting sun echo Romero’s ‘Night of the Livng Dead’, whilst there is a torn-in-half poster of Wes Craven’s ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ hanging in the basement – as if to acknowledge what has gone before, and set a new level of terror for a new decade.

Overall, this movie still stands as one of the defining horror movies of modern times. Just as ‘…Chainsaw’ and ‘…Living Dead’ were perfect ‘drive-in’ movies for their era – movies that were meant to be shown on the big screen – ‘The Evil Dead’ was perfect for the then-new medium of video, inspiring a myriad of impersonators well into the 21st century…it is with this truly innovative original that Raimi laid down a template for eighties horror that, nearly thirty years on, still delivers the goods.

(Horror Society)

This is the lucky 13th year in a row that I have viewed The Evil Dead on Halloween night (edit: FYI, I broke out my well-aged Anchor Bay limited edition VHS copy from 1996 for some good ol’ analog griminess). And what a perfect way to cap off my first ever Sh-October horror-thon of 31 straight nights of horror movies. I gotta say that this was a lot of fun, especially when I got into the groove and nightly routine of things (not that the task ever became a mundane chore or anything). To the keen horror geeks amongst you, you may have noticed numerous patterns in the way that I had sequenced the entire order of films (usually in bunches of 2 or 3). For example, films #30 and #31 were both directed by Sam Raimi (and there are many more associative patterns scattered throughout the lineup). Anyways, I hope to have enough unique horror movie choices leftover to do it again next year. And I hope that you enjoyed following along as well as partook in your own horror movie marathon to celebrate the spooky occasion.

So then…a Scerry Xmas to all and to all a good night.

Night #30

With her face frequently in closeup, [Alison] Lohman’s Christine Brown appears beyond paranoia, embodying dread for a universe that’s pitted against her. Her face, which would be cuddly-cute in just about any other film, seems to mask a depression that is rotting her from the inside. However this performance came to be, Sam Raimi sure gets what he needs in his much anticipated return to the horror-comedy, the genre that incubated this now versatile craftsman. Christine’s turmoil notwithstanding, every inch of Raimi’s film teems with devious fun, appropriate since this is the filmmaker’s break from more “serious” – and I’d argue, more forgettable – projects.

“The Evil Dead” was a starter job – a convenient premise in an audience-ready genre. After all, Raimi swears he was hardly a horror film buff, and had stumbled upon the idea for “Dead” when pondering the trees of Birnam approaching Dunsinane in “Macbeth,” a work more to his taste. Like “Night of the Living Dead” premise, which came about as the most economical one George Romero and crew could think up, Raimi conceived a wandering curse, borne from an ancient text but quite the inhabitant in any young host out for a good time in the woods. Thus, the tale could be free in form and flexible for narrative development. It made for an open experimental grounds for the filmmakers.

The pattern of shock-and-shock-again is set early, and surely risks becoming routine. Though Raimi keeps things clever and even throws out one shock before a fair warning, perhaps what the “Saw”-whetted audiences need these days. His bravest move comes in his outright tribute to his own “Evil Dead.” Would you guys think you’d see the possessed hanging in midair and, even moreso Raimi, throating a witch’s cackle? Would you think something so early-80s would work today? The proof is right here in Raimi’s latest.

In “Drag Me” as well, a sure hand revives horror by looking back to tradition. In this genre, perhaps we should consider where we have been before newbies blindly, sadistically thrust themselves forward into muck and darkness.

(Film Threat)

Night #29

If there’s one thing I really want out of life, it’s a vampire movie that takes wild departures from the genre and plays its own game. I found that movie in Tomas Alfredson’s jarring, somnambulistic Let The Right One In, one of the most remarkably original horror movies that I’ve ever seen…It sets out to tell the kind of horror story so heavily steeped in alienation yet without a note of Bauhaus that usually sets the pace for these kinds of movies.

Truth be told, Let The Right One In isn’t exactly a horror movie. Yes, it’s about a vampire, it’s steeped in European atmosphere most likely to be found in a Roger Moore Bond flick and there’s a good deal of gore and violence, but all of this is overshadowed by the romance and coming of age angle. The violence almost stands in as a metaphor for adolescence as a whole.

Director, Alfredson, in a distinctly European fashion tells Oskar’s life story without using a single word. Through subtlety and nuance it becomes clear who he is, where he comes from and where he is going. Eli, on the other hand, is a much more complicated character. Seemingly unaware of the scope of her own power, her only instinct is to survive, and while most child-vampires in fiction are, in fact, adults trapped in the body of children, Eli is a twelve year old trapped in an immeasurably old body that doesn’t show a single sign of its age.

Let The Right One In…[is] unlike any vampire movie you’ve ever seen. It’s remarkably true to the vampire mythology but plays a game unlike anything else. Playing out almost like a fairy tale, it manages to weave violence, revenge and loneliness into a love story that is, at times, as sweet as your memory of your own first kiss. It sells such an offbeat, horrifying tale through unbelievably intense performances from its preteen cast and quietly disturbing direction. This movie is not to be missed under any circumstances.

(Cinema Suicide)

Night #28

Nosferatu is probably considered to be director F.W. Murnau’s standout film. Shot between August and October 1921, the movie would become the target of a lawsuit filed by Bram Stoker’s widow, which claimed that the film essentially stole the ideas from her husband’s novel “Dracula”. As a result of that lawsuit, all known negatives and prints of Nosferatu were destroyed. Years later, prints of the film would surface in other countries and then eventually make their way around the world. Nosferatu became the definitive vampire film, spawning a number of imitations and a remake in 1979. To the purists, nothing compares to the original silent masterpiece from 1922.

Nosferatu should have never been. The lawsuit filed by Bram Stoker’s widow aimed to completely wipe the film out of existence. Thankfully, that didn’t happen and the film became a vital part of the German Expressionist movement…This is a timeless film that has easily outdone all of the copycats to proceed it. This is a movie that doesn’t need the Halloween season to be compelling. In fact, the darkness of the plot itself is enough to resonate with the viewer even in the light of day.

(The Midnight Palace)