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     

The After Movie Diner on the COMIC BOOKED Podcast Episode 16

I was very honoured recently to be asked for an interview by John and Lucas for their podcast as part of the Comic Booked website

We covered a multitude of topics such as:

Our recent nomination in the TLA Cult Awards

Our Independents and Alternative oscar shows

The Godfather

Evil Dead

Bruce Campbell

CHUD

Fright Night

Sam Raimi

Drive

Clash of the Titans

Kevin Smith

and yes, of course, Billy Zane

It was a fantastic little chat, utterly surprised me to get the request but I was very happy to oblige. Please check out this, all their other podcasts and the whole website over at http://www.comicbooked.com/

You can hear and download the show here:

http://podcasts.comicbooked.com/cbp-16-sharing-a-meal-at-the-after-movie-diner/

or on iTunes

Thanks again guys!

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.

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.
     

Icebreaker - 6th April 2011

From the pitch meeting, which must've gone something like 'It's Die Hard... er... but on a ski slope... with Sean Astin' to the use of Beethoven's Ode to Joy over the opening credits you get the hint pretty early on that this is going to a be a fairly heavy rip off of almost every terrorist/action movie cliche in the book, only, of course, on a ski slope but that's ok because you only bought, rented or watched the damn thing because Bruce Campbell is in it, right?

At first, second and even third looks you might be scratching your head and saying to yourself, how in the name of Robert Davi's pock marks did this atrocious, hack D-list director manage to get Bruce Campbell, Sean Astin and Stacey Keach in this piece of ludicrous nonsense huh? You might also wonder how, considering this was pre-Lord of the Rings (but only just), Astin still comes away with top billing?
Well I don't know the answer to either of those questions any more than I know how you manage to get funding for a film like this in the first place, still there is precedent, at least for the main two actors. Campbell played a similar talky, arch villain in the instantly forgettable and utterly shonky 'Chase Moran: Assault on Dome 4' and Sean Astin had played a cocky yet dependable hero in the underestimated gem 'Toy Soldiers'.
The only thing Campbell has ever said on the subject is that he was offered the hero part but took the villain role as it got all the best lines, boy is that an understatement, poor Astin hardly gets any lines and does very little in the way of action too, unless you consider skiing action.

Ok, now let's play "Weird B Movie link ups", shall we?
The world of B-Movies, independent film and straight-to-video genre fair is a fairly incestuous world by all accounts, with the likes of Bruce Campbell, Jeffrey Combs, Andrew Divoff, Robert Davi, Joan Severance and Corbin Bernstein, to name a few, forging whole careers out of the second tier, often non-theatrical world.
Well, let's see how the cast of Icebreaker do then. Bruce Campbell starred in Brisco County Jnr with Sean Astin's Dad, Campbell would go on to star with Keach again in Man with a Screaming Brain and both Bruce and Suzanne Turner (the female lead of Icebreaker) had appeared as guest stars in Weird Science the TV Show. Admittedly that last one was a bit weak but, you know, it's fun to find this stuff out.

So the film itself is pretty awful and in parts thinks that it's funnier than it actually is, for example by having the highly effeminate ineffectual head of the slope first send holidaying normal folk into a blind panic, by announcing point blank at a press conference that their our terrorists about to blow up a mountain, and then later turning into a gun toting, quip making nutcase.
In fact you're not sure, watching the ridiculous performances of all concerned, whether the director was trying to make a straight faced normal movie but was plagued with hammy acting and a bad script or if he went out of his way to make a tongue in cheek pile of laughable dung and the hammy acting and bad script were intentional.
Seeing as all the name actors have been far better in other things I would maybe consider the latter but whatever the intentions that's definitely the way to watch this movie: Get a group of friends round, keep the alcohol flowing and laugh your way through this very flimsy excuse of a movie or watch it to see Bruce Campbell with a shaved head come very close to majorly embarrassing himself (no mean feat!) by seemingly strain to maintain seriousness in the face of some truly atrocious lines.
The third option, of course, is probably the best advice, unless you're a hardcore Bruce Campbell fan, don't watch it.

3 out of 10 still frozen salad drizzled in weak sauce.
Points from the Wife - 4 out of 10.

Bubba Ho-Tep - 10th October 2010

I just finish The 'Burbs blog bemoaning the fact that they don't make interesting inventive films with a sense of humour any more and then I realise that on the Sunday after I watched The 'Burbs, I watched Bubba Ho-Tep. That puts a whole spanner in the works of my theory about recent cinema.
Bubba Ho-Tep is maybe one of the weirdest and most outrageous plots ever committed to film: An old man who is coming out of a coma caused by a shattered hip, in an East Texas rest home, with cancer of the penis claims to be the actual Elvis Presley, he meets and befriends a wheelchair bound African American guy who claims to be JFK, dyed black and with a bag of sand for a brain and together they fight a 2000 year old Mummy in a cowboy outfit. Add to the fact that Elvis is played by, none other than, B-Movie genius Bruce Campbell and Jack Kennedy by the legendary Ossie Davis and if that synopsis doesn't make you want to either rush out and buy the film right away or get it out and watch it for the 100th time then there is something medically wrong with you.
The miracle with Bubba Ho-Tep is just how Don Coscarelli, the director, Joe R Lansdale, the original story writer and the cast manage to ring every ounce of emotion, sentiment, message and pathos from this, admittedly, ludicrous sounding premise. If you want a genuinely affecting buddy movie, then it's here, if you want a statement on how we treat old people in our society, then it's here and if you want comments on life, death, fame, the meaning of being a hero and the nature of nobility then it's all here but without, in any way being preachy or taking itself too seriously. Now, for cinema, that may just be the greatest trick anyone ever pulled.


In fact, Bubba Ho-Tep, for all it's wild sounding notions, is a lesson in stripped down, simplistic, narrative driven storytelling. That's not to say that Coscarelli's style is simple, far from it, but the film just plays out slowly, sweetly and without any fuss. He makes it look entirely effortless, keeps your attention and the result is a mature, funny, engaging and strangely touching movie about two fallen icons being given one last chance.
At the same time as seemingly being a softer paced, dialogue driven character piece it also has moments of sublime, surreal humour, knock about slapstick, explosions and action which  never feel out of place or over-the-top. It's also one of the funniest movies of the last 10 years. Also, I defy anyone, not to get a single solitary man tear by the end of the film. It gets really sad in places.


In his performance, Bruce Campbell, not only proves himself to be an actor that is far more versatile than he is usually given credit for (lets see De Niro pull of an elderly Elvis with a growth on his penis and maintain such a high level of dignity) and mirrors the film, in that he is subtle, restrained, simple and 100% effective. Thirty minutes into the film you are not watching Bruce, you are watching Elvis, such is the immersive quality of Campbell's acting, ability to work with make-up, take on anything the role demands and lack of star ego. If the Oscar's were given out honestly then he really should've won because I can't think of a better more believable performance given by an actor in the last decade, let alone just in 2002. For all the people who think Bruce Campbell just plays his 'Ash' persona in everything, the swaggering loud mouth, prat-falling idiot, then they are not only mistaken, missing the true underlying subtlety in a lot of his work but have to flat-out change their opinion after watching Bubba Ho-Tep, such is the honest genius of his portrayal. If only there were more roles like this for him to sink his teeth into. It's a real shame that they couldn't agree on part two, oh well.
Ossie Davis, also, is perfectly cast as Jack Kennedy and at no point, once the friendship is fully established, do you ever not believe him. It is a really tricky role to pull off and it requires a certain stature and grace to portray it as believably as possible and Ossie has all that as well as the authority of screen presence, sense of history and sheer brilliant acting ability. He also mixes in a little sense of the absurd and is obviously having tons of fun with the role.
The supporting actors too, are all perfectly cast and provide a solid, amusing ensemble to back up the two leads but this is definitely the Ossie and Bruce show.


The other joy of this film is that the effects are, almost all, practical, gloriously low tech and work perfectly. The work that Coscarelli and his crew do with lighting, for example, is tremendous and completely suitable as it harks perfectly back to the mummy picture of the 30s. 
KNB's make-up is superb and, like always, subtly compliments the film without ever becoming showy or threatening to take over the piece. They also came up with a new, dramatic, skeletal depiction of the mummy and a faultless aging effect for Bruce. 
Finally, finishing the film off in a truly inspired and, in places, transcendent way is Brian Tyler's score which can not be praised enough. It was a tall order to make a film about Elvis without using any of his music (it would be too expensive) and the only way to overcome that and not disappoint the audience or even let them notice was to have a fantastic score/soundtrack and that's what Tyler gives us. It is haunting and poignant when it needs to be, light, loose and inspiring in the right places, dramatic, catchy and compliments the style of the film perfectly.


The best thing about all of it is that the film was completely independently financed and filmed, then when it was released it was taken around the country, state by state, using the internet and Bruce's fans to get the word out by forming street teams of promoters and all that effort paid off as it wound up being successful enough to get a distribution deal in Europe and receive an MGM released, no less, deluxe DVD. It really was the little movie that could, proving, once again, that what an intelligent audience seems to want is original, interesting movies.
Yes, as I have said before, it's a shame this sort of film doesn't get made more often but the fact that one seems to squeeze out every few years is, to paraphrase Hunter S Thompson, a sign that someone, somewhere is tending to the light at the end of the tunnel.


10 out of 10 tins of old fashioned chocolates
Points from The Misses 9 out of 10 tins of old fashioned chocolates
  

Maniac Cop - 18th September 2010

It's hard to believe that I have written 22 reviews and this is the first time I have got to a Bruce Campbell movie. I have mentioned Bruce before in the blog and so hopefully folks are aware what admiration I have for the man, if not, then I am sure it will become apparent.

I must have seen Maniac Cop originally in the mid nineties. I had first become aware of Bruce when I watched Army of Darkness at school in '93 and I think Maniac Cop was possibly the next film I saw him starring in. I came across it through some friends I had at college in '97 although, for whatever reason my complete recollection of events is a little hazy but basically it became my gateway film into the little B Movie realm that Mr.Campbell has inhabited for most of his career.


It's difficult to gauge, overall, where Maniac Cop and it's two fairly decent but more action orientated sequels sit in the grand scheme of 80s horror and just how popular it was, is and why it never seemed to reach the success or following of something like Friday the 13th, probably it's closest horror companion in style and content. In fact this film came out just one year before that other knife wielding loony zombie Jason also 'took' Manhattan, Maniac Cop, I am glad to report though, is the far superior movie. It's makers are director William Lustig, who is most famous for his controversial serial killer flick 'Maniac' and writer Larry Cohen whose career started writing some of the more famous Blaxploitation films and whose biggest writing credit to date is on the underrated Phone Booth, if only they'd cast someone other than Colin bloody Farrell. If Raimi, Craven and Carpenter were mainstream horror (as mainstream as horror ever gets) then Lustig and Cohen were certainly secondary or B level players much akin to Don Coscarelli, who was busy making the Phantasm series at the time and with whom Bruce Campbell would later work with superb results in Bubba Ho-Tep.


The film, essentially, is a stalk and slash film but with the twist that the person you'd usually run to help for, a cop, is the one doing the stalking and slashing. 
As if that wasn't groovy enough, there's a back story that dares you to almost sympathise with the killer, or at least attempts to explain his actions, complete with the wounded girlfriend who still loves him despite him essentially being a big shambling zombie with a face you wouldn't so much hold in your hands lovingly as scale like a mountain. 
There's a sub plot about a regular beat cop, his wife driven paranoid by anonymous calls into believing her husband is really the maniac, when he's actually having an affair but is still framed as the maniac cop later when his wife shows up dead. 
There's the detective with the tragic past trying to make sense of a whole heap of loose ends, the hard bitten squad commander a few days from retirement, a ton of pen pushers up in city hall screwing it up for everyone, ably lead by the Police Commissioner played by Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree and all this taking place in a city full of panicky people, mistrusting the cops so much now that one of them even shoots a perfectly innocent one dead. 
For a little 85 minute horror this film has a pretty dense plot, even if it does resort to explaining away huge leaps of logic by basically hoping the audience is sitting there thinking, oh yeah it's just a movie.


The plot aside though, you also get to witness a proper horror film on the actual streets of New York in the gritty and seedy 80s and not just some franchise that's run out of ideas and decides to send it's hockey mask wearing killer first to New York, then to hell and finally to space! but a film in which the people and the place feel authentically shabby and where the city plays a part, right down to them filming the actual St.Patrick's day parade for the finale.
For whatever reason, probably the logistics and cost of shooting there, New York does not get used very often in the Horror genre, except apartment horrors like The Sentinel or Rosemary's Baby and that's partly what gives Maniac Cop its edge and slightly unique feeling.


Now, to the cast: The lead, essentially, for the first half of the movie at least, is Tom Atkins' troubled but thorough detective and despite not looking 100% the part and being forced to wear some truly ludicrous jackets, he is solid enough and has enough conviction in the character that he does carry the film nicely. Laurene Landon is mostly awful and I don't buy her as a scream queen or as a, "I can look after myself", tough female cop but I've always just accepted that's pretty much the standard in this genre and while her voice and hair threaten to spoil the movie, they never truly do. Robert Z'Dar, who plays the titular maniac cop, is possibly the most bizarre looking man ever to grace the silver screen, his face looks like a really bad make-up attempt, like a person with a normal sized head wearing a ludicrous prosthetic chin. His jaw line closely resembles the plow and front bumper of an ice moving truck. It is genuinely a wonder that Campbell ever became known for his chin after he starred in a film with Z'Dar whose chin has it's own postal code. That said, he plays the part perfectly adequately but it's not like he has a whole lot to do other than stand on his mark and strangle the right stunt man. He is, after all, a combination of Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees in a police uniform.
So that, finally, brings us to Bruce Campbell. Out of all of the merry band of characters his is the most normal and the least cliche and so, while it may disappoint some fans of his more over-the-top comedy work, Campbell does his best job of playing it straight in this film, which, in its own way, is quite refreshing. The rest of the film is so full of off-kilter, slightly strange or slightly over-the-top genre staples and crazy camera work that it is Campbell's portrayal of the character that anchors the film nicely.
People think I am crazy or just saying it in some tongue-in-cheek way because I am a fan but I honestly believe that the reason Campbell gets the cult attention that he does, or is hailed as king of B movies when there are other character actors who equally tread the same path in sometimes better films, is that he can really act and more than that, genuinely is an interesting screen presence. Everyone knows him as the brash, one liner spouting, Ashley J Williams from Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness, which also fed into his performance of Autolycus in Xena but he is very capable of playing it straight and even subtle sometimes.
Maniac Cop is interesting though because, if you are familiar with his other films, the first time you watch it, you keep expecting Bruce, in the final act, to strap on an enormous machine gun and take the rampaging zombie policeman down. The fact that he doesn't and gets very few 'hero' moments can be disappointing at first glance but once you come to terms with the fact that the real starring role of the flick is the Maniac Cop himself and that the other parts are more or less going to play themselves out as realistically as possible, in a setting like this, it makes for a much more enjoyable viewing experience.
Considering it's relatively short running time Maniac Cop packs a lot in, plot wise, has a good economy of dialogue, where people say what they have to, tag the end with a little quip or one liner and then leave, has some nice slasher moments, the occasional bit of inventive camera work, a good score and manages to get the most from it's modest budget.


There is not much to say on the negative side except that, it's not particularly scary and plays a bit more like an action film in places, the female lead in the film could've been more convincing and, throughout the film, there are moments that completely defy any sort of logic, even phony movie logic. That said, that's probably half its charm.
Maniac Cop is far from the worst movie Bruce Campbell has ever been in, in fact it's not really a "Bruce Campbell" movie at all (in the sense that we have come to expect), and far from the worst horror/comedy/action movie that has ever been made, it is a good little, fast paced romp that really wears its B movie credentials proudly on it's bloody sleeve.


6.5 out of 10 egg benedicts
Points from The Misses 5 out of 10 egg benedicts