chaos-rampant
Joined Dec 2007
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I had no idea this was out or I'd have come to it long ago. I've been a bit out of the loop for some time and it didn't register at all. But watching it over the span of a few days, it's a roaring success for the Raimis and I would probably count it in shortlist of my favorite horror films of the last decade.
There is gruesome splatter and goofy laughs as before; everything in tone and world is as you'd expect from Evil Dead. Once more Ash struts into a stage that swirls and comes alive around him. Once more the point is that everything is conjured up from thin air purely for the joy of making things up. Deadites leap out of nowhere to be chainsawed every minute, as well as other gnarly things. Characters become possessed or encounter their doubles, portals open to other dimensions, and all sorts of other shifts to and from illusory context. We even revisit that first cabin on the eve of the original film.
And the TV format allows this time ample space for us to explore. There are so many memorable places here and we're send in a freewheeling ride through them. And Bruce is ever so watchable, shifting between cocky hero and oafish viewer of what piles up on top of him.
There's all the Evil Dead you're ever going to need here, assuming they don't make another.
There is gruesome splatter and goofy laughs as before; everything in tone and world is as you'd expect from Evil Dead. Once more Ash struts into a stage that swirls and comes alive around him. Once more the point is that everything is conjured up from thin air purely for the joy of making things up. Deadites leap out of nowhere to be chainsawed every minute, as well as other gnarly things. Characters become possessed or encounter their doubles, portals open to other dimensions, and all sorts of other shifts to and from illusory context. We even revisit that first cabin on the eve of the original film.
And the TV format allows this time ample space for us to explore. There are so many memorable places here and we're send in a freewheeling ride through them. And Bruce is ever so watchable, shifting between cocky hero and oafish viewer of what piles up on top of him.
There's all the Evil Dead you're ever going to need here, assuming they don't make another.
The basic mode of Netflix, as I'm discovering lately, is a kind of softly produced cable TV with inclusive values. The target is a broad audience that a while ago would have simply watched what was on TV.
Here's the softening effect. In a documentary about important archeological discovery, we have lush, polished images of the interior of the tomb as if Russell Crowe was about to walk in for a scene. I miss an eye that actually discovers as they did, the awe of having a presence.
It's the same thrill that tickles archeologists the world over as they dig; not just acquiring knowledge of distant mores of life, the way a biologist would, but standing in the middle of tangible things that suggest world, broaden horizon. You'll notice this is a recurring fascination in the film. People really stood here, touched this, played this ancient board game that no one has touched for 4000 years. The mummy laying before us is an actual person from ancient Egypt. It' vividly shows how objects are enlivened by the world they suggest. So it defeats the whole point to give us images with the same feel as the movie version.
And this softening extends in how we come around to discover; we want to find out the 'story' behind this place, archeologists explain to us time and again. There are four burial shafts inside the tomb, and once we dig down to the bottom, we discover ordinary human beings who loved and suffered; an ailing father who probably had to bury his children. Instead I find myself captivated more by the notion of world these people inhabited, which is completely unlike ours today; the complete certainty of living in world that is just a first life that extends into next, a whole life building up to this rocketing of the body in the afterlife.
These are not just decorations on walls, one of the archeologists explains to us. They're 'dreams'. More akin to film than painting, I would add, how we peruse film. Will we ever again be able to be moved to such deep belief as these people? Rather than the overt familiarizing of whether or not someone died from malaria, or did they have lion cubs in Egypt, there's a more interesting one here about how we wave abstract worlds into being.
Here's the softening effect. In a documentary about important archeological discovery, we have lush, polished images of the interior of the tomb as if Russell Crowe was about to walk in for a scene. I miss an eye that actually discovers as they did, the awe of having a presence.
It's the same thrill that tickles archeologists the world over as they dig; not just acquiring knowledge of distant mores of life, the way a biologist would, but standing in the middle of tangible things that suggest world, broaden horizon. You'll notice this is a recurring fascination in the film. People really stood here, touched this, played this ancient board game that no one has touched for 4000 years. The mummy laying before us is an actual person from ancient Egypt. It' vividly shows how objects are enlivened by the world they suggest. So it defeats the whole point to give us images with the same feel as the movie version.
And this softening extends in how we come around to discover; we want to find out the 'story' behind this place, archeologists explain to us time and again. There are four burial shafts inside the tomb, and once we dig down to the bottom, we discover ordinary human beings who loved and suffered; an ailing father who probably had to bury his children. Instead I find myself captivated more by the notion of world these people inhabited, which is completely unlike ours today; the complete certainty of living in world that is just a first life that extends into next, a whole life building up to this rocketing of the body in the afterlife.
These are not just decorations on walls, one of the archeologists explains to us. They're 'dreams'. More akin to film than painting, I would add, how we peruse film. Will we ever again be able to be moved to such deep belief as these people? Rather than the overt familiarizing of whether or not someone died from malaria, or did they have lion cubs in Egypt, there's a more interesting one here about how we wave abstract worlds into being.
I've been on a prolonged hiatus of sorts. With lockdown looming once more around here, I figured a few horror films would be an undemanding return to viewing. It's that time of year anyway.
This one seemed to hold some promise among the few I've managed to see. Apparently some of the same people who made the lovely Housebound would be involved. It seemed that it might have some of that New Zealand spark which I love, usually a quaint neighborhood providing the room for slimy inventiveness.
They were probably aiming for something of the sort. A man travels to a remote cabin to meet his estranged father but once there, a trapdoor opens beneath our feet. It does have some of that irreverent tone, blood spatters in a few places. But it kind of limps along, over just as it would have to get going. You have to be carried outside story at some point with these, staging faster than we have time to catch our breath.
But it's an oddly fitting metaphor for the film that Elijah stumbles awkwardly through a story, always slipping up, never really improvising even when he does.
This one seemed to hold some promise among the few I've managed to see. Apparently some of the same people who made the lovely Housebound would be involved. It seemed that it might have some of that New Zealand spark which I love, usually a quaint neighborhood providing the room for slimy inventiveness.
They were probably aiming for something of the sort. A man travels to a remote cabin to meet his estranged father but once there, a trapdoor opens beneath our feet. It does have some of that irreverent tone, blood spatters in a few places. But it kind of limps along, over just as it would have to get going. You have to be carried outside story at some point with these, staging faster than we have time to catch our breath.
But it's an oddly fitting metaphor for the film that Elijah stumbles awkwardly through a story, always slipping up, never really improvising even when he does.