The Evil Dead

 The Evil Dead is the horror classic. Hailed by Stephen King himself as ‘the most ferociously original horror film of the year’ when it was released in 1981, it’s been banned in countries all over the world and is the first feature film from Sam Raimi, director of the Spiderman trilogy, Drag Me To Hell and Darkman.

 The Book of the Dead is where it all begins, the fabled Necronomicon of the Lovecraftian mythos, the ‘Naturan Demanto’, a book so evil that it contains an incantation in an unknown language, which if read out will summon the spirits of the Dead to kill all in sight. So you can imagine what happens, can you not?

 Five college students travel into the wilderness of Tennessee to spend a pleasant holiday in an abandoned cabin. Everything seems great until they hear noises coming from a chained-up trapdoor in the lounge and decide to investigate, but they find nothing except an old tape recorder and a book bound in human flesh and inked in human blood (oh, what could it be?). On playing the tape, they hear a voice reading out some sort of incantation and from that point onwards their holiday is ruined. Completely ruined. The first to become demonically possessed is Cheryl, who issues a Christmas Carol-type warning to her friends: ‘one by one we shall come for you’. She is then locked in the cellar and forced to remain there shouting insults for the remainder of the film.

The best, and probably the most impressive element of The Evil Dead aside from its innovative camera sweeps and demonic voiceovers, is its visual effects, particularly the gore. But this isn’t Saw gore – it’s much more than Saw gore – it’s stop motion gore. It’s hilarious-yet-disgusting, obviously-fake-yet-brilliant gore. Tree branches turn savage, limbs get amputated and monsters disintegrate all over the place – the actual time and effort put into creating effects like these with such a low budget ($350,000) is incredible. The film is well deserving of its Clavell de Plata award for special effects.

 The mass appeal of The Evil Dead and its sequels is probably due to its ability to combine full-on horror with a certain playfulness – for every moment of disgust, there’s a one-liner or a bit of slapstick to match it. And like Stephen King said, it’s just so unique: a simply structured 85 minutes of fun and blood. The film has gone on to inspire countless other horrors, from Braindead (one of Peter Jackson’s earlier efforts that uses the same sort of ‘animated gore’ effects, but to an even greater extent), to the more recent Cabin in the Woods. There’s even a musical based on the Evil Dead trilogy, which at the time of release was named ‘the new Rocky Horror’. Songs include ‘What the Fuck Was That?’ and ‘Do the Necronomicon’.

 Admittedly the acting isn’t the greatest, but this just adds to the film’s slightly mocking tone, as does the fantastic dialogue that the characters are given (“kill her if you can, loverboy”). Each actor has emerged from the series as a cult hero in the horror community, especially Bruce Campbell and his chainsaw antics. Nowadays, aside from sitting at a computer retweeting Evil Dead quotes (@GroovyBruce) and playing a character in USA Network’s Burn Notice, Campbell still holds a strong presence in the world of cinema. His friendship with Raimi continues, having appeared briefly in many of the director’s later films (the boxing announcer in Spiderman, for example) and, in more exciting news, both Raimi and Campbell are producers of the Evil Dead remake, set to be released in 2013, which follows the same storyline and stars Jane Levy (the girl from Suburgatory). It doesn’t even look that terrible.

 Just watch The Evil Dead this Halloween – it’s all on YouTube, so put it on while carving a pumpkin and you’ll have a wonderful time, but whatever you do, don’t take it too seriously. Or go down into the cellar…

Sinister

Sinister is good, inventive horror. You might not have given it a moment’s thought, what with the large amount of generic, unsatisfying films of the same genre being released over the past year (House at the End of the Street, The Possession, The Pact, Chernobyl Diaries, etc). You might not have given it the time of day if it walked up to you in the street. But please, give this one a chance. 

Sinister starts, rather brilliantly, with four people, paper bags over their heads and nooses around their necks, standing below a tree. And something is moving over to the right of the screen – it’s a saw, and as soon as it cuts through the branch, a mechanism is triggered that slowly lifts the four wriggling bodies off the ground by their necks…

 Ethan Hawke (star of Gattaca, Before Sunset and vampire thriller Daybreakers) plays a struggling author - complete with cardigan, slippers and reading glasses – who doesn’t just write crime fiction, he writes real crime; unsolved child murders in particular. His books attempt to piece together the events, highlighting mistakes that were made in the investigations (making him very unpopular with the police) and this time, he and his family have moved to a new house; a house where the previous family were murdered (although only Ethan knows this – he wants to use it as the setting for his next bestseller). After arriving, he finds a box in the attic containing a projector and several super-8 films, with labels like ‘Family BBQ’ and ‘Sleepy Time’. Intrigued, he watches them late at night, only to discover that they show different families being murdered in various horrible scenarios, and the only thing that links them together is a mysterious symbol that appears on the wall in every film. To top this off, his son Trevor is experiencing night terrors and his daughter Ashley has started drawing on the walls. What does this all mean?

 Writer and director Scott Derrickson (previous films include The Day the Earth Stood Still remake, The Exorcism of Emily Rose and the fourth Hellraiser sequel) really seems to know what he’s doing with this one. The writing is noticeably realistic, especially the husband-wife arguments, which are some of the best scenes in the film. Ethan Hawke and Juliet Rylance’s onscreen relationship at times keeps the film firmly on track; believable and absorbing, as is the performance of up-and-coming child actor Michael Hall D’Addario as the long-haired, rebellious 12 year old.  Dialogue and performances aside however, the ‘death-tapes’ are where Derrickson’s genius really comes into play. Each super-8 is like a horror short, perfectly crafted with their own suitably terrifying soundtrack, and because they’re mostly spread out over the whole film, you’ll find yourself anticipating the next one, wanting to know how the next family will die (not for pleasure of course – simply curiosity).

It’s the plot, too, that shakes you up and down: unguessable at times, with a few moments that will produce screams throughout the cinema. As mentioned before, most people will be tempted to just shove Sinister into the bin of disappointing horror films; ones that attempt to use modern technology to give them an ‘edge’, but this one does it quite well – you won’t want to use laptops and film projectors in dark rooms for a long, long time.

 It was just a very enjoyable, satisfying horror that looked great and gave you more than you expected – what more can be said?