Evil Dead

A long, long time ago when CGI was a thing of wonder; a toy that only the most experienced filmmakers were allowed to play with, director Sam Raimi and his good friend Bruce Campbell created The Evil Dead, a low-budget horror film that shocked and amazed critics and fans alike. Now, just over 30 years later, Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez (with Raimi and Campbell as producers) has made what its poster describes as ‘the most terrifying film you will ever experience’: a remake of the original, simply titled Evil Dead. 

 The premise is simple: five friends are terrorised by the spirits of the dead in a cabin in the woods. Mia (played by Suburgatory’s Jane Levy) is the film’s focus, a girl who suffers from a serious drug addiction and has asked her brother David and three expendable friends (all you need to know is that the initials of their first names spell DEMON) to keep her company while she goes cold turkey. After a quick trip into the cellar on arrival they find the fabled Necronomicon: a book wrapped in barbed wire and bound in what looks like human skin, which, unsurprisingly, they read from.  

   As with most horror remakes, the charm of the original has completely vanished. Tongue is always in cheek when watching Raimi’s classic, but with Evil Dead nothing is ever particularly funny; the horror-comedy genre is left far behind and you get the feeling that Alvarez is seriously trying to create the scariest film ever made. Does he succeed? Not even close. The film just seems to be a succession of increasingly disgusting self-mutilations; something that isn’t entirely a bad thing, but it’s safe to say there’ll be more wincing in the cinemas than screaming. There are certainly a few moments of terror – and this is largely due to Jane Levy’s ability to pull the most disturbing faces imaginable – but it lacks the low-budget, paper-maché atmosphere that makes the original such a thrill to watch.

   What must be applauded though, is Alvarez’s complete disregard for CGI. Nowadays any old film can afford a few computer graphics, no matter the budget (watch Birdemic for proof), so to actually make a film that features double the amount of gore than in all the Saw movies combined without even a single green screen is actually very impressive – and there’s plenty of arm-slicing, cheek-gouging and nail guns in the face to be getting on with.    

 Also praiseworthy is that Evil Dead doesn't rely too heavily on the original; the references are there for fans to pick out, but they certainly don’t weigh the film down. The plot isn't even an exact copy - the inclusion of Mia’s drug problem is topical and also provides a legitimate reason for actually staying in the cabin in the first place; after she rushes in screaming and covered in blood, her friends simply attribute her behaviour to ‘crazy withdrawal symptoms’ and leave it at that (of course, they quickly change their minds when she starts slicing her tongue in half). If you take a step back Evil Dead is really not a bad film for its genre, especially when compared to the recent Texas Chainsaw 3Ds and Paranormal Activity clones we've been subjected to; it may not be as revolutionary as its predecessor but at least it’s not afraid to try.

Spring Breakers

For those who aren’t familiar with the films of director/hipster Harmony Korine, Spring Breakers will look just like another Project X, one of those coming-of-age, ‘finding yourself’ teen movies that seem to come around every summer, similar to a Playboy shoot by the sea perhaps, or an Instagrammed version of Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents. It can’t be denied - that is basically what Spring Breakers is: beach parties, girls in fluorescent bikinis and excess of alcohol and cocaine, but there’s a whole lot more to be got from it if you’re willing to endure the initial blast of colour and dubstep.

 Korine began his career in film at the age of 18 by writing the script for Larry Clark’s Kids, a low-budget indie film about a gang of teenagers living in NYC, and went on to direct his near perfect debut Gummo two years later, the story a group of earthquake survivors in Ohio. Julien Donkey-Boy, Mr Lonely and Trash Humpers slowly followed, and now Spring Breakers, his most commercial feature yet. The attention is due, unsurprisingly, to the presence of James Franco and the two ex-Disney girls Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez. 

 It begins with Skrillex (you know the one) and a full-on hyper-sexual montage of dancing and beer bathing on a beach in Florida. Then, after robbing a restaurant with balaclavas and hammers to get coach money, the four girls (Hudgens, Gomez, Ashley Benson, and Korine’s own wife Rachel) arrive but are immediately arrested following a drug bust in a stranger’s apartment. Enter James Franco as Alien (‘I’m from a different planet, y’all!’), a ‘gangsta’ rapper with gold teeth and shoulder-length braids who bails them out of prison and brings them to his house overlooking the sea where he shows them his AK47 collection. He becomes a sort of mentor to the girls, providing them with food, money and guns; Franco plays him with a sinister arrogance, a man who has fully embraced his criminal lifestyle but still yearns for something deeper. His piano cover of Britney Spears’ ‘Everytime’ is the best scene of the film.
 Out of the four girls, Gomez’s character is perhaps the most interesting and surprisingly well-acted; she’s the only one who believes something to be deeply wrong about their situation and is the first to leave. The ominous click of a loaded gun and Franco’s repeated ‘Spring Break forever…’ leaves the audience with no doubt that the rapper’s intentions are not entirely respectable. 

These are just the bare bones of Spring Breakers. Korine’s style is not to write scenes chronologically, but to create sketches – stories within themselves that may or may not relate to the main narrative. This cut-and-paste technique might not sit well with some people, but it’s certainly interesting to watch – you get a sense of how the film’s going to play out even before the girls get to Miami: the flash of a bloody hand, a muffled scream – it’s addictive cinema.

 But what’s the point of Spring Breakers? Is it just pornography disguised? Is it a social commentary on today’s youth culture? It’s difficult to say, but it seems to be more an exploration of its darker side; the desire to be free, to have fun and ‘live life to the fullest, y’all!’ is so strong in these characters that it leads to them becoming full-blown criminals just to be a part of this unattainable lifestyle. Of course, the usual controversy surrounding a Harmony Korine film is present (see the exploitative nature of Kids, the drowning of cats in Gummo) and it’s hard to ignore – some of those camera angles must be illegal - but the film is actually very enjoyable. If anything, go and see it for James Franco.

original article: http://www.impactnottingham.com/2013/04/review-spring-breakers/