What Love Is...

Just as we bring our deep personal personal experiences and ideals to horror films, we bring the same to films about love. Afterall, is that not what art is about? Perception filtered by experience?

I respond to love stories where lovers abandon the material world for each other.

Not to say it's realistic or reckless.

It's simply what love is for me.

How about you?

Not all these films are exclusively about love, but they explore love's intangible essence in original and powerful ways.

Ask What You Can Bring To the Evil Dead Remake

Film criticism is not about absolutes. Judging art is expressing an opinion, relating how you responded to something. How your neighbor responds to the same thing is a different kettle of fish, and doesn't make them right or wrong. Our responses are filtered by life experience, where we are at any given moment, and what's troubling us at that time. Because we're all on different simultaneous journeys, it makes sense that opinions are often at loggerheads.

I walked out of the EVIL DEAD remake feeling underwhelmed and surprisingly flat. Yes, the special effects were solid, and the film was clearly made with love and passion, but it was a slog for me. At the forty-five minute mark, I wanted it to finish so I could leave and feel the sun on my face. I didn't engage with it, I didn't bond with the characters, and their issues didn't capture my sympathy or empathy.  

For me, the original, which I admire a lot, was more kinetic under Sam Raimi's direction, and the orchestration of character types made for a much more enjoyable time. The special effects were less sophisticated than they are in this remake, but I actually found them more real, more immediate.

The writers in this remake take a few new turns by creating a character struggling with a drug problem, and they half succeed marrying drug rehabilitation with demonic possession for amusement, but it didn't make the film any more interesting to me than if they hadn't done it at all. Still, points for trying.

An 'Ash'/Bruce Campbell-type character is sorely missed here because he was the original's brightest spark, a one-man army who never took the silly premise too seriously. In this revival, there's nobody you could safely call a 'hero', although a 'Final Girl' does turn up (actually, emerge!) when everything's pretty much put to bed. So, does that make her a real 'Final Girl'? And come to think of it, what the hell is a 'Final Girl' even doing in EVIL DEAD?

The producers totally wimp out on recreating the famous Tree Rape scene from the original, content to splash blood and guts all over the place, but becoming coy when a little penetration by flora is underway, so screw them(!) The replaying of spooky incantations from the first film over the end credits simply reminded me how great the original was and how unnecessary this dash-for-cash is.

My opinion only, and I'm sticking to it. You'll stick to yours, I'm sure, and so you should. What's an opinion if you don't honor it with conviction?

And that leads me to this thought, which works for me: When you repaint the Mona Lisa, only the painters profit.

Over the years, my favorite horror films have remained pretty consistent.

Everything we love is flawed, is it not?, which is often why we love it in the first place.

Flaws give us an entry point, an opening that welcomes us with our own flaws.

What we love as much as the film itself is what we personally bring to it.

I couldn't bring much to the EVIL DEAD remake, but I always manage to bring plenty to these beauties:

Mendaga's Morning

Mendaga's Morning (Sphere; 1979) is not the "super-shock" novel the marketing tells us it is, but it is a suspenseful yarn of possession with an emphasis on the psychology of possession and the possessor.

A little research reveals that Mr. Farren is a former Jesuit who has written extensively about witchcraft and the occult. 

Mendaga's Morning, which sports a bloody good cover and is a speedy read at 176 pages, is a story about a little girl possessed, ala The Exorcist and a stack of similarly themed novels, but the source of its villain/demon is one conjured by a specific coven, not God, or the Devil.

With its emphasis more on the psychological impact of a possession, the book eschews the grotesque and hyper-gory for a quieter, more penetrating trip down Witchcraft Lane.

It shares an interesting parallel with Michael McDowell's first book, The Amulet, in that a connecting physical element in the story is an old amulet. The connection is probably coincidental as McDowell's book was published in the US in 1980 and Farren's was published in the UK a year earlier. On his blog, Farren mentions that he wrote the book in a couple of weeks, a case of the characters taking the reins for him, so to speak.

The book is well worth a read, and has not been re-published since its debut.

Daddy's Pride and Joy

A father seriously lacking intestinal fortitude has a tough time dealing with his daughter's murderous nature.

Although he finds a solution to his 'problem', the solution, like many solutions, creates many more problems.

I'm going into production on this film towards the end of the year. I'm very excited by the prospect.