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:

A Loving Poem To Video Nasties

There has never been anything quite like this incredible 3-disc set from Nucleus Films (UK/PAL). All 72 titles that were on the UK's "Video Nasties" list are individually discussed, the specifics of their releases are cataloged, and each movie's trailer is presented.

On top of that, the first disc contains an amazing documentary exploring the "Video Nasties" phenomenon.  Every angle of the issue is examined via interviews with media experts, actual politicians behind the bans (such as the silly Sir Graham Bright), and well known genre commentators such as Stephen Thrower, Kim Newman, Alan Bryce, Xavier Mendik, Dr. Patricia MacCormack, and Alan Jones. Actress/TV personality Emily Booth pops in to do some presenting and points her pretty, leather-clad ass at the camera to keep the fans transfixed.

For those not familiar with Britain's draconian crackdown on films deemed unsuitable even for adults, the documentary will be an eye-opening experience and testament to just how ignorant certain human beings -- those in powerful public positions, in particular -- can be. 

 

The packaging of this extraordinary DVD project shows great love for its subject.

For example, the emphasis here is on VHS releases because the bans affected the distribution of VHS's several years before DVD's came along. The producers have built their menus to resemble collections of VHS's on shelves. To watch a trailer separately, you simply arrow left or right across the VHS spines of your favorite "Nasty" and press "OK" to launch the trailer. Little details like this make the experience special.

The conditions of the trailers vary. All are complete, though, and brought back many memories for me. In Australia, there was no official "Video Nasties" list. Nevertheless, the jackboots of the censorship gestapo were well and truly stomping on many of the same titles in the convict colony. Bans were not as frequent, but heavy cuts were common. Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters (aka Zombie/Zombi 2) had much of its beefy goodness excised. The splinter in the eye sequence was cut at its juiciest moment. Even Dead and Buried, which spent some time on the "Nasties" list, was attacked with scissors by the Aussie censor. The primary victim was the scene where Lisa Blount (playing a nurse) stabs 'Freddy' in the eyeball.

The poster child for the nastiest of "Nasties" has always been  Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust.  It was banned for years in the UK and was only passed uncut in Australia a year ago. Watched as one of 72 films on this compilation, it certainly stands out as superior entertainment. It's also easy to see how it got the attention of Britain's moral guardians.

Two of my favorite trailers of the 72 are William Asher's  Butcher Baker, Nightmaker Maker and J.S. Cardone's The Slayer. The former, though released on VHS in most territories and screened frequently on US cable in the 80's, is pretty much MIA on DVD. Various companies have announced plans to release it, but there's been no movement so far. It really is a fantastic, terribly twisted movie, and boasts a car stunt you have to see to believe. There is a great central performance by Susan Tyrell, too, who plays a murderous, jealous aunt. Interestingly, Mr. Cardone, still active, recently wrote the remakes of The Stepfather and Prom Night.

Cardone's The Slayer, a formidable presence on the "Nasties" list, was released in Australia by Palace Explosive Video, the "nasty" arm of Palace Home Video's distribution set-up. I was always quite impressed with its grim tone and island setting. Another memorable aspect of it is a murder scene involving a pitchfork pushed through a woman's back and out her chest. This scene is in the terrific trailer.

Some of the titles that made the "Nasties" list did so on title alone. Anything with "Cannibal" in the title (Cannibal Man, Cannibal Apocalypse)) or a power tool (The Tool Box Murders and Driller Killer) was guaranteed a place. But it's hard to explain how the feeble Forest of Fear ended up there, let alone The Boogey Man, Terror Eyes, Possession (!), and Frozen Scream.  Interestingly, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre never earned a place on the list, so go figure that one. Also of interest is the trailer for Don't Go in the Basement, the inspiration for Edgar Wright's parody trailer in Grindhouse.

If anything good came out of the "Video Nasties" phenomenon, it's that massive amounts of attention were given to movies that might have been otherwise ignored or totally forgotten. And the DPP's  "Nasty" list became a type of Holy Grail of must-see movies for adventurous fans and scholars.




In addition to all that, excellent books such as The Art of the Nasty, Seduction of the Gullible, and Shock! Horror! were published, and a fine 3-disc DVD set examining this strange period in British culture has been thoroughly explored.


Even if you're only half a horror fan, you cannot be without this extraordinary volume, a poem to the bloody celluloid that keeps us all sane.

Cannibals, Cultural Poofterism, and Shocking Asians

On a recent shoot in Australia I picked up a copy of Cannibal Holocaust (Siren Visual). I'm a bit of a completist where this film is concerned, so it made sense to pick up a version from my mother country. In the past, it was impossible to acquire a legit, uncut DVD or VHS of the film because it was banned in Australia until 2009.

The cover art, which takes a more subtle route than the American DVD, impressed me. I like the graphic treatment of the inner sleeve art, too.

Thankfully, it's now available uncut.

The passing of the film uncut represents a positive shift in film censorship in Australia (they call it "classification", but they're in denial), and leaves one troubling area of confusion for the censorship gestapo. That area is hardcore pornography and violence. Although hardcore is available for sale and rental in the ACT (Australian Capital Territory), where, ironically, Australia's lawmakers are based, it is still not legally available in any of the States. That's one issue.

But the most pressing issue is the confusion in current law arising from strict censorship guidelines which dictate that graphic depictions of sexuality are not to appear in filmed or videotaped works also depicting violence of any sort. This silly law, which is often interpreted literally, prohibits the showing of a film that features a hardcore sex scene and, for example, a scene in which a man or woman is stabbed. The stabbing need not be part of the sex scene itself.

The original intent of the law -- ushered in by cultural poofters who fear their own shadows -- was to ban films featuring graphic sexual violence, but the lazy, loose wording of the legislation has created more problems than solutions.

The recent banning of LA Zombie in Australia (see previous blog) is a typical example of this confusion. The inconsistency of its application is demonstrated by the censors' tacit approval of Lars Von Trier's AntiChrist, a film featuring hardcore sex and -- yes, you guessed it! -- VIOLENCE

Cultural Poofterism will suck the cock of Lars (a straight man), but it will not give LA Zombie's Bruce La Bruce (a gay man) a DECENT reach-around. That's very confusing. And not at all charitable.

Shocking Asia I and II (Stomp) are also old favorites of mine. When I worked as a VHS dubber in the mid-80's, I dubbed thousands of copies of both films for K-Tel Video, the Australian distributor.

Also available in the US from Synergy, the source for these releases seems to be the same old 1" masters that I threaded up onto massive Ampex tape machines.

Watching the film/s again, I discovered that I still like Shocking Asia I quite a bit and find the music just as memorable and catchy as ever.

Out of the Celluloid Closet

In August, 2003, I was contacted by a Canadian; James was his name, and he wrote to my Australian e-mail address. At the time, I was back in Australia making a formula-heavy erotic thriller.

James was a big genre fan. He was ten years younger than me, but he'd seen what I considered an impressive number of movies from all corners of the world. His knowledge of genre was deep. He asked for my phone number because he intended to call me. He didn't indicate what the call would be about, but he insisted on having my number. Reluctantly, I gave it to him.

Twenty-four hours later, at seven-thirty on a Saturday morning, James from Canada called. After introducing himself and thanking me for the number, he told me that my first movie, Marauders ('87), had changed his life.

"How did you see it?" I asked him, not sure how to respond to his confession.

What if Marauders had changed the life of James in a bad way? Perhaps the purpose of his long distance call was to blame me for a rash of personal misfortune?

A less likely scenario: What if James was calling from the grave (ala the "Night Call" episode of The Twilight Zone)?

"There was a VHS at our video store," James said.

"Really? It must have been a pirate copy. The film was never released in Canada," I explained, pretty sure now that James wasn't using a fallen phone line in a cemetery to call me.

Years earlier, I did make the stupid mistake of sending a 1" master of the film to an LA-based distributor run by a trio of unbelievably sleazy Indians. When I met with them, they promised the world, as distributors often do. They delivered fresh air.

It was my first lesson in dealing with distributors. Just don't.

The film also turned up unlicensed at Midnight Video, a popular gray market destination.

I contacted them and instructed them to stop selling it. They complied.

"What do you mean it changed your life, James?" I continued.

James hesitated before answering. "It felt real. I know people like that. It made me want to make films like that."

And there it was. The film connected with James.

Marauders is a basic but energetic exploitation film with a New Wave/Flock of Seagulls/John Foxx/Ultravox design sensibility. It was my first feature. It was made for a bag of peanuts.

It's not Antonioni.

The storyline is simple. Set in Melbourne, it is the story of two thugs, JD and Emilio; JD begins his day by murdering his mother; Emilio shoots his wife in the head due to a misunderstanding.

En route to meet Emilio for a day of boozing, JD is struck by a car driven by David, who gives him the finger.

After David drives on and picks up his school age girlfriend, Becky, who he plans to rape at his father's country house, Emilio and JD follow the couple, eager to exact revenge for the callous the hit and run.

While waiting to kill David, the thugs rape a young woman who's in the wrong place at the wrong time and steal liquor from a local bottle shop. The townies then form a lynch mob to hang the thugs for the rape and the theft. Meanwhile, David and Becky get an unexpected knock at the door.

Unrelenting violence ensues until almost everyone is dead.

For James's sake, I truly hoped he didn't know people quite like the characters in my movie. If he did, he wouldn't have been alive to call me.

His colleagues had to be less impulsive than the Marauders cast.

On James's Canadian dime, we chatted for two hours. We discovered that we liked many of the same genre films. He was not familiar with the non-genre films I seem to champion until I'm blue in the face (The Elementary School, Forbidden Games, Le Grand Chemin, The Tin Drum, My Sweet Little Village, Gregory's Girl), but he was a very decent guy with wit and sharp intelligence.

James kept in touch and would send me reviews, by email, of films he had just seen. I kept him abreast of the new Japanese titles I would receive regularly from my dear friend and fellow director in Tokyo, Tomoaki Hosoyama.

One of Tomoaki's earliest films, Lesbian Colony, is an amazing

Japanese take on John Waters' Desperate Living.

At the beginning of December, James asked me if I'd be interested in writing reviews on imdb with him. He would write some, I would write some. But we'd share a pseudonym and a password.

I liked the pseudonym idea. At least back then I did.

I encountered a strange phenomenon around 1999. I'd only been on-line for two years at that time, and I didn't participate in any forums in the first twelve months. I didn't know where they were, and I didn't understand how they worked. Eventually, I posted to a couple using my real name. It was usually an opinion on a film I liked or disliked. Just an opinion. I wasn't grandstanding or demanding to be heard. I was just explaining why I liked or disliked something.

I began to receive streams of very angry messages from mostly anonynmous senders. They were in direct response to negative comments I'd made.

For example, if I said that the ending iof a movie was unsatisfying, the response I would get would be: "How can you say that, you fuck! That last movie of yours sucked!"

Another one I remember clearly was a reply to a comment I'd made about Ron Jeremy. The original comment went something along the lines of: "Sad to see Ron in another pathetic vehicle for his talents." I wasn't criticizing Ron, I was criticizing a particular movie he was in. I got a venomous reply from another anonymous writer who ranted: "Isn't Ron in one of your new movies, you hypocrite!"

These are just two examples of close to fifty messages I received in response to various comments.

It was as if the writers felt that a filmmaker had no business commenting on other people's films. Even worse, there was the implication that I was a hypocrite for finding fault with the films of others when my own films were less than perfect.

In my posts, I never compared anything in my films to the films I was commenting on. It was just my opinion. When somebody expresses an opinion, there ought not be an assumption that the expresser of that opinion holds themselves above the work discussed. They don't.

A filmmaker's opinion on a film is no less or more worthy than anybody else's. I'm sure I bring a certain bias to a review and I know I have a hard time just relaxing while watching a movie sometimes, but all that really matters in film criticism are these basic questions: Is it good or bad? Why's it good or bad?

It doesn't take a filmmaker to answer those questions, and being a filmmaker shouldn't preclude you from answering them, either.

The aggressive messages I received felt very personal, and they made commenting on movies not much fun at all.

So when James suggested that we write under a pseudonym, I liked the idea a lot.

The first review we published under the fertilecelluloid non de plume was Cannibal Holocaust on the 29th of December, 2003.

The fourth review was a film of mine.


James insisted on reviewing it, and reviewing all my films (at least the ones listed on imdb. anyway).

Trail of Passion was the film I'd come back to Australia to make, and I'd just delivered the final cut; it wouldn't be distributed for six months.


Knowing that James was sympathetic to my work, of course I let him review it under our pseudonym. I didn't try to sway his opinion on it, but I thought his was a more than fair review. Probably too fair.

In the subsequent years, James reviewed all my films and close to fifty other films from other directors. He was always generous with me, and I, in turn, was generous with my encouragement of his filmmaking ambitions. Unfortunately, he didn't get to make the films he wanted.

James died of cancer in 2005. His mother emailed me on his personal account, which was slightly creepy.

I hadn't heard from him for a month, which was unusual, but I figured that work commitments or relationship issues had gotten the better of his time.

James never mentioned his illness to me. He'd been fighting it for four horrible years.

In retrospect, I did find it perplexing at times that James's contributions to our pseudonymous partnership were few and far between after the first six months. His initial enthusiasm about reviewing seemed out of balance with the number of reviews he ended up posting.

Now I knew why.

James's ashes were scattered at sea in Nova Scotia.

I miss his enthusiasm and love of cinema.

He was a true Apostle of Pulp and an AAA-rated human being.

***

While reviewing as fertilecelluloid in the last couple of years, I would receive inquires from some of the other excellent reviewers such as Humanoid of Flesh (aka Embalmer) and the multi-pseud "Dan" about my true identity. They would use my correct name (guessing it by matching my reviews to things I'd said in interviews) and ask me if I was him? I always said no. I felt bad doing this, but I didn't want to be seen to review films as a filmmaker. I wanted to review films as a fan. I was a fan first. An anonymous one.

A worrying trend on imdb was creeping, irrational censorship. For no stated reason, you could have your review deleted because of one "abuse" complaint; "abuse" could be the use of words like "breast", "Christ", and "lesbian". If someone -- just one person -- didn't like your tone, their complaint could result in the deletion of your review.

I was feeling very apprehensive about continuing to contribute to a fucked-up regime that sanctioned bullshit like that.

Friday the 13th (2009) was my last review there, the 803rd.

Around Xmas, I received a brief call from James's ex-wife. She wished me Merry Xmas and asked me if I intended to retire fertilecelluloid.

The answer to that question was an answer I'd already arrived at two months earlier when I decided to start blogging.

I'd never blogged before, and I didn't know how to do it, but I knew that in order to spread the riches of my passions, I'd have to start being myself on-line.

And that's why I'm here.

Thanks to all the terrific followers, fellow bloggers, and anonymous browsers, I'm having a great time.

It's a community I'm so happy to make a contribution to.

RIP James