SO... UMMM MISS MURDER? YOU ARE GETTING REVIEWS SUBMITTED HERE MORE REGULARLY AGAIN. IF YOU'RE FEELING BETTER, HOW 'BOUT DOIN' SOME MOVIES THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO SEE - OR EVEN BETTER, SETS OF MOVIES PEOPLE MIGHT WANT TO SEE, OR SOMETHING THAT'S A CLASSIC... OR JUST TELL US IN THIRTY WORDS OR LESS IF A MOVIE IS GOOD?

Not me yet, but soon... soon...

Okay, Okay, Just Relax Guys

Unfortunately, the rise or fall of the amount of reviews I publish have little to do with how I feel. Sometimes I feel... better and don't want to sit looking at a computer screen. Other times I'm so miserable that breathing is a chore and I find that I've put two or three reviews up anyway.

Change the way I rate movies? No. I could simply say that this is MY blog and I'll do what I wanna but that's not very nice. Accurate, but not nice.


I have enjoyed other styles of reviews - remember Joe Bob Briggs? You better, 'cause he's still alive and kicking and enjoying his movies. I liked that he 'counted' things that he thought were important like, well, boobs. The best movies seemed to have an odd number of boobs in them - when he reports there were "19 boobs" you've gotta wonder - what happened to the 20th? He also reported a lot of the violence as "Foo". For example, if you have college girls fighting each other with pillows, Joe Bob would translate that as "Seven boobs and feather fu." I miss his programs - have no idea where to find 'em.

Elvira was mildly amusing. She of course was more for the, umm, male population with her sultry delivery (and how the hell does she look so good when she's got to be at least.. never mind) and sly remarks during the movie itself.

Roger and Ebert were your go-to guys if you just wanted the bare facts and then have fun watching two middle aged men fight over whether the gore was over-the-top or not sloppy enough.

And the undisputed champions of the bad horror movie review crew: MST3K. Joel (and later Mike) and his two robot buddies joked their ways through the most horrible movies ever put to celluoid. There were even non-horror movies, such as PSM's or those Information-Disguised-As-Long-Commercials they used to show us in school as kids. I could never be that good. Besides, unless you're watching the movie, saying something nasty about a line or a mistake is kind of lame.

So.

So no, I'm not doing better, just kind of determined that no matter how bad things get, I need to just keep trying to amuse and entertain people with my take on horrible (and, believe it or not, sometimes good) horror movies. And as I've said before, I'm staying with horror movies because my twisted sense of humor enjoys the fake screams and bad special effects.

So.

What do I watch myself? Well, despite my physical looks (which no one will ever see if I can possibly help it) I don't eat a whole lot. When you feel despondent and horrible, eating isn't a priority. In fact, the last doctor I saw said if I don't eat at least four times a day, it would only get worse. Funny, but she didn't specify what 'it' was. Was 'it' my weight? My mood? My health? Meh.

So.

And why is it that doctors are so freaking blind and deaf to their patients? Okay, that doesn't apply to all, but way too many of them work their offices like a cattle run - push one in, spend five minutes, push it out while their nurse pushes the second one in...

So.

And why, when you suffer from a condition where you very rarely even can leave the house, take care of yourself, etc., the terribly clever idea of their is inevitably to do something impossible? Can't leave your home and driving is hard - even for small distances? Well, you should join a gym or a swimming pool and take exercise classes. 

Can't even get out of the house long enough to go to the store and get the food you're not eating? Eat four times a day. Trying to do something extremely simple such as washing dishes, clothes, or your bathroom makes your back and legs hurt so badly it sends you to bed for at least a day? Go out and walk a mile each day and you'll feel better. Really?

So.

Close your eyes. Open them. See how stupid that was? How could you open your eyes when you were told to close them? How did you know when to open them again? That's kind of what dealing with so-called health professionals is like.

So.


Since I don't eat much, junk food or otherwise, I have movie junk food. Those are the movies I put on like others will turn on the TV or play their CD's. While they play I either veg with a game or try to write a column. What do I watch and why? Yes, I know you really didn't ask but hey, closing this page is super easy so you don't have to read if you don't wanna.

So.

The Legend Of Hell House (1973): The movie is based on a story by Richard Matheson (who we lost last year, sadly) about four people investigating the 'Mt. Everest of haunted houses', the Belasco house. It brings up the theory of EMR, electromagnetic radiation. This is what was considered to trap residue 'energy' from people who inhabit houses.

If the people were particularly nasty, there'd be a lot of it, causing 'phenomenon'. It was thought that reversing the polarity would dissipate whatever EMR was causing Poltergeist-like activity. Today they say electromagnetic frequencies (EMF) - it's a tool used by electricians but supposedly it also detects whether there is a plethora of ghostly nasties about. It was an interesting idea and I probably play it three or four times a week.

John Dies At The End (2012): This plays at least twice a week. It made me an instant fan of David Wong, Rob Mayes, and a book that is about 1,000% more complicated than the movie but still a freaking good read (and don't forget the sequel). I still use them as my cover picture and I know I've got to put something original up there that more accurately represents this column, but meh.

The Haunting Of Whaley House (2012): Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. So why watch it? Well, I've gotten some of my best lines from the dumbest of movies, and this is a prize example. Someone wrote as a review that this was so "well researched". Pfffft... see, there IS a Whaley House in San Diego, California that is considered to be haunted and several of the family members, a convict who was hanged there, and a little girl with unknown ties to the family are said to have haunted the place but that's where the 'true' part ends. 

In real life the family was very good to the people of San Diego - they even allowed businesses, plays, movies, and other activities to take place in the house. They were generous and did not deserve this movie treatment. In the movie the family is evil, although the kid's 'psychic' keeps assuring them 'No, no, they're just desperate.' Umm what? It's one of those types of movies so ridiculously stupid that you can't help chuckling at it. I watch it a couple times a month.

Shaun Of The Dead (2004): Beautifully done, clever as hell (especially all the zombie movie references), and funny. 'Nuff said. I watch it once or twice a month.

Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn (1987): I watch this one more than the original for one reason only - it's on Netflix and I don't have to go through my DVD's to find it. No matter how many times I watch it (saying the lines with the characters, a habit that drives my hubby nuts) I find a new little nugget, and if Bruce Campbell actually doing a flip without help isn't impressive enough, you're not paying close enough attention. I watch this I think around twice a week. In fact, it's on this very minute.

Bad Kids Go To Hell (2012): This is a new fave, because it's just a little smarter than the average teen slasher flick, it's still really, really dumb, but it has several pretty good lines in it that I've put in my horror movie archive that I keep for other films later. I'd say I watch this one maybe two or three times a week.

Well, there's a ton of others on my junk movie list, but it's time for me to eat - that Miso soup isn't going to stew for a whole 60 seconds by itself... oh, wait...

HE HAS A GIRL'S NAME BUT IS STILL MORE MANLY THAN YOU

HE HAS A GIRL'S NAME BUT IS STILL MORE MANLY THAN YOU












The Evil Dead (1981)
Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987)
Evil Dead 3: Army Of Darkness (1992)


(Note: Since I'm cleaning up some of these reviews I did a while ago, I also updated some info and I hope I got everything right - if not, please let me know. Thanks!) I realize I'm in dangerous territory here. There is a very passionate following for Ash and his adventures. A reboot (the new 'thing' in movies, instead of just calling them 'remakes') was... not terrible. But the original is still the best. After years of waiting for a fourth in the Ashley series, there is to be a television series (don't panic yet) for 2015 on Starz. I wondered why - duh, 'cause Anchor Bay, who owns the series, also owns Starz. But we will get to see Bruce Campbell once more and of course Sam Raimi will be writing the project. I'm not sure if the famous 1973 Olds Delta 88 will be present though.

Continuity. It's a very difficult thing to maintain in movies. If you've ever seen a movie or TV show scene being shot, you realize that often only a few seconds or a minute or two is done at a time. That makes keeping everything exactly the same a very difficult task. Scenes are also shot out of order, so there are times when they don't know where stuff is going to be in the beginning, so the middle and ending is just about impossible. 

Everyone knows by now that the first Evil Dead was practically a non-budget movie, so there was no one in 'charge' of continuity, even if it was possible. My suggestion is to buy or rent the DVD's with the commentary on them - they're hilarious and also give you some good inside information on why things turned out the way they did.

The Evil Dead trilogy is dear to me. Not only am I a big Bruce Campbell fan, I find these movies incredibly funny (no surprise there). It's supposed to be scary but elements of all the movies, especially if you've listened to the commentary, can't help but to make you giggle a little bit. 

And the original Evil Dead was considered so horrible (in terms of gore, content, violence, tree rape) that not only was it not ever rated, Sam Raimi once had to go to court because of it... nothing happened of course, but it gives you an idea what an impact Evil Dead had on horror.

In fact, many who were in the Evil Dead made up fake names, not for the usual reasons, but because they didn't want to be associated with the movie. They're enjoying it now though.

The Evil Dead: Five friends (two couples and Ashley's sister) go up into the woods to a cabin to... well to do what young people do when left alone. They find a book and an audio tape that are most peculiar and in the interest of moving the story along they open the book and listen to the recording. And things go to the monsters (sort of zombies but not quite) pretty quickly. 

Now, about the continuity. In Evil Dead, there is none. It doesn't even take a quick mind or keen eye to spot the inconsistencies throughout the entire film. I mean, it is really to the point of being downright hilarious. Ash (Bruce went through an awful lot at the hands of Sam Raimi too) appears in a magic set of clothing that alternately is covered with blood, then clean, then spattered, then covered, then clean, etc. Same goes for his face and hair - each scene shows him with different blood amounts on different parts of his face. 

I mean I laughed so hard my spouse got disgusted trying to watch the movie. The moon changes color and location at will (a bad mat job carried most of the blame for that), even the bruises and cuts on his face move around. See if you can watch it without giggling.

It's here that Sam Raimi comes up with the term 'Fake Shemp'. Sam is a huge fan of The Three Stooges, and when Shemp Howard died, the film they had been working on wasn't quite finished, so they used stand-ins (backs to the camera of course) to finish. Thus in Evil Dead, a 14-year-old Ted Raimi gets his first credit when he visited his brother shooting a movie and ended up getting just as abused (and loving it) as the rest of the crew.

Oh yeah, and this is the first film appearance of Sam's dad's 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88, a car that makes an appearance in I think every subsequent Sam Raimi film. Even the Evil Dead reboot had one (not the same car but the same type) as an homage to that now-famous boat of a car.


Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn kind of recreates part of the end of the first, but by then Sam Raimi could not use the people or characters like in the first so you can actually watch the second one and not miss anything. Bruce Campbell again is put through a mess of stunts and indignities at the hands of Sam Raimi, although Bruce showed incredible comedic timing and I get blown away each time I see him flip himself over when his 'hand' attacks him... the movie ends of course setting up the beginning of the third movie which Raimi had already planned to do.


Evil Dead 3: Army Of Darkness: The title to this movie is actually JUST Army Of Darkness or Ash vs. The Army Of Darkness but it is essentially Evil Dead 3. Danny Elfman provides the score, Sam Raimi is of course present, and this time Bruce is co-producer. And the continuation of the story was meant to be a horror comedy from the start. It's like they said 'look, the first two were a little grim, let's have some fun' and thus you have a comedy/horror film with Bruce at his best. Did I mention I like Bruce? He lives (or lived, not sure if he still does) in my home state so he's a local hero of sorts. Understandable, logical, progressive follow-up for the first two Evil Dead movies it may not be, but it is definitely fun. You could also watch this movie without seeing the first two and not miss any key plot points.

Now I guess I'll have to order Starz to see the new series. Buuut I think I'll wait until 2015 to see if the series really is to be a reality. We've waited a long time, and whether it actually happens remains to be seen.