DID I MENTION I HAVE A FACEBOOK PAGE?

Warning: Shameless Plug Ahead

Yeah I know, I pretty much trashed Facebook in my previous post, but I AM still using the thing for games mostly. All my 'friends' must be pissed at me about something because those who haven't dumped me aren't talking to me. So I gathered up some 'game friends'.

Sooooo.... in part to get away from some of the games, and to kind of steer people to my blog page, I set up a horror page on Facebook. The name was changed several times since they changed the way they index these stupid things several times, so Miss Murder's Dungeon Of Horror is there because it has three key words in it that might show up on lists. I have a whopping 56 people on it. I don't get it. I looked around for comparisons.

One page had TWO entries from 2012 - that's it. It had 84,000 people on it. WHAAA??? Another was a new page started toward the end of December - it has 3,300 people on it. Again I could count the number of posts on one hand.

I've tried - worked hard on it. I've had movie quizzes, trivia, links to this blog (of course) as well as what movie I've just reviewed, everything I could think of. Fifty-six people. Oh, having more people IS possible - all I have to do is PAY for it. See there's an option where you can 'boost' an entry to have more people see it. 

That means that if you post 10 times a day, your followers will maybe get two or three of them. BUT pay the bucks and MAYBE all 10 posts will show up. MAYBE. If you're willing to spend ten bucks a day FB can promise that MAYBE you can get (in my case) 15-32 more likes. Ten bucks for a maybe.

So this is a shameless plug for anyone who uses Facebook to at least LOOK at my page - you don't have to like it: https://www.facebook.com/dumbandboringmovies .

Yesterday I had a page full of trivia on the original Evil Dead movie, then a note or two on the sequels. Just 'cause I'm a nice person, here they are:

The 1981 Evil Dead was very VERY hard to try to get made and to the public. As an example of what the film was about, in 1978 Sam and Bruce made a 30 minute movie called Within The Woods. With a little searching, you can find it on the internet.

The Evil Dead was made in 1981 by a 22-year-old up and comer named Sam Raimi. It starred a buddy of his, 23-year-old Bruce Campbell. It is a cult classic and is considered the-movie-that-could, since it was so low budget and almost everything was an experiment in trying unconventional movie filming and special effects. It is considered by Stephen King to be on of his favorite movies.

From the original short 'Within The Woods' Sam Raimi kept working on the story and soon it became The Book Of The Dead. The name was soon changed to 'The Evil Dead' although devoted fans soon just started calling it 'Evil Dead'.

Despite the short film Sam Raimi directed (Within The Woods) he still had trouble finding ways to finance the movie (the budget goal was $100,000, or about $320,877.41 today). The film slowly got enough to start, but not without loans, some coming from Bruce Campbell himself. And filming was slow, hard and full of experimentation.

Ted Raimi, Sam's brother, was often used as a body double, known as a 'Fake Shemp'. The term comes from when Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges died suddenly during a film shoot and so a body double was used in some scenes that needed re-shot. The term stuck and is still used today.

On the set of the original Evil Dead, props and effects often were either made up on the spot, or so primitive they were almost laughable. One effect that caused considerable trouble was the contact lenses they used for the 'demon eyes' effect. They were extremely thick, took ten minutes to apply, and could only be worn 15 minutes at a time since they didn't allow the eyes to 'breathe'. Another drawback: There was no seeing through them - when they were worn, the actor/actress was essentially blind. When you see Ash fighting off a weapon-wielding demon, he's really fighting not to get hurt - since they could not see, they could not avoid hitting him and he had to really work to stay out of the way.

In The Evil Dead, Ash Williams drives a 1973 Olds Delta 88. This was Sam Raimi's car, bought brand new by his father. He called it 'The Classic'. This soon became Sam's stamp in his films, the car appearing somewhere in just about every movie he made (even if briefly). The last one I personally saw it in was Drag Me To Hell. In the reboot of 'Evil Dead' in 2013, a nod is given to the iconic symbol when in one of the opening scenes the main character, Mia Allen, is found sitting on the rusted body of 'The Classic'. At least they wanted you to think so. It IS an Olds, they even busted the left headlight like in the original ED, but the front is different - the rusted heap she sits on is actually a '74 Olds.

The film was shot in Michigan and Tennessee. Because of budget constraints, this would become home to several of them for a couple of months. While there were phones, the cabin had no plumbing and no heat. The crew consisted almost entirely of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell's friends and family.

Pain. Bruce Campbell learned all about what being in constant pain was during the filming of The Evil Dead. Besides the constant abuse he suffered from the stunts, when they first started filming, he tripped over a root and severely messed up his ankle. Sam Raimi, wanting the movie to be a good one, liked that Bruce now limped and even poked his injury with a stick, just to make sure he was still in pain. But hey, they were friends, right? Talking about pain... during filming, which included camera angles and last minute inventions of setting up shots, a newbie cameraman accidentally hit Bruce Campbell in the mouth with the camera. He lost several teeth.

Sam Raimi never intended to have an Evil Dead 2. He was done and wanted to go on to other things. Buuut some of those things didn't do too well and since he was offered a 3.6 million ($7,382,440.14 today) dollar budget he kind of... went for it. And so did Bruce.

Just a brief mention of the is/is not sequel to the second Evil Dead. It's been called Evil Dead 3 Army of Darkness, Army of Darkness and Bruce Campbell vs. Army of Darkness. It had a $12 million (about $29 million today) budget. It is more campy and has more comedy than the first two. And Bruce looked sexy as hell in it. It was... groovy.

See? We have fun... <rolls eyes> so if you're ever nearby give it a look...

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REMAKE, REBOOT, REDONE, REMODEL, REACQUAINT, READAPT, READDICT, REAFFIRM - GROOVY


Evil Dead (2013)

Never let it be said that I don't like the works of Sam Raimi. How could you NOT like the Raimi family - Sam who, in his youth, finds a young Bruce Campbell to torture in the Evil Dead series, his brother Ted who I had seen previously (and not known they were related) playing a fake Shemp (that's another term I got to learn - it means someone who doubles in a scene for another actor - kind of like a body double or it could be only the appearance of one limb. 

Ted and Sam

It comes from the time of the Three Stooges when Shemp Howard died in the middle of a shoot (no not on camera sicko) and they needed to finish so they used old footage and spliced in 'fake Shemps' where they needed his presence on the set. And last but certainly not least Ivan (he's older than Sam by three years) who, when he's not practicing Osteopathic Medicine, writes screenplays, most notably the Army Of Darkness - also co-writing the comic book published with my fave company Dark Horse Comics.

Now the hubby doesn't understand what the difference between a remake and a reboot is. A REMAKE is like having a house that needs updating, remodeling. So you replace some appliances update the pipes and electrical wiring to code, maybe add new carpets and furniture. But a REBOOT is saying 'okay this house is salvageable but we gotta gut it' and you take it down almost to the frame and when you're done it's the same house but still somewhat different. 

THAT is what this movie is. You have the elements of Evil Dead (Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are on the credits as Executive Producers) but the movie is NOT your 1981 Evil Dead. It is your GRANDKID'S Evil Dead. Get used to the creaking noises, 'cause it's you. This is a full review so if you don't want spoilers, watch and then come back and read. And we start:

A girl is running in the woods. She thinks she's gotten away but she's caught (I swear one of the guys that catches her is either Sam or Ted - not in the credits though). They tie her up in a basement. Her father answers her questions sadly - her mother is dead, she, in fact, killed her and she's possessed. She denies it until the evil emerges and consequently is set on fire and shot in the face for good measure. That'll teach her.

So our 'twenty-somethings gathered in a isolated cabin to get slaughtered' are shown and by their names I want them dead but I know that's gonna happen so I relax. There's Mia, David, Eric, Olivia and Natalie. Their purpose for isolating themselves in this place? Mia is a recovering addict. Her brother David is reconnecting with her after leaving her to care for their mother who was committed to an asylum, because apparently there's one in every town in America except mine. The others are just... there to provide bodies for the evil we know is already there.

Now they give a whole lot of references that will be familiar to the original Evil Dead fans, the most famous (and most well known) being the 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 or as Sam calls it 'The Classic' which appears in pretty much every movie he's made. The car was bought new by his father, and how he weaves it in to every movie is kind of funny and kind of sweet. We know it best as Ash's car and see it here, rusted out and sitting on the property by the cabin.

Mia does a mini-ceremony where she dumps the last of her drugs into a deep well (don't worry, no slimy long black haired things climb out) and the friends go into the cabin. Now in this Evil Dead the cabin belongs to Mia and her brother's family - and so are startled when they find the lock broken, the cabin having been used by someone else.

So the long haired dude finds THE BOOK and despite the fact that it is wired shut he cuts it open - and despite the fact that it says LEAVE THIS BOOK ALONE like Alice in Wonderland that's just an invitation for him to not only go through the book but find the words that have been scribbled out and using pencil to shade the letters, reads them out loud. He really should have died first.

So as Mia goes through withdrawal, she's also the first one to get attacked by the forest (interesting rape scene that wasn't as, um, graphic as the original) - so there's no one safe person in the cabin as with the original. If you notice as you watch there are nods to the elements of the other three ED movies: The cabin, the camera in the woods scenes, the 'rape' by the forest, the boiling water (Ash drank boiling water in AoD) the cellar door being bolted but the 'possessed' being able to open it a crack to taunt the others, the fact that the constant rain has washed away their only means of leaving (in ED it was a bridge collapsing) - there's a whole lot of little things and obvious things that make you like this movie despite not having the almighty Bruce be your hero in it.

Mia tries to run off but comes back completely possessed. Oh, in this movie to be 'possessed' not only means the spooky eyes (I'm sure they improved on the nasty contacts the original ED actors had to wear), but their moves become disjointed (lots of cricks and cracks) and of course they have evil voices. After getting hold of the shotgun, she manages to shoot her brother in the shoulder before collapsing. 

Olivia runs to help her and Mia sits over her and gives her the 'Ash' treatment - yup, thanks Sam for telling movie makers it's perfectly okay to shower your actors with gallons of ooky bloody stuff in the name of horror. Mia gets thrown in the cellar. Olivia soon also becomes possessed (with the cricks and cracks) except she gets the added pleasure of pissing herself. Fun. Oh and then she tries to cut her face off. It's an interesting progression from the originals that reflects the escalation of gore in 'modern' horror. But we still have some classic moments:

When Eric is stabbed with a piece of mirror by his now-dead girlfriend Olivia, David takes out the shard, puts pressure on the wound and... gets out the duct tape. If you can't fix it, duct it. That's a lesson for you kiddies. Anywho, Natalie duhs her way into the cellar 'cause she feels sorry for Mia - pretty soon, she doesn't feel anything. That's a joke people. 

No but really, at this point the new movie gets kind of blase' with lines like 'I can smell your filthy soul.' What, is she not so fresh? The 'demon' is called the Taker Of Souls. Oh now THAT'S original. The ToS has to have five to unleash the Abomination. How many teenagers were there? Oh that's convenient. I wonder if Sam cringed any at those particular changes.

But we get some of the same good stuff like one loses a hand (actually her arm just above the elbow) which unfortunately doesn't help, the book won't burn, there's a nail gun (always a fun toy for shooting your friends with over and over and over...), the idiot who started the whole thing tells David he not only has to kill his sister, but cut her up, burn her or bury her alive, his choice. Nice. 

When he can't set her on fire, out comes the chain saw. But nope, he can't do that either so it's burying her alive. After he does that, we get a silly Rube Goldberg contraption for a home made defibrillator (kids don't try this at home) with a car battery, a switch, a couple of syringes and kapow! But car batteries weren't meant to do this kind of idiotic thing so it goes dead and so does she. 

But wait! In typical horror movie style - today's typical style anyway - she lives! He runs into the cabin to get the car keys and a photo or two - massive duh on his part. But then, they're supposed to be 'cause otherwise we wouldn't have the big finish.

Eric, the long haired hippy idiot who started the whole thing by opening the Book of the Dead and reading from it, is now possessed and stabs David in the throat. To save his sister who's still outside he manages to shoot a gas can with a shotgun making the cabin blow up which happens never anywhere. While he's looking for the shotgun we get this weird sound like an air raid siren for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Kaboom. But that is a massive duh because now five people have been killed (the fifth was when Mia's heart stopped when she got buried alive).

The Abomination is coming. How do we know (besides the dead dudes)? Because it starts raining blood. Even with the blowing chunks in one of the girls faces scene, this is really the only overly bloody scene in this movie. Sam used gallons more of gore than this movie did. Oh well. So the Abomination is here and Mia has to deal with it. Yay. So there's a loooong fight sequence and for some reason more air raid siren noises which are more annoying than suspense-building. Finally out comes the chainsaw.

But first... how come they kind of cheaped out on the Abomination? This is supposed to be the BIG BAD WOLF of the movie and it's... another girl. Whaaa? She's evil looking and gross. So was all the rest of them. So what? Couldn't they have at least made up something... weird? They have the technology. They have the money. They apparently didn't have the imagination.

But back to the fight. Through a series of duh moves and more fighting, the car is tipped over and lands on Mia's... hand. Yup, we've had an arm slicing scene (that was one hell of an electric knife), but now - hmm, trapped hand, chainsaw. Chainsaw, trapped hand. What to do, what to do... But Mia is totally hard core. Not being able to reach the chainsaw she rips her hand off just by tugging it out from under the car. That allows her to grab the chainsaw and splits the Abomination in half. The blood rain stops, Mia staggers off, and what they're now calling the Naturom Demonto (What happened to Book Of The Dead?) slams shut.

And I now know I have to watch ALL the credits to the movies 'cause I missed this the first time: Number one, I think this is one of the few movie that has as much or more blood showing in the credits than in the movie itself; Number two, more air sirens. So next time you hear one there's either going to be a tornado, or an Abomination coming at you; Number three, once again the 'fake shemps' are listed; Number four, you get to hear the original tape recording from the first Evil Dead; Number five, if you wait cleeeear to the end of the credits you get a profile of Bruce Campbell who says 'Groovy' then swings his head to look at you.

One last thing - although the movie was supposed to be set in Michigan (as was the original), it was actually filmed in Muriwai Beach, Woodhill Forest, Woodhill, Auckland, New Zealand. Groovy.

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OY VEY! A JEWISH HORROR MOVIE! BASED ON A TRUE STORY! OY GEVALT!

The Possession (2012)

Sam Raimi. That's what I saw going down the list of movies to watch. The title was... beyond unimaginative but... Sam Raimi. What could possibly go wrong (as my friend Tim Forston is fond of saying)? So I start this movie I had never heard of even though there are at least four movies just on Netflix with a variation of the 'Possession' title but hey - Sam Raimi. If you don't recognize that name, he (and Bruce Campbell) crafted my favorite trilogy - The Evil Dead. I start it up and see: The following is based on a true story. 

Uh oh. C'mon Sam, say it ain't so - you're gonna give us a lame 'I swear this really happened!' kind of movie? Next: This is what happened to one family over the course of 29 days. Oh crap. That means I have to immediately call BS on good ole' Sammy 'cause just because there were two lines of description given to us, does NOT mean that they are related to each other. And they're not.

AND this movie is not an original idea. In 1937 a Yiddish horror movie called 'The Dybbuk', or 'Between Two Worlds' was based on a 1914 play by S. Ansky, relating the story of a young bride possessed by a dybbuk – a malicious possessing spirit, believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person – on the eve of her wedding. The Dybbuk is considered a seminal play in the history of Jewish theater, and played an important role in the development of Yiddish theater and theater in Israel.

This movie held interest for me 'cause of Sam, the fact it was a Jewish horror movie (don't see many of those), it has a historical bent to it, and part of the story generates from Portland, Oregon (about an hour from where I live). Sigh. So I stopped the movie and went to see the true and the make-believe.

There is, in real REAL life the supposed existences of what are called a Dibbuks or Dybbuks (a Yiddish term simply meaning dislocated spirit, usually malicious) depending on where you look. And this particular so-called trapped dibbuk is in what is called a wine box, (or scroll box, depending). In other words, I don't think anybody knows for 100% positive what the hell it REALLY is. Supposedly the original possession of Jewish holocaust survivors, this particular box was passed along until it was in someone's hands who either saw bad luck or a huge opportunity.

Bought by the owner of an antiques store in Portland, this person heard that it contained a spirit, trapped there when the Jewish owners performed some kind of seance over it. Uh huh. So in other words, once again people have messed around with spiritism and actually have the gall to act surprised when bad things happen. It is especially puzzling that this is was a Jewish seance (using a homemade Oracle board) since at Leviticus 20:27 Jehovah God directly told the Jewish people; “‘And as for a man or woman in whom there proves to be a mediumistic spirit or spirit of prediction, they should be put to death without fail. They should pelt them to death with stones. Their own blood is upon them.’”

So, finding not wine (or a scroll) inside the box but instead two locks of hair, one granite slab, one dried rosebud, one goblet, two wheat pennies, one candlestick and, of course, allegedly one 'dybbuk', the owner decided to get rid of it on eBay. It started with a bid of $1. The owner ramps up a good story about it being supposedly haunted and the bids go wild. The story gets ramped up even more with the report of SEVERAL owners reporting bad juju when they supposedly owned the box and the crowd goes bananas. eBay reported that the site got over 140,000 hits. At least five authors, one screenwriter and a documentary crew have sought up-close access, so much so that the present owner had to go off the grid just to get some privacy.

So, urban legend or jinxed box? Let's put it this way (and this is not my thinking but psychologists) - when you expect bad things to happen because of something, you usually won't be disappointed. So the box could be 'jinxed' if you really believe it to be. As for the origin of the 'dybbuk' itself - that is a very long and twisty subject that can be interpreted really any way you want it to be.

Umm what? Oh oh oh, the movie... yeah, I was disappointed. Dybbuk box? Yeah, supposedly it existed, first reported by the LA Times in 2004 (the movie gives this article credit at the end). The family? Pure fiction. See? Based on a true story simply means yes, there was a box. The rest is... the same old thing you've seen a thousand times in movies just like this one - the family wasn't particularly likable, the plot totally uninspired, the effects, although some were kind of neat were obviously CGI'd, and the ending was set (I had it written down quick) from the second the movie started.

So a newly divorced family starts having a truckload of trouble when their youngest daughter finds this box in a garage sale (of course). She starts talking to it, hearing it whisper back, and tries to find a way to open it. And, since she has apparently seen Hellraiser, she fondles the box until, like a puzzle, it opens. And it hits the fan. We get a ton of moths, she starts saying in a rough low voice 'Em's not here' just like every other possession movie - I swear if she had said she were Legion I would have stopped the movie right there. 

'Cause that's what killed it for me - cliche' city. I mean nothing they said was remotely original. From the mom and dad fighting, to the 'spirit' talking through the girl, the box killing anyone who touches it (except her family of course), to the Hasidic Jew who, upon being asked to see the girl who by then was in the hospital, saying, 'I don't like hospitals - people die there.' Oh really genius? Name one place on Earth where they don't.

Having one of the girl's eyes roll down in her head and the other up was a cute trick, but the rest was so, blah, that there were really no scares. The spirit is named as the 'Taker Of Children' (oh brother) and the rest is so pedestrian that taking notes was boring. Don't be misled by the poster - no hand comes out of the girl's mouth. It does the father's (that's the typical 'TAKE ME INSTEAD' scene every possession movie has) but the movie poster makes it look scarier happening to the little girl I guess.

The ending? You already know it - that good but bad ending every possession movie has. The girl is released, the father is too, and the Hasidic Jew takes the box to do, uh, whatever he plans to do with it - right up until he's t-boned by an 18 wheeler, which obliterates him, his car, but, of course, not the box - it's without a scratch. The-freaking-end.

Even the makers of this movie must have realized they needed a little extra oomph to push this thing along. If you read about the movie, it is said that no one (not even Sam) wanted to even take a peek at the real box - they made one up - because the idea of the thing scared them badly. Duh. Oh, and (according to them) five days after the filming ended, everything, including the house they filmed in, burned down with no explanation. Uh huh.

Maybe they need to go down to S-Mart and have a talk with a certain rough-chinned hero to solve their problems for them.

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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.




                              

WHY YOU SHOULD ALWAYS BE VERY VERY NICE TO THE ELDERLY...

Drag Me To Hell (2009)

The title to the movie makes it sound a whole lot more exciting that it really is. If you're expecting massive chills and thrills, don't.

The premise is a bank loan officer who refuses an extension to an old woman named Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), who's house is about to be foreclosed upon. This is what all banks do, after all. Despite the old woman getting on her knees and groveling, the loan officer (Alison Lohman) is more interested in a promotion than human compassion. Yup, that sounds about right for a bank.


The old woman then does something supposedly unexpected (but of course she had to or the movie would be - over). She puts a curse on Alison. This is something I'm sure lots of people wish they could have done when the banks went cuckoo and decided to fleece their customers, making thousands lose their homes. Okay, enough social commentary.

What follows are various gross-outs that are, admittedly, pretty original and definitely makes you squirm to watch. Her boyfriend (played by Justin Long, a nice enough guy doomed to play the totally ineffective boyfriend in every movie he's in) tries to help her but of course, it's not enough. She's going to hell. 


Seems a disfiguring disease or bad luck would be more in line with a proper 'punishment' (Remember Thinner? Neither do a lot of people.) than going to hell. Tormented forever for doing her job, although she really could have given the woman what she wanted. No wonder a lot of people are Atheists.

Sam Raimi's car, a 1973 Oldsmobile featured in Evil Dead
and just about every other movie he's ever done...

Since this is done by Sam Raimi I'd suggest giving it a spin once, but don't expect a whole lot - this is not the female version of The Evil Dead. The ending is predictable, the supposed 'twist' can be figured out by anyone long before the movie ends, so spare yourself the 90 minutes and just tell yourself to be nice to old ladies - you never know.