Tech Support

Tech Support

by Dan Dillard, 2013

It wasn’t until the third ring that the line clicked and a voice answered. It was not a human voice—not a live human voice—on the end of the line, but a series of questions. I kept pressing zero trying to get an operator.  Finally, after more than fifteen minutes of button pushing, the crappy musical stylings of a disgruntled group of studio musicians and three cigarettes, the line went silent.

I was about to throw the phone through the front glass of my saltwater aquarium, likely impaling the larger of my three fish, a Picasso Trigger named Pablo, and ruining my phone when a woman answered.

“Hello? How may I assist you today?”

Her voice was as smooth as the ocean breeze in North Carolina in June. There was a slight drawl, very sexy, and it had a tone that was both clear and melodic. I shifted from one ear to the other and adjusted the mouthpiece of the ancient thing so I couldn’t hear my breaths coming from my nose. My cigarette had burned to the filter and I flicked it out the open screen door into the back yard.

“Uh, hi. I wasn’t expecting anyone to actually pick up.”

“I assure you, honey, I’m here to help. What can I do for you?” she said.

I hesitated, looking around at the mess of broken furniture and drops of blood on the newly installed flooring. There was a bloody handprint on the front door. It wrapped around the silver knob in a noble attempt, but three trailing finger smudges leading to the floor said, ‘failure’.

“Sir? Are ya there?”

It sounded more like they-ah. My hands shook, and I pulled the softpack out of my front pocket and tapped a fourth smoke into my mouth.

“I’m here.”

“One last time, shug. I’ve got folks waiting. These lights are blinkin’ like mad on this phone.”

I hated being hurried, but I did need help. I lit the cigarette and sat down, wiping some of the remaining red stuff onto my shirt.

“I need help.”

“Well, I assumed. What with?” she asked.

“I…I bit off a bit more than I can chew, I think. One almost got away,” I said.

“Oh my,” she replied.

“Yeah. Neither of them is dead yet. One’s tied up in the master bedroom upstairs. The other is passed out. I dragged her into the bathtub.”

“Okay, so take things one at a time, hon.”

“That’s just it. I can’t do my usual. It takes too long, and one will wake while I’m…finishing the other.”

“Well now, we can’t always have our cake and eat it too, can we?”

“I thought I could.”

“Greedy boy. What’s your M.O.?” she asked.

I’d never thought about it as an M. O. before. It had just been a thing. I beat some—blunt force trauma is always fun. I rape others. One, I strangled, but I always use a knife when I’m finishing the work. I like finishing the best. It’s a slow process, but I’ve developed a real flair for it, like an art.

The first seven bled out and then I figured out some tricks to making it last and the last ten…or maybe it’s fifteen…they have gotten better with each new pig. I’ve always called them pigs. That’s what they are really. Meat you can pork. That’s hunter humor. I’m a hunter.

“Sir?”

I shook my head, remembering I was actually on the phone.

“Right. My M.O. I hunt them, bring them back here, then sometimes I beat them,” I started.

“Ooh, nice,” she said, interrupting.

“Yes. Then usually I carve them up in the tub.”

“Do you drink the blood?”

“Never thought of it, I said.”

“Well, it’s fulfilling. You might consider trying that.”

Drinking blood seemed like something from the movies. Of course, I got my start watching movies. One day I just said, “I can do that.” And do that I did.

“Anyway,” I continued, “I guess I got a little overwhelmed this time. A little carried away and then overwhelmed with them. Sisters, I guess. They look alike.”

“Kids?”

“Nah, mid twenties if I had to guess. One’s pretty hot, the other, kinda homely.”

“Ahh, too bad. Kill her first.”

“Totally,” I said.

“Which one is in the tub?”

“Homely.”

“Excellent,” the southern voice said. “Can you see her now?”

“No, they’re both upstairs.”

“Well can you get to them with the phone?”

“Yes.”

“Go to the bathroom and describe her to me, tell me what stage you’re on.”

I walked up the steps and peeked first into the bedroom where the more attractive of the two was tied to a chair. She was nude, passed out and blood from her mouth had dripped onto her chest and down her belly. It smelled of urine. She must’ve pissed herself. Then, I looked in the bathtub.

“She’s unconscious.”

“Okay. What would you normally do in this case?”

“Wake her.”

“Okay. So wake her?” she said.

“What if she screams and wakes her sister?”

“Is her sister unconscious as well?”

“Yes, and she’s bound and gagged,” I said.

“So what’s the problem?”

What was the problem? It all seemed so easy when my southern belle said it. The smoke from my cigarette burned in my eye and when I checked the mirror, it was burned to the filter again. I tapped it into the sink and pulled my knife from its sheath.

“Set the phone down, love. Do your thing. I’ll wait until you’ve finished with homely and moved on to sexy. Mind if I put you on hold while you work? I’ll check back.”

I didn’t mind. I was getting my wits about me again. Seemed like myself again. Felt the rage again. Plunged the knife into her neck. She woke and tried to scream, grasping at the handle, and my hands. Blood poured from the wound.

“Hon? You did something wrong, didn’t you? I’ll stay on the line,” the voice on the phone said.

“I did.”

I stood up and watched the girl struggling in the bath tub, trying to stand, trying to pull the knife from her neck. The blade must’ve made contact with her vertebrae because it wasn’t coming free. I don’t know how I missed her spinal cord. She started to choke, then slipped in the red-black puddle and fell. Her face smashed into the spigot, tearing a jiggling flap of skin loose and depositing several teeth onto the bathroom floor.

“What’s happening? It’s quite noisy?” the operator said.

“She’s struggling,” I said, watching the carnage.

“Is that what you enjoy? The struggle?”

“I do.”

“Do you always watch?” she asked.

“Yes. Sometimes I masturbate. Fresh blood makes good lubricant.”

“It does, doesn’t it? Until it gets sticky.”

“What now?” I asked, back to feeling out of sorts.

“Do you want to kill her now?”

“I do.”

I did, but it was almost too late. Homely was laying face-down in the tub, trying to push back up, to make an escape, but finding herself too weak.  I reached around her head and pulled the knife loose. Blood pulsed from the now jagged wound.  I cupped my hand under it and gathered some, then I sipped it from my palm. It was warm, metallic, exhilarating.

“Mmmm,” I head through the phone. “Tastes good doesn’t it, shug?”

It did.

“Yes.”

“Is she gone?”

“Yes. Now she is.”

“Good. So what are your plans for her sister…the pretty one?”

I wiped the knife blade on the thigh of my jeans and turned around, watching the bound girl through the doorway between the bathroom and the bedroom. Her head rocked one way, then the other. She was coming back around.

“Plans,” I said. Not a question, nor a statement…just a word.

I stood and watched the naked girl, tied to a chair next to my bed, as she awoke. I watched as she realized again the horror of her situation. I wondered if she was having a pleasant dream. Perhaps a dream where she wasn’t kidnapped, stripped bare, beaten and tied to a chair. Then I wondered what she would think of the bloody mess behind me. When she screamed through her gag, I knew reality had set back in.

“Ooh, someone’s awake!” my Southern friend said. Her voice sounded as excited as I felt.

“Yes. She’s back with me now.”

“Well do you still need my help?”

At that moment, I wasn’t sure I’d ever needed help. Reassurance maybe, but not help. My victim was watching me with tear-stained eyes and mascara-stained cheeks. Her eyes darted from one place to another, searching for a phone, a weapon, an escape, but they always came back to me. I knew there was going to be a moment when her eyes would lose their fear. A moment when there would be acceptance of death, acceptance that I was the maker she would meet, the reaper of her grim end. That mine would be the last eyes she ever looked into. At that moment, there was always a quiet understanding, just a flicker, but it was always there if I paid attention.

I was going to take extra care of this one.

“No. No, I don’t need any help with this one, thank you,” I said.

“Well, thank you,” she replied. “Is there anything else I can do for you today, hon?”

“No. No, I’m fine now,” I said.

“Well, you have a good day then. If you ever need assistance, feel free to call me.”

“I will,” I said. “Goodbye.”

Then I hung up the phone.

END.

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I saw The Lords Of Salem and all I got was this....

I review THE LORDS OF SALEM.

I’m not sure what all the fuss is about with this movie. Not “buzz”…but fuss. Lots of people hating on Rob Zombie’s latest. There were literally hundreds of movies along these lines in the 70’s. He’s a grindhouse guy. Not sure what the fuss is. 

So my opinion? And it’s just that, right—opinion? If I had to say something about this movie, and I’m going to—it’s my blog—it would be that I liked it. I liked every stinkin’ minute. It isn’t a perfect film. It wasn’t meant to be. But it is definitely atmospheric, creepy, a little psychedelic, and it has witches in it! Who does witches anymore? Hansel and Gretel? Haven’t seen it yet, but I’m guessing those witches are CG crap. These, well they’re played to a big honkin’ “T” by some of the most intimidating women I’ve ever seen completely nude! 

Dee Wallace, Meg Foster (particularly terrifying), Judy Geeson, Maria Conchita Alonso and dear sweet Satan…is that Magenta from Rocky Horror? Yes Patricia Quinn is also here. Plus Zombie staples Ken Foree and Sid Haig in small roles. Many others with familiar faces grace the screen during its 90 minutes, but it might be Sheri Moon Zombie’s performance that I was most impressed by. She didn’t suck. Well there is that priest about halfway through…but that’s a spoiler and I won’t go there.

So Sheri plays Heidi, an on-the-wagon addict and a local DJ. There are three DJ’s in her show: Moon, Foree and Jeff Daniel Phillips playing Heidi, Herman, and Herman respectively. She receives a mysterious record—not a CD, but regular old vinyl (look it up kids—they’re actually making a comeback for some reason). It is addressed to her by her real name (important tidbit later in the film) and comes from “The Lords”. When they play it, the music is droning, tri-tone stuff of the devil. All the women who are listening drop what they are doing and immediately zone out—like an evil groove, if you will. 

Once it’s been played, three lovely ladies (Geeson, Wallace and Quinn) in Heidi’s apartment building start doing the evil coven thing, and want Heidi in on the game. Weird things start happening to Heidi—visions. Everything is tied back to a diary from a Reverend Jonathan Hawthorne and the original Salem Witch Trials. A curse was placed on the women of Salem by Margaret Morgan (Foster) while she was being burned by Reverend John.

There’s a local author and museum curator (Bruce Davison) who becomes interested in the music, in the history and does some investigation on the whole thing. Turns out too little too late, and he ends up on the wrong side of Dee Wallace’s frying pan…um… like 15 times. Okay, back to Heidi…

The further under the spell of the music Heidi falls, the weirder her dreams become and she loses track of time and where she is… Instead of falling into the arms of Herman (Phillips), she goes back to the crack house and smokes up. What follows that are more hallucinations including what might be a midget devil, some very ‘The Shining’ scenes of wallpaper, Sasquatch? a cool headboard of Melie’s Man in the Moon, and a lot of naked witches. I mean skin everywhere. Skinny girls, big girls, huge girls, old girls… Bravo to all of these women, and to Rob for finding a true representative cross section of the female mammary gland.

Things get weirder as the movie progresses to a mass suicide which leads the viewer to believe Margaret Morgan’s curse came true. 

I thought The Lords of Salem was pretty straightforward.  I don’t see all the “room for interpretation” crap I’m seeing from others, but hey—opinions, like a said. If you’re a fan of 70’s films about witch cults, brides of satan, or anything where a group of weirdos want some chick’s baby because it’s special, than you’ll like this. If you wanna see the Firefly clan or a madman wielding a toolshed at teen party animals, steer clear.

Visuals:

Pretty stellar. Less gritty and much more deliberate looking than Zombie’s other films. This has color and many abstract moments.

Sound:

Cool soundtrack. Some unexpected songs thrown in there. Fairly standard jump scares and such to set the mood.

Acting:

Stronger than usual. Standouts are Meg Foster (gah!-she was awesome), Patricia Quinn, and as I said before, Sheri Moon Zombie was quite good. She didn’t have much dialogue, but she was fairly restrained.

Writing:

Meh. Not really anything new. Like a mix between Trick or Treat (the one Ozzy was in) and Rosemary’s Baby. Well told, but not going to win any awards. There were some good, descriptive lines in this film. One in particular stuck with me: “Satan can smell the stench of filth in the folds between your legs.”  Or something along those lines… ew.

Overall:

The Lords of Salem wins points for not being a remake even if it is derivative. It wins points for not being a sequel. It isn’t as violent as his last three films, but there’s plenty to be had, including a fairly convincing infant—so if you don’t like seeing babies spit on and…other stuff… you might want to skip this one. There’s also a strange birth of what looks like a lobster. The spawn of Satan is an arthropod! It is a slow, atmospheric movie that held my attention and made me uncomfortable a few times with the sheer odd vibe that it threw. I’d even give it a second watch.

MELIAE by Dan Dillard

MELIAE By Dan Dillard 2013

The ash tree stood high on the hill, a singular arm reaching up toward heaven. She, a small woman, thin and pale, with milky blue eyes and long blond hair, stared up at it. The sun brought a patch of freckles to the surface of the skin on her nose. Wind blew and rattled the thick leaves in her tree. She closed her eyes and felt the warm breeze embrace her.

When the air was again still, she opened her eyes again, blinking, and looked down the path she had walked up to get where she was. A young man, one of the boys from the neighboring farm, was watching her. He waved. She did not reciprocate. He shook his head and a charming smile beamed from his face. As he walked toward her, she sighed, and then looked back up at her tree.

It took a full two minutes for him to reach her. Only paces away, he paused and looked at her tree with false wonder.

“Ma’am, I’ve been studying you for a bit…and I just can’t seem to figure what is so interesting about that tree,” he said.

Her eyes flicked toward him for only a moment, then found the old ash again.

“Yes, I see you watching me. You and your younger brothers. I imagine you all have a good bit of fun at my expense,” she said.

“Oh it’s not like that at all,” he said. “I find you quite easy to look at.”

His face reddened. She continued staring at the tree, watching as the branches and leaves again swayed in the moving wind. Scuffing his boot on the worn path, he kicked up some dry dust, and shoved his hands into the back pockets of his patched jeans. He cleared his throat.

“So, what is so interesting up there?” he said.

She smiled. The expression spread slowly and lingered for a period of time that made him impatient.

“Ma’am?” he said.

“There is an angel up there.”

“No fooling?”

He strained, covering his eyes to shield the sun, and peered up into the branches.

“Why, I don’t see anything but leaves and bark and limbs. It would make some fine furniture, a tree that size.”

“Don’t you dare, sir. There’s an angel there. Just above the largest branch. She stays there while I watch over her.”

He looked again, taking a step closer. The pale girl watched him from the corners of her eyes. Her heartbeat quickened.

“No. I still see nohing but a rocking chair, a dining table and some beams for my new roof. I’ll be building my own home soon. Farming just like my father did. Starting a family.”

Again his face reddened. She understood why he’d come up there. He wanted a wife, someone to give him children and care for them. The thoughts didn’t interest her as they had her sisters, as they did most people. To her, marriage was a chain that held people to each other. She wanted freedom.

“That sounds fine,” she said, hoping it would appease him and send him on his way.

He took a step closer, no longer looking at the tree, but at her.

“That’s why I came to you,” he said. “I thought, in time, we might fall in love. We might make a family and have boys that would grow and then they each might find their own beautiful woman on a hill. One who sees angels in the trees.”

She smiled again, but didn’t look at him. She watched her tree. He moved into her line of sight.

“Might you even look at me when I speak?” he said.

His words weren’t angry, but desperate.

“I don’t need to see you,” she said. “And I don’t intend to marry you.”

“But how do you know? You’ve only just met me. Why don’t you walk with me, and we’ll learn more ourselves?”

“I know all I need to, sir. I need to watch over my angel. You need to find another beautiful woman on a hill.”

He frowned, then grinned—a sparkling grin that most ladies would find irresistible.

“I’ve never heard of a person guarding an angel. Isn’t it typically the other way round?”

“I suppose,” she said. “But not in this case.”

“Then, perhaps I could assist you?”

She looked past him, into the ash tree, and saw the movement she had expected. He was unaware. The pale woman didn’t let on that her angel was waking, that it was coming down from its perch.

“I don’t think that would be wise,” she said.

The angel, with skin of bark, and wings of green leaves, scaled the trunk of the mighty tree like an animal, silent, crawling upside-down as it came. Its hair was like wiry grass, and its face was flat, with black eyes and no nose. The mouth stayed a rigid line as it climbed. The young woman watched as the young man continued to plead his case.

“Wise?” he said. “Is something threatening me?”

“I don’t know,” she said, still watching the angel. It reached the ground and stood, straightening as the wind blew in its branch-like wings. The creature stretched and the humanoid face appeared to yawn, although no sound came out.

“Where could I be safer than between you and a tree with an angel as its tenant?”

“Just about anywhere, I would imagine,” the young woman said.

With a flap, the angel’s wings snapped open, spanning twelve feet. Muscles rippled under the bark-skin, and its mouth opened in a scream like the call of a hawk. The young man tried to turn, but he was dead before he saw the angel.

The young woman, pale and freckled, smiled as it ate. She stroked the leafy feathers and sang to it. When there was nothing left, it nodded to her and flew away. She walked back down the hill at dusk to her empty home, knowing that angel would be back soon enough.

END.

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The Passing of Grady Starnes

The Passing of Grady Starnes

By Dan Dillard 2013

The trees, saplings mostly, mixed with some wiry brush, hugged the path where he walked, but dared not step inside. Anything that had ventured to grow in the path had been trudged under wheel or muddy boot these last fifty-odd years. That day, Grady trudged with renewed contempt for the world. He pushed his wheelbarrow and bitched like an old pro.

The path led from his home, a moldy, rundown shack that sat so far off the two-lane, you could only see it when winter had crushed all the foliage in her shiny, blue grip, to a circular plot of land that Grady had cleared for one purpose, and only one purpose. He was trudging along for that purpose that day.

“Goddamnit. God damnit all to hell,” he said.

That day, it was hot. It was muggy, and it smelled of stinking clay and mildewed leaves and diesel from the highway. The wheel of the cart squeaked once every revolution, and groaned when he would hit a bump. Even the wind was ruthless, taking the day off. The silence left when the leaves weren’t rattling was cruel.

“Can’t you just leave a man alone? Goddamnit to hell.”

He stopped and let the heavy cart rest, wringing his hardened hands on an old black, Harley-Davidson bandana that was hanging from his back pocket. Grady looked up through the crowding trees at the peeks and pokes of blue sky. With a wipe of his forehead, he gripped the wooden handles of the cart and lifted it again, his old knees screaming for a moment, then calming down. The shovel slid inside the cart, leaning against something dead, something that had begun to decay, something terrible. In the distance, the sounds of conversation were growing.

The voices were loud, angry, and getting louder. It took ten more steps before Grady heard them. He stopped the cart again, only fifty yards short of his destination. The voices grew, eight, maybe ten, maybe more, and before long, he could hear the sounds of trudging feet and snapping twigs to match them. Grady took a quick look down the path, toward the end—almost in sight, then back toward the sound of a mob. He eyeballed the old shovel and his heart began to race.

Picking up the handles of the wheelbarrow, he started to walk, then trot, pushing with all his strength. Sweat poured from his brow and stained the armpits and chest of his old grey t-shirt. His boots clomped and stamped in the hardened clay, cracked in the heat like an alien landscape.

“It wasn’t me!” he shouted. “It ain’t never been me!”

He kept running, ten yards…eight…five…

“That’s my little girl,” a man screamed.

The first blow came across Grady’s neck as his left boot entered the clearing. He fell, knocking the cart to the side and spilling the shovel and the body of a little girl, maybe ten years old. She was dirty, covered in the dark soil you’d find in a well kept garden. Her yellow sundress flipped up to show a tiny pair of panties, stained with blood. More blows rained down on Grady’s head, his arms, his legs. The vigilante mob of angry fathers from all over the area finally had their man.

When they stopped, smiles of crazy on their faces, catching their breath, Grady wheezed.

“Wasn’t…me…” he said.

One last exhale, and he was gone.

The men looked around at the clearing, half an acre or more. Graves lined up in neat rows, each with a small marker. Each marker had only the date and the letters RIP carved in them. The dates went back to the 1960’s.

“My God,” one man said.

Others shook their heads. Others still, wept. Each wandered into the graveyard, looking for the date that might have been there child’s interment. Looking for closure to a long agonizing open wound. The mob had dispersed.

What brought them back together was a shrill laugh. It was so loud, it echoed in the hills surrounding them. It hushed the voices of the birds and even the insects. It cackled on with crazed intensity for more than a minute, long enough that the men had formed back into a group, their weapons at the ready. They walked back down the path, then trotted, then jogged, then the able-bodied men sprinted. Sprinted until they reached the old shack and saw the source of the laughter.

The spring-heeled demon jumped up to the roof, spitting a fireball up toward the sky. It threw back its head and laughed again, mocking them. It licked blood from its claws and then jumped back to the ground, darting into the thick woods so fast, they had no humanly hope of catching up. On the ground, in Grady Starnes’ small patch of vegetables, was the body of a girl, maybe ten years old. She had on a tiny purple tank top and cutoff denim shorts. Her face was smeared with blood, and her eyes looked up in terror.

END

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In Depth With Evil Dead 2013

IN DEPTH WITH EVIL DEAD 2013

by Dan Dillard

When I was thirteen, my friend Brad and I rented a VHS tape entitled “The Evil Dead”. In the video store, I saw the cool cover art, a girl reaching to the sky as some demonic hand was pulling her down to hell. Even at that young age, I’d been screwed by cover art before…but this one was different, because even Stephen King, who had already written a few books you might have heard of at the time, said it was “ferocious” right there on the cover.

We popped the tape in that night and immediately started rocking and swaying on the floor like we were riding on a roller coaster as the camera panned through those woods leading to the now infamous cabin. Then the goofy “teens” showed up and they found the book and a reel-to-reel recorder with tapes about the Naturom Demonto, and a sacrificial dagger and an incantation that, well…Then a girl got raped by roots and vines in the forest and I couldn’t move. My budding inner gore hound was hooked, and horror was to be my thing.

Brad and I were subjected to demons—scary ones like I hadn’t experienced. They were Evil Dead. They weren’t people in bad rubber masks, they were real faces with grotesque makeup, like clowns in a way.  They were chunky and the thick paint cracked, making them look even evil-er. Their voices were awful, a thing of nightmare. Then more things happened…

A pencil in the ankle, in your face as it twisted around, and then thick syrupy blood oozed out. A demon girl was locked in the cellar, but kept peeking out and taunting them. The second demon girl was giggly in the creepiest way, even as a young Bruce Campbell repeatedly beat her with his fists. There was blood, so much. There were other fluids too, milk maybe? And is that blue? And is that Claymation? And giant hands ripping through the bodies of the Kandarian monsters… and Ashley Williams was born.

Watching it now…well the effects don’t hold up, but they’re still fun, and you can see that the cast was just drenched in them, and had a lot of fun being brutal…

Back then, what did I do after I watched The Evil Dead for the first time?  I watched it again. Then, as soon as it was available I rushed right out and rented the sequel. And when Army of Darkness came out, I was at the theater cheering along. I’ve watched them all countless times. Then I watched all of the other cabin-in-the-woods movies that tried to recapture that…including Cabin Fever and…well, Cabin in the Woods.

Now, I told you all of that so I could tell you this. In all honesty, when I heard there was a sequel in the works, I was pissed. It was a cult film—you can’t recapture that, it just isn’t possible. No Ash? You’re smokin’ bad weed.

Even when The Chin himself and Sam Raimi said, “We’ll produce. It’s gonna be awesome.” I wasn’t convinced…and as more and more news came out, I went deeper and deeper to the darkside. In the time since I first heard of the ED remake, I was subjected to dozens of other remakes and new horror films that all seemed to spawn from the same cookie cutter crap factory. Then they did the unthinkable and called us all out on the poster. “The Most Frightening Film You Will Ever Experience.”

I was glad to see they had balls, but bullshit, says I. They weren’t saying the scariest thing I’d seen… but the scariest thing I would ever see. Okay, buddy, whatever.

But the film was remade and went to festivals and positive things started to happen. People liked it. Horror fans that had called it blasphemy just like I had—liked it. Was it possible? Did they not screw it up? Could lightning strike a fourth time for the series? And they used practical effects?

So as the day drew near, I decided I wanted to see it…and I wanted to see it in the theater with a crowd on opening night. Some of my friends and I walked into the theater and sat down, expecting nothing. Here’s what we got:

HERE COME THE SPOILERS. So don’t bitch if you read beyond this point.

It isn’t really a remake. It is more like another chapter, the story of another group of five friends who show up for an altogether different reason at a cabin where bad things have happened before. There's no Ash character, which is good because it would've been distracting (and likely disappointing). The first half of the movie is taken from Mia's perspective up to and even after her possession. Then it switches to survival mode, but in the end, it's still Mia who is the hero. A completely different take.

From here on, I’m going to break this down by element because it’s easier for me to think about it that way.

STORY:

Okay, bad news first… and it’s not that bad because this isn’t that type of film. If you go to the Evil Dead for the story, you’re a bonehead. Mythology? Yes. Shakespearean structure and character development? You’re a bonehead.

There was a little glimpse of background at the beginning. We meet a father who, with the help of a crazy-looking-hills-have-eyes kind of family, captures his own daughter and burns her possessed ass in the cellar of the cabin. I was confused by the scene, but it was cool and a very strong opening. Then, we’re taken to the present where the five slabs of meat… I mean friends show up for a sort-of self-induced drug intervention.

Mia, the lead, is a junkie, and two of her friends, Eric (a teacher) and Olivia (a registered nurse), have agreed to help her kick the habit no matter what. That’s key, and it was played up without being overboard---No matter what, she is not to leave the cabin. Her brother, David, shows up as well and brings the family dog, Grandpa. He’s been absent in her life, and we find out later he was also absent when her mother went crazy and died in a hospital. 

David’s absence is a point of stress between all involved. So there’s a core group of four friends, and then a blond chick, Natalie, who I think was David’s girlfriend, but the movie didn’t really develop her character, so I won’t either. The friends explain to David that they’ve tried to help Mia before, that she had flushed her drugs and asked them to help her quit a year ago, but eight hours in, she gave up. So David is asked to understand that she will say or do anything to get out of the cabin and go back to using.

I’ll get to each player more when I talk about the gore.

When Mia freaks out over a nasty smell in the cabin, and with the help of Grandpa the dog, they find the hatch that leads to the cellar. In the cellar there’s a room with dead cats strung up to the ceiling and the book of the dead, wrapped in black plastic and barbed wire. What do they do? Eric, the high school teacher, opens it and starts to read. Even though there are warnings scribbled all over it, and the incantation has been blotted out, he goes out of his way to figure out the words, and says them aloud. Mayhem ensues. Lots of glorious mayhem. When it starts, one car is wrecked, and they can’t get out in the other because the river floods.

The movie rolls along quickly on leaps of logic and bad decisions. In other words, the story is stupid, and the characters are stupid. But as I said, it isn’t that kind of movie.

THE GORE

I was under the impression from all of my research that this movie only used practical effects. That isn’t true. There are some digital effects, and they are well done—but obvious. The majority of effects are practical, and they were awesome. Maybe the most believable scenes of dismemberment and such that I have seen as a whole. Some films pull of one or two excellent gags, this one has a truckload. And the MPAA let it all be in your face. Thank you MPAA for recognizing Alvarez’s ballsy approach and allowing most of it to happen on screen in the theater! Can’t wait for the unrated version.

Since the characters don’t really matter that much, we’ll talk about their run-ins with the Evil. 

MIA—As soon as Eric reads the words, Mia pukes. Could be withdrawal, but she wants to go home. When no one helps her, she leaves on her own. Driving through the woods, she sees a ghostly, demonic version of what looks like her and wrecks the car. As she runs from the spook, she is attacked by the trees and held in place while the demon pukes out a slug made of vines and slime that crawls up into Mia’s hoohah and infects her with the badness. (the only attack which is truly reminiscent of the original)

Her friends find her and take her home, but she is not a well person. She burns herself in the shower, kills the dog with a hammer (the only thing that isn’t actually shown) and then, after shooting her brother in the arm with a shotgun, tells them they are all going to die, and pukes chunky blood all over Olivia, passing on the love. There are a few other Exorcist type moments for example when Demon-Mia tells her brother, "Come down here so I can suck that cock, pretty boy!" Slimy, yet satisfying.

OLIVIA—as a nurse, O is used to gook. She washes the gallon of funk off of her face and sees a flash of herself in the mirror, missing the skin on her face. She demon-wigs out and when Eric finds her, she is busy carving her face off. They fight, and she stabs Eric with a piece of broken mirror, then stabs him in the face with a hypodermic needle which breaks off under his eye and he must pull out in a wonderfully gruesome scene. He crushes her head with a chunk of porcelain sink.

NATALIE—wow. Nat got my first favorite scene. She gets bitten by Mia in the slice-my-tongue-in-two scene you all saw in the trailer… and as the infection spreads from her hand up her arm, she grabs an electric carving knife (that was luckily plugged in) and begins to saw her arm off in one of the most believable in-your-face scenes I’ve seen. Beautiful work f/x folks. They guys rush in because of her screams and find her standing there, arm hanging by a few threads of skin which are stretching and tearing as the limb falls off under its own weight and Natalie says, “I feel much better now.”

BACK TO STORY FOR A MINUTE

More stuff happens, Eric gets duct-taped back together and explains to David that he saw all of this in the book… the only way to fix it is to kill Mia and the only way to do that are dismemberment, purification by fire, or being buried alive.

Natalie demons out and there is a battle between her and Eric and David that involves a nail gun and a crowbar. Eric is one tough-ass high-school teacher. There is some more fighting and demonic goodness and David decides he has to kill his sister to end the madness and tries to burn her, but he can’t do it… instead he comes up with a hair-brained scheme to bury her alive, then when she dies, he’ll dig her back up and shock her heart back with a pair of HUGE hypodermic needles wired to a car battery and a light switch.

As an electronics guy, I’m not sure how he even completed that circuit, what he was using to hold the charge… or if he had the smarts to rig that, why he wasn’t much smarter about the rest of the evening…but in Evil Dead land, the ploy worked, and Mia came back out of the ground all pretty and unscathed. Even the blood that was smeared all over her had magically washed off.

BACK TO GORE

DAVID—He’s been nail-gunned, shot, and hit with a crowbar, but he still hasn’t taken the beating Eric did, so when he decides to go back in the cabin (really?) for car keys (he just rigged a defibrillator out of old shed parts! Couldn’t he hotwire a damn Jeep Wrangler?)  Eric shows up as a demon and we think we’re going to see the final battle. David locks Mia out, grabs a shotgun and fires off a round at a gas can which apparently has the explosive power of a pound of C-4, and sends the whole cabin up in flames, but doesn’t have enough energy to move Mia away from the front door. Again, it might be over, but then—as prophesized in the book—it begins raining blood (cue the Slayer!).

MIA part 2—is covered in blood from the rain and running from the ‘abomination’ come to full, glorious life as a creepy, demonic, mirror image of her. It’s all naked and stalky and screamy and has those orange-yellow eyes. There’s a very cool chase scene that treats Mia like a pincushion, and where she has to choose between a machete and a chainsaw. She chooses wisely. The chainsaw takes the monster’s feet out from under it, but it tips the Jeep over onto Mia’s hand.

In a last ditch effort, Mia tears her own hand off so she can reach the still-running (no safety) saw and in the best chainsaw scene I have ever seen on film (yep, I said it) says “Feast on this, motherfucker!” and shoves the blade into the demons mouth and carves it almost in half, while screaming like a warrior—it was badass. And all in glorious high definition.

Does Mia bleed out from her missing hand, huge gash in her knee, huge gash in her arm, overstimulated heart? No. But the blood rain stops and the credit roll.

HUGE SPOILER!!!

And if you stay through the credits, you get to hear some audio from the original film, and then, a giant Bruce Campbell face turns to the camera and says, you guessed it, “Groovy.”

VISUALS

The movie is beautiful. The blood is red and plentiful, the Raimi-esque shots are there and some new and odd camera views are added. The editing was excellent, and put the camera on a tripod for a change—so glad they didn’t make this a found footage pile of dung. Better yet: It isn’t the slick looking blather that has been passing for horror films of late, this one is gritty, grimy and it all looks real—even when your mind is saying, “What? That’s bullshit”, it still looks real. The cast is pretty, which is fine. I guess nothing terrible ever happens to the average looking.

SOUND

Nicely done. The score was cool, and had this wailing almost-fire engine sound that was used when things were going oh-so wrong. The audio dropped out at opportune times and jumped in when a scare was necessary.

ACTING

Solid. None of it was especially good, but it was passable, and never yanked me out of the story.

WRITING

Again, this is a non-category. I only put it here because I wanted to mention this: Diablo Cody was not credited… and I didn’t hear any of her snarky dialogue, which was a good thing. If she did show up for work here, it wasn’t noticed, but compared to Jennifer’s Body, this was Poe.

OVERALL

No camp, not even any jokes, but on the whole, Evil Dead 2013 is a load of gore-soaked fun. I said it. Again, not a remake, per say, which is what makes it work. The appropriate nods were given, a cabin in the woods, a book of the dead, a pendant on a necklace given as a gift, an old clock on the wall, a tree rape, even a very familiar old car rusting out behind the cabin, and Bruce’s wink at the audience at the end. It isn’t smart, but it isn’t supposed to be. I would watch it again. I will own it when it comes out on DVD and Bluray. I would watch a sequel, and actually hope for one. It does not in any way replace The Evil Dead from 1981 and I don’t think it was meant to. It is, however, a great tribute, a companion piece to add to your ED collection, and hopefully a lesson to Hollywood and other film makers that this is how it should be done. With balls.

Was it the most frightening film I ever experienced or will ever experience? Sadly, no, not even close… but what a ride. Thanks Sam, Bruce, Fede and crew for making this movie. I’m sorry I doubted you.

and on a side note: almost the entire cast of the original make cameos in Oz, the Great and Powerful... just thought you should know.