Evil Dead (2013)

This artwork by Laz Marquez is EV-ER-YTHING.

I remember when I first saw a trailer for this, and it looked INTENSE. So much so that I didn't go and see it on its theatrical release. Tongue slitting?! Wow... that's a bit much.

Well, times have changed! And just recently I was in the mood to pop this on and finally see how I felt about Fede Alvarez's take on the Evil Dead thing. And, honestly, I felt pretty entertained!

After a gorgeous title card/opening shot one-two punch, we're introduced to a group of college kids. In a spin on the original set-up, Mia (Jane Levy, doing most of the work but doing it brilliantly) is being isolated in this cabin in the middle of nowhere in order to go through drug addiction withdrawals. Her brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) accompanies her to supervise, along with his girlfriend and Mia's friends (including Spring's Lou Taylor Pucci).

David is warned that his sister has paid lip service to quitting before, with all the heartfelt declarations and ceremony they just witnessed as she threw her drugs away moments before. So, he's told, they have to be harder on her this time if it's really going to work. This is obviously almost instantly the cue for demonic shit to go down and no one initially believing Mia, assuming she's either attempting to manipulate them or hallucinating through her withdrawal.

But as we know: she's not. This is demon dinnertime.

Fans of the originals will recognise some iconic plot points like the tree assault (feeling WAY less exploitative than the 1981 version but still horrible [I watched that to remind myself and YIKES x100]), the Book of the Dead (bound in trash bags and barbed wire; nice touch) the tool shed and an Oldsmobile sitting out to rust near the cabin.

This was neither as sick as I had assumed it would be, nor as redundant. And what I really enjoyed about it was the dirt under its nails. 99% of this film feels deeply unclean; slick with sweat/rain/vomit/blood and caked in mud (and blood!). When horror successfully feels so tainted, I'm so completely on board. I love it when world-within-the-movie feels this soiled.

Sure, the drug comedown madness/evil infiltration thing is a horror trope, but it works like a charm here, and once the demons have an "in" with this group, it's almost non-stop evisceration, self-amputation and screaming.

Taking into account the serious, practical gore + solid story + exceptionally bold visuals (the cinematography was by Aaron Morton, who's since worked on Black Mirror) I feel I must recommend Evil Dead. There's not much about this I can fault. Perhaps the ending? Just slightly? But that may only be because it's where we veer off from the known path more than at any other time and I wasn't quite ready for that. On subsequent viewings, I suspect I'll appreciate it more. For its pure insanity if nothing else.

Now that I've come to accept reboots, reimaginings and their ilk, it's easier to get excited about them. At the end of the day, it's more horror, and that's a good problem to have. None of these films will ever undo the classics, so why not enjoy them? Especially when they are as competently made as this is.

Perhaps the most disturbing shot in the movie, for me.

Raimi and Campbell were in fact producers on this movie. Apparently, the original plan was to make a sequel connecting both this and the originals, as this iteration was said to be set in the same continuity. Such info kind of boggles my mind as tonally they are so different; there are very few moments of levity here. I'm sad a connecting sequel didn't happen, as I can't imagine the middle ground. Would have been interested to see Raimi/Campbell and Alvarez mashup?!

I rented this on Google Play so I imagine it's easy to get hold of if you've yet to see it!

We Are Still Here (2015)

You know what I love? I bloody love a title screen that jars against what came before. When everything is quiet and still, and the audience gets kind of comfortable with that, and then BAM the title slams up. It's one of my irrational loves. It brings me an absurd amount of joy.

We Are Still Here is a slow burn haunted house film. And rather like its title screen described above, it gets us used to its subdued ways before going pretty apeshit at the end and being a big old surprise. It's amazing. 

That's not to say all the bloodshed comes in the final act. It doesn't. Leading us along the path of "oh god!" and "what the hell?!" (I said both of these things out loud: a recommendation in itself) are some well executed jump scares and quick, gory moments to punctuate the white middle class normality.

The plot centres around a middle aged couple who've just moved into a house in a snowy, apparently sleepy New England town. Having tragically lost their son in a car accident not too long before their relocation, they're attempting to heal as best they can from such heartbreak. 

Only... the house almost immediately reacts to their inhabiting it; photos fall, doors open and close, and wife Anne swears she can feel the presence of their son Bobby in the house with them. Her husband Paul is a cynic, sympathetically indulging her until witnessing things he just cannot deny, leading him to literally exclaim: "I believe it all!".

It transpires that beneath the house lurks a deep evil, one that wakes every thirty years and must be fed. If a sacrifice isn't made, the entire town pays the price. The words of a shifty neighbour sounded sinister at the time he uttered them, but then become all too clear: This house needs a family. (Also serving as the film's tagline).

Dark, charred figures stalk the house, appearing both as visions and as direct threats. If they touch you, you burn. They can devour you, and they can punch right through your chest - but why do they seem to be sparing Paul and Anne?

Boldly, the film shows these early and often, but benefits from doing so.

So I'm finding it interesting that I enjoyed this film so much and found the similarly slow-into-bonkers Starry Eyes from a couple of days ago somehow disappointing.

Maybe it's because We Are Still Here is set in the 70s - and I mean flawlessly set in the 70s, they nail the vibe in my opinion - and many of the protagonists are older? Paul and Anne are a rather normal couple, older but still affectionate and unsteadily (realistically so) dealing with the loss of their son. Maybe it's just there was more emotional meat there. 

The set-up of such arguably mundane characters facing not only rampaging townsfolk but also cruel ghosts is, to be honest, delightful. There's a reason this type of narrative set-up is used so often: it works. Barricaded in the bedroom with nothing but a handful of small knives, Anne fumbles and drops one of them before the couple arm themselves, hands trembling. It's just a great little collection of scenes; their nervous defiance.

I remember pausing the film not long after this moment with about 15mins remaining, and having no idea where this was going to end up. The final part of the final act is a gloriously batshit bloodbath. If the violence from earlier were shots, this bit is a full-on keg stand.

The walls are quite literally soaked in blood as heads are blown off, stomachs are torn open and in two of my favourite moments: blood is belched from the crawlspace in the basement and an unfortunate fallen townsperson is climbed upon by one of the ghosts; each hand and foot placement creating a hot hissing sound as they make their way up to his head.

The house is hungry, and it feeds. People are sucked right into the foundations before our very eyes!

Throughout the film there are many prolonged shots of the snowy countryside surrounding the house. Bare branches and empty roads stretch out all around, giving us a sense of the isolation and claustrophobia inside.

Not to mention working as a counter to how hot the house is for the time of year (early on they complain of the basement being abnormally hot, putting it down to a faulty boiler). It's a great line-drawing technique of "in here" and "out there" as well as a cheeky spin on the trope of ghosts lowering the temperature around them. These spooks actually burn hot.

The ending may require some discussion (online or otherwise) or perhaps another viewing to fully wrap your head around things, and without having done much of either yet, I'll state that to some degree it seems open to interpretation. However I don't think this detracts from what a solid and remarkably enjoyable film this is.

Here's the poster art, just because I think it's worth seeing what a great job they did of this, too...

Amityville II: The Possession (1982)

How many Amityville films are there? Why do I keep putting emphasis on the wrong syllable of the word "Amityville"? Where do I recognise Rutanya Alda from? Is this a sequel or prequel to the original film? And if it's a prequel, why is it called Amityville II?

These and many other questions will not be answered in the following Final Girl Film Club review.

I confess I never "got" the first film. I caught it on TV once, and having heard of it thought it must be decent, surely? Ho, oh to be young and naive again.

This film tells the story of the family who lived in the house with the evil eyes beforehand (although different websites tell me different things) and what became of them. The "diabolical influence" inside the house, built on an ancient Indian burial ground(!) and how it possessed certain family members and led to their destruction.

The family are fairly riddled with issues from the get-go. Dad is abusive; mother is at her wit's end trying to keep the family together and turning to religion for guidance; the two eldest children get along way too easily for teenagers of opposite gender and the two youngest do this kind of thing for laughs:

I repeat: this was before any demonic intervention! So it's pretty much a finger buffet for malignant spirits in this household.

Lamentably, again, we have a case of the plot sounding promising but questionable acting, dodgy ill-advised effects and pacing problems taking most of the punch away.

Floating paintbrushes. More Mary Poppins than haunted house.

To my delight the 99mins didn't pass completely without its effective moments. My two favourites being the scene which sees the already tactile brother and sister get even closer in a way close relatives probably shouldn't.

Being an only child, depictions of incest do not disturb me too much, but this segment was surprisingly uncomfortable to watch. One of the most unsettling things about the scene itself is just how far the girl lets her brother go before appearing even remotely concerned about what is happening.

Afterwards we are shown her confessing her sin to a priest, uttering a line I thought was one of the best in the movie: "We do not love each other. He does it to hurt God."

My second favourite point was the way in which it was revealed who was killed in the massacre at the house. It is set early in the morning, looking bright and cold; the priest arrives too late to save anyone, instead all he can do is bless the bodies as they are removed by the police.

It must be the stark, hand-held documentary style in which this is shot, as there is something I found really quite heartbreaking about it, even though I wasn't that attached to the characters in question.

Despite these two nicely unnerving episodes, Amityville II unfortunately doesn't get elevated from mediocrity into anything scarier or more entertaining. Nor do the cheesy instances pack quite enough cheese to make this a fun schlocky horror. It's just maddeningly stuck in the middle somewhere.

It also feels like two very separate halves. The relatively subtle haunted house yarn and the far more OTT possession and exorcism conclusion. In the first half we have flying paintbrushes, spinning beds and popping electrical sockets (and all I kept thinking was The Money Pit), in the second we have licked crucifixes, rivers of blood and The Fly-like body horror.

The two don't sit completely awkwardly next to one another... but they don't exactly meld perfectly, either. It felt to me like a decision should have been made as to what kind of film this was going to be, and stuck with. The haunted house culminating in family tragedy could have been the entire plot, with the stark depressing body bag sequence ending it on a nice downer. OR it could have gone balls out from the beginning with all the fun of goo and bleeding walls. Both shoved together just feels disjointed and untidy.

The last glide through the destroyed innards of the house, and up to the attic where the priest sits bloody and exhausted is undeniably impressive. However even this is over-egged. It should have concluded with us simply reaching him - fade to black - end. Instead we are treated to needless pulsing latex effects to really hammer home what his fate will be. Argh, no! We get it!

One sentence to sum this film up? Okay then... It has given me a hankerin' for The Exorcist.