Evil Dead review + April Fools lamentations
I almost made an April Fools gag this year. Almost! I think this was actually the first year I was aware of April Fools a few weeks before it happened, thus granting me the chance to actually prepare something for it.
And I didn’t bother.
I did mildly assist RQ87 with his one, mind you, but I didn’t do a damn thing for my site. C’est la vie.
Watched The Evil Dead. I watched Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness… must’ve been about six to eight years ago, I think, but this is the first time I’ve seen the one that started it all. It was silly fun – the storyline is really, really barebones even for a 90 minute film, consisting no more of some guys going to a cabin, accidentally summoning demonic forces with a tape recorder and everyone gets possessed and mutilated in various manners until Ash is run into by a camera. You could almost say the film could be trimmed by two thirds, but the movie is just fine the way it is, as it’s all about the build-up to the jump scares, the gore, and of course, Ash’s descent into madness. It’s kind of interesting being more familiar with the later movies, where Ash is more or less completely deranged and/or badass from the get-go, whereas here it shows him as a rather mellow and timid nice guy until the forces of hell screw up his life.
For being a low-budget flick, I was surprised at how well shot it was. The effects are sufficiently nauseating (PENCIL IN THE ANKLE OH GOD) and the camera work is superb, especially the bizarrely angled shots during the madness moments and the demon POV; admittedly if it weren’t for the sound effects they wouldn’t have been as good, but everything comes together to make a brilliantly nightmarish environment. Entertaining watch!
I also finally got around to watching another episode of Buffy, this one was episode 7 where it’s revealed that, shock horror, Angel is actually a vampire! I admit I needed reminded that at this point in the series Angel was just this mysterious dude who shows up with mysteriously relevant information, and isn’t actually implied to be a vampire yet. I was almost certain there was some implication that he was, or at least he was in serious cahoots with them at one point, but I guess I must be misremembering things. It was a decent episode, though I’m kinda surprised that they’re weeding through vampire underlings so quickly – Darla had been in essentially every episode so far! I’ve heard she comes back later anyway, so no big whoop, but still.
Seeing Buffy’s mom get bitten by Darla did raise a few questions for me – in a nutshell, what actually makes someone turn into a vampire? In the episodes so far there’s been a fair few dudes who’ve been vampire’d, but for the most part it’s happened off-screen. I was under the impression vampires worked in much the same way as zombies and werewolves where a simple bite is all it takes to change you. I’m reading a book called The Golden, which is essentially a vampire murder-mystery story (I say “I’m reading,” but I’m only two chapters in. I hear the writing is excellent, and I have no qualms with it, but the characters and their attitudes come across as quite pretentious so far) and I think it’s got some kind of difference regarding draining someone of blood and actually changing them, though it’s rather vaguely defined; the point is, Buffy’s mom is bitten and I was like, yikes, it’s a bit early in the series to get her endangered! Turns out she’s A-OK. Huh. How about that.
Today’s observation: I thought a bag of cookies said it was oatmeal and racism flavour. Turned out it was oatmeal and raisin.
