Movie Review Evil Dead Rise

Evil Dead Rise (2023) 

Directed by Lee Cronin 

Written by Lee Cronin 

Starring Lilly Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies 

Release Date April 21st, 2023 

Published April 21st, 2023 

The Evil Dead franchise is supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be gross, it's supposed to shock you out of your seat, but above all, it's supposed to be fun. Writer-Director Lee Cronin, the creative force behind the new re-imagining of the Evil Dead franchise has completely forgotten the fun of the franchise. Don't get me wrong, Lee Cronin is a terrific horror movie director. The gore and the weirdness he achieves in Evil Dead Rise is impressive on a technical level. But it's not The Evil Dead. 

Evil Dead Rise begins at a cabin in the woods because it has to, it's an homage to the original film setting. After a gory set piece, we go back in time by one day. We arrive at a rock club where we meet Beth (Lilly Sullivan), a guitar technician for a small scale rock band. Beth has just found out that she is pregnant and is struggling with this information. While in Los Angeles, Beth goes to see and stay with her sister, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), and Ellie's three kids, son Danny (Morgan Davies), daughter Bridge (Gabrielle Echols), and youngest daughter Kassie (Nell Fisher). 

The kids' father has rather recently disappeared and the family is being thrown out of their ancient apartment building because it is about to be condemned and torn down. Then, an earthquake hits and reveals a treasure trove in the basement. Curious, Danny goes searching the rubble and finds a tomb in the basement. Inside is a book made of human flesh and series of records that contain the voice of a Priest who has translated the horror Latin of the book, revealing that this is The Book of the Dead. 

You can guess what happens next, the demons are loose, people are possessed, and terror is unleashed on one member of the family after another until the movie mercifully finds a properly blood-soaked ending. It's all rather skillfully crafted, the blocking, the sound design, the overall staging of the blood and guts of Evil Dead Rise, is all first rate horror stuff. But, where's the fun? There is zero fun to be had in Evil Dead Rise and that, for a fan of the franchise, is a death knell. 

If this movie was not an official sequel of The Evil Dead franchise, I might find it more appealing. But as it is, billed as a part of a legendarily dark comic horror franchise, Evil Dead Rise just feels like a bad fit. I was reminded of how horror producers of the 70s and 80s would find a random script and attach a familiar franchise title to it as a marketing gimmick. Sometimes they might graft onto the script a very loose scene to connect it to the franchise, but it was clearly born as something else. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Beau is Afraid

Beau is Afraid (2023) 

Directed by Ari Aster

Written by Ari Aster 

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Amy Ryan, Patti Lupone 

Release Date April 21st, 2023 

Published April 21st, 2023 

What if what Beau sees as the world around is really his internal life, externalized? This is the kind of question that toys with you when you watch a film from the remarkable, ungodly talented writer-director Ari Aster. The director of the twin masterworks Hereditary and Midsommar, Aster is a masterfully detailed and thorough director with a tone for tone and atmosphere that may just be unmatched in modern cinema. The thesis statement for my claim is Beau is Afraid, a film where atmosphere and tone stand in for just about anything you might find familiar as a film narrative. 

Beau is Afraid stars Joaquin Phoenix as Beau, a stunted, edgy, angst-riddled mess of a human being. Beau inhabits a universe where a criminal known as Stab-Man wanders the streets nude and stabbing people while building an astonishing body count. The streets are littered with filthy oddballs and just plain corpses strewn here and there by a society of haves and have nots we will only ever get a minor sense of. The point is not to make a direct comment about man's inhumanity to man, but to offer you the sight and let you make up your own mind about what is presented. 

Besides, the corpses in the street and Stab-Man aren't really things that Beau is interested, unless he's leaping over a corpse to escape the Stab-Man, and then, suddenly, these things really, really matter. The story kicks off when Beau's mother, played by the legendary Patti Lupone, is expecting Beau to get on a plane to come and see her. We've learned that Beau is not high on the prospect of seeing his mother. He tells his therapist, Dr. Jeremy, that though he loves his mother, the visit fills him with the kind of anxiety that must be treated by a high end drug that MUST be taken with water. 

You don't want to know what might happen if you take these pills without water. Regardless, as Beau is getting ready to leave his apartment, his bags and keys are stolen. Being a spineless simp for his mother's withheld affections, Beau tells Mom that he will still try and make his plane, even as he no longer has a bag or keys to his apartment, or his boarding pass, and she feigns telling him that its fine if he doesn't come, with the strong subtext being that he doesn't love her because he's not coming. 

Beau is a character to whom life happens. Beau doesn't have experiences, he has experiences inflicted upon him by an uncompromising world bent on making him do things he doesn't want to do. It's all related to his strange upbringing, the weird and uncompromising relationship with his mother, the absence of his father, and a bizarre relationship to women with deep oedipal roots and a self-loathing based fear that is not expressed but that Beau wears like a second skin. 

The trip to see his mother is the beginning of a journey for Beau that will somehow combine elements of David Lynch, David Cronenberg, and Homer's Odyssey. If that combination elements, shot through the incredibly prismatic mind of Ari Aster, appeals to you, Beau is Afraid is a must see movie. If however, you are not completely on board for some of the weirdest, most shocking, and distressing moments ever brought to the big screen, then, perhaps, this not the movie for you. 

Find my complete review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Sisu

Sisu (2023) 

Directed by Jalmair Helander 

Written by Jalmari Helander 

Starring Jorma Tommila, Aksel Hennie, Jack Doolan 

Release Date April 28th, 2023 

Published April 24th, 2023 

Sisu is a Finnish word that, essentially, means extraordinary determination in the face of extreme adversity. That is a strong descriptor for the main character of the movie, Sisu, a man referred to as The Immortal for his uncanny ability to survive any kind of attack. Indeed, the former Finnish commando, Aatami Korpi, played by Jorma Tommila, does appear to be immortal. The things that Korpi survives in Sisu threaten to turn the movie into a Monty Python-esque parody of what the human body is capable of surviving. 

That the film doesn't descend into parody likely comes from how satisfying it is to watch a man brutally destroy Nazis, seemingly the last group of people we collectively enjoy watching die horribly. Rarely will you hear someone try and say, can't we just let the Nazis be, and that's the way it should be, no quarter for Nazis. Depicting Nazis being brutally decimated should not only be protected, it should celebrated and shown to actual Nazis as a warning of what we collectively will do if they think about trying to come back. 

But I digress. Sisu is told over several chapters. Chapter 1 introduces Korpi as a man mourning the death of his wife and setting out into the world to seek his fortune. Chapter 2 quickly follows and shows Korpi striking it rich, finding a rich vein of gold that should set him up for life and beyond. But, that's only if he survives to get the gold to the Finnish capital where he can exchange it for his life changing fortune. This task is rendered impossible when Korpi is accosted by Nazis who are fleeing in the dying days of World War 2. 

It's 1944 and Finland has been convinced to come over to the side of the allies and banish the already fleeing Nazi army. Running away with their tale between their legs, the Nazis can't help but try to start something with an old man just trying to reach the next outpost. Korpi doesn't want trouble but the Nazis sure do and when they attack, they find out that the old man they believe they can bully and rob on their way of town is not the man to mess with. Indeed, Korpi brutally murders his attackers but in doing so, he catches the attention of a fleeing German convoy, one equally eager for a reason to fight. 

The convoy turns back to attack Korpi and a brutal and deadly game of cat and mouse ensues with Korpi somehow surviving multiple bullet wounds, losing his horse to a mine in a stomach-churning scene of violence, and a near drowning. He will survive even more than that as Sisu plays out its story but that's for you to discover when you Sisu. Korpi also gives as good as he gets as he inflicts deathly wounds on Nazis using any manner of bloody, bloody, violence. As I said earlier, it's incredibly satisfying seeing Nazis on the receiving end of this kind of brutality.

It certainly doesn't make up for the real life crimes of Nazis but since we are not currently murdering Nazis, there is a reasonable satisfaction in seeing figurative Nazis get slaughtered. If you're mad that I am saying this about NAZIs, you might want to have a long talk with yourself or maybe a therapist and consider why someone talking about the brutal, bloody, eviscerating of Nazis bothers you. Most people don't deserve this but Nazis do. Being a Nazi is not an ideology, it's not a debate, it's just wrong and should be met with that in mind. 

Find my complete review at Geeks.Media. 

Horror in the 90s Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer

Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990) 

Directed by John McNaughton 

Written by Richard Fire, John McNaughton 

Starring Michael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towles 

Release Date January 5th, 1990 

Henry Portrait of a Serial Killers opens on a perfect and horrifying bit of misdirection. With birds chirping in the background, it’s an idyllic setting, for a moment you settle into the film. You see the peaceful face of what you initially believe is a woman sleeping, perhaps about to wake up and begin her day. Then, director John McNaughton’s camera begins to reveal what is really happening here. 

The woman is not sleeping, indeed her eyes aren’t even closed, they are blackened, either from the mess made of her makeup or, perhaps a beating. Regardless, her eyes are open and lifeless. In reality, the camera was never still, it was always pulling back and always about to reveal that you are looking at a dead woman, fully nude, wounds to her abdomen fresh with blood. The camera tilts and a score sets in underneath, a droning but angelic chorus that ends in a harsh cut to a cigarette, harshly stubbed out in diner ashtray. 

The harshness of the cut and the symbolism of the cigarette, once carrying a fiery, intoxicating life before being snuffed out with a careless force hits you hard. We are barely two minutes into Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, and that’s counting a credits sequence, that is just text on a black screen with a tense synth score. And yet, director John McNaughton has already set the tone. The plasticine perfection of nature in our imagination slowly melting to a horrifying and harsh reality. 

The movement from the mundane to the horrific is another hallmark of Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. After that harsh cut from before establishes Henry in the diner, stubbing out his cigarette, we watch a mundane moment play out. The camera slowly pulls back to observe Henry pick up his bill, stand, put on his jacket, walk a few steps to the other side of the counter. He pays his bill and half heartedly flirts with his waitress. Then Henry walks to his car and climbs inside, giving us, ever so-briefly, a glimpse of his face. 

Then WHAM! Hard cut to a body lying face down on the counter of a liquor store, a bullet in her head. Look at the visuals, side by side of the diner waitress and the woman on the counter, they could be the same person. It’s as if the movie is showing us that no one is safe, Henry will kill whenever he feels like killing and whomever. We’re not even finished with the reveal however, as this time, there are two corpses, another lying on the floor, feet away from the first victim. 

We don’t need to see the killings, it’s quite clear from the editing, the progression of scene to scene, who is responsible for these grisly deaths. The sound design also progresses at this moment. I am imagining from the birds chirping and the silence of the opening moments, that the first victim was likely dumped in that location. I am inferring that because when the liquor store owners die, we see their corpses, but the sound design plays out the scene, we here the terror in the woman’s voice, we hear the shots fired that end their lives, and briefly Henry’s voice, telling the woman to shut-up. 

Cut to Henry, casually driving his car and idly listening to a rock n’roll radio station. Then, smash cut to bloody sheets in a hotel room. The droning bass of the score, a hellish drone. The camera slowly pans and the slow motion horror of this moment cannot be understated. The choice of weapon here catches you off guard. You don’t see it right away but as the camera slowly moves closer to the victim, the outline of a glass bottle protruding from her bloody mouth comes into focus as the source of the blood pouring down her neck to her chest. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Horror in the 90s The First Power

The First Power (1990) 

Directed by Robert Resnikoff 

Written by Robert Resnikoff 

Starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Tracy Griffiths, Jeff Kober, Mykelti Williamson 

Release Date April 6th, 1990 

Box Office $22.4 million 

Right off the bat in The First Power, we are off to a bad start. The film begins on a massive info dump of exposition. A Nun, Sister Marguerite (Elizabeth Arlen), is speaking to a group of Priests, her church leadership, one can infer. She lays out the state of the universe. 15 people in Los Angeles have been murdered and their bodies have been mutilated with a symbol of the Devil, the pentagram. Sister Marguerite believes that this a sign, a symbol of, perhaps, the rise of Satan and the start of an apocalypse. The church leaders dismiss her concern and send her back to her convent. 

We know, by knowing the movie that we've chosen to watch, that this Nun is right, and the Devil is indeed inspiring this killer to kill. So, why dump exposition like this? Laziness? Clumsiness? A disrespect for audience intelligence? Yeah, probably. Making things infinitely more insulting however is how awful the acting is in this moment. Now, to be as fair as possible to Elizabeth Arlen, no actor, of any level of skill could deliver this kind of dialogue while emoting and trying to communicate a character and come off well. She was at a grave disadvantage. 

Why choose to start what is supposed to be an atmospheric chiller about a demon possessed serial killer like this? No music, neither the main character or the killer is on screen, and reams of exposition delivered by a main character to several non-characters. It doesn't tell us anything about the church, it tells us little about Sister Marguerite aside from how much her actor is struggling to fight through the scene. Writer-Director Robert Resnikoff has done a grave disservice to Ms. Arlen by placing the burden of starting the movie entirely on her when he has a movie star, Lou Diamond Phillips, at the ready. 

The scene immediately following the opening is WAY more intriguing and effective. Detective Logan (Lou Diamond Phillips) is looking over a map of recent killings. He has crime scene photos laid out, a visual indication of who he is and what he is doing. Logan gets a phone call from a mysterious woman whom we will learn, eventually, is a psychic named Tess Seaton (Tracy Griffith). She tells Logan that she knows where the killer is and will tell Logan if he promises not to kill him, and not to push for the death penalty when he captures him. Logan agrees and the two agree to meet. 

Who is this woman? How does she know what she knows? The crime scene photos tell us he's a killer, the phone conversation tells us he's dangerous and has a very specific M.O. Logan crosses lines on a map based on what the woman on the phone has said, the X's marking the map are places where bodies were found. Each can be connected with lines that come together to form a Pentagram. In less than 2 minutes of cryptic but intriguing visuals and dialogue, we've been brought into The First Power far more effectively that in the opening scene. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Horror in the 90s Leatherface Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 

Directed by Jeff Burr 

Written by David J. Schrow 

Starring Kate Hodge, William Butler, Ken Foree, Tom Hudson, R.A Mihailoff 

Release Date January 12th, 1990 

Box Office Gross $5.8 million dollars 

Bottom-feeding cash-ins are always pretty obvious about their intentions. That was certainly the case when a group of huckster con-artists looked to cash in on the legacy of the greatest horror movie ever made, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Studio execs like money and when they can seize the rights to an exploitable property, they eagerly gobble up the opportunity with little concern for the quality of the product they plan to capitalize on. With this as the background, was there any way for Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre to succeed? No, probably not. 

A very game and determined Kate Hodge stars in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 as Michelle, a student driving her dad's vintage car from California to Florida alongside her soon to be ex-boyfriend. William Butler is the soon-to-be ex of Michelle and he quickly makes a case for why they are no longer going to be together by being a whiny little prat. He can't understand why Michelle would want to leave him for a chance to travel the world. We understand it from just a few lines of whiny, man-baby dialogue from Ryan. 

The story of Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 kicks in when the couple stops at a last chance gas station. The creeptastic gas station employee, begins to perv on Michelle, eventually spying on her in the ladies room. He's stopped by a transient, Edward 'Tex' Sawyer (Viggo Mortensen), who hopes that interceding will convince Michelle and Ryan to give him a ride. He ends up getting shot by the creepy gas station attendant while giving Michelle and Ryan a chance to escape. He appears benevolent but it's merely a ruse, he is, after all, a member of the Sawyer clan. 

Michelle and Ryan's escape is short-lived as they are soon chased down and menaced by what they assume is the gas station creep. They end up with a flat tire and try hiding on a side road. This side road however, leads them right to Leatherface (R.A Mihailoff) who attacks with his trusty chainsaw and his unnatural amount of physical strength which he demonstrates by ripping the top off of the car's trunk. Having made another narrow escape, Michelle and Ryan end up in another crash and, after colliding with Benny (Ken Foree), the trio end up in a life threatening game of cat and mouse with the horrific Sawyer family. 

The mercenary nature of Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 is obvious in the dimwitted marketing campaign which focuses entirely on Leatherface's weapon of choice, a chainsaw. In this case, it's a custom made saw, silver plated and engraved with the film's tagline, 'The Saw is Family.' The movie was pitched with a comic teaser trailer in which the custom chainsaw is gifted to Leatherface King Arthur style, via a lady in a lake. You can almost hear the cash registers ringing in the hearts of heartless studio execs. 

Cynicism aside, for just a moment, I want to commend Kate Hodge and Ken Foree. These two terrific actors work very, very hard to bring something to this beyond the cash-in effort being put in everywhere else in the movie. Where the film's writers, director, and producers either don't know or don't care about the legacy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hodge and Foree are giving great performances. While the rest of the film appears dedicated to sullying the memory of the original, these two performance darn near redeem the misconceived enterprise that is Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3. 

Hampered by a script that adds unnecessary aspects to the Sawyer legacy, Hodge delivers a gritty, hard as nails final girl performance while the horror veteran Foree is so good as Benny that the character is allowed to survive wounds that were absolutely intended as his death blow. Benny survived only because test audiences loved Benny and hated seeing him go. That's yet another testament to the mercenary quality of Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3. But, it's also a credit to Foree whose performance is so good, you may not mind the ludicrous nature of his miraculous survival. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Horror in the 90s: Brain Dead

Brain Dead (1990) 

Directed by Adam Simon 

Written by Adam Simon, Charles Beaumont 

Starring Bill Pullman, Bill Paxton, George Kennedy, Bud Cort, Patricia Charbonneau 

Release Date January 19th, 1990 

Box Office Gross $1.6 million dollars 

One image. Brain Dead is remembered for one, singular image. The fact that this one image has nothing to do with the movie that contains it, does not matter. There is only one thing that anyone remembers about Brain Dead and it is just one memorable, awful, brutal image. You see it in all of the marketing materials about the movie when it was released. To those who've never seen Brain Dead, this image is the star of the film. It's a very compelling image, one worthy of building a bizarre cult movie marketing campaign around. 

In a college science lab there is an unnamed student toying with a human brain. The student shoves an electrode into the ooey gooey brain situated in a petri dish. The brain is connected to something, a metal apparatus. Upon this apparatus is a complete abomination. Stretched like horrifying silly putty across an empty expanse, connecting to a circular metal apparatus is a human face. This face has eyes, a nose, and a mouth. It seems to have facial muscles somehow, hidden behind a weathered expanse of skin. 

The facial muscles are implied in the film by the way the face twitches in pain when the brain in the pan is electrocuted back to life. Depending on where the student stabs his electrode into this brain in a pan, the face twitches its eyes, wrinkles its nose, or turns the mouth in a pained expression, a wince. From the manner in which the student playfully stabs away at this brain, this is a normal day in the lab. We don't know how long the student and the face have been in this dynamic, but it is not the first time this student has engaged in this twisted game. 

You would be forgiven if you thought that this detached face were that of a main character, that of Bill Pullman, or Bill Paxton, or Bud Cort. It's not. In fact, we have no idea where this face came from or how this face ended up attached to a brain in a pan being painfully stimulated by electrodes. We get only a vague sense of why this is even being done. It's being done to prove that the human brain is capable of being stimulated after death. 

That's part of the crazed, doomed experiments being conducted by Bill Pullman's monstrous, genius brain scientist. Dr. Rex Martin believes he can cure all manner of neurological disorders by using the brains of the dead as guinea pigs. Dr. Martin's particular specialty is paranoia and he is convinced he can cure paranoia via brain surgery. This brings his research in line with the awful, amoral aims of Bill Paxton's corporate shark. Paxton wants Pullman to cure the paranoia of a genius mathematician, Bud Cort, so that said genius will reveal an equation that could be worth billions. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media