IR: "Dead and Breakfast"

We strolled down to our favourite cinema, the Derby Quad, on the eve of the 30th October to enjoy a 5 film marathon of horror. Here's what we thought...

1. Evil Dead II
Dir: Sam Rami

Gave me the chills. Very scary but very funny. Worst (scariest) moment: when the recording says “I buried her in the cellar!” and the main guy is hearing this from the cellar where he’s just been thrown. It’s an old film but it still has an effect on audiences now. Very silly a lot of the time. The audience laughed throughout but I was too busy getting shivers on my arms and spine. The different colours of blood were impressive; I think we saw red, black, blue, green and even purple at the end. I was wondering if the girl who was eaten by a tree was going to come back. The main guy has an amazing face for looking freaky with. “Let’s have some champagne!” Brilliant.

5/5

Although I had seen Army of Darkness years ago, I had never partaken of the original Evil Dead II. Its great to see it on the big screen, and here’s why.

Although the script reaches Ed-Woodian levels of badness, barely a line spoken that isn’t clumsy exposition (Chainsaw! Workshed! THE KEYS!), the technical aspects are all excellent. Inventive cinematography combined with every trick in the visual fx book from truly terrifying prosthetics to matte composites and miniatures giving us wonderful moments. Stand outs include the lurking P.O.V. monster shot zooming through the labyrinthine cottage to grab hold of Ash and drop him in a puddle (oh Jj Abrams…and we thought you were original), or the stop-motion dance of his decapitated ‘ex’ girlfriend. I notice that the creator of the mother-monster’s ‘Rotten Apple Head’ gets a special end credit – kudos to them! The whole film is lit with unreal, theatrical intensity, as a horror film should be. Bruce Campbell turns in the physical comedy performance of the decade, like Chaplin’s gore-splattered grandson, beating himself up, smashing through doors and mugging his chiselled face so frantically you wonder two eyebrows could take it. Add to this some great shocking moments, and you have a schlock treat that deserves the full canvas of a cinema.

4/5 - “Groovy”

2. Halloween
Dir: John Carpenter

‘Oh for fucks sake’

This is the essence of my review.

Once he’s down, keep stabbing until he’s in pieces. Don’t drop the bloody knife next to him and turn away to relax. You daft bint. This film fails because it doesn’t explain why he turned evil in the first place. Not half as scary as the first film (Evil Dead 2). The ‘scariest’ thing was how the main girl looked like a 35 year old cross-dresser, and I think she’s meant to be in college. At least this film was interesting to see American suburbia and because it was groundbreaking in its time. Not great. By any means.

2/5

It’s impossible to deny the importance of Halloween in the history of horror. However, in the cold light of day, from the eyes of someone who has never seen it before, it is not as great as its given credit for.

The opening sequence (complete with the rather charming Pumpkin in the titles) is very well done, and the voyeur-cam throughout the film is highly effective, particularly to modern eyes with its undertones of paedophilia. Suburbia is shot very well, a place both suffocating and agoraphobic where Michael Meyer’s appearances are made all the more frightening because of the sheer sunny normality.

However the acting is wooden in the extreme, except for Donald Pleasances’ Dr. Loomis who gives us some good old fashioned ham. The effect is like a sandwich with chipboard for bread. The horror is a slow burn verging on the point of boring, with few real shocks. John’s carpenters recognisable synth score is overpowering at times and although Jamie Lee Curtis gives a good turn as the likeable ‘girl-scout’ Laurie, the script has her carry the idiot ball in the final sequence to such an extent its difficult to feel sorry for her. It’s like she WANTS to get stabbed up and is just playing a little bait-and-switch game with Michael. And speaking of the villain, I felt a little short changed. After being built up as ‘pure evil’ he doesn’t really do an awful lot…far be it from me to egg on a serial killer, but I paid my two bits, dammit! Work that knife! Of course, the real horror of the piece is not in Michael Meyers, it’s in the suburbs themselves; as Laurie runs screaming, bleeding and hysterical down the street, the neighbours close their blinds on her, annoyed at just another kidding playing around.

2/5 - “Sleep well, kids”

3. Night of The Demon
Dir: Jacques Tourneur

Fell asleep halfway through but caught the end. Not scary in the least but from what I can tell, a damn fine film that has no want of it. Good ‘smoke’ effect, nice to see something without lots of overdramatic effects i.e. the ones we saw were more natural like a windstorm and wind gripping a piece of paper. Bad guy instantly recognisable by his demonic black pointy beard. The demon had a disappointingly rubbery face close-up, like someone was wriggling fingers behind it.

4/5

A properly acted old school theatrical affair, this is much more of a drama than a horror, but with enough moments of genuine shock to remind an audience to sit up and pay attention. An American psychologist and skeptic, John Holden, comes to London to investigate and discredit the Faustian cult of Professor Julian Karswell…needless to say, he finds more than he bargained for.
The story is perhaps a little winding, but it remains interesting throughout due to solid performances Special mention goes to Niall MacGinnis in the role of Karswell, the disarmingly reasonable and urbane devil-worshipper, always one step ahead of Dana Andrews’ cynical scientist. It is amazingly well crafted technically, with a surprisingly unsettling monster.
A bit of casual sexism and racism is included, although plucky girl Joanna does hold her own.

4/5 - “My dear boy, you look as pale as death.”


4. The Horde
Dir: Yannick Dahan, Benjamin Rocher

Bloodbath. The most interesting thing was the characters, taking sides, showing their true values. Started off very promisingly but lost its way and we ended up losing the interesting characters and the ones who were left had no emotional connection so anything that took place like people sacrificing themselves didn’t mean much. It’s not really understood why the lady doesn’t care about the other cop and how she intends to go it alone. There are funny moments but also squirmingly horrible bits like when they’re laughing about raping a zombie. There should have been an epilepsy warning with all the flashing gunfire, which got old and annoying very quickly. There was at least a good (effective) visual style, which was very dark and dirty and bloody. Overall though, quite inconsequential and not something you’re missing out on if you’ve seen films like 28 Days Later or Silent Hill.

3/5

A film which should be called ‘Gangtas vs. Zombies’, the Horde is a back to basics survival horror gorefest with a slight social-commentary.
Beautifully shot in a fantastic decaying tower block, the film follows a group of cops who try to kill some gangtas, not banking on the End of Days. Shit gets real faster than you could imagine in the shape of fast zombies. Not just any fast zombies, though. These guys make anything cooked up by Umbrella Inc. look like a bunch of girl scouts. Thankfully out protagonists make the STARS team look like boy scouts, so they manage to survive for longer than the rest of the human race by about 80 minutes. A bleak, sleek and occasionally inspired film, the first quarter is by far the best, after which the film loses its way a bit. It trips over quite a few over-used tropes, and there are some absurdly overblown bullet-blazing meat-pounding screaming-mad fight scenes that go into Garth Merenghi territory. Plus most of the characters thoroughly deserve to die so watching them get nommed by hungry, hungry zombies isn’t really that heartbreaking.
Overall a solid zombie film, but nothing new.

3/5 - “Fuck this, I’m not going to die of a heart-attack!”


5. Bubba Ho-tep
Dir: Don Coscarelli

Not very good. Elvis and President Kennedy discover a soul-sucking mummy in their care-home. No point to have made it. No need to watch. Has its moments but not worth trawling through the rest of the film to witness them. Why is this classed as a horror film? It’s not even scary. It’s just a horrible film. Har har.

1/5

Again, not really a horror…Bubba Ho-Tep is a surprisingly poignant musing on lost youth, lost fame, growing old and social attitudes to the old, with a monster for good measure. From its outset it is elegiac, winding down rather than building up. The King and JFK (or not) face off to an ancient Egyptian evil, and in doing so gain some kind of redemption from their less than spectacular final years. It is heartwarming to see Bruce Campbell’s Elvis ‘come to life’ after years of semi-catatonic moping and doubly so remembering Gerry Robinson’s television expose of care homes last year.
The films technical aspects are all workmanlike and solid, with a good sense of atmosphere. The humour relies a little too much on the mention of anuses and old-man erections, but again it isn’t really a comedy. It is funny and scary but it is a tragedy, as evidenced by the wonderfully bittersweet ending.

3/5 - “I’m thinking with sand here!”