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Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Here Is Proof Positive As To Why I Will Avoid "The Evil Dead 2013!"




Evil Dead 2013 star Jessica Lucas


This missive/rant is a response to a young man who responded to my dislike of what I have seen, and heard, about the abjectly unnecessary 2013 remake of The Evil Dead. My assertions are confirmed by the admissions by Jessica Lucas in her interview with Craig Ferguson! Here is my response to the the Google + response to my assertions about the soon to be released movie --



... I respect your opinion. When I wrote my assertions, I was internalizing my own issues with remakes of movies that I believe should stand on their own merits. The Anne Heche remake of Psycho was another example of a movie that should NEVER have been screwed with. I did go to the theater to watch that remake and I was pulling out my hair, what little I had then, because I could only ask myself the question… psychotically… “Why try to emulate ANYTHING created by Alfred Hitchcock?”

I am 54 years old. I was 24 years old when The Evil Dead was first released. I saw that movie, and was hooked for the other two movies, because I watched the positive review of the movie by Siskel & Ebert At the Movies. They were notoriously hard on horror movies, and when they both liked The Evil Dead… I HAD to see it! And the reason I HAD to see it was because they discussed the outrageous gore, the outrageous slapstick violence and the outrageous over-the-top humor.

Now, The Evil Dead is just a tad more serious than the Sam Raimi remake of The Evil Dead II… which was like an episode of The Three Stooges on horror steroids. And Sam Raimi, himself, has stated MANY times he got his impetuous for The Evil Dead franchise from watching The Three Stooges.

The Army of the Dead took the humor and the slapstick to a whole new level.

Respectfully, I don’t know your age -- but if you were BORN in 1983 you would be 30 years old today... but there is this thing called perspective! I was in full geekdom as a 24 year old right out of college in 1983. I spent a hell of a lot of time in the movies back then. And during those times The Terminator, The Thing, Conan The Barbarian, Star Wars, Alien, American Werewolf in London and a host of other movies, and franchises, were in full force at that time. I saw all these movies in the theaters with large crowds geeking out at the fantastic spectacle of the time.

If you are under 30 years old, when could you have possibly seen The Evil Dead? At 30 years old today, I can’t imagine you saw The Evil Dead until you were at least a teenager. That would have put you in the time of 1993, at least. And at that age, how could you know the perspective, and impact, of this movie on movie goers. And so, today in 2013, how much perspective can you have about the true impact of a movie like The Evil Dead when you are explaining your vision to me… or, telling my why I am wrong with my opinion when I was a comic book collecting, horror magazine reading, horror story writing college graduate discussing and breaking down these movies probably before you were born?

And so, back then, The Evil Dead movies were ALL about the humor interspersed with the fantastic slapstick juxtaposed with the Sam Raimi horror direction. And we ALL loved those aspects of The Evil Dead movies! And this new movie bastardizes the franchise by stripping what “I” expect to be the draw to pull “me” into the theater.

There are generations of people, kids and adults, who NEVER saw these fantastic movies in the theater with crowds. They have seen these movies in their bedrooms or their living rooms, or on their computers -- and they have only their jaded perspectives of picking up a DVD and placing it into their player and watching the movie without ANY review perspective -- or movie theater ambiance -- to give them the proper perspective of the impact of the movies during their original run.

And this is a bit of narcissistic ranting, to be sure. I expect you to see the movie, if you want to. I am not telling ANYONE to not see the movie… I’m just venting my projected disrespect for the movie. And when Jessica Lucas mentioned the new plot change, I kind of lost my mind.

If Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell were directing and starring in this remake, I would be all in. They are not! And production be damned… the new crew made the movie they wanted to make! And why in the hell would they make a SERIOUS horror movie based on what Sam Raimi created vexes me to the lowest level of my horror soul!

Did you see The Cabin In The Woods in 2012? That fantastic mind trip was produced by Joss Whedon -- yes, THAT Joss Whedon! Joss Whedon made Drew Goddard inject the humor into The Cabin In The Woods that he, Joss Whedon the writer of the movie, put there. And we were given a fantastic horror movie injected with GREAT humor!

OK, I’ll end this rant… for now!

Hollywood -- leave the horror classics alone! There is a wealth of writers out there who are creating fantastic horror that can be developed into scripts that can be made into movies!

I am one of the best horror short story writers out there that you don’t know of, yet. I have two compilation books of horror short stories available on Amazon.com in book form and Kindle. They are:

Horrorwalker Travel Guide --  part one of two compilations that take horror from each of our 50 states.

-and-

Meals For Vampires -- vampire tales of mostly frustrated vampires who lament the difficulty of trying to exist as undead monsters.

Also, I have countless blogs upon which I post weekly examples of my horror writing. Check out -- http://thehorrorwalkerworld.blogspot.com/ to get a start into the horror stories I create. I have built an entire universe of horror writing, mixed in with my political writing, too.

So, in closing… I’ll wait until Evil Dead 4. Sam Raimi said he will be the leader in the next chapter. Until then… I got my Sam Raimi fix with Oz The Great And Powerful! And, I hope the fans have positive things to say about the remake of The Evil Dead.

Tell me about it…

RLJ





Friday, March 15, 2013

"Scarecrows" -- Oh My, Do I Have A Horror Movie For You!


"Scarecrows" -- The Entire Movie
(Hey horror fan... This is the link to the entire movie -- for FREE!)



Horror movie fans out there in the Horrorwalker World... do I have a horror movie for you.

This movie was released in 1988. It had a very short theater run, before disappearing for decades as a little seen and hard to get VHS. Now, Scarecrows is out on DVD... and if you have not seen this insane creep-fest, then shame on you. 

This is one of those movies that will be timeless because... well, you will find out for yourself.

You can view a clip of the first ten minutes of the movie by clicking the YouTube link up above. If you are interested in the movie, though, I would suggest you go to Amazon.com and read the user reviews of this truly frightening movie classic. You will be shocked by all the love for Scarecrows. Then BUY IT!

I have been a fan since 1988.

Now, a few people here and there have not liked this movie. They are put off by the surreal nature of the film and they cannot figure out the point of the movie. I'll tell you the point, without giving one single second of the plot away! This movie is a Twilight Zone-like exercise in taking bad humans, placing them in a Twilight Zone-like horror arena and allowing the audience to see the horror that proceeds! It is as simple as that!

Suspend your disbelief, pop your popcorn, turn off your telephone, turn off the lights and prepare yourself to be scared out of your wits. Every wind touched blade of straw, every long shot of the Scarecrows, every discovery in the place and every whisper you hear... or believe you hear... will make your skin crawl.

After watching the movie, wait a week of two, and watch it again! You will see a totally different movie! As in, 'Wait a minute... that wasn't there! Wait a minute... I didn't hear that! Wait a minute... did that just move?'

Scarecrows -- every horror fan should own this minor masterpiece of the horror and the creepy and the surreal!

RLJ