The Ones On Who You Can Depend?

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For me, my true family are my friends. These are the people that I spend my time with by choice and not just because it's our dribbling Grandpa's last wish before he does us all a favour and kicks the bucket. Friends might be there when you're in trouble, but the real sign of closeness comes when a computer game causes you to engage in verbal abuse and nobody really cares. I had one friend tell me that he hoped that I'd die in real life and I told another to take his ugly tits and fuck right off. There was this one time when I accidentally went running down a sand dune at about two o'clock in the morning and, due to a combination of drink and gravity, I got carried away. Within seconds I was practically vertical and travelling at about two hundred miles an hour before the obvious happened and I began to fly. Tripping, I found myself hurtling headfirst into the darkness, using only my face to soften the fall and then sliding down the remainder of the way on my chest... What a knobhead! At the top of the dune were my friends who were clearly worried for my life. As I lay still at the bottom, I could hear two things from them... the first was their calls to make sure I was okay or at the very least still alive. The second was their attempts to breathe inbetween the mad fits of hysterical laughter having just witnessed my pretty decent impression of a sack of shit.

The Dreams Of The People Live On

There are certain films which, like the genitals of an old French whore, should be left untouched. If anybody remade a classic like Casablanca then they'd effectively be condemning themselves to that section of Hell where angry geeks spend an eternity pissing fire into their victims’ eyes whilst crying. For some people, The Wizard of Oz is one of those 'untouchable films' with the original being very close to their probably-quite-camp hearts. Personally I only got around to seeing it last year which by coincidence ended up being the same week that Thatcher snuffed it and the song 'Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead' made an amusing appearance in the charts. I really enjoyed the film though and could more than see everything that was great about it from the iconic set design to the ambiguous reality and particularly the brave choice of having a sociopath as the lead character. Seriously, watch it again and pay attention to just how many times Dorothy kills and how little a shit she gives about it. She fucks people up whilst expressing all the concern of a retarded cabbage with empathy issues and a historically awful upbringing.

Despite enjoying the film though I suppose I probably admired it more than I actually loved it. Therefore when I heard about the prequel, Oz The Great And Powerful I really wasn't too arsed either way. As far as I'm concerned, there's a load of books in that series to draw from and there's already been a few other crappy movies to taint the legacy as it is. Directed by Geek God Sam Raimi, this new addition aimed to tell the journey of Oz, the Wizard from the original, as he goes from being a barebones nobody to the fraudster leader of a bullshit world. Of course, like anybody with eyes, I'm a huge fan of Raimi's and would more than donate a few hours of my life to experience anything that sprang from his demented mind. However like the extra bollock in an already crowded nutsack there was something about this film that worried me. From the moment it was announced as being a big budget update of an old classic, and particularly by Disney, I'm sure I can't be the only person to get flashbacks to Tim Burtons Alice in Wonderland... which at our politest I'm sure we all remember as being a massive lump of shit.

"I hope to fuck this isn't Wonderland..."

This film begins during the dark days of 1905 as a giant storm rips through the monochrome grimness of a dustbowl Kansas. Oz is a selfish cock who performs rubbish magic shows to mostly empty seats whilst treating his only friend like shit and trying to shag any woman that dares to have tits. After unsuccessfully trying to chat up the wrong girl, her boyfriend chases after Oz causing him to make the logical decision of jumping into a hot air balloon and flying straight into a tornado. So although he might not have managed to have sex that day at least he can still claim to have been sucked off...  also, I know that's an awful joke but fuck you. Anyway, after surviving the ordeal he crash lands in the mysterious world of Oz which is currently enduring a three way power struggle between three controlling witches. Obviously he's got to defeat them or at least the two evil ones... because you know... God help us be subjected to an original story! However there is at least some degree of mystery because although we know he does succeed thanks to this being a prequel, we also know that he doesn't kill them. That's for crazy old Dorothy and her blank faced murder spree later on. So I guess the tension isn't about how Oz will kill his adversaries but more about how will he outsmart them. Also I know that Oz the man shares his name with Oz the world he ends up in but I guess that just a coincidence. Kind of like if Paris Hilton crashed in the city of Paris, Orlando Bloom crashed in the city of Orlando or Rip Torn crashed in the vagina of Lindsey Lohan. Urgh... that's two bad jokes in one over-long paragraph... Fuck you again!

So if I was worried about this being reminiscent of that shitty Tim Burton film then the opening few minutes didn't exactly put me at ease. I know Danny Elfman has worked with Raimi a lot too but because he's a musical slut, his work and sound is surely mostly associated with Burton's movies? Well I think so anyway. I actually already tried to watch Oz The Great And Powerful a day earlier but it just put me in the mood for Big Fish so I ended up switching it off with the plan of watching that instead. I didn't in the end because I got distracted by a row with my stepmum but the point still stands. Also she's a bitch. Anywho, the Burton references don't just end there as they also pretty much look like they're set in the same world too. Every so often, Franco's Oz would turn a corner to which I half expected him to find a ginger Johnny Depp performing the futterwacken. Fact fans might be interested to know that the literal translation of Futterwacken is 'to make a twat of oneself'. That's a lie but whatever... Both films also take two classic films and then annoyingly build them up to a final showdown in which armies are expected to clash. And in both cases the promise of that battle sounded about as exciting as trying to toss off to a broken egg timer whilst wearing oven gloves and crying.

On the bright side though, there is one key difference between Raimi and Burton’s two films and it's that Raimi's isn't shit. It's one of those movies that lives in the bland world... never offensive and always teasing the satisfaction of something better. Although because that satisfaction never comes I guess this is really the cinematic equivalent of 'blue ball'. Also, as much as it has aspects that are similar to one of Burton’s more piss poor efforts, it also has traces that stand this apart as very definitely a Raimi film. For a start there's its love of classic cinema, slapstick and a noticeable use of kinetic, comic book style camera movements. Oh and of course there's also the traditional cameo from Bruce Campbell who is this time buried under a layer of prosthetics so thick that it was only thanks to his fuck-off chin that I recognised him. Oh and if that wasn't enough I suppose there's also the small similarity between the plot of this movie and of Raimi's 1992 film Army of Darkness as they're near fucking identical.

Both Army of Darkness and Oz The Great And Powerful begin when a man accidentally travels from our world to a fantasy one. The hero also instantly starts a kind of relationship with a woman who, spoiler alert- turns evil as the film progresses. Although I guess that's the logical conclusion of most relationships to be fair... In both movies’ cases, the main character is also kind of a cock whose charm can be found in their smugness and who seems to be the solution to an ancient prophecy that predicts peace for the land. Oh and there's an evil witch in each film with the two looking so similar that they could start a weekly support group with Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon called, 'nobody can tell us apart'. On top of all that, the flying monkeys of Oz look remarkably similar to the flying deadites of Darkness. Although sadly Franco doesn't kill his souring simians by blowing their heads off with a bastard shotgun and then start screaming that everybody's a “primitive screwhead”.

Hail to the king, baby!

To kind of conclude, if you saw Jack The Giant Slayer then this is pretty much on par with that. Actually, if it wasn't quite so long it'd probably even be better. Oz the Great and Powerful isn't the Wonderland shaped shit stain on Raimi's filmography that many worried but nor was it worthy of his talents. In fact if you watched Army of Darkness and wished it was longer, child-friendly and smacked of studio guidelines then honestly you'll fucking love this! Kind of like Singer's Giant Slayer it's just one of those films that was alright but not worth sticking an extra two year delay on a great director making a film more worthy of them. If you loved the original Wizard of Oz then this won't rape your childhood- although at worst I suppose it's probably given it an inappropriate fondling.

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What Could Go Wrong?

When I was younger I asked my Mum how Corned Beef was made to which she replied, “You don't want to know”. I have never eaten it since. Apparently all it is, is beef treated with corns of salt however by leaving it up to my imagination, I created the worst possible scenario. With as little information as possible available, to me, Corned Beef appeared to be the cow’s tits having been fucked off by a randy farmer and left to fester in soupy bucket of bull-spunk and diseased farmyard shit. Interestingly this is kind of like a cinematic technique used in horror movies during which filmmakers cunningly imply violence allowing the audiences imagination to fill in the gaps. For example, in Psycho's famous shower scene, not once do we actually witness the knife penetrate Janet Leigh's body but instead it is simply suggested so heavily that we think we did. Opposing this school of thought however, is Sam Raimi whose entire career has been based on the idea of showing more than we really needed to see. His first film was of course The Evil Dead which was famously made for so little money that, to match the budget now, all you'd need is a few hours on your knees in an alley with a lonely stranger. With that in mind you'd expect Raimi to take the cheaper option of having most of the violence happen off screen as a way of avoiding the cost of effects. In Psycho I only thought I'd witnessed a full on stabbing however with The Evil Dead I very definitely saw a tree get shoved up some screaming girl’s minge.

Since its release in 1981, Raimi's infamous gorefest has gone on to become a cult classic and personally, I fucking love it. I mean perhaps the branch-up-the-vadge was a slight mistake but there's no doubting that The Evil Dead is a masterpiece just brimming with fun, blood, bile and random green gunky shit. However there's also no doubting that over the last thirty years the film has aged pretty badly. The effects are still impressive but they're hardly photorealistic and I'm pretty sure the only people who'll be frightened by it now are those with a life threatening allergy to mushy peas. Though for me, that's not an issue with the clunky stop-motion look only adding to its handmade charm. The actors too where never of the highest quality with the only decent performance coming from a man who is ten-percent human and ninety-percent chin. However if you can only afford one good actor in your entire movie then Bruce Campbell is very definitely the one you'd want.

Starring Mickey Rourke...

In general, the idea of remaking a classic horror film fills me with a  kind of rage that makes blood drip from my ears and hate leak from my soul. The original Amityville Horror was a nun-puking-load-of-bollocks and yet somehow the 2005 remake managed to be even duller. I don't even want to talk about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake because it's too traumatic for me. I've locked the idea of that crappy movie away in the little box of forgotten memories I keep in my brain along with childhood trauma and explanations to my burn-scars. However in the case of The Evil Dead, I awaited it with a kind of optimistic open-mindedness. I figured that at least Raimi was heavily involved with this new one and he'd already pretty successfully remade the film himself with the equally classic Evil Dead 2. Not only that but his reason for wanting to make it again was because of how badly aged the first one has now become. Like I say, I love the shittiness of the original but there is something interesting about seeing it with modern effects and hopefully better acting. I suppose on top of all that, the reason I didn't approach this remake with arse clenching anxiety was because like all the others it wasn't produced by cinematic mega-cunt Michael Bay.

This new Evil Dead begins with a gang of youths holidaying at a cabin in the woods whilst one of their junkie friends goes cold turkey. Obviously this can be quite a tough experience to go through and so it'd be best to do it in a calm, controlled environment. The stupid retards however instead select the most clichéd horror movie setting possible. I'm assuming that an ancient Indian burial ground, nuclear testing site and Joseph Fritzl's basement had already been booked out that weekend. Also I've never had to try and give up a smack habit before but if I ever do, I think I'd prefer a place that didn't have a basement full of cats hanging from the ceiling. I know animals are meant to be therapeutic but I don't think that's still the case if their eyes are popping out of their strangled blue heads. Just to make life a little more interesting, the gang also decide to read from a book that unleashes a shitload of evil demons. I guess in general if you find a book in which somebody has scrawled “don't read this motherfucking shit”, then perhaps it'd be best to put it down and just wait for its film adaptation instead. I found a blood stained threat identical to that in a book once which is why I'm still yet to read The Da Vinci Code.

So having now seen it I guess the biggest question is, is it good enough to justify its existence? Well if I was being generous, I guess I'd say it probably just about is. As I mentioned, Raimi's goal was to remake the film with modern day effects so that he could make something as scary as the original originally was. Well on the first point, the film is very definitely a success as the gore is fucking mental. Blood is casually sprayed everywhere and people puke shit up like they're having a pressure competition at a bulimics convention. There's also a few scenes in which people quickly rip off their own arms as though we're watching a Danny Boyle movie in fast-forward and on crack. However, for me at least this Evil Dead just wasn't scary in the slightest. Stephen King famously described the original as being, “the ultimate experience in gruelling terror”, which this very much wasn't. Nor does this film fix the main issue of the tree rape scene which is simply redone but to a point where the branch goes all the way up the new girl’s vagina and confusingly never comes out or is mentioned again.

"Hey kids!"

But despite all that I genuinely found the film to be really good fun. Once it gets going, the pace of the thing is absolutely relentless and I think the violence is genuinely inventive. I also liked that because the main character was going cold turkey, everybody assumed her first demon attack was either bullshit or just the fevered delusions of a desperate smack-head. Unlike the first film there was no one person here to root for but to be honest I was quite happy to watch all the new characters get chopped up. I'd much prefer a new cast of faceless meat puppets than see anybody new attempt to play the original’s Ash. There's only one man groovy enough to play him and sadly he's at an age where it'd end up being the creepiest thing in the film if he was hanging out with a group of teenagers. In fact by having completely new characters, this new film almost plays out as a kind of sequel in which a fresh group of morons stay in the same cabin with their fates playing out in a slightly different way. I mean they still end up as the main ingredients to cheap supermarket burgers but it's nice that there was some variation from what was expected.

If the new film lets itself down slightly it's that it goes on for about ten minutes too many and accidentally descends dangerously close to the formula of Michael Bay's crappy remakes. It also works too hard at saving the life of a character that I pretty much had nothing invested in anyway. There's a bit where the junkie actually dies but is brought back to life by being stabbed in the heart with a syringe attached to a car battery. I mean if resurrection is that fucking easy then I can't help but think that the NHS is being severely over-funded. Like I say though, I did enjoy the film and I'd like to think it might encourage at least some people to go back and discover the originals. I guess you could argue that this film is a little clichéd but then the The Evil Dead invented the clichés so that really can't be helped. The only way to avoid that issue would be to be subvert it instead but then that wouldn't be an Evil Dead remake but a Cabin In The Woods remake and it's certainly too soon to be rehashing that.

Like I've said, I personally did enjoy it but as a fan of the original- if you go in hoping to be disappointed then you more than likely will be. If it wasn't for the title, I'm sure this film would be forgotten in time but for the ninety minutes it was on I certainly enjoyed myself. Perhaps it was directed by some bloke called Fede Alvarez but Raimi's influence definitely shines through. I've no idea where they're going to go in the sequel, but for now let’s just appreciate that unlike other horror remakes, this was not a complete mess. It won't swallow your soul but if you've got an old student card to fraudulently claim the discount, it's certainly worth at least five quid.

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