Necrotic Popcorn Reviews I
PART I
No spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen these movies. At least no intentional ones.
These movies can all be found on the American Netflix. I don't know what's up with Canada's Netflix but they just don't have the diversity of titles we have. Copyright bullshit, I'm guessing.
Evil Dead (1981)
I started this movie months ago on Netflix but I never got around to finishing it until just a few days ago. This is a movie that to this day my mother refuses to watch. At the tender age of 12, when this movie was being shown in theaters, there came the iconic demon in the basement scene and my mom's pleasant childhood memories were scathed. She actually left the theater and my uncle stayed with her until the movie was over. What a trooper.
Parental anecdote aside, this movie managed to be what most horror movies of this accursed genre fail to be: original and refreshing. To this day there's nothing quite like Sam Raimi's cult classic Evil Dead. The cinematography, the terrifyingly erratic and up close camera angles (carried over to his future films such as the Spiderman series) are staples of this movie that no director or horror movie to my knowledge has been able to successfully recreate. Being 21 and now being significantly harder to scare than I once was, I was still on the edge of my seat wondering if Ash (played by Bruce Campbell) was going to make it until morning. Now, I will tell you that the way the demons laugh, (while probably being utterly frightening way back in the 80's) was like hearing hyenas laughing to death. Don't want to hear that? Mute about a five minute interval near the end of the movie and save your ears the pain, because that laughter will fill you with a murderous misogyny you've never felt before.
Other than that? Great film. Worth a watch even to those who don't consider themselves horror fans. If it's a classic, it deserves to be watched at least once, if only to say you made it through Evil Dead. Society will tip it's hat to you.
Grave Encounters 2 (2012)
This movie. Just. No.
No.
To be clear, I watched the first Grave Encounters and it had a couple of scares. A couple. Mostly jump scares. Wasn't much good for anything else. But I remember the first one being somewhat excusable - it tried to be frightening and despite it's glaringly obvious flaws it was atmospheric and had a somewhat haunting ending. This movie, on the other hand, is shitty. Like, Tom Six shitty and bad for your health. This movie is so bad you should probably check your blood sugar because I guarantee after this you will have diabetes. Sound exaggerated? Well, yeah, it was. But I think you should also be aware that Grave Encounters 2 is one of those movies that, while being utterly terrible in almost every way imaginable, keeps you entranced. Not because it's got an exceptionally good plot or it employs any other good examples of modern film making, but you become very invested in how these hedonistic college retards kick the oxygen habit and join the choir invisible. And trust me, if you hate everyone you see in this film, you won't be disappointed in how they die. Well, if only the movie were that kind. Some dick survives. And he's the worst dick of them all. Yeah. It's one of those movies where the dick get out alive. Woe.
I only spoiled you on that little tidbit because I doubt you're gonna wanna watch it anyway, but if you do, just go in with no expectations whatsoever and you should come out with your sanity intact, for the most part. I can't guarantee your brain cell count won't be affected. Everything you ever hated about youth culture is painfully expressed in this movie. We could argue this about a whole shit ton of movies that extend beyond the horror genre. But that's for another day.
Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)
Yeah. I went there.
If you didn't double-take at the title, I'll give you a reason to. What is this movie? Well, exactly what the title says. Killer clowns from outer space. The movie centers around a teenage couple who are enjoying their youth in a make out point with other teens when they see a shooting star zip across the sky and land somewhere in the woods. Naturally, having not seen The Blob and thus learning to stay away from 'shooting stars' that crash land in a desolate stretch of woods, they investigate. Instead of a meteor, they find a circus tent and what's worse, they go inside. They go inside the circus tent that crash landed from space. Yeah, everyone in 80's horror was this stupid. It's a reality one has to face. So they find the circus tent mirrors a nightmare funhouse spaceship more than a circus, and discover a room where cocoons of cotton candy hang like punching bags. Underneath are melted human corpses. It's at that point they're like, "Fuck this shit," and bolt, but the terror is only beginning. Because the Killer Klowns are on a murderous mission and they are anything but friendly.
I enjoyed this movie from beginning to end. This is another cult classic but for fundamentally different reasons. It's a comedy horror film that makes no pretense of being the next Halloween. It's killer clowns, so what more do you expect? That's the thing. You have to approach this movie with the desire to laugh. The people who directed this movie knew, even back in '88, how silly the idea of clowns from outer space would be, but they put on a goofy face and made a movie that grew to be adored by horror and comedy fans alike. So if you've got time to kill and want to watch a movie that's so goofy it's great, then watch Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
Part II of this review will be posted later. Just these three movies took up a lot of space, but I intend to come back with another 3 horror movie reviews. These are more serious than the others and definitely aren't for the faint of heart.
Until then!