Evil Dead Rise [dir. Lee Cronin]

Among successful horror franchises, the Evil Dead (ED) series has largely avoided the phenomenon of being 'sequelized' to death. Yes, there have been offshoots. Sam Raimi, who put together the 1981 film (with his close collaborators Bruce Campbell and Bob Tapert), helmed two increasingly ambitious sequels in 1987 (Evil Dead II) and 1992 (Army of Darkness), that successively shifted the tone from pure horror to macabre comedy to comic-book hero adventure territory. In 2013, debutante feature film-maker Fede Alvarez was handed the reins for a reboot of the original, which did well at the box-office and was appreciated for its unpretentious ferocity. In 2015, a cable television series called Ash vs Evil Dead was launched, starring ED series regular Campbell, which has till date run into 3 seasons. Now in 2023, another relative newcomer Lee Cronin has been chosen to craft a new feature entry, Evil Dead Rise (EDR).

So it's not as though the creators have let the IP stagnate, but considering the gargantuan number of sequel features and adjunct material generated by rival horror franchises like Halloween, Friday the 13th, Hellraiser etc, Raimi and Co have been rather choosy about who they let handle their baby. It is a restraint that has worked in their favor. Their more prolific rival series have invariably had installments so wretched even the rabid fans find hard to justify, but everything released thus far in the ED franchise has enjoyed at least a basal level of popularity among 'Deadites'. There is talk of opening up the franchise for more frequent exploitation, so the future may be different, but we will not concern ourselves with that now.

EDR is not directly connected with the previous films in the franchise, and is more of a soft reboot in a different setting. The film sets up a misleading prologue with the 'Cabin in the Woods' location that has been the basis of all ED movies thus far (cannily satirized in the 2015 film of that name). But after a taster of the scares, we are taken 'One day earlier' to downtown LA, inside a rundown apartment building which is going to be taken down soon. Among the residents is Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), single-handedly nurturing 3 kids after her husband abandoned her. Ellie is visited by her sister Beth (Lily Sullivan), with whom she has a troubled relationship. Beth is a roadie (Ellie insists on calling her a groupie) trying to cope with the recent fact that she is pregnant. Shortly after the sisters meet, there is an earthquake and the basement area opens up to reveal a hitherto walled in chamber with a strange book and a set of records. ED fans will know exactly how things proceed from here.

Yep, this is the famed Necronomicon aka Book of the Dead. Of course one of Ellie's teens has to open up the book and play the record* with the chants that call in demons from another dimension, and (ha!) all hell breaks loose. Let me say this straight out, there is no originality to EDR. Almost everything you see here, you have seen in previous horror films, often better ones. That said, like with Fede Alvarez's 2013 reboot , there is a lot of energy. Even in the possibly censored theatrical release, the movie features a fair amount of gore - including a scalping, an eye-gouging and swallowing of broken glass - and blood flows literally in gallons; a later scene where an elevator fills with the red stuff is a winking nod to The Shining.

Eschewing the overt comic elements the Raimi-Campbell sequels incorporated, the tone is more straight horror like the first ED film (and the 2013 reboot). Sutherland makes a good meal of Ellie, clearly relishing the evil of her possessed avatar. EDR makes things mildly uncomfortable when threatening or bringing harm to children, but it does so without being exploitative. Within the constrained location, director Lee Cronin echoes the isolation of the "Cabin in the Woods" - the action is set entirely within the apartment building, most of it on a single floor with a broken inaccessible staircase and a dangerously unreliable elevator. Especially in the scenes where demon Ellie gorily dispatches multiple rescue attempts (including one that leaves behind a series trademark boomstick to be picked up later), the movie effectively builds pressure.

I am a little loath to comment on the intensity of EDR's scares unless I know I am watching an uncensored Director's Cut. That said, the aforementioned elevator sequence apart, this film didn't really have me squirming. It's not outrageously imaginative like the Raimi original, and its creature designs and set-pieces are derivative of previous films without meaningfully expanding on them. To EDR's credit, it runs a brisk pace (97min), relies mainly on pleasing old-skool make-up and practical FX for the scares, and does not detour (apart from that prologue that gets an "Eh, whatever" resolution at the end). It is decent bloodcorn entertainment, if also eminently forgettable.

* Trivia - Bruce Campbell makes an audio cameo in one of the recordings played during the film.

Un-kvlt Vlog 8 - Ramsay Horror Special - Aatma

The last Vlog episode I did on the Ramsay movies included in Mondo Macabro's Bollywood Horror blu-ray boxset was several months ago. I have no excuse for this huge gap, I was just being a lazy bum. Anyway, a short while ago I saw that people had started receiving their copies of this monstrous set. I felt I should get off my ass and finish with the last entry in this series - Aatma aka Spirit (2006), directed by Deepak Ramsay. Like always, those that prefer to read than watch, the full transcript is available below the video:

I must confess here that I have a special fondness for Aatma. It was the first Ramsay horror feature which I saw in a cinema. When their classic titles like Purana Mandir, Veerana and Bandh Darwaza were being screened in movie halls, I was still a schoolkid and obviously could not go for these Adults Only rated films. Also, the 80's were the age of VHS, and my household was one among many middle class Indian households that did most of their movie-watching at home. Before Aatma, I had seen other horror films in cinemas, including Hollywood films and also some by other Indian horror film-makers like Ram Gopal Varma, but I was still a virgin to Ramsay-style horror on the big screen.

So when in 2006, a new Ramsay horror feature was released, I felt obliged to experience it in a movie theater. Interestingly enough, the Ramsays had previously retreated from big-screen movie-making for some time. 1994's Mahakaal (an unauthorized "re-imagining" of Nightmare on Elm Street) had been the last previous theatrical horror feature from the Ramsay production house. The Indian horror film market by then was in a bad shape, with a glut of zero-budget zero-talent films killing audience interest in the genre.

Ironically this return to big-screen horror was very likely inspired by their foray into television programming. During the early 90's satellite TV boom, the Ramsays produced an anthology series called The Zee Horror Show. Household TV sets across the country blared the iconic Ramsay theme tune which had been recycled for the series, and home audiences were both terrified of and delighted by the show. The series had an 8-year run from 1993-2001, probably one of the longest running on Indian television.

Deepak Ramsay, who had previously assisted his father Tulsi Ramsay and uncle Shyam on some of their classic horror films, 'made his bones' on the show, directing the majority of the episodes. It is likely that the experience he gained on this show and the long-running success it enjoyed, planted the idea in Deepak's head of reviving the Ramsay Horror banner for the big screen. In fact, several people have likened Aatma to an extended episode of The Zee Horror Show.

Which is not a bad thing, per se. It reminds me more of the horror and suspense films the Ramsays made for a decade before they hit upon Purana Mandir's monster formula. I quite like this phase of the Ramsays, when they were experimenting with a bunch of different narratives, making for some variety in the telling. There is a strong element of EC Comics style "revenge from beyond the grave" here.

In the story, a young doctor (Kapil Jhaveri) is visited in the dead of night by a strangely pale bloke that tells him about an autopsy he will do the next day. He warns the doc to make an honest job of it or suffer horrific consequences. Imagine the doc's surprise when he finds the same bloke laid out as a corpse on the morgue table. But our doc has a problem - the dead man's relatives have compelled him to pass the murder off as a natural death, by threatening to kill his beautiful wife (Neha / Shabana Raza). Having succumbed to their blackmail, he has to deal with the curse of the dead man's spirit, which is also determined to avenge itself on the murderers. Whether the spirit is successful in its quest for vengeance and whether our doc is able to obtain release from its oppression forms the rest of the narrative.

The influence of the Ramsays' TV stint is certainly reflected in Aatma, but I think mostly to the film's benefit. Moving away from the trademark haunted palace and dungeon locations of their previous films, Aatma is entrenched in a contemporary urban setting. Within the crisp 107 min running time, there is a compact narrative-focused structure, and a lesser number of breaks for songs and odious comedy. I appreciated the moral ambiguity - the doc dishonors his profession and pisses off the dead man's spirit by his perfidy, but he does it for the safety of his family. Our sympathies are thereby divided between the doc and the wronged spirit. As the murderous villains, Bollywood character actors Sadashiv Amrapurkar and Mukesh Tiwari ham it up in style, and Laila Patel as the vamp oozes mucho oomph factor. Deepak sets up some solid revenge kills for the spirit - my favorite is when an unearthly high-pitched scream literally splits open Amrapurkar's head (a possible hat tip to Scanners).

Visually, Aatma is a mixed bag. It is colorful, but lit in a flat full-bright fashion and relies on blue filters for night-time scenes; a look more suited to TV. Camera wizard Gangu Ramsay does bring out his trademark odd angles, and I like some of the modern touches, like the surveillance cameras monitoring the spirit's activity. It's not high art by any means, but it is pleasing Bollywood style horror entertainment. Going by the screenshots I have seen, Aatma's look seems to be nicely replicated in the Mondo blu-ray. It certainly promises to be a huge upgrade over my current VCD copy and I can't wait to visit this late era Ramsay horror in proper high-definition.

Other Vlogs in this series:

Bandh Darwaza Vlog 

Purani Haveli Vlog 

Tahkhana Vlog 

Purana Mandir Vlog

Veerana Vlog

My 20th Century [dir. Ildiko Enyedi]

At 2017's MAMI film festival, I saw Ildiko Enyedi's On Body and Soul, an engrossing narrative in which two individuals see each other as animals in a common Gaia dream world. The concept was lucidly unfolded in the narrative and the film ended upon a wonderful pivot, which left me wondering about the possible future for the characters. In my limited viewing window of that year's fest, it was one of the best experiences, eclipsing more name ventures like Hirokazu Kore-eda's underwhelming The Third Murder and Luca Guadagnino's overrated festival darling Call Me By Your Name.

Her first feature film, 1989's My 20th Century, which I just watched on the UK blu-ray, is less successful for me in terms of narrative flow and clarity of vision. It begins promisingly, taking us to the time when Thomas Edison had pioneered the electric bulb, bringing the light of the stars within the grasp of human beings. In a conceit that doesn't work for me at all, the stars function as a sort of Greek chorus commenting on and even calling out to the characters in the film. But right from the first frame the film has style in spades. Shooting in B&W, Enyedi uses several visual tricks associated with the silent film era. Remember, this was before Guy Maddin became famous for movies that paid homage to the years of vintage cinema.

Our first view of the main characters is when we see a woman (Dorotha Segda) delivering twin babies. There is a vein of humor in how this is depicted though; after her labor pains, she appears to discover the babies already swaddled in bedclothes just lying beside her. The twins are orphaned early and take to selling matches to survive (nod to Hans Christen Andersen's The Little Match Girl, which incidentally had been adapted several times in cinema's early days). They come across a young donkey who could be a spiritual cousin of the famous Balthazar from Robert Bresson's film. Later on, when lying asleep on the street, they are each picked up by a gentleman and carried to a different fate.

As adults, the daughters are also played by Dorotha Segda. They could be regarded as the two halves of a Freudian split. Dora is a calculative seductress and con artist, looking for men that will furnish her with luxuries in return for a good time. Lily is a naive emotionally rooted revolutionary, willing to die for the cause. In an early sequence, they are both aboard the Orient Express. Of course they don't meet here - Lily is huddled with the other third class passengers, while Dora is courted by well-heeled suitors in the deluxe dining car. But there is a moment when a tipsy Dora has a brief glimpse of Lily boarding the train; this precedes a similar scene in Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Veronique.

For the longest time in the narrative our connection with Lily and Dora is through Z (Russian actor Oleg Yankovsky). Z is a gentleman of somewhat ambiguous standing. He is first taken up with Lily and makes aggressive overtures, for which he is roundly rebuffed. Later, on a luxury cruise, Z comes across Dora who he assumes to be Lily. Naturally, he is puzzled by her new persona. She in turn picks Z as a likely mark and propositions him for some cavorting; she even pinches money from his wallet. At a later point when Z meets Lily again, his behavior towards her is sneering, reflective of his judgement of her as a duplicitous whore.

The film even appears to make a smirking comment on this duality when we accompany Lily to a lecture by a self-important male philosopher. This speaker is at first hailed by the all-woman audience for endorsing the suffragette cause, but he soon dispels their enthusiasm by loudly repudiating the assumptions of intellectual equality between men and women. According to him, women are incapable of pure logic and philosophic purpose, their lives driven by feelings and physical desires. Academic Jonathan Owen, who contributes an essay on the film for the Second Run release, cleverly contrasts this declamation with the characters of Lily and Dora: Lily, who has aimed to live by a (revolutionary) doctrine appears to be questioning her own position (and we later see her softening her stance to Z). Dora on the other hand lives a life based on pure (selfish) logic, which probably places her higher as a philosophic creature in this man's estimation.

After some near-explosive events (a scene where Lily runs around with a lighted bomb brought to mind a similar moment from the Adam West Batman movie) the film returns to surreal territory when our lead characters run into a literal Hall of Mirrors; Balthazar's cousin re-appears here, not looking any worse for the 20 year gap, as does Edison.

I found myself heartily nodding to The Disapproving Swede's evaluation of the film as "too whimsical and literally all over the place". It's got some cracking moments, visual and thematic, and Dorotha Segda bats fine on all fronts with her triple role. But the kitchen sink approach led me to lose the emotional connection with the characters. In the end, it became more of an elaborate puppet show where the puppeteer's hands are all too apparent.

A few words about the Second Run blu-ray:

At the time of release (2017), this blu-ray proudly advertised its transfer as a "2K restoration from original materials, under the supervision of director Ildikó Enyedi and cinematographer Tibor Máthé". In general, it's a good transfer and the B&W imagery is often strikingly good, but there are also elements of film damage (I do not know if some of them are an intentional homage to silent era celluloid), grain resolution is less optimal than desired and the grayscale is compromised on account of what seems like black crush. The audio is Hungarian mono in lossless format, and sounds fine enough. Extras include a  more recent half hour interview with Ildiko Enyedi by Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio, Duke of Burgundy) and the afore-mentioned booklet essay.

 In 2020, Kino Lorber put out their blu-ray, which was based on a newer 4K master. In screenshot comparisons the Kino release is easily the winner - it has a much better balanced contrast/grayscale range and grain is finer. It includes all the on-disc extras of the SR disc and throws in a director's commentary. So if you can play North American (region A) discs, this is definitely the better option. As I am unlikely to visit the film again, I shall not be upgrading.