Sunday, April 21, 2013

Frogs


This week in the corner, I am writing about a much different kind of movie than in past weeks...George McCowan's Frogs!  Let's get a few things out of the way.  First off, the poster would lead you to believe that this movie is about giant man eating frogs.  While there are lots of frogs, none of them are enormous, nor do they eat humans.  Secondly, although this movie would be considered a horror movie, it is rated PG and is pretty low on gore and adult content.  So why have this on my blog?  Because this movie follows another very common horror trope in the genre sometimes known as the creature feature.  Creature features have been around almost since the beginning of film making.  Lon Chaney, who was a master of make up, was the wolf man in 1941, Creature from the Black Lagoon was released in 1954, and Frogs was released in 1972.  These are of course not the only creature features to come out, but movies about monsters, creatures, and animals that attack have been made for over 70 years.  So what does Frogs have to offer?  Not much...Frogs is basically about a rich old curmudgeon who owns a plantation of sorts in a swampy bog in what could be Louisiana, Florida or some other kind of marshy area in the southeast.  The rich old man is celebrating his birthday weekend and his entire family has come to "celebrate" with him.  The family doesn't like him much but they all hope to be included in his will so they try to put up with his unpleasantness once a year.  While all of this is going on a wildlife photographer played by a very young Sam Elliot ends up in a boating accident on the water and ends up crashing the old man's birthday party.  What Sam Elliot's character begins to realize is that the old man's fortune has been made through various factories and plants that have been poisoning and contaminating the swamps and bogs for years.  Well it turns out that frogs, snakes, spiders, alligators, and all forms of reptiles don't like to be poisoned and decide to attack the entire family during the old man's birthday party.  This movie is pretty terrible.  But terrible in one of those so bad it's good kind of ways.  Writer Fran Lebowitz actually called this "the best bad movie I have ever seen in my life."  The interesting thing is that I think most creature features are kind of bad.  So why do they continue to get made?  For one they tend to attack a lot of humanity's base fears.  Lots of people are scared of snakes and spiders.  Lots of people are scared of creepy crawlies.  Also human beings mistreatment of the environment has been a hot topic for a lot longer than people realize.  Frogs is clearly conveying an eco-friendly message and this kind of movie was actually very popular in the 1970's.  Godzilla, which may be Japan's most famous export outside of high end electronics, was about mutated wildlife that resulted from the nuclear bomb.  Creature features will continue to be made...some better than others.  Frogs as a film is pretty terrible to watch all by yourself.  But with a few friends and some beer, you could have a pretty fun Saturday night.  You could make a drinking game out of it and take a drink every time there are 3 or more frogs on screen.  You can stream Frogs on Netflix right now.

If you end up watching this with friends or you brave through it by yourself, leave comments below!  Next week I am going to change gears a bit and actually write about a TV show instead of a movie.  I will be taking a look at the first episode of the Netflix exclusive Hemlock Grove.  This series is created and directed by Eli Roth who is famous for his nasty horror flicks Cabin Fever and Hostel.  Hope you come back next week!

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Evil Dead (2013)

It's been a while since my last post.  But a European vacation followed by a nasty bout of food poisoning has delayed the next post.  But this week, we are bringing it back with a brand new release in theaters, the remake/reboot of Evil Dead.  If you are a horror fan and have visited this blog multiple times you have probably seen the original version from 1981, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell.  They developed cult icon status with this movie and the even better Evil Dead 2.  They went on to make a third installment called Army of Darkness, which is often forgotten about in the franchise.  Sam Raimi has since gone on to become a bonafide Hollywood blockbuster film maker.  He directed the Spiderman trilogy with Toby Maguire, and more recently just released Oz with James Franco.  This post is about the new Evil Dead movie, but it is important to note that Raimi and Bruce Campbell were producers on this film and were involved with the movie.  If you were a fan of the original, I honestly am not sure what you will think about this movie.  First off, the 2013 edition has a much more somber tone overall.  The movie centers around a group of friends who go up to a cabin in the woods, but the main character, Mia, is battling  a serious addiction to heroin and is trying to kick the habit cold turkey at the cabin with her friends providing unyielding support.  This is different from the 1981 version which was basically just a group of college friends going away for the weekend.  Just like the 81 version, in the new film, the group of friends uncover the infamous book of the dead which is the book bound in human skin and written in blood that summons the evil spirits from the woods.  Of course the spirits possess our main character Mia.  At first her friends think she is just going through a painful withdraw from the drugs.  Quickly they found out that it is something completely different.  The original Dead definitely had some tense moments but there was almost a three stooges quality to the film.  It acquired cult status in large part to the campy nature and the great performance from Bruce Campbell.  The new version doesn't have many, if any at all, comedic moments.  It is dark and dreary from the get go.  There are a few homages to the original.  You'll see an old car you may recognize, some great camera work through the woods and of course...the chainsaw.  But the tone is one that is much more serious and dare I say it, more violent.  This is one of the goriest movies I have ever seen released to a theater.  Body parts are severed, blood is sprayed, and at one point literally rained down from the sky.  Directer Fede Alvarez said he wanted to use as many practical effects and as little CGI as possible.  This really worked for me in the movie and added to the extreme gore.  I personally liked the movie and had fun during the short 90 minutes.  The bigger point for me is the growing trend in the last 10 years of remaking or rebooting every horror franchise almost in existence.  The question for me is, why remake a franchise?  Is it for the cash grab?  Is it to introduce a franchise to a younger generation who may not have had the chance to see the original?  The new Evil Dead does enough in my opinion to change things up just enough from the original to do something fresh and different that warrants the remake.  I think that if you are just going to do the same thing and do a shot for shot redo, what is the point of the remake in the first place?  Evil Dead will not make hundreds of millions of dollars because of its extreme violence.  But I do think it is one of the better remakes of a horror franchise to hit theaters.  If you think you can stand the gore, check this out.  If you haven't seen the original Evil Dead, you should see that to!  I think you can currently stream it instantly on Netflix.  Ultimately, what I am most excited about from all of this, is the possibility and rumor that Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are going to finally get to work on an Evil Dead 4.  Nothing beats the original...Hail to the king baby!

If you have seen both the original and the remake, leave a comment below and let me know what you thought of the remake.  Too violent?  Loving homage the original?  Check out next week as I will be writing about an old school horror movie.  One of the original creature features...George McCowan's Frogs!