ASH VS EVIL DEAD SEASON ONE (2015-16)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

Though I have respected the place of the EVIL DEAD movies in the history of horror, it's never been a favorite franchise for me. But along came the STARZ sequel series to the three movies, and now I have to re-evaluate a wild, thrill-ride grossout that at the same time makes me conscious of mortality as much as these words of D.H. Lawrence from his poem SHIP OF DEATH:

We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do

is now to be willing to die

ASH VS EVIL DEAD takes place thirty years after the events of the last EVIL DEAD movie, ARMY OF DARKNESS. The forces of darkness unleashed by Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) in the first film were placed in abeyance in ARMY by Ash's heroic actions. However, at one point before the series' opening Ash-- who always devolves into a self-indulgent putz when his life's not in danger-- takes out the Book of the Dead, with which the Evil Dead demons were first summoned, and drunkenly reads passages from the tome at a poetry slam. And so once more the demons are unleashed upon mankind, usually possessing dead bodies (called "Deadites") to work their will. The ten episodes of this and the two ensuing seasons are always a congeries of high-octane set-pieces, so there's not a lot of involved storytelling. Rather, each episode I'll review mostly to keep track of notable kinetic effects. There's no rating for individual episodes because they're on the same "good" mythicity level.

EL JEFE-- It must be slightly toward the end of the thirty years when Ash spectacularly screws up and reads from the book, for his first new Deadite encounter is not slow in following (intruding on Ash's butt-sex session with a young trollop). He makes plans to leave his job and flee, much to the regret of his co-worker Pablo (Ray Santiago). In the first story Pablo seems to nurture some unexplained hero-worship for the fifty-something Ash; later it'll be revealed that Pablo has had some mystic training by a brujo uncle and believes that Ash is "El Jefe," a true champion of life. Less impressed with Ash is another co-worker, Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo), who responds to a pass from the boastful older man by putting him in an armlock. Elsewhere, two Michigan cops respond to a disturbance, and one of them is killed and turned into a Deadite. The surviving partner, Amanda Fisher (Jill Marie Jones), is saved by the intervention of a bizarre woman, Ruby (Lucy Lawless), who puts Amanda onto Ash's trail as the one responsible for unleashing the Evil Dead. After being attacked by two more manifestations, Ash realizes he has to take arms-- particularly with the arm that he can fit with a chainsaw--against a sea of undead troubles.

BAIT-- Kelly receives a call from her father, claiming that her dead mother is back, so she motors her way back to her home town. Ash is prepared to go off on his own mission, but Pablo tricks Ash into pursuing Kelly. Ash and Pablo arrive at Kelly's house, and all appears tranquil, with Kelly having convinced herself that her mother's death was just a mistake. But during a sitdown dinner Ash exposes Mother Suzy (Mimi Rogers) as a Deadite and to Kelly's horror the two of them fight it out until Ash destroys the Deadite. Kelly dedicates herself to expunging the threat, while far behind the trio, the pursuers Ruby and Amanda get closer.

BOOKS FROM BEYOND-- Ash and his allies seek out an occult bookstore, and Ash convinces the owner, a dabble in magic, to summon a minor demon, so that they can question it to find out the best way to dispel the demons as a whole. However, Amanda has tracked the trio to the bookstore, and her intrusion on the ritual allows the demon Eligos to get free. After the heroes dispel the demon (temporarily) and subdue Amanda, Ash gets the bright idea of binding the lady cop with her own handcuffs. But once the heroes are gone, the slain bookstore owner rises as a Deadite and threatens her.

BRUJO-- Fortunately for Amanda, Ruby comes along and defeats the Deadite, and the two join forces in tracking the trio. Ruby has a special means of doing so: she's gained possession of the dismembered hand Ash lost in EVIL DEAD II, which has a link to Ash. Meanwhile, since the heroes learned nothing from the demon Eligos, Pablo proposes that they meet with his uncle the brujo. They do so, and the brujo is not very impressed with Ash, acknowledging that he's a major player but one crippled by indulgence. The brujo gives Ash a hallucinogenic drink that sends him on a wild mental trip to Ash's favorite mental place: Jacksonville Florida. In the process Ash also has to fight demons, and in the process formulates his version of "Zen shooting," of slaying demons without consciously thinking of doing so. However, the questers aren't free of Eligos, who has possessed Kelly despite her not being dead. Eligos also works a whammy on Ash's mind so that he thinks he's batting the demon when he's actually strangling Possessed Kelly, so that Pablo and the brujo bind Ash, thinking he's been possessed.

THE HOST-- While Ash argues with the brujo to get free, Possessed Kelly comes on to Pablo, who's had a thing for her since the beginning. She's actually trying to get him to kill himself, but Ash finally convinces the wizard that Kelly's the possession victim, so that Pablo's saved and she's restrained. The heroes perform an exorcism and expel Eligos, though he kills the brujo before Ash slays the demon with his Zen shooting.

THE KILLER OF KILLERS-- Ash interprets his vision as an oracle to return to the cabin where it all started and bury the book there. Sometime after the trio leaves, Amanda and Ruby arrive, and Ruby tries to get information from the remains of the brujo. Ruby's caught in an explosion and Amanda drives off in the car. The trio stops to eat at a cafe, where Pablo tries to suss out Kelly's feelings for him but gets shot down. Amands catches up with the fugitives, corners Ash in the men's room, and after a brief fight (during which Ash ogles her breasts), Amanda takes him prisoner. However, the demons strike at the cafe by converting more humans into Deadites. The heroes defeat the zombies and finally convince Amanda to join forces with them.

FIRE IN THE HOLE-- Ruby rises from the ruins of the brujo's house, disclosing that she was never truly human. As the foursome enter the forest looking for the cabin, they butt heads with a group of survivalists. After various encounters with more Deadites and survivalists, Ash tries to spare his friends by leaving them behind while he seeks out the cabin. But his dismembered hand is also on the way to the cabin.

ASHES TO ASHES-- Kelly, Pablo and Amanda get lost in the woods, though Amanda goes off on her own and manages to find the cabin. Ash, unable to talk her into leaving, makes a pass, and Amanda isn't entirely unreceptive. Kelly and Pablo encounter three hikers in the woods and try to guide them away from the cabin. When a female hiker tells Kelly she's interested in Pablo, Kelly tries to discourage her. For some reason Ash seeks out the woodshed where he left the remains of his girlfriend Linda, whom he had to dismember, and of course demonic power seals him in the shed while the head of Linda, which still appears to be whole, rails at him. Amanda then encounters what she assumes to the real Ash, only to notice that he has two hands of flesh. She tries to escape the dupe Ash and is killed.

BOUND IN THE FLESH-- Kelly and Pablo arrive at the cabin and have to figure out which of the two Ashes is real by learning which is more obnoxious. While Real Ash uses his chainsaw to cut up the duplicate, Kelly and Pablo see the hikers approaching the cabin and try to guide them in another direction. However, Deadite Amanda escapes the cabin, overtakes the hiking party and slaughters two hikers. Pablo and Kelly are unable to retaliate, but Ruby shows up and fights Amanda, who then runs off. Pablo, Kelly and Ruby seek out the cabin, and Ruby tells Ash that they can only destroy the book by cutting it up during an occult ritual. However, during the ritual, Ruby reveals her true colors, causing the cover of the evil book to possess Pablo while boasting that she's the one who wrote the book, for the purpose of subjugating humanity.

THE DARK ONE-- Ash is distracted from Ruby's perfidy by another attack from Amanda, but he destroys her. Ruby takes the possessed Pablo down into the cellar. Ash follows but is briefly knocked out, whereon he gets a vision from Ruby, telling him he can end his sufferings by accepting a truce that allows him to retire in his beloved Jacksonville. Ash awakens and pursues Ruby, who brings forth a demon-child from Pablo. In another part of the cabin the demon-forces persecute Kelly and the last hiker, and the last hiker is killed. When Ash faces off with Ruby once more, she persuades him to accept the bargain of his vision. Ash does so with the stipulation that Kelly and Pablo will join him. The season ends with this uncertain bargain.

Though DEAD is replete with dozens of cartoonish ultraviolent stunts, something about the way the writers kept finding fresh ways to outrage human bodies struck me as having different roots than your average gore-gushing production. Maybe it's because, amid all the blood and guts, the writers also keep reminding viewers how vulnerable the human body is. Even comic actions like Ash being forced to cinch in his fat gut with a girdle may remind one of the body's destiny to deteriorate. In this season and season 2, Ash finds himself constantly being reminded of all the mistakes and missteps of his life, and as comical as this heroic meathead may be, he's also haunted by a lot of things besides death-dealing demons.               
          

        

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE III (1990)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

And as the sun sinks slowly in the distance, we bid farewell to the SLUMBER PARTY franchise, a farewell made easier by the underwhelming nature of the final entry.

It's probably just as well the director and writer-- both women, though I discerned no feminist content whatever this time-- decided to start over with all new characters. I suspect that most of the later "slumber party" films building on the basic concept probably follow the example of PARTY #3, for it's just the predictable story of a psycho-killer preying on a half dozen girls in a slumber party.

The most I can say for this one is that in comparison to many of the sludgy slashers from the 80s and 90s, this one at least has decent production values. While these California girls are planning their party, a killer knocks off one of their buddies with a rotary drill. The script tosses out two separate red herrings in the form of creepy-looking bozos, and maybe a third when one of the girls (Maria Ford) says she's dating a fifty-year-old suitor. But all of these details are dodges to fool the viewer when the killer proves to be Ken (Brittain Frye), a young clean-cut fellow. He's one of a group of young guys who intrude on the girls' party, but Ken's not interested in harmless sexual teasing. The guy's got some never-completely-explained psychosis due to having been molested by his uncle. Why does this make him decide to kill copious young girls with a power drill? Who knows?

Once Ken kills off the guys, the rest of the film is just running battles in the house as Ken kills some girl, another girl whacks him with some object, he recovers and keeps on drillin'. Eventually he does get taken out by Main Girl Jackie (Keely Christian), though she's not the last girl to survive as in many other slashers. I'd give what few acting points are possible to Frye, who at least puts a lot of energy into his routine psycho. The aforementioned Maria Ford later went to star in a few "lady butt-kicker" films, while another actress, Hope Marie Carlton, had previously initiated the "Hard Ticket to Hawaii" series in 1987.                

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE II (1987)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

While PARTY #2 isn't a huge improvement over the first film, I have to give it points for being a little less predictable. 

Writer-director Deborah Block doesn't have a much more stellar resume on IMDB than does previous writer-director Amy Jones. However, Block's PARTY has much more of the look and feel of a slasher-movie. True, she does so by having her viewpoint character besieged by nightmare visions long before encounters the required massacre-maker who may have been partly patterned on Freddy Kruger. (PARTY #1 made substantial coin in 1982, so it's not evident why the producers took five years to whip out a sequel.)

A year or two has passed since the first film. Courtney Bates, the junior high girl who was already very curious about sex, wasn't deeply involved in the original rampage of maniacal Russ Thorn, but we don't know what happened to Trish while Courtney's sister Valerie has been confined to an asylum. Courtney (now played by Crystal Bernard, the only PARTY #2 performer who went on to any acting fame) is first seen slowly awakening from sleep in her bed at home, swaddled in pink sheets. Given that PARTY #2 is mostly about Courtney's desire to overcome past demons and to live a normal (and therefore sexually fulfilling) life, I suspect that the pink sheets were a conscious choice on Block's part.

Courtney hasn't dated yet, but she's in an all-female rock band with three other girls. None of the other characters are important to the story except as background, with the minor exception of Matt, a classmate Courtney likes. Courtney's birthday is impending, and on the same weekend she's been invited by one of her band-buddies to a weekend, just for the girls at a beach condo. The young woman's mother tries to talk Courtney into going to visit her institutionalized sister instead. Courtney, her mind filled with thoughts of sex (since a few boys, including Matt, have been invited), avoids associating with her sister's trauma and gets permission to make the trip (which I don't recall being called a slumber party).

Once she's on her way to the condo, though, our heroine begins having all sorts of minatory nightmares, while at the condo she begins to conflate her potential boyfriend with a weird specter that looks like a demonic Elvis. Most of Courtney's "waking dreams" are fairly standard grossout illusions, but the pomaded predator in the black leather, billed as The Driller Killer, is a fairly original creation. Once Block has burned up a certain amount of time with the bad dreams, she gets down to business with a high-octane chase scene. The Driller, who wields a guitar with a rotary drill mounted on its neck, comes to life and begins slaughtering teens right and left, with copious Freddy-like lines about sexual stimulation (quoting the Stones "I Can't Get No Satisfaction," for example). All of Courtney's friends die, but once her back is against the wall, she summons her inner Final Girl and destroys the killer with a Molotov cocktail. (I assume he doesn't sing "Hunka Burning Love" as he dies was because the rights cost too much.)  Or is the Driller Killer dead? The movie ends with the teen bedded down in an asylum like her sister, just as that fearsome penile drill starts burrowing in from beneath.

Nothing in the finished script indicates a connection between the Driller Killer and deceased maniac Russ Thorn, but some online sites claim that the specter is "The Reincarnated Russ Thorn." I didn't credit this theory at first. However, I was initially perplexed as to why Courtney, a teen who would have been born in the early seventies, would have imagined some greasy-haired rockabilly type as the incarnation of destructive sexuality. HOWEVER-- earlier I pointed out that the performer playing Russ Thorn in PARTY #1 was in his forties when that film was made. So if Thorn came back as a super-powered ghost a la Freddy-- then in life he would have been a teen in the 1950s, and HE would have regarded a greasy rocker as the epitome of dangerous male sexuality. Courtney could not have known that, but if she'd failed to exorcise her psychological trauma, maybe she opened a gateway for Thorn's return. But if so, Psycho Elvis got no third act, for PARTY #3 dropped any connections to the other two films. 

SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE (1982)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

In addition to the three entries in this psycho-killer series, the basic idea seems to have been copied not only in the eighties but also into the streaming era. The script for PARTY #1 was written as a parody of slashers by feminist author Rita Mae Brown, but the production company and director Amy Jones reworked the story into a straightforward horror movie with only a few over-the-top elements.

The most obvious such element is the one that got up-front promotion in the above lobby card: that of a bunch of screaming 20-something girls being menaced by a maniac with a power drill poised unsubtly between his legs. But though serial killer Ross Thorn (Michael Villella, then about forty years old) is technically the star of the show, the finished script says nothing about what to led him to start his spree killings, and only toward the very end is it loosely suggested that he views his drill as a penis-substitute. 

It's the girls who get all the screentime (scream-time?) However, they're not any better characterized than the killer or the majority of teen victims in psycho-killer films before or after this one. Two of them rank as the movie's "final girls:" Trish (Michele Michaels), who invites other high school girls to her house for a slumber party because her parents are away, and her neighbor-classmate Valerie (Robin Stille), who gets invited but chooses for Reasons to stay home and babysit her younger sister Courtney. No boys are supposed to attend, though the "slutty girl" invites her boyfriend, and two dateless losers peep on the party as well. Thorn, who's already killed off two young lovelies with his drill, finds out about the soiree and invites himself. 

The dialogue is adequate but dull, and Jones' direction has a no-frills sort of TV-show feel. Not much beyond jump-scares happens until the final half hour, when the girls are trapped in the house with the killer and, amid much carnage, the two Final Girls must step up to end his reign of terror. The scene in which Valerie wields a machete to slice off the end of Thorn's drill is the highlight, but no one's psychology goes beyond the basics. and the male/female social matrix doesn't amount to much either. It may be significant that the only "normal" males who get much screentime are the two peepers-- both of whom get killed-- mention that they've peeped on the girls before and got beat up for it. Maybe it's just as well the world wasn't exposed to Brown's original satirical wit.        

THE MAGIC CRYSTAL (1986)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

Writer/director/actor Wong Jing has a rep for crazy kung-fu comedies, but as I've said only four of his 1990s outings, I can't confirm that, aside from saying that the 1993 CITY HUNTER is really stupid. But by contrast, this 1986 chopsocky is easy to follow. It's pedestrian, but it's not any more incomprehensible than a lot of other HK adventure-comedies.

Andy Lau (playing a trouble shooter named Andy) is contacted by a friend who claims to have found an alien artifact. Andy and his goofy sidekick Snooker (played by director Jing) go to meet the friend in Greece, but the guy is captured and interrogated by the KGB (led by badass Richard Norton). The artifact, a green rock, falls into the hands of Andy's young nephew Pin Pin, son of another of Andy's friends, and soon Pin Pin learns that there's an alien intelligence inside the stone, capable of controlling (some) minds and even wreaking miracles, like causing Snooker's hands and feet to become interchanged.

Meanwhile, two Interpol agents-- one a non-entity, the other played by Cynthia Rothrock-- are also after the rock, and they try to persuade Andy to help them locate it. The various fights between the stars (Lau and Rothrock), the Russians led by Norton, and a few lesser combatants (Lau's sword-wielding sister, played by Mei-Mei Wong) are the real attraction here. None of the rinky-dinky SF elements in CRYSTAL are half as wonder-inspiring as the speed with which actors Norton and Rothrock move to pull off their stunts.

CRYSTAL is a little funnier than the average HK comedy and certainly scores in the fighting department, and even though it's low-mythicity it makes a pleasant enough confection. 

   

SWEET SIXTEEN (1983)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological* 

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

"What terrors are unleashed when a girl turns-- sweet sixteen?" Well, in execution, not too many, especially for a slasher film that came out in the heyday of that phase of the psycho-killer subgenre. But it's a nice tagline, and the poster is clever, showing a nude young girl up to her waist in a lake, while beneath the water's surface is a knife ready for hackups. I'm tempted to invoke the hoary "vagina dentata" trope, but I don't really think director Jim Sotos and "only one movie" writer Erwin Goldman were thinking along such lines.

For my own sense of fairness, I have to disclose that I accidentally read the solution to the mystery in some review, long before I got around watching the film for the first time today. I like to think that I would have guessed that the dangerous dame spotlighted, Melissa Morgan (Aleisa Shirley), was not going to be the killer simply because the viewer doesn't see Melissa perpetrating the knife-killings onscreen, which automatically seems like a setup for "the least likely suspect."

So here's the basics: the setting is a small Texas town where nothing ever happens, except when the local racist whites get liquored up and start trouble with the local Indians (though we never see more than two).  Sheriff Burke (Bo Hopkins) seems to have things pretty easy, though his teenaged kids Hank and Marci bug him a little about getting married to his "comfort girlfriend." Marci is an amateur sleuth, but has nothing to practice her skills on, until a new family moves to town. The Morgans consist of Father John (Patrick MacNee), Mother Joanne (Susan Strasberg), and the aforementioned Melissa. John Morgan is an archaeologist who's come to look for Indian artifacts, and he's brought Joanne, who used to be a resident of the small town long ago, but has presumably been absent at least for the length of Melissa's young life. As for Melissa, she's fifteen going on sixteen, and in a big hurry to graduate-- even though of course in a lot of states she still would not be "legal" until 18. 

Melissa is set up to be trouble with a capital T as she starts trying to hang out with young guys in her age-range. However, the script doesn't place a lot of emphasis on Melissa's character. Indeed, it pays more attention to Joanne's previous history with the townsfolk, particularly a local politician who seems to have been intimate with her. She's only come back because of her husband's work-- but why should the audience care, if she's not Significant in Some Way?

Two of the boys Melissa hung out with are brutally knifed to death, and some antique Indian knives go missing from the archaeological dig. Is there any real chance that one of the two Indians in town has gone berserk? Not much, since Melissa says that she saw one of them near the body of the second victim, and local racists lynch the accused man. But is there any chance that the other Little Indian is going to be the culprit? Nope, because he's not even close to being the least likely suspect. Nor is John, nor are the two local racists.

It's at the lakeside scene toward the climax-- wherein Melissa goes skinny-dipping to impress Hank Burke-- that the mystery unravels. The two racist guys attack her and Hank, but they're both slain (in almost the only bloody scenes). The culprit is Joanne, who, in a hurry-up-and-finish revelation, has nurtured for years a double personality, in which she committed the murders. It all has something to do with some molestation of Joanne and her long-dead twin sister, whom Joanne has identified with. But why, in looking for substitutes for the father who traumatized her, does she go after the young guys chasing after her daughter? Even for movie psychology, the solution doesn't hang together.

SIXTEEN is a pretty slow affair, and it wastes time with Marci befriending Melissa-- which doesn't matter because her character remains flat. The actors merely put in their time, for there's not that much with which they could have engaged. So it's Joanne's traumatized sexuality that's the root of the fatalities, and thus the whole "sweet sixteen" thing is a dodge-- though I'll admit that it is like a lot of other slasher-holidays, centered around either holidays or other occasions of liminal importance. Could have been better, could have been worse.                

HOLY GHOST AND THE FIVE MAGNIFICENT SCOUNDRELS (1972)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological* 

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

This spaghetti western-- the third of three by director Roberto Mauri, apparently all copying from this Gianni Garko vehicle-- just barely qualifies for uncanny status. But this time the uncanny phenomenality stems not from the hero; whatever "Spirito Santo" might have been in the first two films, here he's just a standard ingenious cowpoke, and his spiritual name connotes his general goodness-- though he's not really much more noble than a dozen other Sabata-types.

Santo (Vassili Karis, playing the role in all three Mauri movies) is called upon to stop an elusive arms dealer, The Loner, who goes about in an all-black costume. The guy hiring Santo-- I didn't catch his name-- compares the Loner to the Scarlet Pimpernel, though the Pimpernel wasn't in print until the stage play came out in 1903. Santo also has a meet-cute with the official's cousin Elizabeth (Daria Norman), but she has so little to do with the main story that halfway through I suspected she was the Loner, who's on the small side. Anyway, Santo thinks he needs to engage the services of the five "scoundrels" of the title, all of whom had odd but not memorable idiosyncracies (one thinks he's a pirate, the other a priest-- that sort of thing). I have to admit that because these characters burn up a lot of screen time, that makes the original Italian title much more appropriate than the current streaming title, "Gunmen and the Holy Ghost."

So Santo gets involved with various side-characters, all tedious, and only toward the end does the film work back around to preventing the Loner's scheme, which to hijack some gold. Santo and his goons kill the Loner, who is unmasked as the town sheriff. In a "big reveal" scene that FIVE does nothing to set up, Santo figures out that his boss is behind the Loner's activities, and that the sheriff was just a pawn. The boss is also jealous of Santo's attentions to Elizabeth, who, the boss also reveals, is not really his cousin, and that he plans to marry her. Providentially, even though the big boss has Santo dead to rights, Elizabeth shoots him dead. However, then it's revealed that Elizabeth was also in the big scheme, and she gets killed in a shootout with a deputy. So why, if they both knew they weren't cousins, did they perpetuate the fiction? Because the screenwriter was drunk or ill or stupid, I guess. I've seen more boring spaghettis than this one, though whenever the "scoundrels" were on the screen I stopped paying attention. Oh, one exception-- one guy's a conman who claims that he got jailed because he was selling a miracle cream that enlarged women's breasts-- but which had a deleterious effect if the cream got rubbed off on a man's chest.