Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn

1987, Color, 85 minutes (less in some foreign versions). Directed by Sam Raimi. Cast includes: Bruce Campbell as Ash, Sarah Berry as Annie Knowby, Dan Hicks as Jake, Ted Raimi as possessed Henrietta Knowby, Denise Bixler as Linda, and John Peaks as Professor Raymond Knowby. Schlock-Meter rating: Eight stars out of a possible 10.

So many reviews like to call Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2 a comedy, or a tribute to the Three Stooges, and there are some great "gross-out" gags, as well as my favorite comic scene, where Bruce Campbell's Ash, minus his possessed hand, traps it by piling a copy of Hemingway's "A Farewell To Arms" on a container holding the hand. Yes, this film contains a lot of comic parody, and after the first half Campbell plays his part mostly for laughs. And it's true that Raimi's very fast-paced, boom-boom-boom "I'm going to jar the viewer every 30 seconds" seems a tribute to Stooge-like filmmaking. And the excessive gore does desensitize the viewer after a while.

But let's not forget that Evil Dead 2 is a very scary, suspenseful thriller that throws out just about every horror/action plot element that exists. Most work. There are only a few clinkers, and the result is a cinema gem. Critic Roger Ebert pegged it best when he wrote that the film was not in bad taste, but about bad taste. Evil Dead 2 is sort of remake of Raimi's micro-budgeted Evil Dead, but with a little more plot and a twist ending that set up another, even more comic sequel, Army of Darkness. The plot: Ash and his girl Linda (Bixler) decide to squat for a night at a cabin in the Michigan woods. Once there, Ash turns on a tape recorder where a professor, who lives in the cabin, invokes a chant from The Book of the Dead that sends a demon to the cabin. From that point on, all hell breaks loose. Eventually, Ash and a few later arrivals, including the professor's daughter (Berry), are forced to fight it out with the demons.

The film is so fast-paced that you just marvel at the speed and special effects in the film that you forget the plot is pretty light. Director Raimi was destined for bigger assignments (A Simple Plan, Quick and the Dead, the Spider Man series). He's thrifty and economical. I suspect many minutes were spliced out of the final cut of Evil Dead 2 to maintain the fast pace, horror shocks and, yes, comic timing. Most of the cast is mediocre, except for Campbell, who is outstanding. For the first half of the film, he is largely responsible for carrying the flow of the film, and he uses the right amount of fear, fatigue, anger and outrage to pull it off. There are great visual effects, including a twisted, ominous looking bridge over a high drop, a dancing headless woman-demon, a human snake, a psychopathic hand, a woman being attacked by a tree, a demon's eyeball flying into a screaming mouth, and the most chilling, Ted Raimi's possessed Henrietta Knowby, a thoroughly gruesome old demon hag who hangs out in the cellar.

By all means rent or buy Evil Dead 2. It's well worth the price. However, while it is funny, expect more shivers than chuckles. Also, those who leave the room for a snack will miss several shock scenes. They happen so fast.

-- Doug Gibson

Retro-Plan9Crunch: Andy Milligan's 'Torture Dungeon' -- An Appreciation

By Steve D. Stones

From the moment Andy Milligan’s film Torture Dungeon arrived at my doorstep, I knew I had something very special. Not only because the film is so rare but also because I had to sweat blood to find it. Type the words Torture Dungeon into the search engine of any mail-away video and DVD company, and the result that comes up is always the disappointing Dr. Tarr’s Torture Dungeon. Amazon.com even lists Dr. Tarr’s Torture Dungeon as: Torture Dungeon.

If you’re not a careful buyer, you could end up buying the wrong film, which is what happened to me. Finally I was able to find a VHS copy of the film on e-bay issued by Midnight Video, a company no longer in business. This tape is my most cherished video in my collection. I proudly display it on my video shelf as an ancient relic of a bygone era. Because the film is so rare and not listed in most film encyclopedias, I consider it to be “The Holy Grail of Cult Films.”

If you have never seen a Milligan film, I suggest you start with Torture Dungeon. You won’t be disappointed. Norman-Duke of Norwich, played by Gerry Jacuzzo (aka Jeremy Brooks),star of Milligan’s gay bath house short Vapors, is determined to rise to the throne and become king. He will do anything to acquire the throne, including murdering members of his own family to become successor to the crown. An opening sequence shows his half brother being decapitated on a beautiful spring day while admiring a flower. This gives us a clue for the violence that is in store for the rest of the film.

A legal council, headed by Neil Flannigan, star of Milligan’s Fleshpot On 42nd Street and Guru The Mad Monk, decides the rightful heir to the throne should be Albert, played by Hal Borske, a mentally challenged half-wit who picks his nose, talks like a child, eats bugs, and wears a tacky wig. The council is eager to marry Albert so he can provide a new heir.

The council selects a pretty peasant girl named Heather, played by Susan Cassidy, to be his bride. Heather can’t seem to keep her breasts inside her blouse throughout the entire film, which suits this male just fine. The problem with the council’s plan is that Heather is already in love with another local peasant named William. One sequence shows William and Heather running around nude in a pool of water. Milligan is careful not to show too much flesh by disguising parts of their bodies with tree branches and foliage.

Another violent scene in the film shows William being nailed to a barn door in a poorly lit sequence as black hooded executioners drive a pitchfork through his chest. This is a recurring theme seen in many of Milligan’s films, such as: The Ghastly Ones, The Weirdo and Carnage. Some of the film’s strangest dialogue comes from the Norman-Duke of Norwich character. In a scene where his wife enters their bedroom, he says: “I live for pleasure and pleasure alone . . . next to power, of course.” He goes on to say: “I’m not a homosexual. I’m not a heterosexual. I’m not asexual. I’m trisexual. I’ll try anything for pleasure!”

This may be perhaps some of the strangest dialogue ever put on celluloid. Even stranger is Milligan’s trademark swirl camera technique used in the film, particularly during William’s pitchfork murder and at the end of the film when Heather tries to ride off on a horse. The camera seems to swirl around in circles in a close-up of Susan Cassidy’s right thigh as she tries to ride off to avoid Norman.

Milligan also has the uncanny ability to completely disguise the smallness of his interior locations, said to be on Staten Island, by hanging lots of draping fabric over furniture and doors. The actors wear amateurish attire unrealistic to the clothing styles of the Middle Ages. All these characteristics give the film a very unique charm that is typical of so many cult films.

Some critics have suggested that Torture Dungeon is Milligan’s Richard III or Romeo & Juliet. That may be far reaching, but it is an interesting film that will satisfy connoisseurs of underground cult films. You may even want to view it back to back with Milligan’s Bloodthirsty Butchers, its original theatrical double feature.

Bloodthristy Butchers is Milligan’s take on the Sweeney Todd-DemonBarber of Fleet Street story. Neil Flanagan’s transvestite character in Fleshpot On 42nd Street even gives the double feature a plug in the film by saying: “Let’s go see Torture Dungeon playing on a double bill with Bloodthirsty Butchers down at The Waverly.” Don’t miss it! You won’t be disappointed.

Love Slaves of the She Mummy: A review

{Previously, We brought Plan9Crunch readers the story of the micro-budget feature, Love Slaves of the She Mummy. It's a fascinating two-part tale of creating a film for about $6,000, told by the director, Sherman Hirsh, screenwriter of "Surgikill" and "Lords of Magick." I've watched Love Slaves of the She Mummy three times in the past couple of weeks, as well as an extras disc (a new DVD version has just been completed) and I offer these observations as well as a review of sorts.}

Sherman Hirsh's "Love Slaves of the She Mummy" is both a spoof and an homage. Vampira, Shock Theater, Ghoulardi, Elvira, and many, many more "TV morticians" graced TV screens in cities and took turns hosting horror films that had long used up their week-to-a-year stints on the big screens. Love Slaves involves "Morbid Mort's Midnight Mausoleum Matinee," a fictional show on a fictional UHF TV station that is one step above public access. "Mort (played by improv comic Mitchell Gordon) and his gang of freaks host the latest public domain classic, the spoof"Love Slaves of the She Mummy," which has the feel of a film made for $750 and change. It's all directed skillfully by Hirsh, who captures the feel of a low-rent horror film hosting show based on his own recollections of Cleveland's Ernie Anderson, who played Ghoulardi.

As mentioned, technically the film is well made. Hirsh deliberately creates a shoddy look and sound quality to "Love Slaves" and it almost seems like a real movie, with worn print discolored from too many bookings and lack of care, sliced and diced to fit the time frame and ego of a low-rent TV horror host. The "plot" of Love Slaves" is deliciously simple: The brother of a city employee is found insane, mumbling about a mummy that enslaves. Our hero and a typecast lady cop (who fades in and out of the film) investigate the insane man's claims and the mummy.

Appropriately, the majority of the 85-minute movie is devoted to "Morbid Mort's show." That's really what Love Slaves is, a salute to all the horror host shows that have flickered on our TV screens. Gordon, who resembles Jared Hess' Napolean Dynamite, so long as you imagine him as having gone insane from living in Idaho too long, has a lot of manic energy. He deserves credit for keeping the entertainment value of the faux show pretty consistent. His co-hosts, a ghoul, a ghoul with a prominent tongue, and two cute ghoulettes, are capable but definitely background material. This is Gordon's show. His energy determines whether it succeeds.

And most of the skits work. I particularly like a public service announcement for interns at the fictional station that includes convicts as a 'no-no,' and a "Poetry Pit" reading of the cast that is hysterical, if a bit too long. Also very funny is an "interview" with the "executive producer" of Love Slaves. It's great farce, with Gordon's Mort caustically dealing with the producer's bull*&^% about what a huge success the film is.

Hirsh freely inserts "in-the-know homages to the genre, such as a "trailer" for Love Slaves that warns potential viewers of suffering long-term damage if they see the film. That was a tactic used by many independent film producers, including AIP for The Screaming Skull" and Harry Novak for his "Living Dead" trilogy, which was in itself three European horror retreads from the 1960s. I also particularly like a short scene where, after a commercial break, just prior to the film resuming, we see that we are watching "the American version." And there is a fun scene where Mort and the gang, perusing a Psychotronic Video magazine, miss the end of a commercial break.

But if Love Slaves was all spoof, it wouldn't be a feature length film. Unlike cheapie film spoofs in such films as "Amazon Women of the Moon," most viewers, if they tuned in to "Love Slaves" in mid scene, wouldn't know it was a spoof for a while. "Love Slaves" is just "bad" enough, with the wooden acting and dime store sets and FX, to be believable.

And that brings us to a certain irony about Morbid Mort's Midnight Mausoleum Matinee: It remembers a genre that -- quality wise -- has disappeared. Morbid Mort's "show" is actually better than the horror host crap shows we have today: There are still several going strong. If you have the Retro Television Network or MyTV Network, or access to public access in some areas of the country, you can watch Offbeat Cinema, Cinema Insomnia, Wolfman Mac's Chiller Drive In, Midnight Monster Hop ... but the truth is, these shows are bad ... in the bad sense. Most are public access shows picked up by bottom feeders such as RTN to fill space between Wilfred Brimley diabetic supply ads and ads for those unfortunates swamped with credit card debt.

In fact, I'm not sure that less discriminating viewers of "Love Slaves" -- who miss the obviously spoofed newscast that precedes "Morbid Mort" and "Love Slaves" -- would even realize, at least for a while (there is an ad for a pro-suicide hotline that only an idiot would assume is real) that they are watching a spoof. This may doom long-term success for the film. It's better than what it spoofs today, and its real affection for Ghoulardi and other long-gone horror hosts are likely unknown to most viewers today.

I would like to see "Love Slaves" picked up and ran on a TV station some day. It would be a hoot to contrast the fake TV ads created by Hirsh's vivid imagination with the low-rent real ones that would be on the station that aired "Love Slaves!"

Notes: The two-disc DVD of the 85-minute version includes an extras disc with rehearsals, Gordon's audition, outtakes, deleted scenes and production stills. This post's reviewed extended version is not on the market yet. The original, longer (95 minute) version of "Love Slaves" is available for purchase on the Internet at http://www.filmbaby.com/films/928 Other stars of Love Slaves include Gregg Stickeler, Pauline Lang, Briony James and Daria I. Dunall.

-- Doug Gibson

The Raven: A horror classic!

By Doug Gibson

Simply put, "The Raven" (1935) is a masterpiece. And credit for its perfection belongs to star Bela Lugosi, who is magnificent as the brilliant, deranged, courtly and insane Dr. Richard Vollin, who is so obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe that he has built real Poe-inspired torture devices in his dungeon.

Lugosi's Vollin is implored upon to save the life of a beautiful dancer, Jean Thatcher. Once he restores her to health, he fall in lust with her and wants her for himself. Rebuffed by Thatcher's father, he hatches a plan to invite the dancer, her father, her fiance, and others to be tortured and murdered. In his feverish mind, Vollin believes that by killing, he can be released from his Poe obsessions.

Vollin's unwilling helper is Edmond Bateman, a murderer on the lam who bewails his ugly face. He begs Vollin to bring beauty to his countenance. Instead, Vollin makes him uglier and then promises to fix his ugliness after he kills his guests.

Lugosi is juat brilliant. He's gentlemanly and manic, polite and cruel, courteous and a raving lunatic. The short, 61-minute film is tightly directed by Lew Landers. It is an example of Universal's cruelty to Lugosi that he received only half as much as Karloff earned, although Lugosi's Vollin is the real star, the real villain.

This is a film that should not be missed by any horror film fan.