Well today I thought I'd stop everything and review this little movie. Mega shark can wait.
Director: Sam Raimi
There's a few film makers that I look forward to hearing from. They've earned my trust enough in the past that I'll make a note of catching whatever they put out. Sam Raimi is one of them. It's true, he did a fair amount of damage when he made 'Spider-Man 3', an utterly soulless film that came directly out of Sony's marketing department. But then I watched 'Evil Dead 2' again and I was ready to forgive him.
It's good to see a Director return to their roots, and that's exactly what Raimi did here. In some ways the film just feels like an experiment, a quick knock off to show that he can still do it. But if knock offs come as good as this then I don't mind at all.
The story, flimsy at best, is that loans clerk Christine Brown is REALLY desperate for the Assistant Manager position. The problem is that she's far too nice. Her slightly devious boss tells her that if she toughens up the job is all hers. Sadly the moment she decides to toughen up is the moment a Gypsy Woman asks for the third extension on her loan. Christine makes the hard choice and turns her down, knowing it will curry favour with her boss. The Gypsy responds by cursing her. Hey, it happens.
Thanks to a nifty prologue we know that Christine will be tormented for 3 days and then taken to Hell. And that's where the fun begins.
Raimi has always straddled the line between Horror/Comedy, and the balance is just right here. There are two schools of thought when it comes to the genre, one is that the horror and the comedy comes at different times. The ultimate example would be 'An American Werewolf In London'. The scary moments are scary, and the funny moments are funny. In Raimi's film the laugh comes from the scares. Every encounter is punctuated with a laugh, such as the early scene where Christine and the Gypsy fight in her Car. It starts off menacing enough, before featuring a moment where the Gypsy tries to bite Christine before realising that she doesn't have her false teeth in, thus gumming her repeatedly.
Though the script is a little too on the nose at times, the performances are still good to watch. Alison Lohman is very good in the lead, taking the place of Bruce Campbell as Raimi's victim. No one enjoys torturing his Actors as much as Raimi, but Lohman rises to the challenge, so much so that there were one or two moments where I was convinced she was channeling Ash from the Evil Dead films. Justin Long, an actor who's always sadly under-used has the unfortunate role of 'concerned boyfriend' but he makes it work. It's more a testament to Long than it is to the script.
Raimi directs things with his usual Kinetic style and cranks the soundtrack to 11. It's possibly the loudest film ever made, so do make sure you take some painkillers with you just in case. I'm sure more than a few headaches were started by that film. Also, if possible, view with a crowd. Usually I hate the sound of other people in the Cinema, but when a guy behind me called up his friend and said that "Shit is all messed up" I didn't mind so much (In truth I did, but luckily the film is so loud I didn't really hear him anyway). Plus there's nothing funnier than hearing a girlish scream and then seeing a guy's girlfriend laughing at him for it.
All in all it's refreshing to see a film that just wants to entertain. There's a tendency with horror now to be all about the 'suffering'. And indeed, that's true of this film, but the difference is that there's a playfulness to it. It's purely in the name of entertainment. The same way a Roller Coaster is designed purely just to jolt you and make you laugh. You won't sit there thinking about it for days afterwards, but who cares? The ride was so much fun.
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