Film Review: Crawl

"Grab Your Families, Your Loved Ones, And Get Out. We Won’t Be Able To Come For You..."

With a related trailer which highlights Sam Raimi as a "producer" on Evil Dead and Alexandre Aja as "director" of The Hills Have Eyes, it's fair to say that whilst such claims from the spin merchants of Crawl are indeed factually accurate, it also reinstates how fundamentally messed up the genre of horror has become thanks to the way in which every classic horror movie has been chopped up and churned out thanks to the wonderful notion of remakes and spin-offs in recent years. With Raimi of course being the mastermind and director of the original, and better, The Evil Dead in 1981, and producer on the 2013 Fede Álvarez directed remake, a film of which I can admit to actually enjoying, to say that Aja is best known for his work on the rehash of The Hills Have Eyes in 2006 is generally rather aggravating, when the mighty Wes Craven, director of the 1977 grindhouse original classic, seems to be the subject of a Stalinesque mind-wipe towards younger audiences who may not even be aware of Craven or his impact on the genre of horror. Moan aside, Aja and Raimi this week team up for a rather familiar B-movie creature-feature in the form of Crawl, an overly generic work of nonsense which in some ways is quite enjoyable due to the sheer fact that it's the type of movie which seems to be released at least thirty years too late. 

With a very basic, genre-literate set-up, Crawl sees Kaya Scodelario (Extremely Wicked...) as Haley, a swimming obsessed student athlete who stupidly returns to her hometown in the heart of Florida in order to check on the welfare of her father after a Category five hurricane begins to make its' way towards the mainland. Upon arriving at her deserted childhood home, Haley finds father Dave, as played by Barry Pepper (Saving Private Ryan), unconscious within the crawl space of their home for no immediate apparent reason until soon discovering the amidst decaying childhood homes, a ridiculously overblown natural threat and unnecessary daddy issues, ravenous alligators have decided to take over the house and are happy to eat anything that gets in their way. With Aja beginning his career with the enjoyably nonsensical, Switchblade Romance, and making his way into Hollywood with unnecessary remakes, Crawl does seem like an attempt to appease as mass an audience as possible, and whilst the exploitation violence within the movie is highly enjoyable in places, the screenplay isn't exactly one to be desired as it attempts to blend into the carnage meaningless narrative tangents such as reserved family issues without any real point to it whatsoever. When it comes to a film such as Crawl, the violence and the silliness should always be the primary focus and be capped off within a harmless eighty minutes, but with Aja's latest so predictable and lifeless, the lack of threat and lack of bite, pun intended, means Crawl is a glorified bargain bucket B-movie which just happens to be allowed on the big screen for no real apparent reason whatsoever. 

Overall Score: 5/10

Film Review: The Evil Dead

"I Fear That The Only Way To Stop Those Possessed By The Spirits Of The Book Is Through The Act Of... Bodily Dismemberment..."

Whilst most people on Halloween will either take their children out trickle treating in the hope of gathering an excessive and overly unhealthy cauldron of sweets or skip to the nearest pub on the lookout for a pint of Hobgoblin or any other seasonally styled alcoholic beverage, thank Satan himself that neither of those two options are available when a film such as Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead comes back into cinemas, a familiar feeling following on from last year when audiences across the country were treated to Stanley Kubrick's similarly masterful, The Shining, in what for many was probably the first time seeing such a film on the big screen. Released in 1981 on a shoestring budget and quickly being stamped as part of the collective list of "video nasty's" due to its' staggeringly over the top levels of violence, The Evil Dead remains to this day the go-to horror cult classic, a film which manages to blend the genres of horror and jet-black comedy with utmost ease and one which solidified a blossoming bromance between director and actor, Bruce Campbell, whose cameo appearances in the many Raimi-led features since comes down to the excellence of a film which even after repeat viewings is downright outrageous and shockingly entertaining. 

Whilst the notion of the "cabin in the woods" horror narrative strand today seems overly tiresome and horrendously cliched, the influence of The Evil Dead on the likes of Drew Goddard's Cabin in the Woods and even at a stretch, Lars von Trier's Antichrist, simply reinforces the powerful and nightmarish vision which was encapsulated by Raimi and his cast of unknown, bit-part actors back at the beginning of the 1980's, and whilst the likes of The Last House on the Left previously offered horror audiences arguably the starkest vision of the genre at the time, Raimi's vision was built on a mix of laugh-out-loud gross humour and extremely surrealist imagery involving simple but effective special effects and a whole lot of ruby red fake blood. Whilst parts of the movie still remain controversial to this day, particularly the infamous woodland tree scene, which even in the realm of the twenty first century still feels slightly misjudged, the bizarre soundtrack and maniacal camera work still has the desired effect it first had when watching The Evil Dead in my youth, and with the brilliance of hindsight, without Raimi's most iconic feature there would have been potentially no Spider-Man, the film which arguably brought the superhero cinematic universe into the crazed franchise it is today, so when you buy your ticket to watch one of the greatest horror movies of all time on the big screen once again, remember, Avengers: Infinity War exists because of it. Sort of. 

Overall Score: 9/10

Film Review: Don't Breathe

"You Would Be Surprised What A Man Is Capable Of Once He Realises There Is No God..."

Back in 2013, Fede Alvarez's "re-imagining" of Sam Raimi's classic 1981 horror classic The Evil Dead could only be regarded as bonkers, sheer bonkers. In attempting to match the sheer madness of the original cult masterpiece, Evil Dead featured perhaps the most lavish amount of on-screen blood I think I remember seeing since Peter Jackson's Braindead back in the 90's. It was crazy but ultimately good fun, and on his latest project, Don't Breathe, the twisted mind of Alvarez has once again managed to create a real winner, one which relies on the dramatic tendencies of sheer, white-knuckle tension amidst the fundamental warped nature of a mind as expansive as Alvarez's, resulting in some radical plot twists, thrilling set pieces and a conclusion so ingrained in the classic nature of the genre it only emphasises Alvarez's love of full-blooded horror. Don't Breathe isn't The Witch but it is definitely the most enjoyable sub-par exploitation movie you might see this year.

Although the set-up isn't one of extreme originality, Don't Breathe focuses on the attempt of three young thieves to break into the home of and steal from a blind army veteran who after losing his only daughter in a car accident is compensated by the perpetrator's wealthy family. With Evil Dead's Jane Levy in the film's lead role alongside Dylan Minnette (Goosebumps) and Daniel Zovatto (It Follows), Don't Breathe is a full-on fillip of tension and scares, resorting to violence quite heavily throughout in a Green Room-esque fashion, and featuring one scene of extremely heavy sub-par sexual violence during the final act it's amazing the film only contracted a 15 rating from the BBFC. Although the film does include twists and turns throughout its' winding narrative, the conclusion does suffer from a sense of obviousness, one that can be recognised from foregone horrors in the past, yet its' 90 minute run-time feels as if Don't Breathe says what it needs to say and clocks out just in time for the audience to cool down. Alvarez's latest is a jolt of good fun, featuring the best use of night vision camera work since last year's Sicario. Check it out. 

Overall Score: 7/10

Film Review: Poltergeist

They're Here!

I really have no idea why film producers, directors, executives etc. in the 21st century feel the need to constantly regurgitate, remake and ultimately ruin classic horror movies of the century previous aside from the notion that hopefully it will make them a quick buck. Not only is it annoying that every-time you speak to someone about films such as Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and even The Wicker Man (Not the bees!) you have to prepare yourself to constantly remind them you are speaking about the original, not the remake, but that the quality of such is so terrifyingly bad it begs the question whether they will ever stop murdering films of a classic nature that mean so much to the horror fans in the world, me included. For the time being, it seems like the answer is no, with the latest entry into such an unwanted genre of movies is Poltergeist, a "terrifying new vision" of the 1982 classic, which back then had Spielberg on screenplay and production duties whilst Tobe Hooper, of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame, was on board as director. Replacing them is Sam Raimi, who I am a massive fan of, and Gil Kenan of Monster House respectively, but even with the mastermind of Evil Dead behind it, the 2015 version of Poltergeist is everything I feared it to be; turgid. 

Haunted house? Check. Creepy child? Check. Bad script? Check. Unnecessary from the outset? Check. If you need a plot synopsis, I implore you to please go and watch the original Poltergeist which although may seem rather dated in terms of effects and dodgy haircuts, is the Citizen Kane of horror movies in comparison to this turkey of a movie. Half way through the film I actually decided to have a little sleep, with the film not attempting in the slightest to come across as a "new vision" of the Poltergeist franchise, but instead being an almost uncanny, shot-for-shot remake of the original except with much more boring characters, a much more boring and limp script, a badly CGI'd scene in which a child's drone is flown into the "other side", which obviously was shafted in to make the use of 3D retrofitting seem acceptable, and Sam Rockwell seemingly looking like he has just walked off a set in which he was portraying Brad Pitt's stoner character from True Romance. His decision to act with as little acting ability as possible was actually quite startling to see, with the choice to embrace the character of a beleaguered father seemingly caught in the crossfire with the cheque he picked up on his way out the set. 

As you can tell, I am pretty peeved with Poltergeist. It is just so sad to see a supposed horror-movie lover such as Sam Raimi just seemingly not give a care in the world in trashing one of the 20th century's greatest horror movies. Please, save your money, go and watch A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night instead and gaze at a proper horror movie, one that doesn't blatantly copy every scene and line from a much better film and one that will live long in the memory of those who watch it, unlike Poltergeist, which should be forgotten and denied it ever even existed as soon as humanly possible. It takes a really bad film to get a score of zero, and Poltergeist isn't that, its' a film that begs the question of its' own existence. Did we really need it? Of course not. Will it be left alone forever more from this day on? I really, really hope so. 

Overall Score: 3/10