Yesterday's Movies

Before watching the movie:

When I was deciding on the next theme, I discovered that among the many different “_____ Month” observances for May, it is, according to Humans Vs. Zombies, “Zombie Awareness Month”. So be aware, I guess. The events of the past few years have demonstrated that zombie apocalypse stories don’t really go far enough with the dumb things people will do to spread contagions like zombism.

I already covered Night of the Living Dead a while ago, so I figured it was long past time to take a look at the other classic zombie franchise. These kinds of movies I’ve stayed away from for a very long time, but I’m pretty aware of Bruce Campbell, chainsaw wielding badass, coming back every few years to play Ash in yet another Evil Dead thing. I’m always interested in the changes that happen as a successful one shot becomes a franchise.

After watching the movie:

A group of five college students drive out to their vacation cabin in the mountains of Tennessee, almost exclusively accessible by a rickety bridge. Ash and Scott, and Ash’s sister Cheryl, Ash’s girlfriend Linda, and Scott’s girlfriend Shelly. Their rented cabin, isolated in the woods, turns out to have a ton of Sumerian artifacts and a reel-to-reel tape recorder with the audio logs of archaologist Raymond Knowby describing a Sumerian cult in the ruins of Ca’n Dar he’s been studying, which had a book of incantations which summoned dead demons to return and possess the living. Playing the recording of Dr. Knowby reading the incantations awakens something in the house, and Cheryl insists on stopping the tape and getting back to civilization right away, in the middle of the night. When no one wants to go with her or take the car, she starts out hiking alone, and is attacked and assaulted by the trees and vines of the woods. Scott listens to the tapes further and hears Dr. Knowby relating that something has affected his wife, and he believes dismemberment is the only way to banish what has taken control of her. When Cheryl manages to escape and demand to be driven back to town, she and Ash find that the bridge has been destroyed, and she becomes distraught that they are not going to be allowed to leave.

I can see the bones of a franchise here I guess. Apparently the humor content increased as the series went on and the budget went up, but this feels like a B-movie plot with an A-minus budget. It’s effective at producing a mood, but little else. The characters just blunder into a supernatural carnage and then mostly fail to stumble their way out of it, mainly an excuse for massive gore seasoned with a bit of sexual exploitation. I’m not a horror fan, this is not for me, but usually when I’ve watched horror, especially culturally significant horror, I’ve found something worthwhile, but this is just blood and demons all the way down as far as I can tell.

Ash is the big star hero of most of the rest of the franchise, and it looks like he’s supposed to be the star here, but he’s more of a last one standing than a badass. In fact, more than one fight sequence sees him laid out for most of it, probably struggling with very lightweight furniture like the people in infomercials struggle with basic household tasks. He gets one cool moment brandishing a chainsaw but can’t actually bring himself to use it against what’s left of his loved ones. However, this is maybe the closest the movie gets to any real compelling characterization for anyone.

I selected this as a massive zombie franchise, but it really only plays with the aesthetics of zombies, not actually any of the typical rules. This is much more of a ghost story. No dead bodies rise aside from the bodies of the possessed living that get beaten beyond what a mortal body could survive. I have a dim memory of learning that the menace in these movies is more like demons, but the image presented is always more like zombies, so it kind of lives in the culture as a zombie movie.

It sounds like any other part of the franchise would’ve been something more like what I’d be into than this inaugural installment. I honestly don’t see much that everyone else is seeing in this movie. If the later movies add deeper lore and context, great, but I just don’t see enough in here on its own to justify coming back to the well.