FilmDistrict – Missile Test

Is Evil Dead, the 2013 film from Fede Alvarez, a remake or a sequel? It looks a lot like a remake, but, years after release, Alvarez confirmed in a tweet that, “[Evil Dead] continues the first one.” Case closed. This flick is not a remake. I guess the original was just so good they had to make it twice, or thrice, for that matter.

Working from a screenplay he wrote with Rodo Sayagues, Alvarez made a horror flick that reportedly used tens of thousands of gallons of fake blood. If that’s not an intrinsic endorsement, I don’t know what is.

The movie follows five twenty-somethings who think they’re doing the right thing, but pick the worst place in the world for it. Continue reading “Evil Dead (2013)”

The Luc Besson action grist mill turns them out like few others. Objective quality is hit and miss, but the movies he produces are flashy, in the same way the McDonald’s in Times Square is flashy. They enjoy a proximity to top tier glamor and glitz, but, in the end, it’s just fast food.

From 2012 comes Lockout, a film that so resembles Escape from New York that Besson and company were successfully sued for plagiarism. Co-directors and co-writers James Mather and Steve Saint Leger (Besson was also credited with a writing and story credit) might have been done dirty by that lawsuit. The analogues to Escape are many, but if John Carpenter could claim plagiarism for this flick, then the entire horror and sci-fi movie industry should operate under the constant threat of litigation. Anyway… Continue reading “Lockout (2012)”