There are things that happen in October that don’t really happen any other time of the year: Columbus does a little jig in his grave as we celebrate his blatant acts of genocide, little kids run around with Pok?man dolls or Gamecubes or whatever kids salivate over these days, and Safeway beefs up its usually shabby supply of candy so we can continue to be nutritionally deprived, but with a more diverse selection. But even better than all of that, however, October is horror month. And just like Pandora’s box, the most amazingly low budget horror films get thrown back into televised syndication. Perhaps anticipating the public’s desire to view such cinematic antiquity, Visions Cinema in Dupont offers up a few choice selections of its own.
No one will argue that the Evil Dead movies are classic films in the traditional sense. Rather, they have become “cult classics.” The first Evil Dead (formally titled The Evil Dead: The Ultimate Experience in Grueling Horror) was made in 1982 with scarcely a budget. The special effects make good use of the standard biology skeletons and gallons of Heinz, with plenty of campy dialogue. Stephen King hailed it as “the most ferociously original horror film of the year.” Gaining momentum like the plague, writer/director Sam Raimi set out to make another, entitled Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn. Armed with a bigger budget, Raimi employed his lead from the first film, Bruce Campbell, and set out to make horror history … again.
For those that have watched Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2 might come as a surprise, or maybe not. Because once Raimi had a pocket full of cash, he decided not to let his past film haunt him. Instead, why not just remake the sucker? So he and longtime pal Bruce Campbell (who plays Ash, the lead in the first Evil Dead) do exactly that. The result is a horror/fantasy flick that just ridiculous enough to be screened at Visions.
Perhaps a plot summary is in order. Though previously referred to as a “remake,” many consider it a sequel. Really, it is both. The first film began with five college-aged friends venturing into the woods and stumbling across an old cabin. In the cabin they found a tape of a professor reciting passages from the Necronomicon, the Book of the Dead. By playing the tape, the kids release evil forces that turn them all into zombies, against whom Ash must defend himself. At the beginning of Evil Dead 2, Ash awakes from his long night of demon slaying. Referencing the first Dead movie, it allows those who missed the previous adventures of our hero Ash to be brought up to speed and to set the stage for the grotesque adventures ahead. They far surpass the last: Ash must battle his un-dead girlfriend as well as his own hand with a chainsaw while muttering anachronisms like “Groovy.” Yeah, it’s 1987.
Though you might find yourself lured to other films at Visions, like the new Henry Kissinger documentary or the disturbing Das Experiment, deep down these films won’t touch you like Evil Dead 2 will. And you surely won’t find a single chainsaw in the French romance Merci Pour Le Chocolat. So settle in with some Twizzlers for a midnight snack of horrific eighties gore.
Evil Dead 2 is playing at midnight on Saturday and Sunday at Visions Cinema, 1927 Florida Ave., N.W. Admission is $5.
