Lost limbs, too much blood and conveniently placed chainsaw petrol

Evil Dead

Directed by: Fede Alvarez
Produced by: Sam Raimi (original director and producer)
Starring: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci

As deadlines approach and we swiftly move into exam season the best way to cool off some revision steam is to go and watch this years over the top gore film. Much to my disgust, the Saw...collection...have gone rapidly downhill and the hostel films are no-where to be seen. Therefore, I find myself turning to Sam Raimi's remake of his 1980's failure, 'Evil Dead'.
   Make no mistake, this film is so full of blood and gore you'll find yourself feeling not only sick but thinking about what's in your oversized cinema drink...not just flat cola. But what is this whole fiasco about?! What makes this devil's remake so different from the rest?! To be honest, nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's the typical scene, in the woods...abandoned cabin...five friends...one girl trying to give up her coke addiction...she then gets raped by a tree. WAIT. Raped. By. A. Tree? Yes. It just gets worse from there.
  Here's a plot summary with no spoilers (if you have watched the trailer). The nerdy guy finds this bizarre looking book in a cat carcass filled basement and his crazy nurse girlfriend tells him not to meddle with it...of course he does. A strange evil entity arises from the dead trying to take five souls before the earth rains blood and the devil will rise again, blah blah blah. What's weird is this "devil" doesn't just possess one person at a time, somehow once it has taken someones soul it will turn that person into a weird zombie thing.
Can I just say, second hand prop alert... it looks as though the "devil's possession eyes" are the same contacts from the late Twlight Saga series...

I have to give it to Alvarez, the screenplay for this film is particularly amusing, conversation is pretty typical but once the "devil entity" gets it's say then things turn from bad to worse, some of my favourite quotes are:

"I can smell your filthy soul"

"Why don't you come down here and let me suck your cock, pretty boy!" 

"Where do you think you're going, you junkie whore?"

and my person favourite..."You are all going to die tonight." 

  There are more than a few "back alley surgeries" in this film, so many limbs and body parts are severed or cut in half, it makes one wonder how any of them survived, it didn't even look like there were bones in the limbs, just pure muscle. Like most horror films, everything is extremely conveniently placed, what you need is right where you want it when you want it, or the opposite. I guess, you don't really have a lot of time to look around for the things you need when the devil is after your soul and to drag you back to hell with it, right? I never really did understand the final goal of the devil entity...once it has taken it's five souls and risen back to reality...then what? It takes a stroll around the town while everyone else is drowning in the torrential blood rain?

Here's the main five things you need to know about Evil Dead:
1) No story adaption
2) Average acting
3) So much watered down blood, you'll have a hard time NOT thinking about tomato juice.
4) Much to my surprise... NO sex or nudity (thank the lord and all heavens above)
5) Last but not least, an extremely disappointing ending with no twists or surprises (sorry).

Do I recommend this film? Unless you love gore as much as me and my weird friends, probably not. What I would recommend for this film if you do see it...go watch it on an empty stomach, there were parts that even I had a little mini sick at.

There is one good thing that came from 'Evil Dead', Sam Raimi can now die a happy man knowing he created the film he always wanted. Well done Sammy.

Gangster Squad

Director: Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, 30 minutes or less)

Starring: Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Emma Stone

Gangster Squad is a typical 1950's, Los Angeles based mobster film. Mickey Cohen, a top mobster in LA and Chicago, is taking over Los Angeles one phone line at a time so he can take the title, “King of the City” (so lame). Set specifically in 1949, fresh stories and memories of the war are floating around, SGT. John O'Mara is a detective that can't seem to lift those memories(not surprising). The impression I got was, it was his sole purpose to take down anyone who had done any bad in the world(despite being told not to, many times). As the Cohen rises in taking away Los Angeles' “soul” from the LAPD, the chief inspector calls upon O'Mara to get together a secret crew of police officers to take down Mickey Cohen.

With help from O'Mara's pregnant wife (because she obviously knows exactly what traits a secret police crew need) John and his wife (mostly his wife) put together LA's dream team. Which include: a black cop who is amazing at throwing knives, an old guy on the front of what looks to be a comic book that my twelve year old brother could draw, a really brainy guy who also fought the war and of course the gorgeous, naïve SGT. Jerry Wooters. Somehow a Mexican guy joins the “Gangster Squad”(which they name themselves), despite his lack of police experience and he has never shot a gun before, he just “listened in” on one of their plans and decided that he may as well join now. Before I continue, can we just reflect? This film is set in the 1950's, if I'm not mistaken and I remember my year nine history correctly, black and whites were not aloud to mix, am I right? Certainly not a Mexican!

There's no character development in this film, I didn't even know Jerry Wooters was a sergeant until I got home and looked it up on IMBD, I also had no idea what he was fighting for, without giving anything away he seemed to change his mind about the “dream team” pretty promptly. Further on in the film, it seems like he changes his mind as to why he's fighting! I know there's only a certain amount of time in the film and explosions and big guns are obviously more important but it'd be nice to know some details.

Although the film is named 'Gangster Squad' it's shocking how little we know about them apart from O'Mara and Wooters; again poor character development. Dare I say this film is a complete rip off of Scarface, not the story, the “slow motion gun wounds”, the rolling of the shoulders, the proud pouting while shooting a machine gun; it left me in a sombre state of squalor. There's one more thing I need to say before I say what I actually enjoyed. I've never been a fan of Sean Penn, but in this film I particularly didn't enjoy his acting, he spent the whole film looking as though he was having a stroke, failing to make eye contact with anyone. Not even his “lover”, Grace Faraday. He also reminded me of a nodding dog, bulldog like features and all.

By now you're probably wondering, “what the heck did she LIKE about this film?”. Well here's to sum it up in one paragraph, the colour grading and editing were excellent, beautiful colours; very warm and raw, although they would be more appropriate in a RomCom, somehow it worked. I went in to the cinema with very low expectations, there were parts where those expectations were exceeded and parts where the film met those expectations, the film is very much like a sound wave (yep, I did just use that analogy). The acting from the rest of the cast (minus Sean Penn) was super, especially Ryan Gosling, who always delivers. Lastly, the ending was wrapped up nicely, showing what everyone went on to do; which I really liked.

My final verdict: wait until this film goes to £3 in HMV...oh wait. However, if you enjoy a film with little to no character development, big guns, explosions, over-the-top fifteen rated gore and an extremely cheesy script (my favourite line being “Hold on to your hats, boys”) only then would I recommend seeing it for the hefty price of £9.20 or more (the rip-off prices of Cineworld).

Okay, it's been a while but I bought myself these really cute notebooks the other day for film and music reviews, they were on sale but they're really handy! So I thought I would try my hand at a film review, so here goes. My review for Life Of Pi.

The Life of Pi, 2012
Directed by - Ang Lee
Starring - Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Tabu and Adil Hussain
The Life of Pi is an astonishing story which started as a novel by Yann Martel. Before the film I believe it wasn't exactly the most popular book, however after watching the film I can't wait to go out and buy the book and compare it to the the film (like most book adaptations). The film is about a 16 year old boy named Piscine Patel, who was named after a beautiful swimming pool in Paris "Piscine Molitor"; he changes his name to Pi whilst still in school as he got teased by his classmates. Pi is Hindu, Muslim and Catholic; claiming he just wants to "love god", religion is a huge part of this film and Pi is heavily influenced by religion. His family run a zoo in Pondicherry, the French part of India. After living there for 16 years, Pi's family decide to immigrate as they cannot afford to live there any longer. After his family die in a shipwreck, Pi finds himself alone and stranded on a lifeboat, only to discover the Bengal tiger from the zoo (Richard Parker) is on the boat with him. This film is about the struggle of Pi and Richard Parker as they are alone in the pacific ocean and are trying to find reality, together. It is a story of friendship, coming of age and life.
 There isn't anything bad to say about this film; it's absolutely stunning and the acting is tremendous. Whilst watching I felt as though I were in a dream or watching someone else's dream. It has the best cinematography I have ever seen, wonderfully colourful and teeming with life. For me, this film was life changing, not so much the story but the way it was shot. Each scene had been carefully planned out, each more stunning than the last. The use of colour grading, flawless special effects and every colour you can imagine, The Life of Pi is certainly a once in a lifetime film. I don't think anything will ever top itself in the fact of a nature/wildlife/friendship story. If you thought Free Willy had you tearing up, just wait until you've seen Pi's brave journey with a wild, hungry tiger. It's one of the only films I can truly say I'm glad I saw in 3D; it wasn't one of these "try hard" 3D films where everything is jumping out at you, but it just made it even more perfect and believable. To be honest, I was so engrossed in the film that I didn't have time to remember it was in 3D, after about fifteen minutes I didn't even notice. While watching it, I felt every emotion inside of me light up, I was up and down more than a six month pregnant woman. Every emotion was real, which I can't say is true for a lot of films, I came out of the cinema feeling physically drained I was so engrossed. The characters were so real too. I feel that Pi's character was very relate-able, in that he was trying to grow up on his own, trying to find his own path. Which, in ways is very similar to most teenagers of that age, but they are fortunate enough not to be in the unique situation he's found himself in.
"I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts most is not taking a moment to say goodbye" - Pi Patel.