Big props to fans for the effort, but I’m retired as Ash. #timetofrysomeotherfish https://t.co/Di1aeBV0dl
— Bruce Campbell (@GroovyBruce) April 23, 2018
“Big props to fans for the effort, but I’m retired as Ash.” [Bruce Campbell on Twitter, 23th April 2018].
This message on the social networking site came in the wake of a wave of fan activity as people tried – and, it seems, failed – to convince the TV channel Starz not to cancel the Ash vs. Evil Dead series. Starz have decided to call it a day, citing poor viewing figures as the reason the show has to go. ‘Poor viewing figures’ is of course a relative term; then again, maybe I’m in a bubble here, because everyone I’ve ever heard from loved the show and watched it religiously. Regardless, Series Three is where we’re going to be leaving it, and off the back of Starz’s decision, the star of the show has confirmed that he’s now done with his most famous role for good.
Yes, this is disappointing, and yes, I feel that there are still more ideas that the Raimi brothers could have added in subsequent series, but perhaps we’re looking at it the wrong way. We might do best to see the show as an unexpected bonus. Fans of Ash vs. Evil Dead are justifiably sad that we won’t be seeing more from this extension of the ED universe, but a few short years ago, we didn’t have any idea we’d really ever see Ash taking on the Deadites in his own inimitable way again anyway.
Rumours of an Evil Dead IV have been turning up reliably every few years, but nothing concrete has ever really come along to substantiate these. Personally, I feel like it was an either/or thing with the Evil Dead remake in 2013 – and we ended up with the remake, which aside from that (rather head-scratching) Bruce Campbell cameo after the end credits, moved things in a different direction, even though it ostensibly used the same mythology. Gone was the splatstick and the one-liners which we’d left off with after Evil Dead III; we were back with an altogether grislier spin which dispensed with the comedy altogether. If this was to be our last encounter with the Necronomicon, then we’d be ending on a very different note to what we’d come to expect from Raimi and Campbell – which sat a little awkwardly with many people, myself included.
And then, seemingly out of the blue, years after the remake had come and gone, Ash was back – and back as a character, not a cameo. It was a boon. The TV show, as you might expect given the names behind it, picks up very much in the vein of Army of Darkness, and feels like an organic extension of the Evil Dead universe which is clearly at ease with itself, knowing just where to joke and where to (literally) douse the camera in blood. In effect, it’s the perfect cocktail of elements for long-term fans of the films, who have long appreciated the progression from gory, cartoonish violence in the original film to black comedy in the third. You can also see a clear line of descent from the underappreciated 2007 film My Name is Bruce, perhaps even more clearly given the ways some fans demand Campbell plays Williams and how, when it comes down to it, he has fun obliging – well, up until a point, that is. But the apparent ease and enjoyment Campbell communicates on screen, when playing a role which relates to Evil Dead, has definitely translated successfully to the small screen.
All of this helps the show to be so much damn fun to watch, but the writing itself has added a wealth of zany, but (within a world where a whole host of demonic entities shred their way into smalltown USA) plausible extensions to the 1981 screenplay. The Necronomicon is back – read from at the start of Series One in the ultimate in bad drunk decision-making – but there’s far more. Raimi adds plot elements which relate to the nature of whatever-there-is outside the limits of our world, with new demonic characters to rock the boat. Yes, there are a thousand nods to the films (hello, Linda!) but there’s more than enough new material here. Lucy Lawless as Ruby deserves a special mention for bringing the camp kick-ass she perfected in her Xena days into a world drenched with black magic and flailing innards, and she works as a great foil to Ash and his friends throughout the series. As for his friends, I think Pablo (Ray Santiago) and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) are anything but mere sidekicks, with each of them following their own path and, as things go on, getting their own plotlines too – all of which flesh out the characterisation of the show to just the right degree, never too emotional, nor two-dimensional. You feel you know these people, and you are rooting for them as they open portals and hack off Deadite heads. There isn’t a pointless character or scene written, the plot itself knows just when and how often to throw in the batshit crazy, and the jokes all land effortlessly. In truth, I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a horror spin-off more than this one. I definitely haven’t ever laughed more: the episode where Ash gets himself wedged into a man’s torso in the local morgue had me on the floor, hurt my ribs and made me chuckle for days afterwards. I’m not exaggerating. It really hurt.
So with all of that said, how come I’m not howling with indignation at the show’s cancellation? Well, part of me is, absolutely, as the tyranny of ‘viewing figures’ is only a limited measure of how a show is doing, really, if you could only wait and see. Movies which sink at the Box Office often rejuvenate on DVD and merchandise sales. But it seems pretty impossible that my indignation here would achieve anything, and now that Bruce himself has closed the door, we would be better off accepting that we’re done here. And, whilst I have confidence in Sam and Ivan Raimi – alongside the rest of the talented writers they’ve worked with on the show – you never know what market forces and other factors can throw at you; a potential universe where we’re on Series Ten and the well is running dry sounds pretty unappealing, even if not quite ‘Dark Ones walking the earth’ unappealing. The worst case scenario is a horror version of The Big Bang Theory, which at least we’re definitely being spared.
I can say, hand on heart, that in the three seasons of Ash vs. Evil Dead I have never been bored, nor felt that it was all getting too tried-and-tested. Each of the series I could happily watch over, which I will be doing, as I’m sure I will have missed one brilliant little detail or a rejoinder here and there. This may be of small consolation to the actors and writers who are now out of a job, sure, but I really hope that the show’s reputation propels them on to something else, and very soon.
Plus, you know, Ash Williams isn’t really going anywhere. Three classic films over nearly four decades, three great TV series, and a wealth of fan lit and spin-offs later, he’s going to remain one of horror’s favourite everyday guys forever. We love him because he’s normal, he’s fallible, he makes stupid decisions, but he’s also brave-to-the-point-of-stupider, fearless and funny. He has honour, he has integrity, and he’s aware of his own flaws, as well as in the next moment being dementedly self-confident. Ash is so well-loved because he’s the kind of guy you’d want to be around if the world ended. And, as Ash vs. Evil Dead has boosted that appeal in all sorts of expected and unexpected ways, we owe it a lot of credit and a big thanks too, even if it’s not sticking around as long as we’d like.
My influences come straight from my emotions. I always start creatively with an emotion or tone I want to convey before exploring a narrative. I am drawn to all sorts of storylines and themes, but they key for me is to tell them with a sense of romantic optimism. Sundown could easily have been a depressing and stark social realistic arthouse film, but I want to inspire audiences, make them feel a range of emotions.
“Where do the ideas come from?” It’s a standard question which, for many people working in the creative industries, there’s probably never a standard answer; however, in the new indie movie A Brilliant Monster, the trials and tribulations of continually coming up with workable new projects is given a dark, original twist. It’s an original idea about getting original ideas, if you will.
This behaviour is refracted through an earthy, plausible script which generally works very well – a definite plus, given that this film really lives or dies by its dialogue. On occasion, the repetitive “where do you get the ideas?” line coming from different players can be a little excessive – A Brilliant Monster is capable of establishing its themes beyond doubt without this repetition – but otherwise, the script is good at balancing its touches of humour against moving the narrative forwards. Along the way, it asks some interesting questions and raises some interesting points. For example, the film shows how someone’s celebrity status can impair our judgement of them: the first cop on the case cannot really believe that a famous author could behave in a criminal way, later characters feel just the same way regardless of their backgrounds, and this certainty that status = irreproachable conduct is toyed with throughout the film. People are just seduced by Mitch’s fame; they can’t really see any further. But perhaps more tellingly, A Brilliant Monster looks at the grotesque side of the creative process: in this process, women seem to fare particularly badly (a grisly literal riff on the idea of the ‘muse’ maybe) but as the stakes get higher, Mitch is forced to make ever more difficult tactical decisions in return for what he needs as a writer. The relationship between him, his past, his purpose in writing and his inspiration are given an engaging treatment here.
The Ghost Stories film comes to us off the back of a much-praised stage play of the same title by two of our finest writers, Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson: at the time it was doing the rounds some years ago, I managed to immure myself against hearing even the barest hint of what it was all about, in the hopes that I’d get to go and see it (which I didn’t) whilst having no expectations which could spoil the show. Happily, I’ve managed to go on hearing nothing at all ahead of seeing the film. This is where I think it’s only fair to extend the same courtesy to anyone who might be reading this. In order to discuss Ghost Stories in any meaningful way, I’m going to have to talk about what happens and how it plays out. This will by no means be a plot synopsis, but nonetheless this review may contain mild spoilers from here on in.
There are a great many things in favour of this film, and chief amongst those is – for me – in its visual trickery. The flashy BOO! scenes which punctuate the film (no doubt after the stage play, which itself probably picked up a lot of cues from that stalwart of horror theatre, The Woman in Black) I could take or leave. I find them too easy to see coming, too much more about the reflexes than the imagination. However, what these BOO! moments certainly do achieve is to set you on edge, so that your brain is ready to see things which aren’t there. I haven’t read up on the making of the film, but I’m willing to bet all or at least most of these tricks of the eye are deliberate. ‘The brain sees what it wants to see’, and so on. There are also several nods to other classic British ghost tales – which I won’t name here – but these work with the tales at hand, and don’t feel unnecessarily tacked on. I tell you what else I thought of, and I might be alone in this, but if you’ve ever read the (terrifying) series of books issued by Fortean Times called ‘It Happened To Me’, where utterly ordinary people write in with their supernatural experiences – some of the tales in the film are strongly reminiscent of stories I’ve read there, particularly the middle story, though this may of course be entirely coincidental. In any case, it’s great to see a cast of such well-known British actors, often comedy actors, taking on something quite as dark as Ghost Stories and doing a superb job, even managing to blend in a few moments of gallows humour without dissipating the horror.
In a stark opening scene, composed largely from a colour palette of black, white, and tiny amounts of red – a young woman awakens. She is in a mysterious room, has crippling injuries to her legs, and is clearly shocked and confused by her predicament. As soon as she wakes up, she’s addressed by a man: he gives his name, explains that she has been kidnapped, and she will remain in this room until such time as she “falls in love” with him. Before leaving her alone, he warns her not to try and escape – her legs are too damaged, the place they’re in is too isolated and she won’t get far.
The woman in captivity – Ruby – is told by her captor – Thomas – that she will be following a strict new schedule. She will be fed, she will be given medication, she will be slowly helped to heal, and her sleep will be controlled. It’s soon clear that Ruby has no idea who she is: she keeps looking with wonder at a bracelet engraved with her name, and when she gets to look at some of her possessions, kept in a nearby handbag, she’s confused by them, too. As she begins to feel more well, she begins to ask questions of Thomas, though he is not exactly forthcoming (captors in cinema rarely seem particularly garrulous). He does assure her, though, that he hasn’t kidnapped with any sexual intentions; Ruby can barely believe this, asking several times if she has been assaulted. She doesn’t endure any further cruelty, though, which begins to encourage her to dig deeper; she becomes increasingly confident with this man, and he begins to warm to her.
The year is 1846. After surviving a devastating shipwreck whilst en route to America, three men manage to make it to dry land – which turns out to be a remote Scottish island, where only a handful of people seem to live, eking out an existence. However, the first islander to greet them – a man named Fingal MacLeod (Dickon Tyrell) – seems genuinely interested in their welfare, offering them food and shelter whilst asking what exactly befell their vessel. The sailors find that difficult to explain: a sudden turn in the weather made it impossible for them to navigate, they recall, but beyond that, they aren’t sure. Fingal promises to help them get back to the mainland regardless, and suggests they stay at the local farmhouse in the meantime. Grateful for the surly assistance of the Innis household, Oliver (Alex Hassell), Cailean (Fisayo Akinade) and Jimmy (Graham Butler) can do little but wait it out.
The film also takes its time in establishing characters, allowing them to build in an organic way without using line after line of exposition. Seeing the characters measured against the stark, but beautiful location seems to add a great deal to how we see them, too, and this requires almost no dialogue to be spoken at all. The unmistakeable Scottish landscape dwarfs the people on this island, both outsiders and residents, reminding the audience of how little agency they have in this unforgiving environment. More than this, the rocks, woods and beaches also figure hugely in the narrative: being lost, being trapped and being disorientated are states which propel the plot onwards in their own ways. And, before the film unfolds its surprises, finally revealing its secrets (The Isle’s changes in direction are genuinely surprising and engaging) we are kept on the same level as the characters themselves – never truly sure whether this bleak place can be taken on face value.
Marriage in the nineteenth century – particularly between the lower middle classes, perhaps, who had enough to lose but little enough to boast – must have been for many women a miserable existence. Firstly, women often had limited influence on the matches proposed to them, having to consider the fortune of their families and dependents as well as themselves, when respectable opportunities to earn money were very limited. The Married Woman’s Property Acts did not come in until 1870 and beyond; until that time, women forfeited any land, property or money they had in their own names, passing it directly to their husbands at the point of marriage. They had no legal rights to their own children – the father de facto retained that right – and limited access even to the extreme solution of divorce which, in the rare cases it took place, frequently led to women being socially ostracised, shunned by neighbours and family, and of course penniless, if they had no other arrangement or allowance entailed upon them. The only legitimate, respectable way out of a middle-class marriage was widowhood.
Knowing the young bride is alone in the house one night, Sebastian takes his chance and sneaks in, giving the lie to the absent Alexander’s assertion that Katherine will be ‘safer’ there. At first, Katherine acts the part of the valiant virgin, trying to repel what seems a would-be rape – but then, subverting the expected codes of behaviour, she inverts the situation, suddenly reciprocating his advances. Sebastian suddenly has to re-assess, finding himself no longer in the stereotypical male role; he might have expected her to behave more like Anna perhaps, who even as a social inferior is demure enough to be mortified. Respectable women at this time were supposed to be passive, and virtually asexual – only submitting to the act for the purpose of maternity. Dr William Acton, practitioner to Queen Victoria, wrote a famous paper in 1857 – so, contemporary with the film – where he claimed that ‘the majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled by sexual feelings of any kind’: certainly, Sebastian is surprised by the way Katherine responds, and it’s not what he would have expected. It is also the moment that his own agency begins to rescind, irreparably, whilst hers blossoms – at least, up until a point.
There’s no simple answer here, but it’s worth remembering that she is not the only woman whose lot in life is pinioned by her social role. Anna, the lady’s maid, is a liminal figure in the film who is often present at key moments, but utterly peripheral, unable to influence things one way or another. She tries – valiantly – but she is in the unenviable position of being on the lowest rung here, the only person Katherine can command with propriety and impunity. There’s an interesting relationship between the two women, one which moves from some degree of intimacy to complete alienation. As Katherine’s sense of agency escalates, Anna’s already-limited agency diminishes – to the point when the girl becomes utterly voiceless in the face of the crimes she is forced to witness.
I feel as though I’ve been here before. Not just because there was a film called Bong of the Dead a few years ago, which my co-editor Ben reviewed, nor indeed because this very day 
Eventually, the zombie thing intrudes a bit more forcefully into their home when a zombie gets to one of them (and it’s not as if they’re walled in, by the way – one of the characters pops in and out whenever he wants). This darkens the mood rather suddenly. To dispel the fairly static scenes which preceded this sudden spike in drama, Bong of the Living Dead now dispenses with the loud, wild-eyed intonation which came before and tries to segue into sentimentality for a while – something which just doesn’t mesh well.
Whilst I have something of a handle on Japanese cinema of the 70s and 80s – well, in so far as the films have made the great leap to Western screens – I know comparatively little about Chinese cinema of the same period, and in that I have to include Hong Kong/Taiwan. I’ve seen a couple of hopping vampires (hopping because they still have their winding sheets on) and a handful of crime dramas, but not a lot else. Compared to Japan, China, HK and Taiwan are, by and large, a closed book. I’m aware, though, that the director of Legend of the Mountain, King Hu, moved from acting to directing, and that the film under consideration here is oft considered to be his magnum opus. An epic it certainly is; rocking in at over three hours, it’s a lengthy, visually incredibly accomplished Chinese folk tale, which uses its ample screen time to do a great deal of quite disparate things along the way.
This entire project screams classic China: abundant landscapes are presented in a highly colourised, painterly manner, and traditional Chinese instrumentation accompanies the action throughout. Then, of course, the subject matter itself is based on ancient folklore, and to an extent this film is a piece of Far Eastern folk horror, albeit that the film never settles into this mode completely. Supernatural elements underpin the story, and the director works hard within his means to produce some subtle, uncanny scenes. But this film is many other things, to the extent that it never really takes its place in any genre, in an expected sense. It has an eye for historical detail, but also flits between being a pastoral, a romance, a reminiscence and – when it’s not adding comedic elements and the obligatory martial arts scenes to this melee – it even dabbles in Buddhist philosophy, ruminating on life, love and everything. Overall, Legend of the Mountain does a great, great deal. Well, the film is immensely long, and I’ll say it, as ever; it’s rather too long for my tastes, and despite its pleasant visuals and overall engaging subject matter, it veers from cramming in more and more plot elements to lengthy, even unnecessary forays through the woods. As it’s nearly forty years old, I can’t even say it’s falling in behind the new tendency to make films increasingly longer.