In the wall of good fortune and the windows to another world

[sovay]

Last night, on the insistence of my brother, I saw Shaun of the Dead (2004)—and was pleasantly surprised. I'm not much for gore, so I'd avoided the film initially, but here the splatter was almost always secondary to the humor: which was generally deadpan and absurd, as in a scene where our hero and his slacker flatmate pitch LPs at an oncoming zombie, but take time out to sort the genuine classics (Purple Rain) from the ammunition (the soundtrack to Batman), or when our plucky band of survivors take a crash course in zombie impersonation ("Look at the face. Vacant, with a hint of sadness . . . Like a drunk who's lost a bet"). Perhaps the best sequence is the initial introduction of the zombies, as our hungover hero staggers to the corner store for a soda, barely conscious himself and decidedly unaware of the certain amount of shambling going on all around him.

It helps that the character work is realistic and matter-of-fact. The protagonists of Shaun of the Dead are the kind of people who would watch zombie movies, but haven't quite wrapped their minds around the idea that they're in one: so that we may be screaming at them to move, but twenty-odd years of dedicated slacking are still telling them that there are far more important things than the carnivorous dead to worry about. I thought the tone stumbled near the finale, which ratchets up the gore along with the emotional stake and suddenly plays both straight, but fortunately the film recovers in the epilogue. And I'd never have expected to recommend a zombie movie to anyone, but this may be one I'd like to own.

I've also picked up Patricia McKillip's Harrowing the Dragon and Solstice Wood, the first of which I read later last night. (I figured it was as good an antidote to zombies as any.) I'm not sorry that I don't own the book, because I have almost all of its contents in various anthologies, but I liked it nonetheless. Of the stories I hadn't previously read, my favorite might have been "Star-Crossed." The treatment of the deaths of Romeo and Juliet as a crime to be solved only goes so far as a narrative trick, but the viewpoint adds another layer: one of the men charged to investigate what looks like a nasty murder-suicide, a no longer young watchman of Verona who shares a lover with one of his co-workers and has learned not to ask which one of them she loves best. There are no supernatural occurrences, but the love and deaths of Romeo and Juliet are made into myth as they pass through the narrator's life; and the inevitable comparison follows. He left me with that thought, as if the lovers had been more than human, nothing like us, who, older and growing tawdry with life, could no more have loved again than we could have cut new teeth. Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking legend . . .

And on that note, Hesiod is about to eat my life.

χρύσεον μὲν πρώτιστα γένος μερόπων ἀνθρώπων
ἀθάνατοι ποίησαν Ὀλύμπια δώματ' ἔχοντες . . .

Comments

[sovay]

But zombie movies are so flexible; they can be scary or silly or both (and usually are both.)

Well, I'm not much for horror as a film genre either; I think Alien may be the exception.* It's not that I'm easily grossed out (I was once involved in a conversation about tuberculosis in an Indian restaurant that scared away a pair of diners behind us. I thought I'd asked a perfectly reasonable question . . . The waiter, however, brought us free dessert. We couldn't figure out if it was a thank-you or a polite bribe to get out and stay out). It's that even when I know all the blood's a special effect, it still bothers me emotionally. For this reason, I was both pleased and entertained to find this time-out photograph from David's death scene, in which Dylan Moran looks only mildly put off by his evisceration:



(There's a priceless sequence involving a functioning lawnmower worn as a breastplate (blade outward) by the embattled protagonist that at least rivals Ash's chainsaw prosthetic in Evil Dead 2).

Okay, look, I've never seen any of the Evil Dead movies either. Or Night of the Living Dead and its sequels. I have a brain that doesn't let go of images easily; I try not to make it any more unhappy than is daily necessary. What do you want?

*All right, and I really like The Shining: any movie that uses the medieval "Dies Irae" for its opening credits has my vote. But I think that's about it.

[time-shark.livejournal.com]

But have you seen Army of Darkness (aka Evil Dead 3)?

Evil Dead 2 is like the ultimate horror kitsch movie (or at least it seemed so when I was a teenager.) Like Dead Alive, it goes so far over the the top that it becomes a comedy. Bruce Campbell's entire screen persona, such as it's been, was basically defined in that movie.

Consider this classic exchange:

Undead-witch-demon-thing : I'll swallow your soul!! I'll swallow your soul!!

Ash (Campbell) [aims shotgun at thingie]: Swallow this!

Of course, it's hard to convey the full impact of the exchange without a) the benefit of Campbell's delivery and b) having shown you the entire duel between the undead thing and Campbell, who is wielding a chainsaw clamped to his arm in place of his severed hand (which, by the way, is possessed and scurrying around loose...)

[sovay]

Bruce Campbell's entire screen persona, such as it's been, was basically defined in that movie.

My total experience of Bruce Campbell is Bubba Ho-Tep (2002). Which was a great film.

[time-shark.livejournal.com]

Campbell's portrayal of Elvis isn't out of step with how he acts in the second and third Evil Deads. (In the first film he's just another victim.) Though those films definitely lack the depth of Bubba Hotep. (Ha! What a sentence!)

Army of Darkness basically jettisons the horror/gore (well, most of it) and lurches straight for a sort of smug Plan 9-level awfulness, which, frankly, it brilliantly achieves. (Hey, another great sentence. ;-p)

[time-shark.livejournal.com]

I neglected to mention that in Army Campbell plays both the hero (who is basically too dumb to be terrified in most instances, though expert in maneuvering a chainsaw prosthetic) and the villain (who, um, wears a lot of gross undead make-up and makes sarcastic wisecracks.)

[sovay]

and lurches straight for a sort of smug Plan 9-level awfulness, which, frankly, it brilliantly achieves.

. . . I may have to see this and judge for myself. Plan 9 from Outer Space is a transcendent film. I'd be impressed if anyone who wasn't Ed Wood could even come close.

[time-shark.livejournal.com]

It's not quite the same, as in this case Raimi (the director) was trying to be bad. But Campbell makes it work.

This is one case, though, where if you can, you should avoid the director's cut, because the ending that was actually released in theaters is a hell of a lot funnier.

Here's a sample, clipped from IMDB:

Ash: Lady, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to leave the store.

Possessed woman: Who the hell are you?

Ash: Name's Ash. [cocks rifle] Housewares.

[lesser-celery.livejournal.com]

I have a brain that doesn't let go of images easily; I try not to make it any more unhappy than is daily necessary.

So maybe Tetsuo isn't the ideal film for you, after all.

[sovay]

So maybe Tetsuo isn't the ideal film for you, after all.

I don't know; I'm not sure that transformation into metal is the same as onscreen dismemberment . . .

[lesser-celery.livejournal.com]

Uh, maybe. I own a DVD of Tetsuo, which we can watch if we're ever physically in the same place, avec DVD player. You might not have sweet dreams for a few days after seeing the movie.

[sovay]

You might not have sweet dreams for a few days after seeing the movie.

I dreamed last night that I coughed up stars of broken glass into my hand: I don't think you should worry.

[lesser-celery.livejournal.com]

Cool. I want to see the poem you write about that.

[hans-the-bold.livejournal.com]

Me too!

[cause-catyljan.livejournal.com]

Hello, I've just started on here so I'm happy to meet you. Hello.

[sovay]

Hey. Welcome!