Wednesday, October 28, 2015

HALLOWEEN: The Mythology of Michael Myers

Shock Till You Drop
HALLOWEEN: The Mythology of Michael Myers

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Myers1 SHOCK’s Alexandra West slices into the deep, cinematic mythology of mass-murderer Michael Myers.

Michael Myers – the man, the myth, the enigma. Since he slowly lumbered on to the screen and into horror fan’s hearts in John Carpenter’s 1978 classic HALLOWEEN, Michael has become synonymous with horror movies and the stuff of nightmares. While Michael was on the pop culture scene before his counterparts Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger, both of whom arguably exist due to Michael’s influence, Michael has had a harder time fitting into a larger pop culture context. Easily recognizable to horror fans, many mainstream audience members didn’t click with Michael the way they had with the wise-cracking Freddy (despite his history as a child murderer/pedophile) or Jason’s oddly sympathetic rage. Michael never fit into a mold which would grant him mainstream recognition. It didn’t help that while the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and FRIDAY THE 13th franchises grew into wacky parodies of themselves, the HALLOWEEN franchise maintained its stoic and dark roots. Michael Myers is the blank canvas of evil; producers, directors and writers added to his mythology as though they were playing a never-ending game of Jenga hoping they weren’t the one to pull the piece that would make the entire franchise come tumbling down. So, how do you solve the problem of an unstoppable force that is seemingly stopped at the end of each film he appears him? Revise, rewrite and hope the audience isn’t paying too much attention. But for the horror fans who have a soft spot for the figure originally known as The Shape, his convoluted back story is part of his charm. Each Halloween sequel has its supporters so the purposes of this piece we’re going to treat each one as canon in an experiment to see what we truly know about the man behind the mask.

 Myers began his reign of terror as a boy, killing his older sister, Judith on Halloween when he was six. He was then committed to Warren County Smith’s Grove Sanitarium where he escapes from on Halloween 1978 kicking off the events of the first film. He returns to his home of Haddonfield, Illinois wreaking havoc on the small town. Focusing his attention on Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends Michael is an unmovable force. Laurie is able to defend herself long enough for Michael’s attending physician and boogeyman expert Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) to arrive and shoot his patient. Unfortunately for Loomis and Laurie, the madness is far from over as Michael’s body disappears at the end of the first film.

Primed for return, Michael Myers tracks Laurie down in a hospital in HALLOWEEN II (1981) which picks up immediately after the events of the first film. HALLOWEEN II takes on many of the same thematic and filmic styles of the first film but the main thrust of the action (outside of the randy nurses and doctors) stems from Michael consistent pursuit of Laurie who the audience learns is Michael’s younger sister who was adopted by the Strode family. Dr. Loomis is still at work trying to track Michael down eventually connecting him to the occult and Samhain, a Gaelic end-of-harvest festival which ushers in the beginning of the “darker” half of the year. These two connections, which are briefly mentioned in the film are meant to explain some of Michael seeming indestructibility, come across as throwaways but these elements will return soon enough. After some more stabbings and shootings in the hospitals Laurie and Dr. Loomis manage set Michael on fire. The final images in the film are of fire pouring out of Michael’s white mask implying an almost certain death.

HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982) attempted to deviate from the slasher set-up favoring witchy Halloween masks and the sex appeal of Tom Atkins. When HALLOWEEN III proved to be box office poison producers decided to resurrect Michael Myers with HALLOWEEN IV: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS (1988) a title decision playing on the name recognition which had already been established with Jason and Freddy and a promise to the audience that while HALLOWEEN IV would deny them a shirtless Tom Atkins, Michael would indeed be back. HALLOWEEN IV would begin what became known as the Thorn Trilogy which would see a mysterious cult try to control Michael adding some of the most outrageous yet interesting elements of the Michael Myers mythos.

The opening of HALLOWEEN IV explains that Michael survived fire shooting out of his mask in Halloween II though sustained burns and has been in a coma since. While transferring Michael to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium by ambulance, the two paramedics discuss the events of the first two films and in doing so; they mention that Michael has a niece, Laurie’s daughter Jamie (Danielle Harris). Michael attacks the paramedics, crashing the ambulance and beelines to Haddonfield to find his niece. The young Jamie is tormented at school and still struggling to find her place in the world after the death of her parents. Though her adopted teenage sister Rachel (Ellie Cornell) does the best she can to make Jamie feel at home, Jamie can’t shake the strange presence of her uncle Michael that she feels is growing closer to her. The character of Jamie functions in a similar capacity as Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) in the Friday the 13th series suggesting a child would take up the mantle of a malevolent killer. Halloween IV keeps to the chasing and slashing but ends with a final coda mirroring the opening prologue of the first film with Jamie attacking her stepmother while the camera adopts her gaze from behind the mask that she wears as part of her clown costume.

HALLOWEEN V: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1989) begins with Jamie institutionalized and almost mute after the experiences of the previous film. While her remaining friends and family are picked by her un-killable uncle, Jamie’s psychic bond to Michael grows stronger and Dr. Loomis becomes determined to use this power against Michael. Luring Michael to his old home where Michael killed his older sister all those years before, Loomis uses Jamie as bait. At the moment when Michael shows some semblance of humanity and reaches out to Jamie his urge to kill overtakes him and he attack her and Loomis subdues him by beating him with a piece of plywood. Michael is taken to jail but is broken out by the mysterious Man in Black.

HALLOWEEN VI: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS (1995) not only complicates the story of Michael Myers but also caused it to fracture with the release of the Producer’s Cut which would add in various subplots which were filmed but ultimately cut from the film’s original release creating two divergent plots for the film. HALLOWEEN VI follows Tommy Doyle (Paul Rudd) who’s all grown up after Laurie Strode’s Adventures in Babysitting (aka Halloween 1978). Tommy is still obsessed with Michael as is the entire town of Haddonfield. Jamie is also all grown up and is being held by the mysterious Thorn cult. Michael kills Jamie after she gives birth (in the Producer’s Cut it is revealed that Michael is the baby’s father). Tommy finds Jamie’s baby and takes it for safe-keeping. The film runs at a cutthroat pace in an attempt to resolve many of the questions asked in the previous films but only serves to leave more loose ends in its wake. Ultimately, the final take away from HALLOWEEN VI is that Michael Myers is sort of controlled by a cult who has been a part of Michael’s life since he was institutionalized. Yes, there could be other take-aways, such as Michael is anatomically correct and can be filled with corrosive goo for a Fun-Time version of Michael but these elements are more like wacky add-ons that you get with a special edition action figure. There are multiple uses of a sinister tattoo and star configurations that appear around Halloween causing the Curse of the Thorn which Tommy speculates causes Michael’s murderous rages to wipe out his entire family. Tommy theorizes that the Curse of the Thorn is what makes Michael invincible and that his son/great-nephew is his Michael’s last sacrifice which makes about as much sense as anything else in this movie.

A mere three years later, Michael Myers would reemerge in a filmic landscape reinvigorated by the reception of SCREAM (1996). Ignoring the events after HALLOWEEN II, HALLOWEEN H20 (1998) focuses on Laurie Strode now a dean at a private school. Still traumatized after the events of that fateful night she watches over her son John (Josh Hartnett) like a mother bear on steroids waiting for Michael to show his face again which he inevitably does. In the larger mythology of Michael Myers, HALLOWEEN H20 only serves to illustrate that Michael is very good at taking off his clothes and putting them on someone else. At the climax of the film, Laurie unleashes her rage and kills who she thinks is Michael. A lot of the press materials and interviews given in 1998 noted that this would be the final movie and that Jamie Lee Curtis returned to the role not only for the fans but also to give Laurie some sort of closure….

But when HALLOWEEN H20 performed better than expected, Dimension Films greenlit what would be the final sequel HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION (2002) which saw Michael finally kill Laurie and terrorize a reality show that was being filmed in his old home. So we know that Michael hates reality television and is probably more of a PBS guy.

As remakes became the go-to studio model for horror after the success of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003), it was only a matter of time before HALLOWEEN got a makeover. Rob Zombie’s two HALLOWEEN films divided audiences but ultimately served as an exercise for Zombie himself rather than an exploration of the notions of good and evil. Zombie adds extensively to the Michael Myers backstory depicting his family as low-income with his well-intentioned mother (Sherri Moon Zombie) serving as the only one able to tap into his humanity though she ultimately loses her son to the darkness that would consume him. Through the two films, Zombie cannibalizes elements from all the other HALLOWEEN films re-framing them as 1970s grindhouse, exploitation films making Zombie’s HALLOWEENs an experiment in aesthetics rather than plot. While Carpenter’s film (as well as its subsequent sequels) depicts Michael as the emblem of the banality of evil, a small child from an average suburban family driven to commit unspeakable acts for no reason, Zombie’s imbues Michael’s story with a level of sympathy. Could Michael have been saved if the rest of his family weren’t suck dicks? Probably not. Zombie’s HALLOWEENs provided enough fodder for other properties (FRIDAY THE 13th and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET etc.) to be remade with an emphasis on the backstory of the killer.

Michael Myers has been viewed as many things. He lacks the kicky backstory of a Freddy or a Jason but can instill as much, if not more, fear in an audience. For all the films in which Michael has appeared, we now know for sure that the easiest way to subdue Michael is to beat him with an inanimate object (see HALLOWEEN V & VI for a detailed how-to), his eye color is black and that he can be filled with goo (HALLOWEEN VI). What we do not know, and will never know, is what drives Michael which is the scariest unknown of all…

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Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Shock Video: David Koechner & Michael Dougherty Talk KRAMPUS

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Shock Video: David Koechner & Michael Dougherty Talk KRAMPUS

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A visit to the Krampus haunted house with Michael Dougherty & David Koechner!

After director Michael Dougherty’s Halloween horror anthology Trick ‘r Treat was barely released in 2007, it somehow, miraculously, found the audience that appreciated its blend of humor, imaginative production design and scares on DVD. Now Dougherty is back and ready to take on Christmas with Universal and Legendary’s slice of holiday horror titled Krampus, and we had the chance to do an exclusive video interview with him and actor David Koechner (Anchorman, Final Destination 5) at the Scarehouse in Pittsburgh. Currently housing both Krampus and Trick ‘r Treat-themed haunted house attractions, we had the chance to do a special video walk-through of this maze of terrors, as did Koechner and Dougherty!

Check out the videos of the interview and our tour of the haunted house below, along with a gallery of pictures from our visit to the Scarehouse!

Based on the figure from German folklore, which has had a pop culture resurgence in recent years, Krampus follows a young boy named Max (Emjay Anthony) whose dysfunctional family disillusions him about Christmas. Little does he know, this lack of festive spirit has unleashed the wrath of Krampus: a demonic force of ancient evil intent on punishing non-believers. All hell breaks loose as beloved holiday icons take on a monstrous life of their own, laying siege to the fractured family’s home and forcing them to fight for each other if they hope to survive.

Written by Dougherty, Todd Casey and Zach Shields, the film stars Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner, Allison Tolman, Conchata Ferrell, Emjay Anthony, Stefania Owen and Krista Stadler. It will be released by Universal Pictures on December 4.

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Guillermo Del Toro, Tristan Risk, Debbie Rochon and More Pick Their Favorite Movie Murders

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Guillermo Del Toro, Tristan Risk, Debbie Rochon and More Pick Their Favorite Movie Murders

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Guillermo del Toro, Tristan Risk, Debbie Rochon, Barbie Wilde and Tom Holland pick their favorite movie murders.

Watching people die in real life sucks. Watching them die in ‘reel’ life can be thrilling, delightfully disturbing, majestic and unforgettable. Horror films have, of course, made their bloody bones on scenes of stylized death (my is the operatic elevator scene in maestro Brian De Palma’s brilliant 1980 neo-giallo DRESSED TO KILL) but phantasmagorical, superbly orchestrated and, er, executed on-screen murder isn’t necessarily relegated to the genre…

We polled a pack of our famous ‘”friends in fright” to see what their favorite movie murders were and, almost universally, these heavy hitters chose bloody ends from pictures only vaguely associated with full-blown horror.

Have a look…

Guillermo Del Toro (CRIMSON PEAK, CRONOS, PACIFIC RIM)

MACBETH (Dir: Roman Polanski)

“The Decapitation of Macbeth”

GDT: The decapitation of Macbeth follows one of the greatest sword fights in film history and then, in 4 impeccable cuts, Polanski uses a dummy and a decapitated head to unparalleled effect. Plus, we later get a POV of the severed head!

Tristan Risk (AMERICAN MARY, THE EDITOR)

KILL BILL: PART ONE (Dir: Quentin Tarantino)

Massacre at the House of the Blue Leaves

TR: Ooh yeah… My favorite murder scene is a multiple murder, in Kill Bill Part One where The Bride (Uma Thurman) battles the Crazy 88s and Gogo. The sheer insanity of the whole thing is a joy to watch. I can only imagine how long that whole thing took to capture, so I doff my hat to Mr.Tarantino, and his crew for that…

Debbie Rochon (TERROR FIRMER, THE WRATH OF CROWS)

TAXI DRIVER (Dir: Martin Scorsese)

“Travis’ Rampage”

DR: The end sequence when Travis wipes out Iris’ pimp Sport and his Time Keeping cohorts. Scorsese drops the use of music as soon as Travis gets out of his cab and confronts Sport. This delivers a sense of hyper-realism and forces you into the moment. The realistic shooting of all Travis’ victims, as well as Travis being shot himself, is what makes this revenge scene work so well. One simple gunshot shot doesn’t bring down any of the characters. Scorsese also uses slow motion during this sequence for the character of Iris which gives just that one character a dream like moment stretching our her response to the mass murder. It’s topped off with more realism; when Travis tries to unromantically, no hero shot used, shoot himself in the head. But he fires his gun, which is planted firmly to his jaw and clicks the gun multiple times to no avail. Seeing the character is serious about blowing his own brains out, he then gets another gun which bares the same results. No bullets left. Travis then sits on the couch knowing the plan has now changed – just as it did when he had unsuccessfully planned to kill the presidential candidate. Scorsese only brings the Herrmann score back in when the police arrive…

Barbie Wilde (HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II, Author of THE VENUS COMPLEX)

LA CONFIDENTIAL (Dir: Curtis Hanson)

“Jack’s Murder”

BW: Kevin Spacey’s demise in LA CONFIDENTIAL was spectacular in its subtle realism. “Have you a valediction, boyo?” asks the dastardly Dudley Smith (James Cromwell), just after he shoots the unflappable and unsuspecting Jack Vincennes (Spacey). “Rollo Tomasi…”, Jack whispers and squeezes out a last little ironic chuckle of triumph before he fades out and then, astonishingly, THE LIGHT GOES OUT OF HIS EYES! How the hell did Spacey do that? I found out later that he simply de-focused his eyes, but damn, I’d never seen it in a movie before LA Confidential. Brilliant. (“Rollo Tomasi” was Jack’s coded message from beyond the grave to fellow cop Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) as a clue to snag Dudley.)

Also, this scene is notable for the fact that the villain doesn’t explain a damn thing about his devious goings-on before the brave detective wrestles the gun from him and makes the arrest. Nope, Dudley just puts the kettle down, turns around and shoots Jack. What a shocker. No verbal foreplay, no egotistical showing off how brilliant Dudley’s plans were, no toying with his victim, no chat to allow Jack to get the upper hand. Just one of the most surprising murders I’ve ever witnessed in a film.

Tom Holland (PSYCHO II, FRIGHT NIGHT, CHILD’S PLAY)

PSYCHO (Dir: Alfred Hitchcock)

“Marion’s Murder”

TH: My favorite murder is the most important murder, the shower scene in PSYCHO. The scene birthed the slasher movie and the very concept of “kills.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VP5jEAP3K4

So, dear readers…what’s your favorite movie murder? Do tell in the comments below…

The post Guillermo Del Toro, Tristan Risk, Debbie Rochon and More Pick Their Favorite Movie Murders appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Monday, October 26, 2015

“Chris Alexander’s SHOCK TREATMENT”: Jess Franco’s 1981 Slasher BLOODY MOON

Shock Till You Drop
“Chris Alexander’s SHOCK TREATMENT”: Jess Franco’s 1981 Slasher BLOODY MOON

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ShockTreatment! In this ongoing SHOCK column, editor Chris Alexander muses on classic and contemporary films and music worthy of a deeper discussion.

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Jess Franco’s BLOODY MOON (1981)

Beloved, hotly debated and now, sadly, deceased iconoclast Jess Franco first made his major movie mark in France with a series of crisp, sleazy and stylish black and white arthouse horror pictures like 1962’s landmark THE AWFUL DR. ORLOFF (a quote on Georges Franju’s groundbreaking sex and surgery epic EYES WITHOUT A FACE), movies that valued high contrast photography, graphic violence and then mild, soon to be abundant female nudity. Over the span of the ensuing decades the tirelessly prolific Franco would make scores of personal, jazz influenced (Franco was also an accomplished composer and musician) sonnets to sex, violence and voyeurism, playing with color and working with budgets both high and low in any country that would fund his filmmaking fetish.

Which brings me to BLOODY MOON, a latter period early 80’s German financed (the original title was DIE SAGE DES TODES or THE SAW OF DEATH) bloodbath made in the wake of the slasher craze sparked by John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN and juiced up by the considerably later, much more explicit FRIDAY THE 13th. But the seriously bent BLOODY MOON (whose ample but klutzy murders landed it onto the Video Nasties list in the UK) is so much more than simply a stalk and stab shocker. Why? Because it was made by Franco, of course and, as any serious scholar of Jess’s work knows, no matter how dodgy and cheap a more downmarket Franco film could be there’s always something there that was uniquely his. A lazy lidded energy, a leering point of view…something.

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This typically greasy looking film opens on a spectacularly sickening murder at a Spanish girls school by a completely un-spectacularly made-up lunatic (Alexander Waechter). Five years later, pretty young student Angela (sex film starlet Olivia Pascal) has taken up residence in the same room where the said slaughter went down and to make matters eerier, the Velveeta-faced killer has been released from the looney bin, apparently none-to-reformed.

Sooner than later, a spate of increasingly sadistic killings kick into high gear with all manner of lovely lass getting revoltingly ripped to ribbons. Is it old cheese-puss wearing the dollar store black gloves that pop into frame before each offing? Is it his comely sister with whom he shares a rather, um, close relationship? Before Franco’s 90 minute mess winds down, all questions will be answered and many tummies will be well-turned…

Now, as I mentioned, Franco made a staggering amount of films, including such acknowledged classics like VENUS IN FURS, SHE KILLED IN ECSTASY, FACELESS and VAMPYROS LESBOS, so you might be wondering why I’ve chosen to muse on BLOODY MOON. The answer is simple. Plenty of people dislike the work of Jess Franco, laughingly labeling him a hack. And while I’ll never argue that the man has made more than his share of duds, when someone gives him a bit of time, money and space, Franco had no peer, making stylish, eccentric and very personal films. BLOODY MOON has moments of free-form Franconian vision and, despite its budgetary and narrative failing, is a blood-bucket full of fun.

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By his own admission (revealed in an often hilarious interview that accompanies Severin’s Blu-rayrelease), Franco signed on to the project under the promise that his craven producers had art-rock super group Pink Floyd attached to compose the score. As this was the early 80’s and the already legendary band was achieving their commercial apex with the double disc, chart topping album The Wall (as well as dissolving internally), it would be obvious to anyone with any shade of cynicism, insight or common sense that they would never, ever have their name glued to a grubby European slasher movie directed by the guy who made THE BARE BREASTED COUNTESS. But again, Franco just wanted to work and so he proceeded in hopes that such boasts might be the icing on the gig.

Instead of a Floyd score, BLOODY MOON features music by someone named Gerhard Heinz, a German born tunesmith who tries his best to mimic a David Gilmour-esque guitar-jacked, psych-rock sound and for the most part, succeeds. Many fans and critics have cited this score as the picture’s most offensive element, but I rather like it – it’s bizarre, bombastic and dirty and it works. When an unlucky lady gets her head sawed off in the films’ most notorious (and delightfully fake) gore sequence, those wailing guitars and skunky basslines sound perfectly awesome.

Franco’s masterpiece? Far from it. But BLOODY MOON is pure, sleazy, upbeat Jess gore gold. A document of a creative innocence, of a guy who worked to live and lived to work, who just loved making movies and managed to weave his way into pop culture legend by never giving up, never stepping off that ladder. Good on him and God rest him…

 Note: portions of this essay originally appeared in “Chris Alexander’s Blood Spattered Book” from Midnight Marquee Press.

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Freaks of Nature Drops Red Band Trailer & Stills … & They Are Fantastic!!

AnythingHorror Central
Freaks of Nature Drops Red Band Trailer & Stills … & They Are Fantastic!!
Nick Braun and Vanessa Hudgens in Columbia Pictures' "Freaks of Nature."

Nick Braun and Vanessa Hudgens in Columbia Pictures’ “Freaks of Nature.”

Here’s a film I really didn’t hear much about until I saw the trailer for the first time the other week. FREAK OF NATURE combines zombies, vampires, humans, and aliens into one big old pot of tasty looking horror gumbo!! FREAKS OF NATURE is directed by Robbie Pickering, is written by Oren Uziel, and stars Vanessa Hudgens, Cerina Vincent, Joan Cusack, Bob Odenkirk, Keegan-Michael Key, Patton Oswalt, Denis Leary, Mackenzie Davis, Ed Westwick, and Chris Zylka. In case you couldn’t tell from the cast, this is indeed a horror-comedy, and I like that they didn’t just cast comedians in the film. The cast comedians with a dark side to their comedy. What’s the film about? Glad you asked:

L-r, Nick Braun, Mackenzie Davis and Josh Fadem in Columbia Pictures' "Freaks of Nature."

L-r, Nick Braun, Mackenzie Davis and Josh Fadem in Columbia Pictures’ “Freaks of Nature.”

In Freaks of Nature, we welcome you to Dillford, where three days ago, everything was peaceful and business as usual: the vampires were at the top of the social order, the zombies were at the bottom, and the humans were getting along in the middle. But this delicate balance was ripped apart when the alien apocalypse arrived in Dillford and put an end to all the harmony. Now it’s humans vs. vampires vs. zombies in all-out, blood-sucking, brain-eating, vamp-staking mortal combat – and all of them are on the run from the aliens. It is up to three teenagers – one human, one vampire, and one zombie – to team up, figure out how to get rid of the interplanetary visitors, and try to restore order to this “normal” little town.

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Sounds like it is going to be a ton of fun. And in case you’re doubting that, here’s the red-band trailer:

FREAKS OF NATURE looks like a lot of fun and is slated to hit theaters the day before Halloween, October 30, 2015. Well you be checking this one out?

Stay Bloody!!!Freaks of Nature poster

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Keegan-Michael Key in Columbia Pictures' "Freaks of Nature."

Keegan-Michael Key in Columbia Pictures’ “Freaks of Nature.”

Ed Westwick and Mackenzie Davis in Columbia Pictures' "Freaks of Nature."

Ed Westwick and Mackenzie Davis in Columbia Pictures’ “Freaks of Nature.”

Keegan-Michael Key in Columbia Pictures' "Freaks of Nature."

Keegan-Michael Key in Columbia Pictures’ “Freaks of Nature.”

Mackenzie Davis, right, and Vanessa Hudgens in Columbia Pictures' "Freaks of Nature."

Mackenzie Davis, right, and Vanessa Hudgens in Columbia Pictures’ “Freaks of Nature.”


Filed under: Breaking News, New Posting, Upcoming Releases, Zombie Flicks

Interview: Ashley C. Williams Talks Sexuality, Violence and the Primal Power of JULIA

Shock Till You Drop
Interview: Ashley C. Williams Talks Sexuality, Violence and the Primal Power of JULIA

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Actress Ashley C. Williams discusses her blistering turn in the dark psychodrama JULIA.

Currently in US theaters and VOD is writer/director Matthew A. Brown’s darker-than-pitch female-centric psychodrama JULIA, a disturbing, violent and elegantly perverse study of a young woman who finds salvation and redemption via severe transgression.

JULIA is an immaculate indie film; thoughtful and intelligent, it plays with tropes and clichés and creates from them. a work of stylized art. But as good as the film is (and it is very, very good), it relies extensively on the woman at its core, the central presence of the character whose name graces the title, played by the beautiful, articulate actress Ashley C. Williams.

Horror fans will of course forever cite Williams as one of the unfortunate living links in the chain that made up Tom Six’s original THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE and, although she exhibited decent range in that, um, cheeky and extreme work, it’s nothing compared to the performance she delivers here.

JULIA calls on Williams to delve deep into the dark to help etch a portrait of a meek, victimized young woman who, after surviving a sexual assault, finds both solace and empowerment in the grip of a secret cabal of women who, spurred by a more-than-a-bit-sinister doctor, are rebuilt as angels of death. And though Julia does indeed begin her road to repair by bloodily righting wrongs, she cannot be controlled for long.

To give away more would be to wreck the joys of watching Williams’ carefully controlled performance uncoil like the figurative serpent it is. So affected were we by the film and its star, that we had to reach out to Williams and ask her a few questions.

Here are those questions. And although Williams answers them with authority, the only real way to have your own questions answered about JULIA is to find it and see it…

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SHOCK: You shot the film in early 2013; when you talk about the movie and the character now, do you feel somewhat distanced?

WILLIAMS: I think I feel outside of it as far as being the character is concerned. When I talk about it, it’s like I’m speaking about someone else and the same thing happens when I watch the movie, I feel like I’m watching Julia, not me being Julia. But even though it’s been a few years since we shot the movie, the film has constantly been in my life We’ve played festivals all over the world, I’ve done countless Q&A’s; but it’s exciting now that it’s been released and I’m still very happy that it’s in my life.

SHOCK: The character is like a timid mouse, initially. She’s a victim who, even when she turns the tables, still seems somewhat “off”. Your personality is far removed from this, or at least appears to be. Did you have to fully immerse yourself in the character and was it emotionally difficult to do?

WILLIAMS: Julia goes on a transformative journey and that’s what intrigued me about her story when I read the script. In fact, there are, believe it or not, many similarities between us. We were jumping all over the place when we shot and I had to check in with myself every scene; I had to ask myself “where is she emotionally? Is she now the victim or the vengeful goddess?” So on that level, it was difficult to navigate where she was at any given point. But playing her as a victim was easier. It was harder to do the powerful, determined strong woman. Ultimately, I learned a lot from her and I absorbed some of her personality into my own life.

SHOCK: Many critics will try to paint JULIA as a political film. And granted, men are not presented in a positive light but then again, neither are women, particularly. Do you think this a gender political film?

WILLIAMS: It definitely wasn’t the director’s intention to make a movie about how women are treated by making men these hateful creatures. It’s not an empowerment film. He wasn’t trying to make a film about empowering women. It’s a story about a girl who goes on a journey and awakens to her most primal, evil self.

SHOCK: I see plenty of indie horror and much of it isn’t very good. JULIA is such a sophisticated piece of work; I just hope it doesn’t get ghettoized with much of the genre slop that’s being pumped out. In fact, I can imagine if a name like Lars Von Trier’s name was on the poster, the movie would be celebrated as a an audacious work of art. Do you even consider JULIA a horror film?

WILLIAMS: I don’t. And I was really excited when I read the script because of the depth of the piece. Ever since THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, I’ve been offered horror film after horror film and I’ve turned most of them down because, if the right people aren’t behind something like JULIA for instance, it becomes distasteful and I didn’t want to get trapped in that cycle of making subpar films. So, this film is revenge story first, a psychological film with some horror elements like the amount of blood an violence. But it’s a very dark, moody, noir is how I see it; a stylized piece of stunning visual work that sets it apart from many indie horror films.

SHOCK: I know shooting scenes involving sexuality on-set is often a lark. But how about watching yourself on-screen, especially during sequences of sexual violence?

WILLIAMS: I think when we shot the film I was actually a bit worried, wondering if I was going to look okay as this was my first really sexual scene that I’d ever shot in a movie so, yeah, I was concerned on set. But it was easier than I thought because it’s technical and you stop and start and stuff. But when I saw the sexual scenes, I was in awe about what the director did with it. None of it is gratuitous and it’s beautifully shot; if anything, watching it I was like, “hmmm…so that’s what I look like when I, um (laughs), am in a situation like that!” But then I go back into the movie and I can enjoy it without thinking of myself.

SHOCK: You’re still a gigging actress. But after making such a sophisticated piece of work like JULIA, are you going to try to keep on this path, making these more European flavored, elevated genre films?

WILLIAMS: Yes. That is my goal and JULIA is a good start. Moving on up is my goal as an actress and I’m really only attracted to a good script and finding a director who has a vision. These days such things are rare and sometimes, I do get the need to take a project just because I want to work, of course. But I am gaining more patience as I age. And if that means not working all the time just to find quality projects, so be it.

SHOCK: But you know, THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE is actually a very clever, sophisticated film too…

WILLIAMS: It is. People think its just exploitation but it’s beautifully shot and stylized and a black comedy. Tom Six did an incredible job. Some may disagree. But the fact is that some people can only see the surface sometimes…

The post Interview: Ashley C. Williams Talks Sexuality, Violence and the Primal Power of JULIA appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Interview: Sam Raimi on ASH VS. EVIL DEAD, DARKMAN and THE LAST OF US

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Interview: Sam Raimi on ASH VS. EVIL DEAD, DARKMAN and THE LAST OF US

Raimi2

Raimi

Sam Raimi talks about the new Starz series ASH VS. EVIL DEAD, classic “DEAD” films, gives us a progress report on THE LAST OF US and shares his thoughts on bringing back DARKMAN.

Back in 1981, long before he directed the billion dollar SPIDERMAN trilogy, director Sam Raimi’s career as a filmmaker began with a low-budget horror movie called THE EVIL DEAD, which would become a huge influence on decades of horror filmmakers as it began his long-standing working relationship with Bruce Campbell. 

After two sequels and a 2013 remake, EVIL DEAD fans are finally getting their wish with Bruce Campbell returning to the role of Ash for a new STARZ series, ASH VS.EVIL DEAD, the pilot for which Raimi co-wrote with his brother and directed, just like the previous movies.

As the buzz surrounding the show has been growing, SHOCK had a chance to sit down for a quick interview with Raimi while he was in New York City for the show’s debut at New York Comic-Con where three years earlier, the crowd had gone just as wild for THE EVIL DEAD remake.

While we mainly talked about his return to the world of Bruce Cambell’s Ash Williams and his battle with the “deadites,” we also got a brief update on Raimi’s involvement with bringing the Playstation game THE LAST OF US to the big screen and his thoughts on possibly bringing back his early superhero DARKMAN.

SHOCK: First of all, congratulations on coming back to this. I know you’ve literally been hearing for two decades from people wanting you to do more EVIL DEAD…

SAM RAIMI: Yeah, thank you.

SHOCK: What convinced you to come back? I know Bruce has been really gung-ho about doing this.

RAIMI: I guess I finally opened up my ears to a lot of the fans’ requests. I would make a SPIDERMAN movie and they’d say, “That’s fine, but can you please make EVIL DEAD 4?’” They didn’t care. I’d make SPIDERMAN 2,” they’d go, “Enough of this. Make EVIL DEAD with Bruce Campbell.” So we tried to sate that fan request. I said to Bruce and Rob, “Let’s remake ‘EVIL DEAD’ with Fede Alvarez, my friend. He’s super-talented and that will finally give the fans what they want.” So we did that and they really loved his movie and I loved it, but afterwards, I still heard that, “Now we want your EVIL DEAD with Bruce in addition to Fede’s movie.” So I went, “Oh my God. There’s no quieting them. Why am I running from it anyways?” I mean, maybe it was out of fear a little bit. They seemed to like these movies and I didn’t want to make one that they didn’t like. I didn’t know if I had much to gain, but they were so insistent we finally said, “Alright, let’s just do it.” So my brother and I sat down and we started to write a feature. Then that’s a long story, but it eventually turned into a TV show.

SHOCK: What’s interesting about doing it as a show is that if you put together the three previous EVIL DEAD movies, that’s four and a half hours but with a TV show, you’re going to have that much just in the first season, although you also have other writers and directors. You’re basically handing your baby over in some ways.

RAIMI: Exactly.

SHOCK: So how has that been? Do you still keep in touch with the dailies and all that stuff?

RAIMI: It’s a learning experience. I have to learn to let go and let other creators work with the material that I wrote originally. They’re bringing their own great ideas and their own visuals and their own concepts and it’s exciting to watch.

SHOCK: I think Fede did a great job capturing the spirit of what was so great about the original movie when you made it back in 1981.

RAIMI: Me, too.

SHOCK: I just re-watched the original movie and it was interesting to see what you could do in 1981, with no budget and still have amazing practical effects.

RAIMI: Oh thank you.

SHOCK How has that changed with doing it for the TV show? I’m assuming you can do a lot more these days?

RAIMI: Well, back then, we were on a really tight budget, like no budget. This one, we actually had department heads, a makeup department and a mechanical effects department. So I would liken this budget more to the budget of EVIL DEAD 2. So we didn’t have to do everything from scratch and we got to hire professionals to do an excellent job in each of their specific departments. That’s about where it was budget range.

SHOCK: You have a lot more people who know how to do this stuff now then back when you made the first movie, because they’re studying the movies you and John Carpenter and Peter Jackson made, and you now have experts doing this sort of stuff.

RAIMI: Yes, and especially in New Zealand, there’s so many great crews there. We worked with a top-notch crew that worked on a lot of Peter Jackson’s films and some of the LORD OF THE RINGS people and people that worked on SPARTACUS. So they’re really top-notch professionals.

SHOCK: The movies in the EVIL DEAD trilogy change tone drastically from one movie to the next. The first one is very much a dark, horror movie. The second one became more of a comedy and Bruce got to play with the Ash persona and the third one was a big, epic fantasy thing. For the show, you’ve mixed the tone of the first two movies, so how much of that third movie mythos did you want to bring onto the show? Where did you want to start?

RAIMI: Well, that’s a question we had to ask ourselves, “Which EVIL DEAD are we going to make the sequel to?” That was part of the confusing thing. It’s like, the fans want another EVIL DEAD, but which one do they want? Because they’re as different as you say. I think we thought, “Well, we don’t know, but here’s what we’d like to see. We’d like to see something that had a little bit of the humor of EVIL DEAD 2and Ash’s character of EVIL DEAD 2 but the horror of EVIL DEAD 1, the more serious, intense stuff that scared the audience. So we tried for kind of a blend of those. So Ash’s character is big and funny, but the evil is taken seriously and hopefully, it’s intense.

SHOCK: Last night, I saw Bruce tape an NPR trivia show, and he talked about your relationship, how you first met and how you love throwing blood on him, which I guess is a good reason to come back to it right there, to be able to toss a bucket of blood on Bruce.

RAIMI: That’s a pretty good reason, a pretty good incentive for me. It’s great to be working with him again because we grew up together. We were in high school together, did high school plays, made Super 8 movies together as kids, and that’s where our careers started. We went on to make our first feature film together and many features beyond that, so this is a return to the character that was in our first feature film, so it’s very exciting to come back to it.

SHOCK: When I re-watched the original movie, it was also a little strange seeing Bruce 35 years ago.

RAIMI: Yeah, it’s really weird for us and cool.

SHOCK: You brought back Joe LoDuca to do the music. I know he’s been working with Rob and Bruce on other things for some time, but this is the first time you’ve been back with him since ARMY OF DARKNESS, I think.

RAIMI: Correct. Joe was the sound of “Evil Dead.” We had a great time working on this, too.

SHOCK: I was curious about that and the show’s editor is also someone you’ve worked with.

RAIMI: Bob Murawski. Yeah, he cut the SPIDERMAN pictures and DRAG ME TO HELLand he co-edited ARMY OF DARKNESS.

SHOCK: How important was to keep that part of the sound and feel from the movies?

RAIMI: Yeah, this way, Joe can stay and the other episodes will have his signature sound on them, but also, I only did the first episode and now it’s a little bit like handing off the torch to other writers and directors, not a little bit, it’s definitely that. They’re coming up with their own versions of the EVIL DEAD stories and their own visions of it.

SHOCK: So what are you doing after this? I assume you’re overseeing this as much as you can. Have you started developing other things?

RAIMI: Well, right now, no. It’s really in the hands of the showrunner, Craig DiGregario, who’s here, and his staff of writers. In fact, there is a team of writers working right now. I don’t know what they’re up to, but they’ve got things on the board, ideas for season two up. Really, even though my brother and I started with a concept for the series, I had to leave and do pre-production on this pilot and then I had to be away for weeks and weeks while the writers were writing, so really, you do have to hand that torch off and hopefully, they’ll come up with something great as the season goes forward

SHOCK: You’ve been working on developing the video game THE LAST OF US into a movie and that’s one of the video games that people consider cinematic due to how much it’s like a movie already.

RAIMI: It’s great.

SHOCK: Are you working very closely with Neil (Druckman) to develop it?

RAIMI: Neil did a great job writing a first draft screenplay and I now he’s writing another draft right now and I can’t wait to read it.

SHOCK: Do you think you’ll be able to get into that fairly soon?

RAIMI: I don’t know what his time schedule is right now. I think he’s working on another videogame right now, so I think that’s where most of his time is going at this moment, the commitments he’s made, but I’ll just wait and see if he delivers a new draft. It’d be great.

SHOCK: Would you be interested in directing that?

RAIMI: I don’t know.

SHOCK: When you return to horror, it’s always something really special and a treat to the fans. I know that not every director that starts in horror wants to do it forever.

RAIMI: Oh, thank you. I love the field. I didn’t at first because horror movies scared me too much, but I really do love the genre and it’s a playground where you can really be artistic and create ideas in the minds of the audience and portray the unreal. It’s very cool experimentation ground for a filmmaker.

SHOCK: I don’t know how much you’ve seen of the upcoming season, but being that it’s Bruce and lot of your collaborators, do you think you’ll just be able to watch it as a fan?

RAIMI: No, I’m too involved. I wish I could. That would be fascinating. I’d love that opportunity to be completely divorced from it and just enjoy it as a thing apart for me. I wish I could. I don’t think that’s ever going to be possible.

SHOCK: What about other things, like DARKMAN? Have you ever thought about revisiting that?

RAIMI: Yes, but not personally, not as a director, maybe as a producer, to bring that character back. I’ve always wanted to. Maybe one day we will.

SHOCK: Liam Neeson’s a bigger action star now, but I doubt he would want to do another DARKMAN movie, but it was such a great premise. I saw it in theaters three times.

RAIMI: Oh, you did?

SHOCK: Yeah, I was such a huge fan of that movie, because I was into comics but that was a cool twist on the concept.

RAIMI: Oh cool, thank you for that. It was a strange mix, yeah. I remember working with Liam, too.

SHOCK: Have you been approached about doing something more with DARKMAN or do you think television might be the way to go with that, too?

RAIMI: I never thought about it for TV. But I like the character and it is an interesting mix of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE SHADOW and whatever else, and I’d love to get back into that.

SHOCK: I love THE SHADOW but was bummed by THE SHADOW movie.

RAIMI: I never saw it. I never saw it.

SHOCK: I was a big fan of the old stories and comics.

RAIMI: The pulp magazines? Yeah, me too, Maxwell Grant.

Shock: What have you watched lately that you’ve liked?

Raimi: I love BREAKING BAD. I’m not caught up on it yet. I’m a little behind. My kids and I just finished the last season, we’ve seen them all, of FALLING SKIES. That was awesome.

SHOCK: Congratulations for getting this thing out. Hopefully you can move on and you won’t get asked about EVIL DEAD for the rest of your life.

RAIMI: I can’t make another one(Laughs).

ASH VS. EVIL DEAD Season 1 will air on STARZ starting on Saturday, October 31. Look for our interviews with Bruce Campbell and the rest of the cast over the coming days.

The post Interview: Sam Raimi on ASH VS. EVIL DEAD, DARKMAN and THE LAST OF US appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.