With Fede Alvarez's remake of Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead about to hit theaters on Friday, it's a good time to take the Hot Tub Time Machine back to 1979 when rotary dial phones were still common and the Oz The Great and Powerful director was just an aspiring filmmaker with an idea for a bloody and original horror film. more »
Evil Dead hits theaters in less than two weeks, and the debate in my head grows louder: Should I bring the airsickness bag I brought home from my last plane flight, or will a gallon-sized Ziploc baggie do? As I wrote earlier, Fede Alvarez's intense, serious-as-a-heart attack remake of Sam Raimi's humorous horror classic, The Evil Dead, is looking pretty review proof, but I've got to wonder if reports of the movie's extreme gore and the intensity of the trailers that are being released will give more squeamish horror fans second thoughts about attending, especially since the update doesn't share the comic relief of the original.
Here's the latest clip to surface via Yahoo! Everyone looks pretty freaked at what's going on in that little cabin, and that's before Mia (Jane Levy) shoots her brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) and lets out an operatic scream that comes with its own Auto-Tune translation. Also, there are two new posters for the movie. Actually, they're variants that feature the same image, but one features review blurbs and one does not. Don't you just love it when review-proof movies show off their good reviews?
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Like the drip, drip, drip of blood from a freshly mutilated corpse, the producers of Evil Dead have released two new video clips that reveal a little bit more of Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Alvarez's super-gory remake of Sam Raimi's horror classic. And, despite some disappointed critics, the movie is looking increasingly review-proof.
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The rare remake that likely will be enjoyed most by diehard fans of its predecessor, Evil Dead often comes off as the cinematic equivalent of a cover-band concert tribute to a supergroup’s greatest hits — albeit with a lot more gore. First-time feature helmer Fede Alvarez’s blood-soaked reprise of Sam Raimi’s franchise-spawning low-budget shocker, The Evil Dead, boasts far better production values than the penny-pinching 1981 original and conceivably could delight genre fans who have never seen the first version or its previous remakes/sequels. But it’s bound to play best with those who catch Alvarez’s many wink-wink allusions to Raimi’s pic. more »
Consciously evoking the structure and iconography of MGM’s classic The Wizard of Oz without attempting to rival its impact, Disney’s Oz the Great and Powerful can be enjoyed, up to a point, on its own colorful, diverting but finally rather futile terms. Offering an eye-tickling but gaudily depersonalized Land of Oz populated by younger, sexier versions of well-known characters (most incongruously the Wicked Witch of the West), this elaborate exercise in visual Baum-bast nonetheless gets some mileage out of its game performances, luscious production design and the unfettered enthusiasm director Sam Raimi brings to a thin, simplistic origin story. more »
Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert are shifting their attention from Evil Dead to Angels of the Apocalypse. The filmmakers have teamed up with Good Universe to acquire multipicture rights to Susan Ee’s bestselling Amazon Publishing book series, Angelfall. The project sounds like it has the potential to be a Hunger Games-type franchise. more »
Guess who's not in Kansas, anymore? That would be James Franco in Oz The Great And Powerful. He plays two-bit magician Oscar Diggs who rides a hot-air balloon into a cyclone and travels from a dusty black-and-white world into a vibrant colorful one populated with munchkins and witches, played by Rachel Weisz, Mila Kunis and Michelle Williams. more »
The Evil Dead Red Band trailer has arrived, and it turns out to be the same one that had audiences at NY Comic-Con screaming in their seats (and, apparently, leaking it on the web). If you can stomach it, make sure to hang tight for the tongue-slicing scene at the end. It will make you talk funny for hours. more »
The Evil Dead Red Band trailer doesn't hit the web until tomorrow — look for it here — but in the meantime, here's a little taste of the horror to come. This 36-second amuse bouche doesn't give up much until the final moments, especially if you've seen the 'leaked' trailer that had audiences at NY Comic-Con screaming. But it does feature the eternally amusing Bruce Campbell telling that same audience: "We know what you need. You need horror with blood flowing down the street. We know you need it.'' more »
Bruce Campbell wasn't kidding. On Saturday, I interviewed the actor, who starred in and produced the original The Evil Dead trilogy with Sam Raimi and is now producing a remake, and he told me that Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Alvarez's reinterpretation is "dead serious." Unlike Raimi's movies, which mixed the director's distinct style of humor with groundbreaking (literally) horror, Campbell says the remake is a "full-on old-school horror movie with make-up effects." And lots of blood and gore judging from this stomach-turning trailer that leaked from NY Comic-Con.
In a sea of lumpy Spandex, half-assed Harry Potter costumes and face paint, Bruce Campbell set quite a sartorial standard at New York Comic-Con on Saturday. The square-jawed actor — who's currently seen in the USA Network cable TV series Burn Notice but built a hardcore following by playing the character of Ash in Sam Raimi's groundbreaking 1980s The Evil Dead comic-horror trilogy — wore a beacon-like red tuxedo jacket and complementary black-and-red patent leather shoes. more »
It seems like only yesterday comic book fans were all excited about the very first Spider-Man movie — Sam Raimi's 2002 take on the webslinging superhero, starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. With Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone stepping in to lead Marc Webb's high school-set The Amazing Spider-Man, a lot of people are wondering if the reboot is any different at all. Time will tell if fans decide Amazing is better or worse, or maybe just the same as Raimi's Spider-Man — but looking back on interviews from 2002's Spider-Man junket, it turned out some of the exact same questions were asked of both sets of directors and stars.
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Signs that your precious little girl may be inhabited by a malicious demon, according to this first trailer for the Sam Raimi-produced The Possession: She eats her pancakes at abnormal speeds (watch out for that fork), cradles an ancient wooden puzzle box in her bed at night, has a horde of insects living inside her mouth. What are desperate parents Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgwick to do? Get a peek at the latest in dybbuk horror — so hot right now! — after the jump.
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Where have we heard this before: MGM is moving forward with its planned remake of of the 1982 horror classic Poltergeist, this time with Sam Raimi co-producing and his Oz: The Great and Powerful screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire contributing the latest script. Some wailing and gnashing has ensued around the Web, but let's just calm down — we're only a year and a half behind the scheduled release date of the previous remake they threatened. Sounds like a high priority!
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Sam Raimi's Evil Dead reboot, which begins filming in New Zealand this spring, has found a new star to fill the shoes of original Ash Bruce Campbell, so to speak: 22-year-old British-born actress Lily Collins, who'll next be seen playing Snow White to Julia Roberts' evil queen in Tarsem's fairytale adaptation Mirror Mirror. Let that sink in, Evil Deadites... deep breaths... now hit the jump for more details.
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