Within the Woods (1978)

As a fan of both B-movies and the horror genre, it's pretty much a given that I'm also a fan of the Evil Dead trilogy. I'm not one the super-devoted mega-fans that starts frothing at the mouth at the mere mention of the franchise's name, but I really do love those three movies. That affection is why I'm nervous about the release of the Evil Dead remake. Sure, the franchise's creators are working behind the scenes of the remake as producers, but I'm still afraid that something could possibly go wrong.

But with the remake hitting movie theaters near you today, I thought I'd go back to the beginning of the Evil Dead franchise, back before the original trilogy. I'm specifically referring to the short film called Within the Woods. Made in 1978 on a budget of $1,600, this 30-minute short film actually served as a "proof-of-concept" prototype to show potential investors and generate funding for the first Evil Dead movie.

Never legally released in any home video format and existing today as a bootleg that looks like it was copied from a tenth-generation VHS tape, Within the Woods is an important piece of horror history for no other reason than because it laid the groundwork for one of the genre's most influential trilogies. And while it's essentially a glorified demo reel, Within the Woods isn't that bad either.

The premise is similar, but not quite. As the movie begins, a pair of vacationing couples ― Bruce (Bruce Campbell) and Ellen (Ellen Sandweiss), and Scotty (Scott Spiegel) and Shelly (Mary Valenti) ― are settling into a remote cabin in the woods. While Scotty and Shelly argue over a game of Monopoly, Bruce and Ellen venture out into the woods for a picnic. Bruce actually knows quite a bit about the area, revealing that the cabin is close to an old Native American burial ground. The burial ground is supposedly cursed, and those who disturb it are doomed to suffer the wrath of the angry spirits that watch over the area.

He assures a spooked Shelly that there's nothing to worry about, that it's just some old story. Besides, all they'll be doing is eating hot dogs, not bothering anyone's eternal slumber. But as Bruce digs a fire pit, he accidentally uncovers one of those old graves. And as he is quick to discover, the curse is true and the spirits that he has awakened are hungry for blood.

You have to keep in mind that Within the Woods wasn't made for mass consumption. It was produced for dirt cheap as a means of convincing Michigan businessmen to invest some cash in a feature-length movie whose creators weren't certain would even be completed, let alone successful. Within the Woods isn't Sam Raimi and company saying "here's what we can do," but something more along the lines of "here's what we could do." The movie's really rough around the edges, but as a piece of horror movie history, it's worth seeing just to experience where the Evil Dead movies got off the ground.

And really, you can most certainly see Raimi laying the groundwork for the Evil Dead movies. The cinematography, the editing, and many of the gags and scares would end up being recycled to better effect in The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. It's basically an Evil Dead movie made for the change Raimi found underneath his couch cushions. You can see that he had a ton of untapped potential at the time, and as a result, he gives us what would essentially be a "greatest hits" reel of the first two Evil Dead movies before they'd even been made.

As far as the acting goes, there honestly isn't much to say about it. Mary Valenti and Scott Spiegel don't really have much to do, but then again they don't really need to do anything either. Our two leads, though, are really good. Bruce Campbell is charming and charismatic as always, even if he wasn't quite ready for prime time yet. But I will say his performance as the possessed monster was awesome, so he had that going for him. And of all four actors, Ellen Sandweiss makes a great go of it. While she'd up her "beleaguered victim" game in The Evil Dead (before her character becomes a monster, anyway) her performance here is still really good. She's believable in the part and sells the distress well.

The worst part of the whole thing is that the version of the movie I saw came from an old VHS tape that looked so worn and degraded that it made everything murky and practically unwatchable. It wasn't hard to follow the basic gist of the movie, but a lot of details are lost. The really sad thing is that this is probably the best Within the Woods will ever look unless Raimi decides to give some DVD distributor the film negatives or a pristine copy of the movie so they can put together an official, legal release. I can't see that happening due to potential legal hang-ups (the music is all copyrighted and nobody ever paid to use it), so it probably goes without saying that Within the Woods isn't getting any prettier and it probably never will.

Judging Within the Woods on its own merits, then it's okay, I guess. It's not great, but it was never supposed to be. It's just a rough draft its authors would soon be working the kinks out of. But the movie's still really effective. If Raimi, Campbell, and Rob Tapert had shown me Within the Woods back then, I would have totally invested some money in their project. It's a damn fine short movie. I'm sure all the truly devoted Evil Dead fans have seen it by now, but if you have yet to check out Within the Woods, go to YouTube and hunt it down. Then go watch the Evil Dead movies, okay?

Final Rating: **½

Darkman (1990)

As much as I (and horror fans in general) love the Evil Dead trilogy, I don't think there's much doubt that Sam Raimi's biggest claim to fame is his three movies based on Spider-Man. But Marvel's red and blue web-slinger was not the first superhero Raimi brought to the big screen. His unsuccessful attempts to secure the film rights to Batman and The Shadow at the tail end of the '80s led Raimi to create his own superhero in the form of a movie he titled Darkman. The movie was simply a modest success despite the mostly positive critical reviews, but it's developed a cult following over the years after finding a home on cable and home video. And over two decades since its release, Darkman continues to hold up as a fine movie.

Dr. Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson) is a brilliant scientist on the verge of the next big medical breakthrough. He's developed a synthetic skin to assist burn victims during their healing process, but due to a flaw in its chemical structure, direct exposure to light causes the skin to dissolve after 99 minutes. But a monkey wrench soon gets thrown into the mix and will forever alter Westlake's life.

His girlfriend, an up-and-coming attorney named Julie (Frances McDormand), has just discovered an incriminating memorandum that connects corrupt real estate developer Louis Strack (Colin Friels) to a series of illegal business maneuvers involving the mob. And of course, the mob is looking for that memorandum. Ruthless crime lord Robert Durant (Larry Drake) breaks into Westlake's laboratory one night in search of it, and he and his goons completely wreck the place. They badly beat Westlake, leaving him to die as they burn the whole building down.

Believed dead by Durant and Julie, Westlake somehow managed to survive the blaze meant to kill him. It left him, however, horrifically scarred beyond recognition. The doctors who treat him are forced to subject him to a radical new treatment that cuts off his sense of touch and ability to feel pain, but it also causes his brain to overcompensate for these losses. It spurs an adrenal overload that gives him enhanced strength while leaving him mentally unstable and in a state of perpetual rage. Vowing revenge against his enemies, Westlake escapes from the hospital and returns to the burned-out husk of his former laboratory. He rebuilds to the best of his ability and begins using his synthetic skin to create various disguises that allow him to infiltrate Durant's crew and bring them down from the inside.

Nobody will ever put Darkman on the list of the best superhero movies ever made. But there's something about it that makes it inherently fun. The movie has a certain charm to it that makes it really entertaining in spite of its flaws. Okay, yeah, it has a few moments that are weird or kinda dumb. I'll give you that. But Darkman is still totally worth the time and effort to watch.

Sam Raimi was an unproven commodity in regards to mainstream movies, as he had only the cult successes of The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II under his belt at the time. But he proved to be well worth the gamble Universal Studios took on him. His direction is top-notch for the most part, as he approaches it with the kinetic flair that has become his trademark over the years. But Raimi is also guilty of a few weird little things that took me out of the movie, too. There were more than a few shots that were so obviously filmed in front of a green screen that they look hokey and fake, while the scenes where Darkman fully loses his temper ― depicted with harsh camera angles, wild colors, and shots of the firing of synapses in his brain ― are almost too cartoony to work. It didn't feel like those bits really fit with the tone of the rest of the movie. I get what Raimi was trying to do, but these bits (which honestly look like they were stolen from Creepshow) just felt like a bizarre creative choice to me.

But outside of that, Raimi actually made a damn good superhero flick. It delicately balances between fun, lighthearted adventure and a dark antihero story while staying engaging and entertaining throughout. The action sequences are especially good despite that bad green screen work I mentioned earlier, each of them being exciting in their own ways. The final showdown in the third act between Darkman and Durant's gang in particular is totally awesome, in large part to the way Raimi constructs it, but sadly, not everything could be that good.

I'm referring specifically to the script, credited to Raimi, his brother Ivan, Chuck Pearrer, and siblings Daniel and Joshua Goldin. To tell you the truth, the script isn't anything special. It's your typical '90s superhero origin story. If you've seen movies like Spawn or Steel, you know what kind of movie I'm talking about. And I don't know why they had to credit five different writers. Did they just cobble together the best bits and pieces from all the different drafts of the script that were written and slap everybody's namkes on the final product? (Considering how Hollywood works, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the truth.)

You get the feeling that there were too many chefs in the kitchen in regards to the script, as if Universal wanted a certain kind of movie and had some other writers do a little work on the script that the Raimi brothers had turned in. And because of that, the story doesn't seem quite as fluid as it probably could have been. While Raimi balanced grittiness and lightheartedness in his role as director, the script seems unfocused, as if it's unsure what kind of movie it wanted to be. Did it want to be a Batman-like story about a dark antihero? Or something different? Don't get me wrong, I didn't think the script was bad. It's actually somewhat serviceable. I just thought it could have been stronger, is all.

Though the screenplay might be a bit conflicted about itself, there are some good performances from the cast to make things better. But let's get the bad out of the way first. Colin Friels's character is just a one-note sleazebag villain, and he doesn't even try to be anything more than that. But at least he puts forth more of an effort than Frances McDormand, who I thought was the weakest link amongst the whole cast. She's just playing the token love interest with all the enthusiasm one would have for a wet dishrag.

It's not all bad, though. Larry Drake is a lot of fun as Durant, playing the role with absolute glee. It's like Drake approached the role as if it were a campier role of Kurtwood Smith's character from RoboCop, That isn't a bad thing at all, because Drake really was on his A-game throughout the entire movie. When he shows up and starts chopping some mook's fingers off with a cigar clipper, he does it in such a way that makes him look like an imposing villain yet makes him a ton of fun to watch.

Liam Neeson is also great as our titular superhero. His painfully anguished performance brings a real feeling of tragedy to the character, making one feel a ton of sympathy for him even when he's in the middle of what could only be described as manic episodes. The bit at the carnival with the pink elephant was a little on the laughable side though, just because of how bizarre the whole sequence is. But that isn't Neeson's fault, so I won't hold it against him.

Darkman is a flawed movie that is rough around the edges, but it's still good enough to be worth watching. Raimi's crafted not just a superhero movie, but a love letter to old school pulp heroes from the '30s and '40s. And had the movie worked out better, it could have sparked a full-blown franchise. Alas, all Darkman got was two direct-to-video sequels and a relegation to a footnote in the history of superhero cinema. That's a real shame, because it's not a bad flick at all. The character has a lot of potential, and I wouldn't be opposed to somebody doing a remake of it someday. But will that ever happen? Somehow I doubt it.

Final Rating: ***

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

I think it's safe to say that Spider-Man is, if I may use a metaphor, the goose that laid the golden egg for Marvel Comics. In the forty-five years since he was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Spider-Man has not only become Marvel's flagship character, but one of the most beloved characters the comic book industry has ever seen. That popularity has been most evidenced as of late by the incredible success of the live-action movies starring the web-slinging superhero.

The movies have raked in a lot of cash from both moviegoers and the resulting merchandise sales, and helped to revolutionize the way superhero movies are made. But with the first Spider-Man movie and its sequel earning recognition as two of the best comic book adaptations ever put to film, a question ends up being raised. That question: What happens when an ultra-popular movie franchise starts to run out of steam? The answer: You end up with movies like Spider-Man 3.

While it advanced an important story arc within the movies and introduced characters who've been important parts of Spider-Man's history, it fell into the same trap that Batman Forever and X-Men: The Last Stand fell into by proving that on occasion, the third time isn't exactly the charm.

Life couldn't be much better for Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire). He's dating the girl of his dreams, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), he's doing well in college, his work as a freelance photographer for the Daily Bugle is going well, and New York City has finally grown to love his alter ego, their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. But as always in movies like this, a rocky road lies ahead for our hero. Harry Osborn (James Franco) continues to blame Peter for killing his father, and with the discovery of a hidden cache of Green Goblin equipment, he plans on having his revenge.

That's not the only kink in the road, either. Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church), the true murderer of Peter's beloved uncle, has escaped from prison. And thanks to an accident at a scientific testing facility, his entire body has turned into living, malleable sand. Using his newfound condition as a way to commit daring bank robberies, he crosses paths with a vengeful Spider-Man, who intends to make Marko pay for his crimes. These feelings of anger along with the pride in himself that he's developed thanks to Spidey's surging popularity, are only made worse by a symbiote from outer space that has bonded with Peter and manifested itself as a black duplicate of his Spider-Man costume.

All of the negative elements of Peter's personality — particularly that pride and anger — are amplified to an extreme degree by that costume. His growing hubris alienates Mary Jane and pushes her away, while his enhanced aggression leads him to become more violent. This violent behavior evidences itself when he nearly kills Marko, then disfigures Harry's face with a live grenade during a fight. After a subsequent argument with Mary Jane ends with him punching her, a shocked Peter forcibly tears himself away from the symbiote... only for it to end up in the hands of Eddie Brock (Topher Grace). A rival photographer who lost his job at the Daily Bugle after Peter proved he'd doctored a picture of Spider-Man, Brock has been praying for Peter's death. And with the symbiote, his prayers are one step closer to being answered. Now faced with three new villains and a crumbling relationship with Mary Jane, Peter's life couldn't be much tougher.

Did that plot synopsis sound complicated and convoluted? Try writing it all. You'd be surprised at how much I actually left out in order for it to make any sense. Spider-Man 3 is a straight-up mess of a movie from start to finish, with too much going on and not enough effort put into making sense of it. The movie is two hours and nineteen minutes long, which should have been plenty of time to properly develop something and make a movie befitting of the reputation the other two have developed.

But there's just so much going on, that 139 minutes still isn't enough time to do it all. It's a movie that could have benefited from being either forty-five minutes longer in order to resolve things properly, or had something (or some things, plural) taken out so more concentration could be put on something else. The flawed narrative ends up hurting the movie, resulting in a failure to come close to any sort of expectations that anyone could have for it. After two awesome movies starring Spider-Man, how do the creative forces behind Spider-Man 3 look at this movie and decide that it's a worthy successor? Could someone answer that question for me, please?

I guess we'll start with Sam Raimi's directorial work first. I'll give credit where credit is due and say that he does a fine job here. It doesn't seem quite as good as how he handled the previous two movies, but Raimi's efforts are still solid. He's shown time and time again that he has a knack for creativity when he's working behind the camera, and he doesn't disappoint with Spider-Man 3. Raimi also gets some fantastic camerawork from cinematographer Bill Pope, along with great a musical score from composer Christopher Young (who excellently duplicates the themes crafted by Danny Elfman in the previous movies). My only real problem with Raimi's work, though, is that he feels like he's just going through the motions. Maybe doing three of these movies in six years has worn him out?

I felt like he'd put it into auto-pilot, and thus, we end up feeling like we've seen this all before. It doesn't help that the CGI effects have taken a big step backward. With the exception of the scene where Sandman initially reconstitutes himself after being atomized at the test facility (a scene that looks absolutely amazing, I must admit), the CGI appears to have reverted to the not completely convincing nature of the original movie. I said in my review of the first Spidey movie that the hero and the villain looked like video game characters, something I can also say about Spider-Man 3.

To be more specific, the initial fight between Peter and Harry looks like a cartoon, with not that many realistic-looking moments to be found. It's still an exciting scene, don't get me wrong. It would be fantastic if the movie was done entirely in CGI. But because in a live-action movie, it looks sloppy. I know that's not entirely Raimi's fault, since he's not in charge of the computer imagery department, but you'd think he would have the final say in what went into his movie.

Next up is the screenplay, written by Raimi, his brother Ivan, and Allen Sargent. I'll put it simply: the script is bad, very bad. It not only suffers from many of the same flaws that plagued the previous two movies (like Spidey somehow managing to lose his mask over the course of the final battle), but is hindered by the aforementioned problem of bringing way too much to the table. It's like the Raimis and Sargent had the idea to cram as much stuff into the movie as they could, just in case there wasn't a Spider-Man 4. There's Sandman, the Venom symbiote, the romantic squabbles between Peter and Mary Jane, the introduction of Gwen Stacy, and the further evolution of Harry's hatred of Spider-Man. They even work in a little time for Curt Connors, a character who becomes the villainous Lizard in the comics. So much stuff is crammed into this movie that there's not enough space for things to develop in a satisfactory matter.

Because there are so many dangling threads, it takes forever to tie them all up. By the time they circle back around, you've almost forgotten about what's happened previously. It doesn't help that a lot of things, like the poor attempt at resurrecting the Peter/Mary Jane/Harry love triangle, just spin their wheels and don't accomplish anything. The scene where Mary Jane rebuffs Peter's marriage proposal is an effectively sad one, but other than that, we're presented with some of the cheesiest melodrama since Degrassi Junior High.

And that's what makes things so bad. The whole script poorly handles everything that comes along. Take Gwen Stacy, for example. She's one of the most critical supporting characters in Spider-Man's history, a character who shook up the entire American comic book industry when she was killed off back in the '70s. She is finally introduced into the movie franchise here, but despite her importance to the Spidey mythos, she's treated almost as an afterthought. She's given right around ten minutes of screen time in the finished film, which amounts to practically nothing in the grand scheme of things. For all the movie version of Gwen is worth, they could have given the character any random name and it wouldn't have made any difference whatsoever. It's as if the Raimis and Sargent saw how the Alicia Masters character had been rendered virtually useless in the Fantastic Four movies, and said to themselves, "Yeah, we can do that."

The script also suffers from the cheapest, most contrived climax imaginable. There's Mary Jane playing the damsel in distress (again!), the downright silly way that we arrive at Sandman's fate, and an astoundingly stupid deus ex machina that resolves the "Harry hates Spider-Man" arc in a way that insults the intelligence of everyone who has become emotionally invested in this trilogy. Did the writers paint themselves into a corner during the writing process and have to rush the ending?

That's one of the movie's biggest problems; everything feels rushed, which ends up making everything look bad. That deus ex machina is particularly offensive, as there is absolutely no logic behind it. Without spoiling too much, I'll say that it involves Harry learning the truth about the Green Goblin's death. That might not have been such a big deal had this discovery been handled differently. But it's done here in a way that makes you wonder why nobody said anything about it sooner. It's lame beyond words.

And speaking of lame, how about the movie's depiction of Venom? I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that Venom is one of Spider-Man's most popular villains, but the character's fans are utterly crapped on by Spider-Man 3. Eddie Brock is only a minor annoyance throughout the movie, and he doesn't even turn into Venom until the last thirty minutes of the movie. And when Venom does appear, he ends up looking really weak in the long run. Venom's entire run in the movie consists of asking Sandman if he wants to team up, fighting Spider-Man, and dying like a punk. That's it!

I've heard from various sources that Sam Raimi has never been a fan of Venom, but that producer Avi Arad pretty much forced him to shoehorn the character a movie that had no place for him. Even if Arad did force that, there's no reason to write such an awful version of the character. Frankly, Venom is a character that could have used his own movie without the two other villains bogging him down. It would have been a lot better had they put New Goblin and Sandman together in this movie, then saved Venom for Spider-Man 4. But instead, we're stuck with this big ol' letdown.

I guess we'll wrap things up with the acting, which is the very definition of "mixed bag." Some of the cast is good, some of them are bad, and a few of them are mediocre at best. On the good side, let's start with the leading man, Tobey Maguire. Maguire puts forth an impressive performance, playing the role as if he were a drug addict. The black suit is like Spider-Man's heroin, and his infatuation with it leads to terrible changes in his personality and ruins his relationships with his loved ones. That stress pushes him deeper into the addiction that is slowly ruining his life, and he's forced to live with the consequences once he finally breaks away from it.

Maguire handles this with conviction, making a performance worth watching. The aforementioned scene where Mary Jane dumps Peter when he tries to propose is so sad, and it's all because of Maguire. But as good as he is, did we really need the the scene where he struts down the street in a fancy suit? Okay, he's supposed to be a narcissistic douchebag, I get it. I don't need to see him with a goofy haircut that makes him look like the lead singer of some lame emo band, strutting around like he's a only paint can and a Bee Gees song away from doing his interpretation of Saturday Night Fever. And did we need the whole jazz dance routine? Why not just rename the movie to Spider-Man: The Musical and be done with it? There were other ways to build up to Peter punching Mary Jane, but they went with this awful scene? None of the lame parts are Maguire's fault, since he isn't the one who decided to put those scenes in the movie, but they make him look really bad.

And in the role of the female lead, Kirsten Dunst isn't as good as she was previously. Dunst's interviews during the promotional campaign made her sound likes he only agreed to do the movie because Sony offered her a huge paycheck. Perhaps they paid her too much, because I personally felt that her work wasn't all that impressive. (I could say Maguire's interviews came across the same way as Dunst's, but he still did a decent enough job.) I enjoyed Dunst's performances in the first two movies and thought she and Maguire had good chemistry together, but I really can't say either of those things came across Spider-Man 3. Yeah, Dunst plays a believable damsel in distress, and there are a few scenes where she isn't all that bad But other than that, I have to say I wasn't exactly impressed.

On the other hand, I did like James Franco as the ultra-cocky, slightly insane Harry Osborn. The character's evolution throughout the trilogy has been worth following, and Franco's consistent performances in all three movies has really helped that. The other villains also do their fair share of good work. Topher Grace wasn't exactly the first person I'd have thought of when it comes to casting Venom, mainly due to his comedic work on That 70s Show. But Grace shows that he's up to the challenge, playing Eddie Brock as a total and complete weasel. And when he finally gets the all-too-brief opportunity to play Venom, he pulls off the "drunk with power" aspect convincingly.

Perhaps the best performance in the movie, however, comes from Thomas Haden Church. The Sandman character is depicted here not as being truly villainous, but as someone who fell into a life of crime only because it was the quickest way to help his sick daughter. Sandman's intentions are noble even if his methods are not, and Church's sympathetic portrayal excellently conveys that. It's a shame such fine work is stuck in such a mediocre movie. The rest of the cast, the ancillary performers left to the background, also do very well. Bryce Dallas Howard and Rosemary Harris are likeable as Gwen Stacy and Peter's aunt May, despite their characters being shuffled off into almost complete irrelevance. The movie's comic relief are particularly great. Bruce Campbell's extended cameo as a maître d' at a French restaurant is hilarious, and J.K. Simmons and Elizabeth Banks have a fun comedic timing together that makes the Daily Bugle scenes thoroughly entertaining.

I really wanted to like Spider-Man 3. The first time I saw it, I actually didn't think it was all that bad. But just like the movie's hero, the negative aspects become more pronounced the the more times I watch it. There are some good things in there, mainly amongst the cast. However, the truth is that Spider-Man 3 is one of the most frustratingly disappointing movies I've ever seen. By the time the closing credits roll, you're left asking, "Where the hell did this go wrong?" That's a good question, but I'm not really sure if I have an answer. Obviously, something went wrong during the creative process. It's just a shame that nobody caught that problem, and we thusly ended up with what we got. I guess I'd give Spider-Man 3 two and a half stars on my usual Five Star Sutton Scale, and I hope that future Spider-Man sequels don't suffer like this one did.

Final Rating: **½

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

If anything is assured in the motion picture industry, it's that a successful movie will spawn a sequel. Many times, these sequels are undeserved or not necessary. I mean, how many people did you hear begging for Blair Witch 2? Other sequels merely regurgitate the plot of its predecessor and present us with the exact same thing we saw before with some minor changes (such as the majority of the Friday the 13th sequels). But a few times, we get a sequel that is a little different, one that actually continues the story for a change. Movies like Terminator 2 and the final two-thirds of the Back to the Future trilogy are examples of that, but what's rarer is a sequel that's actually better than its predecessor. That list is so short, you could probably count all the movie's on the list on two hands and have fingers left over.

But one of the movies on that list is Spider-Man 2. The first Spider-Man was great, but its sequel actually surpasses it. Spider-Man 2 is one of those rare sequels that is more entertaining than its predecessor, earning a spot as not only one of the best sequels ever, but joining an elite list as one of the best superhero movies ever made.

It's been two years since the end of the previous movie, and Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is finding it extremely difficult to lead his dual life. He loses his job as a pizza delivery boy and nearly loses his job as a photographer at the Daily Bugle, he's slowly flunking out of college, and he has barely enough money to pay his rent. For the life of me, I can't figure out why ol' Pete's landlord is always up in his grill about the rent. You couldn't pay me enough money to live in Peter's apartment, so I don't really blame him for being a little lax in regards to his rent payments. In a fair world, Peter's building would be condemned and scheduled for demolition, because people in third-world countries have better living conditions. But hey, it's just a movie, I should really just relax.

Anyway, Peter's one more crappy situation away from a complete nervous breakdown, but he isn't the only one who's struggling; his loved ones are struggling too. His beloved aunt May (Rosemary Harris) is unable to make ends meet, and is facing a foreclosure on her home. Peter also often finds himself struggling to get along with his best friend and OsCorp Industries chief Harry Osborn (James Franco). Harry has become quite bitter since we last saw him, blaming Spider-Man for his father's death in the prior film and resenting the fact that Peter won't tell him anything about our friendly neighborhood web-slinger. He also seems to have become a raging alcoholic, but that's just the impression I get. Of course, little does Harry know that not only was his father the Green Goblin, but that his best friend and the man he wishes death on are one in the same.

Unfortunately, not only is Peter's friendship with Harry strained, his relationship with budding actress Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) on thin ice as well. He and Mary Jane obviously love one another and want to be together, but despite her best efforts, Spider-Man is higher on Peter's list of priorities. While Peter's desire to keep Mary Jane safe from various supervillains is noble, his inability to explain why he continues to disappoint her unfortunately pushes Mary Jane into the arms of another man: respected astronaut John Jameson (Daniel Gillies), the son of Peter's boss, Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons).

But Peter's life is about to get much more complicated. After a little discussion with his physics professor, Peter sets about on actually doing some schoolwork for a change. He decides to write a paper on Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), a brilliant scientist whose latest project is being funded by OsCorp. An enthusiastic Harry introduces Peter to Dr. Octavius, and the pair have a long talk that stretches into the evening. The two bond over dinner, and when the discussion turns to their love lives, Dr. Octavius and his wife Rosalie (Donna Murphy) offer Peter some quality advice on how to win a girl's heart.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Octavius and OsCorp host a demonstration of the doctor's project, a self-sustaining fission reaction that could infinitely generate the power of a small sun. What's even more impressive is the tools that Dr. Octavius utilizes to manipulate said fission reaction: four massive robotic arms that plug directly into his cerebral cortex via a series of pins into his back, operated by an artificial intelligence programmed to follow the doctor's mental commands. Dr. Octavius plugs his robotic tentacles in and begins the process, but unfortunately, an error in his calculations leads to disaster. Fate decides to play a cruel joke on the gentle scientist, as the fission reaction goes out of control and causing an intense magnetic fluctuation that results in Rosalie's death and the four robotic arms becoming permanently fused with Dr. Octavius's spine. Said fusion also destroys a crucial piece of safety equipment and allows the A.I. of the arms to directly access the doctor's brain.

With his wife dead and his dream ruined, Dr. Octavius is a broken man. The tentacle A.I. senses it, and using their open tap into the doctor's brain, the tentacles direct Dr. Octavius to stage various bank robberies to fund an even bigger version of his fission reaction generator. Dr. Octavius protests at first, but relents, soon earning the nickname "Dr. Octopus" (or simply "Doc Ock" for short) from the Daily Bugle. He creates for himself a new laboratory in an abandoned warehouse on the East River, but the bad part is that if his previous error goes uncorrected, his fission generator will end up vaporizing the entire island of Manhattan.

With a new supervillain in town, and more stress and frustration piling on as time goes by, Peter soon finds himself losing his powers. He begins slipping off walls while climbing them, he finds it harder to spin webs, and his spidey-sense starts dulling. It's capped off by Mary Jane's announcement that she'll engaged to marry her new beau, which finally pushes Peter over the edge. In perhaps the movie's hardest-hitting moment, Peter dumps his costume into a trash can and proclaims "I'm Spider-Man no more." His retirement from the superhero world apparently creates nothing but rosy skies for Peter. He's finally able to start enjoying life without those pesky crime-fighting responsibilities, he makes nice with his landlord's daughter Ursula (Mageina Tovah), and he even takes a few steps to rebuild his crumbling friendship with Mary Jane.

But he isn't able to enjoy his new life for long. Doc Ock turns to Harry for an extremely rare mineral needed to rebuild his fission device, and Harry promises him as much of the mineral as he can get if Doc Ock brings him Spider-Man. How do you get to Spider-Man? Through his personal photographer, Peter Parker. Doc Ock kidnaps Mary Jane and threatens to kill her if Peter fails to produce Spider-Man, thus beginning a third act that climaxes in Peter once again donning his old red and blue suit to not only rescue the love of his life, but prevent Dr. Octopus from activating his device and destroying Manhattan.

Wow. That pretty much says it all, "wow." I mentioned in my review of Spider-Man that I thought it ranked up there with Superman II as one of the best comics-to-film adaptations ever, but Spider-Man 2 quite possibly exceeds it. And I love Superman II too, so Spider-Man 2 has gotta be good to be better than that. As with the prior movie and the comic books, Spider-Man 2 is not about a superhero struggling with a secret identity; it's about a young man struggling with life. And yeah, he's got that whole superpower thing going for him too.

The movie succeeds in directly translating what made Spider-Man so popular to begin with. Peter Parker is such an identifiable character, and each of us can connect with him on some level. He's not some godlike crusader from a far-away planet like Superman, nor is he a shadowy millionaire consumed with vengeance like Batman. Spider-Man is just a regular kid with an inferiority complex and slipping grades, who's unlucky in love and unready to accept the responsibilities that come with his superpowers. All the feats of daring-do are fun to look at, sure, but the story is what drives the movie.

Sam Raimi returns to the Spidey saga's director's chair, and he once again presents us with a film worth talking about. His directing shines brightly, and even echoes some of his older work with the excellently-done operation scene following Dr. Octopus's accident. While there were some bits I could have done without (such as the awkward Peter/Ursula subplot that went absolutely nowhere, and the cheesy Uncle Ben dream that was probably just included to get Cliff Robertson and the "with great power comes great responsibility" line into the movie), Raimi's work here is much slicker, even better than what we saw in Spider-Man. The CGI is also drastically improved, looking much more realistic. Spider-Man and the Green Goblin looked like video game characters in the previous movie, but Spidey and Dr. Octopus look lifelike here. So whoever decided to improve the CGI, good job. I also would like to give props to Danny Elfman, who keeps churning out these wonderful superhero scores like it's nothing. The guy's definitely earned his reputation as one of the greatest in the industry.

Just like the first movie, Raimi not only gives us a film to talk about, he shows us a villain who's just as conflicted as its hero. While the Green Goblin was a criminal simply because he was a schizophrenic psychopath, Dr. Octopus is a villain simply because fate dealt him a crappy hand in the card game of life. Despite not having a lot of screen time before his transformation into a supervillain, we learn that Dr. Otto Octavius is a peaceful man who's madly in love with his wife and truly desires to make the world a better place.

His true nature only makes it all the more tragic when he's becomes a half-mechanical maniac who has no qualms against putting millions of lives in danger in order to make his dream a reality. While his descent into madness can be blamed on his tentacles and their malicious A.I., his new life of crime can also be attributed to the psychological scarring brought on by the failure of his experiment and the death of his wife. He's a broken man with a broken spirit, but the tentacle A.I. offers him a chance to rebuild his experiment through lots and lots of robbery. Because he has nothing else left, he lets the A.I. guide him as an escape from his failure.

The effectiveness of Dr. Octopus's duality is a testament to the talent of Alfred Molina. He'd be the highlight of the cast if it weren't for Tobey Maguire, who returns as the titular web-slinger. He once again carries the movie, displaying the strength and inner struggle that Peter Parker needed. Meanwhile, James Franco turned his James Dean Brood Machine™ up to eleven and gave us another watchable performance. And unfortunately, I wasn't as thrilled by Kirsten Dunst as I was in the previous movie. While she certainly isn't bad, I just wasn't impressed. However, I will give her credit: she and Maguire have great chemistry, and if the Peter/M.J. love story gets an even bigger piece of the pie in Spider-Man 3, I'm ready for it. And a great big thumbs-up to J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, who unashamedly stole every scene he was in.

A few people have dismissed Spider-Man 2 as overrated claptrap, but I absolutely love it. I'm not even that big of a Spidey fan, but there's no denying that Spider-Man 2 is nothing shy of unbelievable. With better CGI, more exciting action scenes, and fun humor, the movie can easily look past the love story being accentuated to almost annoying proportions and a lack of main emphasis on Dr. Octopus. Complaints aside, I found Spider-Man 2 to be much more satisfying than its predecessor, and quite a satisfying movie in general. I'll give the movie four and a half stars, and I think it fits fine there. 

Final Rating: ****½

Spider-Man (2002)

"With great power comes great responsibility."

That one line, simple as it may be, is a line that has inspired countless comic book fans while serving as the motto for one of the most beloved characters in comic history. Spider-Man has become perhaps the most enduring character on the Marvel Comics roster since being created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1962, his popularity rivaled by only a few. A character that millions have connected to and identified with in the four decades since his debut, Spider-Man's motto has echoed through the years and has driven him to serve the greater good with the hopes of atoning for one tragic failure to act.

The character sparked at least three animated shows, and was one of a number of Marvel characters (including the Incredible Hulk and Dr. Strange) to inspire a live-action TV-movie in 1977. Much to the dismay of fans, the TV-movie was poorly done and has been forgotten for the most part. Twenty-five years passed before Spider-Man was seen in a live-action movie again, but after comic book movies became big business, horror director (and longtime Spidey fan) Sam Raimi stepped up to helm Sony's big-screen adaptation of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man that's worth talking about.

Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is your typical high school geek. He's a brilliant student and genuinely nice guy, but he's a total social outcast whose shyness barely allows him to even say hello to the girl that's won his heart, next door neighbor Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). His only friend is Harry Osborn (James Franco), but their relationship is often strained with jealousy, as Harry's wealthy industrialist father Norman (Willam Dafoe) prefers the intelligent Peter over his own average son.

During a class field trip to Columbia University's genetics lab, Peter is bitten by a biologically-engineered spider that has gained various extraordinary powers via the wonders of science. A huge blister appears on his hand around the bite, and the spider's venom makes Peter so sick, he barely makes it home before he passes out in the floor of his bedroom. After a difficult night's sleep, he wakes up seemingly unaffected, but soon discovers that his body has been altered dramatically. Not only has Peter gained 20/20 vision and a significant change in muscle tone, but he has the ability to shoot strands of strong webbing from his wrists, an ability to climb walls and cling to any smooth surface, and a "spidey-sense" that gives him a psychic warning of danger. While he loves the fact that his new superpowers allow him to humiliate bullies and things like that, Peter's secretive behavior prompts the concern of his uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) and aunt May (Rosemary Harris).

On a trip to the library, Uncle Ben confronts Peter and stresses to him that with maturity and power comes great responsibility. Peter impatiently yells at him, telling Ben to stop acting like he's his father before sneaking off to his true destination: Madison Square Garden, where a local pro wrestling league is promising a $3,000 payday to anyone who can last three minutes against their top star, Bone Saw McGraw (Randy Savage). Dubbed "The Amazing Spider-Man" by the ring announcer, Peter soundly knocks out McGraw in a cage match and stands triumphant.

However, despite his victory, the fight promoter only pays Peter a meager 100 bucks, unfairly cheating him out of the full prize because Peter won in two minutes instead of going the full three. Naturally, Peter's a little honked off at getting gypped. You would be too, if you were promised 3000 George Washingtons to hang out with and you only got one lousy Ben Franklin wanting to bum a ride off you and raid your fridge. Peter does, however, gain a little satisfaction in his subsequent retaliation, refusing to help an arena security guard stop a criminal from taking off with the gate money.

Returning to the library, Peter's satisfaction turns to horror when he discovers Uncle Ben has been shot by a carjacker, arriving on the scene just as Ben dies. Enraged, Peter dons his wrestling outfit and pursues the carjacker, swinging over the crowded streets with his webbing. He confronts the killer in an abandoned warehouse, only to learn that the man who murdered his beloved uncle is the same man who held up the arena box office. Peter loses his temper and violently pushes the killer, who trips over a pipe and falls out a window to his death.

Following his graduation from high school months later, Peter's guilt over Ben's death prompts our hero to put his uncle's advice to good use. He designs a new and improved Spider-Man costume, and becomes a masked superhero fighting crime across New York City. He eventually thinks of a way to earn a living from it, taking pictures of himself in action and selling them to Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons). Jameson gladly purchases Peter's Spidey photos, falsely portraying Spider-Man as a criminal because it sells newspapers. While this is going on, Norman Osborn is undergoing a transformation of his own.

To protect his company from losing a vital military contract, he tests an experimental performance enhancement chemical on himself. The chemical increases his strength and intelligence, but as a side effect, it drives him completely over the edge, forming a malevolent alternate personality that urges him kill anyone who stands in his way. Using his company's prototype armor, a glider, and a spooky green helmet, Norman goes on a rampage at a festival in Times Square, incinerating his company's board of directors with a grenade, nearly killing Mary Jane in the process. Spider-Man saves the day, but after an incident at the Daily Bugle, Jameson soon prints headlines that the two are in cahoots, dubbing Norman's violent new persona "The Green Goblin."

As the Green Goblin, Norman sees the potential in forming a partnership with his wall-crawling nemesis. Both of them are masked, both are made to look bad by the Daily Bugle, and both have abilities beyond those of normal people (even if the Goblin's abilities are thanks to military technology). Good ol' Spidey chooses the side of good, but wouldn't you know it, the Green Goblin doesn't respond to rejection too well. Peter must now deal with the Green Goblin while his own dual identity further strains his friendship with Harry and puts the lives of Aunt May and Mary Jane in danger.

Spider-Man is one of those rare movies that transcends the superhero genre, and becomes just a great movie overall. The thrills and acts of superheroism are secondary to actually telling a story about people, and how their lives are affected by heroes and villains. The movie actually takes the time to give us characters that we can truly care about, connecting to the story's more human aspect. Peter Parker begins as a shy teenager that everyone kicks around, but by the end of the movie, we've come to really know him. We can see inside his head, and watch as he evolves from a nerdy little wiener living with his aunt and uncle in Queens to a weathered young man who's probably seen more tragedy than he should have.

That evolution is something that is also seen in the relationships between each character. The development of Peter's at-first unrequited love for Mary Jane is wonderful, definitely the movie's key ingredient. As stated in the opening monologue, "This, like any other tale worth telling, is all about a girl." While Spider-Man 2 deals more with the relationship between our hero and his lady love, the blossoming Peter/Mary Jane love story can definitely lay claim on a portion of center stage here.

As far as staying true to the comic book, that I can't comment on. I'm not a regular reader of comic books, but I did think some of the liberties taken were well-done. I personally felt giving Spider-Man organic web-shooters was a great idea, as I thought the homemade shooters probably would have just gotten in the way. So I'll give them credit for actually one-upping the source material here. Longtime horror director Sam Raimi ventures into the world of action fantasy, and while restrained, his style definitely comes through.

Well-crafted shot compositions, well-made fight sequences, and he even worked in Bruce Campbell, his brother Ted, and his old '73 Oldsmobile. From The Evil Dead to multimillion-dollar blockbusters and movies with Katie Holmes topless... our little Sammy has grown up. And that score by Danny Elfman is wonderful! Quite different than his score for Batman and Batman Returns, his engaging score here works to up the excitement during the big action sequences. Great stuff from Elfman, as usual.

Meanwhile, while the visual effects are great for the most part, I found the CGI to be really lame in some places. Once scene features Peter proudly jumping from rooftop to rooftop after discovering his newfound powers, but he looks more like something from a video game than a kid who just got bitten by a mutant spider. And the Green Goblin's glider work many times looks like someone's holding a picture in front of a backdrop and moving him around, especially in the Times Square scene. This kind of stuff might fly in Spider-Man: The Game, but I'm not letting them off the hook here. That's not how I roll.

Tobey Maguire is absolutely superb as Peter Parker. In fact, he's so good as Peter than he's almost more charismatic than his superhero alter ego. Imagine a Superman movie where you'd rather watch Clark Kent for two hours instead. Yeah, it's like that. He wonderfully shows us a young man with an inordinate gift, torn with guilt over the senseless death of his uncle. And Spidey's nemesis, Willam Dafoe, is nothing short of brilliant. The guy just looks insane from the start, and it's fun to watch him switch between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as he straddles the line between convincing and completely over the top. James Franco's low-key brooding is fun to watch, and Kirsten Dunst is both pretty and charming as usual.

I doubt they could have gotten a much better J. Jonah Jameson than J.K. Simmons, because the guy is hilarious and steals almost every scene he's in. Perhaps the most understated cast members are Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris as Peter's beloved aunt and uncle. They make Ben and May the kind of relatives we'd all like to have on our family tree, bringing a much-needed warmth to the movie.

Along with its sequel, I'd say Spider-Man ranks right up there with Superman II as one of the best comic book translations ever made. The cast is awesome, the action is fun, the love story is gripping, and the direction is absolutely awesome. Even if you don't read comics or don't know much about the character, you can't go wrong with Spider-Man, folks. Four stars easily.

Final Rating: ****

Army of Darkness (1992)

If any genre has contributed more cult classics than any other, it's been horror. And while the genre often finds itself being disrespected by the world at large, it's brought us more than its fair share of memorable movies over the years. Three such films have been Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy. While the movies aren't very famous outside their small yet devoted following, they're proof that you don't need a large budget to create a movie that's fun to watch. And after the first two independently-made Evil Deads, Raimi decided to bring the franchise to the big time with Army of Darkness, distributed by Universal Studios. While it sadly doesn't bear the name Evil Dead 3 (thanks to Universal wanting it to stand alone), it shows the culmination of the trilogy's evolution into horror-influenced slapstick comedy. And I think Army of Darkness is a better film for it. I don't think it would have gotten its own action figures and comic books if it hadn't.

We begin with a quickie recap of what's come before: Ash (Bruce Campbell) and his girlfriend Linda (Bridget Fonda) go to a cabin in the middle of the woods, monsters show up thanks to the Necronomicon, Ash cuts his hand off and sticks a chainsaw on the stump, and ends up getting sucked into a mystically-created black hole as the opening credits begin. Ash emerges from the black hole in medieval England, weapons and transportation in tow. Why's he in England? Don't ask me, I didn't write the movie. An army of soldiers led by Lord Arthur (Marcus Gilbert) assume he's a spy for a rival kingdom, and lock him up with other captives despite the protests of one of Arthur's wisemen (Ian Ambercrombie).

Ash is chained up, and led to Lord Arthur's castle. When he arrives, he meets Duke Henry (Richard Grove) and gets hit in the head with a rock by Sheila (Embeth Davidtz), who is told that her brother was killed in battle by Ash. Ash is ordered to be executed by being thrown into "The Pit." He is, and is forced to fight two "deadites" (which we learn is the given name of the Evil Dead demons). The wiseman tosses Ash his chainsaw, and he gets a little busy. He escapes, and demands he be sent back to his own time. The wiseman sends Ash to find the Necronomicon, giving him three words to say ("klatuu, barata, nikto"). We'll need to remember that later.

Our hero arrives at a windmill, where he apparently plans on staying for the night. He smashes a mirror, assuming his reflection was a deadite, and six-inch versions of Ash jump from the shards. This scene defies summation, so I'll leave it up to you to watch. Regardless, one of the mini-Ashes jumps down Ash's throat, and an eye starts to grow out of his shoulder. The eye develops until an evil clone of Ash rips himself away from the Ash we know and love. Instead of fighting or arguing, Good Ash simply shoots Evil Ash (Bruce Campbell, again) in the face with his shotgun.

Evil Ash is hacked to pieces with a chainsaw and buried, and Ash heads on his way for the Necronmicon. You remember those three words? Well, Ash didn't. He arrives at a cemetery where the Necronomicon is kept, and the big dope forgets the third word. He simply mumbles it, and the army of the deadites arises, including a resurrected and super-ugly Evil Ash. Evil Ash forms an army of darkness, and the war begins. Will Ash get home? Or will he fail miserably? It all depends on if you're watching the theatrical cut or the director's cut: they have different endings.

Personally, I prefer the director's cut. Some scenes make more sense with the deleted scenes reinstated. However, both versions are great, despite a lack of horror. This film is a total comedy. While The Evil Dead is a full-on horror film, and Evil Dead 2 is a horror/comedy, this one ditches all that legit horror stuff for over-the-top comedy. And if you ask me, it's Bruce Campbell's best movie to date. You might as well forget all the other actors in the movie, because the entire film is Bruce Campbell. If it had been any other actor, it just wouldn't be the same. If anybody wants to know why Bruce is one of my favorite actors, I present this movie as proof. His acting is so hammy, it doesn't stop being awesome.

This movie has it all. Chainsaws, shotguns, evil clones, an army of skeletons, a hot medieval babe, and a '73 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale. What's not to love?

Final Rating: *****

Evil Dead II (1987)

Outside of Morristown, Tennessee, in the winter of 1979, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell would begin work on a film that would start them on a path to becoming B-movie icons: The Evil Dead. Shot over the course of several years on a shoestring budget, The Evil Dead wouldn't see any mainstream success, but it became a big success on the drive-in circuit and the burgeoning home video market. It was such a success, in fact, that the brains behind it saw fit to make a sequel, the appropriately titled Evil Dead II. One of the rare sequels that is genuinely better than its predecessor, Evil Dead II shows just what you can do with a low budget and a lot of passion.

We start with a recap of the original Evil Dead, though slightly retold. Ash (Bruce Campbell) and his girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) head to the abandoned cabin, discover the Necronomicon, and unleash the fury. Poor Linda loses her head over the matter, leaving Ash alone to his own devices as he slowly goes insane. But we can't have one guy all by himself for ninety minutes, can we? It would get boring after a while. What we need is some victims, and we get them.

At a random airport, Annie Knowby (Sarah Berry) gets off a plane carrying some missing pages from the Necronomicon, and she's picked up by Ed (Richard Donner). I think Ed might be her boyfriend, but they never really say. But it doesn't matter much, since he'll be a puddle of goo by the end of the movie. Anyway, they're heading to Annie's father's cabin, where he was translating the Necronomicon. You guessed it, Ash is gonna have some company. On the way, they meet Jake (Danny Hicks) and Bobbie Jo (Kassie Wesley), who are the biggest rednecks this side of Deliverance. The only difference, and a good one at that, is Jake and Bobbie Jo don't sodomize anybody. The bridge is out thanks to the evil dead demolition crew, so for the super-low price of a hundred bucks, Jake and Bobbie Jo agree to guide Annie and Ed to the cabin.

Meanwhile, things aren't going too well for Ash. Linda's severed head bites his hand, so he snaps and introduces Linda to the business end of a chainsaw. Unfortunately, the bite wound gets infected, and his hand becomes the tool of the devil. It starts beating Ash over the head with plates and beer bottles, then starts reaching for a meat cleaver. This doesn't sit too well with our hero, so he pins his hand to the floor with a knife and hacks the killer hand off at the wrist with his trusty chainsaw. And you know what he uses to take care of the wound? A dirty rag and duct tape. This is why the Evil Dead movies are so awesome, because Ash is hardcore.

Annie and the crew arrive at the cabin, see the bloody chainsaw, and notice that the Knowbys are missing. They put two and two together, and beat the snot out of Ash before throwing him into the basement. That's not good, because they discover that Mrs. Knowby was possessed by the monsters, and Mr. Knowby killed her and buried her in the basement. And wouldn't you know it, she pops up out of the ground and she's hungry for a fresh soul. Ash escapes from the basement, and the fun begins.

Evil Dead II is one of my all-time favorite movies. Why? How many other movies has a guy cut his hand off and attach a chainsaw to the stump? The movie's a great mix of horror and humor, and it's backed up by good acting (or in some scenes, so bad it's good) and a great script, as well as inventive camera angles and great effects (courtesy KNB EFX Group). If you ask me, Evil Dead II is light-years better than its predecessor. If you haven't seen it yet, why not?

Final Rating: ****

The Evil Dead (1981)

Of all the ways to describe movies out there in Hollywood, perhaps the most broad phrase is the "cult film." Cult films vary in genre and style, but they all have one common factor: a devoted following in spite of questionable mainstream notoriety. From movies as legendary as the Star Wars franchise to more underground movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and all movies in between, the cult movie is a type that can't truly be nailed down to just one style.

However, the overwhelming majority of them can be found in the horror genre. There are hundreds of horror movies that can be considered cult films, but one of the most unique is the debut film of director Sam Raimi and B-movie icon Bruce Campbell, The Evil Dead. Light on both plot and budget, the movie more than makes up with it with a frenetic energy that cements its reputation as a cult classic.

In the autumn of 1979, Ash (Bruce Campbell) and four friends head to an abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods outside Morristown, Tennessee. They go looking around the basement and discover a tape recorder, a huge knife that looks like it's made out of bones, and a hella-ugly book titled the "Necronomicon ex Mortis." They decide to play whatever's on the tape recorder, and it's the Book On Tape version of the Necronomicon. Curiosity didn't just kill the cat; it smacked it around, raped it with a tree, and skinned it alive. Why? It turns out the book is full of demon resurrection passages, and on that note, we cue the mayhem. The axe-swinging, shotgun-blasting, milk-puking mayhem. 

The Evil Dead is one of those movies that's really cheaply made and has cheesy acting, but it's gained a reputation as one of the definitive cult classics. What makes the biggest statement is that it became a classic despite the incredibly simple plot and cheap nature, and it launched the careers of Sam Raimi (who would eventually direct the Spider-Man movies) and Bruce Campbell, who would go on to become a B-movie legend.

As I said before, the acting isn't Oscar-caliber, but it's good for what it is. Considering the five actors are all amateurs, their lack of experience is excusable. Bruce Campbell is great in his first of three movies as the dim-witted Ash, and Betsy Baker, Rich Demanincor (credited as "Hal Delrich"), and Theresa Tilly (credited as "Sarah York") hand in watchable performances as Linda, Scotty, and Shelly, respectively. However, Ellen Sandweiss (who plays Ash's sister Cheryl) is just awful. Almost every time she's on screen, I hit the mute button on my TV, or fast-forward through the scene. No lie. Maybe there's a reason her acting career didn't exactly take off afterwards.

Luckily for the viewer, the movie as a whole is not as bad as Sandweiss's acting. It's not great, but it's good. Joe LoDuca's score is tense and haunting, and Tom Sullivan's make-up effects are brilliantly disgusting. Sam Raimi's direction is also tight, and the different angles we view the action from makes the movie even more frightening that it really is. Overall, I'll say the film is worth a watch. If you like low-budget splatter movies, you'll love it. Even if you don't like that particular genre, you might still like it.

Final Rating: ***½