Recent viewings

Evil Dead : The Musical. Yes, the original Evil Dead series of movies was campy and silly. They were, effectively, parodies of horror movies masquerading as horror movies. Given this fact, what else can one do but make an all-singing, all-dancing musical production out of them?

I didn't think I was going to get Fiend to go see this, but somehow, against all odds (not to mention reason), I managed to prevail.

The production adds to Sam Raimi's parody of horror movie cliches a parody of the conventions of stage musicals: the underwhelming physical props, the movements artificially constrained to the tiny confines of the stage, the projected lighting effects, etc. I found a few scenes rather offputtingly sadistic even as broad parody, but on the whole it was stupid, goofy, fun. Despite Fiend's reservations I'm quite certain I detected a smile during the over-the-top Grand-Guignol finale, in which jutjawed housewares employee Ash and his trusty shotgun and chainsaw take on a small mob of dancing, singing, demons inhabiting the bodies of his former friends. Horrific blood-spurting chaos ensues.

And in case you were wondering, yes, the Splatter Zone is exactly what you think it is. We walked out of the theater in the company of two giggling girls wearing substantial quantities of stage blood in addition to the clothing they had worn to the theater. They received some strange looks from passers-by at crosswalks, but I presume the local cops have been conditioned to ignore alarmed 911 calls about bloodspattered people leaving this particular theater.