Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

Another Saturday night with Evil Dead II (1987), and I can always be assured of a good time. Bruce never fails to throw himself into the part when it comes to his Ash and Raimi certainly seemed to depend on his star's physicality and star power. The dishes breaking over his own head by his (sort of) own hand is a great example of what I'm talking about. Sure the dishes were made to be breakable but it's rather fun in its constant shattering as the facial wavering and wooziness by Bruce sells the physicality. I do see how this could be scrutinized. I think it is always hard in horror films where a hand is taken off to sell the horrible injury. I think you can instantly tell Bruce's hand was just fine underneath the shirt sleeve...particularly, when loading his shotgun. If you think about it: there is about fifteen or so minutes where Bruce spends time against his severed demonic hand...and holds the time well without boredom. Equipping the hand with its own "v

Another Friday the 13th greets us once again. Each of you has their own marathon planned, perhaps in advance, and will once again venture into the wilds of Jason Voorhees' domain. I decided on Part 2 myself. The Steve Miner duo, if you will.  Paul: I don't wanna scare anyone, but I'm gonna give it to you straight about Jason. His body was never recovered from the lake after he drowned. And if you listen to the old-timers in town, they'll tell you he's still out there, some sort of demented creature, surviving in the wilderness, full grown by now... stalking... stealing what he needs, living off wild animals and vegetation. Some folks claim they've even seen him, right in this area. The girl that survived that night at Camp Blood, that... Friday The 13th? She claimed she saw him. She disappeared two months later... vanished. Blood was everywhere. No one knows what happened to her. Legend has it that Jason saw his mother beheaded that night. Then, he took h

**½ At about six films, most horror film franchises are either sucking wind or running out of steam. It happens. You spend only so much time with a formula and a character without a loss of creative jazz. A character also goes through either an evolution or remains stagnate. I can’t lay the blame on Robert Englund for the decision on New Line turning Fred Krueger into a clown, a jokey shell of the scary nightmare man that did horrible things to children, was burned alive by their parents, and had such evil he couldn’t help but endure so he could get his revenge through the torment and murder of another generation of teenage kids with the misfortune of simply falling asleep. Englund has such charisma and charm, even if his character is a murderous, burn-faced ghoul using the dream-sleep to kill kids for kicks, he won over a decade in the 80s of horror fans. That is the talent of the actor. However, I think Englund was at his absolute best in the first two films when he creeped y