Evil Dead – Bitch Flicks

I try not to look forward to things; I’ve been hurt too many timesbefore. But I couldn’t help feeling just alittle excitement for the Evil Deadremake, tempered though it was with trepidation.

Almost certainly not true, if you’re the kind of person who wants to see an Evil Dead remake.

The movie turned out to be a lot of fun: not mindbending by any means, but certainly a good time for a gorehound on a Saturday night. (And be sure to stay right through the end credits!) Its attitude toward gender, though, is an oddity I am still trying to process.

We had been told that Jane Levy as Mia was the Girl Ash. This is, of course, a genderflip of a genderflip (Ash in the original Evil Dead having been a male Final Girl) – or rather, it would have been if we’d gotten it. The equating of Mia with Ash seems to have been based entirely on the climactic sequence, the use of a certain implement, and a rather magnificent reiteration of Evil Dead II‘s “I’ll swallowyour soul!”/”Swallow this” exchange. Apart from this, though, the story is really far more centered on Mia’s not-terribly-interesting brother David (played by Shiloh Fernandez). Mia might be the focus of the plot, such as it is, and she might be the Final Girl, but – unlike Ash – she spends most of the movie possessed by the titular malevolence.

In fact, the whole possession business is handled in a bizarrely and really problematically gendered way. For one thing, the word “bitch” is employed a HELL of a lot. Both male and female characters refer to the possessed as being a “bitch” or “Satan’s bitch.” This version of the Book of the Dead is peppered with color commentary describing what the possessed will do and how to defeat them, and it consistently describes them as “bitches.” I mean, I realize that as a queer feminist among queer feminists I am not living in mainstream society, and I realize that I am writing this for a website with “bitch” in the title, but I honestly haven’t heard that word used with such wild abandon since this.

And the reason it matters is that, for almost the entire movie, it is female characters and only female characters who get possessed. There’s even a scene that cuts between the female characters being possessed and the male characters discussing plans of action. I don’t understand why the filmmakers thought it necessary to treat possession by the Evil Dead in this way, and it’s a decision that came close to ruining the entire experience for me.

This guy? 100% as douchey as he looks.

I do think that a lot of the differences between the original and the remake simply reflect the changes in horror conventions over the past 30 years: the pretty unnecessary pre-credits flashback sequence; the recovering-junkie plotline, which gives the characters an actual reason both to stay in the woods and to disbelieve an increasingly freaked-out Mia; the general fleshing out of characterization and backstory (which makes it all the more noticeable that one of the five characters has almost none); the post-Cronenbergian relish with which the movie utilizes bodily fluids, wallowing in spit and vomit and piss as well as more traditional gore; the hardcore blood and grossness – including one instance of an RN misusing a hypo in a way that makes this trans guy very nervous about his next testosterone shot – which makes it seem even more adorably quaint that the original was once a “VideoNasty” in the UK; and the much more visual nature of the horror overall. Obviously this is partly a budget thing, but in the original, the Evil is never actually seen when it’s not possessing someone – it’s simply evoked through POV shots using sound effects and Shakicam. Whereas in this one there is an inexplicable Evil Mia lurking in the woods, because, thanks to the influence of J- and K-horror, you gotta have your pale creepy dark-haired possibly-dead girl.

It’s perhaps more interesting, though, to compare the character relationships and the reallocation of memorable scenes between the original and the remake. I very much enjoyed the replacement of Ash and Linda’s romantic relationship with David and Mia’s siblinghood, because I generally find it more interesting to see people interact in ways other than romantically. When David gives Mia a necklace very similar to the one Ash gives Linda in the original, it’s a direct signal to fans that this is going to be the primary relationship in the movie.

I very much did not enjoy the tree-rape. First of all, it’s kept in (which, fuck); second of all, it’s made even more visceral and gruesome and drawn-out (which, double-fuck); third of all, it happens to Mia, the supposed focus and alleged Girl Ash. Thought experiment: try to imagine a world containing a version of Evil Dead in which a male Ash got raped by a tree. I’m guessing it’s not our world.

I’m so sorry about the tree-rape. I hope this puppy makes you feel better.

I was also deeply disappointed by the possessed-handsequence. As I wrote back in October:

I want to see a female Ash. I want to see a woman in a movie who is as goofy and prone to slapstick as Bruce Campbell in the original Evil Dead films. I want to see a woman in a movie who follows Ash’s character arc, from cowardly dweeb to loudmouthed braggart with a chainsaw for an arm.

Spoiler: I did not get this. I am still waiting for this. Filmmakers, if you’re out there and you care at all about the narrow slice of audience that loves really gory horror movies and also feminism, please make this movie. Evil Dead 2013 is a pretty decent horror film, but it leaves an awful lot to be desired on the feminism front.

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Max Thornton blogs at GayChristian Geek, tumbles as transsubstantial, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.

When Dumb Fun Turns Nasty: Sexual Violence in Stupid Movies

Written by Max Thornton.

[content note: explicit discussion of violence and rape]

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Violent media poisoning nation’s soul.”

Is it, though? To his credit, LaSalle recognizes that it’s pretty fatuous to blame movie violence for real-life violent crime, but that doesn’t stop him from calling for blanket R ratings for movies with “any violence at all.” I honestly don’t see how that will help. An R rating won’t stop anyone from seeing a film they’re determined to see (hi there, internet!), and it definitely won’t encourage critical thinking (the trouble is, you can’t legislate for that).

Also, you know, Adam Lanza – the motivation for LaSalle’s piece – was 20. He could have seen the most brutal NC-17 movie he wanted.

It’s an old complaint that MPAA ratings are seriously messed up, mired in disturbing double-standards around male and female sexuality, straight and queer sexuality, sex and violence. However, if you happen to believe that violent movies contribute to a “culture of violence,” age-based restrictions don’t accomplish a thing. Except perhaps to make under-seventeens desperate to see movies just because you say they can’t.

I really don’t think the problem with movie violence is that too many superhero flicks are rated PG-13. I don’t even think the problem is the existence of movie violence. I think the problem is the context and presentation of the violence. MPAA ratings, audiences, and filmmakers themselves overwhelmingly fail to distinguish between cartoonish violence and realistic violence, or between sex and sexual violence, and this is what I find truly alarming.

I have a shameful love of really stupid gory movies. I have a dumb but almost limitless enthusiasm for the subgenre lovingly dubbed “splatstick.” Evil Dead II. Peter Jackson’s Braindead. Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd. Appendages being severed in improbable ways, fountains of dyed corn syrup gushing forth, heads and eyeballs rolling all over the place… That stuff cracks me up, and has done ever since I was an eight-year-old at home with septicemia, watching videocassettes of Tom & Jerry and bringing my mother running with every yell of sympathy that quickly dissolved into peals of laughter.

And I respond just like Bart and Lisa Simpson.

Realistic movie violence disturbs me, of course, in films like City of God or Irreversible. These are movies intended to confront you with the utter awfulness of the events they depict, with no interest in minimizing or trivializing their horror. They’re hard to watch, and they should be.

Cartoon violence, on the other hand, is outlandish, clownishly over-the-top, and nothing like real life. A scene like the possessed hand scene in Evil Dead II or the zombie baby scene in Braindeadis funny in the way that a cartoon character slipping on a banana peel is funny. It’s an outlet for Schadenfreude in a really goofy setting.

It really, really bothers me when cartoon violence turns sexual.

When a tree rapes a woman in the original Evil Dead. When a tentacled zombie-slug-man rapes a woman in Slither. When a snowman serial killer rapes a woman with his carrot nose in Jack Frost(no, not that Jack Frost). Most recently, when zombie Nazis turn rapey in Nazis at the Center of the Earth.

Goddammit, it’s called Nazis at the Center of the Earth, not Rapists at the Center of the Earth.

I’m watching a movie called Nazis at the Center of the Earth because I want to laugh at a lousy special effect of Zombie Josef Mengele ripping a guy’s skin off in one elegant motion. That’s funny to me, because no one in real life gets their skin ripped off by Zombie Josef Mengele, and if they did it wouldn’t look like that. The sudden inclusion of sexual violence is just grim.

We’re all feminists here, so I don’t need to repeat the stats, but here they are again: 1 in 6 women. 1 in 33 men.

1 IN 6 WOMEN. 1 IN 33 MEN.

Comical beheadings with fountains of unrealistic blood are funny to me in the way that Laurel & Hardy dropping the piano again is funny. Sexual assault IS NOT FUNNY. Jack Frost (again, the killer-snowman one, not the family film or the bizarre Russo-Finnish fairytale that was on MST3K) is rated R for “violence and gore, language and some brief sexuality.” For “brief sexuality.” CALL IT WHAT IT IS, MPAA.

I get that plenty of people don’t find splatstick funny. That makes sense and is valid, and I can respect that opinion. What doesn’t make sense, isn’t valid, and does not merit my respect is thinking that sexual violence belongs in splatstick humor. Contra George Carlin, Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd is not funny to me. Cartoon sexual violence isn’t funny in the way cartoon splatstick can be, because of the whole rape culture thing. The difference is crystallized in the fact that the MPAA doesn’t call a nose-breaking punch “brief face-touching,” but it does call carrot-rape “brief sexuality.”

In the end, what crosses the movie-violence line depends largely on your personal taste. A really cheesy special effect of a sharktopus eating a person makes me laugh; others won’t find that funny. But I don’t think sexual violence is a matter of personal taste. When I sign up for some cheesy splatstick movie fun, I want cheesy splatstick fun, and that does NOT include sexual assault of any kind. What’s so hard to understand about that?

If you’re more of a words person, this might help.

Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.

A Walkthrough of the New ‘Evil Dead’ Trailer

The Evil Dead movies are some of my all-time favorites. I love them the way you can only really love something you first saw in your teens: with nostalgia, delight, and fierce ardor.

Just looking at this makes me incoherent with happiness. ;aksdjf.

So I have a lot of complicated feelings about the forthcoming remake. On the one hand, precedent suggests that any remake of a classic horror film has a high likelihood of being terrible (see: Psycho, The Wicker Man, The Omen, etc.), and what’s an Evil Dead movie without Bruce Campbell anyway? On the other hand, The Bruce is onboard as a producer, as is original director Sam Raimi; and, now that the new red band trailer is out, I am starting to get excited.

00:09 –Look at the cabin! It’s so perfectly Evil Dead, just looking at it makes me happy.

00:18 –Aah! Creepy basement of taxidermy.

00:24 –DON’T SAY IT DON’T WRITE IT DON’T HEAR IT! Oh you dumb kids. You never do what you’re told.

(Actually I’m pretty interested to see how the movie will deal with the problem of self-awareness. Will they just be dumb horror-movie kids who ignore all warnings, or will there be some nice meta Cabin in the Woods-style explanations for their behavior? Is it going to pretend the last 30 years of film never happened, or is it going to acknowledge them?)

00:27– Shakycam through the woods. Nostalgia is threatening to overwhelm me. Maybe I should just go marathon the originals.

00:31– Well that’s new! A creepy girl rising from a lake. I can get behind that.

00:39– “We’re all going to die tonight.”

00:41 –FROM THE CREATORS OF THE HORROR CLASSIC. Comforting words.

00:50– I’m not quite sure what’s happening here. A red-clad figure appears to be catching a red ball. Somehow this is the creepiest image in the trailer to me.

00:51– Although the long-haired girl crawling along the ground, The Ring-style, comes close.

00:54– Lightbulb! Nostalgia again. The bloody lightbulb is one of my favorite little moments from the first Evil Dead.

Somehow simultaneously silly and creepy, which is the Evil Dead franchise in a nutshell.

00:57– Another creepy girl standing there. There are an awful lot of creepy girls in this trailer, which seems to be the biggest influence of the past few years of horror. Someone really needs to write a Men, Women, and Chain Saws-type analysis of all these J-horror silent creepy girls in contemporary horror.

1:05 –Chainsaw! This can only end well.

1:06– Possessed arm! This is definitely going to end well.

1:07– Chainsaw, meet possessed arm.

1:08– A girl in KISS makeup appears to be getting stabby on another girl.

1:10– Lamp getting spattered with blood. An even better lightbulb moment.

1:12– Explosion!

1:14– Oh no. The tree-rape. Um. Of all the scenes in the original, is that one we really need to see again?

This sad puppy has just seen moment 1:14 in the new Evil Dead trailer, and now is very very sad.

1:20 –She just sliced her own tongue in two with a box cutter! Okay, the gorehound in me must admit that’s kind of awesome.

Honestly, overall I have mixed feelings about this trailer. It looks like a mash-up of some great horror tropes of the past few years all in a classic Evil Dead setting, and there look to be at least a couple quite inventive horror set-pieces. As a straight horror film, there’s plenty to like here.

However, I’m both intrigued and concerned as to the new film’s approach to gender. One of the most striking points about the remake is the fact that the Bruce Campbell character has been gender-flipped. Of course, as Bruce himself observes in this video, it was already a gender-flip in the original. Ash was the Final Girl, and I’m awfully worried that, in making the Ash character female this time, the film-makers are going to wind up watering down everything that made Ash a memorable character and falling back on traditional Final Girl tropes.

The trailer does little to allay my fears on this front. The female protagonist gets to do a lot of standard Final Girl screaming and hiding, and most of the talking and action is done by the nerdy guy in flannel. (When my brother watched the trailer, not knowing in advance about the gender-flipped Ash, he assumed this guy was the new Ash.)

I want to see a female Ash. I want to see a woman in a movie who is as goofy and prone to slapstick as Bruce Campbell in the original Evil Dead films. I want to see a woman in a movie who follows Ash’s character arc, from cowardly dweeb to loudmouthed braggart with a chainsaw for an arm.

I want to see this, and I am not sure that the Evil Dead remake will give it to me. But I’ll certainly be there in 2013 to find out.

Max Thornton blogs at Gay Christian Geek, and is slowly learning to twitter at @RainicornMax.