BIGLENS THE KENT FILM MAGAZINE | VOLUME 7, ISSUE 3 | SPRING 2011
ALTERNATIVE ANIMATON
PLUS THE STATE OF BRITISH CINEMA BIGLENS GETS SPORTY MOVIE PIRACY AND MORE
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EDITORIAL
REFERENCE SNOB
COVER: WALACE AND GROMIT | ARDMAN ANIMATION
THE LAST FASSBENDER
AT THE END of my second, and final, WHEN SOMEONE ASKED ME who my favourite year of being the BIGLENS Art Editor, I’ve young(ish) actor the other day, I paused for a moment. been given the exciting honour of writing Then I paused for a longer moment. By this stage the moan editorial. Finally. And what I will use ment had elongated into an uneasy length of time, and I this space to do is to have a massive geek realised that there are very few actors around my age and out in true BIGLENS style. a bit older that I actually like. You know films that have loads of referRyan Gosling was my first thought, but surely he’s not ences to other films? You know, Scream, brilliant enough to be my favourite actor. Tom Hardy has The Quick and the Dead, Enchanted…. rocketed into my sphere of consciousness over the past Doesn’t recognising those subtle little mo- few months and I do like him, but he’s not someone who I ments make you feel really cool? find it easy to idolise. It used to be Gael Garcia Bernal, but I do. There’s nothing like the smug he’s getting on a bit these days and his choices of film are laughter of getting the joke that most of getting a bit more dubious. the audience, who apparently don’t watch Then I remembered Michael Fassbender. He’s someas many as films as me, don’t get. I love one who I’d happily label a genius. Whether he’s an Irish being the only person in the cinema who gypsy in Fish Tank, a hunger strike activist in Hunger, an recognises the miniscule reference. It’s absolutely legendary British officer in Inglourious Basterds snobbish, yes, but I can’t hep it. or even a tonked up homoerotic warrior in 300, I believe Like when I went to see Paul. Appar- everything he says and does and would happily watch any ently I was the only person in the cinema film he features in. Here’s hoping the parts keep on comwho had watched Close Encounters of the ing, as will his eventual and deserved success. Third Kind, or knew Star Wars well enough to recognise the music in the bar scene. Tom Brown At the same time, it’s a little sad. I can’t help but feel the large portion of the audience is missing out on some great films, and some funny jokes. And no one likes being the only person in the cinema Editor: Tom Brown laughing really… even when it’s a highly Editor: Chris Fennell condescending sneer of a laugh. Art Editor: Hannah Charles
SMALLPRINT
Hannah Charles
If you have a passion for film and would like to contribute to BIGLENS, please email tb283@kent.ac.uk or cf202@kent.ac.uk or visit www.kentfilm.net. BIGLENS is produced with the support of Kent Film, a society of the University of Kent Students Union. | All information is provided in good faith. | Articles are not necessarily the opinions of the editors of BIGLENS, of the Kent Film Society or of Kent Union. | Everything that is already copyrighted, is theirs. | Everything not, is the intellectual property of the individual writer, so no thieving.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST | DISNEY
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VANESSA TORLINE ANIMATION: NOT JUST FOR KIDS THE EVOLUTION OF animated feature film is largely credited to the United States and Japan, for good reason. Unquestionably these two countries head the animation industry, but their leadership and recognition take different forms. America deserves credit for the technical innovations made by Walt Disney, the first ink-and-paint man to provide his cartoons with synchronized sound. In 1937, Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became the first featurelength animated film to win popular acclaim from children, adults, and critics. For the first time, Hollywood approval extended beyond Frank Capra’s bighearted neighbours and Alfred Hitchcock’s victims to include fairy tale princesses and zany talking animals. Box office success wavered for a couple decades after Walt’s death, but revived with the Disney Renaissance, circa The Little Mermaid (1989) to Tarzan (1999), defying major competitors Don Bluth and DreamWorks Animation and re-establishing the animated musical as an American creation with worldwide appeal. Numerous achievements in other media aside, the entertainment giant’s legacy survives foremost in its animated films, due in no small part to the animation studio’s ability to adapt. Younger audiences are smarter these days, as reflected by the latest Disney pictures. Tiana, leading lady of The Princess and the Frog, is no princess at all, and she certainly doesn’t spend her whole movie chasing after a dream prince, choosing
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BEAUTY AND THE BEAST | DISNEY TOY STORY | PIXAR GRAVE OF THE FIREFLYS | STUDIO GHIBLI THE CURSE OF THE WERERABIT | ARDMAN ANIMATION
to pursue her dream job instead. Disney villains have always been a cut above, but in Tangled Mother Gothel’s passiveaggressive treatment of Rapunzel adds an original layer to her cruelty. Japan entered the realm of animation after World War II. The unmistakable “big eyes, small mouth” style of most Japanese animation was invented by manga author and animator Osamu Tezuka, drawing inspiration from 1940’s caricatured cartoons such as Betty Boop. As Japan’s style derives from Western techniques, the country’s foremost contribution to the field of animation lies not in visual art but in narrative. America has yet to master long-form animated storytelling as Japan has been doing for decades on television. Unlike the demographic of American animated feature films, which often include a range of age groups but rarely adults exclusively, Japan doesn’t shy away from producing sophisticated stories aimed at older audiences. Prime examples are Akira and Grave of the Fireflies, both released in Japan in 1988, rated R and PG-13 respectively. Highly thematic, Akira depicts a futuristic Tokyo is a world ravaged by nuclear holocaust; in Grave of the Fireflies, a young brother and sister struggle to survive the air raids in Kobe at the end of WWII. The latter film was produced by Studio Ghibli, Japan’s premiere animation group. Co-founded by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, Studio Ghibli enjoys a high degree of global recognition from the English-speaking world. When Pixar made its debut in 1995 with Toy Story, it launched a thus far failure-proof roster of quality CGI films. Disney subsidized Pixar, and executive producer John Lasseter now serves as chief creative officer for both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. Lasseter is a close friend of Miyazaki’s, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Pixar and Studio Ghibli share the method of putting a film’s story before its target audience. This may very well explain why their films consistently gain the favour of toddlers and retirees alike. The two dif-
“IN THIS HEMISPHERE ANIMATED FILMS ARE STILL CONSIDERED TO BE BENEATH LIVE ACTION.” fer, however, in their choice of topics. Miyazaki often explores the relationship between mankind and nature. Pixar simply seeks the emotionally engaging and discovers it in places as diverse as a clown fish’s quest to find his lost son and an elderly balloon salesman’s dream of adventure in South America. Categorisation is the principal difference in views on film between Japan and the West: Miyazaki and Takahata are regarded as top-tier filmmakers in Japan, their choice of medium notwithstanding, while in this hemisphere animated features are still considered to be beneath live-action. Fortunately, this sentiment is demonstrably changing. Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was the first animated feature film to be nominated for a “best picture” Academy Award. Only two other films have since garnered the same nomination, Up and Toy Story 3. The addition of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2001 has afforded spotlight for works from other nations, including the UK. Bristol-based Aardman Animation edged Studio Ghibli with Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit; Ireland came forward with The Secret of Kells (2009); France, a strong source of gifted animators, produced nominees The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist. Various cultures are realizing the potential of animation for serious filmmaking, presenting the possibility of industry dominance shifting someday. Until then, you can look forward to the next DVD edition of your favorite Disney movie. And probably the one after that.
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CARYS RAMSEY
“FILMMAKERS ARE USUALLY ONLY TOO WILLING TO MAKE SMALL ADJUSTMENTS FROM THE FAN’S IMPUT.”
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SNAKES ON A PLANE | NEW LINE CINEMA
FANATICAL
THE BATTLE CRY has sounded, the comments have been posted and the cosplayers are baying for blood. Audiences now have a bigger role in films than merely box office statistics; they work together with a system called the ‘production culture disclosure’ by creating fan bases around books, comics and specific actors. These bases (filled with fanatics) can then produce enough non-copyrighted material to rewrite the Harry Potter series a thousand times over. There are websites dedicated to spin off Harry Potter shorts, and it won’t take you much googling to come across a myriad of Potter related bands (my favourite is Alas Earwax); filmmakers know these creative goldmines exist and are usually only too willing to make small adjustments from the fans input. The 2006 film Snakes on a Plane added an extra five days of shooting just to include a scene suggested by fans, amongst other script changes including Samuel L. Jackson’s famous one liner. Fans may even become the directors and emerge from this base, and that’s when the conflict starts. Fans tend to have very strong opinions and a stubborn director is likely to make a film for him or herself, and try to create their own imagining of the book whilst ignoring the criticisms of other fans. This is less likely with comic book adaptations because the comic has a particular aesthetic. Frank Miller’s Sin City uses stark contrasts, moments of highlighted colour and unrealistic shadows. This style was then copied in Robert Rodriguez’s film, with Frank Miller present during the green screen shooting for artistic control. However, because the characters of comics are so well described in picture form, casting can become difficult as directors try to choose someone that fits the physical description, can act, and that the fans are happy with. Such controversy occurred with the casting of Superman for Superman Returns; the actor finally chosen, Brandon Routh, looked like the iconic Superman, Christopher Reeve, but was found lacking by a large proportion of the colossal
existing fan bases is very important. It’s taken as granted that a certain number of box office sales will be produced by the diehard fans even if it’s an awful film, such was the case with Eragon. The quality and success of a faithful adaptation of the original story will affect whether a sequel is made, again such was the case with Eragon. This is because hype is caused by the production culture disclosure, and tens of thousands of harsh critical fans are much more capable of noticing tiny flaws compared to one eagle eyed director. Power to the masses.
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THE HITCHHICKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY | TOUCHSTONE PICTURES
SIN CITY | TDIMENSION FILMS
Superman fan base. This happens a lot with the main superheroes of the Marvel and DC Comics. It happened again with the recasting of Spiderman, after the disenchanted Tobey Maguire revealed he wasn’t interested in making a fourth Spiderman movie, and Sony decided the entire story will be ‘rebooted’ as The Amazing Spiderman with Andrew Garfield as the title character. If a film is a remake it has been known for directors to use cameos from the previous version, for instance Simon Jones, who played the original Arthur Dent in the TV series of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, also appeared in the remake as a recorded warning message. People involved in the behind the scenes making of films often take to a little acting in their own films. Peter Jackson appears uncredited in many of his films including the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy; Stan Lee is a frequent cameo in Marvel films; even Richard Branson appeared in Superman Returns, Around the World in 80 Days and Casino Royale, although his connection to the films’ production seems nonexistent. The reception of films with large and pre-
PIRACY: PIECES OF HATE SAM FARRAR
IT’S TIME TO talk about piracy, that thing we do when we think that no one is judging, no one is watching. And of course no one is watching, because no one really cares; it’s got to the point where we are all doing it, our parents are doing it, our lecturers, even the people in industries that are being pirated upon are doing it. We’ve evolved away the need to pay for the services of the entertainment industry, and when something becomes outdated, it normally dies. A sad fact. We’re told piracy is hurting all the important people in the world that provide us with entertainment in between the
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drudgery of real life. That’s not a reason to stop though, that’s an abstract concept; like climate change: you stop driving, you’ll save the world. You start recycling, you’ll save the world. Don’t pirate Heroes seasons 1 – 5 (especially not the latest one, its utter tripe) you’ll save the world. All of that smells like hogwash and fairy testicles to me. We just don’t think of the film industry (or the music industry, or the games industry, or the publishing industry, the list goes on) has got the imagination or the drive to really make piracy not worth it. They’ve become too self reliant on the fact that we’ll adore an endless deluge of Nicholas Sparks movies, that we’ll lap up the mediocre. Some affable nitwit tried two years ago with Wolverine; each cinema was
“A FEW OF YOU READING THIS WILL WATCH A PIRATED FILM WHEN YOU GET HOME. YOU’RE NOT AFRAID ANYMORE BECAUSE IT’S THE NORM.” given a different ending scene after the credits so that anyone ‘Camming’ the film would only get that ending. Laughable, friends! Positively laughable! Five minutes of Youtubing will allow you to see all the endings. Let’s face it, a few of you reading this will watch a pirated film when you get home; you’ll probably watch it on a site online, or you may have had a friend torrent it for you and hand it over. You’re not afraid anymore because it’s the norm. Last year I met the man behind ‘you wouldn’t steal a car video’, I was dressed in a pirate cape, I had nine friends standing behind me, we were all positively buzzing about ‘sticking it to The Man’. That man did the worst thing possible: he took me seriously. He sat me down and we had a long hard talk about where the films industry was heading. Well, colour me embarrassed. My argument instantly rendered invalid, my choice quotes from a few web debates between some anti DRM protesters were dissected and shown to have diddly squat reasonable value. I realised that Piracy just isn’t cool: it’s just a cheap option to actually paying for things that may end
up meaning something to you. Imagine a world where an object that you feel belongs to you does not in fact belong to you or does not have any physicality in the real world. Do you remember your dad’s record collection? Do you remember your granddad’s crime novel collection? What do you have to pass one day? No one wants a portable hard drive full of torrented films, music and pictures of cats that look like Hitler. Kevin Smith sees it. At Sundance he refused to auction the distribution rights to his new horror film, and lots of people thought he was just being a whiny baby. Smith knows the industry, and it’s pretty obvious to see from his ‘rant’ that he’s sick of the film industry and the fact they just don’t understand good films anymore. Maybe he’s make a huge loss by releasing his own film his own way; only time will really tell. But it’s nice to see someone who’s a made man in the industry mixing things up a bit. We’re a new generation of people. A few people in this university will be entering the film biz; maybe they’ll make it quite far, or maybe the entertainment industry will be dead by the time they get there. We have young creative people at this Uni, people who grew up with piracy, and I think we can come up with a better initiative than just lowering ticket prices. Here’s a suggestion; let’s make piracy less cool by us stop calling it Piracy. Piracy is too romantic an image. Call it ‘DRM diddling’ or ‘net pigs’. Something silly sounding. I’d bet good money that a lot less of the new generation will be less attracted to it.
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THE SPORTING LIFE TOM BROWN
“IN SPORTS FILMS THE GROUND IS FERTILE FOR TRIUMPHING OVER ADVERSARY, FOR TURNING RAGS INTO RICHES, A CHANCE FOR THE UNDERDOG TO SHINE.”
RAGING BULL | UNITED ARTISTS
IN MANY WAYS, sport is absolutely suited to the medium of film. The ground is perfectly fertile for triumphing against adversity, for turning rags into riches, for the underdog to shine. Cinema audiences have shown time and time again a willingness to shell out their cash to see these kinds of stories, similar to the way that we’ll pay to see them in real life as well, be it at a football stadium or snooker hall. Despite being perfect marriage material, though, it’s nigh on impossible to make a truly brilliant sports film. Some do magnificently, though, in capturing that thrill of the event. Anyone who’s seen Raging Bull will have its scenes forever locked in their visual cortex: the slow motion of De Niro’s face, the blood spouting out all over the shop, the raw kineticism and brutishness. The excitement and intensity that sport provides is something that, given the right team, can be hugely effective on film. Who can say they didn’t feel a slight tingle of excitement down their spine during the brilliantly scored Chariots of Fire? I remember as a kid watching these films and pretty much zoning out until the actual sport started happening. I couldn’t care less about plot, storyline and character development. Let’s face it, they were probably pretty lacking anyway. Even in Space Jam, which is brilliant all the way through, all I really cared about was the slam dunking, alley-ooping, and Michael Jordan’s humungous arm. But for every perfect ten there are a multitude of films that score the big nil points, those particularly lacking in terms of excitement and involvement. Does anyone remember Mean Machine, featuring the hefty acting chops of Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham? Or Mike Basset: England Manager. And as fun (or awful, take your pick) as films like Wimbledon and A Knight’s Tale might be, they’re hardly shimmering examples of sporting greatness. The Goal! series of films is a particu-
And herein lies the biggest problem. When you’re watching a sports film, you know that what you’re seeing has already happened. The outcome has already been decided, you’re just watching it inevitably play out. Any remotely sophisticated viewer will be able to work out what’s going to happen next, and there’s no way this can ever compare to the unpredictability of live sport. Even though you know your team are going to go crashing out in the fourth round, there’s always that slight hope that maybe, just maybe, the unexpected will happen. On top of this, thanks to the British media, pretty much all sports come with their own surrounding storylines and plot intrigues. There’s no need at all to watch Eastenders if you’re a follower of the Premier League, the drama’s all there for you. But every hardcore sports fan will have that dvd of their team’s winning season, and it’s always nice to return to these moments, especially when the present may not be so fruitful. And thus, there will always be a place for films about sport.
SPACE JAM | WARNER BROS
larly good example of movies that pander to their sporting audience and end up presenting a caricatured version of the game rather than the reality of it. Goal! 2 takes our suspension of disbelief too far by suggesting that an Arsenal team could reach the Champions’ League final and score two goals when they got there. Silliness. And any film that requires an exclamation mark in its title to make it more exciting cannot be trusted. Occasionally, films can take things in the opposite direction. Many, including myself, would occasionally dare to class sport as art, an opinion seemingly shared by the people behind Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait. The film is essentially ninety minutes of multiple cameras at a Real Madrid game following Zidane’s movements and technique, even when he doesn’t have the ball. It’s basically like Sky Sports’ “player cam” but in the guise of a film, and while it’s interesting in many ways, it effectively saps any of the raw excitement out of the game of football. One of the biggest problems beleaguering a sports film is that of cliché. It’s hard enough that literally all professional sportsmen seem to talk in nothing but clichés, but the films have to abide by the set formulas of genre as well. This blueprint was exploited knowingly in Dodgeball, and the film has fun exploiting pretty much all of the typical components of a sports film. Whether a comedy, though, or something aiming to be a little more serious, you can be damn sure that by the end of the film the underdogs will come up good, oralternatively they’ll finish a close second and finally realise that winning isn’t everything after all.
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“IF THE PAST YEAR IS ANYTHING TO GO BY, MUCH MORE SHOULD BE EXPECTED FROM BRITISH CINEMA IN THE FUTURE.” 12
FOUR LIONS | FILM 4
MICHAEL CHAPMAN
THE KINGS SPEECH | BEADLAM PRODUCTIONS
A NEW ENGLAND?
BRITAIN’S NATIONAL CINEMA has always seemed feeble when compared with the rest of the world: we’re most famous for gritty social portraits and, conversely, period dramas. Our most experimental and creative film makers such as Danny Boyle, Edgar Wright, Christopher Nolan and even Alfred Hitchcock moved to the bright lights of Hollywood. The remains are directors like Shane Meadows and Mike Leigh, and although they are skilled filmmakers, they continue to make the same sort of kitchen sink dramas this country is famous for. However, in the last two years there has been a burst of creativity and experimentalism, proving that all is not lost. Take The Arbor for example, a documentary that sets out to challenge the viewer’s perception of reality and fiction. This is achieved by having actors lip synching to real life interviews, a technique which is so effective that often one forgets they are watching a documentary at all. Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop, similarly challenges the notion of realism within film. Many have claimed that the artist, ‘Mr Brainwash’, at the heart of the documentary is fictional and therefore the whole narrative is a hoax. If so, this may be the greatest ‘Banksy’ yet. Comedy is also being pushed to new boundaries with Chris Morris’s Four Lions. Here is a film maker who can make a tragic black comedy about suicide bombers without resorting to stereotypes or crude humour. Instead, the film intelligently questions the state of modern Britain and actually manages to make the viewer feel sympathy towards the unlikely group of antagonists. Morris quite rightly received recognition by BAFTA, receiving the award for Outstanding Debut by a British Director. Competing with Morris at the BAFTAs was Gareth Edwards, a di-
MONSTERS | VIRTIGO FILMS
rector who has demonstrated that with a little imagination, a camera, a small budget (some sources claim as low as £15,000) almost anything is possible. Monsters takes a new angle on the science fiction film, examining how society would cope months after an invasion. A romance film is then set against this unlikely backdrop and the result is one of the most beautifully made films of 2010. Perhaps the biggest proof that British cinema is coming into its own is The King’s Speech. Period dramas may be nothing new, but Hooper’s film did something new with the genre, showing the monarchy in a completely new light. Films about royalty may be nothing original either with the release of The Queen a few years back, but visually it appeared more like a television movie; it had none of the cinematic elegance of The King’s Speech. The awards season spoke volumes. Tom Hooper’s victory at the Oscars proved how British film is progressing, beating off great directors such as Joel Coen, David Fincher and Darren Aronofsky.
This is the first time that a director making films in Britain has won for a very long time. But what’s next? With the collapse of the UK film council, British film has no doubt hit a low point as far as funding is concerned but hopefully this will encourage greater creativity with a lesser budget. Gareth Edwards has proved that this possible, and if the ingenuity shown in the past year is anything to go by, much more is should be expected from British cinema in the future.
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NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD | IMAGE TEN
DEAD MEN WALKING
VADIM A. MILEVSKIY
IT’S GONE MIDNIGHT. “Stan! Wake up,” I said to my younger brother, “I can’t find mum and dad... I can’t find anyone!” He opens his eyes and gets off the bed, grabbing my hand. Stepping out of the room, we find ourselves standing at the end of a dark, silent hotel corridor. Moonlight sneaks through the doorways at the end of the hall. We run through the corridor, looking in every unlocked room we meet on our way. Our panic lasts for about five minutes, when I realise that they might be in our friends’ room on another floor. Grabbing his little hand tighter with each second, I tell him that I know where they are. We rush into the room, finding everyone there. My chest is overcome with calm. I am now relaxed. Suddenly, at the back of my mind I realise that this is not because we found them, but because being little kids and having gone through that adventure, we are the winners! As adrenaline starts to break down in my bloodstream, I am left weak and extremely tired – within a couple of minutes we, both, fall asleep on someone’s bed beside our mum. It happened a long time ago. I was just a child and that summer our family and
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friends stayed in a Black Sea resort. The reason I started with this story is because that is the exact same feeling I got the first time I watched Evil Dead. Strange, creepy, scary, but interesting and captivating at the same time! They say, if one likes horror genre they are addicted to adrenaline. I believe that while this might be true, I was never really into any extreme types of sports. I guess I am capable of getting just the right dose of this hormone by watching a decent zombie film. Though it sounds silly, I am pretty happy with the fact that I have no need for a parachute jump to prove myself that I am alive... a cinema ticket will do. Since this article is about zombies, I would firstly like to dive back in time for a second in order to let you into a story of the past and how this “surrounded-by-rainyclouds” zombie culture has begun. It all started in 1968, when commercial makers, George A. Romero and two of his close friends decide to film a horror movie. And as it often happens in life, getting the first chance they can get their hands on in realising their desire they give birth to an almost entirely new genre. They give birth to The Night of Living Dead. An independent black-and-white feature, that would be heavily criticised with no little disgust and that would later be numerously remade and serve as a baseline for a whole underworld of an industry. Later, there would be Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead and ‘’pretty-much-everything-else’’ of the Dead. And those are just films, there were the computer and board games, books and rock music themes. A whole zombie Universe!
“EACH ONE OF US WOULD, TO A CERTAIN EXTENT, LIKE TO PRESS THE ‘RESET’ BUTTON.”
EVIL DEAD II | DEG
Personally, I think George A. Romero is the genius and a forefather of the zombie culture. However, this “play” does have a second leading character. And that is the horror-master Sam Raimi. The director of such famous features as The Evil Dead, as well as Within the Woods, The Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn and, lastly, Army of Darkness, which was pretty different from the previous in a sense of being more of a comedy rather than a horror film, but still unusually interesting at the same time. The Evil Dead films were a breakthrough in a horror movie industry. Its content gave the viewer an absolutely new bouquet of anxious and chilling emotions, placing the audience into a dark, cold room with dripping wet ceilings and with a fear of looking behind their cinema seat. One of the reasons why people like the zombie idea is that sometimes everybody gets tired to the point where they just want to give up on everything and just get lost somewhere on the other end of the world. Somewhere deep inside, each one of us would to a certain extent like to press the “reset” button, and what else serves as a better example of a “reset” other than the zombie apocalypse? And although thinking of an apocalypse is depressive and cruel, I think that sometimes it is kind of nice to let your mind and imagination slip into a two-hour universe with no rules – the zombie universe. Usually, towards the end of my articles I like to summarise everything I have said above, giving an opportunity to arrive to some sort of a conclusion on a discussed topic. I would also like to say, quoting many famous writers, that if you consider yourself a creative person, you should learn to evolve. This time I feel that just a summary is not enough, which is why I would rather like to make an informal, indirect advice, using the “zombie concept” as a metaphor. In the second movie the hopefully never-ending saga, Dawn of the Dead, an old priest appearing on TV says: “When there is no more room in Hell, the Dead will walk the Earth...” Of course, the idea of walking dead flesh is unrealistic, but it does serve its purpose if it is thought of in a philosophical perspective. There is so much violence, negativity and filth festering in our world that if we, as people, will not do anything about it right now it is only going to get worse. As time flies by and nothing is done about it still, these tendencies will grow exponentially. And then, it will no longer matter if you have any religious views or not: “the dead walk the earth ...”
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