Reaction Shots

Ahead of the second Dr. Strange movie coming out next year, it seems appropriate to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve with Sam Raimi’s seminal Evil Dead Trilogy.   A lot’s been written already about Raimi’s contribution to genre filmmaking, particularly this series. it’s not too much of a stretch to say that he and his team came out with one of the most assured feature debuts in a decade full of them. But there’s something special about “Evil Dead”. As Bill Hader said recently, it’s punk rock. Raimi paid tribute to his predecessors like John Carpenter, and Wes Craven (with a little Roger Corman leavening?) and he brought a sensibility that can only be described as Stoogerific. There is a slapstick element - more pronounced in the sequels - that is as destabilizing as the scares; but there’s also Raimi’s command of context.  In the lists of Lovecraft-derived horror movies, the Evil Dead mythos ties itself to Old Ones by using the Necronomicon as a driving plot point. We get Ash a...

It would be naive to think I wouldn’t be excited by both of these. Despite my cautiously optimistic temperament, I also know that a strong desire often results in a greater degree of disappointment. When it comes to movies, though I can still be enthusiastic, I really don’t have high expectations of any given film.   Consequently, for these two, I might be personally satisfied but I doubt I’d be surprised if either or both were disappointments. Are they? Let’s start with Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank  Herbert’s epic novel. To be sure, I’ve tried to read “Dune” repeatedly and usually found myself sidetracked by other things. This is not a knock on Herbert’s writing or the story; I’ve gotten far enough into the book to appreciate its world-building and artistry, but I bring this up to ensure that this isn’t one of those “in the book they did this” type of reviews.  Villeneuve said he wanted to create a “Star Wars for adults” and I believe he has largely succee...