cinephilechronicals

[cinephilechronicals]

evil dead rise was one of the most overwhelming and disgusting blur of a film i have ever seen. i remember the first time i watched evil dead rise. i went with my older brother and mom for a late night viewing (which probably wasn’t the best idea). fun fact: i left that cinema crying. not crying because i was that scared, but overwhelmed. now to be fair, i have seen it 4 times, 3 of which in cinema.

and before you ask, no it never got easier.

lee cronin’s 2023 horror flick EVIL DEAD RISE has truly horrified audiences to their core. with an unhealthy mix of brutality, death, family, and demonic skin books, evil dead rise truly accomplishes what it set out to do — disgust. personally, i did not like this evil dead rendition on my first viewing. we had absolutely no idea what was going to happen in next hour and a half, and was very surprised. evil dead rise made $23 million in it’s opening weekend, which is decent for a budget of $15-$19 million. it was on my second watch that i actually began to enjoy and understand the film. so, what’s so scary about this film?

tl;dr: boy steals scary book, gets mom possessed, mom wreacks havoc, sister kills possessed mom, unhappy ending! okay so that’s not everything, but that’s pretty much it. the film actually begins in a lake-side cabin, where a “sick” girl is actually possessed, and kills her two cabin mates by the lake. after a beautiful title card, we cut to our family home. here we have our mom ellie, her kids danny, bridget, and kassie, and her road-tech sister beth. ellie sends her kids for pizza, but get stuck in an earthquake on their way back. a crack opens up an entrance to an underground bank, where danny investigates against his sisters’ wishes an finds a book covered in skin. being the teenager he is, he smuggles it back to the house. he opens it and finds 2 records. he plays them as his mother goes out to do the laundry downstairs. all hell breaks loose in the elevator, as the cords begin to wrap around her and attack her. we return to the apartment, where the now possessed ellie begins to let loose. she attacks beth and the kids. this takes up most of the film, ending up with bridget turning into a deadite “killed” by danny, who then gets turned into a deadite by bridget. kassie and beth escape, and are met with the final boss, an amalgamation of ellie and her kids. they tussle, and the film ends with the mass getting chewed up in a wood chipper, and ellie’s head being destroyed by a chainsaw. but it doesn’t end, because we see the possessed girl from the very beginning discovering the mess, and getting possessed. how creative!

now, there are some things about this film that i really like, and some i really hate. after watching the film so many times, my opinion has actually gotten worse. so, i originally really enjoyed the film (despite crying when i left). but once i kept watching i began to find myself enjoying it less and less.

so, the thing i really hated about this film is a lack of pacing. it seems that they had a vague idea with the story but put all their energy and time into the gore rather than an interesting story for the audience to follow. the pacing was lackluster, like, there was literally no time to think or react. though it could have worked somehow, it just didn’t. you can get a brief idea of the story, like the mom gets posessed and stuff, but there’s a lot of story points that the film basically introduces and ditches. like isn’t there that entire character point that beth is pregnant? i’m pretty sure that it’s meant to be a pretty important character feature, but it’s just brushed over. and then the kid’s dad leaving, that’s never really explored in relation to the characters being vulnerable. and even why the necronomicon is there in the first place. like, the character relationships are minimal and rushed. like i said, their dad leaving should have made their relationships strong or at least have some kind of emotion, but we literally didn’t realise that beth and ellie were siblings. that’s the main thing about evil dead rise that i really didn’t like. however, the good does outweigh the bad (maybe).

onto the good! i think what makes the film so jarring is not only the gore, but just how realistic the characters are. though my brother thought that some of the characters were cringe, and to be fair, sure, but the characters seemed like normal people nowadays. ellie feels like a mom you’d find in that kind of area, a little rough around the edges, but she has such a strong heart. her character as a mother fits so well. bridget is someone who i’ve definitely seen somewhere. i think that her character is really interesting. though politics is something i don’t really life in films, i think that her protesting and her sign on her door builds her character really well. it shapes her as a person of the times, and her character is actually pretty realistic for the time and area in which the movie is set. danny as well, he just seemslike an older brother. though his character isn’t really fleshed out, his role as an older brother is really nice to see. you can tell that all the characters really care for one another, and their family dynamic is really nice.

and then there’s the gore. wow. the gore in this film is ridiculous, like my god. though it is extreme, it’s done really well. i think everyone remembers the cheese grater scene, and though it is nasty, literally all of the gore in bridget’s death is so gross. the elevator scene was really uncomfortable to watch, i mean, that was an insane amount of blood. though i can’t imagine it was much better filming that. though it's excessive, the gore is really well done. props to the physical effects team, truly. it fits really well to the story, like, the gore seems realistic to the situation.

evil dead rise definitely has it's flaws, as all films do, but it was such a good film. i really do think that the movie will stick with audiences for years to come. maybe not for the right reasons though. i know a lot of people weren't really a fan of this evil dead rendition, and to be honest, that's fair, but i do still think that it stands strong!

[cinephilechronicals]

it’s here! the first saw x trailer is here! me being me, as soon as i got home i immediately watched the trailer, watched an analysis, then talked to myself for 10 minutes about it. yes that’s sad, you don’t need to tell me. jigsaw is out for revenge, and i’m all for it.

if you’d like to watch the trailer before i start discussing it, you can watch it here:

before we start reading way too far into things, let’s talk about saw.

saw is my favorite film series, one i definitely started watching way too young. in fact, my favorite entry is saw III which came out the year i was born, 2006. i love most of the films, but man do the last few suck. like, majorly suck. saw 5 was when things started to go downhill, and by saw 7 i was just confused on how we got there. jigsaw was… something. spiral was just gross in the worst ways. where did it go wrong? the lack of john. after his death in saw III, it lost the essence that made it such a brilliant film series in the first place. but all of that is why i’m so excited for this new entry. considering it takes place between saw II and III, which are considered two of the best in the series by fans, there is a lot of potential. and the trailer has not let us down.

on my first watch, i didn’t really take anything in because i was too excited by the return of tobin bell as john kramer. though i had a lot of questions. the storyline heavily references and relies on the first 3 films. the general storyline that was presented by the initial trailer is the film follows john on his travels to the experimental surgery that he presented william easton with in saw 6. he gets the surgery to have his tumor removed, and is promised that once he recovers, his life will begin. all hope is cut short when on a check up it’s revealed that the tumor was never removed, leaving john with months left at best. he targets those involved, and puts them in a series of traps. this sounds like the ultimate redemption for a failed film series, and i could not be more excited.

on my second watch, i took some notes so i could wrap my head around what we saw. though beware, my handwriting is a bit of an eyesore.

if you can’t read that, don’t worry — i’m going to discuss it all anyways.

traps are the most important part of saw, and it seems like saw x won’t disappoint. from what i could see, the traps follow a formula better seen in saw 4 and 5, with a main group in traps together and a few separately done. it seems that the core group is made of the doctors that performed the surgery on john, with about 4 or 5 in the room.

the first one we can see is a wire trap that looks like the victim will have to cut off an arm and a leg or have their head cut off. i can only imagine that most of the traps in this game are for the surgical assistants, given that seems like the only likely explanation. this trap looks nasty, but i can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t an important trap.

then there’s a brazen bull looking trap. in this is the woman behind the experimental surgery, so i can imagine that this is an important trap. it’s in the centre of the room, looking right at john, but she doesn’t seem to be in any kind of danger. i think she seems safe because even though she is the face behind the surgery, we didn’t really see her do anything. this one is a bit weird, but given the lack of danger and important victim, i think she’s in it for the long run.

there’s a young woman chained up, and i’m pretty sure that sure that she’s the experiment’s scapegoat. earlier she tells john about how the surgery saved her life, and as we know, no it damn well didn’t. later on she get’s lifted into the air and choked, but there’s nothing else that we can tell from the trailer.

and then there’s the main trap of the game is the brain surgery trap. this looks absolutety nasty, for the victim and us. i mean, that blood spurt already told me that this one is gonna be gross. this one sets off a timer for 3 minutes, and is the only one that has a timer. and anyone who has seen a saw film knows that the traps are usually done under a time constraint, so that’s kinda weird. i think that this one sets off the traps, and if he can survive, maybe everyone else does? i’m not sure, there’s really nothing we can tell so far.

there’s two less important traps that i remember seeing. if i’ve forgotten any please tell me. one is what i can only describe as knife hands. literally just ducktaped hands with scapels just kinda stabbed in there. this isn’t really shown, but he is seen trying to disable some mechanics attached to him with the scapels, so maybe he survives? we’ll find out soon enough.

then there’s the star of the show — the eye trap. as someone who wears glasses, anything with eyes really grosses me out. and this… oh man. the victim has to break their fingers or risk something happen to their eyes. there’s a lot of theories about this, and it seems that most people agree on suction or some kind of acid. so eyes and broken bones.. i’m gonna hate this one.

there’s also a back-cutter trap, but we see like a single shot of it, so who knows what the deal is with that one. though it’s the second time we see a spine-cutter in saw. it’s unlike the one art wears in saw 4, seeing his was at the back of the neck. this one is much lower, and could probably have a higher chance of survival. i think that these both aren’t mean to kill, but are some kinda motivator.

now for the thing that made me jump out of my chair and dance around my room. john’s right hand man, amanda! she’s back! my favorite jigsaw apprentice <3. it’s about time that we see amanda truly back in action since her death in saw III. though if we’re going through the timeline, this is one of her first appearance as an apprentice. there’s a scene in the trailer that shows a hand pressing a button on the main panel of the game machinery, and given that tobin bell is like 70, there’s no way that that’s his hand. i fully believe that amanda has some sort of hand playing directly into the game. i mean, we see john hugging and crying on someone that i can only hope is amanda.

and right at the beginning, we hear john’s left hand man, hoffman. we just don’t see him at all in the trailer. i think that he’s in the one shot of the bathroom we saw, walking towards someone hanging, but i’m not sure. but what i am sure of is that his voice is heard in the first second of the trailer.

i’d like to put a slight spoiler, even though this entire post is, but this one may disappoint and excite a few people. so SPOILER IN PLACE. it’s been confirmed that dr. lawrence gordon unfortunately will not be returing to the saw series. one of my favorite youtubers patrick burow made a really good video on the latest saw spoilers, so if you’d like to hear more about that you can find his channel here:

but yes, no dr. gordon. though this should come as no surprise considering cary elwes had that lawsuit with the production team. or something like that, it’s old news but it’s still disappointing. on a good note, it’s also confirmed that adam is returning! he isn’t played by leigh whannel of course, but you can also hear more about this in patrick’s video! in some image leaks he looks rough. this is before adam gets killed by amanda in saw III, so we probably see him right in between the jigsaw reveal and his death.

so, my final thoughts. i’m very, very excited. i’ve been waiting for an actually good main saw film since saw 6. i think that the film has a lot of promise, and i’m expecting good things. the gore won’t disappoint, and i do hope that it’ll be somewhat similar to the level in spiral. though it wasn’t good, man that gore was nasty. so yes, i’m quite excited for saw X. hopefully everyone is too! i’d love to hear what everyone has to say.

[cinephilechronicals]

august playlist recap

so, here’s what i’ve been listening to during august!

werewolf — motionless in white

i’ve been listening to way more miw than usual. like, i really love miw, but this month will destroy my spotify recap. listening to this song isn’t enough. i need this song injected into my blood, i want it tattooed on my forehead. like i cannot get over this god damn song. it’s just so good.

slaughterhouse — motionless in white ft. bryan garris

this is another one that’s just on repeat. it’s pretty heavy, and both artist’s vocals are just so good. like, chris can hit such a mean blegh and bryan’s screams are just amazing. top tier song of the month.

cyberhex — motionless in white

okay i promise that this is the last miw song on the list. but man, this and scoring the end of the world are really good cyber-metal songs. like cyberhex just screams mick gordon. i love chris’ pronounciation in this, like i love the way that chris sings things.

viking — slaughter to prevail

dude alex terrible never misses. that bear growl,,, man. this song is so good, like the instrumentals, the vocals, slaughter to prevail just never disappoints. i’m so hyped to hear it live in december.

holy roller — spiritbox

honestly i could put the entire eternal blue album. spiritbox is such a beast of a band, they always hit. this song is so god damn good. i couldn’t even tell you exactly what it is about this song that it so good, it just is. i love courtney’s vocals here oh my god.

bring back the plague — cattle decapitation

i don’t think i’ll ever move on from this song. cattle decap is such a monsterous band, i’m so mad i can’t see them this year. this song just hits, always has, always will.

[cinephilechronicals]

who's this?

hello!

my name is jays, and this, is cinephilechronicals.

this blog is actually my final assignment for my technologies class for year 12, but i might keep up with it after i graduate. here i’m going to talk about my favorite films, because there’s just not enough opinions about movies nowadays. i find genuine enjoyment in analysing films and just talking about them.

in particular, i am a huge horror buff. my favorite horror film is saw II, and saw is my favorite film series of all time. i started watching horror films when i was definitely way too young. my first horror film was scream when it got left on my dad’s tv late at night. it freaked me out, and i refused to watch anything even slightly scary ever again. then i saw my brother playing some horror game in a winter cabin (if you know what that is, let me know), and i realized how fun being scared is. then, bam. mental illness.

outside of films, i’m a 17 year old high school student who spends a little too much time drawing and playing the sims. my favorite horror films are saw (1-3), halloween (1,2, 2018), evil dead, texas chainsaw massacre, and a bunch of other things.

i'm also a metalhead, who mainly listens to deathcore with the occasional metalcore band. my favorite bands are lorna shore, chelsea grin, slaughter to prevail, ghost, and trivium, bad omens, and a bunch of other stuff. i also went to knotfest australia, and no, i haven't financially or emotionally recovered.

i'll mostly be talking about movies, but may sometimes dip into music.

stick around! i might just post :)