RIDICULOUS MOMENTS IN HORROR - PART 1
This segment is the first of what will be a continual stream of ridiculous horror moments sprinkled throughout this blog. I'm starting with an easy one. First, though, a
little backstory.
I’ve been fascinated with the spooky side of cinema for
as long as I can remember. The earliest horror movies I saw were from the
Friday the 13th and Halloween franchises, and as a youngster I
took the movies seriously. I was literally scared of Jason and
Michael. The slashers were at the tip top of all movies in my eyes, and nothing could surpass them. At some point when I was about
thirteen I bought a book at the local Blockbuster called Movie
Psychos and Madmen. It chronicled the history of villains in movies, and the reason I bought it was because it had a chapter on
slashers. I remember reading a passage from the book basically stating
that the slasher movies were not to be taken seriously, because the killer is
supernatural and therefore not as realistic as, say, Norman Bates from Psycho.
As much as I hate to use this word in the overly sensitive times we live in, I
was offended. Ridiculous, but true.
I was offended because, at the time, I had not made a
distinction between skillfully crafted movies (like the aforementioned Psycho,
or The Exorcist) and the type of movies you watch just for the thrill of
being scared. Movies like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street
or the Halloween sequels. I loved those movies, and in my pre-teen
mind I took it as an unfair criticism to imply that I shouldn’t take them
seriously.
About a year later I stayed over at a friend’s house.
At the time we were going through a massive horror movie phase, searching out
every movie in that section of the rental stores and watching them one after
the other. He had a movie called Evil Dead. He owned it, and
it was in a blank white case that gave no clue as to the contents of the
videocassette inside. He gave me the backstory about a guy who fights
demons in a cabin in the woods, and how in part 2 he has to cut off his hand
and replace it with a chainsaw. Oddly enough I recognized what he was
talking about. My mother had rented a
movie she thought I’d like called Army of Darkness months earlier.
I remember watching it and not quite understanding what I was seeing. It
was horror, sure, but it was also funny and a little bit weird. I didn’t know how I felt about it, but it
stayed in my mind for all that time afterward. So I mentioned it. My friend explained that Army was actually part 3
of this Evil Dead movie! I decided I needed to watch it.
I did watch it.
I loved it.
It wasn’t until we rented Evil Dead 2, though,
that I began to realize something. As I watched the hero - Ash - beat
himself silly with his own possessed hand, it all started to make sense.
This movie wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.
It had some spooky moments, but it was basically a slapstick comedy
dressed as a horror film. It really drove that point home when the
severed hand flicks the bird at Ash before scurrying into a
rathole (Check out the hand battle below, before and after it is dismembered).
To this day Evil Dead 2 remains in my top five
favorite horror movies. It sets such a beautifully wonky atmosphere that
keeps you questioning: Am I supposed to be afraid or am I supposed to
laugh? If you’re reading this as a horror fan you most likely know this
movie all too well. What was your first
experience with the Evil Dead franchise? Sound off below in the comments.
