Bruce Campbell Archives - Awesome Friday!

8 January 20228 January 2022

WFF ’21 Review: ’18 1/2′ is an amusing genre mashup

There are many theories about the missing 18 1/2 minutes of Richard Nixon’s White House recordings. At a time of heightened controversy –thanks to Watergate and the ensuing investigations– the gap in recordings created a convenient slot into which a persons conspiracy theory of choice might fit.

Dan Mirvish’s new film 18 1/2 explores a quaint, yet zany, moment of alternate history where the tape itself was taped and a young transcriptionist secrets it away from the White House to listen to it with a journalist. Hilarity ensues when they check into a small town motel to do just that.

30 August 202023 September 2023

Fantasia Review: ‘Hail to the Deadites’ is an opportunity missed

Some B movies go nowhere, and others become cult classics. People love this latter category of film. People go out of their way to see them in special screenings and to collect memorabilia. What makes these films resonate is a question worth examining. Not only do they have to have a certain je ne sais quoi about them, whether that is amazing effects, the cast having a great time, or them being perfectly of their place and time, but something causes them to connect with audiences profoundly.

Sam Raimi’s trilogy of Evil Dead movies are, all three of them, this type of movie. The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness are all definitive cult classics with a wide fanbase. Hail to the Deadites, this new documentary about the fandom surrounding this trilogy, presents an opportunity to answer why and how these movies resonate.

It’s a pity then that it does not do that.