ringnes_herre

This series has the unsettling strangeness of The Wicker Man (1973), the cold intellect and social awareness of George Orwell's 1984 and the campyness of early Bond movies. It feels like something Rod Serling could have written at his peak, but tempered with typical British dry humour. Despite the clear influence from The Twilight Zone, it ends up feeling unique. So many shows carries a clear inspiration from, or pays direct homage to The Prisoner. It's one of those shows that stays relevant decades after it's first run, thanks to it's solid storytelling, deep philosophical underpinnings and atmosphere.

Most reviews of this show is from around 2012, and people compare it to Lost. I must say, after watching the complete first (and only season) that it's a fitting comparison, but also for all the wrong reasons. It pops up on multiple "underrated horror show" lists, so I figured I should review it (trying to keep it spoiler free). The beginning is rather rushed, but sets an interesting tone and introduce a promising consept. After a while the characters develops. This is also when it starts getting interesting. Then the story falls flat on it's face, with a twist that completely ruins it for me. The eerie and claustrophobic atmosphere dissapear. The "found footage" angle is stretched too far (using "found footage" that has only a vague connection to the TV-show theeme). One might argue that the show even switches genre, sacrifising the exploration and superatural for something completely different. Uptil that point it's a flawed, but promising show. I recommend it for the solid middle episodes, and some might even like the direction it takes. But personally I can't say that I'm dissapointed that it ended when it did.

Many people have tried to make crazy horror-comedies, and many has failed. But those who have succeeded, has really made a tasty goulash of horror and humor. Two other good examples I can think of is Peter Jackson's cult movie "Braindead" and the modern British cult-classic "Shaun of the Dead." But still, my favorite remains "The Evil Dead trilogy", and especially "The Army Of Darkness."

The movies takes place shortly after the second movie ends. It opens with a small flashback to the moments when Ash has been forced to cut off his possessed hand, and replacing it with a chainsaw. He then escapes through a time vortex he summoned with the aid of the Necronomicon (the book of the dead) which all the movies plots are based upon. The book, covered in human skin, and written in human blood contains a direct gateway two the underworld and in the wrong hands it may provoke the end of the world. In the first movies Ash has his hands full trying to fight off his friends which all are turned in to horrible demons. In the third movie Ash find that in the past people are living in constant fear of the living dead who roams the land. It's time to fight back. Good ting he brought his chainsaw and boom-stick (a twin-barrel shotgun which can fire a surprisingly high numbers of shots in a row.)

This is the final movie in the "Evil Dead" trilogy," and the movies goofiness and crazy-humor is accelerating from the original and comes to it's climax the third movie. The Army of Darkness is like the first two "Evil Dead movies" hovering gracefully in the strange spot between a "low budget horror turkey" and a well directed epic tale of bravery and bone-chilling terror. It's a movie poorly made in many ways. The "sceleton army" looks like a bunch of those plastic skeletons your biology teacher used to drag out from a closet, and the voice overs is sometimes done with a goofy German accent. There's one thing that saves Army of Darkness from being ridiculous, and that is that it's fully aware of it's own flaws. Sam Raimi is by my opinion a genius, and manage to turn the sometimes terrible special effects into a vital part of the movies humor. It's not a bad, it's just not taking itself very seriously! This movie is far from a "low budget turkey." It's got a great plot, a great cast (wonderfull overacting by Bruce Campbell) and it got some really god laughs.

It exist two versions of this movie. The original theater version and the directors-cut. The main difference is the endings. One containing the well known catchphrase "Hail to the king, baby!" and a sort-of happy ending to the trilogy. The other version a much darker anticlimax which leaves everything in a worse condition than when the trilogy started. I recommend seeing both :)