Roger Evans, 1987
Movies were a hell of a lot of fun back then, it was mostly about discovery. I remember the first time I saw Evil Dead II at a slumber party. I remember the first time I saw April Fool�s Day. Both of these viewings, really my initiation into B-Horror, came at the hands of my friend Grimm, whom I have long since lost touch with. There was something really thrilling about these low-budget movies that made us laugh, engage in juvenile put-downs, and occasionally got a scare or two.
So on a the tail-end of a long and hot Saturday in Hollywood, spend moving furniture and drilling supports into the drywall, we had a little Taco Bell, and I dug through the collection for a movie that would take me back to those days.
And quite frankly, I�m surprised we never rented Forever Evil back in those long nights that consisted of Dr. Pepper and Little Debbie Snack Cakes.
I�m going to forgo my usual crude speculation and trade gossip regarding this flick, same with the background of the parties responsible. If you are curious, go to Dr. Freex� excellent site which not only chronicles the turbulent making of Forever Evil, but also has some damn fine reviews.
There, that�s my 1st shameless plug.
Somewhere in the unspecified suburban South, a chain-smoking cocktail waitress (well, at least she looks like one) is visiting one Ben Magnus (Freeman Williams! The writer!) who appears to be not only her Tarot reader, but also bears a passable resemblance to a young Orson Welles in age makeup� thusly also looking somewhat like my Father may have if he had played a 60 year old man while in his 20s�
Magnus gets a bad feeling from the cards (and some spinning pendent on black backdrop action, which is Raimi-esq before Raimi did shots like that, so kudos to director Roger Evans) and kicks the cocktail waitress out. She appears to get munched by an evil POV which emerges from the underbrush as she steps to her car.
Ben quickly packs, grabs a revolver, and is on his way out when a glowing-eyed figure in a black robe (Evil Jawa alert!) steps into his front hall, presumably not for a reading. There is some talk of betrayal and a hint of back-story, the bullets ping off of the Evil Jawa, who then blasts Ben Magnus with animated electric bolts�
Do you remember in the animated film The Hobbit, whenever a goblin or a giant spider was killed, how they�d sort of spin around the frame a few times while screaming? That�s what happens to Ben Magnus. A bad death, sure, but wouldn�t it have been worse if Maury Laws started singing �The Greatest Adventure�? Yes. Yes it would have.
Now the credits kick in.
A great deal has been said about the credits for Forever Evil. I doubt much of it has been good. When I was in my first year in college, a friend of mine had Wolfenstein 3-D for his computer. Really one of the 1st first person shooters, and one that we would play for hours. The opening credits for the movie are kind of like playing that game cross-eyed drunk with no Nazi�s and no weapons. Just� walls.
The less said the better.
Meet Mark. Mark and his brother (Jay) have a cabin on a lake. Mark and Jay are going to sell the cabin through shifty realtor Parker Nash. Mark and his girlfriend Holly are trying to figure out what to do with her recently discovered pregnancy, Jay and Mark have invented some top-secret device which is going to make them money and they won�t talk about it, and another couple comes to drink and play cards with them. These guys are so toast.
There is some talking among the three couples, character building. Good, I am all for character building. 22 minutes later Holly�s corpse is discovered in the shower, and everyone else stresses prior to being either pulled apart by an invisible force (with big glowing eyes, did the Evil Jawa grow?) or eaten by a zombie. Well, ok, the zombie doesn�t eat anyone, but it does rip someone�s head off.
Mark survives the horror of Blood Cabin and Doomed Woods, only to be struck by a car. That, my friends, is funny!
In 33 minutes we had the Magician Stalked by his Past intro, and then the spam-in-the-cabin sequence with sole survivor. In essence we have had two movies compressed into the set-up, which I think is kinda cool.
things get cooler!