31 to the 3rd Power- Day 13: Evil Dead II (1987)

Over the next 31 days I plan on reviewing MY PERSONAL FAVORITE HORROR FILMS... and I am going to do it in exactly 31 words!

Today's Entry (10/13/16) - Evil Dead (1987)

The CCD Podcast: Episode #74 - CCD vs The Evil Dead: A Retrospective Pt. 2

Continuing the quest to talk all things Evil Dead, the CCD squad heads back down the path toward the Army of the Dead with this second installment of the CCD vs. The Evil Dead Retrospective!!! In this episode Jedi Rob is joined in the Nerd Cave by Mike D & Kristen "KMG" Grillo as they discuss the overwhelming amazingness that is Army of Darkness, the Evil Dead video games, comic adaptions, the remake film (which we love!), and the upcoming Starz! TV show Ash vs. The Evil Dead!!! A perfect end to CCD's 6th Annual All Horror Week!!! 

The CCD Podcast: Episode #73 - CCD vs The Evil Dead: A Retrospective Pt. 1 or "We Will Swallow Your Soul... If You Don't Subscribe & Listen"

Nightmare on Elm Street. Friday the 13th. Halloween. These are the usual suspects that we think of when we discuss "horror franchises". The big guns... the ones even non-horror fans know and love. But there is one other MAJOR franchise that everyone likes to talk up, and the one thing that makes it SO UNIQUE is that it is also the one that has movies appear on a ton of "Best Ever" lists. That would be the Sam Raimi controlled Evil Dead franchise. We certainly love it here at CCD, so Jedi Rob invited Mike D and Kristen "KMG" Grillo down to the nerd cave to discuss the highs and lows (not many of them, but there are a few) of the 3 original films... as well as the remake, video games, comic books, the musical and also the upcoming Ash vs The Evil Dead TV series. It is a hell of a good time, so check out the first part and get ready for Deadite Hunting Season (which begins on October 31st, 2015 at 9 pm on Starz).

Mike's Movie Poster Roundup - Part 1 - Horror Movie Sequels

One of the biggest parts of the movie going experience for me has always been the movies promotional posters. Usually it is the first piece of promotional material we ever get to see about a film, and it is the first place we begin to form an impression about what the film may develop into or actually be about. A good poster can actually inspire you to want to see a film you may have no interest in whatsoever, or may heighten your interest even more due to the images of the film finally being revealed. We post a ton of film related posters here at CCD, so I thought it would be kind of cool to go back and look at some of my favorites from a particular group or genres of films. Today we take on one of my all time favorite genres, horror movies... specifically horror movie sequels!!! Read more after the jump...

Evil Dead: An Animated Tribute

The Evil Dead franchise is one of the most important sets of films in my cinematic life. The reasons are actually quite complex. The slapstick style of the horror presented by Sam Raimi in the three films made the horror genre much more accessible and easier to accept for me as a youngster. Also, it introduced me to the wonderful work of Sam Raimi, and would lead to the genius eventually making the Spider-Man trilogy. And finally it allowed me to fall in love with Ash, one of the greatest heroes ever portrayed by the one & only Bruce Campbell!!! Olly Moss (the one above) created an cool poster for Mondo back in 2010, and that poster helped inspire this unreal minute & a half animated clip from Daniel Kanemoto that commemorates all three films in the series. This one will take fans of the series back down memory lane!!! See the clip after the jump...

Three Videos That Will Make You Smile Today...

I have been bombarded with cool ass videos that I wanted to share with my fellow CCD gang, but I have been struggling to get them all posted. So I decided to hit you with a 3 for 1 in this post... and they are all wonderful. First up, we have star of Community & Mystery team Donald Glover's first rap video under his alias "Childish Gambino". This one is great. Then we got a theme song for the NES classic Ghosts n Goblins that is sure to make all you 8-bit fans smile. And finally, we rap it up with a Evil Dead 30th anniversary tribute video. Time to get to viewing!!! Click after the jump for all three vids...

A to Z Blogging Challenge - Day #5 - Letter E - Evil Dead: The Musical

That image... changed my life forever. When Evil Dead 2 came out in 1987 I was just 8 years old. I had seen a few scary movies, and my loove for them had begun to grow. But when I walked into the video store and saw that image in the sticker machine, I went bonkers. That skull head was just so spooky, yet so appealing. I HAD to see that movie. I settled for Evil Dead part I, which was on VHS already. Thus began my love affair with Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and horror movies in general. I made my father take me to see the second one in Manhattan a few weeks later, and I had a new favorite movie. Raimi had made his first movie into the masterpiece it could have been if he had the right amount of funding. Evil Dead 2 is a sequel, but is also a reboot in some senses... no matter how you want to classify it, there is one thing almost everyone agrees on: It's a classic!

Flash forward to the winter of 2007. 20 years later... 20 years of watching what how now became a trilogy (Army of Darkness came out in 1992) over and over, laughing hysterically at Ashley's crazy antics against the Candarian Demons of the Necronomicon. Chainsaw hands, boomsticks, pencils in the ankle, trap doors, creepy moose heads talking on walls, rouge hands, re-animated dancing corpses, a cabin in the woods, tree rape, Candarian chants.... yup, those are some great memories. Then I saw this ad for Evil Dead: The Musical playing off Broadway, and I almost shit my pants. How could they make a musical out of these films?

I ordered tickets immediately, right in the splatter zone. A fucking splatter zone... blood all over the audience. Amazing.

And the songs... oh god, the songs were amazing!!! My all time faves are "All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons" & "What the F@#k Was That". I laughed my way through the whole entire show... it was wonderful. Check out these two videos:

Look Whose Evil Now & What the F@#K Was That?



All The Men In My Life Keep Getting Killed By Candarian Demons!



So cheesy, yet so great. I even got this awesome mug the night of the show... and my son Mikey uses it all the time when he has chocolate milk.

 He is a huge fan of Army of Darkness, and I can not wait till this show rotates back to NYC or somewhere close in the future. You can click here to get tons of info on the show from the official website. The show tours the world (for real... check the list) and is a must see for any fan of the movie series. I have also seen bootleg copies of the show being sold at various Comic-Cons and Horror-Cons... and I have never bought it. I am going to change that mistake soon. Check this one out... its well worth it!

Two T-Shirts That I Have To Buy ASAP!!!

Jeff killed it the other day with his T-shirt post... but I found these two puppies in my travels and had to share with my fellow geeks out there.

First up, and offering for all the Star Wars nerds... this one is great. It sure is gonna get hot on Wednesday!!! It comes from Snorg T's and it is called '5 Day Forecast':

It's on sale right now for $14.95, so hustle up!!!

Next up, we go something for the Horror Hounds out there. This one comes from Split Reason and is called 'Boomstick!'. It will run you $19.95, but will come in handy should you run into any Candarian Demons at the supermarket. Hey, you never know. It happened to Ash.... 3 TIMES!!!!

Make sure you get these quick, they won't be around forever (Click links above to order)

My 3 Favorite Scary Movies Of All Time: Mike D. Edition

Ever since that scene in Scream where Ghostface asks Ms Barrymore that same question people have been asking each other it with regularity. Actually, I'm pretty sure they have been asking each other that since the beginning of film itself. Scary movies are just so easy to talk about... and so easy to form an opinion of. For many reasons they are the genre of movies that you can point to and say "Yup, these are the ones I LOVE!!!" In honor of CCD's 1st annual All Horror Week, we decided to highlight some of our contributors and friends 3 favorite scary/horror movies of all time. These may not be the best, but they are each person's FAVORITE, so these lists should be quite fun. Here we go!

"It's The Drunk Monk with a Quart of Balantine..."

I've been writing these blurb paragraphs all week about the great group of people we got here at CCD who commented on their 3 favorite scary movies. Now its time for my picks... damn, I wish somebody could write this intro for me. Anyways, I am the creator of CCD and I am an absolute horror fanatic. When I was a kid, my mom owned a flower shop. On the same block was a video store. She would give them a free arrangement once a week, in return I was allowed to rent a movie a day. So I used to rush home and rent a horror movie, and run to watch it before anybody got home from work. I watched so many horror flicks it hurts my head. Thats when I got hooked. So here are the 3 scary movies that I love the best:

Evil Dead 2 (1987) - There are two reasons why I love this movie (and the franchise so much.) Number 1: Sam Raimi and the cast never take themselves to serious. They make you smile, while in the next scene they make you scream. It's like a bigger budgeted version of the first one (which was made on the cheap). I love the chainsaw scenes, and all the basement locking that takes place puts a smile on my mug. Number 2: I loved, loved, loved the box cover art above!!! That skull stuck with me for my whole childhood. Once I got a shot at seeing some horror flicks, I was renting this one quite regularly. I thoroughly recommend this one!!!!

Suspria - (1977) - I remember the first time I watched Suspiria. I had gotten my aforementioned 1 movie rental one day (this one recommended by the counter guy), and after I popped it into my VCR, I sat down and was not really to optomstic about it. Then the hanging scene (above) came on, and I almost choked on my popcorn... WTF was this??? The colors were so bright and vivid, the POV of the killer that has become Argento's trademark, and the total brutality of the kills (another Argento trademark) had me hooked. After it was done, the next day I confronted the counter guy and begged him for more... did this guy Argento make any other movies? He hit me off with a few more titles, and my life as a Argento fanboy was set in motion. Every top 10, 50 or 100 horror movie list I have ever seen has this in the top 5. There is a reason for that. Amazing... just amazing. 

Bloodsuckng Freaks (1976) - Good. Fucking. God. Why is this my all time favorite scary movie, ever? Let me briefly explain: Midget henchman? Check. Psychotic hypnotist/magician/sadist? Check. Magic show that is really a snuff show? Check. Blowdarts? Check. Head drilling? Check. Brain being sucked through a straw? Check. Kidnapping & inprisionment of naked women? Check. Woman being used as a dinner table? Check... I can do this all day. Honestly, this is the sickest movie I have ever come across (and I have watched some sick ones, right Jeff, Bri & Taa? Turtle soup anyone...lol) It's a amazing precursor to the torture porn of Saw & Hostel by 25 years, the most bloody and violent movie I have ever seen, and its completely unapologetic approach towards violence makes it tough to watch again. I tried recently, and actually turned t off because it made me uncomfortable (despite the fact that I have seen it 100's of times). It's on Netflix Instant... just make sure no kids (or judgemental adults) are around when you induldge. Sick fun. 

*****Honorable Mention*****

I Spit On Your Grave (og version), Creepshow, Tenebre, Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness, and High Tension. 

This Might Not Be The Way You Remember Your Favorite Horror Movies Pt.2

So here is part 2 of Peter & Benny, aka Two Swedes Sweding, tackling your favorite horror movies of all time. Hope you enjoy!!!


They Live




Tremors



From Dusk Till Dawn (My Fave)

Predator



Evil Dead 2

This Might Not Be The Way You May Remember Your Favorite Horror Films Pt. 1

Check out Peter & Benny, or as the are know to the online community "Two Swedes Sweding", as they re-create some of your all time horror faves in their own unique way. When I say unique, I mean.... uh, um, well... why don't you just watch for yourselves!!! The videos are courtesy of AMC and they have been sprinkled in as commercial spots during AMC's FrightFest. I collected them all here for you in one spot. Which ones are your favorites??? Tell us in the comment section below.

Friday The 13th



John Carpenter's Halloween



The Shining



Pet Sematary



Dawn of the Dead (Remake)

My 3 Favorite Scary Movies Of All Time: James West Edition

Ever since that scene in Scream where Ghostface asks Ms Barrymore that same question people have been asking each other it with regularity. Actually, I'm pretty sure they have been asking each other that since the beginning of film itself. Scary movies are just so easy to talk about... and so easy to form an opinion of. For many reasons they are the genre of movies that you can point to and say "Yup, these are the ones I LOVE!!!" In honor of CCD's 1st annual All Horror Week, we decided to highlight some of our contributors and friends 3 favorite scary/horror movies of all time. These may not be the best, but they are each person's FAVORITE, so these lists should be quite fun. Here we go!

 

So, what does resident comic geek and all around great guy Cousin James West have to say when it comes to the scary movie debate? This kid got some solid ass picks. Who says the youngsters don't know whats really quality... no torture porn or mindless horror here. On another note, you might have stolen my thunder with one of your picks... Damn, I hate going last! With no further ado, I give you James West's 3 favorite scary movies:

Evil Dead 2 (1987) – It’s over the top without being cringe worthy, it’s a send-up without being a parody, it doesn’t hold back for a second, it’s gory, it’s funny, it has action, and it made Bruce Campbell into Bruce Campbell. What’s there not to love? Pretty groovy (had to do it!).

 John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) - The movie pits excellent characters against a legendary villain. Mike Myers is realistic while still having a supernatural air about him…this movie just has an atmosphere of what Halloween should be like.  (Editors note: I removed a video James posted here to make it its own post. It was to good to put n the middle of another post. Sorry kid... you just got jacked!!!)

John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) - This movie just attacks you on all levels. It’s got some of the most realistic, disgusting effects in any movie ever. It creates an atmosphere of paranoia that’s almost unparalleled. On top of that, it makes you connect the dots afterwards and ask yourself questions about what really happened.

Honorable mention: An American Werewolf in London!

Film Posters From Around The World #6- Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn

This one of my childhood favorites.... a true classic. These are the kind of results that you get when you give a genius like Sam Raimi enough money to fund his vision. I love Evil Dead I, but Evil Dead 2 is better because they had better funding to get it done. Enjoy!!!

Germany

Brazil

U.K.

Japanese