Tagarchief: Evil Dead

A JK Classic Re-Release: Brains For Breakfast (2000)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

On my YouTube channel, Jeppy’s Video Circus, I usually post short videos in three categories.

The first is pop culture features, like Schwarzenegger’s 100 Greatest Kills and Ranking the Top 100 Beatles Songs.

The second is experimental shorts, such as Passenger and Light Parade.

The third category is amateur movies I made during my childhood, including A Bad Trip and Nicky and Mugs.

I’ve just released another one called Brains For Breakfast and this one might be my favorite.

The Amateur
The unfinished video was shot in 2000, about halfway through my five-year stretch as an amateur filmmaker.

That period began in 1998, when my buddy Jean-Marc and I took a two-week videomaking course in Charme, France, taught by the Amsterdam-based Open Studio. They taught us the basics of filmmaking: camera work, directing, editing, screenwriting – the whole package.

The following year, I shot a number of shorts with my friends in Heiloo, including Nicky and Mugs and A Bad Trip. Many unfinished projects from that time still live in the dusty archives of my desktop.

In an upcoming short called Dreaming of HeilooWeed, I plan to edit those fragments into a medley of our unfinished amateur films.

In 2000, we created what I consider the highlight of that era: Brains For Breakfast, which is now available on YouTube.

That same year, I also traveled through India and Nepal, where I shot a two-hour travel movie.

In 2001, my friends and I spent three months in Thailand, where I filmed another travel documentary – though calling it a ‘travel movie’ doesn’t quite do it justice. It’s part Jackass, part comic meditation on backpacking. I plan to edit it into a half-hour YouTube version next year, titled 2001: A Thailand Odyssey.

By 2002, my movie career had started to fade, and I moved on to other things. I made a few videos that year, but nothing particularly noteworthy.

That is, until 2020 – when I picked up filmmaking again as a hobby.

About Brains For Breakfast
Brains For Breakfast can best be described as a horror-comedy, heavily inspired by Peter Jackson (Bad Taste) and Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead).

The story follows weed dealer Jimmie Lombardo, who suddenly finds himself in the middle of an alien invasion, one with the sole purpose of stealing Dutch weed.

What I love most about it is the humor. There are some genuinely funny moments, along with a few surprisingly effective scenes, like the one where an alien shoots a guy on a bicycle from a balcony.

I also have a soft spot for all the amateurish mistakes: jumping the axis, catching the cameraman’s shadow, or scenes that shift from early evening to near-dark in the blink of an eye. All of it adds to the charm and hilarity.

Since the film was never finished, I decided to create an ending by adding a short ‘making-of’ segment, showing us trying to pull off one of our great ‘special effects’.

I’m happy with how it turned out, and I hope you’ll enjoy it too. Check out Brains For Breakfast below on YouTube!

Dungeon Classics #36: Braindead

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

Braindead (1992, New Zealand)

Director: Peter Jackson
Cast: Timothy Balme, Diana Peñalver, Elizabeth Moody
Running Time: 104 mins.

Probably nobody predicted that the maker of New Zealand horror comedies would one day direct the epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Then again, perhaps people should have, because Braindead, Peter Jackson’s third film after Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles, is an exceptionally well made movie. It’s about the young man Lionel who lives in Wellington with his controlling mom (the movie’s real horror). When he takes his first date Paquita to the zoo, his mother (who has followed them of course) is bitten by a Sumatran Rat-Monkey. This turns her into a bloodthirsty zombie that cannot die, not even by dismemberment. Very soon, Lionel’s house is packed with these things and he has to get very inventive to get rid of them. Like iconic horror director Sam Raimi developed his trademark style with the Evil Dead movies, Jackson does so here: sweeping camera moves, inventive special effects (by Jackson’s partner in crime Richard Taylor), New Zealand scenery, the dead becoming alive, and lots of demented humor. And talking about Evil Dead, Timothy Balme’s Lionel certainly resembles its hero Ash when he wields his lawnmower in the infamous splatter finale (Braindead set the world record for most fake blood used in a movie). This has become a legendary moment in horror cinema, like the slapstick scene in which Lionel takes a zombie baby to the park. It is stuff like that that should have told us back then; this Jackson fella is gonna make it big someday.

10 Reasons the Nineties’ Cinema Kicked Ass

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

I was a little young to realize what a terrific time for cinema the nineties were. Holy crap. Around forty percent of my favorite movies come from the nineties, including my number one of all time: GoodFellas. In this article, I will give you 10 reasons why the nineties kicked complete ass as a movie decade.

1. Tarantino’s Arrival
In 1992, a young film maverick silently arrived with Reservoir Dogs. Many viewers and critics were a little off-put by the violence and immoral characters, but yet loved the non-chronological storytelling, the brilliant dialogues and the awesome performances. The talent of this new writer/director named Quentin Tarantino was undeniable.

Two years later he blew critics and audiences away with his epic Pulp Fiction. Tarantino was for the nineties what Scorsese was for the seventies; a significant promise. And he delivered. The nineties saw him direct an excellent third movie, Jackie Brown (1997), and two of his screenplays were turned into memorable films: True Romance (1993) and Natural Born Killers (1994). In 1996 he also made From Dusk Till Dawn with another promising young director from Texas. Robert Rodriguez had debuted in 1992 with the low budget miracle El Mariachi which he followed up with Desperado (1995). A duo was formed…

2. It Was a Time to Thrill
The nineties was the decade of the thriller. Especially the detective versus serial killer genre flourished with The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Se7en (1995). Of course these two spawned countless imitations, but none as good. Another excellent movie in the psychopath category is Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery in 1990. That movie’s villain Annie Wilkes (played by Kathy Bates) is probably even scarier than Hannibal Lecter, Buffalo Bill and John Doe combined.

The nineties also had more than its share in fantastic crime thrillers. Top examples include Brian de Palma’s Carlito’s Way (1993), Luc Besson’s Leon (1994), Michael Mann’s Heat (1995), Brian Singer’s The Usual Suspects (1995) and Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential (1997). Special mention in the Thriller department goes to Paul Verhoeven’s erotic contribution Basic Instinct (1992), an absolute classic in its genre.

3. Glory Days For the Coens
They already made an impression as independent filmmakers in the 1980’s. Both their debut Blood Simple and second feature Raising Arizona tasted like more. In the 1990’s they really became film-buffs’ favorites. Miller’s Crossing (1990) is a perfect take on Dashiell Hammett and possibly their finest crafted work. Later, this decade, they had a brilliant black comedy run with the unforgettable classics Fargo (1996) and The Big Lebowski (1998). These Coen Brothers are absolutely terrific.

4. History Can Be Fun
Sure, every period has produced great historical movies, but the nineties had a very impressive reaping in the War / History genre. Way above average to be sure. In 1990 a certain Kevin Costner brought the American frontier to the big screen with the Oscar-winning epic Dances With Wolves. It was a marvelous revitalization of the Western genre. World War 2 is also captured in several Oscar-winning pictures, most notably Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (the ultimate WWII film), but also in Saving Private Ryan (also by Spielberg), La Vita E Bella (by Roberto Benigni) and The Thin Red Line (by Terrence Malick).

Another great war story is spectacularly told in Braveheart (1995), the bloody epic that showed that Mel Gibson is a highly competent director. A number of excellent historical biographies also saw the light of day, most notably JFK (1991, Oliver Stone) and Ed Wood (1994, Tim Burton). And last but least, Titanic (1997, James Cameron) and Forrest Gump (1994, Robert Zemeckis) came out and successfully combined fictional stories with historic events.

5. Great Stand Alone Triumphs
While many masterpieces made in the nineties are part of a larger oeuvre or movement, there were also loads and loads of standalone triumphs. Movies that seemingly came out of nowhere and surprised friend and foe. Below, I picked one of my favorites of these surprises for each year of the nineties. Choosing just one was very difficult in some cases…

1990 Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton)
1991 Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott)
1992 Hard Boiled (John Woo)
1993 Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis)
1994 The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont)
1995 Toy Story (John Lasseter)
1996 Bound (Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski)
1997 Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson)
1998 Festen (Thomas Vinterberg)
1999 Fight Club (David Fincher)

6. Harvest of Horror
O.k., so the eighties ruled in the Horror territory. That doesn’t mean the nineties sucked. What is so great about it then? Well, Wes Craven’s re-invention of the slasher genre with Scream (1996) and Scream 2 (1997) was a terrific postmodern treat leading to many new series, such as I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), and new installments of old horror series like Bride of Chucky (1998). It goes without saying that some of these were better than others.

Abel Ferrara made a significant contribution to the genre with Body Snatchers (1993), a very effective remake of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Addiction (1995), a great original take on the vampire genre. Speaking of vampires, what to think of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) by Francis Ford Coppola? It’s the best version since Tod Browning’s original from 1931.

The formidable Sam Raimi completed his magnificent Evil Dead trilogy with Army of Darkness, the funniest installment yet. Peter Jackson also combined humor and supreme gore in Braindead (1992) and also delivered The Frighteners (1996). Anything else? Certainly. A selection: Joe Dante’s Gremlins 2 (1990), Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder (1990), Ron Underwood’s Tremors (1990), David Fincher’s Alien 3 (1992), Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection (1997) and Taylor Hackford’s The Devil’s Advocate. Last but not least, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s The Blair Witch Project (1999) spawned a new horror genre with its handheld camera. It’s also the first movie that successfully used the internet to create a hype.

7. The Brits are Back in Town
After a period of recession, the British film industry bloomed again in the nineties. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) launched the career of Hugh Grant and was a smash hit at the box office. In 1995 James Bond returned after a long period in the pretty awesome Goldeneye. What’s really great about British cinema in the nineties is the emergence of new talent though. The trio John Hodge, Danny Boyle and Andrew MacDonald made a terrific debut with Shallow Grave (1994) and followed it up with one of the best films of the decade: Trainspotting (1996). In 1998 Guy Ritchie was another positive British surprise with the very funny and exciting Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

8. Scorsese Scores Big-time
He delivered brilliant work in the seventies (Mean Streets, Taxi Driver) and eighties (Raging Bull). In the early nineties the maestro showed that he could deliver masterpieces in every decennium. He started by breaking all cinematic conventions in GoodFellas (1990), the greatest film ever made about the real Mafia. Then he made the highly influential thriller Cape Fear (1991) and the excellent costume drama The Age of Innocence (1993) before returning to the mob genre with the superbly realized Casino (1995). He ended the decade with the underrated Bringing Out the Dead (1999).

9. Indie Cinema to the Max
Tarantino and the Coens are already honored in this overview, but there are many other great independent American directors who made their entrance in the nineties or definitely established themselves as masters. In the debut department, we saw Richard Linklater arrive with Slacker (1991), Dazed and Confused (1993) and Before Sunrise (1995). Kevin Smith also made a super impression with the low budget comedy Clerks (1994).

Other indie directors delivered some of their finest work in the nineties. For instance, Jim Jarmusch made Dead Man (1995) and Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999), David Lynch made Lost Highway (1997) and The Straight Story (1999), Steven Soderbergh made King of the Hill (1993) and Out of Sight (1998) and Todd Solondz made Happiness (1998). If we could only go back to re-experience this richness in indie cinema again. Oh boy.

10. Sci-Fi is Booming
The early nineties saw Schwarzenegger star in two of the most kick-ass Sci-Fi / Action movies of our time: Total Recall (1990) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). The director of the first one, Paul Verhoeven, would write more sci-fi history in 1997 with Starship Troopers (1997). Other excellent movies in this genre that came out in the nineties are: Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future III (1990), Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993), Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys (1995), Roland Emerich’s Independence Day (1996), Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element (1997), Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon (1997), David Cronenberg’s ExistenZ (1999) and Dean Parisot’s Galaxy Quest (1999).

The final year of the millennium also saw Star Wars return to the big screen, but Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) was not an all positive experience. It was another sci-fi film released in 1999 that formed the perfect transition into the new millennium: the cyberpunk story The Matrix by the Wachowski brothers (now sisters). An exciting (and very, very good) surprise hit and the greatest ending imaginable for a movie decade that completely rocked.

Bruce Campbell: A B-Moviestar’s Biography

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

For every George Clooney and Steven Spielberg, there are thousands of working class slobs in Tinsel Town. Bruce Campbell’s biography ‘If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor’ is a homage to this B-crowd. Bruce who? That’s the point exactly. For those of us who grew up on a diet of classy horror movies in the eighties and nineties, he is a household name, for he was the star of one of the greatest horror series of that era: the holy Evil Dead trilogy (consisting of The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness).

‘If Chins Could Kill’ tells Bruce’s story. It was first published in 2001, so it doesn’t include the television adaptation of Evil Dead called Ash Vs. Evil Dead, but that’s no problem; there are plenty of great stories preceding that terrific cult show. In chapter 1, Campbell describes his childhood in Detroit, Michigan, with his parents and two older brothers. They did their fair share of monkeying around, and then good old Bruce became interested in girls. It became a lifelong obsession.

As he grew older, he had to find a way to keep on having fun. He discovered that his father Charles was an actor in a local theater. At age 14, Bruce joined the group and he soon played his first roles on stage. In the years that followed, he met various would-be actors and filmmakers, including one who would make it really big: Sam Raimi. After shooting a bunch of pretty cool 8 MM amateur films, Campbell, Raimi and another guy called Robert Tapert wondered: can we make a profession out of this?

The junior film crew decided to focus on the horror genre, because of the low budget required. For inspiration, they watched many horror shows at the drive-in theater and got a good sense of what audiences liked (when do they laugh? When do they scream?). Then they shot Within the Woods, the short predecessor of The Evil Dead. Their next challenge was a considerable one; they had to raise 150.000 dollars to be able to shoot their first feature length horror movie on 16 MM film (which they would afterwards blow up to 35 MM for cinema screenings) and to cover all other expenses. This seemed impossible, but they bought suits, went to work, and eventually raised the money.

After a grueling 12-week shoot in a run-down cabin in the woods of Tennessee, they canned the film, and luckily for the private investors, they delivered a genre classic. It turned out that its director was a genuine talent in visual storytelling, and Campbell undeniably a true horror star. True to the aim of his book, Campbell describes all the collaborators and the challenges they had to overcome to get this movie made. None of the other actors continued acting after The Evil Dead and all pursued other occupations.

If you’re serious about shooting a low budget movie, you should definitely read this book. It contains many tips on raising money, and then actually shooting it with hardly any resources. After that come the reshoots, the editing and sound editing, and then comes an even tougher part: marketing and selling the damn thing. Luckily for the crew, Stephen King saw their film at a movie event and wrote positively about it. His recommendation did miracles for the marketing of what was originally known as Book of the Dead, an unmarketable title; people might think they’d have to do reading at the screening. The investors of the retitled The Evil Dead made their money back, but the boys didn’t make anything. Yet, they now had a film under their belt.

What followed was the major flop Crimewave, co-written by The Coen Brothers. Campbell didn’t get a whole lot of work after that. He was in a soap series where he met his wife to be (a fragment from this show can be seen in Fargo, in the scene in which sociopath Gaear is watching television in the cabin). Crimewave could have been a career ender in Hollywood, but they had a fallback project: doing a sequel to the successful Evil Dead. Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn (1987) became a legendary sequel and it is still considered to be among the greatest horror films ever made (it’s second on my top 10 horror list).

Still, Campbell – despite having played a lead role in a popular film – was no mainstream star and had to work as a security guard to make ends meet (“hey, you’re that guy from Evil Death, say that groovy line”). He also got divorced and met his new wife (a make-up artist) at a movie set. Campbell’s career would be closely tied to Raimi’s and in 1993, they would complete the trilogy with Army of Darkness. If you’ve ever wondered how much Bruce made with starring in the lead role in this movie ( I did!), the answer is in this book. It’s 500 K. This seems like an okay sum, but you have to subtract 25 percent for agents and managers leaving 375.000. Then deduct taxes (federal and state at the highest level) and you’re left with 187.500. Because he was recently divorced, his wife got half leaving Bruce with 93.750. This is still a lot of money, but considering it was two years work, he made just 46.875 a year, which is not what you’d expect a movie star (even a B-movie star) to make.

Still, Campbell continued to find work and most importantly: have fun. Especially when he went to New Zealand to work as actor and director on the tv-show Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and spin-of Xena: The Warrior Princess. In Campbell’s words: “shooting this show in New Zealand, away from studio interference, brought me back to the fun of filmmaking, like when we were shooting 8 MM movies back in Michigan.”

Read also: Ash vs Evil Dead: 5 Greatest Moments