Seytan

     So, here's the thing... I actually did not know that Turkey had a habit in the '70s and '80s of completely remaking American movies because it was cheaper than getting a print shipped over from the United States.  That's just not something I ever thought would be that big of a problem, at least not so much that you'd have to completely remake the entire movie shot for shot, with all new sets, actors, and "special effects".  Nevertheless, that's what they did, and it was also apparently an easy way to culturally appropriate motion pictures for the Turkish People so that subtitles wouldn't always be such a bother and so that they could have a slice of cinema that they could call "theirs", even though it was a blatantly obvious plagiarism at its very worst.  This was done with tons of American movies, including Superman, Jaws, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Rambo, etc.  And being the huge success that it was, The Exorcist fell into the category of movies that simply must be remade into a cheap ripoff and shown in every theater in Istanbul.  They renamed it Seytan, which means "devil" in Turkish.

     Now, one would think the first question that arises would be "How can a cinematic masterpiece like The Exorcist be completely remade"?  Well, remakes happen all the time, and although it hasn't been officially remade...yet, The Exorcist definitely has more than its share of sequels and ripoffs.  The biggest ripoff of The Exorcist that I've seen to date has got to be the movie Abby, a blaxploitation film made in 1974, the same year that Seytan was made.  The Exorcist came out in 1973, so these people wasted no time cashing in.  And though it's a very obvious remake of The Exorcist, only with Black people, Abby still has a sense of originality to it that Seytan has absolutely none of.  While the demon in Abby got changed to a jive-talking sex demon and the exorcism took place in a discotheque, in Seytan truly nothing was changed.  The priest was changed to a doctor but that was only the cultural appropriation at work.  The Catholic overtones had to be changed to Islam in order for the storyline to be relevant I guess.  Some of the more graphic elements in The Exorcist were tamed down and the language was a little less harsh, but I really think that was because it was just too embarrassing for the actors to recreate.  How Linda Blair did it in the first place was a miracle in itself.  

     Even though it sounds like a boring endeavor with an equally boring product, and trust me, in many ways it is, it still has a cult following because of the sheer oddity of it.  A curiosity piece that still has to be seen to be believed.  The "special effects" that are recreated are a special treat.  The head spinning scene was among my favorites.  The vomit still looks like pea soup but has a tinge of blue to it.  And the scene where Gul (simply Turkish for "girl") takes a leak at the top of the stairs had me in stitches because the little girls' legs were so hairy that I really thought it was part of the special effects, even though it wasn't.  As of now, Seytan can be found on YouTube, but finding a version with English subtitles is rare.  A copy was released on DVD in 2007 with English subtitles, but the quality of the print is downright deplorable.  An English dubbed version exists but given the language that exists in the original, repeating toned-down versions of it just adds to the lunacy of what's being seen.  

     Much like when Abby was released, when William Friedkin found out that his movie had been remade/ripped off AGAIN, he wasn't happy, but like all things, a bell can't be unrung.  Once a movie is made, it's gonna get out there, no matter who you have to sue to try and stop it.  And now we can find it on free platforms to enjoy making fun of at our leisure.  Honestly, if you've already seen The Exorcist though, you don't even need the subtitles, you already know exactly what's going on and will find every single scene completely foreign yet strangely it's exactly the same.

     

     So, we come to that age-old decision, is it camp, classic, and basically does it fit into the archetype cult film status that we've all come to know and love.  Usually, big-budget films that were very popular and did well in the theater don't necessarily fit under a cult classic label, but some stories actually do it quite well. Dracula is a little different in that it's one of the few multilayered posts I've done, something that takes up a whole universe and has a mythos to it.  Many horror movies with all their remakes, sequels, prequels, miniseries, and alternate storylines also have that air of existing within its own universe, much like the earlier movies by John Waters starring Divine had their own connected universe as well.  Similar.   

     Anyway, I had just finished the Bram Stoker original novel and fondly remembered the fancy remake starring Winona Ryler and Gary Oldman, but how long had it been since I saw the original 1931 Tod Browning film version of Dracula with the vampire legend himself Bela Lugosi?  So I gave it a rewatch and I guess you could say it was classy, but only by the standards of the time, otherwise it was quite campy.  Movies in general were still relatively new and campy crap was always gonna sneak in there somewhere.  From the cheap bats on strings to armadillos being used at Castle Dracula instead of rats (in Transylvania, seriously?).   Having seen Bela in his most revered and prized lifetime role (in death too, he was buried in his Dracula costume and cape), it's not a far cry to see him drifting into cheap Ed Wood films.  Even though we loved them for their absurdity, it was sad to know that it was mostly because of Bela's heroin addiction which had caused him to have to work well past retirement age while being in terrible health as the only real reason that he starred in them.  Bela's Dracula/overlord role in Ed's Glen or Glenda, a movie that couldn't decide whether to be a horror movie or a serious attempt at explaining transexualism, is totally a treasure to behold.  And for all his efforts to try and provide his idol and friend a job, Ed Wood tried his very best, too bad it always came out has his very worst.  Even though Bela's acting isn't all that great in Dracula, it was just such a sexy role that I think most people really didn't care and it propelled him into super stardon, at least for a short while.  When stars fall on hard times, some turn to drugs and alcohol, some turn to doing porn or Ed Wood films.  Bela kinda did both...but with a completely alluring Hungarian accent.

     Bela carried his own without a doubt, but when it came to acting Renfield stole the show.  I mean that laugh was creepiness personified.  The rest of the cast faded into the background.  For as much a part as she plays in the book, I always expect the character of Lucy Westenra to be as over-the-top girlie girl as possible and for Mina Harker to be the quintessential woman of virtue, but the 1931 film missed these two character opportunities by a mile.  The rest...meh.  I much more enjoyed the culty camp factor, which was plentiful.

     In the 1992 remake, both the original movie and the book were merged pretty seamlessly into a whole new film with the exception of one huge change.  The secret romance between Mina Harker and Count Dracula.  It may not have been anywhere in the book or original movie, but it made for a much more interesting love story, albeit an atypical one, but still had tremendous merit and made for some delicious dialogue and quotes that will live on in infamy.  "I've crossed oceans of time to find you". You so crazy you coulda jus called.  Personally, I really liked the remake and it's new plot twist.  Something about turning Mina from a goody two shoes into a vampire slut cheating on her husband was much more appealing, especially since Jonathan Harker was a bit of a real estate bore anyway.  The cinematography and costumes were well worth the overall effort, which I believe took away several awards for each.  

     Overall, I think the book was a bit simplistic, but it had a unique tone to it throughout.  It's separated into three basic parts.  Jonathan Harker's initial experience with Count Dracula in Transylvania, the death and resurrection of Lucy Westenra, and the final showdown between Jonathan Harker, Professor Van Helsing (plus a few extra henchmen) and Count Dracula.  The ending is rather anticlimactic and the characters are a little one sided, but the imagery and symbolism are what make it a classic among classics.  The baptism of blood sequence in the book where Mina drinks the spurting blood of Count Dracula, then bitches about how unclean she feels afterwards even though she seemed to enjoy it, just screams of regretted fellatio.  And then of course in the days of HIV, the whole taboo of unclean blood received through a form of sexual pleasure takes on a brand new symbolism.  It's metaphoric horror themes like these that make a classic endurable throughout the ages, and Dracula is one of the best.  Campy, classy, and very cult, on many levels, both in writing and in film.

Evil Dead 2

     Although a sequel, this movie seems more like a remake. The first movie (The Evil Dead) was made to be scary and came out rather humorous. Sam Raimi decided to redo the movie, this time trying to make it funny but ultimately came out much scarier. It's basically the same story as the first movie, only done in a much more professional way. Widely successful, it employed better special effects, stranger characters, and a jazzed-up version of the original story about finding the Necronomicon: Book of the Dead and releasing demons that can possess human flesh. 

      Anyway, the story goes like this. Ash and his girlfriend vacation in a small cabin deep in the woods. Ash finds a tape recorder in the cellar, plays the demon resurrection chants, and soon the trees attack and kill his girlfriend Linda. She becomes possessed, he chops her head off with a shovel and buries her. He soon becomes possessed himself, but the rising sun saves him from being possessed for too long as the demons are forced back into the woods by the sunlight. He makes for the bridge, but suspiciously the bridge has been mangled, making an escape out of there impossible. The sun soon sets as Ash tries to make it back to the cabin. 

      We learn that the incantations recited on the tape recorder were made by an archaeologist and his wife. Their daughter is also an archaeologist and has the missing pages of the Necronomicon needed to dispel the evil. Linda soon pops out of her grave and proceeds to torture Ash, so he takes her to the tool shed and gives her the ol' slice and dice with a chainsaw. 

      Now that Linda is out of the way, his own hand becomes possessed and keeps attacking him. He cuts it off puts it in a trash can and sets some books on it so the hand can't get out. Ironically, one of the books he uses is the Ernest Hemingway novel "A Farewell to Arms". 

      Meanwhile, the daughter shows up at the bridge and is met by a hillbilly couple that demands money to show the daughter a trail to the cabin. Still at the cabin, Ash starts losing his mind when all the furniture starts laughing at him, including a demented deer head on the wall (this scene alone is worth watching this movie.) The daughter and the hillbilly couple make it to the cabin and by the looks of it (blood everywhere and a bloody chainsaw in the corner) it appears that Ash has killed her parents, so they throw him down into the fruit cellar. 

      As the daughter listens to the tape recorder, the professor states that his wife had become possessed and he has buried her in the earthen floor of the cellar. Henrietta (the mom) pops up and goes for Ash. He is rescued just in time by the people upstairs. Hillbilly's wife Bobbi Jo freaks and runs into the woods... a VERY bad move. She gets attacked by the trees and dragged through the forest and eventually smushed into a tree. 

      Buford Butthead (Bobbi Jo's hubby) grabs the missing pages and throws them down in the cellar and demands that the others help him look in the woods for his stupid wife. When he's attacked, the others high tail it back to the cabin. Thankfully, he gets too close to the cellar door and Henrietta gets a hold of him and chows down. 

      The missing pages are crucial in dispelling the evil, therefore Ash and Annie (the professor's daughter) must get into the cellar but not before having to kill Henrietta. She mutates into some long-necked monster. Ash uses his chainsaw to sever her head and arms in order to get into the basement. The pages are retrieved from the cellar and evidently, there are three passages that must be recited. One to make the evil appear in the flesh, one to open a rift in time and space, and one to force the evil into the rift. Unfortunately, Annie is killed by Ash's severed hand and only gets to recite the first two passages. 

      The evil appears and is forced into the rift, unfortunately, there is no way to close the rift, so Ash and a few other things (like his car) are sucked into the rift and end up in another dimension. The place he ends up looks very medieval and he's greeted by knights with swords drawn. Some evil bat creature swoops down from the sky. Ash instinctively shoots it down (he's a pro at this by now). The knights are amazed and hail him as a new king. Ash is not amused by this, but it sets the stage for the third movie titled "Army of Darkness" where Ash must fight a war against the "Deadites". 

      Frankly, I found Evil Dead Part 3, better known as "Army of Darkness" to be a terrible movie that can only be enjoyed if you're REALLY into "Three Stooges" type of humor. Stick with Evil Dead 2, it's by far the best out of the whole trilogy. A remake of the original was made in 2013, which bypassed all the humor and went straight for the gore and terror.  Not a bad remake actually, I've definitely seen worse.  A sequel to the remake came out about ten years later that takes place in an apartment complex, completely breaking from the cabin in the woods theme present in all the previous Evil Dead movies.