Rec 2

     Rec 2 picks up about 15 minutes after part one ended. And I must say that you have to have seen part one to have any clue whatsoever as to what the hell is happening in part two. 

      A SWAT team of four and a chief in charge enters the building to assess what has happened. They know there was a contagion that is not spread through the air but through the blood and saliva. They search for survivors but only come across the infected. Part one lets us know that the infection is actually a viral form of demonic possession. The mission is to find the original possessed girl that was brought to the building for testing, more or less to find a cure or an antidote. Many characters from the first film are seen (albeit for 30 seconds or less, including Jennifer, her mother Mari, Senora Izquidero, and Manu the Fireman). 

      This film seems to be all about explanation. The chief in charge seems to know a bit more than he's letting on and has a rather religious way of dealing with the situation. Turns out he's a priest sent by the Vatican to rectify the damage already done by the first doctor that was to experiment on the original possessed girl (Tristana Medeiros). Apparently, only her blood holds the key to the antidote, not the people she infects. 

      Upon searching the doctor's penthouse, a sample of her blood is found. The chief is now revealed as a priest as he tests her blood by holding a crucifix over it. The blood soon sizzles and bursts into flames, unfortunately, so does the test tube containing the rest of the sample, held by one of the SWAT team members. He of course drops it, destroying the entire sample, rendering the entire mission a failure. 

      In the first film, it is revealed that there is a drain cover in the basement that connects with the sewers that lead to a way out of the building. Three kids decide to pull a prank by attaching bottle rockets to the back of an inflatable "fuck doll" and send it sailing over the crowd that has gathered around the building. The prank fails and calls police attention to these dumbass teens. They duck into a sewer drain which happens to be the same sewer drain that connects to the building. The movie bogs down here when the SWAT team and the teens fight a lot. Too occupied with fighting, they are attacked by the infected and most are killed. 

      As the remaining SWAT team members and the priest make their way back to the penthouse where the infection occurred, they come across Angela Vidal, the beautiful TV reporter who first entered the building with the firemen in part one. At the end of part one, Angela is dragged away by the possessed Tristana (the end). Assuming that she is now possessed.  But how could she have escaped?  She shows no sign of being infected. 

      Meanwhile, a SWAT team member that was bitten and infected, is locked in a room with a rosary attached to the door to keep him in. Later, we hear Jennifer's voice coming from the room, pleading for her father. Like idiots, they open the door only to find the same infected SWAT team member, letting us know that the infected can disguise their voices, for they are merely Tristana's puppets. 

      The priest, Angela, and the remaining SWAT team make it back up to the penthouse to try one last time to get a blood sample from Tristana. This proves impossible and everyone dies except for Angela and the priest. The priest has a walkie-talkie that he uses to talk to the police outside. Throughout the film, The SWAT tries to get him to call off the mission and get everyone out of the building, but he refuses to call off the mission until the mission is complete (get a blood sample from Tristana). The walkie is voice specific and can only be used by the priest, anyone who tries to use it gets turned down for a non-recognized voice. 

      In the end, when it's only Angela and the priest, Angela begins to act extremely violent toward him, demanding that he give the order to evacuate. After thoroughly kicking his ass, she tells him that he is not needed. Her voice then changes, she grabs his talkie and gives the order to evacuate using the priest's voice. The voice is recognized and she tells them that everyone is dead or infected, even the priest whom she is imitating. She also adds that a female has escaped unharmed and must be evacuated at once. Permission is granted, leaving a huge cliffhanger that the infection could reach the outside (can't wait for part 3).

      The very end shows what happened to Angela after she is dragged away at the end of part one. After dragging her into the darkness, the possessed girl forces Angela's mouth open and pukes some kind of worm into it. She gets a glazed look and there you have it, the extended ending to part one and the beginning of part two. I can't say that this sequel is better than the original, but it sure packed a hell of a punch in the scare department and explained a few questions remaining from part one. 

      I've heard a rumor that part one impressed the producers so much upon the first view that a plan was made to finance a total of four movies, the original plus three sequels. And though part two did not disappoint, part three was a total farce, ruined by unnecessary comedy and not having much at all to do with the original storyline.  It was critically panned and when it came time to make the fourth and final entry, the writers and producers made sure that it picked up exactly where part two left off.  Completely ignoring the missed opportunity for part three to have potentially been an awesome prequel, showing us how the original possessed girl, Tristana Medeiros, was brought to the building in the first place.  We knew that she was kidnapped and that a scientist brought her to the penthouse apartment to experiment on her by orders from the Vatican because she was declared officially possessed would have made a really great tie-in to the full storyline.

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.

Day of the Dead

     First, there was Night of the Living Dead. Then there was Dawn of the Dead. Now it's Day of the Dead, the third entry to what was at the time a perfect trilogy. Three separate movies where the events are supposed to be literally only a day or so after the first movie. The irony is that there were ten years between "Night" and "Dawn", and eight years between "Dawn" and "Day". One simultaneous event stretched over 18 years. The differences in clothing and hairstyles are obvious and dramatic, yet the film's creator George Romero makes no apologies for his continuity shortcomings. Frankly, the movies are so great that nobody really cares. 

      Day of the Dead takes place in an abandoned underground missile silo, where a handful of scientists and soldiers have been grouped together to help figure out a way to end this horrible zombie fiasco. This film has many elements of the first movie, being that the real story doesn't have much to do with the zombie outbreak, and it's merely a backdrop for a story concerning people with strong personalities and the dynamics of those relationships in a desperate situation. 

      The head soldier, who's a total prick (and a terrible over-actor) demands answers from the scientist half of the group and as usual, gets no answers. The soldiers are all a bunch of obnoxious Neanderthals and the scientists are really demented (well, at least one is). The head scientist Dr. Logan is obsessed with mutilating zombies in an effort to understand the zombie situation. He's convinced that the key to mankind's survival is teaching zombies to be good little boys and girls by rewarding them. Finding this preposterous, the relationship between the scientists and the soldiers comes to a boiling point. And when it's discovered that Dr. Logan's "rewards" are the remains of some of the recently departed soldiers that were assumed to be buried in the makeshift graveyard up on the surface of the silo, all hell breaks loose... again. 

      Violence and death run rampant when one of the soldiers who has been bitten and knows he's gonna die, opens up the gates to the silo, letting all the zombies in. One of the scientists, the radio guy, and the helicopter pilot make it out to the surface while the rest of the soldiers are made into a zombie buffet. The soldiers were real pricks all through the movie so their very graphic dismemberment by the zombies in the end was very satisfying. The three that made it out, make it to a zombie-free island, giving us hope for the resurrection of humanity... or at least another sequel!

Dawn of the Dead

     This is the infamous sequel to Night of the Living Dead. Dawn of the Dead was a bit more mainstream than its predecessor, mostly due to George Romero trying to outdo Night of the Living Dead after it became such an unexpected success. 

      The storyline supposedly takes place the following day, even though it's obviously not, due to the different, more modern clothes and hairstyles. Anyway, the dead are still being resurrected for some as yet unknown reason (it was hinted as space radiation in the first film, but never confirmed) and are outnumbering the police and military, and eventually starting to overrun the planet. At a television station, people are panicking and abandoning their jobs as TV informants and are heading for who knows where. 

      A helicopter pilot, his girlfriend, a military buddy, and his friend take to the skies, trying to figure out what the hell to do next. They come across a huge shopping mall (another storyline continuation discrepancy since they didn't have malls when the original film came out in 1968) and land on the roof. There are a few zombies roaming around, but not many. They soon realize the benefits of staying there for a while. They rid the mall of the few zombies it has in it and blocks off all the entrances to the mall with freight trucks. 

      Finally, after getting some sleep, they milk the mall for all it's worth, which is quite a lot. Food, clothes, televisions, radios, and ammunition as far as the eye can see. While placing the freight trucks, one of the men gets bitten on the leg by a zombie. Three days later, he dies, then comes back, then dies again, and is buried in the mall garden courtyard. 

      All goes well for a while until the mall is raided by a gang of motorcycle bandits. In fighting for what he has claimed as his, the helicopter pilot flips out and fights back. He ends up wounded and then attacked by zombies, dies, resurrects, and comes after the only two remaining live people he knows of. The rest of the zombies follow him and bombard the upstairs sanctuary they've created, leaving the military guy and the pilot's girlfriend to escape in the only way possible... straight up. They fly off in the helicopter (thankfully, he taught his girlfriend how to fly it) and that's the end. 

      I have to say that I was a little disappointed when it ended. There were just too many unanswered questions. Near the beginning of the movie, we find out that the pilot's girlfriend is pregnant, but she's like 18 months along at the end when they fly away. Also, where the hell did they go with almost no fuel left? I guess it was so that they could make another sequel (which they did, and much like this one it differs greatly in time discrepancy). The movie basically ends right where it began, so it makes a good transition between part one and part three. 

     The movie seems to be making a statement about consumerism, seeing that the zombies are attracted to the mall because it's what they remember from their life before dying and the need to buy stuff.  The message from the first film was that if everyone had worked together and not been fighting continuously, they might have actually survived.  This movie was recently remade and unlike the great majority of movie remakes, this one is actually pretty damn good. Scary as hell, mostly because the zombies could run and were a hell of a lot more threatening.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

     Although the title implies that this is a sequel to Valley of the Dolls, it really isn't. A sequel was in fact written for "Valley" by its original writer Jaqueline Susann but was rejected. I guess it wasn't tawdry enough.  Legendary breast mogul and 60's movie producer/director Russ Meyer got his hands on the opportunity to direct a sequel-esque film that had many of the same elements of the original. So the movie was made, but not without a disclaimer at the beginning stating that this is definitely NOT a sequel to "Valley of the Dolls" and is a completely separate film entirely. 

      It has basically all the same elements as the original... sex, drugs, and all the downfalls that come with various sorts of fame. Three young women (and a wimpy manager that's the lead singer's boyfriend) in an all-girl band called "The Kelly Experience" set out for New York and all the seedy elements therein. They soon gain fame when they are introduced to "Z-man" Barzell, a more than eccentric record producer that constantly talks like Shakespeare. Soon Z-man replaces their former manager and renames the band "The Carrie Nations". The former manager/boyfriend is left in the dust and attempts suicide on national television while the band is appearing on a talk show. 

      This movie is without a doubt, the Queen of Camp. Freaks, Kooks, Swingers, Fruits, and every other 60's cliche in the book. More colorful than an LSD trip, with an ending that is nothing short of bizarre. "This my happening and it freaks me out!!!