Author: Matt Pass
What’s your favorite horror movie? Why is it your favorite? Is it because of the scares? The mood? The cast? Or is it because it’s better than the hundred of shitty movies you saw before hand?
The only reason we can have good horror movies is because we have bad horror movies. You can’t truly appreciate a movie’s achievements without being aware of other movies’ failures. A better understanding of failure–and how to avoid it–is the purpose of this column. Obviously it doesn’t make sense to compare The Babadook to Plan 9 from Outer Space, so I will be examining two movies both released in the same year. Today I’ve chosen to visit 1992. Why 1992? Because… I dunno, cuz that’s when the Cold War ended?
I watched Amityville: It’s About Time and Army of Darkness. Not only are both movies sequels (the sixth and third movies in their respective franchises), but both refrain from including a number in the title. Let’s face it, nobody is going to watch something called “The Amityville Horror Part 6” if they haven’t seen the previous five. Fittingly, they both act as standalone films, able to be understood without the context of their predecessors. Coincidentally, they both involve time travel.
Given the aforementioned similarities, the difference in execution is vast. Both get a bit silly at times, but the important difference is that one movie knows when it’s being silly, but the other is stubbornly claiming to be serious anyway. Army of Darkness focuses on a quest with a concrete goal: Ash is sent back in time and has to retrieve the Necronomicon…and battle with an army of, well, y’know, darkness (darkness, in this case, refers to stop-motion skeletons). It’s About Time, on the other hand, is more of a mystery, i.e. “Hey, what’s up with these clocks that are ruining our lives?” Interestingly, the filmmaking processes seem to reflect the aforementioned themes: the Army of Darkness crew was on a quest to make the movie they envisioned, while the Amityville crew was trying to solve the mystery of what the hell they wanted their movie to be about.
As a standalone story within a franchise, Army of Darkness allows for further development of Ash’s character in a completely different setting, and oh man does he flourish. It is here that Bruce Campbell perfected the attitude and wit that would later make him the only redeeming quality in “Burn Notice”. Army of Darkness said “Hey, let’s expand ‘Evil Dead’ into a whole new story” and It’s About Time says “Hey, let’s take a story and then spray paint ‘Amityville’ on it.” It’s about a clock that can manipulate time (yes… it’s literally about time). It can slow the progression of time. It can take us to the past, or the future. It possesses other clocks. It possesses a wristwatch–meaning it is no longer limited to the house containing the clock. It possesses a microwave clock! That’s insane. You thought adjusting your microwave for Daylight Saving time was hard already? Try doing it when it’s haunted. Did it possess the whole microwave or just its clock? Is it still safe to cook food in it? Those questions are never answered, because during the third act the writers suddenly realized that they were obligated to have a man try to kill his family. The main thing hindering this movie is the fact that it’s “The Amityville Horror Part 6” instead of “Freakin’ Scary Clock Part 1”.
Army of Darkness works because it is a pretty believable story of the Necronomicon in a different time period. The fact that it’s called Army of Darkness instead of “Evil Dead 3” is fitting, because it isn’t quite the ‘Evil Dead’. It has ‘Evil Dead’ characters and elements, but it’s just a little bit different, containing more action and humor. It’s like a spinoff. And it’s a good spinoff! It’s what a spinoff should be. It’s like “Better Call Saul”, whereas Amityville 6 is more like when Joey spun off of “Friends”–it’s got like one thing from the original, but we’re already pretty bored of that thing.
Amityville: It’s About Time doesn’t work because it can’t decide what it wants to be. A more apt title would have been “Amityville: It’s About Time (But Also a Bunch of Other Things)”. In the beginning it’s about the cool haunted clock, then it shifts focus to some black ooze that can do pretty much whatever it wants, before finally trying to be The Amityville Horror. This film seems like an anthology that doesn’t even bother to have its actors change costume between stories. This movie would be good to catch on TV, because if you accidentally watched only a random 20 minutes of it, you’d probably enjoy those 20 minutes (not that you’d ever need to watch it on TV–it’s available in full on Youtube, which is not a good sign. If it’s creators don’t care about the copyright infringement, why should I give a shit about their movie?). This movie is the Amityville movie that seems like it should have Ryan Reynolds in it. It’s About Time has a great soundtrack, which is the same as telling an ugly person that they have a great personality.
When Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell were making the original Evil Dead, I’m sure they weren’t thinking “In a few years, this character will be sword fighting,” yet by the time it happens it makes sense. I’m not too fond of medieval themed films (the only other one I’ve seen is Martin Lawrence’s Black Knight) but it works, because this movie isn’t about medieval times, it’s about a bad ass named Ash, who you can tell is wearing Old Spice.
You know what else makes this movie for me? Skeletons. I love getting to see a walking talking skeleton. But you never get to see them in a serious context–it’s pretty much just here and Scary Movie 2. If anybody knows a movie with actual scary walking skeletons, PLEASE tell me about it.
Bookended by scenes taking place in the present day, Army of Darkness reminds us that while Ash may have won the war in the past, there’s still evil afoot in the present (which we will see in Ash vs Evil Dead).
Ironically, It’s About Time has a mostly satisfying ending. I’ve seen so many horror movies fall apart during the final act, yet this movie’s final scene it one of its best. After time is shifted to the past, we are again shown (a slightly different version of) the movie’s first scene, some of which makes more sense after having seen the events that transpired.
In fairness, I will admit that Army of Darkness is not perfect: the scene with the mini-Ashes was greatly enhanced by my decision to fast forward through it. The terrible green screen effects are the least infuriating thing about it. It adds nothing to the movie but frustration.
But hey–it’s still better than the other crap they were putting out in 1992. Remember when I said Amityville had a mostly satisfying ending? Well, the lead female’s final line is “It’s about time,” which you may recognize as the title of the film. This is only slightly less insulting than if she had looked directly into the camera and said “fuck you” to the audience.
Matt Pass is a columnist at Paste Magazine and can be found on Twitter @mattpasscomedy. Give him some sugar, baby.
