Acclaimed Sequels: the Sequel

Evil Dead II

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

As April’s showers came pouring down today, I decided to watch another set of acclaimed sequels. Sequels that are bigger, wilder, and not necessarily better, but certainly more memorable than their predecessors. Both of tonight’s films were borne out of an overwhelming desire to improve upon the original versions of their stories, but both ultimately became uniquely separate entities that hardly resemble the films they’re meant to follow. Sam Raimi’s 1987 cult classic Evil Dead II is not just considered to be a sequel, it’s a full-on remake or “requel” of his first film The Evil Dead from 1981—which follows five college students (including Bruce Campbell) who stumble upon a tape recording of a cursed, ancient text that unleashes a horde of spirits capable of demonic possession. After some other critical and commercial failures, and upon realizing that Bruce Campbell was the clear star of the bunch, Raimi and his co-writer Scott Speigel got to work on a follow up to The Evil Dead that places Bruce Campbell’s Ash and his girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) at the same ill-fated cabin in the woods, this time, with a much loftier budget and something to prove. Ash and Linda have come to this semi-abandoned cabin for a romantic getaway, but when Ash presses play on a tape recording of an archeologist reading an ancient text, he unknowingly opens a pandora’s box of soul-possessing, bloodthirsty demons. Only six minutes into this movie, poor Ash has to decapitate his possessed girlfriend, but the bloodshed only begins there. Demon Linda isn’t willing to go easily, and neither are any of the spirits that seek to torment and overtake this wilderness. For its entire 84 minutes, the man, the myth, the legend that is Bruce Campbell, puts his entire body and soul into his performance. Ash is relentlessly chased, poked, tortured, ridiculed, and slapped around by these demons—that can take the form of just about anything, from people to furniture. The high-speed, high octane filming style of Evil Dead II was just as frenetic as last week’s viewing of Natural Born Killers, but here the frantic editing and zoomed-in camerawork was really effective and not nearly as distracting. Once this rollercoaster truly takes off, there’s simply no stopping it, and the eye-popping effects of this film are legendary. The special effects, makeup, and prosthetic work was somewhere between Beetlejuice and Wes Craven, and the choreography of Ash’s fights with each demon were mapped out as if it were a slapstick comedy—the likes of which only Charlie Chaplin or the Three Stooges could emulate. I loved how every single thing in this house was out to get Ash, how demons could possess the lamps, the rocking chair, the mirror, the couch, and the deer’s head hanging on the wall—the scene where all of these inanimate objects come to life and just start laughing at Ash was more bonkers and bewildering than I can possibly describe. For the majority of this film’s most memorable scenes, Bruce Campbell is exerting all of the physically comedic energy in the world—having to cut off his demon-bitten hand then subsequently having to engage in battle with that now-possessed hand, was just stunning to watch unfold. I was completely awe-struck by the whole thing, the effects certainly, but Campbell’s fearlessness in acting all of this out as well. When he replaces his hand with a chainsaw, then has to start the chainsaw by pulling the cord with his mouth? That’s cinema to me. And way hotter than it should’ve been. Evil Dead II is chaos from the moment it begins to the second that the credits roll, and I can see how its garnered such a cult following, and so many sequels. There was no need for much of a plot or character development, and yet in these 84 minutes we observe Ash’s complete transformation from regular guy to natural-born hero. Ash ends the calamity from this demon realm, but only by being sent back in time to the days of evil’s inception—thus, I can only assume, giving us the other famous sequel of this series: Army of Darkness. Evil Dead II was thrilling, chilling, and overall hilarious, with a charming sense of humor that dared to dive deep into, and fully commit to, its own madness. Much of the same could be said about the next film that I watched, Russ Meyer’s well-intentioned but messily-made 1970 film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. The 1967 film Valley of the Dolls, based off of Jacqueline Susann’s novel of the same name, tells the melodramatic story of three women in show business who all fall down a rabbit hole of sex, drugs, and glory. When a young film critic by the name of Roger Ebert saw this film, he didn’t give it a good review, he instead said, “What we have here is a dirty soap opera. It is dirty because it intends to be, but it is a soap opera only by default. It tries to raise itself to the level of sophisticated pornography, but fails. And it is dirty, not because it has lots of sex in it, but because it firmly believes that sex is dirty.” In a bizarre turn of events, Ebert took a five-week leave from his job at the Chicago Sun Times to write a sequel to Valley of the Dolls, one that Russ Meyer and Twentieth Century Fox were down to work with. Neither Russ nor Roger had read the novel Valley of the Dolls, but both had been disappointed by the film adaptation and wanted to improve upon it. The two originally planned for this film to be a straight up sequel to the first film, describing a similarly basic formula: “Three young girls come to Hollywood, find fame and fortune, are threatened by sex, violence, and drugs, and either do or do not win redemption.” Seemed simple enough. But when Jacqueline Susann sued Fox for $10 million for “damaging her reputation”, the filmmakers were forced to place a disclaimer at the beginning of the film that clearly states the Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is NOT a sequel. The tagline for this film then became “This is not a sequel—there has never been anything like it”, and that is a correct assessment. Although Beyond the Valley of the Dolls reminds me a bit of the 1960s Casino Royale—so hellbent on outdoing the source material that it was inspired by that it wound up being far more insane. This film is like an x-rated Josie and the Pussycats, where we follow three women in a rock band: Kelly MacNamara (Dolly Read), Casey Anderson (Cynthia Meyers), and Petronella "Pet" Danforth (Marcia McBroom) as they arrive in Los Angeles to make their mark. Along with their manager Harris, this group is quickly swept up into a acid-soaked, weed-infused world of hedonistic desire, as they join a bizarre group of people who are intent on having the grooviest, wildest time possible. At the center of this circus of hippies is star-maker, rock producer, and self-proclaimed vampire Ronnie “Z-Man” Barzell (based off of Phil Spector), who encourages this band to have an impromptu performance at his party—thus skyrocketing them to great success. The music and lyrics were groovy and hysterically silly, with some inspiringly low energy lip-syncing from the leading lady (Dolly Read), and any time someone wasn’t having sex, smoking weed, or singing in this film, they were uttering some of the dumbest and most brilliant lines I have ever heard. The performances were iconically bad, but just worked so well with delivering lines like: “You’re a moonchild!” “and you’re a bitch!”,“You’re a groovy boy, I’d like to strap you on sometime.”, “Take away the guilt and who would ever want to get laid? That’s what Sigmund Freud said.", and who could forget, “Up yours, ratso!” The dynamics between these friends change quickly, and their hometown morals have all but vanished, as this group becomes inundated with as much drugs, titties, and Hollywood corruption that Hollywood would allow. Quite similarly to Evil Dead II, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls made use of intensely quick camerawork and less-than-seamless editing that would make even Ryan Murphy faint. There were several confusing instances where one character would be talking, then the scene would cut to an entirely different person talking before the previous actor could get all of their words out. This had a disorienting effect, but no more disorienting than the rest of the chaotic aspects of this highly chaotic film. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls boasts the kind of luridly salacious content that Valley of the Dolls always sold itself as, but here, well, it’s turned up to eleven. Between the gay subtext and text, the covert and overt lesbianism, the gender fuckery, and the bevy of crunchy, granola-ass hippies smoking weed and having orgies, I can imagine why this film was so critically panned in 1970—and why it is so beloved now. For all of its shocking moments, I never became desensitized to Beyond the Valley of the Dolls’ ambition to sin, and I never predicted a moment of it—certainly not in the last ten minutes of the film when it suddenly turns into a full-on slasher. A lot occurs in this movie, a lot of marbles are lost, and throughout the entire experience of watching it I was thoroughly, bewilderingly entertained. The amount of times I laughed out loud cannot be measured, nor could my gratitude toward the titty-loving critic and screenwriter Roger Ebert, who never wrote another film after this. I wonder what Ebert would think of today’s frustratingly sexless cinema, and if he’d have any antidotes for it. Because while this film of course panders to the male gaze, it also supplies the audience with a myriad of stunning male forms to observe, thus offering a slight balance to the way this film attacks you with nudity. Valley of the Dolls may have had Sharon Tate, but Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, a movie John Waters quotes as one of the greatest of all time, has a mystical vampiric orgy complete with Robin and Catwoman’s actual costumes from the 1960s Batman series, so it’s hard to top that. Both of tonight’s films aimed to outdo their originals and they certainly, absolutely did. As the kids say, first is the worst, second is the best, so why not give these sequels that aren’t really sequels a try!