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“I'm just another chunk of meat lost in brain land.”
Striking out of Sweden as the blood-soaked antithesis of Ingmar Bergman, Anders
Jacobsson's Evil Ed – reportedly made with a budget equivalent to a mere
two-and-a-half seconds worth of Jurassic Park – is a frantic and
gleefully over-the-top horror comedy crammed to the gills with references to
American splatter epics. In some ways it is the ultimate fan film crafted by
obsessives of blood 'n' guts cinema, and yet – first appearing in the UK in the
dying years of James Ferman's censorious grip on the British Board of Film
Classification – when horror was still tantamount to smut – Evil Ed
comes as a rebel yell against the Mary Whitehouse types of the world. Hands
off our gore, it screams, take your scissors and shove 'em where the sun
doesn't shine!
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screenshots…
“In this film there's a scene where a woman gets raped
by a beaver and then shot in the head with a bazooka.” Ed (Johan
Rudebeck) is the mild-mannered poster boy for Milquetoast males, a
soft-spoken film editor merrily splicing together relationship dramas as dreary
as the water in a clogged kitchen sink. However, when a fellow editor loses his
mind (and then his head, rather explosively!), Ed is drafted in to the
'splatter and gore department' to perform tasteful cuts to the hugely popular
'Loose Limbs' series of films in preparation for their release in more nervous
climates. Dispatched to a remote house, Ed is dunked head first into a world of
extraordinarily graphic violence and salacious sex – the 'Loose Limbs' films
are, so it appears, exactly what Mary Whitehouse and her coven of crucifix-clutching
cardigan enthusiasts assumed all the so-called 'video nasties' were.
“90 minutes of condensed sex and violence – do you
call that a great movie? Do you have the slightest idea what the moral and
ethical principal is?!” Indeed, just as the nervous nellies of the
'censorship utopia' vociferously predicted, the scissor-happy Ed finds himself
becoming affected by the onslaught of graphic content after weeks of making his
completely nonsensical edits. Gutting every money shot from the low-down sleazefests
– with the blood splashing before his eyes and the screams attacking his ear
drums – poor old pale-faced Ed begins to experience grotesque hallucinations
that seek to drive him over the edge into murderous insanity. From busty bimbos
to monstrous ghouls and goblins, Ed is besieged from all directions until his
delusions become all-consuming. He encounters a harbinger of dark times ahead
and the challenge is laid down – the world needs correcting and only Ed
can end the sickness by any means necessary.
“Read my lips – not X-rated!” At a time when
'horror' was still being seen by the mainstream as a skeleton in the cupboard
to be ashamed of at best (and flat-out sadist at worst) – when films
like Silence of the Lambs and Scream were marketed as 'thrillers'
– Evil Ed lurched out of the gloom to feed the imagination of young film
nerds like myself and helped keep the genre alive. The 1990s weren't a golden
era for horror, but the James Ferman era of the British Board of Film
Classification was drawing to a close, and Jacobsson's film was a timely
reminder of how daft the moral panic over 'video nasties' was. Showing that
some people just aren't cut out for horror, Ed – from the world of
character-driven foreign language melodramas – is corrupted exactly how the
moral crusaders claimed. Meanwhile, Nick (Per Lofberg) is obsessed with
the 'Loose Limbs' franchise, but he's not the one going around killing people.
Instead, it is the scissor-happy censor who beats him to a bloody pulp and it's
the slick, pony-tailed, Europop sleazeball boss Sam Campbell (Olof Rhodin)
whose hands roam wherever they please. Nick is just a normal teen with a
limited range of cinematic interests, but like 99% of horror fans he has no ill
intentions and knows exactly where the line is drawn between fiction and
reality, right and wrong – and he further enjoys his horror movies as a social
act.
Just because you enjoy watching gory films, doesn't mean
you'll act them out. Numerous academic studies, and the simple fact that
society at large isn't out there slaughtering each other in a frenzy after
watching a horror flick, have long since proved the case against the Godheads
who masterminded the asinine panics over media they didn't personally like. Cannibal
Holocaust wasn't a snuff movie, N.W.A. simply found their voice and
freedom of expression, and Grand Theft Auto is literally a game. Despite
tackling the subject head-on, Evil Ed – written by Jacobsson, Goran
Lundstrom, and Christer Ohlsson – never seeks to joylessly stand on a soap box because
it's having far too much fun prodding the po-faced complainers through Ed's
comically over-the-top descent into corruption. With his mind warped, he cuts
together all the grisliest parts of the 'Loose Limbs' series into one long
cavalcade of pandemonium, surely referencing how Mary Whitehouse and chums did
exactly that – screening a montage of the video nasties' greatest hits to
flabbergasted members of Parliament – while seizing on paper-selling tabloid
ardour for the fulfilment of their own perverse power fantasy. Now, tell me,
who exactly is the sicko in all this?
“It's your world – I just live in it.” Strewn
with references to highlights of 80s horror, but never to its detriment, Evil
Ed revels in its influences. Considering that Ed's boss goes by the name of
Sam Campbell, Jacobsson's & Co's main source of inspiration is obviously
the early works of Sam Raimi. From the Spider-Man director's signature
camera moves to Bruce Campbell's catchphrase of “groovy!”, the energy and
bravura sense of style of Evil Dead II is borrowed from liberally – but
credit is always given. Numerous walls throughout the film are adorned with
posters for The Thing, Prince of Darkness, The Fly, Critters,
Evil Dead II and many more, and that's not where the references stop. A
'spot the reference' drinking game would surely render any self-respecting
horror fan absolutely paralytic by the half-way point as Re-Animator, The
Shining, Gremlins, Halloween, Night of the Living Dead,
and even Full Metal Jacket are just some of the films that get a cheeky
wink sent their way. One cameo appearance sure to get genre fans' skin
tingling, though, is 'Chop Top' himself Bill Moseley as the voice of 'Dr
Wrench', the drooling misogynist maniac at the heart of the 'Loose Limbs'
franchise. Indeed, so over-the-top is the character, that he cheekily
represents every dismissive, hand-wringing condemnation from the self-righteous
enemies of free speech and horror cinema.
“Don't you fucking look at me!” Boasting a
fantastic array of practical effects engineered and crafted by numerous artists
– chief among them Goran Lundstrom, Anders Bratas, and Hannes Rhodin – Evil
Ed is a feast for horror hounds as severed body parts soar through the air
and creepy characters such as 'Fridge Fritz' and 'Demonic Doc' lunge at the
audience with a babbling intensity. Put simply, the film is a phantasmagoria of
deliciously dark delights from start to finish – a 'plastic reality' spectacle
in the truest sense. These monstrous creations – and the film as a whole – demonstrate
the passion and creativity that went into making the movie, a venture which
took the film-makers three years to complete. Utterly independent in spirit (and
production) through-and-through - and delivered by a dedicated, fun-loving cast and crew - Evil Ed kicked against the stuffy
gatekeepers of the Swedish film industry of the time and achieved cult status
in more than sixty countries. More than two decades on it's still an
achievement that deserves celebration.
“Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean I'm not
here to get you.” Playing with tropes of Americana (see the cigar
chomping SWAT leader and the Leone-esque showdown), and cannily performed
and dubbed in English, Jacobsson's film takes on a strange, disembodied nature
at times. And yet, even with its tongue thrust straight through its distended
cheek, the film still manages to create genuine unease as Ed's vulgarity
towards his wife Barbara (Cecilia Ljung) comes forth as surprisingly
disturbing. Amidst the extras on the disc there is a selection of deleted
scenes, which shed some new light on Ed's relationship with his wife and child,
revealing a controlling and censorious attitude to parenting. In these deleted
scenes, Ed and his wife are exposed as – at worst – miserable meddlers in their
daughter's restrictive life, the real bad influences as they seek to deny any
meagre amount of self-indulgence or fun. Indeed, as a result, the bitter
back-and-forth between a loopy-headed Ed and his po-faced wife make all the
more sense. One extreme begets another.
“Nothing's wrong with me – I've never been more
right!” Arrow Video's 2017 three-disc 'Special Ed-ition' Blu-Ray/DVD
presentation – given the amount of love and attention that we've come to expect
from Arrow's work – is a hefty treat for fans of Jacobsson's delirious splatter
flick. The set features two cuts of the film – the original and the extended
version (which features two additional scenes re-inserted into the film)
– and a wealth of special features. Amongst the extras are informative
featurettes on the reconstruction and restoration of the film, a look at the
filmmakers' work before and after Evil Ed, and two versions of a making
of documentary filled with warm and candid interviews plus extensive behind the
scenes footage (one running about 45 minutes, the other clocking in at over
three hours!). And in case all that isn't enough to sate your appetite
there's a few other bits and pieces included, making it the perfect package for
existing fans of the film, but also for newcomers with an interest in the
tongue-in-shredded-cheek horrors of the late 80s and early 90s. If you enjoyed Re-Animator,
Bride of Re-Animator, The Evil Dead franchise, or Peter Jackson's
early films (particularly Bad Taste and Braindead), then Evil
Ed is highly recommended viewing.
N.B. Screenshots are taken from the standard definition
DVD copy of the film.
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