| Within the Woods Released: 1978 MPAA Rating: N/A Genre: Zombie Nuts and Bolts: A group of teens find out why fucking about with Indian burial grounds is a BAD idea. When Bruce gets turned into a murderous zombie, can his girlfriend get away in time? Summary: Four friends are hanging out at an old farmhouse near a swamp. Bruce and Ellen decide to have a picnic nearby while Scotty and Shelly stay behind to play monopoly. So as Bruce and Ellen are picking a groovy spot to set up their picnic, Bruce remarks how he grew up in the area. The surrounding lands used to be the territory of native Americans many years ago. Bruce finds a couple of old arrowheads and begins digging for more. He eventually comes upon an ancient ceremonial medicine man dagger. He tells Ellen that traditionally whenever a medicine man died, one of his possessions would be buried with him. Now while Ellen is sunning herself, Bruce gets back up to check out the spot where he was digging. The spirit of the dead native takes control of his body. Ellen falls asleep and awakens later into the early evening. She begins to wonder where Bruce is. She gets up and searches the spot where he was last seen. Confronted by her zombified boy friend, she runs screaming in terror throughout the woods. The zombie chases across a section of swamp, but Ellen eventually gets back to the farmhouse. She bangs relentlessly on the door, but Scott and Shelly are too busy arguing over their monopoly game. Shelly fumbles about until finally finding her keys. Seconds later, she makes it into the farmhouse, locking the door behind her. Scotty goes out into the woods to look for Bruce leaving Ellen alone with Shelly. Some time passes and Scotty doesn’t return. Shelly goes out to look for him much to Ellen’s chagrin. Eventually though, ole Bruce the Zombie makes it to the front door. He confronts Shelly before she even gets two steps out of the house. Raising her off her feet with one hand, he uses the other to stab her in the neck with the ceremonial dagger. Ellen screams and retreats to a back bedroom. Scurrying about for a weapon of any kind, she sees someone trying to break through the door. The door bursts open wide and Ellie leaps forward with the knife. Tough luck though, because her target ended up being Scotty. Ellen steps over him and races into the other room. But unfortunately, that’s where Bruce is. She runs back into the back room and closes the door over Bruce’s fingers. She discovers that Scotty is still alive albeit barely. Scotty tells her to go to the cellar to find a gun. She does so, but only manages to acquire another really large knife. She frantically runs back upstairs where she meets Bruce the zombie again. Bruce grabs her about the throat and begins strangling the shit out of her. Ellen uses the knife and cuts off Bruce’s hand. (He doesn’t keep his hand in ANY of these movies does he?) Ellen tries to squirm out the front window, but Bruce drags her back inside. They punch each other about a bit and Bruce tosses her into the monopoly table spilling everything over. (Damn. And Scotty was JUST about to nail Park Place too.) Bruce gets her down on the floor, but Ellen reaches over and grabs the severed hand holding on to the dagger. She stabs the dagger into Bruce’s back and this seems to put him down for the count. But only temporarily (You know how these monsters get). Bruce springs back up for one final hurrah, so Ellen picks up an axe and whacks off Bruce’s arm and head. This kills him dead. The camera begins to pull away as Ellen is left crouched on the end of the sofa crying. In the foreground, we see Scotty rise straight up. He is a zombie now. Acting/Dialogue: Here it is folks. Bruce Campbell’s first acting job! Hail to the king baby! Now while Bruce isn’t playing his trademark buffoon Ash Williams, he still does a pretty good job at playing a zombie. Ellen Sandweiss plays Ellen in this one, and she will eventually return to play the hapless Cheryl in Evil Dead. The other two are pretty forgettable and are really only there as cannon fodder. Come to think of it, Scott Spiegel was pretty damn annoying in this. Gore: Bruce stabs this one bitch in the neck causing her to throw up a glob of something that looks like half-processed Jell-O. Ellen cuts Bruce’s hand halfway off forcing the zombie to twist and pull the dangling extremity until it finally tears free from the bone. Good-n-nasty. We don’t really see Ellen hack ole Brucey up, but we do see his disembodied parts lying on the floor. Guilty Pleasures: No boobies. The Good: All things considered this is a pretty solid film. Now the first thing you’re probably wondering is: Is this an Evil Dead movie? Well, the answer to that question true believers would be no. This was sort of a trial-by-error film produced by the Raimi/Campbell team in an effort to raise the much-needed moolah so that they could later go on and produce the cult classic Evil Dead. This movie cost producers Robert Tabert and Sam Raimi 1,600 dollars to make. Christ, my fucking TELEVISION costs more than that! But Sam knew how to make that money work for him. The set is nice and creepy and the woods have a real haunted feel to them. A great deal of the first half is spent in the woods, and a lot of the camera work is sped up tracking shots from Bruce’s POV. This was done for the sake of budget here, but the technique would later become a Sam Raimi trademark. The forest scenes have a real Blair Witch vibe to them, so if you’re into those flicks you might get a kick out of this. The Bad: As you may have surmised by now, this is only a movie short and not a full-length feature. As such, it only runs thirty-two minutes long. Hardly enough time to really get a lot done. The lighting is really kind of poor too. It’s hard to make out many of the details. I guess the worst thing about Within the Woods is the fact that it is practically impossible to find. Your best chance of finding it is either scooping out the annual Horror conventions or maybe finding a bootleg copy on ebay. Some sharing programs might have it available to download. All in all, this is a fairly forgettable short, but for all you Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell/Evil Dead completists out there, it’s a must-have. Great Lines: “Join us!” --Bruce the Zombie “You have violated the ancient ways!” --Bruce the Zombie Overall Rating: 5 out of 10 severed heads. |
 |
|
|
|
|
 |