Don't worry, Guyver won't be back...yet. Instead I looked at a more well known film. The 1987 cult comedy horror; Evil Dead 2, the second of Sam Reimi's Evil dead series. Because of the length of the Guyver analysis I've decided to shorten this down and focus only on the special effects, and the sounds. All I have to say about the cast is that they are your typical horror movie cast. Though Bruce Campbell is there in all his glory.
The effects are pretty damn awesome if I do say so myself. There's an odd assortment of smoke machines, puppets, dummies, prosthetics, stop motion and art backdrops.
To communicate that evil forces were leaving the woods they filmed smoke rising from smoke machines and then reversed the footage to make it look like the smoke was shrinking away. It was very well executed as you couldn't really tell it was being reversed.
Stop-motion animation was used a few times in the film. One of the best examples was when Ash's (Bruce Campbell) dead girlfriend rises from the grave and starts dancing. Her severed head rolling up her shoulder onto the neck. To me it was both comical and twisted. Another example was when Ash's hand becomes possessed and black veins start covering the hand. They most likely did a frame by frame drawing more of the lines each time.
As for puppets and dummies, the most famous examples in the movie is when everything in the room starts laughing at Ash, including a deer head, a lamp, books, cupboards everything. Like an even more horrific Peewee's playhouse. By the way the deerhead moves you can tell somebodies arm is in there. But when combined with the insane laughter it works. As for a dummy, the girlfriend's corpse tries to kill Ash with a chainsaw. When it fails and cuts itself it starts flailing about. They did that by using wranglers below the camera's view to move it back and forth. The film also makes use of some fake body parts. For example when thregirlfriend's severed head lands on Ash's lap and starts laughing. That is done by placing a fake neck below the neck while the actresses real body is beneath Ash's legs.
Backdrops were also used a couple of times. When Ash is standing infront of the broken bridge Ash is shooped into a rendered backdrop making it look like he is standing on a cliff side. The effect is good for its time and frankly if you weren't examining it like I was then odds are you wouldn't have noticed. A rendered background is also show the other characters the mangled remains of the bridge. Here the effect is that light is hitting the bridge, like a Trompe L'oeil painting. Though here, I don't know, it seems a little bit off.
Camera work. To show that the spirits were moving swiftly towards the cabin the cameraman moved with the camera. Then they sped it up in editing. Though what really made this effect work was the whinning and moaning of the spirits so part of the credit goes to the sound guys. Another use of the camera was a low angle shot used to make it look like a possessed character was jumping supernaturally high.
Finally the sound. I have already addressed some of it when taliking about the camera work. But there is also the use of silence, getting ready for a jump scare. Theres also the sounds the possessed make that really creep you out. If there's anything else I can say about the sound I will edit this post.
And that was my analysis of Evil dead 2. My next bit of research will be here soon.
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