Ask Movie Slate - Evil Ed

Ask Movie Slate - Episode 173

When it comes to Movie Slate I always saw her and her blog as my testing ground for new techniques, ideas, and concepts. Sometimes I go a bit too far with her drawings, and other times I keep it simple, just try out different color palettes and see what kind of effect they end up having. I think this one ended up falling on the average side of the testing spectrum, none of it feels new or earth-shattering different. It's fun to see Movie Slate finally losing her mind due to the many horror movies she has to put up with, right?

"Evil Ed" is a real movie that actually exists, and its sole existence is to lampoon the censorship that its country of origin (Sweden) had to put up with during a good couple of decades. It tells the story of an editor who's told to remove all the explicit footage from horror movies, and how the over-exposure to these many horror films ends up driving him insane. It has shout outs to as many horror movies as you could imagine, from "Evil Dead" to "Critters", and  it's kind of interesting to watch, because it's as much as the exploitation of violence we make in horror movies, to how desensitized we grow towards it. If you like horror and black comedy, give it a watch, by all means. It's a rather fun, short, enjoyable ride.

Every element in this picture relates to something that happens in the movie.

- The boxes full of Beaver Scenes. There's a running "joke" in the movie regarding beavers. The less I say about it, the better.
- The boom mic that's out of order. When filming, they didn't use microphones to record any sound, since the movie was going to get dubbed later. This makes as little sense as you guys can imagine.
- The horror movie posters. The studio where the protagonist works has well known movie posters all over the walls. I wonder if they got the rights to use them.
- Movie Slate snipping her celluloid hair. The movie starts with the editor that preceded the protagonist cutting bunches of celluloid, before putting a grenade in his mouth and killing himself.

I'm not exactly sure why I decided to go with a blue light source. The movie takes place in Ed's studio, where he spends night after night editing and cutting movies, and the light of the projector is this very sickly place blue. I think I was going for that similar look, but the warm colors of her magic and the cardboard boxes ended up standing out more than I would've wanted to. I guess it breaks the blue and gives your eyes a bit of a rest, don't you think?

Please, let me know what you think of it in the comments. I appreciate and every single one I receive.

Thank you!

You can check the update on Movie Slate's blog right here.

Art by James Corck