Edward Tor Swenson (Johan Rudebeck) is editing dull swedish drama-films that nobody wants to see. When the former editor in the building’s “Splatter and Gore Department” became mad and stuffed a grenade in his mouth, Ed is set up to replace him, a task he would quickly regret. Ed gets his own, dark house in the woods where he sits through the newest film in a horror movie series called “The Loose Limbs”, which serves as a parody of all of the trashy horror sequels we got in the 1980’s. Ed becomes increasingly influenced by all the cruel violence he must sit through and it drives him crazy, or drives him “Evil Ed”, if you will. Now the world shall pay for making these influential garbage films, and he goes on a wild rampage.
Evil Ed is first and foremost a satire and spoof against the Cinemabureau of the State in Sweden that edited out explicit and gory scenes in horror movies to such an extent that it was only dry meat left. The scenes where the gory things happened would jump-cut right into the end of the scene. Not only did we miss the gory stuff, but also the whole context of the scenes. It looked choppy and messy and was irritating as hell. Those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s, are aware of how horror movies on VHS were brutally treated by cencorship, especially in Norway (where I am from). They really showed no mercy to those poor celluloids, and even a scene in “Ghostbusters” were cut from the VHS in the norwegian release back in the day. Fortunately, things are different now.
With the cencorship history in the back of your mind, you will probably get more out of «Evil Ed», but this is still a fun little low-budget slasher made with lots of energy, enthusiasm, and a ton of horror references and cheesy dubbing. And music by E-Type, of course.
Director: Anders Jacobsson
Country & year: Sweden, 1995
Actors: Johan Rudebeck, Per Löfberg, Olof Rhodin, Camela Leierth, Gert Fylking, Cecilia Ljung, Michael Kallaanvaara
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0116247/
