The Curator of Schlock #344: Evil Ed |

The Curator of Schlock #344 by Jeff Shuster

Evil Ed

This is a wet one, folks.

As I stated last week, Edwidge, my pet kangaroo, was tossed into a hutch filled with fine China by Wally the vampire. With Edwidge down for the count, I knew I was done for. Then I remembered a strategically placed bear trap above the fireplace right behind me. As Wally made his way toward me, fangs out, I grabbed the bear trap and brought it crashing down on his head. Wally screamed and screamed as Celestial and Jervis tried to pry it off of him. I knew this was the time for me to escape, but I never leave a kangaroo behind. Edwidge was coming to and I lifted her over my arms as I made my way out the front door into the cold night air.

This week’s Arrow Home Video release is 1995’s Evil Ed from director Anders Jacobsson. This is the Special Edition of the movie or the Special Ed-Edition. This is a Swedish movie dubbed in English and I find it odd that there is no Swedish language track on the Blu-ray, Still, the English dubbing has its own charm I suppose. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t detract from the movie because the whole affair is so bizarre regardless. Let me explain.

I previously mentioned that England had thrown many horror movies into the Video Nasty category, but other countries in Europe also had it in for these kinds of movie censorship laws. Apparently, the Cinemabureau of Sweden was one of the worst film censoring bodies in the world until it was finally dismantled in 2011. Naturally, gory horror movies must have been at the top of the list which brings us to Evil Ed.

The movie begins with a film editor finally losing his mind from editing and censoring too many gory horror movies. He sticks a grenade in his mouth and pulls the pin, blowing his head apart in front of a producer named Sam Campbell (Olaf Rhodin) who screams, “You’re fired!” at the headless corpse. This brings us to Ed (Johan Rudebeck), a mild mannered editor of Swedish indie dramas. He gets transferred to the Splatter & Gore department at the orders of Sam Campbell and is now assigned the editing duties of Lose Limbs 1 through 8. The Loose Limbs series is about a maniac that likes to cut people up, piece by piece. Sam gives Ed the keys to his own house, says he’s set up an editing station there since they’re short on space at the studio.

After cutting so much bloody footage out of these slasher movies, Ed begins to hallucinate. He starts cutting a loaf of bread only to see the loaf replaced by a severed arm. He then opens the refrigerator only to be greeted by a what appears to be a goblin swigging cans of beer. The goblin then flips him the bird, calls Ed a Nazi, and throws a tomato at his face. Sam Campbell stops by the house to inspect the final cuts of Loose Limbs and he chides Ed for removing the “beaver rape” scene. Ed says that scene was in bad taste, but Sam argues that there was no nudity in that scene therefor it doesn’t violate the censorship laws. Soon after, Ed is chased through the house by a demon with horns and when he’s cornered, he gets his courage up and snaps the demon’s neck, only to then realize the demon was Sam after all. He cuts up Sam’s body and throws it in the trash and if you think that’s the last person Sam will mutilate, you’re in for a treat as he mutilates several more.

I enjoyed Evil Ed. It reminded me of a send up of Giallo movies I saw called The Editor. Both are comedies, both feature film editors as their main characters, and both feature plenty of splatter. The Arrow Blu-ray has loads of special features and a nice transfer. It’s interesting. I don’t think of the 90s as a boom time for horror movies, but Evil Ed is worth your time if you laugh at gallows humor.