Eine Reise ins Übernatürliche

I first saw this film a little while ago under the title of The Beast. The first viewing of it I wasn't sure what to make of it. I love the stop motion and all of the special effects but something about the movie didn't catch my interest. When Criterion decided to release this on DVD with both versions of the movie and a whole lot of extras I thought I would give it another chance. I am happy I did because this was a truly fun film that paved the way for movies like Evil Dead or Phantasm.

The storyline might sound familiar. A group of four friends (2 guys, 2 girls) plan a trip to a log cabin out in the middle of nowhere. When they get there they discover the log cabin has been destroyed. After then exploring around they find a few very odd things. A random castle on a hill and a strange old man that gives them this very old book. After this they discover an invisible barrier leading to another world. Soon there are creatures that want to kill them and take the book.

A second viewing was in order. I am glad I did. I believe the version I saw, entitled The Beast, was the 1970's version. Watching the original 1967 version seemed a bit better.

The special effects in this movie are excellent. For me, I am right at home with a movie like this. The stop motion was true eye candy to watch and after you see the first monster you are pretty much in for a fun ride.

A can tell that Sam Raimi probably liked this movie when he was younger and wrote a similar story for his cult phenomenon The Evil Dead. The whole storyline with the book and a group of friends going out to a log cabin was obviously inspiration for Raimi. Even at the beginning of Evil Dead when they are showing images of the book floating in what appears to be fog was very similar to that of a scene in The Equinox when they are explaining what the purpose of the book was. A little bit of similarity with this movie and Phantasm with the portal to another world and how that other world looked upon entering it.

This movie is really a movie for fans of the stop motion genre. If you like Ray Harryhausen this is a must see. 9/10

Come on, people! This was a zero-budget student film, for God's sake! You can't assess this movie like you would the latest big-budget studio blockbuster. This was an earnest effort of some FX-crazed kids, who did their damnedest to get some cool stop-motion monster sequences on film as a showcase of their talents. Dennis Muren went on to STAR WARS fame and many Oscars, and the late lamented David Allen enlivened many a crappy Charles Band flick (that's actually a redundancy) with superb effects that always belied the pitiful budget he was given to work with. All I know is, my younger brother and I, both stop-motion fans, saw the trailer for EQUINOX at some long-ago Saturday matinée and KNEW we had to see this film. And when we finally did we thought it was COOL! I'd rather see a continuity-challenged, amateur FX effort like this than any multimillion-dollar CG crapfest like VAN HELSING any day of the week!

Bad, good, it doesn't matter. This is one of the great film labors of love. Rent the criterion edition and do as I did. Listen to the commentary over the Muren cut of the film. Then Switch to the Jack Harris, Jack Woods commentary over their cut. I was under the false impression as I watched the kids cut that Woods did not add much when he made his cut. Watching Woods cut you see how much effort went into shaping the final theatrical cut. It's amazing that the actors, unpaid for 2 years, already constantly returning to remote sets to incrementally add to to the shot count, would ALL reassemble for the extra shots that Woods would want to add. Listening to Muren, Danforth and McGee knock their own acting and talent is a real crack up. Everyone involved obviously loved the doing of this film. I am still impressed by the high quality of illusion achieved, especially the forced perspective work and the matte painting by Danforth.

"Equinox" is a low-budget and wholly independent precursor of Sam Raimi's "The Evil Dead" about a group of teenagers,who accidentally unleash supernatural forces after reading passages from a mysterious book Necronomicon found in the woods.The main difference between "Equinox" and "The Evil Dead" is that the latter is drenched with gore and violence,whilst"Equinox" plays more like 50's creature feature combined with cheesy stop-motion monster roaming the woods.I must say that the stop motion monster effects are pretty impressive as are the split screen effects.The acting is amateurish and the writing leaves a lot to be desired.Who would of ever guessed that Park Ranger Asmodeus would turn out to be Satan incarnate.Still strong 8 out of 10.

Four friends, David, Vicki, Jim and Susan, head out into the woods to visit David's professor, Dr. Waterman. They find Waterman'home destroyed, the professor missing, and a mysterious book. It soon becomes apparent that in meddling with the book, Waterman accidentally opened a portal to another, hellish dimension, and now the demon Asmodeus (posing as a park ranger) wants to acquire the powerful book. The four friends must fight against a variety of ghoulish monsters sent after them by Asmodeus, and eventually Asmodeus himself, in order to make it back to civilization alive.

Often considered one of the best-worst movies of all time, Equinox was a student film made by a young Dennis Muren which producer Jack Woods picked up for cinematic distribution, casting himself as Asmodeus and shooting some new scenes. On the one hand, this seems like a strange movie for Criterion to release, especially in a two-disc set, however despite its ineptitude it features some charming stop-motion animation for the various monsters (and some impressive forced-perspective shots to turn an ordinary stuntman into a blue-skinned giant) and it's also certainly worthy of being preserved if only because Dennis Muren and his friends had such a piddly budget to work with that it' a miracle they even had a completed (albeit rough) film, even before Jack Woods came along.