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Cinematical reader Kirby sent in this pretty hilarious video called MACs vs. PCs, which takes the popular rivalry to the streets in a short film that's a mix between West Side Story and The Evil Dead. Watch as one set of MACs (dressed in black and drinking bottled water missing its label) square off against a group of nerdy-looking PCs in a fight to the death. What at first starts out as intriguing song and dance quickly turns into something a lot bloodier -- as folks from each side begin violently attacking each other with computer equipment. Oh yes, just when you think it's playing it too safe, they go there ... and beyond. We've posted the video after the jump because it's pretty gory and nasty (believe it or not), so be warned.

Which side do you think would win in an all-out fight to the death?

If you're coming late to the party for The Evil Dead, you may wonder what all the fuss is about. You may pop the movie into your DVD player, watch the first awkwardly-shot sequence, in which five friends drive to an isolated cabin in the woods, and giggle at how amateurish it looks. You may watch the next few scenes, in which the friends settle into the cabin, stumble upon an old tape recording, listen to a man on tape solemnly describing his discovery of an ancient Book of the Dead and how his wife turned into a demon and bodily dismemberment became necessary, and start to question why anyone would think this piece of crap was any kind of a horror classic.

But maybe you were amused by Bruce Campbell mugging as Ash, or noticed the myriad fresh camera angles presenting the action, or the extreme close-ups on eyes, or liked the low-budget aesthetic, and decided to give it a chance. And then one of the five friends wanders out into the woods, against all common sense, and the woods attack her -- yes, that's right, the woods attack her -- and she barely escapes back into the cabin, and then one by one the friends start turning into demons, and bodily dismemberment becomes a viable solution. And then you might say to yourself, "Ah, that's why."

Sam Raimi (writer/director), Robert Tapert (producer) and Bruce Campbell (actor/co-executive producer) had been making 8mm movies in Michigan before tackling their first feature, a micro-budget horror movie that they envisioned as a "quintessential drive-in movie," and The Evil Dead works best as a communal experience, where audiences tend to laugh at the amateurish seams, scream at the blood and gore, and then start laughing at the blood and gore simply because it's so over the top that laughter is the only appropriate response. But Raimi, especially, was disappointed that people laughed, because he intended to make a straightforward horror flick.

For better or worse, I have had some experience in the "ultra-low budget" filmmaking world. So, it has fallen to me to create this particular list of the seven best films of that class. Before I go on, let us first define what exactly qualifies a film as "ultra-low budget." If we were to follow the Screen Actors Guild definitions for these things, then "low budget" films have a budget of less that $2.5 million, all the way down to $625,000. Really, I don't think that's exactly right for our purposes here. We're really talking about "ultra-low budget" films -- not "low budget" -- so how do we define the category? Some might consider a film "ultra-low budget" if its made in Des Monies by a teenager and some friends with a video camera and a credit card. That's certainly one way to look at it, but I feel that definition might limit us a little too much.

For our purposes, I'm going to consider films made for a million dollars or less to be "ultra-low budget." That way, we can have a much larger set of films from which to choose. By Hollywood standards, where the average "studio" movie costs over $60 million, a film made for a million dollars or less really should be considered "ultra-low budget." Heck, the catering budget of the average studio film is probably more than the total budgets of the films on this list. You know those big stars, they really love to eat. Anyway, moving on. Here is my list of the best "ultra low-budget" films -- in order of release. Enjoy.


THX 1138 (1971) -- George Lucas' first feature foray into sci-fi -- a genre that would, in a few short years, make him one of the most famous and successful filmmakers of all time. It's a rather dark and depressing tale of survival and forbidden love in a dystopian future city, with the lives of the city's inhabitants being closely regulated and medicated and with love and procreation strictly controlled and monitored by the state. The film, which is a more elaborate and elongated version of a Lucas' short film Electronic Labyrinth 1138 4EB, was shot in and around San Francisco and became notable for its use of the new, state-of-the-art BART system to help depict the city of the future.

Also notable is Lucas' use of students and military personnel -- who were learning filmmaking from Lucas at the time -- as crew and extras, and the elaborate use of sound and sound effects which would become a Lucas mainstay going forward. It's also notable that the actors, including Robert Duvall, had to shave their heads to better depict Lucas' vision of a future nearly devoid of hope. Finally, I really love the smoothly polished killer police robots -- a great contrast to Lucas' depiction of robots in subsequent films like Star Wars.