The Lowdown:Finally, a horror remake worth watching. Sam Raimi’s cult horror classic, The Evil Dead (1981), finally gets the Hollywood treatment, which basically boils down to two things: a bigger budget and better special effects. Evil Dead’s polished exterior doesn’t exactly make it better than the original, but it doesn’t make it worse. It pulls from the “Book of Horror Movie Clichés” quite a bit, but effective tension and a serious tone make it all work. It’s far more gruesome than the original, but it loses the camp factor, so those expecting Bruce Campbell’s level of hilarity may be disappointed. Still, it's definitely a watch for horror fans.
1. The Plot: The film begins with a disturbing prologue, where we see a young, possessed girl get burned alive by her father. This is done to remove the evil spirit within her and to bring peace to her soul. Then we cut to our five teenager/young adult main characters driving up to the creepy, rickety cabin in the woods. The purpose of this trip is not vacation however. Rather, this trip is to help Mia (Jane Levy) break her drug addiction. There is tension between Mia and her brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez). Apparently, he abandoned the family, leaving Mia to care for their sick-and-dying mother. The other three friends are there to support Mia to help her through her rehab.
Rehab? NOOOOOO!!! JUST KILL ME INSTEAD!!!
Then the friends discover that the cabin is trashed, and there is creepy witchcraft shit in the cellar (hint hint). That’s where they discover the Book of the Dead™, which is wrapped up with wire and black plastic. One of the friends, Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), makes the wise decision to open up this tightly-sealed, ominous-looking book and proceeds to chant the magic spell that unleashes “the evil”. Then the spirit finds Mia and takes over her soul, turning her into an adult version of the girl from The Exorcist. Slowly but surely, the evil spirit begins to possess and kill off each of the others one by one. How will the survivors escape or kill the evil dead? Yes, I’m being sarcastic, but this plot is shamelessly derivative. It worked better in the first film, which was purposely simple. In this film, the plot is basically the same until it reaches the third act, which is a prolonged, intense, bloody climax. I liked the fresh spin on some of the elements from the first film, but this climax is also very derivative. It is delightfully nasty though, so it is, in a way, satisfying.2. The Characters:Speaking of shamelessly derivative, if the characters in the original The Evil Dead are cardboard, then the characters in Evil Dead are plywood. The acting is a whole lot better in the new film, but the characters are still largely stock. Mia (Jane Levy) is a drug addict who has issues with her brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez). Jane Levy delivers the film’s best performance, since she has to essentially play three different characters: girl going through severe withdrawal, Exorcist-Girl ripoff, and scream queen. She does all three fairly well. The same cannot be said for Shiloh Fernandez, who is supposed to be the emotionally-conflicted brother. His character is essentially the Bruce Campbell character from the original film, and while he is not as hilariously bad, he is dull and unconvincing.The remaining characters exist simply to do incredibly stupid things that only make the situation worse. For instance, Lou Taylor Pucci is Eric, the guy who essentially ruins everything by opening the Book of the Dead™. For the first half of the film, horrible things begin to happen, and even though it is clear that the evil book is the cause, Eric doesn’t say anything. Of course, Eric isn’t the only character to do dumb things. Jessica Lucas plays Olivia, who is a “registered nurse” who is there to help Mia with her rehab. Sadly, all it seems like she can do is administer sedatives which are sadly ineffective against possessed people. And then there’s David’s girlfriend, Natalie, played by Elizabeth Blackmore. In any other horror film, she would be the pretty, dumb blonde who likes to have lots of sex. In Evil Dead, Natalie is wallpaper. All her character seems to do is lurk in the background and eventually fall prey to the evil spirit so we can have more gory scenes.
3. Fountains of Blood: If it isn’t horribly clear already, Evil Dead is certainly the most gruesome film I’ve seen in quite some time. It makes sense, given that the original film was also extremely gory (for 1981 standards), so of course, the filmmakers had to use their bigger budget for better special effects. While the blood and guts are largely overdone and excessive, I applaud the filmmakers for using more practical effects than CGI. It stays true to the roots of the original film, and looks a helluva lot better than some crappy CGI blood.
Oh wow. More chainsaws. Whoopee. Did I mention shamelessly derivative?
The fact that the gore looks better makes it all the more effective on screen. Combined with excellent cinematic scare timing, the gory bits are actually quite disturbing. On more than one occasion, I was squirming in my seat and cringing. If a horror film can generate a reaction out of me, then that means that it did something right.(WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT)
4. Most Illogical: Unlike the original The Evil Dead, there is no comedy in this film. The filmmakers decided that it would be better to remove all of the camp, probably because a serious tone would amp up the scariness. Fortunately, there is plenty of unintentional humor in the form of unbelievably stupid and illogical decisions made by the characters. Seriously, what horror movie doesn’t have characters doing stupid things? While it is frustrating, at a certain point, you just have to begin laughing because it is just far too ridiculous. I already mentioned previously how Eric drops the ball by reading a passage from the book that unleashes the evil whatever. The book specifically has instructions in it reading “DON’T SAY IT! DON’T READ IT! DON’T WRITE IT!”, so what does he do? He does all three of those things. If you facepalmed right now, then congratulations! You did exactly what 100% of all other audience members did. Then Eric proceeds to wait until people start getting possessed and dying before he mentions that he may have done something.
Hmmmm...what could this book be telling me?
Jessica, the “nurse”, doesn’t fare much better. She is adamant about getting Mia to successfully complete her rehab, and somehow makes the decision to not let Mia leave the cabin in the woods. It isn’t until Mia sits in scalding hot water when everyone realizes that it might have been a better idea to just take her to a real hospital. Oh, and then there’s Natalie, who does a lot of panicking and making lots of horror movie mistakes, so basically she is good for nothing. There is a scene where she goes into the cabin to get something for David, and instead of immediately going back to David, she is inexplicably duped into entering the cellar where a possessed Mia is trapped. The possessed Mia is faking being the real Mia, and somehow Natalie falls for it. Then Natalie gets dragged into the cellar and bitten by Mia, which possesses her. David also does some hilarious things, like when he buries Mia alive to get rid of the evil spirit, and then immediately digs her back up, whereupon she is invariably cured. How did he know to do that, and how did he know she would be fine? After at least three scenes where the possessed Mia faked being normal, would it really be logical to trust her, especially since she has caused three deaths by that point? But no, nothing is nearly as funny as a scene where David makes an impromptu defibrillator out of two syringes and an old car battery, which he then uses to resurrect Mia. This sort of over-the-topness is exactly what makes Evil Dead unintentionally funny at times.(END OF SPOILERS)
The Bottom Line: Evil Dead is a solid and bloody disgusting horror film, and one of the best remakes of a horror classic I’ve seen. It is on par with the original film, though I recommend watching both because both films succeed where the other failed, and vice versa. Gorehounds will be satisfied with this remake, as it is so bloody that it even rains blood at one point. The filmmakers sadly remove the camp factor, but the abundance of tired horror movie tropes and stupid characters lends the film unintentional hilarity points. Thought and logic are not really required or encouraged when watching this film, for that might make some of the film’s situations frustrating. Fortunately, Evil Deadovercomes its shortcomings by being an overall solid horror movie experience. If you can stomach this one, it is worth your time.
The Evil Deadis property of FilmDistrict, Ghost House Pictures, and TriStar Pictures. This review was written by me.
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