Evil Dead - The Remake

The original The Evil Dead in 1983 blew audiences away by sheer unrestrained gore factor pumped up to an absurd degree at the hands of a real talent of a director showing off just what he was capable of.  In 2013, given the fact that like fare as Saw and Hostel had no trouble at all getting into multiplexes, and we're even comfortable with zombie fare that'd put Lucio Fulci to shame on the TV these days, the new Evil Dead has quite a few burdens against it.  The legacy of the series is a pretty big bar set to begin with, but one must add to that the fact it's gotten a lot harder to shock us these days.  Well, this remake certainly gets the gore level down, it's the (forgive the term) execution that's the issue.

Mia (Jane Levy) is a drug addict trying to go cold turkey once again, and this time, her brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) and three of their friends are with her for this in the family cabin in the woods.  But it's soon discovered that someone else has been recently been in the cabin and left a few things in the basement.  One of those things is a ancient book, bound in flesh and skin and with warnings like "Do not read aloud" scrawled over it; guess what friend Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) thinks would be a really good idea...

As you may tell from that, there's a bit more plot active in this version than the original, and the idea of paralleling a demonic possession with drug addiction/withdrawal is actually quite interesting and has some real potential.  Unfortunately, this comes to naught as that set up is really there purely for the sake of keeping the characters from trying to flee the cabin earlier in the film.  A lot of the character conflicts and points set up in this section either contribute very little in the long term or ultimately turn out to be complete dead-ends.  Also, few of the characters are that likeable mainly because of how grim and serious everyone is all the way through, never giving us a proper moment of levity to really let us get attached to them.

Of course, the big question here, especially given the gruesome red band trailer that got the entire internet paying attention a while back, is how is the gore factor?  Well this is definitely one of the most excessively gory major studio releases in quite a while, a real testament to the effects team and quite a test of one's stomach.  There's a big problem though; apart from some good sound design (especially notable in one icky segment), for the most part the gore effects are the only thing the film has going for it in the horror department.  There's little atmosphere, very few of the tension building moments work, it has no quiet scenes to let the audience get their breath back, all it really has is the gore and shock value.  What's more, some of the big gore scenes have no real consequences in the long run, making them feel rather pointless and superfluous.  As such, it actively numbs you to what's going on; by the end, it's hard to care, which considering the sheer level of carnage and insanity is really surprising and in many ways worrying when you think about it.

We'd had a pretty good remake of the first already!

One personal disappointment for me at least was the occult angle has been somewhat homoginsed.  There's a trope on TVTropes called "Hijacked by Jesus", where stories based around non-Christian religions or mythology often get most of their iconography rewritten in either Judeo-Christian terms (like making Zeus and Hades expys of Jehovah and Satan) or outright making them the Christian versions.  That's happened in here, as the Book of the Dead has gone from a Sumerian book of burial rights with some really neat artwork and creature designs within, to a blatantly Satanic tome complete with usual goats and pentagram iconography, which looks far less scary.  Worse, it does lead to a moment of unintended hilarity as at one point two characters are talking about the book, in direct reference to the Evil One, who unfortunately, given the illustration shown, doesn't seem too threatening as it looks like he's wearing a birthday cake on his head.  (At the screening, I so tried hard to not giggle at this!).

The final issue is that it's paced really awkwardly with a "cold open" that serves little real purpose other than having some more carnage earlier (and actually adds a few plot holes), and a build up to a big final confrontation that's really underwhelming.  Every time the film really needs to do something new and pull some new tricks out of the bag, it just falls back on stuff it's done before (the aforementioned underwhelming climax is particularly guilty of this, apart from one detail purely there to have more consequence free blood on screen).  This is also coupled with a few plot twists towards the end that will have you going "wait a minute; how the fuck does that work, why are they... what?".  What's more, there're various moments when it seems like the film is playing more to Evil Dead fans than a more casual audience (especially a really self indulgent final post-credits shot, that I will admit though I did smile at).  There are various references and shout outs to the original throughout, but they aren't woven in well and stick out awkwardly, making many wonder "what was the point of having that there?", like how the traditional "shakycam" shot makes a very half hearted cameo.

"What was the point of that" sums up a lot about this film.  The effects, more than decent direction and quite good performances from Jane Levy and Lou Pucci Taylor keep this just above average, but there's still a big sense of "so what" over most of it.  Sam Raimi's Evil Dead was very open about it being like a ghost train ride or a campfire story, there was a playful touch to things that encouraged the audience to have fun with it, and the sequels took that further.  This one is just excessively grim and nasty throughout with what little humorous touches there are buried beneath excessive Kensington Gore and swearing (seriously, the Deadites are real potty-mouths in this one, their dialogue sounds more like Regan from The Exorcist than The Evil Dead for the most part).  It's still above par for horror remakes, this isn't a Platinum Dunes production after all (thank Kandar!), and it's worth seeing on the big screen (though only a matinee price one) with friends, but it's definitely not "The most terrifying film you will ever experience" the posters are saying.

You can have some fun with this one though; take that trailer at the top, play it with the sound muted, and with the end theme from the original playing at the same time (start the music at about ten seconds into the trailer, the first shot of the cabin).  It works surprisingly well!

Oh, and the original film's most shocking moment; you know, the one that, as Bruce Campbell himself said "We lose about thirty percent of the women in the audience here; not sure why- oh right!"?  Yeah, that's recreated in here, except this time I think it's even worse in a lot of ways.