The Evil Dead is my favorite horror franchise of all time. No,my favorite film is not some underground puke-fest from the darkest corners of the world nor is it a morally shocking mind fuck that will make you question humanity. My favorite film is, and always will be, The Evil Dead (or actually, Evil Dead 2). I have always been inherently against remakes, despite the handful of good ones over the years, most notably John Carpenters The Thing. The biggest problem with horror remakes are that the vast majority are wildly unnecessary. Many remakes of classic films are done off of films that are already perfect in their own way. When I first heard about The Evil Dead remake, I groaned like the rest of you. But, after months of speculation, involvement from Campbell and Raimi, the nixing of the Ash character, and finally a rather violent trailer, I started to become excited. Despite my love for the original, I can see the need for an Evil Dead remake. Super low budget, slapstick horror from the 80's being re-envisioned into a totally serious, high quality gore, pure terror flick? I can get on board with that. It took me a while, but I got on board. As I walked out of that theater last night, I couldn't wait to get on here and share my thoughts with all of you. My emotions were rather mixed because I do have a biased admiration for the original as I'm sure many of you do, but after a good nights sleep I finally think I let my real opinions on this one form.
I'm sure I don't have to go over the plot of this one with you guys, so I'm just going to go over some of the plot that I liked. Director Fede Alvarez changes just enough of the original plot to give this one some of its own ground to stand on, while sticking true to the original plot. I can appreciate that the plot isn't a carbon copy of the original, otherwise, why would we need a remake? Some of the subplots Alvarez injects into his re-envisioning are effective, and give more depth to this new slew of characters. The drug-addicted Mia gives the characters a decent enough reason to not get up and leave the cabin, as they think what she sees and her adamant demands to leave are just withdrawal symptoms. Mia becomes a very important character, and that I liked because Shiloh Fernandez, who played David, was in no way, shape, or form even close to filling Bruce Campbells' shoes as the 'Ash' character. I think the film makers knew this just as well as the fans did, so I think my biggest kudos to this remake is that they avoided trying to remake the iconic role of Ash. Doing so would have just been disrespectful, seeing as no one in the world could come close to emulating Campbells perfect portrayal of the one-liner cracking, ass kicking hero who saved us all from an army of deadites. Bruce Campbell IS Ash, and leaving him out of the remake was a fine idea indeed. That's not to say there wasn't an Ash-like character, he just didn't have the same role or attitude as he did in the original.
The origin of the Necronomicon was changed around for the remake, but it didn't have much of an impact really. The only thing that really annoyed me in that regard is that the character who summoned the evil actually sat down and read the words straight from the book aloud like an idiot (In the original, they played a tape in which the words were spoken). Come on man, not cool. The film has a fast pace and it isn't long before we are introduced to the new deadites. Visually, I was very pleased with the look of the dead in the remake. No more Ted-Raimi-dressed-as-a-fat-lady-deadite-in-the-basement look. These new deadites looked and spoke as if they were straight from hell. The movie also definitely delivered in terms of gore. Not all of the violence is revealed in the uncut Redband trailer, though a lot was. There are plenty of awesome, violent scenes that were reminiscent of the over the top style of the original. However, this leads me to the most disappointing thing I have to say: This remake was not scary. AT ALL. I'm not trying to act jaded and elitist here, but the film honestly did not have enough scares in it to make anyone in my theater jump. I went in hoping to have a tough night sleeping, but I didn't even jump at the jump scares (of which there were not many). I know the original was not scary either, but I always had the vibe that this new vision was really going to attempt to change that and scare the new generation to hell. Unfortunately, it failed.
So whats the overall say? I'd call this film an above-average remake. This film was made for the fans, and it paid enough homage to the original with just enough injection of new ideas to call this a respectful effort. The acting was rather horrendous for such a high budget movie, and I think that saying it was part of the 'homage to the original' is just a lazy way out. But really, I didn't come and see this for the acting. I quite liked the twist of characters at the ending (won't spoil it for you guys yet), but it all ties back into what I was saying about how there is NO Ash besides Bruce Campbell. The violence was top notch, and it was visually a beautiful film. However, the scares were absent.
I had a good time with this remake. It was a valiant effort and a good tribute to Sam Raimi's horror classic. Will this film satisfy everyone? Absolutely not. Did it satisfy me? For the most part, yes. I never went in here with the expectations that this film would come anywhere near the original, and neither should anyone. However, it is a solid film that should satisfy both fans of the original and new audiences alike. P.S: Stay after the credits!
RATING:
*** 1/2 out of *****
I'm sure I don't have to go over the plot of this one with you guys, so I'm just going to go over some of the plot that I liked. Director Fede Alvarez changes just enough of the original plot to give this one some of its own ground to stand on, while sticking true to the original plot. I can appreciate that the plot isn't a carbon copy of the original, otherwise, why would we need a remake? Some of the subplots Alvarez injects into his re-envisioning are effective, and give more depth to this new slew of characters. The drug-addicted Mia gives the characters a decent enough reason to not get up and leave the cabin, as they think what she sees and her adamant demands to leave are just withdrawal symptoms. Mia becomes a very important character, and that I liked because Shiloh Fernandez, who played David, was in no way, shape, or form even close to filling Bruce Campbells' shoes as the 'Ash' character. I think the film makers knew this just as well as the fans did, so I think my biggest kudos to this remake is that they avoided trying to remake the iconic role of Ash. Doing so would have just been disrespectful, seeing as no one in the world could come close to emulating Campbells perfect portrayal of the one-liner cracking, ass kicking hero who saved us all from an army of deadites. Bruce Campbell IS Ash, and leaving him out of the remake was a fine idea indeed. That's not to say there wasn't an Ash-like character, he just didn't have the same role or attitude as he did in the original.
The origin of the Necronomicon was changed around for the remake, but it didn't have much of an impact really. The only thing that really annoyed me in that regard is that the character who summoned the evil actually sat down and read the words straight from the book aloud like an idiot (In the original, they played a tape in which the words were spoken). Come on man, not cool. The film has a fast pace and it isn't long before we are introduced to the new deadites. Visually, I was very pleased with the look of the dead in the remake. No more Ted-Raimi-dressed-as-a-fat-lady-deadite-in-the-basement look. These new deadites looked and spoke as if they were straight from hell. The movie also definitely delivered in terms of gore. Not all of the violence is revealed in the uncut Redband trailer, though a lot was. There are plenty of awesome, violent scenes that were reminiscent of the over the top style of the original. However, this leads me to the most disappointing thing I have to say: This remake was not scary. AT ALL. I'm not trying to act jaded and elitist here, but the film honestly did not have enough scares in it to make anyone in my theater jump. I went in hoping to have a tough night sleeping, but I didn't even jump at the jump scares (of which there were not many). I know the original was not scary either, but I always had the vibe that this new vision was really going to attempt to change that and scare the new generation to hell. Unfortunately, it failed.
So whats the overall say? I'd call this film an above-average remake. This film was made for the fans, and it paid enough homage to the original with just enough injection of new ideas to call this a respectful effort. The acting was rather horrendous for such a high budget movie, and I think that saying it was part of the 'homage to the original' is just a lazy way out. But really, I didn't come and see this for the acting. I quite liked the twist of characters at the ending (won't spoil it for you guys yet), but it all ties back into what I was saying about how there is NO Ash besides Bruce Campbell. The violence was top notch, and it was visually a beautiful film. However, the scares were absent.
I had a good time with this remake. It was a valiant effort and a good tribute to Sam Raimi's horror classic. Will this film satisfy everyone? Absolutely not. Did it satisfy me? For the most part, yes. I never went in here with the expectations that this film would come anywhere near the original, and neither should anyone. However, it is a solid film that should satisfy both fans of the original and new audiences alike. P.S: Stay after the credits!
RATING:
*** 1/2 out of *****