| Evil Dead (2013) | |
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Rating: 6.5/10 (197,175 votes) Director: Fede Alvarez Writer: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues, Sam Raimi Stars: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Jessica Lucas Runtime: 91 min Rated: R Genre: Horror Released: 05 Apr 2013 |
| Plot: Five friends head to a remote cabin, where the discovery of a Book of the Dead leads them to unwittingly summon up demons living in the nearby woods. | |
A reboot of the Evil Dead franchise has been long mooted, with Raimi mentioning it in pretty much every interview since his junkets around the release of Spider-Man in the early part of the last decade. Even though Army of Darkness was a bit of a box-office flop, having made profit after international release, that film went on (like the first two) to great success in the home market, and continued to build an audience wanting more deadite action. Sadly, studios were hesitant to fund another entry, and by the time Raimi became a big name again (through the aforementioned Spider-Man film), the Evil Dead franchise was then seen as too old for a direct sequel. So, the idea came to do a new update of the first film for a new audience to embrace, which would then hopefully allow for a stepping stone to a true sequel – you give new audiences the basis of the story, then spin off to have Ash spin a shotgun around and say, “Groovy!” or some-such It sounded like such a great plan… yet took around 10 years to finally come to fruition.
Now, before I get started on looking at the film, let me just get something out of the way… blah blah Cabin in the Woods blah blah blah post modernisation blah blah. That is what so many reviewers have harped on about since the first reviews trickled out in March. As I mentioned then, why should it matter for a film to still stick to formula simply because it has been deconstructed in another film? Those who feel that a film such as Evil Dead shouldn’t be made in this post-Cabin world may as well shy away from any comic book movies in this post-Kick-Ass time too.
So, we come to the film itself, which more or less re-treads the groundwork that the original low-budget film laid down. In the opening scene we witness a girl captured by rednecks and then burned as a witch by her father, with her showing signs of demon possession as the flames engulf her. We then cut to the main story, and a group of young adults are meeting up at a log cabin as part of an attempt for one of the group, Mia (Jane Levy) to finally detox and kick her drug addiction. A strong smell from the cellar uncovers the ritualistic chamber where the earlier exorcism was performed, and it is where the strangely bound book is found. Once one of the group, Eric (Lou Pucci), unknowingly reads aloud the incantation to summon the evil spirits, things go somewhat pear-shaped for the group, who find themselves being picked off one by one in readiness to summon the big boss demon. Cue dismemberment, stabbings, nail-gun attacks, and a wild variety of twisted, bloody moments.
You can look at this film as either a remake of the first (albeit with some nice twists on the tale), or as a spin-off continuation of the franchise. Either way works well, so long as you accept it as being closer in tone to the original, and less of the slapstick Army of Darkness. Whilst purveyors of the run of 80s horror film will find nothing really scary or entirely original within, what you will find are a well put together succession of twisted moments made all the more impressive by relying on practical effects rather than CGI. This film is a bloody throwback to old-school horror films, and is delightful to enjoy as a fan of the genre, and will likely catch off guard the generation raised on Paranormal Activity and other 15 rated horror outings. From razor blades to syringes, electric knives to (of course) a chainsaw, all manner of tools are brought out to deal with various stages of the deadite assaults.
The film does reference the rest of the franchise throughout, sometimes subtly, such as a line of dialogue which has been tweaked slightly to give it a different intention, or less subtly in montage camerawork as devices are built. Writer/Director Fede Alvarez commented in an interview that the film is, “…a story that takes place 30 years after The Evil Dead ended. The car is there, the cabin is there… and the book has found its way back to the cabin…” meaning that these references are deliberately placed.
Evil Dead should please fans of the franchise, even if it doesn’t surprise them, and will play well to the audience who may have never considered watching these old films from the 80s and early 90s.
