Evil Dead

Let's get one thing out of the way.  I love the shit out of the original "Evil Dead" series.  They are movies that I hold immensely dear to my heart.  There are few movies I have watched more than the "The Evil Dead."  The idea of remaking that film was terrifying.  It seems as if all my favorite classic horror films have been remade so poorly that the real horror is in watching the gross incompetence on the part of the filmmakers.

So "Evil Dead" is just another terrible remake the studios crapped out to exploit the previous films' popularity?  Actually, no.  In fact, it's kinda great.

 

"Evil Dead" by no means rivals the low budget, campy brilliance of "The Evil Dead," but it's not trying to.  It is a movie that takes the concept (and plenty of fan service elements) and plugs it into the framework of the modern, gore-crazy, post-"Saw" horror film.

 

The plot remains virtually the same, which is incredible after "The Cabin in the Woods" so magnificently deconstructed this exact premise.  A group of friends go to an old cabin in the woods.  In this version, they are taking a friend to get her off drugs.  One guy finds a book that is sealed in black plastic and wrapped in barbed wire, which has a warning on every page not to read it.  So he reads it.  Aloud.  Demonic possession ensues and people are horrifically murdered. 

 

The drug-kicking element was pretty interesting, right up to when the movie completely abandons it.  So much could've been done with it.  It could've been played off that the initial demon shenanigans are withdrawal hallucinations (this is done slightly).  It could've been an extra dramatic element that a girl has to fight her possessed friends while kicking heroin (I think, but they never say).  Or demonic possession could've been a cool, horror metaphor for drug addiction.  Nothing is done with the drug plotline, but the endless bloody assault that "Evil Dead" becomes makes you quickly forget that a plot even exists.

 

That's what "Evil Dead" has to offer and nothing else.  The actors are serviceable.  No one gives a standout performance.  They all look like they wandered off of the CW just to be slaughtered.  But oh, what a glorious slaughter it is!  The kills on display in "Evil Dead" are excellent.  They are gruesome and filmed in such a way as to make you squirm in discomfort.  As the movie ramps up, the blood and viscera spray and splatter with such gleeful abandon that I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

 

Needless to say, this is not a movie for the squeamish.  It is a movie for folks who enjoy a couple hours of crazy, excessive violence.  I'll stick with the original "Evil Dead" series as they are one of the great cinematic trilogies.  But I will be revisiting the remake when the inevitable "Unrated Director's Cut" comes out probably around Halloween ("Evil Dead" was originally given an NC-17 for violence and was edited down to make an R rating). 

 

7 out of 10