Evil Dead (2013)

Evil Dead  (2013)
Directed by:  Fede Alvarez
Starring:  Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore
Genre:  Horror
Format:  Blu-Ray Private Collection

 

 

 

     Evil Dead the original 1981 classic is in my official top 13 horror films of all time.  I throw this out because for some reason people seem to think that if you like originals you can't like the dreaded, "remakes".  I'm not sure where, why, or how people got into their heads that remakes are trying to replace or be better than their predecessors but everyone nowadays seems to think so and seems to think that remakes are something new.  Hmmmm?  Well I have no idea what film history these people are looking at but Hollywood has remade films and ideas since the silent era.  How many Draculas and Frankensteins have they made and remade I mean come on.  But my rant will fall on deaf ears for most because no matter what a lot of reviewers and film buffs will just turn a blind eye to any movie just because it's a "remake".  Of course the fact that Evil Dead 2:  Dead By Dawn is a remake and really the original Evil Dead is also a remake of one of Raimi's short films just blows past people's minds completely.  So in a sense this Evil Dead (2013) is the third remake but whose counting.

     If your waiting for a blow by blow comparing the Evil Dead (2013) with Evil Dead (1981) your reading the wrong review...separate time periods, separate films or at least for me.  Evil Dead (2013) begins with a young girl trapped in the basement of a cabin who is pleading for her father to let her go.  She's tied to a post and at first it seems as if she is the victim of some horrible clan of religious nut jobs.  Then everything changes as the girl's demonic voice goes from sweet young innocence into a disgusting nightmarish creature known as a deadite.  She is then set a fire by her own father and thus sets the tone for the rest of the film. 
     Shoot to present day with a group of kids heading to the same cabin for a weekend getaway to get their friend Mia (Jane Levy) off drugs for good.  Mia had once died from an overdose only to be resuscitated at the hospital and her loving friends did not want her to continue down the same path any longer.  In fact the whole purpose of their little getaway adventure was to rid Mia of the addiction for good by forcing her to stay with them at the cabin until her need for a fix was gone.  At first Mia is good with the idea and even throws out her drug of choice down the well.  I remember reading a review at the time talking about how unrealistic this scene was and how addicts would never just throw their shit down a well.  Well being a former addict who has done this sort of thing several times all I can say is he was way off base with that "picker" comment.  Anywho this is all unknown to Mia's brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) who knew his sister was having problems but had no idea how bad they were or even that she died or almost died once of a drug overdose. 

     It doesn't take long to get into the swing of things in this film and really it just gets worse and worse for our small group of friends.  Especially after finding an ancient book in the cabin cellar along with a few dozen dead cats hanging from the ceiling and soon after Mia begins a downward spiral as the withdrawl symptoms kick in.  She tries fleeing the property on foot to no avail and is attacked by the forest itself.  It's at this point that Mia becomes possessed by the deadites.  Without giving too much away for those of you who haven't seen it I will just say that our group rapidly dwindles as Mia and her victims attack with a viciousness that I have never seen on the big screen.  The haters can hate all they want Evil Dead is the goriest film by far ever released like this.  I can't even think of one that comes close.  Not to say it's the goriest movie ever cause it's not but as far as big budget studio releases go I'm sorry it takes the cake.  This and this alone is enough for me to love it the way I do.  Other reviewers have pointed fingers at the actors in the movie saying they were all terrible, well each unto their own I say because number one they weren't great but they certainly weren't terrible by any means go watch a SyFy original like Dinoshark for heaven's sake, that's terrible. 

     The effects and sound/score of the film were by far my favorite things about the movie.  The loud sirens and gritty choppy sounds heard all through the chaos sent chills down my spine and the grinding noise of one of our female characters sawing at her own jaw bone will always be with me...loved it.  The special effects while it was said to contain no cgi did in fact have cgi and with that said I will say I was very impressed with the little amount of cgi there was in the movie.  I've said it before I don't hate cgi it's just nice to see a film that doesn't go overboard with it and excluding the flames I can only think of 3 cgi scenes out of the whole film and those scenes were mixed in with prosthetics and real stage blood.  The haunting creations of the deadites were just plain awesome...the eyes who can forget the crazy hellish eyes in this movie, just plain wow.  Two effects that stuck in my head other than the sawing of the jaw bone scene was the razor blade slicing the tongue in two long ways by one of the female deadites and then the stabbing of the syringe to the face of Lou Taylor Pucci's character.  When he pulled the needle out from below his eye I even winced and turned away.  The effects are just off the charts I'm sorry, very real, and very brutal.

     What I didn't like about the film was the fact that the deadites were very easily destroyed and after the book is read more in depth they really cut their own throat on that subject because it says that only by dismemberment, fire, and live burial can the creatures be destroyed and yeah sure they are dismembered but not near to the extent you would think so in order to kill a demon.  I was also not a fan of the book itself.  Well the red lettered writing, "Leave This Book Alone!"  Sorry just a bit too cheesy for me in this non-cheesy/comedy type of film.  Not the actual pages just the red writing of various phrases as you turn the pages...it can't be burnt but you can write all over it?  But those are both "picker" comments in my opinion even if I'm the one wrote them.  My real issue is the end.  She pulls her fucking arm off and doesn't die in the minutes she most certainly would have.  Stretch the truth, suspend my disbelief ok yeah sure but rewriting an obvious medical fact no way.  This really got to me on my second viewing and then on my third viewing I thought about it more.  Wait a second and third viewing all within a week of owning the film on Blu-ray?  Yeah I guess that didn't matter that much either ha ha.