The Evil Dead (2013)

THE EVIL DEAD

Director : Fede Alvarez

Year : 2013

Genre : Horror

Rating : **1/2

'The Evil Dead' is the long awaited remake of Sam Raimi's 1981 cult classic. Directed and co-written by first time director Fede Alvarez and produced by Sam Raimi and star of the original movie Bruce Campbell, 'The Evil Dead' is a loose retelling of the original movie with much more added gore and scenes that physically repel. Unfortunately, the remake lacks any sense of fun or comedy that made the 1981 film such a cult classic and is replaced with a large amount of jump scares, gratuitous but emotionless violence and characters that are hard to relate to or identify with. While shot and directed well, 'The Evil Dead' turns out to be yet another unnecessary remake that just didn't need to be made.

Slightly changing the angle of the original, 'The Evil Dead' follows the story of 4 friends who travel to a log cabin in the centre of the woods to look after Mia, a young girl who is going cold turkey from heroin. While staying in the cabin, she exudes the same withdrawal symptoms that all ex drug users do and her strange, erratic behaviour claiming that there is an evil presence in the forest goes unnoticed. Upon smelling a foul odour coming from the basement, two of the friends go exploring and on a creaky table, they find a peculiar book wrapped in fabric and barbed wire.

Determined to escape, Mia ventures into the woods alone and while she is in the wilderness, one of the friends cuts the barbed wire and begins to read the translations written alongside the gothic writings in the book. Of course, the book turns out to be the Necronomicon Ex Mortis and the writings turn out to be witchcraft chants and cause the woods to come alive. Mia becomes entangled in the branches and vines deep in the forest and is raped by a strange black root. She soon returns to the house, but it doesn't take long for her to become possessed by the demonic spirits that inhabit the woods and causes her to ensue bloody carnage among the group. One by one, each of them fall victim to the demons and it is up to Mia's brother to end the madness before they all meet a vicious, gory end.

A remake of 'The Evil Dead' was in the pipeline for a very long time, with Raimi and Campbell producing. But in 2009, Campbell announced that the idea has faded and a remake of the 1981 film seemed unlikely. However in 2011, it was officially announced that Ghost House Pictures were indeed remaking the film and first time director Fede Alvarez would be helming it.  Alvarez first made his name in Hollywood after making a short horror film named 'Panic Attack!' which found huge success when it was posted on Youtube. Due to it's instant popularity, Alvarez made a deal with horror production company Ghost House Pictures (most famous for films such as '30 Days Of Night', 'The Messengers' and Sam Raimi's own 'Drag Me To Hell' ) to direct their next film. Ghost House gave Alvarez $30 million dollars to make 'The Evil Dead', the production companys next picture.

Despite being named 'The Evil Dead', Alvarez's film really doesn't bear much resemblance to Raimi's movie in anyway shape or form. Fans of the original may be surprised by this and to me, this is the biggest problem with the film. As mentioned in my review of the 1981 film, 'The Evil Dead' was indeed notoriously gory, but there was also an underlying comedic tone that ran through the entire film. This made watching the original 'The Evil Dead' a very entertaining and joyful watch. Unfortunately, Alvarez's film loses every sense of humour and fun and resorts to quite shocking levels of gore and violence. Possibly too much, as I got quickly numbed to the bloody carnage on screen and 'The Evil Dead' soon becomes quite boring. Resorting mostly to highly conventional and predictable jump scares and torture-porn inflected violence, 'The Evil Dead' really doesn't add anything new to the horror genre and for a movie proclaiming to be 'THE MOST TERRIFYING MOVIE YOU WILL EVER EXPERIENCE', the film really isn't scary at all. The horror is pretty much abandoned for endless scenes of repulsive gory violence and wince inducing imagery. It's easy to disgust but it's hard to scare and 'The Evil Dead' certainly manages the former but crucially, NOT the latter.

While the the film brings nothing new to the table in terms of terror, Alvarez clearly has an eye for horror and 'The Evil Dead' is a well made and good looking movie. The cinematography is first class and the choices in lighting and camera really do create an air of impending doom. If only these technical aspects were balanced with well executed scares and genuine horror. As mentioned in my review of the original 'Evil Dead', Raimi was able to create brilliant effects with very little money. Now with computers, anything is possible and as a result, the film loses the same alien quality the 1981 original did.

The cast of 'The Evil Dead' are not the greatest of actors but Jane Levy who plays Mia, the drug dependant lead is extremely effective and scary. Her use of body language and eye movements create a character who is both sympathetic and terrifying simultaneously and quickly becomes one of the highlights of the film. However, the rest of the characters are basic horror archetypes and this makes their respective fates predictable and conventional, resulting in a lack of dread or terror. Yes, the acting wasn't brilliant in the original, but at least there was a sense of fun with the characters and a joy to the performances rather than hammy acting from a group of z-list celebrities we get from the group of actors in this film.

Overall, 'The Evil Dead' is a very disappointing and unnecessary movie that adds nothing new to the original. While not a bad film, it is certainly dull and with the use of jump scares, cheap thrills and a pretty unconvincing climax, 'The Evil Dead' is just another example of why classic horror films shouldn't be remade. Taking it's modus operandi from the now deceased torture porn subgenre rather the campy fun of the original 'Evil Dead' trilogy, the film turns out to nothing more than a gruelling exercise in endurance and patience. If this film was released in 1981 rather than Raimi's film, 'The Evil Dead' would not be seen as a cult classic as it doesn't revolutionise or shock in anyway. Now it can just be seen as another nail in the coffin of the horror film.