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For those who don't know, The Evil Dead was a horror film released in 1981 starring Ellen Sandweiss, Hal Delrich, Betsy Baker, Sarah York, Ted Raimi in various parts, and of course, Bruce Campbell, while the film itself was directed by Sam Raimi.
Believe it or not, the film is actually a remake of Sam Raimi's earlier short film, known as Within the Woods, also starring Bruce Campbell. The short film itself is pretty good and I recommend it, but I'm not going to be talking much about it. The plot of The Evil Dead is as follows. Five Michigan State students drive out to an abandoned cabin in the woods to spend their spring break. Why they choose this place in particular is rather up in the air, but hey, that's a small matter. They eventually discover the Naturon Demonto, also known as the Book of the Dead, or the Necronomican if you wish. Of course, things go bad and most of the characters are killed, save for Bruce Campbell's character, Ashley"Ash"Williams, who survives all the way through two sequels, Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness. I recommend all three films for a great combination of horror and comedy. The first one, in fact, is one of my all time favorite films.
With all that back story out of the way, let's talk about the remake, although it's not really a remake, I'll explain later.
Like every fan of the trilogy, I was all out calling betrayal at the news of a remake. Many remakes are generally inferior to their originals, and I was dead certain that this would be no different. Then, last year I saw the trailer.
I'll admit, I was actually impressed by the trailer. It didn't scare me like it did a lot of other people, but I was impressed. I began looking at it in a different light, and actually hoped it would be better than what I originally thought.
Well today I went out and saw the film, and in my opinion, it actually surpassed my original expectations. I'll try to explain my thoughts on the film, where it succeeds and where it fails. Quick warning though, this will contain massive SPOILERS!!!
The film opens on a woman being chased my mysterious shadowed figures. The scenery doesn't look too bad, and it builds a creepy atmosphere, which the film maintains. The woman is captured by a group of rednecks, one of whom is her father. The woman turns out to be possessed by a demon and the rednecks burn her at the stake. So yes, the rednecks actually got a demon for once, instead of another very drunk redneck.
Que Title Card.
Then the main plot begins. A young man named David and his girlfriend Natalie travel to the abandoned cabin from the first films and meet their friends there. A nurse named Olivia, a schoolteacher named Eric, and David's sister Mia. They're all there to try and help out Mia recover from her drug addiction, since she OD'd on her last hit. Eventually they travel through the basement due to Mia's complaints about the smell. In side they find a room full of dead cats hanging from the ceiling, a burned support beam, a shot gun, and a book wrapped up in a trash bag and barbed wire. Are they sure they're not in the Delta house? Anyway, Eric reads a passage from the book that summons the demonic forces which attack Mia.
This time, the evil is given a face, and it looks like the woman from the beginning, or a deadite version of Mia. Surprisingly, they kept the tree rape scene in this movie, though of course it's much different this time, as instead of the trees penetrating her, the demon woman vomits up a slug thing that travels up her vagina. Are we sure this isn't some Japanese hentai?
Mia starts to go crazy, but the others thinks it's because she's going through withdrawal, at least until she starts to scald herself in the shower. They want to get her to a hospital, but the road is completely flooded thanks to the rain that's been going on throughout most of the film. They decide to sedate her, hoping that the road will clear up later, and they can take her in. Any one genre savvy enough will know that that's not happening.
Mia comes in, shoots her brother's arm, and then pukes blood all over Olivia's face before falling into the cellar. After talking about whether she's gone crazy or not, Olivia goes into the bathroom to clean up. Naturally she's been possessed, but in this version, they each get some kind of horror afflicted on them instead of a creepy zombie look. For Olivia, she's forced to tear her own face off. Not completely though, as Eric comes in to check up on her. Then she attacks him, stabbing him repeatedly with a broken mirror shard, and jabbing a needle under his eye. He's able to fight her off, and kills her with a piece of the sink that broke off during the struggle.
While David treats his wounds, Natalie goes to get sugar and water due to Eric losing a lot of blood. Mia lures her down to the cellar, bites her hand, cuts her own tongue, then pukes into her mouth. Eww. David's able to get her out, but it's too late for Natalie. Couldn't say I missed Natalie much, she didn't really do much in this film. David chains the cellar door shut, while Natalie tries to fight off her possession, which starts at her hand. Using an electric knife she cuts off her own arm in a really good use of practical effects. That's one of the better parts of this movie I haven't mentioned yet, this film mostly uses practical effects instead of CG, and it is a godsend! There are just too many movies that use CG nowadays, and it just looks lazy. I know that a lot of hard work goes into it, but things just look better if they're actually there.
Anyways, Eric comes up with the idea that, "Hey the book is what caused this, why don't I destroy it" and sets it ablaze. Much to his horror it doesn't burn. He and David open it up again and discover how to stop the possessed people, burying them alive, chopping them to pieces, or purification by fire. I don't know why burying them alive would work, since they're demons, but hey why not. They also discover that if five souls are captured, another demon, known as the Abomination...
...no not that one, will be released from the Earth. In order to make it work, it has attached itself to Mia, hoping to bring itself into our world. Then the possessed Natalie comes in, and attacks them with a nail-gun. This is one of the dumber scenes of the movie for one reason. Nail-guns don't work that way. They are not projectile weapons, at least not at long range. They do not have the power to shoot 30 feet across a room, they run on compressed air and have to be plugged in to work. That nail-gun was not plugged in. She then attacks them with a crowbar until Eric finally kills her, though he's pretty badly injured.Eric than comes up with the idea of burning down the house, though David is rather against the idea because he doesn't want to kill his sister. After the attack by Natalie though he decides to go through with it. He pours gasoline all over the house and gets ready to burn it, but Mia starts singing a song their mother use to sing for them. With that done, David decides to save Mia instead of killing her. So he gears up with tranquilizers and a flashlight! Really David? You're not gonna take something else, like a bat in case you need to defend yourself? Moron. Anyways, he goes down into the cellar and gets his ass kicked by Mia. Are you surprised? Eric saves him by smashing Mia over the head with a blunt object. Finally a smart decision! Sadly, Eric is stabbed to death during the struggle, though he is able to knock Mia out.
David goes to bury Mia alive, but while he's doing it, the Abomination decides to taunt him by saying he doesn't care about her, bringing up several conversations said in the film about him, Mia, and their mother, who was diagnosed as cuckoo for cocoa puffs, and David never went to see her, while Mia stayed with her until her death. David wisely ignores the Abomination and finishes burying it. After several seconds of crying over what he did, digs her back up and tries to resuscitate her by using a defibrillator he made while gearing up in order to revive her. I'm not really sure how to feel about this scene. Sure it pays off what was said earlier about Mia's overdosing on drugs, actually being dead, then being revived by an actual defibrillator, but I'm not sure if that would really work, especially since it's hooked up to what looks like an old car battery. It works though, and Mia is brought back now free of the possession. Truth be told, I fully expected her to actually still be possessed and then try to kill David, but with what we actually get isn't too bad, and it's pretty touching.
It's stopped raining by this point and David an Mia get ready to leave, when David is attacked by a possessed Eric, getting stabbed fatally in the neck. He locks Mia out of the cabin, then uses the shotgun to shoot another canister of gas, blowing up the entire cabin, much to Mia's horror. Afterwards, the final stage of the earlier prophecy begin to happen as it begins to rain blood. The Abomination rises from the dirt and... WAIT A MINUTE!!! Mia's alive, they didn't get a fifth soul, so how is the Abomination showing up? Oh whatever. The Abomination rises up and...it's the same zombie Mia woman from earlier. What the hell movie? You promised a great demon Abomination. I expected something to look better than this.
The Abomination chases Mia into the tool shed, where Mia, I'm not even kidding, passes up on a big knife, and instead grabs the chainsaw. Why? I get that a chainsaw connects it more with the earlier films, and would make a better killing weapon than a knife, but it's old, probably without any gas, and guess what I was right. It has no gas, so Mia finds some and fills it, though not before the Abomination follows her. She backs into what appears to be a crawl space, and the Abomination, showing more sense than Mia, starts stabbing the knife through the wall, actually stabbing her a few times. She's able to get out by breaking through the wall, but she can't really run away by this point. She hides under her brother's jeep and is finally able to start the chainsaw. She cuts off one of the Abomination's feet, and gets out from under the jeep, which the Abomination then pushes, trying to squash her. She's able to get out of the way, mostly, getting her hand stuck under the jeep. Ouch.
During an actually pretty tense scene, Mia is able to get her hand out, how, by tearing it off by the wrist. Again, OUCH!!! She then takes the chainsaw and kills the Abomination, cutting it in half, ending the blood rain. As the morning light breaks through, she stares at the still burning cabin and picks up a necklace her brother tried to give her earlier. She then walks into the sunrise. During the closing credits sequence though, we start hearing the voice of Professor Knowby from the first film talking about his finding of the evil book. I really got excited when I heard this, since I was hoping to see a certain someone, and after the credits, I did.
Yep it's Ash himself! This does actually make sense. This movie is now a continuation of the previous films. It's not too much of a stretch to believe that other people found the cabin since then and spruced it up a bit, though it is a a stretch to believe that they never discovered the demonic book of evil in there.
And yes, I have heard of the upcoming sequel to this film, and the new Army of Darkness film. I also know that after that, there will be a new film that ties both film series together. Awesome!
Now that the synopsis, and what a long one, is out of the way, let's grade this movie. I've already mentioned the special effects in this movie, and how good they are, though I was hoping for better makeup for the possessed. The music is pretty decent and chilling at times, and thankfully, none of the characters are unlikeable douchebags, though Olivia kind of comes close at times. The atmosphere remains constant throughout, very isolating and terrifying. The story isn't too bad, except in some parts that I've mentioned already, not completely copying the original film. That was the good, now let's get too the bad.
Thankfully there's not too much bad in this movie. Most of it comes through the acting, which is rather poor at times, though it does get better later. There are a few jump scares that aren't really that scary, and there's the big problem, it's really not that scary. Granted, the other films aren't that scary either, but this film takes itself pretty seriously, so I expect some actual scares. Also one of the scenes from the trailer was cut out. The whole, we're gonna get you scene happens nowhere in the movie which is rather head scratching. That scene would've added a little more to the film and probably would've made it scarier. Sadly it's not and it hurts the film.
All in all the film was honestly not too bad in my own honest opinion. There are some hiccups along the way, but the film is solid, and I would recommend seeing it at least once.
Final Verdict: 7.2 out of 10
I hope you've enjoyed my first review, and I hope that I'll be able to bring you more in the future. Have a nice day, everyone. Take care.
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