The Evil Dead film franchise has been one of those that is beloved by the horror masses. The Evil Dead was one of those horror movies to show with a group of people, along with Evil Dead 2. After Army of Darkness was released rumors of an Evil Dead 4 floated all over the place, for nearly 20 years. Then, 2013 comes around and we finally get a new Evil Dead movie. It was labeled a “remake”. which can be a dirty word in any genre and I am sure the fans of the Evil Dead were not thrilled, I was open to see what we would get.
Synopsis:
Mia (Jane Levy), a drug addict, is determined to kick the habit. To that end, she asks her brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez), his girlfriend, Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) and their friends Olivia (Jessica Lucas) and Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) to accompany her to their family’s remote forest cabin to help her through withdrawal. Eric finds a mysterious Book of the Dead at the cabin and reads aloud from it, awakening an ancient demon. All hell breaks loose when the malevolent entity possesses Mia.
The Evil Dead 2013 begins with some kind of exorcism of a young girl and really, it is a kick in the nuts way to start a movie. I mean, most of the time, I want to be pulled right in and with this, I was pulled right in. The girl is pleading for her life to her father and she says, “I’ll rip your soul out Daddy.” I knew it was on from that point, this movie was going to kick some ass. I remember being in the theater with a grin from ear to ear excited about what I was in for with the rest of the movie.
Originally, after walking out of the film, I was left with the feeling of being unsure about how I felt about the film. I was replaying the movie and different scenes in my head the entire ride home, along with discussing the film with my brother. I believe overall it was an ok movie, the gore was pretty awesome. It has a claim for being scary, overall, not scary to me at all. But, a regular person who doesn’t watch horror as much as we do, yeah it is terrifying. There were some scenes that were truly messed up. One thing that bothered me was the premise of the story, they took a junkie to some remote cabin in the woods to make her quit cold turkey. Then some douche opens something that was found with wrapped in a trash bag and barbed wire, oh and written in the book, it said not to read or write. But, I mean, the original movie these people just read through the book and part two they were spoken from a tape recorder, so it’s ok. The characters were not really people you care about, it is hard to care sometimes when you expect them all to die. There were some laughable moments and some that make you cringe.
The effects were very good and for the most part believable. The ending of the film is terrific, without giving anything away, it is super duper bloody and it is pretty terrifying. It was over the top and I love it. To me it was a return to some of the classic 70s grindhouse style horror, good effects and gore galore.
I wanted to add, Jane Levy was terrific in every sense of the word. From beginning to end, she is a trooper. I want to see more from her in the Evil Dead series.
I would also like to address the term, “remake”. I don’t know, this just feels more like a sequel to the other films. In some ways it feels like an extension to the original films and others, yes it does feel like a remake. But there is no Ash, kind of and I would think if it is a remake, why would you not have the key character in the film?
I would like to see more of Mia, but I don’t think that will happen with the show, “Ash vs Evil Dead”. But it would be cool to see her pop up in the show. This Evil Dead movie has a more serious tone than the other movies or the show. Also, in the show, Ash does go back to the cabin which may answer my question of whether or no this movie is a remake.
So, what did you think of Evil Dead? It was good, right?
IMDB.com has a rating of 6.5, yeah that is pretty good for a horror “remake”.
I give Evil Dead a 8.0, yeah solid 8.
